Yes, Edison as in Thomas Edison, the light bulb guy. At the turn of his century, the tech wizard of Menlo Park produced thousands of movies as a showcase for his company’s vitascopes. Among those movies are five films about the Philippine-American War, produced in a flurry all throughout June of 1899. 

It turns out that the boom of cinema dovetailed neatly with America’s growing imperial ambitions. But what made this faraway war so compelling for wide-eyed audiences captured by the magic of the silver screen?

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