By Claire O'Neill

If Louis Daguerre could see Canon's Mark II, his head would explode. Cameras have come a long way since 1839, and Smithsonian's National Museum of American History currently has a display of 22 cameras to celebrate the camera's evolution. From the earliest daguerreotypes to view cameras to early digital models, the exhibit shows off just a fraction of the holdings in the Photographic History Collection. View the photos here, but check out the Flickr site to learn more about the cameras.

Smithsonian has made great efforts to develop (pun intended) its photography collection over the past few years. It has an incredible reservoir of first-edition prints, primitive photographic ephemera, equipment and oddities. So expect more to come! And for more pre-digital history, check out this darkroom exhibition at the National Gallery of Art.

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By Claire O'Neill

Ryan Lintelman, curatorial assistant at the Smithsonian's Photographic History Collection, likens mutoscopes to YouTube. "They're accessible, they're cheap, and they're not as tightly censored as the movies, so we see a lot of sexual... [and] violent content." But that raises the question: What is a mutoscope? The Picture Show wanted to know more, so our friends at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History took us behind the scenes.

A mutoscope, Lintelman explained, was typically a large, cast iron machine that housed a hub of rotating images -- one of the very first motion picture devices. When flipped through with a crank, they produced a brief silent film (hence the name) that could be viewed by one person at a time.

Example of a mutoscope (Smithsonian Photographic History Collection © 2009)

Typically found in arcades, parlors and movie theaters, mutoscopes offered a cheap and private alternative to movies. On the exterior of each machine, a title card displayed the name and price of the film. Smithsonian has a whole collection of these handmade cards, which you can see in the gallery above. How could you resist titles like, "After He Bought Those Monkey Glands" and "The Lost Toupee"?

From daguerreotypes to one of the first digital cameras, the Smithsonian's Photographic History Collection offers an incredible array of materials: Ansel Adams prints, stereoscopes, photos of atomic explosions, and much more.

In this excerpt from the Smithsonian Channel television series "Stories From the Vaults," the photographic curator Shannon Perich tells Tom Cavanagh a bit more about the clunky contraptions.

• View more videos of Smithsonian Channel's Stories From The Vaults
• Check out this YouTube video (how appropriate) of a mutoscope made with Polaroids
• Learn more about Smithsonian's photography initiatives

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