On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, michael aronson wrote: > However, I'm looking for information on when motion picture > cameras first became available for purchase on the open market > in the US. If I had to guess, I would assume it might have been the > Cinématographe, or equivalent, sometime in the late 1890's but I'm > not sure where to confirm this. Any leads/info about companies, > camera models and costs would be greatly appreciated. Barry Salt mentions in passing in his quirky *Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis* (p. 41) that the earliest cameras descended from Edison's Kinetograph, including both Paul's and Melies's versions, and the Lumiere machine. The first seventy pages of SMP(T)E historical papers in Raymond Fielding, ed., *A Technological History of Motion Pictures* are more devoted to projection, although an interesting contribution by Oscar Depue relates his journeying to France to purchase a Demeny camera from Gaumont. My initial suspicion, given Tom's predilections, would be that the Edison machine would have been more available in the United States, although the Trust situation would be involved. I'm sure contacting the Edison Papers project in New Jersey could yield data on Edison prices, terms, and sales. I would canvas contemporary photographic supply house catalogues and photography periodicals of the era to see exactly what was available. Where one could locate such material is debatable, but both Eastman House and the old Engineering Societies Library (formerly in Manhattan, now, I think, at Kansas City) would be good starts. ___________________________________________________________________________ William Lafferty, PhD Associate Professor Department of Theatre Arts [log in to unmask] Wright State University office: (937) 775-4581 or 3072 Dayton, Ohio 45435-0001 USA facsimile: (937) 775-3787 I have been in the scholastic profession long enough to know that nobody enters it unless he has some very good reason which he is anxious to conceal. --- Augustus Fagin, Esq., PhD, in Evelyn Waugh's *Decline and Fall* Visit *Lake Michigan Maritime Marginalia* at http://www.wright.edu/~william.lafferty ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu