Flickering Empire: How Chicago Invented the U.S. Film Industry

by Michael Glover Smith and Adam Selzer

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Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative-in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson.
  • ISBN10 0231174489
  • ISBN13 9780231174480
  • Publish Date 20 January 2015 (first published 1 January 2015)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country US
  • Imprint Wallflower Press
  • Format Hardcover
  • Pages 240
  • Language English