Episode 8: The Motion Picture Murder
California v. Edward Muybridge
In 1874, the father of motion pictures stood trial for murder. Most people know Eadweard Muybridge as a pioneering photographer and inventor whose work sparked the birth of movies. But Muybridge had a dark side: he was once accused on murdering his wife's lover. Would a Western jury, comfortable with the idea of taking justice into one's own hands, let Muybridge get away with it?
Episode Resources
Episode Transcript
Works Cited/
Referenced
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Edward Ball, The Inventor and the Tycoon (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2013).
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Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XXIV; The History of California, Vol. VII, 1860-1890 (San Francisco: The History Company, 1890).
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Hayden Bennett, “A Review of Florado Helios Muybridge’s Tombstone,” The Believer, April 27, 2018.
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George Eastman Museum, “Historic Process Demonstration: Nineteenth Century Retouching Techniques,” YouTube video, December 2, 2020.
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Rebecca Gowers, “Emma Ewart Larkins’ last letter from Cawnpore,” Untold Lives, British Library, December 12, 2019.
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Rebecca Gowers, The Scoundrel Harry Larkyns and his Pitiless Killing by the Photographer Eadweard Muybridge (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020).
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Stephen Herbert, “The Compleat Eadweard Muybridge: Chronology 1830-1904.”
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Roger Lane, Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident and Murder in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979).
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“A Man of the World,” The New York Times, October 28, 1874.
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Clare V. McKanna, Homicide, Race, and Justice in the American West, 1880-1920 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997).
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“Popular Responsibility for Sentimental Murder,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 4, 1880.
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The San Francisco Chronicle: March 14. 1873; June 23, 1874; December 21, 1874; May 4, 1880.
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“Stagecoach History: Stage Lines to California,” California State Parks.
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Robert H. Tillman, “The Prosecution of Homicide in Sacramento County, California, 1853-1900,” Southern California Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 2 (Summer 1986).
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"The Zoogyroscope," The San Francisco Call, May 5, 1880, printed in the New York Times, May 19, 1880.
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“The Zoopraxiscope,” Google Art & Culture.