Lubin Manufacturing Company
The Lubin Manufacturing Company was an American motion picture production company that produced silent films from 1896 to 1916. Lubin films were distributed with a Liberty Bell trademark.[1]
Industry
1896
1916
- Romaine Fielding (director)
- Jack Pratt (director)
- Hugh Antoine d'Arcy (publicity manager)
- Pearl White (actress)
- Florence Lawrence (actress)
- Oliver Hardy (actor)
- Harry Myers (actor)
Decline[edit]
The company's downfall came even faster than its meteoric rise. Lubin was not as adroit as its competitors in shifting to quality feature-length films. Also, a disastrous fire at its main studio in June 1914 damaged nearby buildings and destroyed the negatives for a number of unreleased new films, which severely hurt the business. When World War I broke out in Europe in September of that year, Lubin Studios, and other American filmmakers', lost a large source of income from these foreign sales.
For years the Lubin Manufacturing Company, like most of the other major film studios, had a running legal battle with Thomas Edison that saw repeated lawsuits brought against Lubin for patent infringement. Eventually, Lubin gave up the costly fight with Edison and became part of the Motion Picture Patents Company, a monopoly on production and distribution set up by Edison.
In 1915, the Lubin company entered into an agreement to form a film distribution partnership, with Vitagraph Studios, Selig Polyscope Company, and Essanay Studios, known as V-L-S-E, Incorporated.[5][6][7]
However, the decline of the Lubin operations continued and the United States Supreme Court rulings against the monopoly of the Motion Picture Patents Company spelled the end of Lubin's business. After making more than a thousand motion pictures the corporation was forced into bankruptcy and on September 1, 1916, the Lubin Manufacturing Company closed its doors for good.