According to the TIA, beach travelers did more than swim, sunbathe, and stroll along the shores. Nearly half of beach trips involved shopping, almost one-quarter of beachgoers visited historical sites or museums, about a fifth enjoyed national or state parks, and a sixth went to an amusement or theme park while on their beach trip.
Harry Marvin, Wallace McCutcheon, and other Biograph executives quickly recognized the production opportunities offered by the Cuban crisis. By early 1898, they had three camera units in alm?st constant operation: one in Boston, another in New York, and a third in New Orleans filming THE MARDI GRAS CARNIVAL (No. 452) and other scenes. Shortly after the Maine was sunk, cameramen G. W. Bitzer and Ar…
During the course of 1897 and 1898, the American Mutoscope Company ( i.e., Biograph) expanded rapidly and solidified its commercial position. Its rate of production steadily increased, from approximately two hundred subjects for the year ending 31 May 1897 to roughly 350 new negatives during the year ending 31 May 1898 and nearly five hundred new negatives during the year ending 31 May 1899. After…
J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith owed much to the Spanish-American War. Seeking out new ways to make a living, the partners started the Commercial Advertising Bureau and rented a small office at 140 Nassau Street, New York City, in late December 1897. By spring they owned two outdoor ?branches? where advertising slides and films were being projected onto canvas. Shortly after selling one bra…
The Edison Manufacturing Company, like other 35-mm producers, faced strikingly different circumstances. Edison was not engaged in exhibition but manufactured films and projectors that were marketed to exhibitors. While distribution was nationwide, Thomas Edison did not establish sister companies or branches overseas. His company?s film output was roughly the same as Biograph?s during 1896-1897, an…
Other American producers of 35-mm films emphasized actualities much as the Edison Manufacturing Company did. In July 1897 Lubin offered a series of films that included SHOOTING THE CHUTES AT ATLANTIC CITY ; only LIFE RESCUE AT ATLANTIC CITY , in which a drowning person is saved by lifeguards, could be described as an acted subject. Lubin exhibited these and many local views at Bradenburgh?s Ninth …
Chicago was another center of war-related motion-picture activity. A magniscope opened at the Clark Street Museum with war scenes on 2 May and remained into the fall. As was the case with most exhibition services, the machine became known as the ?wargraph.? Whether it was run by George Spoor is not known. A cinematograph that showed films at the Schiller Theater for one week in mid May, however, w…
All exhibitors, not just those creating evening-length single-subject programs, held important creative responsibilities. As already noted in chapter 6, the initial approach to organizing slides and films was largely based on principles of variety. The survival?and mastery?of this ?noncontinuous program? is well exemplified by the presentations of Eberhard Schneider. In his opening show at Fox?s P…
As commercial warfare within the film industry was reaching new levels of intensity, the United States found itself involved in a real war. On 15 February 1898, the day Edison brought suit against Klaw & Erlanger, the USS Maine blew up in Havana Harbor. Although the cause of the explosion was never definitively established, commentators suggested that a Spanish mine or torpedo was responsible. Ant…
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