Coordinates: 40°47′04″N 74°14′02″W / 40.78451°N 74.23388°W / 40.78451; -74.23388

The Black Maria (/məˈraɪ.ə/ mə-RY-ə) was Thomas Edison's movie production studio in West Orange, New Jersey. It is widely referred to as America's First Movie Studio.

History

In 1893, the world's first film production studio, the Black Maria, or the Kinetographic Theater, was completed on the grounds of Edison's laboratories at West Orange, New Jersey, for the purpose of making film strips for the Kinetoscope. Construction began in December 1892 and was completed the following year at a cost of $637.67 (approx. $15,272.99 in 2010 dollars). In early May 1893 at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, Edison conducted the world's first public demonstration of films shot using the Kinetograph in the Black Maria, with a Kinetoscope viewer. The exhibited film showed three people pretending to be blacksmiths.

The first motion pictures made in the Black Maria were deposited for copyright by Dickson at the Library of Congress in August, 1893. In early January 1894, The Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (aka Fred Ott's Sneeze) was one of the first series of short films made by Dickson for the Kinetoscope in Edison's Black Maria studio with fellow assistant Fred Ott. The short film was made for publicity purposes, as a series of still photographs to accompany an article in Harper's Weekly. It was the earliest motion picture to be registered for copyright — composed of an optical record of Ott sneezing comically for the camera.

Black Maria may refer to:

Music

Art and literature

Transportation

Other

Identification, friend or foe (IFF) is an identification system designed for command and control. It enables military and national (civilian air traffic control) interrogation systems to identify aircraft, vehicles or forces as friendly and to determine their bearing and range from the interrogator. IFF may be used by both military and civilian aircraft.

IFF was first developed during World War II. The term is a misnomer, as IFF can only positively identify friendly targets, not hostile ones. If an IFF interrogation receives no reply or an invalid reply, the object cannot be identified as friendly, but is not positively identified as foe. There are many reasons that friendly aircraft may not properly reply to IFF.

IFF is a tool within the broader military action of "Combat Identification (CID), the process of attaining an accurate characterization of detected objects in the operational environment sufficient to support an engagement decision." The broadest characterization is that of friend, enemy, neutral, or unknown. CID not only can reduce friendly fire incidents, but also contributes to overall tactical decision-making.

Black Maria (1923–1932) was an American Thoroughbred racing filly who earned national Champion honors three times. Bred in Kentucky by William R. Coe, she was sired by Black Toney, the great foundation stallion of Idle Hour Stock Farm. Her dam was Bird Loose, a daughter of the French stallion Sardanapale, a two-time Leading sire in France who won the 1914 Prix du Jockey Club and, at the time France's most important race, the Grand Prix de Paris.

Black Maria (1923-32) raced as a two-year-old and won but did not claim victory in any of the top races for her age group. A filly who regularly raced against male horses, after winning the Kentucky Oaks for fillies, she defeated males in the Saratoga Sales Stakes and the Aqueduct Handicap. Her performances at age three earned her American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly honors. Black Maria was voted the 1927 and 1928 American Champion Older Female Horse, highlighted by her defeat of males in the preeminent race on the U.S. East Coast for milers, the Metropolitan Handicap in a performance that made the New York Times call her "a great race mare." At age five, she beat her male counterparts again to win the Whitney Handicap.