Thomas Edison was Such a Dick That He Created Hollywood
Thomas Edison was Such a Dick That He Created Hollywood
Imagine being such a bully that an industry is created to get away from you.
Spite is a powerful motivator. Nothing fuels the fire quite like an ‘I’ll show you’ attitude. That’s basically how I became a comedian.
Well, spite is also Hollywood as we know it was essentially invented.
Thomas Edison: inventor, bully, and huge asshole. Those words aren’t inscribed on his tombstone, but they should be. So much credit is given towards the legendary dickhead and prolific inventor of the lightbulb and the phonograph, but not nearly enough credit is given to him for being SUCH an outrageous a-hole that he kind of invented Hollywood.
Well, Hollywood was invented because people wanted to get as far away from him as possible and that place was Hollywoodland, CA.
I began my writing career writing obscure history stories for a now-defunct website that gave me a monthly stipend. It was like ‘clickbait history’ with headlines like: You’ll Never Guess Which US President Was Gay (Buchanan). I spent a lot of time researching weird stories to write about which is how I found out about Thomas Edison’s Hollywood. It remains one of my favorite pop culture history stories. Imagine being such a jerk that an entire industry is created to get away from you!
Thomas Edison did contribute a lot of things to early filmmaking: he made the first film camera (the kinetoscope) and opened the first film studio, Black Maria, in New Jersey. The early days of film saw hubs all over the country. Major early film cities were Chicago and New York, cities with rocky climates. Chicago proudly housed Charlie Chaplin’s Essanay, Selig Polyscope (now an apartment complex in North Center), and the prolific Black director Oscar Micheaux.
Black Maria was opened in 1893 and instantly Thomas Edison rode a power trip over his new invention. He then invented a lot more things to accompany his invention, patenting entire film sets that needed his permission to use.
Edison’s company churned out movies, including the first-ever adaptation of Frankenstein in 1910, so he did contribute a significant amount to early cinema. That being said, some of his early stuff was…um…bad. I don’t mean like “give it a Razzie” bad. I mean like he electrocuted an elephant and made cats box each other. That kind of bad. But he also filmed The Kiss, so I guess he was a softie when he was finished doing needlessly violent things to animals.
Edison, like so many CEOs that would come after him, wanted to be the head honcho who made all of the moola. He tried to squash any and all competition and demanded payment from anyone who used technology made from his patents.
Edison would allegedly show up to sets with rifles and attack animals to intimidate (side note: did you know that Thomas Jefferson had an attack sheep? Just one of many useless pieces of trivia that I wrote full articles on in order to begin my writing career!). He hired mobsters to loom large on sets and bully filmmakers to pay up…or else >:)
Naturally, not everyone could pay - especially not independent filmmakers (yes, they existed even then! Dutch angles and all!). So they took off. They fled. They went far away! The thinking there was that going all the way across the country would be too great a distance for these madmen to make good on their threats. Remember, most travel back then was done on a train or a horse. Literal horsepower, babes. A cross-country train ride wasn’t even worth the price of the ticket to collect the money. Filmmakers skipped town to make Edison STFU.
It’s worth repeating that Edison was patent crazy! He had over 1,000 patents in the US over the course of his lifetime. While a lot of the patents in his name had a lot of help from friends and employees (cough Tesla cough), Edison was a business man who knew how to make coin off at all costs aka suing people over patents.
~ #BoyBoss vibes ~
Meanwhile, in pre-Hollywood, people were just beginning to buy up land and start shooting films in the 1910s. It turns out that the beautiful weather and variety of nature (ocean, desert, forest, mountain, person, man, woman, camera, tv you name it) were a huge selling point. Plus? No Edison! The first movie studio officially in Hollywood opened in 1915 and the rest soon followed. Within ten years, we had the early film industry as we know it. California went from Gold Rush hopefuls to screenwriters in cafes in about 150 years. Edison kind of invented modern Hollywood and he didn’t even file a patent for it.
Isn’t that wild? SO many things have started out of spite. There is a whole genre of “spite houses” which are houses built to spite someone either because of land disputes or building ordinances. A lot more things were found on accident.
Like I joked above, this “I’ll show ya” attitude fueled the fire that lead to my comedy career. The first person that I seriously dated in young adulthood, an aspiring comic, told me that she wanted to date someone funnier. How dare! I called Second City and asked them if they were holding auditions for their conservatory program - something I knew that she intended to audition for. I was told that the auditions had already started. I lied about my experience and then bought a disposable camera at the Walgreens across the street. My brother and I took photos of each other all over the neighborhood and developed, used the one-hour photo to develop our options, and stepped onstage to audition before I had a moment to actually think about what I was doing.
At nineteen I got in and thus began the comedy journey that would take me through my entire twenties. I didn’t think it through at all. I was heartbroken, hurt, and hoping to impress someone who had told me she wasn’t impressed enough with me to continue dating. Those initial feelings got me to where I am today.
Hollywood’s creation wasn’t intentional. It’s not like there were flyers that read: To Escape Edison: Go West, Young Man. A lot of things are created by accident. Spite, avoidance, heartbreak, anger - they can all incidentally spur interesting inventions like Velcro or the first vampire. But none of these things - with the exception of my career, duh - are as great as creating Hollywood to get the fuck away from Thomas Edison and his goons.
Early filmmakers really said “fuck Edison” and got out of dodge (Jersey).
Thus Hollywood was born…out of a strong desire to get out of Thomas Edison’s intellectual property claims. That’s show business!
Thanks for reading a quickie! I’ve got some really good stuff lined up for y’all. Until then!
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What I’m reading: Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Ervaristo
What I’m watching: Our Flag Means Death and Better Things
What I’m listening to: Motomami by Rosalia. I need more podcasts, please let me know what you like!