1877  Edweard Muybridge demonstrates high - speed photography Prior to 1877, no one really knew how a horse's legs moved while the animal was running at full speed. The motion of a horse's legs were a blur, even to the best eyes. Because of a phenomenon known as persistence of vision, the human eye holds onto an image for a short period of time, causing blurring when rapid motion is observed. After two wealthy horse racers placed bets as to whether a horse ever had all four legs off the ground at the same time, American photographer Edweard Muybridge set up an experiment to test this. He placed twenty - four cameras with shutters hooked to trip wires set a fixed, uniform distance apart. As a horse raced past, he would break the wires, thus snapping 24 pictures of itself. Muybridge's photos showed conclusively that a horse does in fact have all four legs in the air for a fleeting moment during each repetition of the motions in its gait.

Persistence of vision: the retention of a visual image for a short period of time after the removal of the stimulus that produced it: the phenomenon that produces the illusion of movement when viewing motion pictures. Peter Mark Roget, British physicist

1888 Thomas Edison meets Eadweard Muybridge, who shows him his zoopraxiscope; Edison sets William K. L. Dickson and other assistants to work to make a kinetoscope, "an instrument which does for the Eye what the phonograph does for the Ear".
Edison’s assistant, William Dickson solved the mechanical problem of moving celluloid film through a camera, developing the sprocket system still in use. Edison files his first caveat (a Patent Office document in which one declares his work on a particular invention in anticipation of filing a patent application) on the Kinetoscope and Kinetograph on October 8.

In 1891 a peep-hole viewing machine shown by Edison on May 20 to participants from the National Federation of Women's Clubs.
The device was marketed as a peepshow novelty. It showed a continuous loop of about 50 feet of film (lasted about 1 minute). Edison patented the battery driven camera (kinetograph) and kinetoscope, but neglected to obtain international copy rights.

1893 Construction of the film studio known to Edison employees as the "Black Maria" completed in February; earliest Edison motion pictures were filmed there.

In 1894 Edison wrote: “ I am very doubtful if there is any commercial future in it and fear that they will not earn their cost. These Zoetropic devices are of too sentimental a character to get the public to invest in” (They seemed to Edison to be a frivolity.)

By the spring of 1895, Edison was offering kinetophones--kinetoscopes with phonographs inside their cabinets. The viewer would look into the peep-holes of the kinetoscope to watch the motion picture while listening to the accompanying phonograph through two rubber ear tubes connected to the machine. The picture and sound were made somewhat synchronous by connecting the two with a belt. Although the initial novelty of the machine drew attention, the decline of the kinetoscope business and Dickson's departure from Edison ended any further work on the kinetophone for 18 years.

Vitascope: Amateur inventor Thomas Armat (1866-1948) developed a machine that could project kinetograph short films, and Edison bought the apparatus outright, dubbing it the “Vitascope.” On April 23, 1896, he showed 12 “living pictures” at the Koster and Bials Music Hall in New York: Sea Waves, Umbrella Dance (the first colour–tinted print), The Barber Shop, A Boxing Bout, Venice – Showing Gondolas, Kaiser Wilhelm Reviewing His Troops, Skirt Dance and The Bar Room.

Cinematographe: A device that not only took pictures but printed and projected them as well developed by the Lumière brothers Louis and Auguste. Their 16-frame per second speed became the standard for silent film. In December 1895 the Lumières  organized the first film projection for a paying public. Like Edison they recorded events rather than creating stories: The shift ends at the Lumiere factory in Lyon, The Arrival of a Train at Grand Central Station. They made at least 1 425 45-second films between 1895 and 1902.
"The cinema is an invention without a future."
-Louis Lumiere

Story films and nickelodeons in America from about 1905 on – 1903 The Great Train Robbery (dir. Edwin Porter)

Regulation of production: In 1908 to 1917– Motion Picture Patents Company – control over the industry by requiring all producers and exhibitors of motion pictures to have licenses.

Regulation of theaters: New York crisis of 1908 – public pressure on the mayor to close the nickelodeons.
Moving Pictures Exhibitors' Association formed in response.  In 1913 – legislation incl. Provisions for fire protection, ventilation, sanitation, exits and structure, seat limits increased, vaudeville acts – banned.

Regulation of content: 1909 – National Board of Censorship of Motion Pictures. Elimination of scenes dealing with sex, drugs and crime, prostitution.

The star system: started in the phonogrph industry – the Victor Company sold records by promoting individual performers – Enrico Caruso. Promotion of movie stars as models of glamorous way of life; consumer culture.

Attraction to the working class: After a day spent in an impersonal office or factory, Americans increasingly flocked to amusement parks, department stores and movie theaters to compensate for the changes in their lives. Trend toward pleasure and entertainment.