Plot

The very first American film shown to public audiences and the press. It depicts William K.L. Dickson taking off his hat and greeting the audience.

"A little while ago there was a great convention of women's clubs of America. Mrs. Edison is interested in women's clubs and their work and she decided to entertain the Presidents of the various clubs at the Convention. Edison entered into the plan, and when 147 club women visited his workshop he showed them a working model of his new Kinetograph, for that is the name he has given to the most wonderful of all his wonderful inventions. "The surprised and pleased club women saw a small pine box standing on the floor. There were some wheels and belts near the box, and a workman who had them in charge. In the top of the box was a hole perhaps an inch in diameter. As they looked through this hole they saw the picture of a man. It was a most marvellous picture. It bowed and smiled and waved its hands and took off its hat with the most perfect naturalness and grace. Every motion was perfect. There was not a hitch or a jerk. No wonder Edison chuckled at the effect he produced with his Kinetograph."—The New York Sun, 28 May 1891

'Dickson Greeting' is credited as one of the world's very first films in the world and was made by William Dickson. It is only a 3 second film but it still captured the essence of motion and was made in 1891. It was the first public demonstration of motion pictures in the United States to a public audience as he showed it to The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) in Edison's lab. The very first sound-film was the 'Dickson Experimental Sound Film' by William Kennedy Dickson and is known to be the very first film with live recorded sound and was made in America. The very first hand-coloured film was called 'Annabelle Serpentine Dance' by William Dickson in America as it was distributed by Edison Manufacturing Company in 1895, a company based in New York City at the time. Theatres started to be built for films in the US as the first building exclusively for showing films was built in 1896, June 26 on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana and later on that same year another was built in Buffalo, New York in the Ellicott Square Building, it was called the Edisonia Hall which was the first motion picture theatre in the world.—Isabel Aghahowa