The popularity and cheapness of mov ing pictures has caused the moving-pic ture industry to develop into one of the more important ones of this country. It is estimated that 35,000 persons are em ployed in the production of the films before they pass into the hands of the distributing agencies, which on their part, including the employees of the show houses, give employment to another 160,000 persons. About 250 firms or cor porations are engaged in the production of moving-picture films. The production of the films involves not only the direc tors and the actors, but the stage hands and carpenters and scenic artists in the studios and the thousands of workers in the factories where the films are repro duced into thousands of copies for dis tribution among the 17,000 exhibition houses throughout the country. These films are first sent out by the distributive agencies, of which there are about 1,400 in the country, and they in their turn circulate them among the exhibition houses. It is estimated that about $600,000,000 is invested in the moving picture industry, and that the yearly salaries paid out to those employed amount to $250,000,000. Audiences in
the exhibition houses are estimated at 50,000,000 a week.
Moving pictures, however, are not en tirely confined to the amusement field. They are now beginning to be extensive ly employed in education. By means of moving-picture photography the growth of plants, the development of animal life on the most infinitesimal scale, may be portrayed through a magnifying process. By the same means industrial processes, such as the various stages of the manu facture of any commodity, may be shown to a class of students with a vividness not attainable through any other means. At the present time hardly any historic event or ceremony takes place without being recorded on the films, to be pre sented to the eyes of generations not yet born. There is hardly a scene or battle of the Great War which is not thus re corded, all the belligerent governments having had staffs of moving-picture pho tographers on the field to record the movements of their armies. In this par ticular phase of its usefulness, the mov ing-picture invention has tremendous possibilities before it.