On April 14, 1894, the first Kinetoscope parlor in the world opened, at 1155 Broadway in Manhattan, not far from Madison Square Park and the Garden.
Originally, my headline was more specific as to the details, but I decided it’s more impressive (and just as accurate) to put it as I have. There had been some individual demonstrations of Edison’s Kinetoscope, developed largely by William Kennedy Dickson, over the previous few months. There was a race on to demonstrate practical cinema in time for the Worlds Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. For years it was repeated that Edison had demonstrated his kinetoscopes there, but in reality it was a rival German device called The Electrical Wonder, shown by Ottomar Anschütz. Edison’s device was finished shortly after, and he held some private showings for the press and the media.
Two Canadian entrepreneurs, Andrew and George Holland purchased ten of Edison’s machines and set up shop on the aforementioned historic day. Projected films in theatres were still a couple of years in the future. The Kinetoscope was a coin-operated peep show machine which allowed the viewer less than a half a minute of private enjoyment for their nickel. Each machine showed a different film, all produced at Edison’s Black Maria in New Jersey. One showed the great German strongman Eugene Sandow in action; two showed British music hall contortionist Ena Bertoldi (Beatrice Mary Claxton). Others included demonstrations of Highland Dancing, Trapeze, Wrestling, a Cock Fight, and Blacksmithing.
The opening of this parlor marked the first time in history that members of the public could walk into a place of business and watch a movie at a time of their own choosing, as opposed to a one-off demo. Almost immediately similar parlors and arcades opened across the country, and the industry exploded. To fill the demand for novel new films, Edison produced dozens more, many featuring performers from the vaudeville and variety stages. These included dancers like Ruth St. Denis, Carmencita, Annabelle, and Armand d’Ary (Marthe Armandary), Wild West showman Buffalo Bill Cody and his performers (including Annie Oakley), Mexican tightrope dancer Juan Caicedo, comical boxers the Glenroy Brothers and Walton and Slavin, non-comical pugilists Jim Corbett, Mike Leonard and Jack Cushing, Spanish contortionist Louis Martinelli, Gaiety Girls Lucy Murray and May Lucas, the acrobatic Rixfords troupe, Princess Ali with her Dance du Ventre (belly dance), George Layman (the ‘man with a thousand faces’), an act called “The Pickaninnies” from The Passing Show, casts of shows such as Charles Hoyt’s A Milk White Flag, May Irwin and John C. Rice in The Kiss, and numerous performing animals.
Folks didn’t know it yet, but thus was vaudeville endangered at the very moment it was being born! And we are confronted with the startling fact that Americans have now been diverting themselves with motion pictures for 130 years.
For more on vaudeville history, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on silent film please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube.
(Travalanche) 
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