Alexander Black (1859–1940) was an American author, photographer, newspaper man, and the inventor of the pre-cinema “Picture Play” which debuted in 1894.
Early life
Alexander Black was born in New York City in 1859, the eldest child of Peter Black and Sarah MacCrae, both born in Scotland. After a grammar school education and teaching himself printmaking, became a reporter at the Brooklyn Eagle. In 1878 at the age 19 he toured Europe for three months keeping a detailed sketchbook.
Career
Black's career began as a newspaper man in Brooklyn and stenographer for Brooklyn courts, working at the Brooklyn Daily Eagle starting in 1870, editor of the Brooklyn Times (1885–1905), New York World (1905–1910), Frank Seaman, Inc. (1910–1913), Newspaper Feature Service (1913–1926), and as art editor for King Features Syndicate (1926–1935), alongside freelance writing and photography. During this time he also became the first president of the department of photography at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1886. His first book was published in 1886 titled Photography Indoors and Out, intended to be a manual for amateur photographers.
On the lyceum circuit, Black presented a magic lantern show of candid photography called "Life through a Detective Camera" (alternately titled "Ourselves as Others See Us") in 1889. Inspired by audience responses to these lectures, as well as emerging work by Eadward Muybridge capturing the effect of motion in photography, Black began to develop a plan to bring fiction to life through dissolving slides.
