Train Robbery: The Life Of An American Fireman

The film industry is such a large part of the American culture and is often taken for granted. Many people these days have no idea the amount of work or the number of inventions needed to create the American film industry that they know today. Thomas Edison and Hollywood are two of the most influential names in the history of the American film industry. The history of the motion picture industry dates back to the seventeenth century. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented something that recorded sound and then created the kinetophone in the 1890s. The kinetophone could one merge sound and picture for one person’s viewing. It also was loosely merged so it did not match up perfectly. After that, Edison helped invent a gramophone, which used a disc to create the sound but there was still no amplification to allow it to be used …show more content…
The appeal for a longer film with a more in-depth story was coming around. With the assistance of James H. White, Thomas Edison created a 500-foot-long length of film for a movie called, The Life of an American Fireman. This longer film was an immediate success and would lead the industry into an era of longer films. A motion picture, named The Train Robbery, was one of the most influential films for the motion picture industry. It was over 650 feet and had a story made up of 14 scenes. (Lambert Castle, n.d.) The Train Robbery was the first narrative motion picture ever made. The motion picture lasted around eight minutes and set the fashion for American film. In 1910, the first film, In Old California, was made in Hollywood. By 1919, Hollywood had transformed into the face of American cinema and the glamour it would come to embody. (History Cooperative, n.d.) Hollywood was the birthplace of movie studios. By the 1950’s, so many people had televisions in their houses that the appeal of theaters declined and Hollywood would decide to produce film for