The Lubin Manufacturing Company was formed in 1902 and
incorporated in 1909 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by
Siegmund Lubin. The company was the offspring of Lubin's film equipment and film distribution and production business, which began in 1896. Siegmund Lubin, a
Jewish immigrant from
Poland, was originally an optical and
photography expert in Philadelphia but became intrigued with
Thomas Edison's motion picture camera and saw the potential in selling similar equipment as well as in making films. Known as "Pop" Lubin, he constructed his own combined camera/projector he called a "Cineograph" and his lower price and marketing know-how brought reasonable success. In 1897 Lubin began making films for commercial release including
Meet Me at the Fountain in 1904. Certain his business could prosper, the following year he rented low-cost space on the roof of a building in Philadelphia's business district. He exhibited his new equipment at the 1899 National Export Exposition in Philadelphia and the 1901
Pan-American Exposition in
Buffalo, New York. The insatiable appetite of the American public for motion picture entertainment saw Lubin's film company undergo enormous growth. Aided by
French-born writer and poet
Hugh Antoine d'Arcy, who served as the studio's publicity manager, in 1910 Siegmund Lubin built a state of the art studio on the corner of Indiana Avenue and Twentieth Street in Philadelphia that became known as "Lubinville." At the time, it was one of the most modern studios in the world, complete with a huge artificially-lit stage, editing rooms, laboratories, and workshops. The facility allowed several film productions to be undertaken simultaneously. The Lubin Manufacturing Company expanded production beyond Philadelphia, with facilities at 750 Riverside Avenue in
Jacksonville, Florida,
Los Angeles, and then in
Coronado, California. In 1912, Lubin purchased a estate in
Betzwood, in what was then rural countryside in the northwest outskirts of Philadelphia and converted the property into a studio and film lot. That November Lubin Company field representative T. D. Cochrane visited
Birmingham, Alabama as the guest of a local real estate executive and film exhibitor. After two days visiting sites he wired approval for a production team to immediately depart for Alabama to film cowboy movies at a rate of about six per month. The company set up at the Bluff Park Hotel on the ridge of
Shades Mountain south of the city, and constructed a stage. By the end of December, however, they had abandoned the project and the premises and stage were taken over by a troupe from the
Kalem Company of New York led by director
J. P. McGowan. That same year, director and actor
Romaine Fielding traveled out to
Prescott, Arizona with cast and crew and set up offices at 712 Western Avenue and an outdoor stage for shooting interiors behind Mercy Hospital (now the site of
Prescott College). He filmed approximately a dozen movies there before moving to
Tucson, Arizona, where he directed another 60 or so silent short films.
William Duncan and
Selig Polyscope Company took over the Prescott facility. Some of the pioneer actors who worked for Lubin included
Romaine Fielding,
Ed Genung,
Harry Myers,
Florence Hackett,
Alan Hale,
Arthur V. Johnson,
Lottie Briscoe,
Florence Lawrence,
Ethel Clayton,
Gladys Brockwell,
Edwin Carewe,
Ormi Hawley,
Rosemary Theby,
Betty Brice,
Alice Mann and
Pearl White. Lubin films also marked the first film appearance of
Oliver Hardy, who started working at Lubin's Jacksonville, Florida studio in 1913. Hardy's first onscreen appearance was in the 1914 movie,
Outwitting Dad where he was billed as O. N. Hardy. In many of his later films at Lubin, he was billed as "Babe Hardy." He was most often cast as "the heavy" or the villain and had roles in comedy shorts, appearing in some 50
short one-
reeler films at Lubin by 1915. ==Decline==