1911
New York, ---Adolf Zukor purchased the American distribution rights to the French film Queen Elizabeth, the first film to play in the US not to feature comedy-novelty vaudeville acts. Marcus Loew purchased the William Morris Vaudeville Company and reformed as Loews Theaters.
New Jersey, ---Nestor Film Company moved to Hollywood and built studio at corner of Sunset and Gower producing The Law of the Range.
US President William Taft visited USC.
Goodrich Tires began producing rubber-industry promotional motion picture films.
June
The Vincentian fathers withdrew from higher education in Los Angeles closing St. Vincent’s College after 46 years. Bishop Conaty persuaded a faculty from the Santa Clara College Society of Jesus to move south and continue collegiate operations.
26th
Orpheum opened a third theater at 624 South Broadway.
August
14th
Orpheum screened only the Pathe Journal newsreels, “Motion Views of the World’s News”.
September
Richard Gleeson, S.J. was named first president of Los Angeles College, a private college prep high school founded after SVC closed. Joseph Tomkin, SJ was named chief academic officer, Vice President of Studies and foreign languages instructor. Reverend Joseph Farrell, SJ taught the first English class. A site at 250 W. 52nd Avenue in present day Highland Park was purchased and J.V. McNeil once again contracted to build a new school.
On campus the Sodality of Our Lady, Glee Club and House of Philhistorians Debate Society formed.
St. Vincent’s College alumnus Isidore Dockweiler (’87) was appointed as the first lay member to the Los Angeles College Board of Trustees.
1912
Massachusetts, --- Future Loyola benefactor Louis B. Mayer brought the Boston Opera to Haverhill.
New York, --- Adolf Zukor liquidated his Loew’s interest and founded Famous Players Film Company hiring former Los Angeles projectionist Edwin S. Porter to direct Prisoner of Zenda. American Talking Picture Company was organized by A. Paul Keith, Edward F. Albee, and Martin Beck to exhibit TAE kinetophone movies in the United States and Canada through the Keith-Albee chain of vaudeville theaters. William Fox and Winfield Sheehan sued the film monopoly and busted the Edison Trust.
Overnight there were seventy-three motion picture companies making movies in Edendale, a small village in the hills above downtown Los Angeles including the famed Mack Sennett. Neighbor and vaudeville star female impersonator Julian Eltinge who earned more than President Taft debuted in Los Angeles.
Universal Pictures absorbed Nestor Film Company.
LA City Council passed law prohibiting sex between unmarried persons and created a morals police to patrol public property.
The Novelty Theater at 523 South Main renamed the Century.
Burton Green completed the Beverly Hills Hotel.
At Los Angeles College, John McAstocker, SJ began Classics & Archeology instruction and Albert I. Whelan was named first Director of Music.
Occidental College begins construction of a new campus in Eagle Rock north of Los Angeles.
1913
New York, --- AT&T’s Western Electric Engineering Department continued to experiment with electronic sound securing Lee de Forest’s audion tube which allowed amplification of long-distance telephone calls. Western Electric also began research on both sound-on-disc and sound-on-film systems. Separately Theodore Case and assistant Earl Sponable further improved the audion amplifying tube. Samuel “Roxy” Rothalfel started at the new Regent Theater.
Future LA crime boss Meyer “Mickey” Cohen was born in Brooklyn.
Mack Sennett hired Fatty Arbuckle.
Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn teamed with Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel to form Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company.
The Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed bringing water from Owens Valley.
Harry H. Culver began advertising a subway to Culver City.
At the Los Angeles Examiner, George Herriman (SVC ’96) had success with a comic strip begun in 1910 called The Dingbat Family. The precursors to the characters of Krazy and Ignatz first appeared in a small, unrelated side comic that began on July 26, 1910, that ran below "The Dingbat Family". The small comic involving a cat and mouse underneath the family's floorboards took place in the bottom segment of each panel. The cat and mouse comic strip was then spun off into a separate, Krazy Kat and Ignatz.
January
Edison displayed the Kinetophone sound-on-disc film system.
Feburary
Kinetophone premiered at Keith-Albee’s Colonial theater.
July
New York, --- American Talking Picture Company's agreement with TAE Inc. was terminated and the Edison Kinetophone Company took over the distribution of talking pictures.
Summer
New York, --- Famous Players’ Zukor completed Monte Cristo, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and the Prisoner of Zelda.
October
Boston, --- Louis B. Mayer started up LBM Film Co. distributorship, the American Feature Film Co. and finally with others formed Metro Pictures to finance motion picture production.
1914
Central America, ---Panama Canal opened.
New York, --- Roxy puts orchestra on stage surrounded by waterfalls and gardens for the preludes for his movies. Paramount forms as a national film distributor.
Jesse Lasky and Cecil B. DeMille make Squaw Man on location in barn in Los Angeles.
State Normal School moves to Vermont Avenue and renamed Sothern Branch of the University of Los Angeles.
Society of Jesus to Blessed Sacrament Church in Hollywood.
Majestic-Reliance Studios open at 4516 Sunset Boulevard then renamed Fine Arts Studio by D. W. Griffith.
Temple Auditorium renamed Clune’s and later the Philharmonic Auditorium on the former site of Hazard’s Pavilion at Olive and Fifth.
March
At Los Angeles College the Reverend William J. Denney, SJ was named new president of Los Angeles College when President Gleeson was named Provincial Superior of the Jesuits of the Pacific Coast.
1915
Washington, ---the United States Supreme Court ruled in Mutual Film Corporation v. Industrial Commission of Ohio that motion pictures were a form of business, not an art form, and therefore not covered by the First Amendment. Shortly after this decision, cities began to pass ordinances banning the public exhibition of "immoral" films, concerning the major studios that state or federal regulations would soon follow. This ruling remained in effect until Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson in 1952 which declared that film was a legitimate artistic medium with free speech protections. In his comments Justice McKenna bellowed that [movies] may be used for evil.
New York, ---The Motion Picture Patents Corp. was dissolved.
Los Angeles College changed name back to St. Vincent’s College and purchased 10 acres in Hollywood for future campus. Future Dean of Men David E. Daze elected President of the Associated Students. Pi Kappa Delta Speech Squad formed. Orchestra formed.
The County Museum of Art, Science and History opened at Exposition Park.
Employees of Keystone Studios, Kay Bee Studios and Reliance-Majestic Studio left Mutual Film Corp. along with the Aitken brothers, to form the Triangle Film Corporation. Triangle featured pioneer directors Thomas Ince, Mack Sennett and D. W. Griffith producing Birth of a Nation at the Fine Arts Studio.
Louis B. Mayer completed distribution deal with D. W. Griffith.
February
Birth of a Nation premiered in Los Angeles as the first American long-form narrative motion picture.
August
Reverend Frederick Ruppert, SJ appointed 3rd President of now renamed Saint Vincent’s College. En route to Los Angeles Ruppert stoped at the Noviate in Los Gatos and discovered a pamphlet of the St. Theresa and the Little Flower. He was thus inspired to pray for the budding college a goal of $250,000 and a new location within one year. Arriving in Los Angeles Ruppert found a location in mid-city that was served in all directions by the Pacific Electric trains and streetcars.
1916
New York, --- Zukor merged with Lasky to form Famous Players-Lasky . Mary Pickford wanted to bolt from Lasky over $1,000,000 dispute. Louis B. Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City.
Boston, --- Technicolor offered a color film system.
Griffith’s Intolerance was quickly filmed at Fine Arts Studios and released in response to critics of Birth of a Nation.
Charlie Chaplin became the world’s highest paid entertainer when he signed a contract with Mutual Film Corp. for a salary of $670,000 per year. Mutual built Chaplin a custom film studio and allowed absolute creative control to make twelve two-reel films.
Society of Motion Picture Engineers began work at the clubhouse on motion picture standards.
James J. Hayes, SJ began Philosophy instruction at Saint Vincent’s College. The copper magnate and the Little Flower story. Instead of Hollywood, suddenly St. Vincent’s breaks ground on 16th Street in the western Pico Heights district.
June
Located in the heart of Hollywood, the Roman Catholic Blessed Sacrament Church had close ties to the movie industry in its early years. “Popular stars of filmdom" were noted giving their time and talents gratis for a three-act burlesque of the "old-time melodrama" and novel specialty numbers.
November
New York, --- Lee De Forest, from experimental radio station 2XG broadcast the first radio advertisements (for his own products) and the first Presidential election report by radio for Charles Evans Hughes and Woodrow Wilson.
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