The Panopticon--A look at the United States



On April 21st 1895, Woodville Latham, and his two sons Otway and Gray, first demonstrated their "Panopticon" (later renamed Eidoloscope) film projector; this was the first ever film projector in the United States. Up until this time, the U.S. populous had only ever been exposed to Edison's Kinetoscope; with the Kinetoscope, films could only be viewed one-viewer-at-a-time through "peep-show" style boxes. The Latham's are also credited with the invention of the Latham Loop; a loop placed in the film strip that enabled the film to gently wind over from back to front; allowing for longer sequences of film to be projected smoothly.
As we learned in class last week, the Lumière Brothers also first debuted their first film projector to audiences in France in 1895; this film projector was named the "Cinematographe". I find the close proximity of these two innovations very intriguing and wonder what these two film engineering contemporary families thought of each other from across the Atlantic. 
A recurring question I have is: Did the Lumière brothers create their own version of the Latham loop? 

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