Key Hollywood Studios

Between 1888 and 1918, Edison Studios helped launch commercial cinema in  the United States and introduced influential narrative, technical, and  sound-film innovations that shaped early film history. Yet while  participating in the development of early cinema, its owner, Thomas  Edison, spent much of his time using patents, lawsuits, and the Motion  Picture Patents Company (the ‘Edison Trust’) to force competitors out of  business...

Formed in 1895, The american Mutoscope and Biograph Company swiftly became a major rival to the Edison Studio. From 1908 it became the United States' prominent studio thanks to the groundbreaking work of director D. W. Griffith, who directed hundreds of shorts during his six-year tenure.

Among the most ambitious of the early American film studios, Kalem rose to prominence in the early 1910s. A pioneering studio that at first owned no studio, it was the first company to send units to film in foreign lands. It produced several notable films featuring memorable stars such as Mary Pickford, Noah Beery, Alice Joyce, and Robert Vignola. Although one of early American cinema’s major successes, Kalem’s story was over by 1919…

Founded in 1897 by two Englishmen, cartoonist and reporter J. Stuart Blackton and Albert E. Smith, an amateur magician, Vitagraph found early success by recreating marine battles in Blackton's bathtub...

Although German immigrant Carl Laemmle’s Independent Moving Picture Company (IMP) existed for only three years (1909-1912), it holds an important place in the history of the American cinema.