It was in the Black Maria that some of the first movies in the United States were filmed. They were short productions, none of them exceeding about 30 seconds. The films were designed to be shown in the Kinetoscope, a peep show device. The patron would drop a nickel in a slot, peer through a magnifying glass, and view a bit of action -- a fragment of a vaudeville act, a smidgen of a Broadway play, a magician's trick, or the turn of a dancer. The movie clattered through the upright wooden contraption on a 50-foot continuous loop of 35mm film. The films, of course, were silent.

The tar-papered Black Maria was the color of a police paddy wagon, hence its nickname. It was even painted black on the inside. Part of its roof opened on hinges to allow the sun to shine upon the shooting stage. Sunlight was the only light source strong enough to register an image on the slow film emulsion of the day. If the sun happened to be on an inconvenient side of the Black Maria, the building was simply rotated on casters to face in the proper direction.

The shooting stage was tiny -- barely 12 feet square. Facing the stage was a huge wooden camera -- officially called the "Kinetograph." Edison called it "The Doghouse." And, indeed, it could have served such a purpose if the camera mechanism was removed, and depending on the size of the dog of course. The camera was so large, in fact, that it took two strong men to manhandle it. For this reason, it was never removed from the building and always pointed in one direction. If a close shot was needed, the subjects simply moved toward the camera.

Both the Kinetograph and the Kinetoscope were patented in 1891.

The first cinematographers were William Heise and W.K.L. Dickson. Dickson had actually developed the motion picture under Edison's direction. But it was the inventor's practice to assign projects to employees in his West Orange laboratory and, if the scheme worked out, Edison would grab the credit.

Projection of films on a screen, in front of an audience, was the last thing on Edison's mind when he first publicly demonstrated his Kinetoscope, in 1893, at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences. He thought movies were just a fad. But the first Kinetoscope parlor opened in New York, followed by similar openings all over the country. The Black Maria suddenly became very busy producing short films for the peep show machines. Every time a new show hit town, Edison representatives were there enticing performers to claim their slice of immortality by appearing before The Doghouse.

Selected films shot at the Black Maria
Sioux Ghost Dance
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze, also known as Fred Ott's Sneeze
Blacksmith Scene (1893)
Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894/95)
Prof. Welton's Boxing Cats
Sioux Ghost Dance
Buffalo Bill's Shooting Skill
Cripple Creek Bar-Room Scene