Thomas Edison’s Vitascope motion pictures are first shown in Boston.

The short subjects, none more than a few minutes in length, are screened at B.F. Keith’s New Theatre. The first projection of a movie in Boston, it prompts the Boston Herald to marvel at the new technology and ask, “May not small towns see city shows by the Vitascope? May not actresses, who realize how fleeting youth is, preserve themselves in their prime? Indeed to what use may not the Vitascope be put?”