Career
DeVry is credited with creating the first portable motion picture projector, which he called a Theatre in a Suitcase. DeVry was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1886. As a young man DeVry worked as a cameraman for the Rothacker company in Chicago.
Later he founded the DeVry company.
In 1912 DeVry developed a new type of 35mm film projector which could be carried in its own small suitcase. The American government bought many of these during World War I. The company sold over 50,000 Type East projectors to schools and also created and distributed educational films, earning him the nickname The Father of Visual Education.
DeVry"s original hand-built prototype portable projector is on display at the Smithsonian. DeVry died in 1941.
