The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-11-29
History of Notion Picture Industry.
By BeatriZ Michelena.
CHAPTER

Cf1A6 L.
| never before wrote history, and
now, that | am seriously about it, |
am amazed and almost half bewildered
at the chase it leads one. First of all
| consulted people, who should know
the accepted method of doing the
thing, and they told me that l must
sift the matter to it's original
sources" With a hazy idea of what
that meant, I plunged at it hopefully
but for days since have found it al
most an endless job. | have sifte6
and narrowed and contracted, hoping
always to arrive at the problems ge-
Ometrical point, on and above which
its whole superstructure is reared but
am as yet not sure that ! have found
twill probably be uncertain about
it to the very end
Can 1 any where put my finger down
and say this is the thing,-at this
small point the motion industry be-
gins? What, after all, is an Original
source?" If, instead of motion pic
lures, 1 were talking about the eight
hour law, which congress passed and
President Wilson signed, and it's orig
enough when | arrived at the tea ket-
tie of boiling water, which begot an
idea in curious James Watts head.
which begot the steam engine, which
begot the railways, which begot a
| threatened railway employees strike
| or would | have to go further stin
and chase the metal, from which that
! tea kettle was made, to it's native
mountain ribs and those native noun
, tain ribs on back to what?
Whatever the answer, you can see
that it is nice question to raise in
way of introduction. If it be matter
of going back and back, | suppose,
| to find the original source of the mo-
ton picture industry, I would have to
trace the pedigree of certain horse
back through all it's ancestry and
| through all the stages of evolution OF
icreatiOn or whatever it is that devel-
I oped a name and tail and four good
trOtting legs, and when, in doing it,
L had come to the end of my rope, so
to speak, would be justified in say
ing that / had the original source OF
motion pictures, in so far as it was
| humanity possible to find it. How
ever with my readers permission, I'll
not be so exhaustive as all this 1t
was similar small job that kept a
scientist by the name of Darwin busy
most of his life time.
IF oho
above,-other than their attempt to
give my history an impressive intro
ductiOn, lies in the fact that before
motion pictures there was a horse, and
this particular horse stood in relation
to motion pictures about the same as
Darwin, just mentioned, tells us the
monkey stood to the human race. Both
stepped in rather prominently some
where down on their respective scales
of original sources.
My history, then, begins with a
horse.
1t was not trick horse, nor pie
bald horse, nor a cow pony 1t was
not such horse at all as is usually
found in the stables of a motion pic
ture plant AS matter of fact it was
completely ObliviOus of motion pic
lures. So was the whole world at that
time. 1t was in the year 1871.
This horse was of Arabian blood
q genuine aristocrat. It belonged to
Senator Leland Stanford of Califor-
mia, who built railroads, owned many
square miles of grazing, farming and
mining lands and otherwise accum-
ulated millions, which he spent in part
on senatorial campaign expenses,
founding a university and maintain
ing pedigreed stock farm. Senator
Stanford was man of gentlemanly
fads.
Opportunity, at this very time, con-
trOversy was rife in art circles con-
corning the exact position of a horse
when trotting very fast Some paint
ers held that one of the horses hoofs
should be always on the ground 9th
ers argued oppositely. Edward Muy-
bridge was among those who debated
He was more methodical, perhaps,
and more practical than artists are
supposed to be- He went to Senator
Stanford (some say Senator Stanford
came to him. and suggested an ex-
pertinent For if he would use the
senator's Occident, that being the
name of a horse If there was a trot-
ter anywhere swift enough to pull
all four feet off the ground at once
in an onward burst of speed, it was
this same Occident.
So Occident was harnessed and driv-
en- out into the track that was the
pride of Stanford's farm Muybridge,
unconscious of the tremendous role
he was playing, was there with his
apparatus The sky was a convential
blue. The lazy hum of early spring
was in the air. The fragrance of
flowers crowded in upon the track
The world lay half doing, contented,
and altogether unobserving under
meath a flood of California sun shine
1t was a good enough day for two
men in their shirt sleeves to play at
their hobbies, but to think Of serious
business-neveri So they proceeded
leisurely about their arrangements,
fixing this or that and quite uncon-
sciously setting the trap that was to
turn the amusement world 'topsy
turvy"
ITO be continued next week.
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