The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence, patents, drawings, and other documents relating to the kinetoscope, the mutoscope, and additional machines for filming and exhibiting motion pictures. The one selected item is a 1905 letter from Frank L. Dyer to Alex T. Moore, manager of the Kinetoscope Department of the Edison Manufacturing Co. The letter concerns the company's plans to manufacture "a moving picture exhibiting machine similar to the mutoscope for use in combination with the phonograph" and possible infringements of the patents of other inventors.

The unselected material consists primarily of approximately thirty U.S. patents pertaining to the kinetoscope, the mutoscope, and other machines. Most of the patents were issued to inventors in the United States, including Herman Casler, Henry O. Costello, Warren B. Davis, William K. L. Dickson, Charles T. Ellsworth, C. Francis Jenkins, Grace L. Jenkins, Harry N. Marvin, Enoch J. Rector, and Lawrence P. Thompson. Also included are patents issued to European residents, such as Auguste and Louis Lumière of France; William S. Simpson and Henry W. Short of Great Britain; and Oskar Messter of Germany.