American Vitagraph was a United States movie studio, founded by J. Stuart Blackton and Alfred E. Smith in 1897 and bought by Warner Brothers in 1925. A movie studio is a location, room, building, or group of buildings and/or sound stages, offices and storage facilities, which may include a backlot, where movies are made. ... James Stuart Blackton (January 5, 1875 - August 13, 1941), usually known as J. Stuart Blackton, was an American film producer of the Silent Era, the founder of Vitagraph Studios and among the first filmmakers to use the techniques of stop-motion and drawn animation. ... 1897 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Warner Bros. ... 1925 was a common year starting on Thursday (link will take you to calendar). ...

In 1896, English Emigré Blackton was moonlighting as a reporter/artist for the New York Evening World when he was sent to interview Thomas Edison about his new film projector. The inventor talked the entrepreneurial reporter into buying a set of films and a projector. A year later, Blackton and business partner Smith founded the American Vitagraph Company in direct competition with Edison. A third partner, distributor William "Pop" Rock, was added around the turn of the century. The company's main studio was located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. The company's first claim to fame came from newsreels: Vitagraph cameramen were on the scene to film events from the Spanish-American War of 1898. These shorts were among the first works of motion-picture propaganda, and a few had that most characteristic fault of propaganda, studio re-enactments being passed off as footage of actual events ("The Battle of Santiago Bay" was filmed in an improvised bathtub, with the "smoke of battle" provided by Mrs. Blackton's cigarette). Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Religion... The New York World was a newspaper published in New York from 1860 until 1931. ... Thomas Alva Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman who developed many important devices. ... Midwood has a substantial population of Hassidim and Othodox Jews, many of whom live and worship in the side streets around Kings Highway Midwood is a neighborhood located in the south central part of Borough of Brooklyn, New York, roughly halfway between Prospect Park and Coney Island. ... For other meanings, see Brooklyn (disambiguation). ... The Spanish-American War took place in 1898, and resulted in the United States of America gaining control over the former colonies of Spain in the Caribbean and Pacific. ... North Korean propaganda showing a soldier destroying the United States Capitol building. ... The Battle of Santiago de Cuba, fought on 3 July 1898, was the largest naval engagement of the Spanish-American War, and resulted in the destruction of the Spanish Caribbean Squadron (also known as the Flota del Ultramar) and dashed the hopes of Spain for preventing a blockade of Cuba. ...

Vitagraph was not the only company seeking to make money off of Edison's motion picture inventions, and the inventor's lawyers were very busy at the end of the Nineteenth Century filing patents and suing competitors. Blackton did his best to avoid lawsuits by buying a special license from Edison and by agreeing to sell many of his most popular films to Edison for distribution.

The American Vitagraph Company made many contributions to the history of movie-making. It was one of the original ten production companies included in Edison's attempt to corner movie-making, the Motion Pictures Patent Company. Major stars included Florence Turner (the "Vitagraph Girl"), Maurice Costello (the first of the matinee idols), and Jean (the "Vitagraph Dog" and the first animal star of the Silent Era). Larry Trimble was a noted director of films for Turner and Jean (he was also the dog's owner). John Bunny made films for Vitagraph in the 1910's, and was the most popular film comedian in the world in the years before Chaplin; his death in 1915 was observed worldwide. In 1910, a number of movie houses showed the five parts of the Vitagraph serial The Life of Moses consecutively (a total length of almost 90 minutes), making it one of many to claim the title of "the first feature film". A long series of Shakespeare adaptations were the first done of the Bard's works in the U.S. (the surviving A Midsummer Night's Dream is considered one of the classics of the Silent Era). The 1915 feature The Battle Cry of Peace (written and directed by Blackton) was one of the great propaganda films of World War I--ironically, after America declared war, the film was modified for re-release because it was seen as not being sufficiently pro-war; thus it also earns a place in the history of censorship. MPPC stands for Motion Picture Patents Company, also known as the Edison Trust, also known as the First Oligopoly. ... Florence Turner Florence Turner, (January 6, 1885–August 28, 1946) was an American stage and film actress. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... John Bunny, born September 21, 1863 in New York City, United States - died April 26, 1915 in Brooklyn, New York, was the first comic star of the American silent film era. ... Chaplin in his costume as The Tramp Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, (April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977) was the most famous actor in early to mid Hollywood cinema, and later also a notable director. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Censorship is the systematic use of group power to broadly control freedom of speech and expression, largely in regard to secretive matters. ...

The Great War spelled the beginning of the end for Vitagraph. With the loss of foreign distributors and the rise of the great production-distribution houses, Vitagraph was slowly but surely squeezed out of the business. On April 22, 1925, Vitagraph owner Alfred Smith sold the company to Warner Brothers for a comfortable profit. The Flatbush studio (renamed Vitaphone) was later used as an independent unit within Warner Brothers, specializing in early sound shorts. Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ...

External links

• Article on Vitagraph by Tim Lussier for The Silents Majority: http://www.silentsaregolden.com/articles/vitagrapharticle.html
• "Where the Dream Was Made", an article on Vitagraph and the Flatbush studio by Irvin Leigh Matus: http://urbanography.com/urban/0006/index.htm
• Vitagraph Studio in Brooklyn: http://subway.com.ru/vitagraph/
• "Smokestack of dreams," surviving remnant of Vitagraph at Forgotten New York (http://www.forgotten-ny.com/ADS/Vitagraph/vitagraph.html)