Introduction

Thomas Edison patented the world’s first motion picture camera, the Kinetograph, in 1897. His associate W. K. L. Dickson set up the camera in a tarpaper-clad shed dubbed the Black Maria and began to roll film. His first subject was Fred Ott, a local man with the ability to sneeze on cue. Then came jugglers and circus animals and the world’s first on-screen kiss. In 1903 Dickson shot and edited The Great Train Robbery, an exciting story—a full 15 minutes long—of a Wild West holdup. The public watching in Nickelodeons everywhere ate it up, and presto! the movies were born. Soon enough, early entertainment pioneers like Samuel Goldfish, Carl Laemmle, and Jesse Lasky were buying tracts of California farmland and setting up their own studios. ...

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