Reanimating the History and the Forgotten Characteristics of the Zoetrope

Reconstruction of the zoetrope’s genealogy

In this section, I expand upon the accepted understanding of the zoetrope’s history. First, I propose a reconsideration of William Horner’s heretofore accepted role as inventor of the zoetrope. Second, I address and correct the chronological misinterpretation of the patent dates of the zoetrope. Third, I prove the connection of all three patents filed for the zoetrope – in the United States, England, and France – to the Milton Bradley Company. Fourth, I question a possible misattribution of the nationality of Charles W. May, who registered the French patent of the zoetrope. Through these revisions, I introduce a more complete genealogy of the zoetrope, offering details and connections validated through archival research.

Film and animation histories, in general, have paid perfunctory attention to the zoetrope, normally focusing on its mechanical ancestry to cinema without much detail about its own history and unique characteristics. One such example, among many, is found in one of the most complete sources for the genealogy and archeology of early devices related to cinema, Laurent Mannoni’s The Great Art of Light and Shadow: Archaeology of the Cinema (2000), in which a full chapter is devoted to the precursor of the zoetrope, the phenakistiscope (1832) with merely a single paragraph describing details of the zoetrope, as follows:

[Simon] Stampfer also thought of drawing the various phases of a movement onto a long strip of paper and observing them through the openings of a cylinder turning about its axis. In January 1834, the Englishman William George Horner (1786–1837) had the same idea described under the name of ‘The Daedaleum.’ However, this invention was not marketed until 1867 under the name of ‘Zoetrope’ or ‘Zootrope.’ There were numerous patents for this apparatus: the American Henry Watson Hallet (6 March 1867), his compatriot William Lincoln (23 April 1867), and the Englishman Charles W. May (May’s French patent dated 14 May 1867, was marketed by Parisian manufacturer Delacour and Bakes). Over a century later, the film director Francis Ford Coppola took this optical instrument as his emblem, when his American production company was founded as American Zoetrope. (p. 218)

It is well known that the phenakistiscope was simultaneously invented in 1832 by the Belgian Joseph Plateau (1801–1883) and the Austrian Simon Stampfer (1792–1864), who dubbed his device the stroboscope. The fascination with the phenakistiscope/stroboscope as the first device(s) to demonstrate fully animated cycles in the 19th century is documented with clear references to its double origins. In that period, devices presented improvements from one to another, as they followed the same principles and were sometimes mixed and mistaken one for the other. For example, still today, in many archival catalogs and museum collections, the names zoetrope and phenakistiscope are often presented as interchangeable, despite being historically and mechanically different devices.

Traditionally, the invention of the device that we know as the zoetrope has been attributed to the British mathematician William George Horner (1786–1837). He introduced his device’s principles in an article titled ‘On the Properties of the Daedaleum, a New Instrument of Optical Illusion’ published in 1834. In 1833, however, Simon Stampfer, in an article about his device, makes a brief allusion, as mentioned by Mannoni (2000), to possible variations of his Stroboscope, suggesting characteristics similar to those of a zoetrope. That would be the case if one already knows the zoetrope and interprets Stampfer’s words to fit that device. However, it is hard to specify if Stampfer had that in mind or not. In his article, Stampfer proposes: ‘The pictures can be distributed around the circumference of a disc or the face of a cylinder, for instance, the disc or cylinder then being turned on its axle’ (Stampfer and Blower, 2016: 24). The fact that he mentions that the pictures can be distributed around ‘the face of a cylinder’ may suggest something placed externally and not inside the cylinder as in the zoetrope.

Despite Stampfer’s brief remarks on this possible modification, there is no evidence to indicate that he built or commercially explored cylindrical variations of his device. However, he continued to produce and manufacture many designs specifically for the Stroboscope – or Magic Disc. ⁷

Published a year after Stampfer’s publication, Horner’s article would provide more details about a theoretical device that he called the Daedaleum. ⁸ Horner’s text focuses on the mathematical explanation of the effects likely to be created by such device. However, in reading his article, it is unclear if he built a functioning prototype of the device. Horner appears to have based his mathematical results on advancing the discoveries published earlier by Peter Mark Roget (1779–1869), Michael Faraday (1791–1867), and Joseph Plateau – all named in his article. He addressed and justified his lack of details when describing the device in a post-scriptum note in that article:

I have not thought it requisite to give a more particular description of the instrument, having communicated every needful part of the detail, some weeks ago, to a respectable optician of Bristol, Mr. King, jun. (Horner, 1834: 41)

No information has been found about the ‘respectable optician of Bristol’ that could indicate that a prototype for the Daedaleum was ever built.

In addition, in his article, Horner uses broad terminology when describing the device, which may lead to different interpretations of its construction. He states, ‘The apparatus is merely a hollow cylinder, or a moderately high margin, with apertures at equal distances, and placed cylindrically round the edge of a revolving disk’ (p. 37). It is to be noted that such a general description could accommodate round perforations as readily as the now traditional vertical slits, which could cause a lack of brightness, less focus, and other variations in the perceived illusion. Also, historically, the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell ⁹ proposed the addition of concave lenses to the apertures (date imprecise, around the 1860s) as a way to improve Horner’s suggested design. This interpretation of the slits as round somewhat confirms that interpretation of Horner’s description. In an early hands-on experiment, I have built models to test variations in the length of zoetrope slits and confirmed this change in focus and brightness, making the animation less sharp/visible when slits are wider, which puts in question the effectiveness of round apertures without the use of lenses.

Horner died three years after the publication of that article and, like Joseph Plateau, ¹⁰ he did not seek to patent the device before his death. The publication of Horner’s article was enough to historically credit him as the ‘inventor’ of the Daedaleum that would later be known as a zoetrope. It is perhaps more appropriate to nominate Horner as a pioneer in theorizing what would later become the zoetrope. It would be only in 1867, 33 years after Horner’s publication, that the device would be patented and commercialized under the official name of the zoetrope or the Wheel of Life.

Now, to turn to the matter of the patents. In tracing the history of the three main patents registered for the zoetrope in 1867 in England, the United States, and France, my research indicates that all are connected to the Milton Bradley Company. These three patents were registered for the same device by different individuals and within mere months of each other, previously leading to the erroneous interpretation that each was acting independently.

The American inventor and businessman Milton Bradley (1836–1911) founded the Milton Bradley Company (hereinafter MB) in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860, originally as a printing company producing lithographs for other companies. In searching for new applications for his equipment, Bradley was inspired by traditional British board games and the idea of inventing ‘distinctly American games’ (Grant and Pederson, 1998). ¹¹ He was granted a US patent in 1866 for a social game named The Checkered Game of Life that would later develop into the well-known board game The Game of Life. By the end of the Civil War, MB became a well-established toy and games company in the United States. Also, by then, Bradley and his company were familiar with the American patent process.

The US patent for the zoetrope lists William E. Lincoln (where ‘E’ stands for Ensign) ¹² (1847–1944) from Providence, Rhode Island, as the inventor. The same document presents MB as assignee to that patent, which means they were the sole company officially allowed to exploit the invention commercially by acquiring the rights to Lincoln’s patent. William Ensign Lincoln was a sophomore at Brown University when he claims to have created the device in 1865 (Lincoln, 1930: 59). It was he who built a functional model and gave the device its name: Zoetrope.

Lincoln lived a long life, and in 1930 he published a book tracing the genealogy of his parents’ family as well as his wife’s family under the very long title of Some descendants of Stephen Lincoln of Wymondham, England, Edward Larkin from England, Thomas Oliver of Bristol, England, Michael Pearce of London, England, Robert Wheaton of Swansea, Wales, George Burrill of Boston, England, John Porter of Dorset, England, John Ayer of Norwich, England, and notes of related families. ¹³ Over 322 pages he traces the history of each family, including his own history, addressing himself in the third person and providing clues to his early transactions with Bradley’s company:

On advice of Mr. George H. Whitney of Whitney’s bookstore (on the side of the Rhode Island Hospital Trust Building) the model Zoetrope was taken to Milton Bradley & Co., Springfield, Mass., through whom it was patented and who manufactured it on a royalty . . . (p. 58)

The media art scholar and curator Machiko Kusahara mentions in the notes of her text ‘The Baby Talkie’ that MB was already announcing the zoetrope as a new toy in the Christmas catalog for Colman’s Rural World in December 1866 (2011: 146). That suggests that MB was likely in the process of patenting the device. The published and publicly accessible US patent was granted on 23 April 1867, ¹⁴ oddly without any reference to its submission date.

On 6 March 1867, the British patent was filed by Henry Watson Hallett (1839–1899), ¹⁵ said to be from Springfield, Massachusetts; ¹⁶ and it was only sealed on 7 June ¹⁷ of the same year. The patent filed by Hallett does not indicate a title for the invention, documenting it as ‘An improved mode of and means for producing optical illusions’. ¹⁸ There is no mention of the name zoetrope in the British patent.

At first glance, it may appear as though Hallett was filing the patent independently. However, The London Gazette – an official government publication, a journal of record – documented on 9 April 1867, a record indicating that Hallett’s patent application was in process, ¹⁹ with a phrase that reads ‘A communication to him from abroad by Milton Bradley, of Springfield, Massachusetts, United States of America.’ ²⁰ The guide British Patents of Invention, 1617–1977: A Guide for Researchers, written by Steve Van Dulken, mentions, when referring to patents of that period, that ‘“communicated by” means that that person is the inventor, while “patented by” means that that person attended the Patent Office on the applicant’s behalf’ (Van Dulken, 1999: 115).

That clarifies and confirms that MB is registered as the inventor of the British patent of the zoetrope and that Hallett was filing it on the Bradley’s company’s behalf rather than independently, as has been previously mistakenly accepted. That also confirms, as suggested by Leskosky, ²¹ that MB was trying to guarantee both the American and the British markets for the zoetrope.

When Mannoni (2000), in his one-paragraph about the zoetrope, lists the patents related to the device in chronological order, it is suggested that the British patent is the first one to register the device (as it dates from March), followed by the American patent (dated from April), and finally the French patent (dated from May), all in the same year. However, the apparent 48-day difference between the British and American patents for the zoetrope is, in fact, because of crucial differences between submission date and sealed/granted date. Again, the British patent was submitted by Hallett on 6 March 1867 and granted on 7 June 1867. A similar record is not specified in the publicly accessed American patent, which presents only the date on which the patent was granted, that is, 23 April 1867, suggesting that the patent was filed months prior. In his memoir, Lincoln (1930: 59) states clearly that ‘while a sophomore in Brown, 1865, he invented an optical toy which he named “Zoetrope or Wheel of Life”.’

In my experience with patents, I know there are records and documents that trace back the history of patent cases, which are different from the publicly accessed patent document. I spent months trying to locate the original patent case history for Lincoln’s zoetrope, contacting multiple agencies in the United States, while fearing the possibility that the files were destroyed in the US Patent Office fire of 1877. Fortunately, however, Lincoln’s documents were preserved and are archived at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA, aka National Archives) in Kansas City. The 21-page handwritten documentation from Lincoln’s patent has its filing date documented as 27 July 1866, as seen in the patent wrapper in Figure 1.

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Figure 1.

Patent wrapper for the Zoetrope’s patent case file, proving that the device was originally named and patented in the United States in 1866, having William E. Lincoln as inventor and the Milton Bradley Company as assignee. The document was found in my archival research at the National Archives at Kansas City and it is now available for public access. Record Group: 241. Creator: United States Patent and Trademark Office. Series: Patent Case Files, 1836-1978. NAID: 302050.

The newly found documentation thus confirms the American precedence in the patented invention of the zoetrope and resets its historically documented year to 1866 instead of 1867. Figure 1 also reveals that two drawings were submitted on 17 August 1866 and a model – a functioning prototype, as was common practice in US patents of the period – was delivered on the 1st of August that same year. Therefore, the intellectual property of the zoetrope was filed by William Ensign Lincoln on 27 July 1866, sponsored by MB, and its patent was officially granted on 23 April 1867.

A note on naming: the thaumatrope, phenakistiscope, and praxinoscope are a few of the other devices known at the time as philosophical toys. All of their complicated names were in fashion in the 19th century. They somehow endowed these devices with a flair of erudition and reputability borrowed from the classical Greek and Latin traditions, suggesting a connection to classical philosophy, oftentimes also referring to the kind of effect they created.

In the case of the zoetrope, William Ensign Lincoln (1930: 57) indicates in his genealogy turned memoir that he ‘received at the beginning of his freshman year the university President’s prize for Latin examination’. His father, John Larkin Lincoln, was fluent in Latin and Greek, holding at first a position as tutor in Greek and later becoming professor of Latin, like his son at Brown University (p. 46). Lincoln’s fluency and the influence of his father on classic languages could explain his choice when naming his device. ²²

Across the Atlantic, on 14 May 1867, a French patent ²³ for the zoetrope was filed by Charles William May (1833–1915?), ²⁴ likely at the request of MB as an attempt to also secure the French market. Although the connection between May and Bradley’s company is harder to prove, it is noticeable that the French patent is the only one, aside from the American patent, that mentions the name zoetrope as originally given by Lincoln. Little is known about Charles William May; and though Mannoni mentions him as being British, ²⁵ there is evidence that he was, in fact, American, born in Hadley, Massachusetts, but living in Paris as an arms salesman.

Among the pieces of evidence of May’s American nationality is the book The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris written by the historian David McCullough, which describes an escape by May from Paris during its siege by the Prussians in 1870 (McCullough, 2011: 281–282). A detailed report of the event is available in the documentation found at the Boston Athenaeum, ²⁶ particularly an account by May, having returned to the United States, written to his family in 1890 retelling in more detail his adventure in Paris. According to these records, May managed to escape the city in a balloon at the same time as did Léon Gambetta, the French Minister of the Interior, on another balloon.

I accessed another piece of evidence supporting the nationality of May as American in the online archives of the American Library of Congress. ²⁷ Also, the fact that May was an arms salesman could explain why in France the earliest authorized French manufacturer of the zoetrope – zootrope, or cercle magique as commercialized there – was F. Delacour & Bakes, a known cutler and sword maker, to whom May licensed the patented invention.

The French patent was amended twice through requests of certificates of addition ²⁸ around one year after the filing of the patent, as was allowed by the law in France of that period. Both additions presented alterations in the construction of the device, suggesting small changes in its color, material, and supporting structure. According to the French law of 5 July 1844, article 33, granted patents should add to their commercialized items the nomenclature ‘sans garantie du gouvernement’ or S.G.D.G., ²⁹ which means without government’s guarantee, which appears on the zoetropes fabricated by F. Delacour & Bakes with a reference to May’s patent (Figure 2).

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Figure 2.

Bottom label of the French zootrope with an inscription that reads ‘May Breveté S.G.D.G. Representé par F. Delacour & Bakes’ reproduced here as a courtesy from the Collection Binétruy.

It is worth mentioning that French patents were submitted in person during those years through a verbal procedure and written specifications but without further verification or examination of their legitimacy. ³⁰ This justifies and explains the requirement of the designation S.G.D.G. by the French government at that time, explaining the terminology written on the label of the F. Delacour & Bakes licensed zoetrope.

Also in the same law that established the need of the S.G.D.G. designation, its article 32 states that the inventor/patentee ‘will have forfeited his rights [to the patent]: . . . 3^ly The Patentee who has introduced in France articles manufactured abroad, similar to those which are secured by his Patent’, ³¹ likely explaining why it is hard to trace the connection between May and MB, as they may have been trying to secure the French market without raising awareness of the fact that a patent for the same device was already granted in the United States.

Probably the largest commission of the F. Delacour & Bakes’ zoetrope was made by the French newspaper Le Figaro, as documented on the first page of the Sunday newspaper on 27 April 1868. ³² As indicated in the same document, Le Figaro commissioned 10,000 zootropes ³³ to be sold at a promotional price (a premium) to its subscribers. Aiming to add a Parisian touch to the device, zoetrope strips specially designed by French artists from Le Figaro were added to a selection that also included some illustrations of zoetrope strips (series nº 1) sold by MB in the United States. Charles W. May ended up losing the rights to the French patent of the zoetrope in 1869 after court litigations decided against him, ³⁴ perhaps also explaining the lack of zoetropes manufactured by F. Delacour & Bakes after 1868.

The scholar and collector Erkki Huhtamo mentions in different articles ³⁵ the existence of a booklet, most likely produced around 1867 to accompany the early versions of MB’s zoetrope, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained. After an extensive search, I accessed the full copy of this booklet through the archives of the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. ³⁶ A full reproduction of this booklet accompanies this article (see Figures 3–7). In the booklet, MB provides examples of quotes to validate the new toy ‘from the press, and from all scientific gentlemen who have seen it’ (c. 1867: 10; see Figure 5) A specific quote there from The Independent confirms MB’s patents in the three countries:

The Zoetrope, or Wheel of Life – A truly wonderful scientific divertisement [sic] recently invented by Milton Bradley & Co., of Springfield, Mass., and patented in this country [United States], England and France, is attracting much attention in Europe, and is noticed as the great American novelty.’ (c. 1867: 10; see Figure 5)

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Figure 3.

Cover and pages 2 to 3 of Milton Bradley’s 16-page booklet, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained, courtesy of the archives at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. These figures are a full reproduction of this booklet.

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Figure 4.

Pages 4 to 7 of Milton Bradley’s 16-page booklet, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained, courtesy of the archives at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. These figures are a full reproduction of this booklet.

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Figure 5.

Pages 8 to 11 of Milton Bradley’s 16-page booklet, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained, courtesy of the archives at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. These figures are a full reproduction of this booklet.

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Figure 6.

Pages 12 to 15 of Milton Bradley’s 16-page booklet, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained, courtesy of the archives at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. These figures are a full reproduction of this booklet.

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Figure 7.

Back cover of Milton Bradley’s 16-page booklet, titled The Philosophical Principles of the Zoetrope or Wheel of Life Fully Explained, courtesy of the archives at the Lyman & Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History, Springfield, Massachusetts. These figures are a full reproduction of this booklet.

This quote not only reinforces the connection between the three patents and MB, but it also confirms that the American toy company saw the device’s potential success and tried to ensure its production and commercial rights, not only in two but three main markets at the time.

To summarize the findings so far, what I have discovered through archival research corrects, advances and expands on the history of the zoetrope. I have established that William Horner can be considered a pioneer in theorizing what would later become the zoetrope, but he is not its inventor. I have clarified the chronological misinterpretation of the zoetrope’s patents’ dates and confirmed the precedence of William E. Lincoln’s patent and his construction of a model which establishes him as the inventor of the device known as zoetrope. I have established the connection between all the three patents filed for the zoetrope to MB. And I have investigated the possible misattribution of the nationality of Charles W. May and provided evidence, establishing the likelihood of his nationality as American.

Although patents are an attempt to document and officially establish the legal right to commercially exploit a product, many infringements and counterfeits happened at the time, particularly after the success of the phenakistiscope. Ironically, these counterfeits may also have been responsible for the broad dissemination and reach of these toys. Different companies employed marketing strategies in their catalogs and advertisements to distinguish original from counterfeit content, including exclusive designs and content of the strips – sometimes animated by noted artists and cartoonists in response to the events of the time – and suggestions of ways to play with the device. These toys were also publicized by scientists of the period, who explained through lectures and popular articles the science behind the play. These perceptive uses and characteristics proposed by these companies and scientists, in relation to the zoetrope, are investigated in detail in the following section.

Forgotten characteristics

Three specific sources from the 19th century offered insightful information on how to use and play with the zoetrope: the previously mentioned, circa 1867 Milton Bradley Company booklet; the 1868 article ‘On the Zoetrope and Its Antecedents’ written by the British scientist Dr. William Benjamin Carpenter (1813–1885); and the circa 1870s London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company (hereinafter LSPC) catalog (Robinson, 1991: 31). Some of the suggestions they introduced or reinforced were lost in time and have been unknown to many animators, educators, and researchers of today.

In this section, I aim to recover from obscurity these forgotten characteristics of the zoetrope and to elucidate its particularities through the study of historical strips created for the device, in combination with the heuristic approach suggested by experimental media archaeology (Fickers and Van den Oever, 2014), which involved my recreating, testing and observing these proposed characteristics using a small-scale replica of a traditional zoetrope and its strips. First, I identify the innovations brought by the zoetrope as compared to the other optical toys. Second, I bring to light early attempts to single out the action of one character from its multiplied doppelgängers when playing with the device. Third, I address the effects observed by changing the number of characters in relation to the number of slits in the device and its connection to the speed at which the device rotates. Fourth, I propose the suggestive titles of zoetrope strips, in accordance with the action they portray, serve as a signal of possible proto-narratives. Finally, I acknowledge and expand upon the combination of two strips in the device known as ‘zoetropic editing’ and its potential to develop these possible proto-narratives.

Some of the main characteristics of the zoetrope relate to the simplification of the device’s use in comparison to other optical toys that also created animation in the 19th century. For instance, the separation of the apparatus from its content was something pointed out by Dr. Carpenter (1868). This separation has since been addressed by Virgilio Tosi (first published in Italian in 1984, English translation in 2005), Jonathan Crary (1999), Nicolas Dulac and André Gaudreault (2006), and Wanda Strauven (2011), along with a few other scholars.

With the zoetrope, the device’s cylinder with its slits (as the media player) and the interchangeable series of sequential images (as the media) were separated, making it much easier to change strips, create your own animation, or even combine them.

So, whereas antecedents of the zoetrope, such as the thaumatrope and the phenakistiscope, combined content and device into one (as the flipbook would also), the zoetrope embodied innovation in separating content from the device, making it possible for the same device to be used with different strips, a characteristic that would pass on and continue in Émile Reynaud’s praxinoscope (1877), although not present in devices prior to the zoetrope.

Compared to the classic phenakistiscope, which allowed only one user at a time to view its discs, the cylindrical design of the zoetrope permitted multiple simultaneous viewers to be placed around it, without compromising the perception of the illusion for any of the viewers.

In the transition from the vertical position of the circular display of images in the phenakistiscope to the zoetrope’s paper strip, the point of view of the action depicted is fundamentally changed. Instead of having the characters portraying actions in a circular fashion, they appear grounded, which means that their movement follows the horizon line instead of the circularity of the disc (Dulac and Gaudreault, 2006: 238), significantly impacting the design and content of animation.

For the scholar Dominique Willoughby, the action displayed on the zoetrope strips represents a regression in terms of the artistic content and designs achieved in the phenakistiscope (Willoughby, 2009: 63). Even if the zoetrope strips seemed to lose the phenakistiscope’s artistry as a result of the latter’s ‘propensity to fly off in all directions, of their whirlwind and high-riding quality’ (Dulac and Gaudreault, 2006: 235), it would be the linearity of actions of the zoetrope’s characters that would continue to live on and be explored on future devices – including Émile Reynaud’s (1844–1918) Théâtre Optique (1892–1900) and the Lumière Brothers’ Cinématographe (1895), to name a few.

It is also clear that the zoetrope displays animations that are primarily action-based and not character-based. Character-based instances are historically known to have been developed later, particularly with Émile Reynaud, through the iterations and improvements of his inventions: from the praxinoscope (1877) to the Théâtre Optique (Cholodenko, 2008). However, the MB booklet suggests that an improvised screen with a slit could be placed in front of the zoetrope to isolate the viewer’s peripheral vision, consequently isolating the animated character (Milton Bradley Company, c. 1867: 9; see Figure 5). It could be adjusted in a way that only one character can be seen when the device rotates (Milton Bradley Company, c. 1867: 9; see Figure 5). ³⁷ The action of a multiplicity of characters would then be perceived as one single performer. In encouraging viewers to isolate characters through such adaptations, the focus from the character’s action to the character itself shifts in the zoetrope, reinforcing the interpretation of possible narratives at play.

Simon Stampfer made a similar suggestion for an identical blockage to be used with his stroboscope in 1833, indicating that the perception of only one picture would heighten the illusion (Stampfer and Blower, 2016: 25). However, the practicalities of adapting such screening while also manipulating and trying to look through the slits of a phenakistiscope/stroboscope would seem to be cumbersome as both hands need to be actively engaged in the play of the device, which instead could be easily adapted in the play of the zoetrope.

Some artists – considered as early animators by David Robinson (1991: 8) – played with the innate repetition of the zoetrope strips to achieve exciting effects, particularly by changing the number of characters relative to the number of slits of the device. Dr. Carpenter (1868: 27) called this relationship ‘movement of translation’. The British caricaturist and illustrator George Cruishank (1792–1878) was one of these artists drawing a special series of zoetrope strips for the LSPC in 1870 (Robinson, 1991: 25). The French artists and caricaturists Paul Hadol (1835–1875), Charles Albert d’Arnoux (1820–1882) known as Bertall, and Edme Penauille (1840?–1971) also designed zoetrope strips specially commissioned for Le Figaro in 1868. ³⁸

Fewer characters than slits will create the effect that they are being pushed forward, and more characters than slits will slow down their movement, creating the effect as if they are receding backward. Only with the exact ratio of slits and characters is the animated scene seen as moving ‘in-place’. These characteristics were suggested by Plateau in an article about his device, the phenakistiscope (Mannoni, 2000: 215–216) – besides being portrayed in the first set of phenakistiscope discs that carried his name – and further explored by Dr. Carpenter in his 1868 article about the zoetrope. I have also experimented with creating such effects in three strips with a varying number of images of a galloping horse ³⁹ and achieved the same results, although without the sophistication of having these effects applied simultaneously on one single strip.

A compelling example is found when playing with a 13-slit classical zoetrope, using a strip in which the body of a silhouetted man, drawn 13 times, passes his head from one body to the next. As the number of heads is only 12 – which is fewer than the number of bodies and the number of slits in the device – a movement of his head being passed is created, while the bodies remain in place. Illustrative of Victorian-era humor, some versions of this strip were named French Revolution, as Stephen Herbert mentioned. ⁴⁰ Thus, at each revolution of the zoetrope, heads are lost, and heads are gained in a clear reference to the guillotine, but also related to political power games. When a new head is passed, a new person is in power, a new authority rises. But that does not last long, and the repetitive movement may encourage the viewer to philosophize on its theme and how the game of power may seem to change while things remain fundamentally the same.

As mentioned, the characters in a zoetrope are perceived as multiplied, that is, the same character is performing the same ‘in-place’ action, side-by-side, and synchronized with its doppelgängers on the paper strip when seen through the slits, having as many characters as the number of slits in the device. The interaction of the player with the device is what sets the apparatus in motion, beginning the action, which would accelerate and decelerate as the strength of the hand’s push weakens before the device comes to a full stop.

Indeed, both the MB booklet and the LSPC catalog indicated the appropriate speeds at which the device should be propelled, depending on the animated action portrayed on its strips. The LSPC catalog is even more precise and marks which strips from its collection can be better enjoyed by the players when the device rotates at slow or moderate motion, in opposition to the normal fast-paced rotation. It also indicates which of the strips ‘show better when the cylinder is rotated from left to right, otherwise the usual motion is from right to left’ (Robinson, 1991: 31).

When two strips are combined, their content merges, enhancing the playability of the device. This innovative option was already hinted at in the MB booklet, and actual examples suggested in the LSPC catalog, calling them combinations:

Very effective and humorous combinations can frequently be made by overlapping one strip of figures with the half of another strip. Amongst some of the most effective of these combinations, the following numbers will give very amusing results: 4 & 5, 7 & 10, 3 & 13, [etc.]. (cited in Dulac and Gaudreault, 2006: 236)

However, such innovation will be given a more contemporary name by Dulac and Gaudreault, ‘zoetropic editing’:

Note the effect, for the zoetrope user, of these ‘syntactical’ combinations: a systematic alternation between two figures in movement was established, in the A-B-A-B pattern. Here the imperturbable filing by of the zoetrope’s endless loop was called into question. And yet the basic quality of the images had not changed: ‘zoetropic editing’ was more attraction than narration. We are not invited to follow, narratively speaking, the vicissitudes of this or that zoetropic figure from one time, space, or situation to another. Rather, we are invited to take delight in the transformation–substitution relationship the images are subjected to and which they illustrate. This is a recurring metamorphosis of the figure, not a reiterated following of the action . . . Here, however, the series of images contained thresholds, in the form of interruptions, which broke the rigid framework of figural unicity and opened the door to bifidity. (p. 236)

According to Dulac and Gaudreault, these early animated actions do not represent a narrative and are, therefore, classified as ‘attractions’. However, for this researcher, when strips are combined, proto-narratives can be created. They may be subtle and sometimes only suggested by a humorous combination between title and image. Moreover, these combinations, when explored through the viewer’s play, can be expanded into stories.

The titles of some of the classic zoetrope strips suggested embryonic forms of narratives, for instance, Fly! Leave My Nose Alone; Precocious Chickens; More Free Than Welcome; You’re Getting Very Bald Sir; A Well-Known Domestic Tragedy; among others listed in the LSPC catalog (respectively, numbers 67, 55, 44, 31, and 34 in it). The MB booklet, series number 5, for example, presented some of the following titles for their strips: Travels of Brother Jonathan by Telegraph, Pass him Around, and Mrs. Partington and her Dog to name a few (Milton Bradley Company, c. 1867: 13; see Figure 6). These titles suggest messages (often humorous) embedded to tease minds when combined with the animation. They include clever puns, jokes, and references to names, events, historical or anecdotal. Unfortunately, many of those contextual references were lost over time and led to a view and interpretation of these proto-narratives as only attractions, having lost their connection to events of their time and surroundings. ⁴¹

Dulac and Gaudreault also refer (see previous citation) to the combinations suggested in the catalog as ‘syntactical’, which builds up to their argument that these combinations break the zoetrope’s ‘endless loop’. But, for me, if that were the case, such a break in the ‘zoetropic editing’ would not achieve the same humorous results suggested by a visual connection or even continuation of the action from one strip to another. The playful and most joyful use of ‘zoetropic editing’ resides in the fact that the user gains a certain level of interaction with and control over the animation, while the continuation of the action from one strip carries on and transforms into the action of the chosen combined strip, normally through visual continuity.

By being allowed to choose the combination of different strips freely, the user can select those that have a more similar aesthetic movement even though their content is different. Those interchangeable possibilities offered by the zoetrope were happening for the first time in a philosophical toy. Notably in this regard, the circa 1867 MB booklet offered an overview of the device and reinforced the toy as a philosophical instrument in the Victorian era sense, suggesting that ‘Much sport may be produced by having some witty person give an exhibition, forming his own original combinations, and giving the same time suitable descriptions of the several scenes.’ (Milton Bradley Company, c. 1867: 10; see Figure 5). That particular suggestion of play reinforces the player’s freedom to create their own descriptions of the scenes and from there to inspire the players to develop their own narrative associations is a small leap. The scholar Meredith Bak mentions that ‘the spectatorial positions that optical toys invited children to adopt were active and engaged, in contrast to later cultural tropes such as the couch potato, the video game addicted child, or the child glued to a screen’ (Bak, 2020: 87), which emphasizes children’s active engagement with the toy, helping to transform them into discerning spectators (Bak, 2020: 102). The LSPC catalog even suggests the ‘most effective and humorous combinations’ in their collection (Robinson, 1991: 31).

The interplay between classic zoetrope strips can also be easily associated and recognized by anyone familiar with contemporary film editing practice. Therefore, to reinforce, when the subject of each strip is selected and carefully combined and assembled by the player, a deliberate visual continuity of movement is created. I have tried out comparable editing myself with classic strips on my scaled replica of a traditional zoetrope. The results were indeed delightful. In their article, Dulac and Gaudeault (2006) did not inform or clarify if they, in fact, attempted the suggested ‘zoetropic editing’, although, according to the notes of their article, they had access to devices from the French Cinémathèque Collection. Its result anticipates and shares similarities with the cut used in film editing techniques when combining sequences from different film strips that share elements that enhance their visual continuity.

Technically speaking, the strip does not have to be cut and re-patched to create this editing in the zoetrope, as is the case in traditional analog film editing. By laterally overlapping two zoetrope strips in a circular shape, the sequential drawings are combined and recombined without cuts, allowing a multiplicity of easily arranged combinations.

For instance, different ‘camera angles’, if we can call them so, had already been suggested by the combination of strips 4 and 5 in the LSPC catalog. The strips, entitled A Large Feeder and I Chews, suggest a similar action, with similar characters, but seen from different angles so that their montage would provide the user with two interchangeable yet unique points of view. If, as Dulac and Gaudreault affirm, ‘we are not invited to follow, narratively speaking, the vicissitudes of this or that zoetropic figure from one time, space, or situation to another’ (p. 236) the visual continuation perceived in the combination of strips 4 and 5, for example, would not be seen. And yet it is.

I have observed from my experiments with ‘zoetropic editing’ that the timing and visual continuation of movement encourage the users/viewers to fill in the gaps, helping narrative associations surface as they attempt to make sense of what is being shown. These understandings of storytelling and of the human brain’s ability to predict and associate facts and images come together, for instance, when experimenting with a combination of classical strips. A zoetrope strip featuring a frog juggling and passing a ball along with its legs, combined with that of a man passing his head along, is immediately perceived as if the ball becomes the head, and vice-versa. Such proto-narratives carried out from one strip combination to another may lead the viewer to wonder what the man did to receive such a fate. Many other examples of combinations are proposed in the LSPC catalog, having their action and descriptive suggestions broadened by the playful experimentation of the users/players.

Therefore, for me, ‘zoetropic editing’ suggests continuity between its edited strips while also having introduced its users, mostly children, ‘to new ways of seeing and responding to the moving image that prepared them for modern social life’ (Bak, 2020: 87). It would only break what Dulac and Gaudreault (2006) call ‘zoetrope’s endless loop’ if the combination is done by using two completely different and unrelated strips, whose results are not as impactful – although they could still be associated with the editing practice of jump cuts. This editing would be perceived by the player of the early zoetropes as a mistake or a combination that is not so effective in creating a seamless movement, which is the device’s greatest feature.

Here, I turn to Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein for support. When introducing the importance of montage in his compilation of essays titled Film Sense, Eisenstein contemplates the natural human tendency to create associations when objects are placed side by side:

While playing with pieces of film, they [the ‘leftists’ of montage] discovered a certain property in the toy which kept them astonished for a number of years. This property consisted in the fact that two film pieces of any kind, placed together, inevitably combine into a new concept, a new quality, arising out of that juxtaposition.

This is not in the least a circumstance peculiar to the cinema, but is a phenomenon invariably met with in all cases where we have to deal with juxtaposition of two facts, two phenomena, two objects. We are accustomed to make, almost automatically, a definite and obvious deductive generalization when any separate objects are placed before us side by side. (Eisenstein, 1947: 4, emphasis original)

It is my claim that the process described by Eisenstein is also at play in ‘zoetropic editing’. The cognitive process triggered by ‘zoetropic editing’ is manifested in the player’s conscious act of choosing to combine specific strips. The animated result of this action of combining strips leads to an associative process of intentional investigation of the juxtaposition of the two strips. The American literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall approaches storytelling as a human characteristic, stating that ‘humans are creatures of story, so story touches nearly every aspect of our lives’ (Gottschall, 2012: 15), which supports the interpretation of the construction of proto-narratives as a natural process in the play with ‘zoetropic editing’.

The potential stories that may arise from the play and observation of these combinations and their visual continuity often offer a comic association, forcing a recognition and understanding of the sophisticated humor of these early animators and their public. And, as Eisenstein (1947: 4) declared, ‘a new concept, a new quality’ emerges, and that is, for me, the leading quality suggested by the proto-narratives elicited by ‘zoetropic editing’.

Conclusion

When readdressing the original 19th-century documentation available about the zoetrope, clues about its original uses prove that the device offered a multiplicity of features to engage its audience, many of which got lost in time. These features present new possibilities for animators and educators today when creating animations for the zoetrope or introducing it to students. This welcomes experiments in timing for animation and provides challenging ways to create a seamless cycle. Witty and imaginative associations are limitlessly possible. The simplicity of use also demonstrates the longevity of the zoetrope, marking animation as a precursor of cinema while continuing to exist even after its advent. This indicates that the zoetrope has a distinct history, which unfolds into games, art installations, and interactive devices.

The use of the zoetrope as a trope (its ‘troping’, turning) helps spin heads (inside and outside the slotted cylinder) and invites the user to think creatively about the animated actions, establishing their connections and welcoming the free associations of ideas spun into stories. When considering that animations for the zoetrope are still made today – generally as an introduction to the practice of animation – these key Victorian era characteristics were virtually forgotten, rarely taught, and explored by students and practitioners when designing strips for the device. While what I have discovered through archival investigation of the zoetrope represents my ongoing research project, it is my hope that this article may help to spark the curiosity of today’s students, practitioners, and researchers to apply and experiment with these recovered understandings of the zoetrope, reanimating its history as a form of historical reconstruction and hands-on examination.