Edison Studios was an American

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

production organization, owned by companies controlled by inventor and entrepreneur,

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventio ...

. The

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

made close to 1,200 films, as part of the

Edison Manufacturing Company The Edison Manufacturing Company, originally registered as the United Edison Manufacturing Company and often known as simply the Edison Company, was organized by inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison and incorporated in New York City in May 188 ...

(1894–1911) and then

Thomas A. Edison, Inc. Thomas A. Edison, Incorporated (originally the National Phonograph Company) was the main holding company for the various manufacturing companies established by the inventor and entrepreneur Thomas Edison. It was a successor to Edison Manufacturin ...

(1911–1918), until the studio's closing in 1918. Of that number, 54 were

feature length A feature film or feature-length film is a narrative film (motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term ''feature film'' originall ...

, and the remainder were

shorts Shorts are a garment worn over the human pelvis, pelvic area, circling the waist and splitting to cover the upper part of the legs, sometimes extending down to the knees but not covering the entire length of the leg. They are called "shorts" b ...

. All of the company's films have fallen into the public domain because they were released before 1925.

History

The first production facility was

Edison's Black Maria The Black Maria ( ) was Thomas Edison's film production studio in West Orange, New Jersey. It was the world's first film studio. History In 1893, the world's first film production studio, the Black Maria, or the cinematographic Theater, wa ...

studio, in

West Orange, New Jersey West Orange is a suburban township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States Census, its population was 48,843, an increase of 2,636 (+5.7%) from the 46,207 counted in the 2010 Census.

, built in the winter of 1892–93. The second facility, a glass-enclosed rooftop studio built at 41 East 21st Street in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

's entertainment district, opened in 1901. In 1907, Edison had new facilities built, on Decatur Avenue and Oliver Place, in the Bedford Park neighborhood of

the Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

Thomas Edison himself played no direct part in the making of his studios' films, beyond being the owner and appointing William Gilmore as vice-president and general manager. Edison's assistant

William Kennedy Dickson William Kennedy Laurie Dickson (3 August 1860 – 28 September 1935) was a British people, British inventor who devised an early motion picture camera under the employment of Thomas Edison. Early life William Kennedy Dickson was born on 3 ...

, who supervised the development of Edison's motion picture system, produced the first Edison films intended for public exhibition, 1893–95. After Dickson's departure for the

American Mutoscope and Biograph Company The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition ...

in 1895, he was replaced as director of production by cameraman

William Heise William Heise (1847–1910) was a German-born American film cinematographer and director, active in the 1890s and credited for more than 175 short silent films. Heise filmed a "We All Smoke" skit promoting Admiral Cigarettes in 1897. Heise is be ...

, then from 1896–1903, by

James H. White James Henry White (March 1872 – 1944) was a Canadian film pioneer, who worked as a film director, director, film producer, producer, and cinematographer. He also appeared as an actor in several movie, films. He was employed by the Edison Manufac ...

. When White left to supervise Edison's European interests in 1903, he was replaced by William Markgraf (1903–1904), then Alex T. Moore (1904–1909), and Horace G. Plimpton (1909–1915). The first commercially exhibited motion pictures in the United States were from Edison, and premiered at a

Kinetoscope The Kinetoscope is an precursors of film, early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic ...

parlor in New York City on April 14, 1894. The program consisted of ten short films, each less than a minute long, of athletes, dancers, and other performers. After competitors began exhibiting films on screens, Edison introduced its own, Projecting Kinetoscope, in late 1896. The earliest productions were brief "actualities", showing everything, from acrobats, to parades, to fire calls. But, competition from French and British story films, in the early 1900s, rapidly changed the market. By 1904, 85% of Edison's sales were from story films. In December 1908, Edison led the formation of the

Motion Picture Patents Company The Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC, also known as the Edison Trust), founded in December 1908 and terminated seven years later in 1915 after conflicts within the industry, was a trust of all the major US film companies and local foreign-bran ...

in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The "Edison Trust," as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph,

Essanay Studios The Essanay Film Manufacturing Company was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in 1907 in Chicago, and later developed an additional film lot in Niles Canyon, California. Its various stars included Francis X. Bushman, ...

Kalem Company The Kalem Company was an early American film studio founded in New York City in 1907. It was one of the first companies to make films abroad and to set up winter production facilities, first in Florida and then in California. Kalem was sold to V ...

George Kleine Productions George Kleine (1864June 8, 1931) was an American film producer and cinema pioneer. Biography Klein's father, Charles, was a New York optician who sold optical devices and stereopticons. Klein joined the family firm, moving to Chicago in 1893 w ...

Lubin Studios The Lubin Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture production company that produced silent films from 1896 to 1916. Lubin films were distributed with a Liberty Bell trademark. History The Lubin Manufacturing Company was formed in 1 ...

Georges Méliès Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès (; ; 8 December 1861 – 21 January 1938) was a French illusionist, actor, and film director. He led many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Méliès was well known for the use of ...

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

Selig Studios The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company that was founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago. The company produced hundreds of early, widely distributed commercial moving pictures, including the first films starring Tom ...

, and

Vitagraph Studios Vitagraph Studios, also known as the Vitagraph Company of America, was a United States motion picture studio. It was founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith in 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, as the American Vitagraph Company. By 1907, ...

, and dominated distribution through the

General Film Company The General Film Company was a motion picture distribution company in the United States. Between 1909 and 1920, the company distributed almost 12,000 silent era motion pictures. Formation The General Film Company was formed by the Motion Pictu ...

. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of

antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...

violation in October 1915, and were dissolved. The breakup of the Trust by federal courts, under

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

laws, and the loss of European markets during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, hurt Edison financially. Edison sold its film business, including the Bronx studio, on 30 March 1918, to the Lincoln & Parker Film Company, of

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

Notable productions

Some of the studio's notable productions include '' The Kiss'' (1896); '' The Great Train Robbery'' (1903); ''

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (commonly ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English novel by Lewis Carroll. It details the story of a young girl named Alice (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland), Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a ...

'' (1910); ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific ex ...

'' (1910), the first film adaptation of the novel; '' The Battle of Trafalgar'' (1911); ''

What Happened to Mary ''What Happened to Mary'' (sometimes erroneously referred to as ''What Happened to Mary?'') is the first serial film made in the United States. Produced by Edison Studios, with screenplays by Horace G. Plympton, and directed by Charles Brabin, t ...

'' (1912), one of the earliest film serials; and '' The Land Beyond the Sunset'' (1912), which was directed by

Harold M. Shaw Harold Marvin Shaw (also cited in some records as Henry Marvin Shaw; November 3, 1877January 30, 1926) was an American stage performer, film actor, screenwriter, and notable director of the silent era. A native of Tennessee, he worked professio ...

and was later described by film historian

William K. Everson Keith William Everson (8 April 1929 – 14 April 1996) was an English- American archivist, author, critic, educator, collector, and film historian. He also discovered several lost films. Everson's given first names were Keith William, but he r ...

as "'the screen's first genuinely lyrical film'". The company also produced a number of short "

Kinetophone The Kinetoscope is an precursors of film, early motion picture exhibition device, designed for films to be viewed by one person at a time through a peephole viewer window. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but it introduced the basic ...

" sound films in 1913–1914 using a sophisticated acoustical recording system capable of picking up sound from 30 feet away. They released a number of

Raoul Barré Vital Achille Raoul Barré (January 29, 1874 – May 21, 1932) was a Canadian and American cartoonist, animator of the silent film era, and painter. Initially known as a political cartoonist, he originated the French Canadian comic strip, then cro ...

cartoon films in 1915 and the first

film version A film adaptation is the transfer of a work or story, in whole or in part, to a feature film. Although often considered a type of derivative work, film adaptation has been conceptualized recently by academic scholars such as Robert Stam as a dia ...

of the

Robert Louis Stevenson Robert Louis Stevenson (born Robert Lewis Balfour Stevenson; 13 November 1850 – 3 December 1894) was a Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer. He is best known for works such as ''Treasure Island'', ''Strange Case of Dr Jekyll a ...

historical novel ''

Kidnapped Kidnapped may refer to: * subject to the crime of kidnapping Literature * ''Kidnapped'' (novel), an 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson * ''Kidnapped'' (comics), a 2007 graphic novel adaptation of R. L. Stevenson's novel by Alan Grant and Ca ...

''.

Legacy

Everson, calling Edison Studios "financially successful and artistically unambitious," wrote that other than directors

Edwin S. Porter Edwin Stanton Porter (April 21, 1870 – April 30, 1941) was an American film pioneer, most famous as a producer, director, studio manager and cinematographer with the Edison Manufacturing Company and the Famous Players Film Company. Of over ...

and John Hancock Collins,

e Edison studios never turned out a notable director, or even one above average. Nor did the Edison films show the sense of dynamic progress, that one gets, from studying the Biograph films, on a year-by-year basis. On the contrary, there is a sense of stagnation.

However, new restorations and screenings of Edison films in recent years contradict Everson's statement; indeed, Everson citing '' The Land Beyond the Sunset'' points out creativity at Edison beyond Porter and Collins, as it was directed by

(1877–1926), who later went on to a successful career directing in England, South Africa, and Lithuania before returning to the US in 1922. Other important directors who started at Edison included

Oscar Apfel Oscar C. Apfel (January 17, 1878 – March 21, 1938) was an American film actor, director, screenwriter and producer. He appeared in more than 160 films between 1913 and 1939, and also directed 94 films between 1911 and 1927. Biography Apf ...

Charles Brabin Charles Brabin (April 17, 1882 – November 3, 1957) was a British-American film director. Biography Born in Liverpool, England, he was educated at St. Francis Xavier College. Brabin sailed to New York City in the early 1900s and, while hold ...

Alan Crosland Alan Crosland (August 10, 1894 – July 16, 1936) was an American stage actor and film director. He is noted for having directed the first feature film using spoken dialogue, ''The Jazz Singer'' (1927). Early life and career Born in New York Ci ...

J. Searle Dawley James Searle Dawley (October 4, 1877 – March 30, 1949) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, stage actor, and playwright. Between 1907 and the mid-1920s, while working for Edison, Rex Motion Picture Company, Famous Player ...

, and

Edward H. Griffith Edward H. Griffith (August 23, 1888 – March 3, 1975)F ...

Notable films

File:Blacksmith Scene.ogv, ''

Blacksmith Scene ''Blacksmith Scene'' (also known as ''Blacksmith Scene #1'' and ''Blacksmithing Scene'') is an 1893 American short black-and-white silent film directed by William K.L. Dickson, the Scottish- French inventor who, while under the employ of Tho ...

'' (1893) File:Fred Ott Sneeze 1894 remastered.webm, ''Fred Ott's Sneeze'' (1894) File:Annie Oakley shooting glass balls, 1894.ogv, Annie Oakley shooting glass balls, 1894 File:Leonard Cushing Kinetograph 1894.ogv, ''Leonard-Cushing fight'' (1894), the first

boxing match Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing boxing glove, protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a ...

on film. File:May Irwin Kiss.ogv, '' The Kiss'' (1896), the first love scene on film. File:Whathappenedontwentythirdstreet-thomasedisoninc.ogv, ''What Happened on Twenty-third Street in New York Cty'' (1901) File:The Great Train Robbery (1903) - yt.webm, '' The Great Train Robbery'' (1903), the first "

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

" ever filmed. File:The messenger boy's mistake (1903).webm, ''The Messenger Boys Mistake'' (1903) File:Nervy Nat Kisses the Bride (1904) - yt.webm, ''Nervy Nat Kisses the Bride'' (1904) File:Battle of Chemulpo Bay edison.ogv, alt=A film of a re-enactment of a naval battle, depicting Russians firing at a Japanese ship with a cannon., ''Battle of Chemulpo Bay'' (1904), a re-enactment of the ''

Battle of Chemulpo Bay The Battle of Chemulpo Bay was a naval battle in the Russo-Japanese War (1904–1905), which took place on 9 February 1904, off the coast of present-day Incheon (then called Chemulpo), Korea. Background The opening stage of the Russo-Japanese ...

''. File:The Night Before Christmas (1905).webm, ''

The Night Before Christmas ''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' i ...

'' (1905), an early film adaptation of the 1823 poem, "

A Visit from St. Nicholas ''A Visit from St. Nicholas'', more commonly known as ''The Night Before Christmas'' and ''Twas the Night Before Christmas'' from its first line, is a poem first published anonymously under the title ''Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas'' i ...

". File:Frankenstein1910-clip.ogv, thumbtime=49, The climax of ''

'' (1910), the first film adaptation of the 1818 novel ''

''.

References

External links

* * *
''EdisonStudios.net''
(includes a viewable Edison Studios 1910 adaptation of "Frankenstein")
Vernon K. Flaherty and R. Brian Flaherty collection (R9144)
at

Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; french: Bibliothèque et Archives Canada) is the federal institution, tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is th ...

. The collection consists of twenty documentary and fiction films by Thomas Edison. {{Authority control Entertainment companies established in 1894 Mass media companies established in 1894 Mass media companies disestablished in 1918 Film production companies of the United States Defunct American film studios Thomas Edison Silent film studios Articles containing video clips 1894 establishments in New Jersey 1918 disestablishments in New Jersey Bedford Park, Bronx Film production companies established in the 1890s