ABSTRACT
Projected motion picture photography became a reality in the 1890s, but the dream of throwing moving pictures on a screen stretched back at least three centuries. But not until the early nineteenth century did Peter Mark Roget and others seriously consider the principle of persistence of vision, a concept fundamental to all moving pictures, drawn or photographed. Early film historians and journalists chose to perpetuate and embellish the legend of Edison's preeminence in the development of motion pictures. With the perfection of a moving picture camera in 1892, and the subsequent invention of the peep hole kinetoscope in 1893, the stage was set for the modern film industry. The kinetoscope provided a source of inspiration to other inventors; and, more importantly, its successful commercial exploitation convinced investors that motion pictures had a solid financial future. Motion pictures inhabited the physical and psychic space of the urban street life.
