Escaping Edison

Thomas Edison held patents on most filmmaking equipment and aggressively sued anyone who used it without license. Independent filmmakers — many of them Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe — fled as far west as possible to escape his legal reach. They landed in Hollywood, California.

The distance from Edison's base, reliable sunshine, and diverse landscapes made Hollywood ideal. By the 1910s and 1920s, immigrant entrepreneurs had built or consolidated companies such as Paramount, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros, and MGM — studios that shaped Hollywood for the next century.