(beep) (upbeat music) (upbeat piano music) - [Mercedes] In 1912, when his luxurious three-story home was completed, it had servants' quarters, guest chambers, a billiard room, and a wine cellar, and it was located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.

The owner of this home was a showman, an entrepreneur.

He had gained national reputation as a traveling exhibitor of moving pictures.

His name, Lyman H. Howe.

(upbeat piano music) Long before Lyman H. Howe's moving picture shows, enterprising promoters had traveled with all kinds of entertainment to America's small towns.

There were magic lantern shows with hand-tinted glass slides, which gave the illusion of motion.

Circuses and Wild West shows were also popular in the early 1880s.

It was about this time that Lyman H. Howe invested all the money he had, and all that he could borrow, to launch his career as a traveling exhibitor.

With a partner, he bought a working model of a coal mine, including the apparatus that breaks up the coal, and they advertised it as the mechanical wonder of the age.

It weighed 5,000 pounds and was powered by two steam engines.

They hauled it from town to town for a few difficult years until 1884, when they arrived with it in Baltimore broke.

Lyman H. Howe set up the attraction as a tent show back in Pennsylvania coal country, where he made money with it for a few more years.

He finally sold it at a profit and turned his attention to something new.

("America My Country 'Tis of Thee") In 1890, he bought an Edison phonograph.

By adding a six foot tin horn to the machine, he was able to amplify the sound so that it could be heard by a large audience.

The audiences heard everything from mocking birds to marching bands, as well as recordings made during the performance.

He traveled as far west as Michigan, splitting the profits with church groups and other sponsoring organizations.

Newspapers called him Professor Howe.

In 1893, Lyman H. Howe peered into Thomas Edison's new machine, the Kinetoscope, and he saw pictures that moved.

Like many others, he tried to obtain one of the first projectors that the Edison company put on the market.

When negotiations failed, he turned to local craftsmen to implement his own design.

He called it the Lyman H. Howe animotoscope.

On December 4th, 1896 an audience crowded into the Wilkes-Barre YMCA to see his projector and the films he had purchased.

(upbeat piano music) The local newspaper praised his projection machine and said that Lyman H. Howe had nothing to fear from his competitors.

The films were alternated with selections from his phonograph.

He was almost 40 at the time of that first show with 15 years of experience as a traveling exhibitor.

Lyman H. Howe was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on June 9, 1856.

Son of a successful manufacturer, he was the youngest of eight children.

The anthracite coal industry was bringing prosperity to Wilkes-Barre and Lyman H. Howe took advantage of what his hometown had to offer.

First, he worked his way up to baggage master on the railroad, and then went into business as a sign painter.

A born salesman, he once sold a full warehouse of telephone amplifiers.

Some of the people who bought them didn't even own telephones.

Lyman H. Howe married in 1888.

A son was adopted in 1901.

Painful problems with one of his legs made it necessary for him to have a driver.

- [Interviewee] You see, I had drove for Lyman Howe on my summer vacations.

He was a good barnstorming belly humor.

He was good at that.

He wanted to get his pictures out where a lot of people could see them.

That was the motive that kept him going, made him want to expand.

- [Mercedes] He started with the cities on his phonograph circuit.

The recorded sounds added a dimension of realism.

When the Black Diamond Express raced toward the audience at 60 miles an hour, some of the people nearest the screen jumped from their seats, afraid that the speeding train was coming right straight at them.

There were, of course, problems.

Transporting the equipment.

A different city almost every day.

Film so flammable a burning cigarette forced an end to one whole season's tour.

Moving pictures offered the opportunity for quick profits.

Some failed while others became his rivals.

He responded to claims of other exhibitors with guarantees of his own.

When one of his Interviewees wanted to start his own show, Lyman H. Howe told him to get the evil out of his heart and be glad to work for a man who was a winner.

By 1900, his programs included 40 to 50 films.

Musical interludes and short entertainments were part of the two hour show.

He charged as much as 75 cents for one ticket.

(upbeat piano music) He claimed to have personally supervised the filming of the moving sidewalks at the Paris Exposition.

(upbeat piano music) He said his shows were amusing, and refined, and educational.

Pictures from Atlantic City gave some people their first look at crowds of sun bathers splashing in the ocean.

(upbeat piano music) One of his programs featured films on the assassination and funeral of President McKinley.

In 1901, Mr.

Howe claimed the record for a single performance of moving pictures in the United States.

(upbeat piano music) Between the actualities, he often used novelty films, like the trick pictures of the French illusionist, Georges Melies.

(upbeat piano music) He showed a dramatic reenactment of the coronation of Edward VII of England and he called it "An Imperial Pageant of Unexampled Splendor and Magnitude."

(dramatic piano music) Scenes from the Boer War, whether real or staged, were very popular.

He said the entire globe had been searched for the thrilling scenes that only bravery and money could procure.

The programs usually ended with a short comedy, like the antics of Buster Brown and his dog.

(upbeat piano music) He said he would not include anything that might be offensive to his audience, such as Edison's film in which a baby elephant is electrocuted at Coney Island.

"The Great Train Robbery" of Edwin S. Porter.

While other exhibitors were experiencing tremendous success with this 1903 story film, Lyman H. Howe continued to feature actualities.

He expanded his staff.

By 1904, he was directing four traveling companies from his offices in Wilkes-Barre.

The shows were promoted as the epitome of moving pictures and he promised an entirely new program twice every season.

His exhibitions played in opera houses and legitimate theaters as far west as Missouri.

By 1904, his show included films he had produced himself.

When Teddy Roosevelt came to Wilkes-Barre in 1905, Lyman H. Howe's cameras recorded the visit of the 26th president of the United States.

His programs advertised the film as a Lyman H. Howe exclusive.

(upbeat piano music) In 1906, his hometown of Wilkes-Barre celebrated its Centennial Jubilee.

There were three days of festivities and parades, and Lyman H. Howe's cameras were there.

(marching band music) He continued to buy most of the travel footage he needed and to search for special novelty films, like Ferdinand Zecca's "The Golden Beetle," which was tinted by hand.

(mellow piano music) While Lyman H. Howe booked his shows into community auditoriums and local opera houses, some exhibitors were opening storefront theaters called nickelodeons.

They offered short programs of moving pictures for a nickel.

(upbeat piano music) In 1908, Thomas Edison met with the established manufacturers and distributors in an attempt to control the moving picture industry.

It appears that Lyman H. Howe avoided the years of conflict that followed.

The growth of the nickelodeons continued.

By 1909, there were more than 500 in New York City alone.

That same year, Lyman H. Howe took his film exhibition to the world's largest playhouse, the New York Hippodrome.

The scenes were accompanied by Mr.

Howe's piano player and by the theater's 26-piece orchestra.

There were people trained to do the sound effects.

Actors read dialogue from behind the screen in the comedies.

When Mr.

Howe returned to the Hippodrome two weeks later with an entirely new program, Billboard magazine said, "Lyman H. Howe wants the people to go home satisfied, "to come again.

"And, of course, to pay again."

His five road companies duplicated that success in other large cities.

His staff sometimes rehearsed for two weeks to perfect the sounds.

In the smaller towns, they hired school boys to help.

- [Interviewee] A gentleman who was employed by Lyman Howe put us through the paces.

And then, he'd say, "Now, when this lady drops a plate, "I'll go like this and you'll have the sack "with all the broken plates in there.

"Just drop it as hard as you can."

(dishes breaking) - [Interviewee] We had a bicycle back there and, of course, one fellow would would turn that.

The other fellow would put the spokes in there and all, and he'd draw it back out and put it back in again.

And then, that way, why we could make sound like an airplane taking off.

(propellers whirring) - [Interviewee] To make horses gallop, we had two coconut shells a piece, one in each hand.

Clop, clop, clop, clop, clop, clop, clop.

Clopped off the street, and people hollered and yelled.

They couldn't believe it.

A river, a real fast-flowing river, and we had to work fast too.

We had great big blocks of sandpaper on a great, big long board.

There was about six of us and it's just like, it was water.

It was so real and so realistic.

- [Mercedes] It was 1911.

His goal: the first successful moving pictures taken from an airplane.

- [Interviewee] I was right in the middle of everything there.

Well, they hunted the plane all over to find a place where they could put it because it had to be cranked by hand, and we lashed it on there somehow and got it on there good and tight.

When the camera was all set up and Lincoln Beachey was ready, he took off and Lyman Howe followed him with the camera through his taking off and his landing.

- [Mercedes] After premieres in Pittsburgh and in Chicago, he showed the films in more than 500 theaters.

- [Interviewee] Well, we just thought it was impossible, that's all.

I can't describe it any more than that.

He did the stunt of having the plane somersault, turn around, and it was quite sensational.

- [Interviewee] I was 11 years old then.

And as I recall, you could point out the different sections of the city.

As far as I was concerned, and the audience, I think it was the first time they had ever seen a picture taken from an airplane.

(upbeat piano music) - [Interviewee] And bridge girders were crowded with people, and here he came, right at them.

He came down, and the grass was wet, and the plane just slid right into the fence.

(upbeat piano music) - [Mercedes] Lyman H. Howe's exhibitions were often welcome in places where some moving pictures might be censored.

He said he preferred to put his faith in the sound judgment of the American people and he predicted that flaming stories of war, love, and revenge wouldn't last.

(ominous piano music) But soon, there were longer story films, like "Birth of a Nation," and there were elaborate moving picture palaces.

Both were a threat to the few remaining traveling exhibitors.

He began to send his cameramen on longer trips to bring back more extensive footage from places like Hawaii.

(upbeat piano music) - [Interviewee] I would say I was about 15 years old when I first saw a Lyman H. Howe travel festival.

And what impressed me mostly about his performance was the accompaniment that he gave it, both in sound effects and music.

- [Interviewee] And Lyman Howe came along with a scholarly approach, which wasn't scholarly at all.

Pure showmanship.

Played as a first-class attraction.

He was enough of a showman to build it up that way.

(upbeat piano music) - [Interviewee] The whole show just kept building up 'til they finally shot the cannon of the Panama Canal, and that was a grand finale.

They had a barrel backstage with a shotgun and they shot into this barrel.

(cannon exploding) and it put half the audience out of their seats.

- [Mercedes] One of his cameramen spent two and a half months in Panama while the canal was under construction.

One reviewer wrote that the only reason we don't know how the pyramids were built is that Lyman H. Howe was born too late to film the construction.

(upbeat piano music) In 1915, his shows featured a trip through the canal and highlights of the two California expositions celebrating its opening.

(upbeat piano music) He introduced scenes of the San Francisco Exposition with trick pictures made by artists in his Wilkes-Barres studios.

(upbeat piano music) His moving pictures made the exposition come alive for people all over the East and Midwest.

(upbeat piano music) His cameraman recorded one of the most significant events of the exposition.

A special parade celebrated the end of its cross country trip.

(upbeat piano music) San Diego held its own exposition and declared a special Lyman H. Howe Day.

The official motion pictures of the exposition were taken under his supervision.

(upbeat piano music) It was announced that a print of the pictures taken that day and a print of his film on the Panama Canal would remain sealed in the archives, preserved for future generations.

(upbeat piano music) The San Diego Union, a newspaper, called him the biggest producer of travel log motion pictures in the country.

He attributed his success to his educational subjects.

But now, the motion picture industry was moving in quite a different direction.

He was able to attract audiences for another three years with travel logs, a series on the Navy.

By 1918, Lyman H. Howe attractions could no longer compete.

The last of his six road shows was called home.

Lyman H. Howe lived long enough to know that an updated version of his old film, "Ride on a Runaway Train," played a command performance at Buckingham Palace in 1922.

(upbeat piano music) It's ironic that he is most often remembered for a series of 110 short films produced by his company after his death.

New animation was added to the travel films and the Lyman H. Howe Hodge-Podge accompanied feature films for more than a decade.

Somebody had once asked him for the the secret of his success.

"The secret of success," he said, "is no secret at all.

"The more the exhibitor does, "the greater will be the measure of his reward. "

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