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According to film historian Charles Musser, Carmencita was the first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and may have been the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. The 1894 American short film featuring her was directed by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish inventor credited with inventing the motion picture camera under the employ of Thomas Edison. This video is one of a series of Edison short films featuring circus and vaudeville acts. She was also the subject for famous painters of the turn-of-the-century including John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase and James Beckwith.