April 23, 1896 was a pivotal date in the histories of both live vaudeville and cinematic exhibition. On that day, Koster and Bial’s Music Hall topped off their presentation of six variety acts with six short projected films by the Edison Company.
As we wrote here a few days ago, movies had been introduced in New York two years earlier in the form of self-serve kinetoscope machines. These were very profitable for Edison, but one couldn’t ignore the fact that over in Paris, the Lumiere Brothers were projecting films onto big screens for entire audiences, a potentially even more lucrative gambit, as a single machine could serve an entire room full of people. So Edison, too, was working to solve the problem. But suddenly he didn’t have to, a pair of inventors named C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat had been developing and demonstrating their own machine along these lines. Edison bought the rights to manufacture and distribute these machines as his own, rebranded as Vitascope. The six films they showed the audience at Koster and Bial’s were Rough Sea at Dover, Band Drill/The Milk White Flag, Serpentine Dance, Umbrella Dance, Walton and Slavin Boxing and The Monroe Doctrine. The unprecedented spectacle was an immediate sensation.
In short order, films became common attractions on vaudeville bills all across the country. Keep in mind that Keith and Albee didn’t even expand into a chain until 1893. The vaudeville business had barely gotten started, and already the seeds of its destruction had been absorbed into its being. In the late ‘teens, feature length films became common. A decade after that came sound. Soon vaudeville would be replaced by…nostalgic movie musicals about the old vaudeville days!
For more on vaudeville history consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, for more on early cinema history please check out my book: Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube
(Travalanche) 
You must be logged in to post a comment.