Snapshots of the Past

Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope – Vintage Wall Art

Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope, New York : Metropolitan Print Company, c1896. — vintage poster
Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope, New York : Metropolitan Print Company, c1896.. Vintage poster from the Work & Industry collection.

(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)

Description

A window into the past: Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope, preserved in this vintage poster. Sourced directly from the Library of Congress, it represents an authentic piece of documented history.

The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. A fine choice for anyone who loves history, and a gift that gets noticed. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Snapshots of the Past, founded in 2001, has served tens of thousands of customers worldwide.

Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope

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Edison's greatest marvel" is the boast across this color lithograph, which advertised the Vitascope, a projector that showed moving pictures on a screen for a whole audience instead of one viewer at a time. Licensed under Thomas A. Edison's name, the machine was developed by Thomas Armat and C. Francis Jenkins and made its New York debut in spring 1896 in a vaudeville house, where films shared the bill with acrobats and singers. Posters like this one show how quickly showmen sold the new medium as spectacle, and the bold lettering and promotional tone reflect the theatrical advertising of the 1890s.

Created / publishedNew York : Metropolitan Print Company, c1896.
Medium1 print (poster) : lithograph, color ; 73 x 97 cm.
Genreand other venues
Notes29057B U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright by Raff & Gammon. No. 1. Published in: The tradition of technology : Landmarks of Western technology ... / Leonard C. Bruno. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1995, p. 250. No. 1. Published in: Eyes of the nation : a visual history of the United States / Vincent Virga and curators of the Library of Congress ; historical commentary by Alan Brinkley. New York : Knopf, 1997. No. 1a. Exhibited: On the Edge of Your Seat: Popular Theater and Film in Early 20th Century American Art, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2002-03. No. 1a. Exhibited: Moving Pictures : The Un-easy Relationship between American Art and Early Film" at the Williams College of Art
SubjectsEdison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva),--1847-1931--Associated objects. Motion picture theaters--1890-1900. Motion picture devices--1890-1900. Advertisements--1890-1900.
SourceLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Original scan1,536 × 1,208 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi
ReferenceAMZ-SOTP-HPA-117292

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