The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence, interoffice communications, and other documents relating to the technical and commercial development of motion pictures. The documents deal mainly with Edison's home kinetoscope and his kinetophone (motion pictures with sound), both of which were ready to be marketed by the end of 1912. Included are items dealing with experimental and design work; exhibitions, advertising, and sales; the appointment and administration of staff; and meetings of committees. Also included is a contract between Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and the American Talking Picture Co.—an organization controlled by vaudeville managers and theater owners Edward F. Albee, Martin Beck, A. Paul Keith, and John J. Murdock. Some of the documents concern the testing of samples of Boroid film, celluloid, and fabrikoid. Among the correspondents are Frank L. Dyer, president of Thomas A. Edison, Inc.; chief engineers Donald M. Bliss and Miller Reese Hutchison; photography experimenters Charles L. Brasseur and Willard C. Greene; John Pelzer of the Kinetograph Department; and William Walter Dinwiddie, a specialist in the production of educational and scientific films.

Approximately 40 percent of the documents have been selected. The following categories of documents have not been selected: letters of transmittal and acknowledgment, including some relating to the submission of unsolicited scenarios; unsolicited correspondence requesting advice or information from Edison for which no substantive response has been found.