Edisonia Hall was a generic name for exhibition halls that displayed the various inventions of

Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 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 inventions ...

's company. These included the

phonograph A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

, the

Vitascope Vitascope was an early film projector first demonstrated in 1895 by Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat. They had made modifications to Jenkins' patented Phantoscope, which cast images via film and electric light onto a wall or screen. T ...

, 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 ...

and other such devices. The Edisonia Hall opened by

Mitchell Mark Mitchel Henry Mark (1868 – March 20, 1918) was a pioneer of motion picture exhibition and movie theaters in the United States. Early life Mitchel Henry Mark was born in 1868 in Richmond, Virginia. Early in his life, he moved to Buffalo, New Yo ...

and Moe Mark in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

in the Ellicott Square Building on October 19, 1896, had the distinction of hosting a Vitascope Theater (or "Theatre"). This was the first known dedicated, purpose-built motion picture theater in the world. The theater was referred to in newspapers of the day ('' Buffalo Express'', ''

Buffalo News ''The Buffalo News'' is the daily newspaper of the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area, located in downtown Buffalo, New York. It was for decades the only paper fully owned by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. On January 29, 2020, the ...

'', and others) as Vitascope Theater, Vitascope Hall, and the Electrical Theater. The majority of the first program of films were Lumiere Films obtained through Pathe Freres. In its first year of existence, more than 200,000 people visited to view motion pictures projected on a screen. The theater remained open for nearly two years, longer than any other early motion picture theater known. On November 25, 2007, the

published an article by Mark Sommer confirming the historical significance of this theater.Sommer, 2007

References

Notes {{reflist Sources * ''Buffalo Express'' 1886-10-19. * Ramsaye, Terry
''A Million and One Nights: A History of the Motion Picture''
(Abingdon, UK: Frank Cass, 2012) riginal edition: New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926* Sandhu, Ranjit. ''History of Buffalo Theaters''; unpublished manuscript, collection Buffalo and Erie County Public Library, Grosvenor Room. * Sommer, Mark
"Another groundbreaker for Buffalo: The nation's first motion picture theater may have been in Ellicott Square"
''Buffalo YNews'' 2007-11-25. * Sommer, Mark
"Scholars say movie theater debuted here"
''Buffalo YNews'' 2008-10-19.

External links

Cinema Treasures Historic Listing
''Buffalo Architecture and History'' website. Extensive references and photos. Tourist attractions in Buffalo, New York Cinemas and movie theaters in New York (state) Former cinemas in the United States