Eadweard Muybridge (born Edward Muggeridge) was a deeply fascinating personality and a pioneer in the field of photography. A native of England, he spent much of his life in the western United States from the 1850s through the 1870s. He began as a bookseller, basing himself in San Francisco around 1855. But it took a traumatic accident with a runaway stagecoach to get him seriously started in the field of photography. This episode, which originally aired April 28, 2004, doesn’t cover the often dramatic details of Eadweard Muybridge’s life, but there is plenty more to discover both online and at the museum on the Stanford University campus.

Huell is off to Stanford University to learn about Eadweard Muybridge and
his ground breaking photographs of animal locomotion. With the financial
help of wealthy Leland Stanford, a former California Governor and founder
of Stanford University, Muybridge used multiple cameras to capture
innovative images of animals in motion. His venture, which would make
contributions to art and science, began in 1872 at Stanford’s horse farm
in Palo Alto the future site of Stanford University.

(Click on the linked image below to see the video.)