This is an in-depth look at the life and career of James Stuart Blackton (1875-1941), the first great commercial vendor of cinema who grasped that motion pictures were not merely a technical innovation, but a popular entertainment form for the masses. Blackton was a man of many firsts in the film industry: the first combination actor-director-producer in the United States, the country’s first national exhibitor, and the first film propagandist. He contributed landmark innovations in everything from special effects to single-frame animation, for which he is often regarded as the father of the animated cartoon.