The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here is a great photo of Niagara Falls NY, 1908. In the distance you can barely make out the William H. Taft banner hung across the street. On the right you can see the "Talking Pictures" sign. If you zoom in you can make out where it says "Cameraphone" which was an early attempt at sound synchronization with films. It used a modified Columbia BC with a patented clutch which allowed it to be quickly stopped and started. It would have been typically paired up with a Powers No 5 Cameragraph although the company also offered to adapt the theatre's existing Powers or Edison units.

http://www.shorpy.com/node/9216

That's a great image. As interesting as the sign for the Cameraphone is, I'm equally impressed by the canopy of wires over the street. Good old days...!

George P.

The things you can learn just looking at a old photo...



The E. E. Norton Cameraphone system came out in February of 1908.

Here is is some insight from
Silent film sound By Rick Altman
Columbia University Press, 2007

http://books.google.com/books?id=MUA3uw ... 22&f=false

and...

Epics, spectacles, and blockbusters: a Hollywood history
By Sheldon Hall, Stephen Neale
Wayne State University Press, 2010

It was expensive and he was out of business by 1910.

http://books.google.com/books?id=jhvrSw ... 22&f=false

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a talking picture must be dumbfounding!

James.

catfishjohn wrote:Here is a great photo of Niagara Falls NY, 1908.

"Slowly I turned . . . step by step . . . inch by inch!"

I wish there was enough resolution in the photograph to make out the prices on the restaurant sandwich board on the right side of the street, and to figure out what was being offered for 35 cents on the left side of the street...

I, too, find the "canopy of wires" fascinating.

This view would be about one year before my grandfather was born in the mining town of Anita, PA - his family moved to The Falls in 1911, and got jobs in the various industries using the local hydropower. In 1920, my Great-Grandfather was making $13.75 per week & paying $30 a month to rent a house in Echota, the village built by the power co. Several of my grandfather's 5 sisters had to work, to pay the bills.

Dangers of too many wires:

"The original Richmond Hotel burned down on March 18, 1887, one of the most horrific fires in Buffalo history. It killed 15 employees and guests and severely burned two dozen others. There were heroic rescues of trapped women and children. Nearby taverns and hotels threw open their doors to become makeshift hospitals, Nevertheless, guests plunged from windows, and a survivor testified that the screams of the victims "were something I hope to never hear again. "

In the subsequent investigation, much blame fell up on Victorian high technology. The new telegraph and telephone companies had erected a dense network of overhead wires and cables that impeded rescuers' access to upper floors of the burning building. The City ordered these wires put in underground conduits, and the Richmond was rebuilt, renaming itself the Iroquois Hotel in 1890. "