Newark Athlete 1891

Directed by William K.L. Dickson

Produced May-June 1891, this experimental film fragment was one of the first made in America at the Edison Laboratory in West Orange, N.J. The filmmakers were W.K.L. Dickson and William Heise, both of whom were employed as inventors and engineers in the industrial research facility owned by Thomas Edison. Heise and especially Dickson made important technical contributions during 1891-1893 with a horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film. Leading to the invention of the world’s first successful motion picture camera—the Edison Kinetograph—and to the playback device required for viewing early peepshow films—the Edison Kinetoscope. Named to the National Film Registry in 2010.