May 12, 1903: Lights, Camera, Bully!
On this day in 1903, President Teddy Roosevelt became the first president ever captured on motion picture film. (The first president ever photographed was John Quincy Adams, who was also the first president ever photographed doing “The Shocker.”)
Roosevelt was visiting San Francisco (where his fondness for “Bear Hunting” created some confusion amongst some burly locals), and a cameraman named H.J. Miles filmed the president while he was riding in a parade. Unfortunately, Secret Service men were unfamiliar with the device Miles was pointing at the president, and the cameraman spent the next few months incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay.
Miles eventually released his film under the title “The President’s Carriage” and was later played on “nickelodeons” across the country. A saltier version of the film called “The President’s Undercarriage” was rarely seen outside some of the nation’s sleazier movie arcades.
The film showed Roosevelt riding in a carriage and escorted by the Ninth U.S. Cavalry Regiment, an all-black company. (The film is also the first filmic record of a US politician playing “The Race Card.”)
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