Image – An Audience Watching a Ballet Performance on a Vitascope (1896)

Vitascope Page

Chapter 19

Vitascope

The Vitascope was an early device for projecting images on a screen. Though Thomas Edison was not the inventor of the Vitascope, his Edison Manufacturing Company produced vitascopes and produced films for it, such the ballet Giselle, a scene from which is visible in this advertisement from 1896.

Questions for Analysis

1. Examine the image closely. What type of audience is being targeted by this advertisement? What details in the advertisement support your answer?

2. What is “modern” about this image? What is “un-modern” about it?