| National Museum of American History

Red posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Fast Colors"; an attached photograph shows two men in blackface pretending to be royaltyCurrently not on view

Description: Red posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Fast Colors"; an attached photograph shows two men in blackface pretending to be royalty
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: PG.76.87.23
catalog number: 76.87.23
accession number: 2008.0095

Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Price Reduced"; two attached photographs show a scene from the movie - a group of women crowding a roadside clothing stand that is having a saleCurrently not on view

Description: Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Price Reduced"; two attached photographs show a scene from the movie - a group of women crowding a roadside clothing stand that is having a sale
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: PG.76.87.14
catalog number: 76.87.14
accession number: 2008.0095

Who’s Absent? Is it You? British World War I poster for the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 1915. Depicted is John Bull in a Union Flag waistcoat, pointing at the viewer in front of a line of British soldiers.Currently not on view

Description: Who’s Absent? Is it You? British World War I poster for the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee, 1915. Depicted is John Bull in a Union Flag waistcoat, pointing at the viewer in front of a line of British soldiers.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1915
associated date: 1917 - 1918

ID Number: AF.303736.22
accession number: 303736
catalog number: 77092M

Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "How the Weinies Worsted Charley." The hand-painted poster includes a photograph of a scene from the film showing Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character in a butcher's shop.

Description (Brief): Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "How the Weinies Worsted Charley." The hand-painted poster includes a photograph of a scene from the film showing Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character in a butcher's shop. Chaplin became one of the 20th century's most well-known and beloved characters for playing the bumbling everyman Tramp in films like "The Kid" and "Modern Times." Chaplin's star power made him a popular draw for mutoscope movies as well. It is unclear if Chaplin or an impersonator appeared as the Tramp character in this short, but the poster suggests that mutoscope exhibitors continued to offer moviegoers' favorites well into the 1920s.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

depicted (sitter): Chaplin, Charlie

ID Number: 2008.0095.020
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.020

Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Officer Do Your Duty"; an attached photograph shows a scene from the movie - Charlie Chaplin, as The Tramp, and dressed as a police officer, salutes a group of officialsCurrently not on view

Description: Blue posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Officer Do Your Duty"; an attached photograph shows a scene from the movie - Charlie Chaplin, as The Tramp, and dressed as a police officer, salutes a group of officials
Location: Currently not on view

depicted (sitter): Chaplin, Charlie

ID Number: PG.76.87.16
catalog number: 76.87.16
accession number: 2008.0095

Green posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "A Gentleman's Friend"; two small attached photographs show scenes from the movie - a huckster being kicked on a city streetCurrently not on view

Description: Green posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "A Gentleman's Friend"; two small attached photographs show scenes from the movie - a huckster being kicked on a city street
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: PG.76.87.04
catalog number: 76.87.4
accession number: 2008.0095

Posterboard with pre-printed design and painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Biddy the Irish Wash Woman." The attached photograph depicts a scene from the movie, in which a man dressed as a woman doing laundry falls into a washtub.

Description (Brief): Posterboard with pre-printed design and painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Biddy the Irish Wash Woman." The attached photograph depicts a scene from the movie, in which a man dressed as a woman doing laundry falls into a washtub. This poster showcases two comic themes common to early motion pictures - humor based on ethnic stereotypes and gender-bending performances in drag. Both were characteristic features of vaudeville and burlesque shows and therefore, early movie audiences found these subjects humorous and familiar. Mutoscope movies were primarily marketed to an urban and working-class demographic by the 1920s, when this poster was probably made, and films like this one showed a less serious side of America's growing and ethnically-diverse cities.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: ca 1920s

ID Number: 2008.0095.008
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.008

One of the Thousand Y.M.C.A. Girls in France. American World War I poster by artist Neysa McMein for the Y.M.C.A. United War Work Campaign, 1918. Depicted is a Y.M.C.A. canteen worker in uniform holding a steaming cup in her right hand and a stack of books in her left hand.

Description: One of the Thousand Y.M.C.A. Girls in France. American World War I poster by artist Neysa McMein for the Y.M.C.A. United War Work Campaign, 1918. Depicted is a Y.M.C.A. canteen worker in uniform holding a steaming cup in her right hand and a stack of books in her left hand. Behind her is the red triange symbol of the YMCA.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1918

ID Number: 1986.3051.04
catalog number: 1986.3051.04
nonaccession number: 1986.3051

Besides freeing all slaves held in areas of the United States under rebellion, the Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for black men to enlist in the United States Army. Around 190,000 African-Americans fought for the Union and made up one tenth of the entire Federal Army.

Description: Besides freeing all slaves held in areas of the United States under rebellion, the Emancipation Proclamation also allowed for black men to enlist in the United States Army. Around 190,000 African-Americans fought for the Union and made up one tenth of the entire Federal Army. Their successes in battle dispelled existing arguments that black men could not be trusted to bear arms. Despite this, they were only paid half as much a white soldiers, were often assigned menial tasks, and provided inferior clothing and medical care. The U.S.C.T. suffered an extremely high casualty rate, and 40,000 perished by the war’s end.; This print, published by the Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments, served as a recruitment poster for the U.S.C.T. In the illustration, 18 African American soldiers look out at potential black volunteers, calling upon them to join the fight in liberating those who remained enslaved. A black drummer boy plays in the lower right. The soldiers’ white commanding officer stands on the left, since black men could not become commissioned officers until the final months of the war. The men are stationed near Philadelphia at Camp Penn, the largest camp that exclusively trained U.S. Colored Troops. This image was based on a photograph taken in Philadelphia, in February 1864, of either Company C or G of the U.S.C.T.’s 25th Regiment.; Peter S. Duval, a French-born lithographer, was hired by Cephas G. Childs in 1831 to work for the firm of Childs & Inman in Philadelphia. Duval formed a partnership with George Lehman, and Lehman & Duval took over the business of Childs & Inman in 1835. From 1839 to 1843, Duval was part of the lithography and publishing house, Huddy & Duval. He established his own lithography firm in 1843, and was joined by his son, Stephen Orr Duval, in 1858.
Location: Currently not on view

Date made: 1863 -1865

maker: P.S. Duval & Son Lith.

ID Number: DL.60.3320
catalog number: 60.3320

Zeichnet 7. Kriegsanleihe (Subscribe to the 7th War Loan). Austrian World War I poster by artist Alfred Offner for the Vienna Commercial Bank, 1917. Depicted are Austrian soldiers with guns drawn crouching behind a wall of gold Austrian coins.Currently not on view

Description: Zeichnet 7. Kriegsanleihe (Subscribe to the 7th War Loan). Austrian World War I poster by artist Alfred Offner for the Vienna Commercial Bank, 1917. Depicted are Austrian soldiers with guns drawn crouching behind a wall of gold Austrian coins.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1917
associated date: 1917 - 1918

ID Number: AF.308845 [dup2]
accession number: 308845

The phrase Newest, Largest and Fastest on this 1952 poster captures the excitement surrounding the launching of the SS United States.

Description: The phrase Newest, Largest and Fastest on this 1952 poster captures the excitement surrounding the launching of the SS United States. Designed by naval architect and marine engineer William Francis Gibbs and built in Newport News, Virginia, the ship was delivered to its owners, the United States Lines, in 1952. It immediately took its place as the most modern (Newest) liner on the transatlantic route and the pride of the U.S. passenger fleet.; At launching, the SS United States was unquestionably the Largest U. S.-flagged passenger ship and the largest of the United States Lines’ fleet. Although at 990 feet in length it was slightly smaller than Britain’s 1,019-foot-long liner the Queen Mary, the SS United States could still carry about the same number of passengers while displacing significantly less water. The emphasis on size is suggested by the two smoke stacks (funnels) featured prominently on the poster. The funnels vented the combustion gases from the vessel’s four propulsion plants into the air. At the time, these structures were the largest ever built for this purpose. The company claimed that the funnels were so large that ten automobiles could be lined up side by side in each of them.; In terms of speed (Fastest), there was no contest. The poster artist conveys speed with the looped arrow and one can speculate that the loop represents the round-trip voyage on the ship’s regular service between the East Coast of the United States and Europe (New York / Havre / Southampton on the poster). The maiden voyage of the SS United States broke all records for a round trip with an average speed of 35.59 knots, or 39.50 miles per hour. The ship’s fastest speed was 38.32 knots, or 44 miles per hour. This speed was achieved by four separate steam turbine propulsion systems driving four separate propellers, each measuring 18 feet in diameter. Together these units produced 240,000 shaft horsepower.; The superlative nature of the SS United States was summed up by the British humor magazine Punch when it commented, on the arrival of the ship in port on her maiden voyage: “After the loud and fantastic claims made in advance for the liner United States, it comes as something of a disappointment to find them all true.”

ID Number: 1991.0856.13
catalog number: 1991.0856.13
accession number: 1991.0856

Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Now You Stop." Two attached photographs show a scene from the film, in which a woman dances on a stage beside a sign reading "Salome Dance." The dancer is shown to be accosted by a woman in a shawl fr

Description (Brief): Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Now You Stop." Two attached photographs show a scene from the film, in which a woman dances on a stage beside a sign reading "Salome Dance." The dancer is shown to be accosted by a woman in a shawl from the audience. This movie refers to the contemporary controversy over the overt sexuality in depictions of the biblical character Salome. She was a frequent character in stage, opera and motion picture productions at the turn of the twentieth century.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 2008.0095.023
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.023

Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Western Courage" with painted representations of Native American crafts. Two attached photographs are stills from the film showing Native Americans dancing by a teepee and a white man tied to a tree.

Description (Brief): Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Western Courage" with painted representations of Native American crafts. Two attached photographs are stills from the film showing Native Americans dancing by a teepee and a white man tied to a tree. By the turn of the century, American cultural commentators were bemoaning the closing of the nation's western frontier, and Native Americans became frequent features in motion pictures which depicted the old West. Tribal customs were reduced to stereotypical "Indian" character behavior in films such as this one, where Native Americans are depicted as simplistic and hostile to white settlers.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 2008.0095.011
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.011

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 1978.0010.10
accession number: 1978.0010
catalog number: 1978.0010.10
accession number: 85357M

This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of “Biotech Bay” (the San Francisco Bay area) in 1991.

Description (Brief): This poster depicts some of the biotechnology firms of “Biotech Bay” (the San Francisco Bay area) in 1991. It was created by artist Kat Wilson for Synergistic Designs, a promotional media publisher.; Starting in 1984, Synergistic Designs created a series of artwork maps it dubbed “FusionScapes” to promote regional areas of high technology, particularly biotechnology. The maps depicted local businesses and research facilities, and were intended to serve as “both a fun conversation piece and an effective line of corporate image-enhancement tools.” Concentrated centers of biotechnology throughout the United States were given catchy nicknames referring to the region and its ties to genetics. Among these names were “Genetown” (a play on “Beantown” for the greater Boston area) and “BioForest” (the name for the Pacific Northwest biotech industry.); Companies, universities, and research facilities in the biotech field paid to be included on the maps as well as in regional directories, which were updated every other year. The maps were printed on posters, postcards, T–shirts and other promotional ephemera, and could be modified to highlight specific institutions. By the mid-1990s, Synergistic Designs shifted its emphasis from traditional printed promotional materials to a website that integrated all of the regions of biotechnology in a single space. BioSpace.com launched in 1996 with the intention of being a “virtual on-going trade conference for the global biotech industry.” The site was still live and publishing new regional biotech maps as of 2012.; Today, the older maps provide unique historical snapshots of the development of the biotechnology industries in the different regions of the United States.; Sources:; “Synergistic designs unveils 4th Biotech Bay promotional campaign; demonstrates biospace web site enhancements” PR Newswire.; “Md. Biotech industry setting up Web site ‘Nonstop trade show’ starts next month at www.biospace.com.” Guidera, Mark. Baltimore Sun. August 28, 1996.; 1994 Biotech Bay Directory; Accession File

date made: 1991

maker: Synergistic Designs

ID Number: 1994.3092.01
catalog number: 1994.3092.01
nonaccession number: 1994.3092

Posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "A Raid in New York Tenderloin"; an attached photograph shows a group of people pleading with a police officer in a tavernCurrently not on view

Description: Posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "A Raid in New York Tenderloin"; an attached photograph shows a group of people pleading with a police officer in a tavern
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: PG.76.87.17
catalog number: 76.87.17
accession number: 2008.0095

Green posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "No Wedding Bells for Him." Two attached photographs, stills from the film, show two men and a woman arguing in a park.The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic

Description (Brief): Green posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "No Wedding Bells for Him." Two attached photographs, stills from the film, show two men and a woman arguing in a park.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 2008.0095.027
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.027

A campaign broadside in support of Andrew Johnson.Currently not on view

Description: A campaign broadside in support of Andrew Johnson.
Location: Currently not on view

associated date: 1864

associated person: Johnson, Andrew

ID Number: PL.227739.1864.F06
catalog number: 227739.1864.F06

Green posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "He Got What He Wanted." The poster includes two attached photographs depicting action from the movie - a man stealing a kiss from a woman who rejects his advances.

Description (Brief): Green posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "He Got What He Wanted." The poster includes two attached photographs depicting action from the movie - a man stealing a kiss from a woman who rejects his advances. Mutoscope posters commonly offered glimpses of the romantic climax of the films they advertised.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 2008.0095.004
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.004

Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Nosie Josie" promising to reveal how the title character "butts into a quarrel and gets trimmed down to her lingerie." Three attached photographs show scenes from the film, a sixty-second short feature for w

Description (Brief): Posterboard with painted advertisement for the mutoscope motion picture "Nosie Josie" promising to reveal how the title character "butts into a quarrel and gets trimmed down to her lingerie." Three attached photographs show scenes from the film, a sixty-second short feature for which this poster was the primary selling tool. Accordingly, the poster hints at a level of risque content which ca. 1900 censors would have had reason to ban. Though mild by modern standards, Josie's Victorian-era bloomers would not have been an everyday sight for male cinema goers at the time.
Description: The Mutoscope Collection in the National Museum of American History’s Photographic History Collection is among the most significant of its kind in any museum. Composed of 3 cameras, 13 viewers, 59 movie reels and 53 movie posters, the collection documents the early years of the most successful and influential motion picture company of the industry’s formative period. It also showcases a unique style of movie exhibition that outlasted its early competitors, existing well into the 20th century.; The American Mutoscope Company was founded in 1895 by a group of four men, Elias Koopman, Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson, to manufacture a motion picture viewer called the mutoscope and to produce films for exhibition. Dickson had recently left the employ of Thomas Edison, for whom he had solved the problem of “doing for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear” by inventing the modern motion picture. Casler and Dickson worked together to perfect the mutoscope, which exhibited films transferred to a series of cards mounted in the style of a flip book on a metal core, and avoided Edison’s patents with this slightly different style of exhibition. The company’s headquarters in New York City featured a rooftop studio on a turntable to ensure favorable illumination, and the short subjects made here found such success that by 1897, the Edison company’s dominance of the industry was in danger. American Mutoscope became American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1899, when the namesake projector, invented by Casler, became the most used in the industry.; Mutoscope viewers were found in many amusement areas and arcades until at least the 1960s. Their inexpensiveness and short, often comical or sensational subjects allowed the machines a far longer life than the competing Edison Kinetoscope. The company also found success in its production and projection of motion pictures, though its activity was mired by patent litigation involving Thomas Edison through the 1910s. The notable director D. W. Griffith was first hired as an actor, working with pioneering cinematographer G. W. “Billy” Bitzer, before moving behind the camera at Biograph and making 450 films for the company.; Griffith and Bitzer invented cinematographic techniques like the fade-out and iris shot, made the first film in Hollywood and launched the careers of early stars Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. The company, simply renamed the Biograph Company in 1909, went out of business in 1928 after losing Griffith and facing a changing movie industry.; The Museum’s collection was acquired in the years between 1926 and the mid-1970s. The original mutograph camera and two later models of the camera were given to the Smithsonian in 1926 by the International Mutoscope Reel Company, which inherited Biograph’s mutoscope works and continued making the viewers and reels through the 1940s. The viewers, reels and posters in the collection were acquired for exhibition in the National Museum of American History, and were later accessioned as objects in the Photographic History Collection. Many of the mutoscope reels in the collection date to the period from 1896-1905, and show early motion picture subjects, some of which were thought to be lost films before their examination in 2008.
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: 2008.0095.007
accession number: 2008.0095
catalog number: 2008.0095.007

Sousscrivez! Et Nous Aurens La Victoire (Subscribe! And We Will Be Victorious). French World War I poster by artist Imre Karoly Simay for the National Loan, 1918. Depicted is a tank coming out of a trench and barbed wire on a battlefield.Currently not on view

Description: Sousscrivez! Et Nous Aurens La Victoire (Subscribe! And We Will Be Victorious). French World War I poster by artist Imre Karoly Simay for the National Loan, 1918. Depicted is a tank coming out of a trench and barbed wire on a battlefield.
Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1918
associated date: 1917 - 1918

ID Number: AF.65963M
catalog number: 65963M
accession number: 232120

Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Our Gang Free for All"; an attached photograph shows a scene from the movie - a group of children surrounds a man being tied up in the middle of a streetCurrently not on view

Description: Purple posterboard with painted advertisement for mutoscope motion picture "Our Gang Free for All"; an attached photograph shows a scene from the movie - a group of children surrounds a man being tied up in the middle of a street
Location: Currently not on view

ID Number: PG.76.87.13
catalog number: 76.87.13
accession number: 2008.0095

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

date made: 1967

ID Number: 1988.0239.01
catalog number: 1988.0239.01
accession number: 1988.0239

Currently not on view

Location: Currently not on view

Associated Name: Wales, Wally

ID Number: PG.76.87.11
accession number: 2007.3053; 2008.0095

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