15. Louis le Prince and the invention of motion pictures
Louis le Prince was the first to record moving pictures using a single-lens camera, with the images captured on paper. In 1888 he received an American patent for a camera which served as both the recorder and projector of the images. By 1889 le Prince was prepared to demonstrate his invention in the United States for the benefit of potential investors and he moved to New York City with his family. He scheduled a public demonstration of his device for September 1890. A trip to England to obtain patents there and a brief trip to France preceded his scheduled demonstration of motion pictures, using a system patented before Edison’s.
He disappeared without a trace while traveling by train in France. Neither his body nor his luggage were ever found though some claim parts of his luggage turned up in Paris. In 1898 the American Mutoscope Company was involved in a patent infringement case with Edison, who by then claimed to have invented the motion picture camera. Mutoscope was the company formed to market the device invented by le Prince, and his son Adolphe, who had long assisted his father, was called to testify. Edison prevailed in the case which was heard in American courts, and two years later Adolphe was killed in a shooting accident on Fire Island in New York.