Born Today June 27: Thomas Kimmwood Peters

1879-1973

American film pioneer Thomas Kimmwood Peters was born on this day in Norfolk, Virginia. Though born in Virginia, he grew up on the west coast and attended elementary school in Los Angeles, eventually graduating high school there and moving on to college in Mexico (he would eventually earn a Ph.D.--but that would come much later in his life in 1939). He started his career as a still photographer within the brand new motion picture industry, and was hired--probably in 1899--by the French motion picture company Pathe Freres to actually work in their original European studio. He had a specialty of working on location films. After leaving the company and with his experience working on-location, he found work on film sets in a number of different locations in continental Europe and north Africa--principally Egypt.  Returning to the United States, had went to work for the Cosmos Film Company in San Francisco; which he would later have a large hand in transforming into the Exactus Photo Film Co. in 1914. The company, of which he was the both the president and manager of, specialized in educational films in all capacities: from production to exchange programs with schools. It was a grand scheme, but owed to bad management (in no small part by Peters himself) and board in-fighting, the company folded after just two years. Despite it's short lived existence, Peters did make advances film quality during the company's run.  He was able to take these and use them in further projects. In fact, he was specifically hired for his expertise in film preservation quality. Which brings us to the project that he is most closely associated with today. He was hired by Thornwell Jacobs for his famed Crypt of Civilization which is located at Oglethorpe University in the state of Georgia. His task was no small one, he was charged with creating microfilm for the time capsule that would last for 6,000 years! Of course, this all occurred in the late 1930's. Of film interest, beyond films and film stills of silent era that Peters worked on preservation for the project, Peters also made whole new "silent films" utilizing all kinds of still photographs and even cheap newsreels.  Most were recorded on two mediums, including a brand new paper thin metal transfer, in case the other medium did not survive.  This is how Peters became both a student and employee of Oglethorpe, where he stayed on as he worked as the university's photographic curator: in both acquisitions and preservation. He also eventually taught audio-visual classes after he obtained his Ph.D. According to at the university he filmed and photographed at least two important historical events (amongst a series of lesser historical events): the San Francisco earthquake/fire in 1906 and the building of the Panama Canal; but no evidence of either has ever been found. If the newsreels ever existed in the first place, they have long since been lost. If they did indeed exist, it would have made him one of the very first newsreel reporters to record on location shoots with a portable camera--something that we all really take for granted these days! Though Peters had several inventions to his name, including the very 1st microfilm 35mm camera; he only patented one invention design in his lifetime--but he patented several variations of it--ironically the devices had to do with rare earth gases and vacuum tubes. Peters died somewhere in his home state of California at some point in 1973--the precise details of his death are not known at the time of this writing. 

View of the Crypt of Civilization just before it was sealed in 1940, film cans put together by Peters can be seen amongst the rather odd collections of other mediums.

Library of Congress

New Georgia Encyclopedia