Zoetrope - "The Wheel of Life" - Round cardboard wheel with slots, spins, wooden base, 9 strips of painted figures, whole - 4 half strips. Victorian optical toy and animation device. Item consists of a paperboard cylinder with 13 equidistant slits cut along the top. The cylinder is hollow and open on the top, solid on the base, and covered with black paper. The base includes an inset small wooden pin, used to fit onto the solid wood circular base. Also included are 12 paper strips, or fragments of paper strips, to be placed on the lower portion of the inner cylinder. Strips show a series of printed animations, which would be watched when the cylinder is spun on the base. Both sides of each strip contain imagery, most of them with selected color. Seven mostly double-sided strips from the original Series 1, including Dancer, Hash Machine, The Result of the Grecian Bend, Johnny Jumper, Kick Her Up, Raining Pitchforks, Magic Ocean, Chewing Gum Five strips from Series 6 including Meet Me By Moonlight, Little Rope Jumper; A Stitch in Time, Don Quixote on His Architectural Steed (duplicate); Hatched, Matched and Dispatched, The Ignoble Art, On base of drum: "The Zoetrope Or Wheel of Life Manufactured solely by Milton Bradley & Co." Springfield, MA "Patented April 23rd 1867" Wheel 8" x 12" Base 11" across