| 1891 |
 Chronomedia index
Numbers after entries link to the list of references. |
links and notes |
| January |
The Phonogram, monthly ‘official organ of the phonograph companies of the United States’, edited by V H McRae, is first published in New York. Effectively Edison’s house journal, it argues in favour of business use as a dictation machine and against ‘coin-in-the-slot’ music applications. |
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| March 14 |
Completion of laying the first submarine telephone cable across the English Channel. |
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| March 18 |
Edison company buys its first 50ft lengths of celluloid-based film from Merwin Hulbert. At first it is used without perforations and advances horizontally. |
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| May 22 |
Edison stages the first public demonstration of peep-show moving pictures at his West Orange laboratories in New Jersey to members of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs.
The film is 18mm wide. |
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| May 26 |
Wordsworth Donisthorpe (barrister of 32 Pembridge Villas, Bayswater, London W) and William Carr Crofts (gentleman of Westminster Chambers, 7 Victoria Street, London) are granted a US patent (no 452,966) for a camera capable of 'producing instantaneous photographs'. |
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| August 24 |
Kinetoscope is patented by Edison and W K Laurie Dickson. |
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| November |
When problems arise with the quality of Eastman film stock, W K Laurie Dickson buys from Blair Film Company, which becomes the regular supplier to the Edison Company until 1896. |
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| • |
William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut founds the Gray Telephone Pay Station Company to exploit his patent for coin-operated telephone boxes by selling units to American stores. |
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| • |
North American Phonograph Company, now under Edison's control, abandons the equipment leasing policy in favour of outright sales. Machines cost $150 each. |
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| • |
Despite the Edison company's negative attitude to the use of phonographs for entertainment, a drugstore in New Orleans is reported to be averaging takings of $500 a month from one coin-in-the-slot phonograph. |
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| • |
Gerald Philips founds a company, Philips Gloeilampenfabrik, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands, to manufacture light bulbs and other electrical equipment. |
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| • |
 Arthur-Louis Ducos Du Hauron patents a technique for anaglyph stereoscopic photography, using red and green filtration. He gives lantern shows with the technique. |
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