The Electric Age: Light and Motion

The Electric Age Presentation by Mindy McAdams Thursday, Week 12

Electricity and Light
1879: Thomas Edison filed a patent for the incandescent light bulb
1880s: First electric companies in U.S.
They supplied power for street lights, industrial power, residential lighting, and street car (trolley) services

Spread of Electricity
1930s: In the U.S., 90 percent of urban dwellers had electricity in the home
But only 10 percent of rural homes did
U.S. government set up the Rural Electrification Administration to “electrify” the countryside

In part, this was an effort to slow or stop the migration of rural people to the cities. It didn’t work.

Immigrants in the U.S.
1815-1860: 5 million immigrants settled permanently in the United States – mainly English, Irish, Germanic, Scandinavian and others from northwestern Europe
1865-1890: 10 million immigrants came – also mainly from northwestern Europe
1890-1914: 15 million immigrants came– many of whom were Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, Lithuanian, Russian, Greek, Italian, Romanian (Catholics, Jews, Eastern Orthodox, etc.)

The First Movies
Eadweard Muybridge
The Lumi è re Brothers: Cinematograph
Thomas Edison: Kinetoscope
Film technology
The Nickelodeon
Adolph Zukor, producer and distributor

Eadweard Muybridge
1872: Leland Stanford hired Eadweard Muybridge (a landscape photographer) to answer a question: Is there ever a moment when a horse has all four hooves off the ground?
1878: Muybridge rigged a racetrack with a dozen strings that triggered 12 cameras to take a series of photographs

Eadweard Muybridge
Muybridge not only proved Stanford right ; he also started the revolution in motion photography that would become movies
“ He is the man who split the second, as dramatic and far-reaching an action as the splitting of the atom.”
– Rebecca Solnit, Muybridge biographer

The Lumi è re Brothers
1895: The two brothers (Auguste and Louis) gave the first public film screening ever
What? About 10 short films lasting 20 minutes
Where? In the basement lounge of the Grand Cafe in Paris
It was the first public demonstration of the device they had invented – the “Cinematograph”

The Cinematograph
The Lumi è re brothers called their invention the “Cinematograph”
It was a camera, projector and film printer in one
The Lumi è res produced more than 1,400 short films

Thomas Edison
Invented a camera that could record a sequence of images in a single camera
1888: Eadweard Muybridge came to visit Edison’s lab
Muybridge proposed that they collaborate and combine Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope with Edison’s existing phonograph

Thomas Edison
Soon afterward, Edison filed a “caveat” with the U.S. Patents Office describing ideas for a device that would “do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear ”
Edison called his invention a Kinetoscope: Greek words kineto (meaning “movement”) plus scopos (“to watch”)

Kinetoscope: “Peep Show”
Kinetoscope: A wooden cabinet, 18 in. x 27 in. x 4 ft. high
Peephole with magnifying lenses at the top
Inside the box: Film, in a continuous band, rolled over a series of spools
A large, electrically driven sprocket wheel moved the film via sprocket holes punched in the edges of the film

1891: Patent filed for the Kinetograph (the camera) and the Kinetoscope (the viewer)
1892: Kinetoscope completed
1893: First public demonstration of the Kinetoscope -- at the Brooklyn (N.Y.) Institute of Arts and Sciences
1895: Edison sells Kinetophones, with a phonograph added inside the cabinet (sound!)

Inside the Kinetoscope, a continuous loop of film traveled over a series of rollers

Kinetoscope “Parlors”
1894: The first Kinetoscope parlor opened, in New York
Five machines were placed in a row
A customer could view the films in all the machines for a total of 25 cents
Kinetoscope parlors soon opened around the United States

What Kind of Films?
“Actuality”: A short non-fiction film produced by American and European filmmakers during the first 10 years of the motion picture industry
“Actualities” typically recorded famous people and places, and also events of interest to general audiences
These were the most frequently produced type of film in America until about 1902

Technology: Film
1896: Eastman (Kodak) manufactured the first print film designed for projection
Now it was no longer necessary to view “motion pictures” individually on the Kinetoscope
Movies could be projected onto a screen
1899: The Eastman Co. invented a way to manufacture film in 1,000-foot lengths
Now it was possible to photograph longer and more complex scenes

The Nickelodeon
The first movie houses (theaters) were called “nickelodeons”
It cost 5 cents to get in
By 1908, there were nearly 8,000 nickelodeon theaters in the U.S.
By 1910, there were 10,000
Most popular types of films: Comedies and melodramas

Nickelodeon Shows
At the nickelodeon, there was live entertainment along with the film – singing, dancing, comedy acts, sound effects
The whole show lasted 15 to 90 minutes and changed every couple of days (in some cases, even every day)

The Mass Audience
“ You have to understand what was happening in this country to see why movies were catching on. From 1900 to 1910, about … 10 million immigrants poured in, and because nickelodeon movies were new , cheap , silent and set up no language difficulties , they became a popular pastime.” – Adolph Zuckor

Adolph Zukor (1873-1976)
One of the first people to make big profits in the movie business
Realized that three elements of the film business were financially dependent on one another:
Production
Distribution
Exhibition

Adolph Zukor
Made money at first in the fur business
1912: Started the Famous Players Film Company with a partner
By 1919, they had made 140 silent films
Paramount Pictures Corp.: Distributor for films produced by Famous Players
Zukor bought stock in Paramount to protect his production business
1935: He became head of Paramount

“ The night of July 12, 1912, was a historic one for the motion picture industry. The elite of the theater world and society figures who would not have been caught viewing a movie, then considered a vulgar form of entertainment, attended the premiere of ‘Queen Elizabeth.’ The movie lasted only 40 minutes, but it has been considered the first feature-length film to be shown in America.” From The New York Times obituary for Adolph Zukor , June 11, 1976

Sound Comes to the Movies
1926: Warner Bros. produced a sound film: “Don Juan”
1927: Considered the first sound film: “The Jazz Singer,’ starring Al Jolson (first film to use voices in a soundtrack)
Movie theaters all over the world converted their projectors to play “talkies” in the late 1920s and 1930s
Theaters installed electronic “public address” systems – amplifiers and loudspeakers

Resurgence
Transformation from silent films to talkies happened fast
Within two years, the expensive task of updating the technology – for both movie production and the theaters themselves – was nearly done
A huge s urge in attendance followed
By 1931, audiences had increased by 30 million people per week

Surviving the Depression
During the Great Depression (1929 – 1941), most of the Hollywood studios suffered financially
Attendance at movie theaters fell
But even in the worst of the Depression, movie attendance remained at 60 million to 75 million per week
Total U.S. population, 1930: 123 million
Total U.S. population, 1940: 132 million

Effects on Society
Who attended nickelodeons and silent films?
Immigrants
Working class
Others?
Did early movies play a role in “ disciplining ” or acculturating immigrant and working-class audiences?
Or did early movies just give the city people some relief from a hard life?

The Electric Age Presentation by Mindy McAdams University of Florida

The Electric Age: Light and Motion

by Mindy McAdams

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

2 Embeds 3

Statistics

The Electric Age: Light and Motion Presentation Transcript

http://www.slideshare.net	2
http://role-demo.de	1