Before the Nickelodeon

  Foreword
  Acknowledgments

 collapse section1  Introduction
 Modes of Production and Representation
 Subject Matter and Ideology
 Commercial Methods
 collapse section2  Porter's Early Years. 1870-1896
 The Porter Family
 Porter and Connellsville's Cultural Life
 Porter and Technological Innovation
 collapse section3  Edison and the Kinetoscope: 1888-1895
 Preparations
 Initial Film Production
 Exploitation of the Kinetoscope
 Continued Film Production
 collapse section4  Cinema, a Screen Novelty: 1895-1897
 The Vitaseope's Premiere
 Producing Films for the Vitascope
 The Vitascope Group
 The Connellsville Entrepreneurs Acquire States Rights
 Rival Novelties: the San Francisco Opening of the Vitascope
 Porter Joins His Connellsville Friends in Los Angeles
 The Vitascope Faces Increasing Difficulties
 Indiana
 The Vitascope Company in Disarray
 The Edison Manufacturing Company Breaks Away from Raft & Gammon
 Edwin Porter, Itinerant Exhibitor
 collapse section5  Producer and Exhibitor as Co-Creators: 1897-1900
 The Peripatetic James White and Edison Film Production
 Edison On the Legal Offensive
 The Eden Musee
 Porter Operates and Builds Projectors
 The Eden Musee Moves Into Production—The Passion Play
 The Spanish-American War
 Porter and the Eden Musee After the War
 The Edison Manufacturing Company and Its Licensees
 James White and the Kinetograph Department
 The Edison Manufacturing Company Reaches its Commercial Nadir
 collapse section6  The Production Company Assumes Greater Control: 1900-1902
 Porter Becomes an Edison Employee
 The Cinema as a Visual Newspaper
 Editorial Strategies
 Spring 1901
 Edison Attains a Virtual Monopoly
 Mckinley Pictures
 Edison's Conservative Business Strategy
 Defeated in the Courts, Edison Faces Renewed Competition
 "Telling a Story in Continuity Form"
 collapse section7  A Close Look at Life of an American Fireman: 1902-1903
 Representational Practices in Life of an American Fireman
 Life of an American Fireman in Film History
 collapse section8  Story Films Become the Dominant Product: 1903-1904
 Disruptions
 Production Resumes at Edison
 Uncle Tom's Cabin
 Summer Fun
 The Great Train Robbery
 The Chase
 The Railway Subgenre: Spectator as Passenger
 Another Change in Personnel
 The Russo-Japanese War
 Dupes, Remakes, Copycatting, and Cheap Productions
 The French Threat: Pathé Enters the American Market
 George Kleine and the Edison Company Go Separate Ways
 Edison Versus Biograph: the Remaking of Personal
 The Legacy of Exhibitor-Dominated Cinema
 Parsifal
 collapse section9  Articulating an Old-Middle-Class Ideology: 1904-1905
 American Themes and Values: Family and Society
 The Country and the City
 Society and Its Outcasts
 The Edison Comedies
 Actualities and Short Subjects
 collapse section10  Elaborating on the Established Mode of Representation: 1905-1907
 A Transformation in the Realm of Exhibition
 Edison Benefits from the Nickelodeon Craze
 Production Practices at Edison
 The Issue of Narrative Clarity—Audience Familiarity
 Self-Sufficient Narratives and Intratextual Redundancy
 Complex Narratives
 Robert K. Bonine and the Production of Actualities: 1906-1907
 collapse section11  As Cinema Becomes Mass Entertainment, Porter Resists: 1907-1908
 The End of the Nickelodeon Frontier
 The Formation of the Association of Edison Licensees and the Film Service Association
 The Biograph Association of Licensees
 The Edison Manufacturing Company Opens Its Bronx Studio
 Narrative Clarity: 1907-1909
 The Lecture
 "Talking Pictures"
 Intertitles
 A Rigorous Linear Temporality
 Edison Features: 1907-1908
 The Kinetograph Department Forms Two Production Units
 Cinema and Society
 collapse section12  Edison Lets Porter Go: 1908-1909
 Edison and Biograph Begin To Negotiate
 Motion Picture Patents Company Agreements
 Commercial Warfare Within a New Framework
 The Porter/Edison Films in Disfavor
 Porter Is Demoted
 collapse section13  Postscript
 Edison Filmmaking Revives
 Edwin S. Porter and the Formation of Famous Players
 Edison's Motion Picture Business Comes To a Close
 Conclusion

  Appendix A  Edison Manufacturing Company Statements of Profit and Loss: 1893-1911
  Appendix B  Kleine Optical Company Accounts
  Appendix C  Credits and Key To Quotations in the Documentary Film Before the Nickelodeon: the Early Cinema of Edwin S. Porter
 collapse sectionNotes
 Acknowledgments
 1 Introduction
 2 Porter's Early Years. 1870-1896
 3 Edison and the Kinetoscope: 1888-1895
 4 Cinema, a Screen Novelty: 1895-1897
 5 Producer and Exhibitor as Co-Creators: 1897-1900
 6 The Production Company Assumes Greater Control: 1900-1902
 7 A Close Look at Life of an American Fireman: 1902-1903
 8 Story Films Become the Dominant Product: 1903-1904
 9 Articulating an Old-Middle-Class Ideology: 1904-1905
 10 Elaborating on the Established Mode of Representation: 1905-1907
 11 As Cinema Becomes Mass Entertainment, Porter Resists: 1907-1908
 12 Edison Lets Porter Go: 1908-1909
 13 Postscript
  List of Abbreviations and Primary Sources
  Credits for Illustrations
 collapse sectionSubject and Name Index
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 collapse sectionFilm Title Index
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