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America
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave
Eberhard Schneider along with his wife Stanislawa and his child
Margarethe, arrived on November 5, 1895 on board the ship, the
S.S.Cephalonia, They were discharged freight, and then the steamer
went to New York. Here his intention of going to the western states
was changed by the advice of some friends, and he settled in New
York City. He had in all his journeys found no need for learning the
English language, but now he found it important to do so, and soon
learned that he needed more cash then he had, and he at once went
out to find some employment and to learn the English language in
the shortest possible way. He found work at a wage that made
economy a necessity, having accepted a position as an electrician,
trusting that his employer would soon acknowledge the value of his
skill and pay him a living wage. His employer soon had evidence of
his superior skill and ability, and became aware that it was
necessary to keep his knowledge from his competitors. He invited
Mr. Schneider to change his residence from New York to Brooklyn,
so as to keep him under his professional observation, as he also
resided in Brooklyn, his employer being cognizant of the fact that if
the skill and ability of his German employee should become
generally known, he would in consequence be obliged to increase
his compensation for his services. In order to further safeguard his
interests, the employer accompanied the German artisan in his daily
trips to and from his workshop in New York City, where, upon the
occasion of a customer who brought a kaleidescope for repair, the
same having been made in and imported from Germany, and as
there were no other mechanics in the establishment who had
knowledge of the details and technique of this particular kind of work
except Mr. Schneider, the kaleidescope was handed to him for
examination and repair. This brought Mr. Schneider into direct
intercourse with the owner of the kaleidescope, and, as a result of
their interview, the conditions attending his employment were made
known by Mr. Schneider to the owner of the kaleidescope, who
promptly advised Mr. Schneider to secure more profitable
employment for his skill and ingenuity, and the customer also added
the promise that he would endeavor to aid him in securing suitable
employment at the earliest opportunity.
Showman, Engineer and Inventor
Eberhard Schneider a German immigrant from Breslau now Wroclaw,
Poland, appears in the records of early film exhibition in America,
most significantly as showing his American Cinematograph at the
Eden Musee . Offering a complete film service that included
advertising and other slides interspersed throughout his
programmes, he found greatest success through a reframing device
that saved films from coming away from the sprockets of the
projector, leading to an extended residency at Proctor's Pleasure
Palace, New York. Schneider had a high reputation for quality motion
picture apparatus. Edison lawsuits curtailed his exhibition activities,
but he remained a successful equipment manufacturer for a number
of years, marketing his Miror-Vitae projector in 1906, and was an
early film renter on the New York scene in the same year.
One Reel A Week by Fred J. Balshofer, Arthur C. Miller
The place to find out where any studio was setting up was at
Eberhard Schneider's store and shop on East Twelfth Street, in New
York City. He was a kindly German, probably in his fifties, and I was
impressed when I saw the gold ring he wore in each ear. He was
always ready and eager to answer questions concerning making
moving pictures. Schneider had designed and built perforators,
printers, and even a camera, in addition to many gadgets. In one
room of his building, he had a young man perforating film for the
Independents, and he also was equipped to develop small quantities
of Film, using the drum system. I asked Mr. Schneider if he knew
where I could find Mr. Porter, who was starting a new Company. He
told me that the studio was on Eleventh Avenue, between 41st and
42nd streets, and that he had just sold a perforator to the new
company.
Eberhard Schneider along with his wife Stanislawa and his child
Margarethe, arrived on November 5, 1895 on board the ship, the
S.S.Cephalonia, They were discharged freight, and then the steamer
went to New York. Here his intention of going to the western states
was changed by the advice of some friends, and he settled in New
York City. He had in all his journeys found no need for learning the
English language, but now he found it important to do so, and soon
learned that he needed more cash then he had, and he at once went
out to find some employment and to learn the English language in
the shortest possible way. He found work at a wage that made
economy a necessity, having accepted a position as an electrician,
trusting that his employer would soon acknowledge the value of his
skill and pay him a living wage. His employer soon had evidence of
his superior skill and ability, and became aware that it was
necessary to keep his knowledge from his competitors. He invited
Mr. Schneider to change his residence from New York to Brooklyn,
so as to keep him under his professional observation, as he also
resided in Brooklyn, his employer being cognizant of the fact that if
the skill and ability of his German employee should become
generally known, he would in consequence be obliged to increase
his compensation for his services. In order to further safeguard his
interests, the employer accompanied the German artisan in his daily
trips to and from his workshop in New York City, where, upon the
occasion of a customer who brought a kaleidescope for repair, the
same having been made in and imported from Germany, and as
there were no other mechanics in the establishment who had
knowledge of the details and technique of this particular kind of work
except Mr. Schneider, the kaleidescope was handed to him for
examination and repair. This brought Mr. Schneider into direct
intercourse with the owner of the kaleidescope, and, as a result of
their interview, the conditions attending his employment were made
known by Mr. Schneider to the owner of the kaleidescope, who
promptly advised Mr. Schneider to secure more profitable
employment for his skill and ingenuity, and the customer also added
the promise that he would endeavor to aid him in securing suitable
employment at the earliest opportunity.
Showman, Engineer and Inventor
Eberhard Schneider a German immigrant from Breslau now Wroclaw,
Poland, appears in the records of early film exhibition in America,
most significantly as showing his American Cinematograph at the
Eden Musee . Offering a complete film service that included
advertising and other slides interspersed throughout his
programmes, he found greatest success through a reframing device
that saved films from coming away from the sprockets of the
projector, leading to an extended residency at Proctor's Pleasure
Palace, New York. Schneider had a high reputation for quality motion
picture apparatus. Edison lawsuits curtailed his exhibition activities,
but he remained a successful equipment manufacturer for a number
of years, marketing his Miror-Vitae projector in 1906, and was an
early film renter on the New York scene in the same year.
One Reel A Week by Fred J. Balshofer, Arthur C. Miller
The place to find out where any studio was setting up was at
Eberhard Schneider's store and shop on East Twelfth Street, in New
York City. He was a kindly German, probably in his fifties, and I was
impressed when I saw the gold ring he wore in each ear. He was
always ready and eager to answer questions concerning making
moving pictures. Schneider had designed and built perforators,
printers, and even a camera, in addition to many gadgets. In one
room of his building, he had a young man perforating film for the
Independents, and he also was equipped to develop small quantities
of Film, using the drum system. I asked Mr. Schneider if he knew
where I could find Mr. Porter, who was starting a new Company. He
told me that the studio was on Eleventh Avenue, between 41st and
42nd streets, and that he had just sold a perforator to the new
company.
S.S. Cephalonia
Hollaman introduced the cinématographe Joly as a "permanent
feature" at his house. The new exhibition service was owned and
operated by German emigré Eberhard Schneider . Musee publicity
announced that the new machine "reproduced long scenes without
noise and flickering of light on the screen. Many of the scenes take
from three to five minutes, and each detail is strikingly exact."A
lecture and music accompanied the opening night performance, with
views primarily from France. In mid April the Musee shifted its
emphasis to American views and renamed Joly's apparatus the
"American Cinematograph. "By May, groups of American and foreign
films were being shown on alternating hours Two or more films in a
program often contained related subject matter, which was
frequently noted as the principal or headline attraction.
Although New York had a population that was nearing three and a
half million in 1897, the Eden Musee was the only amusement center
in the city that committed itself to motion pictures on a full-time
basis. Vaudeville managers thought of moving pictures as a popular
turn that had to be replaced more or less frequently to keep the bill
fresh and lively. Even B. F. Keith, whose organization evidenced the
greatest enthusiasm for films, did not keep motion pictures on his
Union Square theater bill all the time. After the Lumière
cinématographe's five-month stay ended in late November 1896,
manager J. Austin Fynes allowed seven weeks to go by before
bringing in Biograph for a fifty-week run. Then the theater was once
again without motion pictures. At the other extreme, Pastor's
Theater had seven different motion picture engagements between
mid January 1897 and early February 1898. These kept motion
pictures on his bill for twelve of the sixty-five weeks. Other
vaudeville theaters, including the Proctor theaters and Huber's 14th
Street Museum, showed films periodically as well. This gave the
Eden Musee a unique role in New York City and, because New York
was the center of motion picture activity, in the United States as a
whole.
When a problem arose at the Eden Musee in mid 1897, Richard
Hollaman increased his commitment to moving pictures when other
managers might have backed away. On June 14th, Schneider's
cinematograph started a fire that sent 1,500 patrons stampeding to
the exits. The Musee's publicist minimized the narrowly avoided
catastrophe, which came just over a month after the infamous
Charity Bazaar fire in Paris, also started by a cinématographe Joly.
Schneider lost his contract, and Hollaman brought back the Lumière
cinématographe. At the same time, Hollaman hired Frank Cannock
to build a projecting apparatus for the Musee's use. This machine
was installed at the Musee in August. "For months a skilled inventor
has been working upon models and a new cinematograph will be
placed on exhibition today," reported the New York Times . "It is a
wonderful machine and the vibration is reduced to a minimum."The
Mail and Express added, "The new machine is superior to any that
has been shown before. It projects with the least flicker and looking
at the picture does not weary the eyes."Cannock worked with
William Beadnell, who handled publicity for the Eden Musee, and
with Edwin Porter, who joined the project in the summer of 1897
while he was projecting films in New York City.
Hollaman's move may have inaugurated the American
Cinematograph Company, an exhibition service based at Room 205,
5 Beekman Street, New York City. Although the nature of its
relationship with the Musee remains somewhat hazy, the service
must have been at least partially owned and controlled by the
amusement enterprise. As the Musee prospered, so too did this
exhibition service.
Vitagraph and Eberhard Schneider showed slides taken by New
York Herald photographers as well as films. Producers and
distributors, including Sigmund Lubin and the Stereopticon & Film
Exchange, urged exhibitors to purchase films and slides of the war
and to combine them into an evening-length program with lecture. A
lecture may well have continued to be part of the Musee's programs
as well.
Panorama of the War is comparable in many respects to more recent
documentaries using silent stock footage-though the modes of
production and exhibition are radically different. At the Musee, post-
production was located in the projection booth and achieved on the
screen rather than in the editing room and on the projection print.
With showmen responsible for post-production, creative
contributions were made by both cameramen and exhibitors. Paley's
films from the war zone turned the motion picture photographer into
a vaudeville hero, but the editorial arrangement of scenes and the
live sound accompaniment were created in places like the Musee.
Drawing from the same material, exhibitors produced their own
distinctive programs—priding themselves on the quality and
originality of their individual exhibitions. Not only did each have
creative responsibility, they often claimed authorship of their
programs— assertions that had much validity.
Both The Passion Play and Panorama of the War demonstrate that
cinema in the late 1890s had the capacity to convey information and
to affect its audiences both emotionally and intellectually in ways
that were far more sophisticated than acknowledged in existing film
histories. These histories, based on naive readings of a few catalogs
and vaudeville programs, have virtually ignored Ringling Brothers
Circus showed war films, organizing them into a longer narrative
called "The Story of Cuba."
The crucial role of the exhibitor. Rather than being isolated units
within a miscellaneous collection of subjects, these short films were
often elements of a larger, integrated program. While these programs
were generally dependent on a lecture, this does not mean they
lacked effective and comparatively elaborate visual structures.
During the late 1890s, there was a dialectical tension between
unified programs built around a single event, theme, or narrative and
the variety format, with its emphasis on novelty and diversity. The
Eden Musee favored the former. The New York exhibitor Eberhard
Schneider was at the other extreme, often emphasizing variety to
the point of separating films that had a thematic relationship. In one
program, for instance, Schneider placed Snowballing between
Spanish Attack on an American Camp and Charge of American
Cavalry ; then Storm at Sea between Execution of a Spy, Turco-
Grecian War and Defense of a House, Turco-Grecian War . American
Vitagraph, in contrast, fluctuated between these two extremes and
often offered its audiences a middle ground. One point seems
evident. Porter received a very particular kind of training at the Eden
Musee, training that sensitized him to the possibilities inherent in the
significant juxtaposition of related images. The use of editorial
procedures was arguably most advanced at the Eden Musee, and it
should not surprise us that one of its graduates was to continue to
make strides in this area when he moved into production with the
Edison Company at the beginning of 1901.
While the Edison Manufacturing Company gained possession of its
licensees' negatives and offered them for sale, it had little control
over the selection of subject matter, the manner in which these
subjects were turned into films, and even the time at which a film
might be available for marketing. Vitagraph and Paley made films for
use in their vaudeville theaters. Many of these were timely subjects
that soon lost their commercial value. Yet these licensees generally
retained original subjects for several months—as exclusives for
their own exhibitions—before turning them over to Edison for
copyright and sale. The Edison Company's relations with these
affiliated enterprises was decentralized and informal.
The licensing arrangement perhaps benefited the licensees more
than the licensor. Under the constant encouragement of William T.
Rock, the third Vitagraph partner, Thomas Edison sued such
unlicensed exhibitors as Eberhard Schneider and seriously
disrupted their business. While Edison generated some publicity
that may have encouraged showmen to buy his company's
products, Vitagraph acquired many of the victims' exhibition venues.
Ironically, very little money from these exhibitions ever reached
Edison coffers. Vitagraph took many of its own films and acquired
other subjects directly from European producers. Its purchases from
Edison were small and apparently did not even cover the royalties
that Edison owed Vitagraph for the sale of prints from its negatives.
Edison tried to shift the commercial balance in his favor when he
licensed the Klondike Exposition Company, organized by Thomas
Crahan of Montana. In a contract dated March 14, 1899, Thomas
Edison was to receive 20 percent of the net receipts derived from the
company's exhibitions. The contract also reveals the extent to
which Biograph's activities were judged superior, as Edison made a
commitment to a large-format motion picture system. For this
venture, the "Wizard" agreed to construct two kinetographs, which
took pictures 2" high and 3" wide, at the cost of $1,000. With these
machines in hand, Crahan left for Alaska on June 8th. He was
accompanied by an Edison-designated photographic specialist,
Robert Kates Bonine (1862-1923), a well-known stereo-view and
lantern-slide photographer, originally from Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Bonine, who established his reputation taking photographs of the
Johnstown flood in 1889 and the Chicago World's Columbian
Exposition in 1893, had done some work for Edison in 1898. Bonine
also carried a still camera for lantern slides and a regular 35mm
motion picture camera.
The two men traveled through Alaska to Dawson City in the Yukon
and then into the gold fields. Surviving films from the expedition
include White Horse Rapids; Washing Gold on 20 Above Hunker,
Klondike ; and Packers on the Trail (all submitted for copyright in
April 1900 or May 1901). Upon their return in late October, Crahan
and Edison discovered that the large-format films had poor
registration. "When we project them on the screen the whole picture
moves up a foot, then down six inches then up and so on," Edison
explained to John Ott before asking him to make "a corrector for
correcting negatives so that although the negative prints vary on the
film the positives are equidistant."Edison's staff tried to make such a
device, but Eberhard Schneider later suggested that they were
unsuccessful: "Kayser, one of Edison's inventors, made an
intermittent printer, the size of a steam roller such as is used today
by the New York Paving Company. The thing would not work at all,
and I had to do some printing on certain films for Jim White, Edison's
laboratory expert and manager in 1900."By mid January the
Klondike Exposition Company had expended $7,385, run out of
cash, and still needed projectors and films. Edison was forced to
negotiate a new arrangement, under which he supplied the
necessary equipment and films. This enabled Crahan to put together
three illustrated lectures entitled Artistic Glimpses of the Wonder
World . By June 1900 any hope Crahan had of recouping his
investment and going to the Paris Exposition had ended. The
Klondike Exposition Company therefore sold its equipment and film
to Edison for $2,500 in cash and $2,500 in Edison goods
(phonograph records, etc.). The venture was a financial failure—not
only for Crahan but also for the Edison Company, which posted its
smallest film profits of any year in the era of projection.
Edison's film business was in dire straits by 1900. Despite White's
production of a significant number of commercially attractive films,
the Edison Company lacked strong photographic skills. Eberhard
Schneider would later claim that White "knew nothing whatever as
to the composition of developer and its effects. He made up hypo
developer in quantity (fully mixed) for weeks ahead and many good
negatives . . . were spoiled in this ink solution."
feature" at his house. The new exhibition service was owned and
operated by German emigré Eberhard Schneider . Musee publicity
announced that the new machine "reproduced long scenes without
noise and flickering of light on the screen. Many of the scenes take
from three to five minutes, and each detail is strikingly exact."A
lecture and music accompanied the opening night performance, with
views primarily from France. In mid April the Musee shifted its
emphasis to American views and renamed Joly's apparatus the
"American Cinematograph. "By May, groups of American and foreign
films were being shown on alternating hours Two or more films in a
program often contained related subject matter, which was
frequently noted as the principal or headline attraction.
Although New York had a population that was nearing three and a
half million in 1897, the Eden Musee was the only amusement center
in the city that committed itself to motion pictures on a full-time
basis. Vaudeville managers thought of moving pictures as a popular
turn that had to be replaced more or less frequently to keep the bill
fresh and lively. Even B. F. Keith, whose organization evidenced the
greatest enthusiasm for films, did not keep motion pictures on his
Union Square theater bill all the time. After the Lumière
cinématographe's five-month stay ended in late November 1896,
manager J. Austin Fynes allowed seven weeks to go by before
bringing in Biograph for a fifty-week run. Then the theater was once
again without motion pictures. At the other extreme, Pastor's
Theater had seven different motion picture engagements between
mid January 1897 and early February 1898. These kept motion
pictures on his bill for twelve of the sixty-five weeks. Other
vaudeville theaters, including the Proctor theaters and Huber's 14th
Street Museum, showed films periodically as well. This gave the
Eden Musee a unique role in New York City and, because New York
was the center of motion picture activity, in the United States as a
whole.
When a problem arose at the Eden Musee in mid 1897, Richard
Hollaman increased his commitment to moving pictures when other
managers might have backed away. On June 14th, Schneider's
cinematograph started a fire that sent 1,500 patrons stampeding to
the exits. The Musee's publicist minimized the narrowly avoided
catastrophe, which came just over a month after the infamous
Charity Bazaar fire in Paris, also started by a cinématographe Joly.
Schneider lost his contract, and Hollaman brought back the Lumière
cinématographe. At the same time, Hollaman hired Frank Cannock
to build a projecting apparatus for the Musee's use. This machine
was installed at the Musee in August. "For months a skilled inventor
has been working upon models and a new cinematograph will be
placed on exhibition today," reported the New York Times . "It is a
wonderful machine and the vibration is reduced to a minimum."The
Mail and Express added, "The new machine is superior to any that
has been shown before. It projects with the least flicker and looking
at the picture does not weary the eyes."Cannock worked with
William Beadnell, who handled publicity for the Eden Musee, and
with Edwin Porter, who joined the project in the summer of 1897
while he was projecting films in New York City.
Hollaman's move may have inaugurated the American
Cinematograph Company, an exhibition service based at Room 205,
5 Beekman Street, New York City. Although the nature of its
relationship with the Musee remains somewhat hazy, the service
must have been at least partially owned and controlled by the
amusement enterprise. As the Musee prospered, so too did this
exhibition service.
Vitagraph and Eberhard Schneider showed slides taken by New
York Herald photographers as well as films. Producers and
distributors, including Sigmund Lubin and the Stereopticon & Film
Exchange, urged exhibitors to purchase films and slides of the war
and to combine them into an evening-length program with lecture. A
lecture may well have continued to be part of the Musee's programs
as well.
Panorama of the War is comparable in many respects to more recent
documentaries using silent stock footage-though the modes of
production and exhibition are radically different. At the Musee, post-
production was located in the projection booth and achieved on the
screen rather than in the editing room and on the projection print.
With showmen responsible for post-production, creative
contributions were made by both cameramen and exhibitors. Paley's
films from the war zone turned the motion picture photographer into
a vaudeville hero, but the editorial arrangement of scenes and the
live sound accompaniment were created in places like the Musee.
Drawing from the same material, exhibitors produced their own
distinctive programs—priding themselves on the quality and
originality of their individual exhibitions. Not only did each have
creative responsibility, they often claimed authorship of their
programs— assertions that had much validity.
Both The Passion Play and Panorama of the War demonstrate that
cinema in the late 1890s had the capacity to convey information and
to affect its audiences both emotionally and intellectually in ways
that were far more sophisticated than acknowledged in existing film
histories. These histories, based on naive readings of a few catalogs
and vaudeville programs, have virtually ignored Ringling Brothers
Circus showed war films, organizing them into a longer narrative
called "The Story of Cuba."
The crucial role of the exhibitor. Rather than being isolated units
within a miscellaneous collection of subjects, these short films were
often elements of a larger, integrated program. While these programs
were generally dependent on a lecture, this does not mean they
lacked effective and comparatively elaborate visual structures.
During the late 1890s, there was a dialectical tension between
unified programs built around a single event, theme, or narrative and
the variety format, with its emphasis on novelty and diversity. The
Eden Musee favored the former. The New York exhibitor Eberhard
Schneider was at the other extreme, often emphasizing variety to
the point of separating films that had a thematic relationship. In one
program, for instance, Schneider placed Snowballing between
Spanish Attack on an American Camp and Charge of American
Cavalry ; then Storm at Sea between Execution of a Spy, Turco-
Grecian War and Defense of a House, Turco-Grecian War . American
Vitagraph, in contrast, fluctuated between these two extremes and
often offered its audiences a middle ground. One point seems
evident. Porter received a very particular kind of training at the Eden
Musee, training that sensitized him to the possibilities inherent in the
significant juxtaposition of related images. The use of editorial
procedures was arguably most advanced at the Eden Musee, and it
should not surprise us that one of its graduates was to continue to
make strides in this area when he moved into production with the
Edison Company at the beginning of 1901.
While the Edison Manufacturing Company gained possession of its
licensees' negatives and offered them for sale, it had little control
over the selection of subject matter, the manner in which these
subjects were turned into films, and even the time at which a film
might be available for marketing. Vitagraph and Paley made films for
use in their vaudeville theaters. Many of these were timely subjects
that soon lost their commercial value. Yet these licensees generally
retained original subjects for several months—as exclusives for
their own exhibitions—before turning them over to Edison for
copyright and sale. The Edison Company's relations with these
affiliated enterprises was decentralized and informal.
The licensing arrangement perhaps benefited the licensees more
than the licensor. Under the constant encouragement of William T.
Rock, the third Vitagraph partner, Thomas Edison sued such
unlicensed exhibitors as Eberhard Schneider and seriously
disrupted their business. While Edison generated some publicity
that may have encouraged showmen to buy his company's
products, Vitagraph acquired many of the victims' exhibition venues.
Ironically, very little money from these exhibitions ever reached
Edison coffers. Vitagraph took many of its own films and acquired
other subjects directly from European producers. Its purchases from
Edison were small and apparently did not even cover the royalties
that Edison owed Vitagraph for the sale of prints from its negatives.
Edison tried to shift the commercial balance in his favor when he
licensed the Klondike Exposition Company, organized by Thomas
Crahan of Montana. In a contract dated March 14, 1899, Thomas
Edison was to receive 20 percent of the net receipts derived from the
company's exhibitions. The contract also reveals the extent to
which Biograph's activities were judged superior, as Edison made a
commitment to a large-format motion picture system. For this
venture, the "Wizard" agreed to construct two kinetographs, which
took pictures 2" high and 3" wide, at the cost of $1,000. With these
machines in hand, Crahan left for Alaska on June 8th. He was
accompanied by an Edison-designated photographic specialist,
Robert Kates Bonine (1862-1923), a well-known stereo-view and
lantern-slide photographer, originally from Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Bonine, who established his reputation taking photographs of the
Johnstown flood in 1889 and the Chicago World's Columbian
Exposition in 1893, had done some work for Edison in 1898. Bonine
also carried a still camera for lantern slides and a regular 35mm
motion picture camera.
The two men traveled through Alaska to Dawson City in the Yukon
and then into the gold fields. Surviving films from the expedition
include White Horse Rapids; Washing Gold on 20 Above Hunker,
Klondike ; and Packers on the Trail (all submitted for copyright in
April 1900 or May 1901). Upon their return in late October, Crahan
and Edison discovered that the large-format films had poor
registration. "When we project them on the screen the whole picture
moves up a foot, then down six inches then up and so on," Edison
explained to John Ott before asking him to make "a corrector for
correcting negatives so that although the negative prints vary on the
film the positives are equidistant."Edison's staff tried to make such a
device, but Eberhard Schneider later suggested that they were
unsuccessful: "Kayser, one of Edison's inventors, made an
intermittent printer, the size of a steam roller such as is used today
by the New York Paving Company. The thing would not work at all,
and I had to do some printing on certain films for Jim White, Edison's
laboratory expert and manager in 1900."By mid January the
Klondike Exposition Company had expended $7,385, run out of
cash, and still needed projectors and films. Edison was forced to
negotiate a new arrangement, under which he supplied the
necessary equipment and films. This enabled Crahan to put together
three illustrated lectures entitled Artistic Glimpses of the Wonder
World . By June 1900 any hope Crahan had of recouping his
investment and going to the Paris Exposition had ended. The
Klondike Exposition Company therefore sold its equipment and film
to Edison for $2,500 in cash and $2,500 in Edison goods
(phonograph records, etc.). The venture was a financial failure—not
only for Crahan but also for the Edison Company, which posted its
smallest film profits of any year in the era of projection.
Edison's film business was in dire straits by 1900. Despite White's
production of a significant number of commercially attractive films,
the Edison Company lacked strong photographic skills. Eberhard
Schneider would later claim that White "knew nothing whatever as
to the composition of developer and its effects. He made up hypo
developer in quantity (fully mixed) for weeks ahead and many good
negatives . . . were spoiled in this ink solution."
Before the Nickelodeon by Charles Musser