446 



SCIENCE OF HOME AND COMMUNITY 



Edison's kinetoscope. While Mr. Eastman had been 

 working to perfect a film, Thomas Edison had been working 

 on a mechanism to show the pictures to the public. When 

 the film was perfected by Mr. Eastman, it was used by Mr. 

 Edison in the kinetoscope, the first moving-picture machine. 

 This was on exhibition at the World's Fair at Chicago in 

 1893, and attracted a great deal of attention. It was a box- 

 ^- _ _ like structure, containing 



a slot. When a nickel was 

 dropped in the slot and 

 the eye applied to the 

 opening, pictures passed 

 before the eye with such 

 rapidity that they seemed 

 to be alive. Within the 

 box was a long film of 

 pictures revolving around 

 a series of spools. Just 

 below the peep hole was 

 a revolving shutter. A 

 motor caused the film to 

 move across the field of 

 vision and the shutter to 

 revolve in such a way that 

 a series of pictures was 

 This was the first real mov- 



FiG. 177. Edison, inventor of the kineto- 

 scope and phonograph. 



presented rapidly to the eye. 

 ing picture. 



Although this attracted much attention, it was looked 

 upon at first only as a toy, and its commercial possibilities 

 were not realized. It reminds one very strongly of the 

 reception given the telephone at the Centennial Exhibition 

 at Philadelphia in 1876. 



Animatograph. The first attempts to project moving 

 pictures on a screen so that they might be seen by many 

 people at the same time were made in England by Robert 



