As far as I know, there was never widesperead adoption of having a motion picture projector in the home. But it was marketed that way, as shown by this Pathé advertisement in the New York Tribune a hundred years ago today, November 8, 1914.

According to the ad, the question raised by many buyers was how they would get films to view. The ad reassured potential buyers that “literally everything of real interest, all over the world, is reporduced by motion picture,” and that new films are added daily. Old films could be exhanged for new ones at a small charge, and “every night of the year you can have your own motion picture show at home.”

While the ad’s prediction about the home market never quite worked out, the prediction about schools was probably more accurate: “Before long a school will no more be without a Pathescope than without a blackboard.” The ad also notes that the New York Tribune had purchased twenty of the projectors to be awarded to local schools.