Archive footage of Japanese acrobats, 1904

This archive footage, from 1904, illustrates the kinds of acrobatic feats that were made famous by Professor Risley's Imperial Japanese Troupe, a group of Japanese performers that toured the world in the late 1860s and is the subject of a new book by Frederik Schodt. See our interview — — with Schodt for more about the book, the acrobats and another of Schodt's passions: manga. From the American Memory Archive. Filmed by Edison Manufacturing Co., in Edison