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First Kinetoscope Demonstration

Name: First Kinetoscope Demonstration
Start: 1891-05-20
Location: Edison Laboratory

When: May 20, 1891
Where: Edison Laboratory
Part of: Edison's prototype kinetoscope first displayed

Edison's laboratory hosted an invitational demonstration for the National Federation of Women's Clubs on May 20, 1891.

Approximately 150 members of the National Federation of Women's Clubs viewed the prototype Kinetoscope at the Edison laboratory in West Orange. This event marked the first public or semi-public exhibition of the kinetograph and kinetoscope, following the development of a functional strip-based viewing system by Dickson and Heise.

Sources

Kinetoscope Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-02
Thomas Edison Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-04

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.