How Did the Movie Industry End Up in California?

California’s weather was a major driving force for why the movie industry set up shop in sunny California in the early 1900s. What better place to make a movie without contending with cold temperatures or storms with the added benefit of having over 300 days a year of sunshine. But there were a few more things at play that took movie-making from places like Chicago and New York and put them on the West Coast.

One thing that happened after 1909 was that movies were becoming increasingly popular, and an increase in production was needed to meet the demand. Again this had to do with the weather, but California, at the time, also had non-union labor, which made producing a movie in California significantly cheaper than on the East Coast where labor costs were higher. The availability of land was also not a problem in California, and it was inexpensive. Almost any location to suit a movie could be found close to downtown Los Angeles.

Another reason the movie industry thrived on the West Coast was because it was as far away from the East Coast as a movie maker could get, and this physical distance had almost everything to do with Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison had over a thousand patents to his name, and he had his name on many of the American patents that had to do with motion picture cameras.