Thomas Alva Edison, the Wizard of Menlo Park, was a
prolific inventor with over 100 patents. He was one of the pioneers in
developing and showing films in the 1890s. Before the Lumière brothers showed their first
projected movie in 1895, Edison had opened his first Kinetoscope Parlor in New
York where patrons could watch movies in a peepshow-like device. There were
rows of machines and with the deposit of a coin, a motor would engage and
through a viewing hole you could see the film. The Kinetoscope Parlor was an
immediate success, but in less than a decade the Kinetoscope was overwhelmed by
projected movies.
In 1897, Edison also patented and produced a table-top
Parlor Kinetoscope to appeal to the burgeoning home entertainment market. Very
few of these toys have survived through to today. I am fortunate to have one
now and I have opened a whole new section on my site for Flickers which include
Kinoras, Flip books, the Parlor Kinetoscope, and Mutascopes.
