This Day in History: 1895-12-28

Lumière brothers first films are premiered  on this day in 1895 at the Grand Cafe in Boulevard des Capucines  in Paris, marking the beginning of the age of cinema. The Lumiere’s contribution was both technical and conceptual.  Their device allowed motion pictures to be projected on a screen for a large audience, unlike the earlier Kinetoscope, invented by Thomas Edison, which was only designed for  “peepshow” style individual viewing.  The Lumiere vision was to“get the picture out of the box,” and to put it on a big screen where everyone could see it.  Auguste and Luis Lumiere (pictured to the right), along with their father Antoine,  ran a company that was already the leader in French still photography, (like Kodak in the US). Louis had patented a method for dry plate photography at the age of 17, and the Lumiere factory in Lyon employed dozens of workers churning out photo chemicals, plates and papers.   The breakthrough came in 1894, when, one night, unable to sleep, a solution to the problem of projecting film came to Luis. The system allowed film to be advanced, held, and exposed (or projected), using a mechanism similar to a sewing machine. The amazing first Lumiere films can be seen today on the digital screen, here (on YouTube) and here (on OpenCulture).