Part 4 of 4

This final section reveals how the magic lantern became a powerful catalyst for social reform and a precursor to modern mass media. You will discover how reformers like Jacob Riis used “outraged passion” and shocking images of New York’s seedy side to transform city slums, while the Salvation Army adopted the lantern as a primary tool for global communication. Beyond social justice, the lantern dramatized the news of the day—from “riotous” election night crowds watching live results on giant outdoor screens to vivid, hand-colored reports from the front lines of the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. Ultimately, this era birthed the cinema through Edweard Muybridge’s “magic-lantern gone mad,” which projected photographic studies of motion and set the stage for a new century of moving pictures.