Part Of: Edison General File Series -- 1914

[E1464-F] (E-14-64) Motion Pictures

This folder contains correspondence and other documents relating to the technical and commercial development of motion pictures in the United States and other countries. In addition to the incoming letters, there are numerous interoffice communications by executives, managers, experimenters, and other employees of Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Among the many documents pertaining to the kinetophone (Edison's system for talking motion pictures) are items regarding the construction of a new studio in the Kinetophone Film Plant Building in West Orange and detailed reports concerning market conditions in Europe, South America, and Japan. A communication of March 20, 1914, by Edison's personal representative and chief engineer Miller Reese Hutchison discusses a plan to obtain exclusive American rights to Agfa nonflammable film stock and then secure legislation banning flammable film. Communications by Hutchison of March 29 and April 2 contain detailed accounts of the fire at the Bronx motion picture studio. There are also references to the Home Kinetoscope and the use of motion pictures for educational purposes. The correspondents include engineer and longtime Edison associate Adolph F. Gall, who was attending to Edison's motion picture interests in Europe and Russia at the outbreak of World War I; Thomas Graf, one of Edison's principal representatives in Europe; and experimenter John H. Powrie.

Approximately 50 percent of the documents have been selected. The material not selected consists primarily of duplicates, letters of transmittal and acknowledgment, and unsolicited correspondence that received no substantive reply from Edison.

Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park.

Show all folders in the Edison General File category >>