Scene from Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower
R: James H. White. P: Edison Manufacturing Company. USA 1900

“American producers were the ones who (…) made Paris another cinematographic star, emulating New York, on the occasion of a singular event, the Universal Exposition of 1900, the first one that could be filmed. The idea that underlines this type of event is that of demonstrating curiosities from all over the world that under the circumstances of the time would not be able to transcend their immediate environment to reach a real and present public. Cinema contributed to the same effect, exposing the world‘s novelties even more. Since it was held in Paris, the Eiffel Tower, that great icon of French modernity, inevitably played the same role that New York skyscrapers did and in this style James White produced five ‘Paris Exposition Films’ for Edison: Eiffel Tower from Trocadero Palace, Palace of Electricity, Champs de Mars, Panorama of Eiffel Tower and Scene from Elevator Ascending Eiffel Tower.”
Darío Villanueva: Images of the City. Poetry and Film, from Whitman to Lorca (English translation of Chapter I of Imágenes de la ciudad), p. 10
Essay and Science

Panorama of the Paris Exposition, from the Seine
P: Edison Co. USA 1900
Print: Library of Congress, Wasington D.C.

From Edison films catalog:
“This panoramic scene is taken from a Seine steamboat and gives a rapid view of the banks of the river. The launch steams under six bridges and past the Street of Nations. The United States Building is a prominent white domed structure, gay with national flags. The picture ends at the famous three million dollar bridge, the Pont Alexander III.”
Library of Congress

Paris Exhibition 1900

TRAUM UND EXZESS, S. 24