''Newark Athlete'' is an

1891 Events January–March * January 1 ** Paying of old age pensions begins in Germany. ** A strike of 500 Hungarian steel workers occurs; 3,000 men are out of work as a consequence. **Germany takes formal possession of its new Africa ...

American

short Short may refer to: Places * Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon * Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community * Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place People * Short (surname) * List of people known as ...

silent film A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, when ...

directed and produced by

William Kennedy Dickson William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (3 August 1860 – 28 September 1935) was a British people, British inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison. Early life William Kennedy Dickson was born on 3 ...

. The film, roughly 12 seconds in length, displays a young athlete swinging

Indian club Indian clubs, which originated in the Indian subcontinent, are a type of exercise equipment used to present resistance in movement to develop strength and mobility. They consist of juggling club shaped wooden clubs of varying sizes and weights, ...

s. It was filmed in May or June 1891, in the Photographic Building at the Edison Laboratory, West Orange, New Jersey. The ''Black Maria'' was not constructed until late 1892 or early 1893. The film was made to be viewed using

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an precursors of film, early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic ...

. In 2010, ''Newark Athlete'' was selected for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception i ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It is currently the oldest film chosen to be in the Registry.

References

External links

* * 1891 films 1891 short films 1890s American films American black-and-white films American silent short films Articles containing video clips Films directed by William Kennedy Dickson Films shot in New Jersey Sports in Newark, New Jersey Surviving American silent films United States National Film Registry films {{1890s-film-stub