Films 12 Cents (A Foot) -- August 4, 2023

New York Clipper, 18-April-1903

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was an early American producer and manufacturer. You could by a new Mutoscope, a coin-in-the-slot machine, for $45, "new machines, shining like silver."

Biograph offered its own productions, many made at the famous studio at 11 East 14th Street in Manhattan. They also carried Star Films produced by Georges Méliès in France and British films made by Charles Urban's Warwick Trading Company. 

Motion Picture News, 11-August-1923

Biograph -- New Films From Icy Alaska and the Golden Northwest -- May 3, 2023

New York Clipper, 28-March-1903

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was doing well in 1903. You could have bought a Mutoscope, "the king of all slot machines," for $45. Most of the films listed were taken during the Yukon Gold Rush. 

Wanted, 10 Mutoscopes of the Mutoscope and Biograph Co.'s Make -- October 3, 2022

New York Clipper, 28-March-1903

Mr CW Parker of Abilene, Kansas was looking for ten Mutoscopes, one railroad sleeping car and "one ten cent in the slot tin type photograph machine." I wonder if he found everything he wanted. 

Wanted, Slot Machines -- July 3, 2022

New York Clipper, 04-April-1903

Frank Kelly was looking for Kinetoscopes, Mutoscopes and many other coin-in-the-slot machines. 

Biograph Business Booming -- December 2, 2021

New York Clipper, 28-February-1903

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company was doing well in 1903. You could buy a new Mutoscope for $45. Films of the Durbar Pageant in Delhi allowed American audiences to see the great festival honoring the crowning of Edward VII, King and Emperor. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, represented the monarch.

Mutoscopes and Films -- October 2, 2021

New York Clipper, 05-September-1903

The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company offered Mutoscope devices and also standard films, including some produced in Britain by Charles Urban and Cecil Hepworth. Anna Held, shown viewing a Mutoscope, was a musical performer who was heavily promoted by her common-law husband Flo Ziegfeld. 

The Mutoscope and Machinery in Motion -- August 27, 2017

Scientific American, 30-March-1901

THE MUTOSCOPE AND MACHINERY IN MOTION

it does not often happen that a device, which was originally designed as a mere toy, becomes an instrument of practical utility in the great world of commerce. Occasionally it does, as in the case of the bicycle, which, in the form of its natural ancestor, the “hobbyhorse," was a toy of the most rudimentary description, but in its modern development is a machine of the highest general utility.

It is the purpose of the present article to describe an instrument which is undergoing a similar change by enlarging its field of usefulness from that of a mere instrument of entertainment to one of commercial utility. Our readers are familiar with the mutoscope, which has been aptly described as “the little brother of the biograph." it is a simple and ingenious contrivance for the exhibition in a cabinet of the same moving pictures that the larger machine throws life-size upon a screen. It is not necessary to give here any detailed account of this well-known machine, and those who wish to learn fully about the construction and operation of the biograph and an earlier form of the mutoscope are referred to the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN of April 17, 1897, which contains a fully illustrated article on the subject.

Now, the art of moving photography, as we have said, has hitherto been solely devoted to the purposes of entertainment. In the case of the biograph, the subject is thrown upon a large screen hung on the stage of the theater, and in the mutoscope the photographs are set up in circular book form, within a suitable box or case, and successively tripped before the eye by means of a hand-crank or electric motor. In each case the subjects chosen for exhibition have usually been selected for their scenic or spectacular effect, and with certainly no thought to their commercial utility.

It was inevitable, however, that the great possibilities of this little machine in a commercial or industrial way should early suggest themselves. If it is possible to reproduce a train in motion, to catch the discharge of a rifled gun at Sandy Hook, or the rush of the whirlpool rapids at Niagara, why should not the mutoscope be harnessed to the service of industry, and made to show machinery in motion and recall to prospective purchasers the operation of complicated devices? There is an old saying that “seeing is believing," and while a good line drawing, or a judiciously taken photograph, will do much to bring a subject before the mind, the actual movement is lacking and may very easily be misunderstood. At present there is an endless number of commodities that cannot be sold from samples; such, for instance, as locomotives, cars, derricks, pile-drivers, and all heavy machinery, revolving doors, tire-escapes and extinguishers, blasting powder and an ever-increasing list of etceteras. Some of these devices are portable; but it is not enough to show them to the prospective customer—he must see how they work. This, however, if often impossible, for the man with a fire extinguisher or escape cannot start a blaze to order, nor can a blast of giant powder be set off at the nearest street corner to demonstrate its disruptive value. Moreover, there are many large operations, such as systems of transportation of the raw materials from mines to mills and factories, of which no mere verbal or written description conveys an adequate idea, and for which some system of continuous illustration is necessary to render it intelligible. With a view to enabling the inventor, the promoter, or the salesman, to show, as well as explain, the operation of devices which are too elaborate or too cumbersome to admit of a model or a portable sample being carried round, the makers of the biograph and mutoscope have produced the compact instrument shown in the accompanying illustrations, to which they have given the self-explanatory name of “Commercial Mutoscope." It will be recognized as an improved slot-machine mutoscope, with the stand and slot-mechanism removed, and its bulk and weight so reduced that it is as conveniently portable as a photographer's camera, or an ordinary sample case.

Of our illustrations, one shows the cabinet open, with the circular book of photographs removed, and another represents the mutoscope in operation, and also closed with the mirror and turning-crank removed. The photographs of objects in motion are taken upon a moving film at the rate of forty per second. These are reproduced upon cards which are mounted radially in consecutive order around a hollow cylinder, and stand out like the leaves of a book (see illustration). The cylindrical book is placed upon a small shaft arranged centrally and transversely within the cabinet. On the same shaft is mounted a worm wheel, which is engaged by a worm on a shaft that is carried near the right-hand wall of the mutoscope. When the cylinder is slowly revolved. the picture-cards being held back by a stop, (carried in the position shown), and allowed to sweep past the eye one by one, as one thumbs the leaves of a book, an apparently moving picture is the result, and the exact motions of the device are reproduced. One great advantage is the ability of the operator to vary the speed; for he may make the operation quick or slow as he desires, either maintaining the normal speed at which the original demonstration took place, or stopping the spectacle at any point in the series, so as to inspect each picture step by step at his leisure. The case containing the mutoscope is hinged at its forward end to a base plate, and by means of a vertical rack extending from the front end of the box the machine may hr inclined to suit the convenience of the user.

As an instrument for the exploitation of newly patented inventions, this machine should have a wide field of usefulness. We present a series of three pictures of a new style of car-fender. Life-size dummies of children were placed in front of a moving car and the biograph camera took a roll of pictures (from which these three were selected) as the fender successfully picked up the objects. Another group of pictures shows a woman in the act of unrolling a reel of hose and throwing a stream of water into a blazing cottage. There are on view at the office of the Mutoscope Company series of pictures showing the operation of heavy machinery, cars, etc. One of the best of these represents a well-known hoisting and conveying machine in operation. It can be understood that in commending this machine to the favorable consideration of the manager of a railroad, or a steamship company, the vendor would be at an immense advantage if he could place his mutoscope cabinet on the desk and let the official take the crank in his own hand and vary the “ocular demonstration" to suit his own idiosyncrasies.

We are indebted for our photographs and information to the courtesy of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company of 841 Broadway, New York, whose studio and factory afford impressive evidence of the growth and future promise of the essentially modern art of moving photography.

The Illusion of Motion -- May 20, 2016

This post is part of the Classic Movie Ice Cream Social Blogathon, hosted by Fritzi at Movies Silently (http://moviessilently.com/2016/05/20/the-classic-movie-ice-cream-social-is-here/).  Fritzi wants to focus "on classic movie-themed cheer. I’m supplying the ice cream (in digital form) and you’ll bring the cheer."

disney-pal.com

2007

When my daughter was younger, we went to Disneyland every summer.  There were two places on Main Street that we would always visit.  The Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlour served delightful ice cream in huge waffle cones which were made on the premises.  I usually had mint chip.  Then we would go to the adjoining Penny Arcade.

2007

 I always had to put a penny in the delightfully painted clamshell Mutoscopes.

2007

2008

2008

2009

2009

2009

2010

2010

2012

2012

What is a Mutoscope?  Why did I have to go play with them every year?  The Mutoscope is a hand-cranked entertainment machine that works like a giant flipbook. When I was a kid, I tried to build a device like it, but always had trouble getting it to work.

2012

Each machine carries instructions and extensive patent information on a plate on the front of the machine.  The instructions are simple: "Push Penny in Slot Then Turn Crank to the Right."

2010

When you put your penny in the slot, a light comes on.  You see a photo on a card.  When you turn the crank, each photo snaps forward, revealing the next one.  The sequence of photos gives the illusion of motion.  The cool thing is, you can turn the crank as fast or as slow as you like.  You can't go backwards.  Here we see Charlie Chaplin and Mabel Normand in a scene from a Keystone comedy.  Someone with good eyes could probably tell which one.

2010

And here we see a scene from a Tom Mix western, probably one of his early Selig Polyscope productions.

Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, Albert Allis Hopkins, ed.

from Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins:
"The 'mutoscope' is compact, and the pictures are large. It is not any larger than the cover of a sewing machine. The enlarged bromide prints, measuring four by six inches, are mounted in close consecutive order around the cylinder and extend out like the leaves of a book, as shown in the illustration. In the operation of the mutoscope the spectator has the performance entirely under his own control by turning a crank which is placed conveniently at hand, and may make the operation as quick or as slow as he desires, and can stop the machine at any particular picture at will.  Each picture is momentarily held in front of the lens by the action of a slot attached to the roof of the box, which allows the pictures to slip by in much the same way as the thumb is used upon the leaves of a book."

The Mutoscope was invented by William Kennedy Laurie (WKL) Dickson, who had led the Edison team that developed the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph.   The Mutoscope and its accompanying camera, the Mutograph, were carefully designed to work around Thomas Edison's patents on motion picture devices. 

How did I get interested in the Mutoscope?  Several times when I was young I took a book out of the Anza Branch Library that explained how movies work.  I can't remember the title.  I tried to make several of the pre-cinema devices in the section on early moving picture devices. 

The Young Folk's Cyclopædia of Games and Sports by John Denison Champlin and Arthur Elmore Bostwick, 1890

The Thaumatrope (from the Greek for "wonder turner") is a card, often disk-shaped, with a string tied through a hole on each side.  On each face of the card is a part of a picture, most famously a bird on one side and a cage, upside down relative to the bird, on the other.  The person playing with the Thaumatrope takes a string in each hand and spins the card rapidly.  Persistence of vision merges the images together so the bird appears to be in the cage, or, in the example above, the rider appears to be on the horse.  This was a popular toy in the Nineteenth Century.  There is some disagreement about whether it was invented by a Frenchman or an Englishman.

I used to make Thaumatropes with my daughter. Kids enjoy them and I recommend making them as a good way to pass a rainy afternoon.

The Young Folk's Cyclopædia of Games and Sports by John Denison Champlin and Arthur Elmore Bostwick, 1890

Zoetropes were harder.  There are two basic types.  Each has a series of drawings meant to represent phases of an action.

Scientific American / New Series, Volume 20, Issue 14, April 3, 1869

One type of Zoetrope has the images on the face of a disk.  The disk may have slots or notches between the images.  The disk is rotated in front of a mirror.  Looking though the slots intermittently interrupts our view of the images and persistence of vision allows us to see the images as if they are moving.

This can also be done with a second disk in front of the one with the images.  The front disk has the slots and it rotates in the opposite direction from the one with the images.  I built one of these as a project for university class.  I should have taken a photo.

The Story of the Motion Picture: 65 B.C. to 1920 A.D. By Ben Jehudah Lubschez

The other type of Zoetrope, also called a Phenakistoscope or Daedaleum (I love these names), has the images on a strip of paper lining the inside of a drum.  There is a slot toward the rim of the drum above each image.  Looking through the slots of the rotating drum also gives the illusion of motion.

When my daughter was young, I purchased a toy drum-type Zoetrope and we drew strips to view in it.  Just recently, my wife took her class to a field trip at the Disney Family Museum in San Francisco's Presidio.  They created Zoetrope strips. 

Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins

The methods above used drawing or posed photographs to recreate motion.  In 1878, San Francisco photographer Eadweard Muybridge used a series of cameras to photograph the stages of motion as it was happening. This took place down the Peninsula from where I lived, at the Stanford Farm, the future home of Stanford University.  I found this fascinating.  I wanted to reanimate Muybridge's images and I wanted to create my own, but I could never gather enough functioning cameras.  Muybridge went on to do studies of many kinds of motion, and used a Zoetrope to present them. 

Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins.

German inventor Ottomar Anschutz created the Electrical Tachyscope in 1887 and demonstrated it at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  It used an early form of strobe light to achieve intermittent motion. 

from Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins:
"The apparatus is the invention of Ottamar Anschuetz, of Lissa, Prussia. A special camera was used, adapted to take a number of photographs in quick succession. The instrument for displaying the pictures is called the "electrical tachyscope." It consists of an iron wheel of sufficient diameter to hold an entire series of positive prints on the periphery. The wheel is arranged upon a rigid standard, and provided with a series of pins which register exactly with the picture. Upon the standard behind the wheel is located a box containing a spiral Geissler tube which is connected with the terminals of a Ruhmkorff coil. The primary coil is provided with a contact maker and breaker adapted to be operated by the pins projecting from the wheel, so that every time a picture comes before the Geissler tube it is illuminated by an electrical discharge through the tube. This discharge, being instantaneous, shows each picture in an apparently fixed position. These pictures succeed each other so rapidly that the retinal image of one picture is retained until the next is superimposed upon it, thereby giving to the observer the sense of a continuous image in constant motion."

French artist and inventor Charles-Émile Reynaud created the Praxinoscope, which improved on the Zoetrope by replacing the slots with a set of mirrors in the middle of the drum. The video was shot at the Musee Mechanique in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf.  The Musee Mechanique is a wonderful place to visit to play with old amusement machines. 

Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins.

Reynaud went farther than the Praxinoscope or the Zoetrope with their simple strips of drawings.  He created the Théâtre Optique, which used a long chain of drawings on glass, along with projected backgrounds, to create beautiful animated cartoons which could be presented to large audiences.

from Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins:
 "Up to the time of the invention of this theater, the apparatus that produced the synthesis of the successive phases of an action were limited to reproduction upon a very small scale, which can only be enjoyed by a limited group. The object of the optical theater was to provide an apparatus for the reproduction of a series of actions upon a considerable scale. The continuity of the image obtained by the praxinoscope, invented in 1877 by M. Reynaud, had not up to this time been realized by any projecting apparatus. The effect is produced by using a crystalloid band upon which the images are painted as represented at A in our engraving. The operator can revolve it in one direction or the other by means of two reels. The images pass before the lantern, B, and are projected by the aid of the objective, C, upon an inclined mirror, M, which projects them upon the transparent screen, E. Another projection lantern, B, causes the appearance on the screen of the scene, amid which appear the characters, which change their posture according as the painted band, A, is revolved by the operator."

Inspired by Reynaud, I drew a couple of animated films on strips of paper.  If they still exist, I should try to scan them and animate them.

Reynaud premiered the Théâtre Optique in 1892 to much acclaim.  In 1893, a team working for Thomas Edison demonstrated the vertical Kinetoscope, which allowed an individual to watch a movie.  In 1895, Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrated a projector which allowed a crowd of people to watch a movie.  The Théâtre Optique was quickly forgotten,  In 1910, Reynaud threw his equipment and most of his animations into the Seine.

 Despite sad stories like Reynaud's, I get a lot of pleasure out of looking at pre-cinema, and sometimes trying to recreate it.  If you catch kids in the right mood, it can help them understand how movies work.

This post is part of the Classic Movie Ice Cream Social Blogathon, hosted by Fritzi at Movies Silently (http://moviessilently.com/2016/05/20/the-classic-movie-ice-cream-social-is-here/).  Thank you to Fritzi for all the hard work.  Thank you to everyone who visited and I encourage you to read and comment on as many posts as you can.  Bloggers love comments.  

This post is my second blogathon post of 2016 and my 42nd since 2007.  This is my 24th blogathon.    This page has a list of all my blogathon posts.  

 

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Coincidentally, the first day of this blogathon is the 125th anniversary of the first public demonstration of the horizontal Kinetoscope by a team of Thomas Edison's workers led by WKL Dickson.  On 20-May-1891, in West Orange, New Jersey, they played this film, later called the "Dickson Greeting," to the National Federation of Women's Clubs.  The Kinetoscope required further development, which came to fruition in 1893. 

Wanted, 10 Mutoscopes -- November 20, 2014

New York Clipper, 28-March-1903

Mr CW Parker of Abilene, Kansas was looking for "10 Mutoscopes of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Co.'s Make, One Sleeping Car and One Ten Cent in the Slot Tin Type Photograph Machine."  Setting up a traveling carnival?  Amusement machines were a big deal in 1903. 

The Biograph in the Vatican -- October 24, 2014

From Scientific American, 14-January-1899.  I have always been a fan of Pope Leo XIII because of his encyclical Rerum Novarum, on social justice for workers.  The Biograph camera produced negatives which could be used to make prints for projection or for showing on a Mutoscope. 

Upon the announcement of the recent illness of Pope Leo XIII, it was found that with one exception no authentic photograph of the Pope had been taken during the past six years.  Within a few months however no less than 17,000 photographs of the Pope have been taken with his sanction. These photographs were taken in the loggia and gardens of the Vatican with the aid of the "Biograph" camera.

Mr. William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson, representing the Mutoscope and Biograph Syndicate, Limited, of London, England, the English connection of the American Mutoscope Company, went to Rome for the purpose of obtaining moving photographs of the Pope. He had credentials from Cardinal Gibbons, Monsignor Martinelli, Archbishop Ireland, and other noted prelates in the United States, and by special permission of the Pope he secured nine series for the "Biograph" and "Mutoscope," and these scenes were exhibited on December 14, at Carnegie Music Hall, New York city, in the presence of Archbishop Corrigan and other distinguished clergymen of the Roman Catholic faith.  They had previously been shown to Monsignor Martinelli in Washington and given his approval. 

The moving views show the Holy Father walking and riding in his carriage and sedan chair about the halls and gardens of the Vatican, and in some of these scenes the Pope is seen bestowing his blessing upon the bystanders.  He is also seen walking about the garden and sitting on a rustic bench surrounded by some of the chief members of his official household and the Garde Nobili.  Through the courtesy of the American Mutoscope Company, we are enabled to show a view of the Pope seated upon a rustic bench  bestowing his benediction while he was being photographed by the Bioscope camera.  The views certainly bring us into a more intimate relation with one of the great figures of the closing years of the nineteenth century. When Mr. Dickson was taking the photographs, the Pope asked for an explanation of the apparatus. A copy of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN containing an article on the American Mutoscope and Biograph, published in our issue of April 17.1897, was shown him. His Holiness became much interested in the paper. The laboratory of the International Mutoscope and Biograph Syndicate, where all of the moving picture apparatus is developed and prepared for the market. is at Canastota, New York. At this laboratory there are employed a large force of inventors and mechanical experts under the direction of Messrs. Marvin and Casler, and constant efforts are being made to develop new and improved forms of moving picture apparatus and to discover new methods of taking and exhibiting moving picture views. 

All the intricate and special machinery involved in the process of reproducing these views with marvelous exactness is designed and built at this laboratory, and this work requires great mechanical skill and the most perfect tools and app1iances known to the mechanical art. The accuracy of this class of apparatus will be better appreciated when one considers the enormous magnification at which these views are projected upon the screen and the rapidity with which successive views must follow each other in perfect registration. Imagine a sequence of two thousand pictures. each two inches by two and a half inches in size. following each other in turn through the projecting lantern of the biograph every minute. each picture being magnified on the screen to a size of twenty by twenty-five feet. and think how perfect must be the registration of each succeeding picture, in order that the result of the image upon the screen may not appear to dance about and vibrate. but may appear as one continuous set picture! Not only is precision in projecting required. but also in the printing of the positives from the original negative. The negative prints taken by the original camera do not always follow each other at equal distances upon the strip of film ; consequently, in printing the positives the printing machine must be able to correct this imperfect spacing and produce a band of positive prints printed perfectly equidistant.  The printing machine must also be able to properly register and print bromide pictures from the same negatives, but these pictures on a bend of bromide for the Mutoscope have to be spaced much wider than when printed on celluloid strips for the Biograph.  The printing machines are arranged to run entirely automatically, and so perfect is their design that if for any reason a print does not register perfectly, the operation of the machine stops and a bell is rung, warning the attendant that his attention is needed.  The apparatus constructed at the laboratory is sent out to the various Mutoscope companies in England, Germany, France and Holland, and any ideas in moving pictures developed by any of these companies are at once forwarded to the American laboratory for perfection and trial and in this respect the position of the laboratory is somewhat peculiar, since it is the workshop for busy brains throughout England and the Continent. 

 

 

The "Mutograph" and "Mutoscope" -- September 23, 2014

"The 'Mutograph' and 'Mutoscope'" from Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, Including Trick Photography, edited by Albert Allis Hopkins.

The "mutograph" and "mutoscope" are names of very interesting machines for presenting moving photographs. The camera frame is mounted, by means of three adjustable legs, upon a triangular turntable, which may be placed upon any suitable support. Upon the top of the frame is bolted a two horse-power electric motor which is driven by a set of storage batteries; the combination of the turntable with a vertical adjustable enables the camera to be shifted so as to take in the required field. In the front of the camera is fixed a lens of great light-gathering quality which produces an image of exceedingly clear detail. Inside the camera is a strip of gelatine film two and three-quarter inches wide, and usually about one hundred and sixty feet in length, which is wound upon a small pulley and drum. The length of the film varies for different subjects. In case of a prolonged scene it may extend several thousand feet. The film is led through a series of rollers, and is caused to pass directly behind the lens of the camera, and is finally wound upon a drum. The object of the rollers is to cause the film to pass behind the lens with an intermittent instead of a continuous motion. At ordinary speeds this could be easily accomplished, but the difficulties are increased when it is remembered that the impressions are taken at the rate of forty per second, and that the film, which is running at the rate of seven or eight feet a second, has to be stopped and started with equal frequency. The film comes to a rest just as the shutter opens, and starts again as the shutter closes. The impressions vary in actual exposure between one one-hundredth and one four-hundredth of a second. While the ordinary speed is forty a second, the mutoscope can take equally good pictures at the rate of one hundred per second, if it is necessary. The highest speed would be used in photographing the flight of a projectile or other object which was in extremely rapid motion. After the mutograph has done its work, the films are carefully packed and sent to the New York establishment of the American Mutoscope Company. Here they are taken to the dark room, the interior of which is shown in our engraving. Arranged along each side of this room is a series of troughs, above which are suspended large skeleton reels three feet in diameter and seven feet long, the axes of the reels being journaled in brackets attached to the end of the trough. The films are wound upon the reels and subjected to the action of the various solutions for developing, fixing, etc., the reels being transferred from bath to bath until the films are ready to go to the drying-room. In this room are also prepared positive transparent strips for use in the biograph and the bromide prints for the mutoscope.

The films are unwound on to large wooden drums about the same size as the reels, where they are carefully dried. At the far end of the room are seen the machines for cutting up the bromide prints. Here also is carried on the work of retouching the films and preparing them for use in the biograph and mutoscope pictures. The biograph is somewhat similar to machines which we have aready described.

The annexed engravings show pictures of clay-pigeon shooting and of the firing of a ten-inch disappearing gun at Sandy Hook.

Upon the roof of the New York establishment of the company there has been erected a large movable stage for taking photographs of celebrated scenes from plays or of individual performances in which it is desired to reproduce the motions as well as the features of the subject. It consists of a floor of steel I-beams which carries a series of three concentric steel traps. Upon this rotates the massive frame at one end of which is a stage supplied with the necessary scenery, and at the other end a corrugated iron house, in which is located the mutograph. The stage is bolted to the frame, but the house travels upon a track, so that it may be moved to or from the stage as required. The frame carrying the stage and house rotates about the smaller circular track located beneath the house, and may be swung around so as to throw the light full upon the scene at any hour of the day.

The "mutoscope" is compact, and the picture are large. It is not any larger than the cover of a sewing machine. The enlarged bromide prints, measuring four by six inches, are mounted in close consecutive order around the cylinder and extend out like the leaves of a book, as shown in the illustration. In the operation of the mutoscope the spectator has the performance entirely under his own control by turning a crank which is placed conveniently at hand, and may make the operation as quick or as slow as he desires, and can stop the machine at any particular picture at will.  Each picture is momentarily held in front of the lens by the action of a slot attached to the roof of the box, which allows the pictures to slip by in much the same way as the thumb is used upon the leaves of a book.

from Amusements for Park Resorts -- August 23, 2014

"Amusements for Park Resorts" is an article from the 11-March-1905 Street Railway Journal.  Many transit companies operated amusement parks to encourage weekend travel.  This is part of my mutoscope series, but I had to throw in the Puss in Boots Slot Machine as well. 

THE MUTOSCOPE

The mutoscope, made by the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company, of New York, is one of those novelties which appeal equally to all classes. The mutoscope is a handsome silver gilt cast-iron cabinet, provided with a coin slot and a crank. When a coin is dropped in the slot the beholder views some interesting scene, embracing the use of over 700 moving pictures, greatly magnified and brilliantly illuminated by electric light. When one subject has lost its earning power, another can be substituted in a few minutes. The mutoscope does not use films, the pictures being bromide photographs mounted on reels. The mechanism of this device is extremely simple. The parts are few and are all interchangeable, so that repairs can be made readily.

The weight of the boxed machine is 325 lbs.; the height to the eye piece is 4 ft. 6 ins., and the floor space needed is 2 ft. square.

“PUSS IN BOOTS” SLOT MACHINE

 

Roovers Brothers, of Brooklyn, N. Y., whose aluminum name plate machine has proved a most profitable slot device, have placed on the market an amusing and ingenious vending or fortune-telling apparatus known as “Puss in Boots.” This machine is mounted on handsomely carved legs, which, however, are not shown in the accompanying illustration. By placing a coin in the slide recess, drawing down the handle on the right-hand side of the machine and then letting it return, the cat is caused to greet the customer with a bow, then to move its left paw, which holds a pan, to the chute containing the article to be delivered, the head moving in unison with the pan so as to see that the latter is in the correct position to receive the article from the chute delivery opening; next the cat moves its head toward the right paw, which holds a nickel-plated rod, with which it carefully opens the lid of a basket in front, the paw holding the pan containing the article having taken a position over the lid. On lowering the pan, the article drops on the lid, then the pan is raised again to allow the lid of the basket to be closed a second time. The cat follows these movements with its head, and ends with a bow of thanks. The article falls through the basket into a receptacle in front of the machine. The figure is dressed in satin. and the seat and floor are covered with velvet. The net weight of the complete machine is 136 lbs., and the weight crated, 190 lbs. The size of the case is 32 ins. high x 14 1/2 ins. square. The stand is 30 ins. high x 16 ins. square. The full height with sign is 6 ft. 2 ins.

Mutoscope #5 -- July 25, 2014

The blue clamshell Mutoscope at Disneyland. In 2011, I did not get to watch any movies on the Disneyland Mutoscopes. I saw another Mutoscope in Virginia City and did not get to watch that one, either.