Which company filmed the 1898 Rex parade later added to the National Film Registry?

The American Mutoscope Co. filmed the 1898 Rex parade later added to the National Film Registry.

The surviving footage records Rex’s Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans, whose theme was “Harvest Queens.” It is an early actuality film: rather than a fictional story, it documents a public event as it unfolded, giving modern viewers a rare glimpse of nineteenth-century Carnival spectacle.

The film was long believed to be lost, but a copy was rediscovered in 2022. It runs for about two minutes and shows six parade floats, including one carrying a live ox. That detail connects the film to the older bœuf gras tradition, in which an ox represented the final meat eaten before Lent.

In December 2022, the Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry as culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. The company name can cause confusion because American Mutoscope later became associated with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company; the 1898 Rex footage is identified as the American Mutoscope Co. production.