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How did Hollywood become what it is today?
In the early 1900s, New York was the hub for movie production, filming, and distribution. How did Hollywood, all the way in California, grow into the Hollywood we know today? Thomas Edison made the whole thing possible! The movie camera was invented by William Dixon in 1891 and was patented by Thomas Edison in 1892.
Initially, the film was a novel idea, but it quickly became cheap entertainment for the masses. At that point, Edison was already a wealthy man. This is an opportunity to earn even more money.
However, he did not appreciate immigrants taking advantage of this new business of his since he was xenophobic and racist. He was particularly offended by films that depicted people of color and wanted them removed altogether. Edison formed Motion Pictures Patent Company to buy all motion picture patents to create a monopoly in the motion picture industry at the time.
A cartel was formed to control who could own film and movie equipment. Through this practice, he basically started suing everyone who infringed upon his patents in 1908. He basically made it illegal to make a film without his approval. The excuse he used was that movies needed to have a good moral tone.
This comes from the same Thomas Edison who praised “The Birth of a Nation”, a racist film that glorified the KKK, an almost defunct organization that was inspired by this movie.
It was easy for those who started in the movie business before Edison banned them from making films to switch to purchasing film and equipment from Europe. That didn’t sit well with Edison either, so he formed a subsidiary called the General Film Company and hired thugs to break into theaters and confiscate movie equipment.
There were a lot of independent theaters owned and operated by immigrants, and one of them was a German guy named Carl Laemmle.
The Edison Enforcers became so dangerous that Carla Laemmle sought to move his company as far away from Edison as possible.
Laemmle renamed his company Universal after moving to Hollywood to escape Edison’s goons. Other independents followed soon after, including Warner Brothers and Paramount. It was a big deal back then for Marshalls to travel across the country, so they followed West too.
As a result, the studios were relatively safe from Edison's legal reach. Eventually, Edison Cartel was destroyed by a man named William Fox, who sued Edison Cartel, ending the patent wars in 1915. By that time, Hollywood had become the center of Global film production.
