science · 05 February 1870 · 154 years ago
In 1870, for the first time in the U.S. an animated photographic picture projection before a theatre audience was presented by Henry R. Heyl using his Phasmatrope. This was a converted projecting lantern in front of which rotated a disc with 16 openings near the edge, each carrying a photographic plate. The series of plates showed dancers, who appeared to move as the rotating disc showed successive positions. The pictures were a continuous loop that did not change. The event was the Ninth Annual Entertainment of the Young Men's Society of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church of Philadelphia, held at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, Pa.
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