Thomas Edison’s lasting legacy in film and innovation

With the pace of new technology, it’s a challenge to simply keep up with the next advancement, application or platform. Facebook has acquired 250 million users worldwide in five short years, with social networking competitor Twitter generating 3 million messages a day. Youtube is only 4 years old, but already boasts 290 million visits per day, and hulu.com, an online broadcast of television and movies, climbs the ranks with 29 million daily page views . From a technological and cultural perspective, these trends offer business, social and political imperatives and insights. But to look at this virulent paradigm shift historically shows the raw influence of American ingenuity.

112 years ago, on August 31st, 1897, Thomas Edison patented the kinetoscope: a peephole motion picture viewer. The kinetograph was the accompanying machine that would capture the first motion-pictures. A strip of 18mm film ran between two spools while a rapid shutter speed exposed the film at a constant rate. Holes punched on the side of the film allowed it to be drawn under a lens in the kinetoscope continuously, while intermittent flashes of light beneath the film obscured the change between images, giving the illusion of motion [1].

Of the kinetoscope, Edison said, “I am experimenting upon an instrument which does for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear, which is the recording and reproduction of things in motion ….” From this inspiration the came the first publicly consumed motion pictures. In a decade motion pictures transformed from novelty to industry.

In some sense the movies produced by Edison are more like the user-generated, real-life documentation of Youtube than like the feature-length film industry it initially begot. Called “Actualities”, the first films were short non-fiction news, locations and novelties. Now, video is indigenous in young generations as a form of communication: a video can challenge us, it can change our minds or explain a complex issue memorably. The marriage of video and Internet spreads cultures and ideas globally with the click of a button.

Advances in technology and skill have put cameras in the hands of millions, all but replaced film with digital images, and created tools to edit, digitally enhance and even digitally create worlds. This century of innovation and adaptation was kick-started by Edison’s ability to see beyond the tools of the time and to systematically invent the light bulb (his most famous invention), a sprocket chain drive that could would pull film or tape and insert them into the invention of the kinetoscope and kinetograph. His legacy is seen not just in the advancement of motion pictures, but also in the limitless imagination that the leaders of today, like Intel, Apple and General Electric, have adopted as their brand and foundation.

Christmas Benefit nets $50,000 for St. Vincent Home for Children

Lewis Reed, Shameem Hubbard, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield and Rodney Hubbard at the St. Vincent's Christmas Benefit 2008

Lewis Reed, Shameem Hubbard, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield and Rodney Hubbard at the St. Vincent’s Christmas Benefit 2008

Saint Louis, MO, December 12, 2008–A good time was had by nearly 400 guests and more than $50,000 was raised to benefit the St. Vincent Home for Children at the second annual St. Vincent Home for Children Benefit Christmas Party.

The event, which was held Thursday, December 11, at the Chase-Park Plaza Hotel was hosted by Missouri-focused philanthropists Rex Sinquefield and his wife, Dr. Jeanne Sinquefield, Travis Brown and Rachel Keller Brown of Pelopidas, LLC, an advocacy management company and Laura Slay, president of Slay & Associates, Inc., a marketing and public relations firm.

Rex Sinquefield has had close ties to the organization since he and his brother Jerry lived at St. Vincent’s in the 1950’s, after their family fell on hard financial times, following the passing of their father. St. Vincent’s, at that time, was a home for orphaned children.
During the evening’s program, Rex spoke of the fond memories of his experiences, “The love, attention and good guidance that we received from the sisters who ran St. Vincent’s and from our basketball coach Ron Holtman, made an indelible and very positive impression on us. Our teachers and coach Holtman, provided us with all the tools that we needed succeed as students, win the 1958 basketball championship and become successful adults.”
Guests at the $50-per-person celebration were greeted with lavender colored Cosmopolitans, feasted on a vast selection of appetizers from Missouri-focused food stations and danced to music by Motown-sound band, Arvell & Company. Special recognition was given to three student residents of St. Vincent’s, now a 24-hour care and treatment center for youth with behavior disorders and other special needs. The students created Christmas-related artwork, which was used in the event invitation and displayed at the event.

Those in attendance included Mayor of the City of Saint. Louis, Francis G. Slay; former Saint Louis Rams football defensive stalwart Pastor Aeneas Williams and his wife, Tracy; KSDK’s Rene Knott and his wife Marla; Kevin Short of Clayton Capital Partners and his wife Patty; Bobby Kersee, Olympic gold-medalist trainer (representing Jackie-Joyner Kersee who was keynote speaker at a track conference in Las Vegas); St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley; John and Alison Ferring; Ellen Harschman, St. Louis University John Cook School of Business; Keith Kirk, Pelopidas; Nancy Rice; Robbyn Wahby of Mayor Slay’s office; John Chickey, board chairman St. Vincent Home for Children; Lee Ann Taylor, executive director of the organization; Larry LeGrand of Plancorp and his wife Dot; Alderman Lyda Krewson; incoming State Representative Tishaura Jones, Show-Me Institute’s executive vice president, Joe Haslag; Vince Mannino of RG Ross and his wife Patty; Jack Naudi, Slay and Associates; Earl Simms, Children’s Education Alliance of Missouri; and Tony Rich, Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis.

“The holiday season reminds us of how important community charity is to our most vulnerable, especially in challenging economic times. We are honored to host so many advocates that want to give something back,” said Travis Brown.