By Teghan O'Connell
In 1890, the pressure for someone to create a motion picture camera was high. Thomas Edison was in the process of creating his kinetograph, and Louis Le Prince was working towards his single-lense motion picture camera and projector. Everyone knows Thomas Edison’s name, but no one has heard of Louis Le Prince, even though his invention is most like the one that we use today.
So, who was Louis Le Prince? And why has no one heard about him?
Louis Le Prince was a French inventor who primarily worked in Leeds, England. In 1888, while living in England, he created and patented (in both the US and England) a 16-lens camera that he claimed could function both as a projector and video camera.[1] He used the single lens version of this camera to film Roundhay Garden Scene in October of 1888, the oldest surviving film. [2] This film predates all other attempts by at least five years.
Le Prince spent the next few years perfecting the projection aspect of his invention. Unfortunately, he disappeared under mysterious circumstances in September of 1890, just weeks before he was set to present his invention in New York City. He has never been found. [3]
Today, the Lumiere Brothers and Thomas Edison are credited with the creation of motion picture, however their works were unveiled years after Le Prince was set to present the success of his single-lense motion picture camera and projector in New York City.
Thomas Edison created a working motion picture camera that he called a kinetograph, which he patented in 1891 along with its viewing device, the kinetoscope. [4] The kinetograph works by moving a sheet of film rapidly in front of an incandescent light, creating the illusion of movement when viewed through the kinetoscope. [5] The Lumiere Brothers, inspired by this invention, worked to make it better by incorporating a projector into the device. When finalized in 1895, the cinematograph was able to project onto a screen so that large audiences could view, as well as produce sharper images than the kinetograph. [6] The Lumiere Brother’s device was also relatively portable, when compared to Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope and kinetograph. [7]
In the years following his disappearance, Le Prince’s son Adolphe testified on his father’s behalf in a patent infringement lawsuit filed by Thomas Edison in 1902. [8] Edison claimed that the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company had infringed on his patent of the kinetoscope by creating and using a machine called a mutoscope. The machine was created by a man named WLK Dickson, who was previously an assistant at Thomas Edison’s labs during the time that he produced the kinetoscope. Edison claimed that the function of the mutoscope was akin to that of the kinetoscope, and therefore Edison should have been entitled to royalty fees. Edison lost the case, because the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Southern District of New York decided that Edison was not the sole intellectual owner of all motion picture apparatuses and only owned specific parts of the kinetoscope. [9] The defense (American Mutoscope and Biograph Company) brought forth a series of witnesses who testified to their own process of creating a motion picture camera, proving that Thomas Edison is not the sole intellectual owner. One of the witnesses called was Adolphe Le Prince, the son of Louis. He was able to testify to the process of creating his father’s motion picture camera as he often helped Louis in his lab.[10]
[1] Kieron Casey, The mystery of Louis Le Prince, the Father of Cinematography, Science and Media Museum (Aug. 29, 2013), https://blog.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/louis-le-prince-created-the-first-ever-moving-pictures/
[2] Various Authors, Roundhay Garden Scene, Wikipedia (Jan. 25, 2025, 1:24 PM), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundhay_Garden_Scene
[3] Various Authors, Louis Le Price, Wikipedia (Jan. 30, 2025, 5:05 PM), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Le_Prince
[4] History.com Editors, Thomas Edison patents the kinetograph, History (Aug. 28, 2024), https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/edison-patents-the-kinetograph
[5] Connie Deng, Kinetograph, Britannica (Apr. 28, 2023), https://www.britannica.com/technology/Kinetograph
[6] Various Authors, Cinematograph, Wikipedia (Jan. 21, 2025, 12:44 AM), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinematograph
[7] History.com Editors, Thomas Edison, History (Oct. 17, 2023), https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/thomas-edison
[8] Various Authors, Adolphe Le Prince, Wikipedia (Jan. 4, 2025, 1:08 AM), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolphe_Le_Prince
[9] Richard Brown and Stephen Herbert, Thomas Edison, the Mutoscope, and the Syracuse Connection, Onondaga Historical Association (accessed Feb. 4, 2025), https://www.cnyhistory.org/2015/05/edison-mutoscope-syracuse/
[10] Edison v. American Mutoscope Company 1902, The History of American Film: Primary Sources (Feb. 4, 2025), https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/teachers/historyonline/edison_mutoscope.cfm