Mutoscope

This article is about an early motion-picture device. For non-motion-picture "mutoscope cards," typically of "pin-up" material, see Mutoscope cards.
An 1899 trade advertisement
Mutoscope at Herne Bay Museum
Mutoscope in San Francisco antique arcade
Mutoscope: "Mechanical Maniacs" video.

The Mutoscope is an early motion picture device, invented by W. K. L. Dickson and Herman Casler[1] and granted U.S. patent 549309A to Herman Casler on November 5, 1895.[2] Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only one person at a time. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system, marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company), quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot peep-show business.

  1. ^ Robinson, David (1996). From Peep Show to Palace: the Birth of American Film. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 56. ISBN 0-231-10338-7.
  2. ^ Spehr, Paul C. (2000). "Unaltered to Date: Developing 35mm Film," in Moving Images: From Edison to the Webcam, ed. John Fullerton and Astrid Söderbergh Widding, pp. 3–28 (p. 17). Sydney: John Libbey & Co.