Muybridge, Eadweard, 1830-1904

The California Street Cable Railroad began operation in April, 1878.

American photographer known especially for his landscape views of the western United States, South and Central America, and for his photographic studies of animals in motion, Muybridge worked closely with Senator Leland Stanford on horse in motion experiments in Sacramento and Palo Alto, California.

Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was an English photographer important for his pioneering studies of motion done for Leland Stanford. Leland Stanford (1824-1893) was one of the four railroad magnates who built the Central Pacific Railroad. Stanford's mansion, built in 1876, was located on Nob Hill's California Street in San Francisco. It was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire.

Muybridge contracted with the University of Pennsylvania in 1883 to conduct and publish animal locomotion studies.

Eadweard James Muybridge, born Edward James Muggeridge in Kingston-on-Thames, England, April 9, 1830, emigrated to the United States about 1852. By 1855 he owned a bookstore in San Francisco specializing in illustrated books. He spent his early years photographing life in California and eventually became a skilled photographer with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, engaged in photographic survey work on the Pacific Coast and Southeast Alaska. His photographs of Southeast communities and the Tlingit Indians are believed to be the first photographs made in Alaska. Muybridge was a pioneer of motion photography, receiving international recognition for his photographs of animal locomotion. The results of his experiments were published in book form in 1878, titled, "The Horse in Motion," and in 1887, an eleven volume work containing 100,000 photographs titled "Animal Locomotion." Muybridge married Flora Stone in 1872, in San Francisco and had one son, Florido H. Muybridge. He died in England, May 8, 1904, and was cremated.

Eadweard James Muybridge was born on April 9, 1830 as Edward Muggeridge at Kingston-on-Thames, England, the son of John and Susannah (Smith) Muggeridge. In 1852, Muybridge immigrated to the United States. After a brief career in the printing business, Muybridge studied photography and eventually gained recognition for his landscape photographs of the American West. In 1872, the railroad tycoon and then-governor of California, Leland Stanford, asked Muybridge to help settle a $25,000 bet. The bet required Muybridge to take photographs of a running horse to prove that it had all four feet in the air at some point. However, his attempt was inconclusive. Five years later, 1877 Muybridge improved the mechanics of his photographic process using a bank of cameras with mechanically tripped shutters. With his new system, he photographed Stanford's horse Occident and proved that a running horse indeed lifted all four feet at some point. This incident inspired him to continue the study of animals in motion, a new venture in the field of science and photography.

With the financial backing of Stanford, Muybridge obtained more action photographs of animals culminating in the publication of The Horse in Motion (1877) and The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, A Series of Photographs Illustrating the Consecutive Positions Assumed by Animals in Performing Various Movements (1878). In 1878, Scientific American and La Nature published reproductions of photographs in the Horse in Motion. Subscribers could place these reproductions in their zoetrope to view the stop motion photographs in rapid succession. Muybridge took the animating capability of the zoetrope further by inventing the zoopraxiscope in 1879. The zoopraxiscope projected images of slides placed on a large disk onto a screen. Muybridge spent most of 1881-1882 in Paris and London exhibiting the zoopraxiscope and lecturing on animal motion.

Muybridge's ties to Philadelphia began when Fairman Rogers, then head of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Thomas Eakins, artist and professor of drawing and painting at the Academy, corresponded with Muybridge about his Palo Alto photographs. In 1883, Rogers invited Muybridge to give two lectures at the Academy. Also in 1883 several important Philadelphians, including J.B. Lippincott and the provost William Pepper attended a meeting in the office of the provost of the University of Pennsylvania. During this meeting, the men decided to provide Muybridge with the grounds of the Veterinary Hospital and a $5,000 advance to begin work on the landmark study, Animal Locomotion. Starting in 1884, the University constructed an outdoor studio for Muybridge near 36th and Pine. The outdoor studio consisted of a three-sided black shed. White strings hung on the back wall of the shed to form a grid to measure the movement of a human or animal as it passed through the frames. For the production of the Animal Locomotion study, he improved his photographic techniques by using dry plate technology, rather than the wet plate technology he had previously used. He also equipped his three batteries of twelve cameras each with electronically released shutters, allowing shorter exposure times.

The Animal Locomotion study contains 781 photographs of males and females performing common actions, often nude; physically deformed males and females from the Philadelphia Hospital and a variety of animal species from the Philadelphia Zoo. Models also included students, particularly athletes, and faculty from the University of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. This study, completed in 1887 and published under the sponsorship of the University, would prove to be of great use to artists, anatomists, physiologists, and athletes.

After the completion of Animal Locomotion, Muybridge returned to his birthplace to reside. At the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he ran "Zoopraxographical Hall" in 1893 for which the University of Pennsylvania received an award. He later published Descriptive Zoopraxography (1893) and The Human Figure in Motion (1901). Muybridge died in England on May 8, 1904, survived by wife Flora Shallcross.

Biographical/Historical Sketch

Eadweard Muybridge was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, in April 1830 as Edward James Muggeridge. He came to the United States in 1851 and worked for two publishing companies on the east coast until 1855, when he moved to California and established a book store in San Francisco. In 1860 he set off on an extensive journey east through the United States and on to Europe, but was injured in a stagecoach accident in Texas. He spent some time in England recuperating and back in the States suing the stage coach company, but not all of his activities between 1860 and 1866 are known.

In 1867 he returned to California and commenced his photography career, focusing for the next six years on California and the Far West. He traveled in Central America and Panama during 1875 to 1876; and in 1876 and 1877 he completed his panorama of San Francisco.

Muybridge worked closely with Senator Leland Stanford on experiments to record horses in motion, trying first to answer the question of whether or not all four feet are off the ground during the trot. In 1873 he successfully captured that event in Sacramento, using Leland Stanford's horse Occident as his subject. He made further photographs of Occident in 1877 and then in 1878-79 he set up a studio at Stanford's Palo Alto Stock Farm and conducted many photographic experiments of horses in motion.

Biography

Born Edward James Muggeride in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, April 9, 1830, Muybridge came to the U.S. in the early 1850s and opened a bookstore in San Francisco in 1855. After being seriously injured in a fall from a stagecoach, he returned to England, where he turned to photography. He came back to San Francisco in the late 1860s and did photographic work for the U.S Coast and Geodetic Survey.

Muybridge achieved great fame through his photographic studies of animal and human locomotion published in such works as Animal Locomotion (11 vols., 1887) and The Human Figure in Motion(1901) . His studies began in 1872 when he was hired by railroad magnate Leland Stanford to prove that all four hooves of a horse left the ground during a trot. In the course of these studies he invented devices to trip the shutters of a series of cameras in order to record animals in motion. He later developed a viewer called the zoopraxiscope, which allowed runs of motion photographs to be seen as if moving. These projects are now considered the forerunners of modern motion pictures.

Aside from his motion studies, Muybridge was known for the wide variety of photographs he took of scenes in California and western North America. These included stereo views of Alaska, Canada, California cities, Mexico and Central America. He gained notoriety in 1874 when he murdered his wife's lover and was acquitted of the crime in a much publicized trial. After a period of exile he returned to San Francisco in 1876, and in the following two years he produced three massive panoramas of the City taked from Nob Hill.

Based on Harris, David.Eadweard Muybridge and the Photographic Panorama of San Francisco, 1850-1880. (Montreal:Canadian Centre for Architecture,c1993) ; and Hart, James D.A Companion to California.(New York :Oxford University Press,1978), p. 292-293.