Today, August 24, 2026, marks exactly 135 years since one of the most significant technological events in human history. On this day in 1891, legendary American inventor Thomas Alva Edison officially filed for patents for the Kinetograph (the first working motion picture camera) and the Kinetoscope (the device for individual viewing of captured footage). With this act, Edison and his team gave a powerful boost to the modern entertainment industry, which later became the multi-billion dollar phenomenon Hollywood.
According to historical archives, Edison's idea was to create a device that "would make for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear“. The development was entrusted to his talented assistant William Kennedy Laurie Dixon. It was he who managed to construct a working camera using 35mm celluloid film with perforations – a standard that would remain in cinema for more than a century.
The birth of motion pictures and the first “TikTok“ videos
The first films shot with the kinetograph seem naive to us today, but for their time they were a real miracle. They included short scenes such as a sneezing man, boxing cats or dancers. As chroniclers in The Nation's historical reviews note, the public initially viewed the invention with a certain amount of humor and distrust before realizing its revolutionary potential.
The playback device - the kinetoscope - was a large wooden box with an eyepiece. The viewer had to to look through a small hole (spyhole) to see the moving image. The official patent specifications show the complex mechanism of gears and a rotating shutter that provides the illusion of movement through the phenomenon of “persistence of vision“.
From a wooden box to global showbiz
Although Edison initially considered the movie camera to be just a “interesting toy“ and failed to patent his invention in Europe, the success of the first Kinetoscope parlor on Broadway in New York in 1894 changed everything. Later, European inventors, inspired by his device, developed the first public projectors for mass screens, taking cinema out of the box and into large theaters.
In the era of streaming platforms, artificial intelligence and shooting 8K video with a mobile phone, it is important to remember that it all started in a laboratory in New Jersey with a 15-meter celluloid tape.