The Man Who Made Movies: W.K.L. Dickson [Hardcover]

W.K.L. Dickson was Thomas Edison's assistant in charge of the experimentation that led to the Kinetoscope and Kinetographthe first commercially successful moving image machines. In 18911892, he established what we know today as the 35mm format. Dickson also designed the Black Maria film studio and facilities to develop and print film, and supervised production of more than 100 films for Edison. After leaving Edison, he became a founding member of the American Mutoscope Company, which later became the American Mutoscope & Biograph, then Biograph. In 1897, he went to England to set up the European branch of the company. Over the course of his career, Dickson made between 500 and 700 films, which are studied today by scholars of the early cinema. This well-illustrated book offers a window onto early film history from the perspective of Dickson's own oeuvre.

A window onto the development of Edison's moving-image machine

Paul Spehr is former Assistant Chief of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division at the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.

. . . recounts the contributions of Thomas Edison's assistant in charge of experimentation whose work led to the development of the first commercially successful moving image machines. . . . a valuable and comprehensive history.Vol. 40.3 July-Sept. 2009

Prologue: Introducing Mr. Dickson
1. Family matters
2. Goerck Street
3. The Business of Invention; Electricity, Ore, and the PHonograph
4. Personal Matters
5. From a Ladies' Watch to a Locomotive: the New Laboratory
6. The Germ of an Idea
7. The Kineto-Phonograph: The Begninning of a Quest
8. Trials, Errors, Mergers, Shenanigans, and Speculation
9. Competition!
10. A Certain Precipitate of Knowledge: The Kinetograph, Spring 1889
11. Mr. Edison Triumphs in Europe and Dickson has a Busy Summer
12. Good Morning, Mr. Edison : The Strip Kintograph
13. Caveat, Film, an announcement andl#.