History
The mutoscope was a peep show-style movie viewer that was first manufactured by the American Mutoscope and Biograph company, and is notable for being one of the first means by which motion pictures were exhibited. The company gradually changed its focus to motion picture production and projection, and by the early 1920s, had stopped production of both mutoscopes and the movie reels that were played by the machines. The company also produced arcade photo booths under the name of "Photomatic". These produced a souvenir 2-5/8" x 3-1/16" metal-framed photo with the credit on the back, "Taken by the Photomatic."
Rather than allowing the format, still popular in arcades and amusement areas, to disappear, entrepreneur William Rabkin was given permission to continue producing mutoscope reels and machines using the trademarked name. By 1925, he had formed the International Mutoscope Reel Company for the purpose of manufacturing new movie reels to play on both the old mutoscope machines and the new ones that the company started selling. During the golden age of the penny arcade, the company produced a number of amusement machines, including fortune tellers, skill games, and may have been the first to market the claw machine. The company went out of business in 1949.
Read more about this topic: International Mutoscope Reel Company
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“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)