What is "mutoscope"

Mutoscope \Mu"to*scope\, n. [L. mutare to change + -scope.] A simple form of moving-picture machine in which the series of views, exhibiting the successive phases of a scene, are printed on paper and mounted around the periphery of a wheel. The rotation of the wheel brings them rapidly into sight, one after another, and the blended effect gives a semblance of motion.

n. A motion picture device of the late nineteenth century, to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole.

The Mutoscope was an early motion picture device, invented by Winsor McCay and later patented by Herman Casler on November 21, 1894. Like Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope, it did not project on a screen and provided viewing to only one person at a time. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system, marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company), quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot peep-show business.