It isn't that hard to find someone out there willing to tell you that Thomas Edison was a real jerk, a huge asshole, a piece of work. However, it isn't totally fair to the guy. Edison was less of an inventor, and more of a business man. His gift was not in creation, but in finding widespread use for inventions, turning them into things people wanted, thus giving him piles of cold hard cash. Edison’s company was one of the first businesses to hire inventors specifically just to invent things. He gave them a steady salary, laboratories to tinker in, funding, and assistants; and all it cost them was Edison having control of all their patents. While it might seem like some straight up assholery, this method has led to the majority of inventions over the past hundred years, including everything that has to do with motion pictures.
The first true modern movie projecting system, the Kinetoscope, was invented in 1893 after four years of work by a team of brainiacs led by a shutterbug enthusiast named William Dickson, who could best be described as just some guy. Dickson did the lion's share of the work, and Edison got all of the credit, though to be fair, Edison also fronted all of the money. It should be noted that the Kinetoscope wasn't the first device to show moving pictures, it was just the first one to do it in such a way that it looked better than those flipbooks you used to make in the margins of your textbook. All together, the Kinetoscope was the combination of numerous other ideas and inventions from across the United States and Europe. Dickson and his team just put them together into a single machine. While Edison bashers might call it stealing, everyone else calls it exactly how science works.
When the Kinetoscope was unveiled to the world, people went crazy as fucking shit over it, which is kind of surprising given that most of the first movies were just short snippets dealing with things like a man sneezing. It didn’t matter, before too long viewing parlors were built across the country and entrepreneurs began sprouting up everywhere to take advantage of the new craze. Over time the films gradually got longer, and started to include more interesting subjects, such as boxing and sexy women dancing. Within a few years, people started also using the technology to make straight up pornography. The original Kinetoscopes were simple cabinets which one person at a time could watch. These soon gave way to projectors which could display the films on screens and walls. This in turn led to the first full length feature film, The Great Train Robbery, in 1903. It was twelve minutes long. Edison was raking in the dough.
It didn’t take long for rivals to start appearing on the scene. Making films was rather easy. However, the difficult part was getting the equipment. Edison’s company controlled all the patents for the machines needed to make and distribute films, and you can bet your sweet ass that he wasn’t going to let anyone beat him at his own game. While other filmmakers started making movies, mostly in the New York and Chicago areas, they had to pay exorbitant fees for the use of Edison’s equipment, thus ensuring that Edison’s films would always be the cheapest on the market. Now of course this didn’t sit well with the new up and coming studio executives, so they collectively decided to tell Edison to fuck off and started making movies without paying the fees. Edison responded by sending out teams of lawyers to sue the ever living shit out of those defying him. He also sent out teams of goons tasked with finding, seizing, and/or smashing any black market cameras.
Such shenanigans proved too much for one filmmaker, a man by the name of D.W. Griffith. Not willing to back down, but also not wanting to get his ass sued and/or beat, Griffith instead headed west, arriving in California in 1910. Since at the time the fastest way to travel was by train, Griffith figured that he would have ample warning if Edison sent any goons all the way from New York. California also had the benefit of favorable year round weather, a warm climate, and reliable sunlight. Factors which made it the perfect place to make movies.
D.W. Griffith set up shop in a small town called Hollywood and quickly found great success with his films. Seeing this success, and being just like the movie producers of today, other filmmakers quickly flocked westward to copy him. The best actors and actresses soon after followed. The west coast filmmakers were innovative and artistic. Edison quickly fell behind the curve, and within a few years the center of the film industry shifted westward to its new home. The final nail in the coffin was Griffith’s 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation, the grandest film ever made up until that point. However, while it was the first film to establish the norms of what we think a movie is today, it was also super racist, which led to the re-establishment of the Ku Klux Klan. The world has never been the same.
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