Thomas A. Edison Movies

Filmed at the second inauguration of William McKinley on March 4, 1901, this short captures the president taking the oath of office at the U.S....

East Side Drive, No. 1 (1896) is a brief, silent actual-city documentary directed by James H. White for Edison. Filmed on New York City’s East...

This short captures the thrill of winter sport in Canada, showing skiers racing downhill at high speed before leaping over a snow-built hurdle. Most...

A documentary overview of the career of silent cinema pioneer Edwin S. Porter.

This Edison short delivers everything the title says. In 24-seconds we see a boat being lowered into the water led by Capt. Joseph Hodgson. The boat...

The Birth of the Telephone (1914) is a Kinetophone short produced by Edison, featuring Thomas A. Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell,...

Late 1800s cigarette advertisement produced by Thomas Edison Manufacturing.

A short Edison Kinetophone film, part of Edison’s early experiments in synchronizing sound and image. Distributed by General Film Company....

A comedy of a young man’s humiliating initiation into a woman-hating men’s club, The Five Jolly Bachelors. With Eddie Boulden and the...

A group of Jewish men in Jerusalem perform a dance.

Shows ice plows in operation, drawn by horses and guided by men on skates. The plows are first operated in one direction and then crosswise, cutting...

The evening presentation of distinguished guests from earlier that afternoon.

Footage of the 1903 football game between the University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, showing uniformed players in action along with...

A short film in which the members of the Motion Pictures Patents Company (which had been founded only a year earlier) congratulate Thomas Edison...

The crew of seven dressed in cork jackets, push the boat through the surf; they clamber in and row out to the wreck. 50 ft.

Daily practice of life boat crew, showing boat being upset purposely by the men. As these boats are self-righting and self-bailing, the scene is...

By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in...

Civil War drama of a Confederate spy who is captured by Union soldiers.

On February 17, 1913, after many years of R+D, Thomas Alva Edison introduced the Edison Kinetophone to an enthusiastic New York audience. The...

With a tree-lined river bank dominating the top and back of the frame, the Charles River flows toward a stationary camera. A flotilla of canoes...