A Washington, D.C., real estate agent, he invented a variety of machinery, including an oarlock for boats and automatic car coupler for railroads. In 1894 he joined with another inventor, Charles Francis Jenkins, to develop the world's first motion picture projection machine utilizing an intermittent motion mechanism. The machine failed, however, and in the following year Armat alone assembled an improved version, employing a loop-forming device and the first practicable intermittent motion mechanism. In September 1895 he exhibited his invention, called the Phantoscope, at the Cotton States Exposition in Atlanta. The following year the Edison company agreed to manufacture the machine. According to Armat it was decided that "for the purpose of adding prestige, the projector would be advertised as Edison's Vitascope." And so, on April 23, 1896, the Edison Vitascope made its bow, projecting Edison Company films on a New York music-hall screen, several months after Lumière had demonstrated his Cinématographe in Paris, and with Armat himself acting as the projectionist. The era of screen projection had thus begun. Armat later sued both the Edison company and Biograph over patent rights but eventually joined with them to form the Motion Picture Patents Company.  Special Award 1947: To "one of the small groups of pioneers whose belief in a new medium, and whose contributions to its development, blazed the trail along which the motion picture has progressed, in their lifetime, from obscurity to world-wide acclaim." Winners presented Statuettes. (w. Col. William N. Selig, George K. Spoor & Albert E. Smith) 1 Special Award