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First Motion Picture Camera
Thomas Edison and his staff create the first horizontal feed motion picture camera -
Showing Inventions
At a convention, Thomas Edison shows everybody a peephole device that shows a moving man -
Kinetograph
Thomas Edison calls his motion picture camera a kinetograph, and calls his peephole device a kinetoscope -
Film
Thomas Edison uses film in his devices. -
Studios
Edison makes a film studio in New Jersey, calling it,” The Black Maria” -
Holland Brothers
The Holland Brothers create the first kinetoscope parlor -
Censorship
Senator Bradley forbids a film that Edison shows, because it shows a dancer and you can see her undergarments, and that is when censorship comes in -
First Films
In Richmond, Indiana, the first film is showed to an audience by Charles Francis Jenkins -
Hard Work
April 1894 through February 1895, Edison’s kinetoscope and film sales exceed $177,000 -
W.K.L. Dickson
W.K.L. Dickson leaves Edison's laboratories after a difference of opinion with Edison. He goes on to become one of the founders of the American Mutoscope Company, which would eventually become the Biograph Company -
Storefront Theater
The Latham’s open a small storefront theater in New York City, and on May 20 they show a projected motion picture to a paying audience -
Eugene Lauste
Eugene Lauste and W.K.L. Dickson build a film projector that they call an eidoloscope -
Phantoscope
Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins patent a motion picture projector that they call the phantoscope. In September, at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta, they arrange to exhibit Edison kinetoscope movies using their phantoscope projector instead of a kinetoscope -
The Lumière brothers
The Lumière brothers in France invent a motion picture camera/projector that they call a Cinematograph. Using it, they shoot a film at their factory and then show the film's projected image to a scientific conference in March. On December 28 they show their projected films in the Indian Exhibition at the Grand Café in Paris to a paying audience of 33 spectators -
American Mutoscope & Biograph Company
American Mutoscope & Biograph Company and frequently called the "Biograph Company"), marketing their own films and their new biograph projector, becomes the foremost motion picture company in the United States -
First "Storefront Theater''
William Rock and Walter Wainwright transform a converted vacant store in New Orleans into Vitascope Hall. It becomes the first "storefront theater" in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures. Admission is 10¢, because of popular demand films continually being shown through September -
Buffalo, NY
Edison's Vitascope Theatre, owned by Mitchell and Moe Mark, opens in Buffalo, NY in the Ellicott Square Building. It is the first permanent venue in the United States constructed specifically to show motion pictures -
China and India
Motion pictures are introduced into both China and India -
Edison’s Vitascope
Charles Raff and Frank Gammon buy the Jenkins-Armat phantoscope from Thomas Armat on behalf of Edison. They rename the projector “Edison’s Vitascope", and it is hailed as Edison's latest invention -
Warming Up
Charles Melies constructs the first movie studio that uses artificial illumination -
New Cameras
Biograph introduces a new tripod head that allows quick, smooth panning of the camera -
War movies
The sinking of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor gives rise to a multitude of Spanish-American War film -
Lawsuits
Edison files a patent-infringement suit against the Biograph Company. -
Lawyers and Lawsuits
Edison's lawyers visit two theater producers and warn them against exhibiting foreign films in American -
Germany
Germany produces its first film -
More Motion Pictures
Vaudeville theatres establish permanent relations with motion picture exhibition services -
Philadelphia
At the National Export Exposition in Philadelphia, Sigmund Lubin constructs the first purpose-built movie theater
