The Black Maria ( ) was

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventi ...

's film production studio in West Orange,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

. It was the world's first film studio.

History

In 1893, the world's first film production studio, the Black Maria, or the cinematographic Theater, was completed on the grounds of Edison's laboratories at West Orange, New Jersey, for the purpose of making film strips for the

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic approach that woul ...

. Construction of the building, which included a tar-paper-covered dark studio room with a retractable roof, began in December 1892 and was completed the following year at a cost of $637.67 ($ in dollars). In early May 1893 at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Edison conducted the world's first public demonstration of films shot using the Kinetograph in the Black Maria, with a Kinetoscope viewer. The exhibited film showed three people pretending to be blacksmiths. Annabelle Moore (née Annabella Whitford) in 1894

Annabelle Moore (née Annabella Whitford) in 1894

The first motion pictures made in the Black Maria were deposited for

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educatio ...

W. K. Dickson William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (3 August 1860 – 28 September 1935) was a British inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison. Early life William Kennedy Dickson was born on 3 August 1860 in ...

at the Library of Congress in August, 1893. In early January 1894, ''The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze'' (aka '' Fred Ott's Sneeze'') was one of the first series of short films made by Dickson for the Kinetoscope in Edison's Black Maria studio with fellow assistant Fred Ott. The short film was made for

publicity In marketing, publicity is the public visibility or Brand awareness, awareness for any Product (business), product, Service (economics), service, person or organization (company, Charitable organization, charity, etc.). It may also refer to the mov ...

purposes, as a series of still photographs to accompany an article in ''

Harper's Weekly ''Harper's Weekly, A Journal of Civilization'' was an American political magazine based in New York City. Published by Harper & Brothers from 1857 until 1916, it featured foreign and domestic news, fiction, essays on many subjects, and humor, ...

''. It was the earliest motion picture to be registered for copyright — composed of an optical record of Ott sneezing comically for the camera. The first films shot at the Black Maria included segments of magic shows, plays,

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

performances (with dancers and strongmen), acts from

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show William Frederick Cody (February 26, 1846January 10, 1917), known as "Buffalo Bill", was an American soldier, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory (now the U.S. state of Iowa), but he lived for several years in ...

, various

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

matches and

cockfights A cockfight is a blood sport, held in a ring called a cockpit. The history of raising fowl for fighting goes back 6,000 years. The first documented use of the ''word'' gamecock, denoting use of the cock as to a " game", a sport, pastime or ...

, and scantily-clad women. Many of the early Edison moving images released after 1895, however, were non-fictional "actualities" filmed on location: views of ordinary slices of life — street scenes, the activities of police or firemen, or shots of a passing train. On Saturday, April 14, 1894, Edison's Kinetoscope began commercial operation. The

Holland Brothers Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16t ...

opened the first Kinetoscope Parlor at 1155

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and for the first time, they commercially exhibited movies, as we know them today, in their amusement arcade. Patrons paid ¢25 ($ in dollars) as the admission charge to view films in five kinetoscope machines placed in two rows. Nearly 500 people became cinema's first major audience during the showings of films with titles such as ''Barber Shop'', ''Blacksmiths'', ''Cock Fight'', ''Wrestling'', and ''Trapeze''. Edison's film studio was used to supply films for this sensational new form of entertainment. More Kinetoscope parlors soon opened in other cities (

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

Atlantic City Atlantic City, often known by its initials A.C., is a coastal resort city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States. The city is known for its casinos, boardwalk, and beaches. In 2020, the city had a population of 38,497.

, and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

). In 1901, the first public film was screened in

Oberlin, Ohio Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students. The town is the birthplace of th ...

, starting the transition from kinetoscope to screen. When Edison built a glass-enclosed rooftop movie studio in New York City, the Black Maria was closed in January 1901, and Edison demolished the building in 1903. The U. S.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properti ...

maintains a reproduction of the Black Maria, built in 1954 at what is now the Edison National Historic Site in West Orange. A previous reconstruction had been built and dedicated in May 1940 when MGM held the world premiere of '' Edison, the Man'' starring

Spencer Tracy Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. He was known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy was the first actor to win two cons ...

in theaters throughout

The Oranges The Oranges are a group of four municipalities in Essex County, New Jersey, all of which have the word ''Orange'' in their name. The four municipalities are Orange, East Orange, South Orange and West Orange. All of these communities were n ...

( West Orange, East Orange, South Orange, and

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

). The Black Maria was, according to the staff who worked there, a small and uncomfortable place to work. Edison employees

and Jonathan Campbell coined the name—it reminded them of police Black Marias, (police vans, also known as "paddywagons") of the time because they were also cramped, stuffy and a similar black color. Edison himself called it "The Doghouse", but that name never took hold. The Black Maria was covered in black tarpaper and had a huge window in the ceiling that opened up to let in sunlight because early films required a tremendous amount of bright light. It was built on a turntable so the window could rotate toward the sun throughout the day, supplying natural light for hundreds of Edison movie productions over its eight-year lifespan. When word spread about the new invention, performers flocked to the Black Maria from all over the country in order to be in the films. These

silent movies A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, whe ...

featured dancers, pugilists, magicians and vaudeville performers. Their appearances at the studio were used as publicity opportunities by Edison, who would often pose with the performers for newspaper articles.

Selected films shot at the Black Maria

* ''

Blacksmith Scene ''Blacksmith Scene'' (also known as ''Blacksmith Scene #1'' and ''Blacksmithing Scene'') is an 1893 American short black-and-white silent film directed by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish- French inventor who, while under the employ of Thoma ...

'' (1893) * ''Washing the Baby'' (1893) * ''Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze'', also known as '' Fred Ott's Sneeze'' (1894) * ''

The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton's) ''The Boxing Cats (Prof. Welton's)'', or simply ''Boxing Cats'', is an 1894 American short silent film directed by William K.L. Dickson and William Heise, and starring Henry Welton. It depicts a boxing match between two cats, each of which is ...

'' (1894) * ''

The Dickson Experimental Sound Film ''The Dickson Experimental Sound Film'' is a film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto- sound-film sy ...

'' (1894/95) * ''Fun in a Chinese Laundry'' (1896) * ''Sioux Ghost Dance'' * ''Buffalo Bill's Shooting Skill'' * ''Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene''

In popular culture

*The Black Maria Film and Video Festival, established in 1981, was named for Edison's creation; since 2021 the event has been known as the Thomas Edison Film Festival. *Edison's Black Maria studio is used in

Hans-Jürgen Syberberg Hans-Jürgen Syberberg (born 8 December 1935) is a German film director, whose best known film is his lengthy feature '' Hitler: A Film from Germany''. Early life Born in Nossendorf, Pomerania, the son of an estate owner, Syberberg lived un ...

's movie '' Hitler: A Film from Germany'' in which it appears as a décor for some scenes.Adams, John
"Hitler, a Film from Germany, DVD review"
in Movie Habit. Retrieved March 11, 2008.

References

Bibliography * Robinson, David (1997). ''From Peepshow to Palace: The Birth of American Film''. New York and Chichester, West Sussex: Columbia University Press.

External links

Black Maria Film Festival

{{Authority control Mass media companies established in 1893 Mass media companies disestablished in 1901 Buildings and structures completed in 1893 Buildings and structures demolished in 1903 1890s in American cinema Buildings and structures in Essex County, New Jersey Defunct American film studios Landmarks in New Jersey West Orange, New Jersey Thomas Edison Mass media in New Jersey Articles containing video clips Film production companies of the United States Film production companies established in the 1890s