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The Film Industry: The Early Years
The motion picture is perhaps the only art
form to be developed within recorded
history. The origins of painting, sculpture,
music, dance, drama are ancient and
uncertain. The origin of the motion picture
was carefully and accurately documented
in scientific terms.
In some ways less is known about the
development of the film industry than about
the invention of technical devices which
appeared a century earlier. The records and
correspondence of many of the important
early film companies have long been
destroyed. Fortunately, some early data has
been preserved, and is of great interest
to the film historian, the sociologist, and the
student of other mass media.
The Wisconsin Center for Theatre Research
at the University of Wisconsin is a
national repository of primary source
materials relating to the performing arts in
America and to their role in American
cultural history. Film materials, including
scenarios, shooting scripts, personal and
professional correspondence, and production
stills, come from such diverse sources
as Dalton Trumbo, Walter Wanger, Dore
Schary, Frederic March, the Hollywood
Democratic Committee, Orson Welles, and
Harry and Roy Aitken.
The papers of the Aitken brothers are
particularly rich with regard to "The Early
Years." The Aitken brothers were important
figures in the early American film industry.
They organized and operated such early
companies as Western Import, Triangle,
Reliance, Kay Bee, Majestic, and Keystone.
They were associated with such luminaries as
D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince, Mack
Sennett, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks,
Lillian and Dorothy Gish, Charlie Chaplin,
Mae Marsh, Gloria Swanson, and many
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