Maker

PICTURE SHOW: (top) The Lodge Lantern Vertical Rotary Carousel; (bottom) various 20th-century coming attraction slides. Wings (bottom row, third from left) was the first winner of the Academy Award

“Walt Disney began working for the Kansas City Slide Company as an illustrator for magic lantern slides,” Judson adds. “That’s how he got his start. Of course, everybody knows how he went on from there to California where he created cels that would become an animated motion picture. All of this stuff began with the magic lantern.”

for Best Picture; (opposite) the children’s magic lantern exhibit includes 19th-century handpainted slides in wood frames.

» Magic Lantern Castle Museum: magiclanterns.org

A complete video and transcript of this interview are available at makezine.com/16/lantern.

Dale Dougherty is editor and publisher of MAKE.

Photography by Michael Thad Carter

32 Make: Volume 16