Jump to Content

Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
George E. Van Guysling (d.1946) Collection, ca. 1850-1957
GC 1340  
View entire collection guide What's This?
Search this collection
Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Biography/Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: George E. Van Guysling (d.1946) Collection, ca. 1850-1957
    Dates: 1855-1957
    Collection Number: GC 1340
    Creator/Collector:
    Extent: (Boxes: 1 legal, 2 letter, 1 ov, 2 ov folders)
    Repository: Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
    Los Angeles, California 90007-4057
    Abstract: Primarily an assortment of documents relating to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Circa 1850-1957, undated. Bulk is 1898-1926.
    Language of Material: English

    Access

    Research is by appointment only

    Publication Rights

    Permission to publish, quote or reproduce must be secured from the repository and the copyright holder

    Preferred Citation

    George E. Van Guysling (d.1946) Collection, ca. 1850-1957. Seaver Center for Western History Research, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

    Biography/Administrative History

    Van Guysling managed the New England office of American Mutoscope and Biograph in 1901. By 1904 he became General Manager of the New York office. Various sources cite the establishment of a Los Angeles branch in late 1905 or early 1906 whereby Van Guysling, his brother Archibald, and another associate, Otis M. Gove, ran the West coast operation. Their early film association in Los Angeles preceded the better-known work of the Selig Company, and the collection contains six photographs and a handbill for the little-known first moving pictures made in Los Angeles in 1906.

    Scope and Content of Collection

    Primarily an assortment of documents relating to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and the British Mutoscope and Biograph Company. There are items pertaining to incorporation matters for both companies, catalogs, and the related film industry. There are mutoscope cards and a scrapbook of press clippings, 1898-1900, with photo event coverage including the Second Boer War in South Africa. There is a continuous 15-foot band for a peep show. Other non-moving picture items in the collection include Abraham Lincoln prints, a Civil War-era wet collodian negative, Brady negatives and prints, a Millard Fillmore print (housed in the mc folder) and large-size tintypes. Circa 1850-1957, undated. Bulk is 1898-1926. See also P-26 for kinetoscope strip images and portraits of Van Guysling, his brother Archibald and Otis M. Gove.

    Indexing Terms

    Camera, early photography & moving pictures
    American Mutoscope and Biograph Company
    British Mutoscope and Biograph Company