The late 1800"s and early 1900"s saw great changes in the world of the arts. New forms of art and entertainment such as music, sports, art, literature, and cinema marked this period. Due to less work hours, people then had more free time. A popular new leisure activity, in the early 1900"s, was an evening out to the movies.

             During the late 1800"s, dozens of inventors worked on moving-picture cameras. The essential device for creating the illusion of moving pictures had been developed by Thomas Edison and his partner William K. L. Dickson in 1889. It was called the Kinetoscope, and it was the original "movie maker". However, it was not until 1903 that motion pictures became popular when Edwin S. Porter produced "The Great Train Robbery". As the lights dimmed, and the movie begun, a fierce bandit appeared on the screen and fired his revolver directly at the audience. People shrieked with fear and delight. In the next eight minutes, they watched as a band of outlaws held up a train and fled, only to be hunted down by a sheriff and his hard-ridding posse. The people who saw "The Great Train Robbery" were watching the beginning of both a new art form and a new industry. Little did they know at the time that moving pictures would come to dominate mass culture in the twentieth century.

             The next film of importance that won wide public acclaim came in 1915 when David Wark Griffith brought out "The Birth of a Nation". Dealing with the civil war, it employed thousands of people and showed America that there was a career to be made in entertainment. More importantly, it demonstrated the artistic potentialities of film as compared to live theater. Tens of millions went to see it and from that point on, the "movie" gained grand stature as an art form. .

             As time went on, advances took place in motion pictures. They went from being silent to having sound, from being black and white to having color, and from being as short as one minute to as long as four hours.