On a winter day in 1895, a Quaker inventor brought his movie projector into the halls of the Franklin Institute and stunned its distinguished guests.
The Phantoscope, as C. Francis Jenkins dubbed his device, advanced early film technology with its sharper images and large format display. The Franklin Institute's science and arts committee declared it a "marvel" that "enable(s) us to reproduce the movements of life for analysis, profit and pleasure," awarding Jenkins its most prestigious honor in 1897.
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But nearly three decades later, this revolutionary invention would plunge the Franklin Institute into a massive dispute with one of the movie industry's biggest innovators — and perhaps the most famous inventor of the day — Thomas Edison.
Early movie technology
A beef of this magnitude could perhaps only have happened at the Franklin Institute. In the late 19th century, it was not yet the Logan Square museum we know today but a hub for scientific thought where the most brilliant minds of the day lectured and demonstrated their inventions. Named after Philadelphia's best-known scientist, Benjamin Franklin, it bestowed awards to vanguards like Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla and Albert Einstein. (Some of those prizes are still granted today.) According to Susannah Carroll, the museum's director of curatorial collections, the institute's only peer was the Smithsonian.
When Jenkins came to the institute, film technology was still in its nascent stage. British photographer Eadweard Muybridge had introduced one of the earliest projectors in 1879; his zoopraxiscope spun static images on glass discs and cast them onto a wall with a lamp. This apparatus lent the photos of horses or dancing ladies the illusion of motion, like an illuminated flipbook. Building on this and other breakthroughs, Edison unveiled the Kinetoscope to the public in 1893. Developed by Edison employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson but often credited to his boss — this theme will return later — the bulky instrument projected a small loop of film inside a large box. Audiences could view the motion picture one person at a time through a peephole.
The next logical step in this evolution was a device that could project to a larger audience. In 1895, the Lumiére brothers demonstrated their Cinématographe, a more lightweight device that cast motion pictures for a crowd. But Jenkins claimed he projected a film for friends and family with his Phantoscope first, screening a movie against a bed sheet at his cousin's jewelry store in Richmond, Indiana in 1894. By Jenkins' account, he had been tinkering with the device since 1890, and the version he eventually presented in Philadelphia boasted features that were not yet standardized — like a perforator to puncture the edges of the film and ease its movement.
Colleen Claggett/for PhillyVoice
The Phantoscope entered the archives of the Franklin Institute in 1895, the same year C. Francis Jenkins presented his invention in Philadelphia.
"He's thinking about how to advance film, how to keep it moving, and then also the timing that it takes," Carroll said. "I think that's one thing that makes his apparatus different from certainly other projectors, 'cause there were very few … At this stage, he's thinking about how much light is being allowed behind the film. That, and keeping that film static long enough that your eye sees it, even though it's only a tenth of a second or so. So he kind of got that persistence of vision. He seemed very proud that he could project very clear image images, whereas what Edison had been doing, for example, had blurrier images."
Partnering on the Phantoscope
While Jenkins was still experimenting with his machine, he formed a partnership with Thomas Armat, his classmate at the Bliss Electrical School in Washington, D.C.. The pair developed the Phantoscope further and took it on the road to the Cotton States and International Exposition in Atlanta, where they projected films in 1895. But their collaboration soon devolved into a "really horrendous relationship," Carroll said, leading to the dissolution of their partnership. Each continued to work on the Phantoscope, incorporating different lighting apparatuses and other features, and claim it as his own.
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As Jenkins fine-tuned his version and took it to the Franklin Institute, his former partner courted a prominent buyer. With the help of prominent movie businessmen, Armat pitched Edison, who had recently opened the world's first film studio in New Jersey, on acquiring and developing his Phantoscope. Edison was interested, as long as he could rename and market the device as his own. The so-called Vitascope was operating in vaudeville theaters by 1896.
A Thomas Edison invention?
The Jenkins-Armat creative divorce first became an issue for the Franklin Institute in 1898, when Armat wrote letters protesting Jenkin's award. His complaint was dismissed after an internal investigation. The Franklin Institute continued to heap honors on Jenkins, giving him the Scott Medal for his motion picture apparatus in 1913. But in 1924, the institute started hearing from Edison and his cronies, who demanded the case be reopened.
"Edison was a good salesman, a good businessman," Carroll said. "I think you can tell, kind of, in the way that his name is on everything, but the actual inventors that work for his company are rarely mentioned. I don't think Edison felt that anyone compared to him."
This dispute was highly unusual, since the typical "protest period" for an award was the three months after the Franklin Institute published the notice in its journal. The committee in charge of the prizes was also known for its rigorous research and documentation, which tended to squash any complaints. But it nevertheless undertook another investigation to soothe Edison's persistent patent lawyer. It still ultimately sided with Jenkins, informing the opposition that he was the true inventor and Armat more of a financier.
After the fracas, Jenkins transitioned into television, creating mechanical technology for the medium before it pivoted to electronics. When he died in 1934, he had over 400 patents to his name.
The award Jenkins initially received for his invention, the Elliott Cresson Medal, no longer exists. But the Franklin Institute has held onto his Phantoscope prototype since 1895. When the museum's new core exhibits open in November, it will be on display.
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