Raff_&_Gammon

Raff & Gammon

Raff & Gammon

Film distribution company in the silent film era

Norman C. Raff and Frank R. Gammon were two American businessmen who were known for distributing and promoting some of the Edison Studio films,[1] and founding their own business, which was called The Kinetoscope Company.

An image of Norman Raff. Taken around October 1896.

History

"Bucking Broncho", a film promoted by Raff & Gammon.

Kinetoscope company

In August 1894, Raff & Gammon earned rights to start selling Kinetoscopes.[2] One of their employees, Alfred Clark, made the company more popular by making new movies. In 1895, the Kinetoscope started to fade and became less popular with new film technology being created.[3] In 1896, C. Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat invented the Phantoscope. They showed the Phantoscope to Raff & Gammon, who were interested in it, so they agreed for the rights to the Phantoscope. They later showed this to the Thomas Edison Manufacturing Company, who started manufacturing the machine with permission.[4] They then renamed the machine "The Edison Vitascope". They founded the Kinetoscope company (which was later renamed "Raff & Gammon") for exclusive rights for different territories and nations.[5]

Fall

The company began to fall in October 1896, when consumers began purchasing high-quality technology similar to the Phantoscope, and more customers purchased those instead. More specifically, the American Mutoscope Company (better known as the Biograph Company), had produced a new motion picture system, which used more surface area than the Phantoscope. Shortly afterwards, the Biograph became more successful, and Raff & Gammon collapsed by the end of 1897.[6] The rights to the vitascope was bought by George W. Llewellyn shortly before the company ended.[7]

Filmography

Source:[8]

  • The Pickaninnies (1894)
  • Barber Shop (1895)
  • The Kiss (1896)

Archives and records

References

  1. [1]
    "Raff and Gammon Collection". Harvard Business School. Retrieved 2020-02-08.
  2. [2]
    Balio, Tina (1976). The American Film Industry. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 66.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. [3]
    "Who's Who of Victorian Cinema". www.victorian-cinema.net. Retrieved 2020-02-08.
  4. [4]
    "(1895-1896)". Library Of Congress. Retrieved 8 February 2020.
  5. [5]
    "Guide to Motion Picture Catalogs - The Edison Papers". Rutgers University. Retrieved 2020-05-14.
  6. [6]
    "Before the Nickelodeon". California Digital Library. University of California. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
  7. [7]
    Musser, Charles; Nelson, Carol (2015-03-08). High-Class Moving Pictures: Lyman H. Howe and the Forgotten Era of Traveling Exhibition, 1880-1920. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-7272-5.
  8. [8]
    "Raff and Gammon". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on February 25, 2021. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
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