ABSTRACT
It was not a very long time ago that the history of moving images was considered to go back barely a 100 years. Their hundredth anniversary was celebrated either in 1994 or 1995. The former year was chosen in the United States, using the public introduction of the Edison Company’s Kinetoscope in 1894 as the landmark, while in France, the latter year was selected to commemorate Louis and Auguste Lumière’s first public screenings of films both shot and projected with their Cinématographe in 1895. As it often happens in the history of inventions, other candidates to the title of inventor of moving images were also suggested and the dates were adjusted along national, cultural, or technological lines. Yet whoever the “true inventor” may have been, the dates varied only slightly. The 1890s were, it was generally agreed, the period that gave birth to moving images.
