While at the Free Library of Philadelphia, Forrest and I had the opportunity to process one of the most interesting and exciting collections that we have ever seen: the Lubin Manufacturing Company records collection. The collection contained scrapbooks, bulletins, business records, photographs, advertisements, and artifacts relating to Siegmund Lubin, the founder of the Lubin film empire, and his company.

Lubin created one of the largest motion picture production companies in the world from 1895 to 1916, all of which began with the purchase of a film projector. His biography truly spells out the American dream. Lubin emigrated from Germany to the United States, worked as an optician, and found his way into the movie industry solely by his extreme interest in film production. He was a savvy entrepreneur and a gifted marketer, but unfortunately, did not invest in the overall quality of his films or heed the copyright laws, all of which led to the company’s collapse in 1916.

Since the Lubin Manufacturing Company lasted for such a brief time, its records are sparse and the films even more rare. An explosion destroyed thousands of feet of film in Lubin’s main studio in 1914. Currently, there are only a few institutions that have Lubin Manufacturing Company collections, of which the Free Library has the largest amount of textual material. So, this collection was not only exciting to work with, but rewarding to process since the materials had little original order and were scattered throughout the Theatre Collection at the Free Library.

A couple of photographs of one movie, ‘Disaster Movie,” caught us by surprise. We kept finding stills of a time progression of two trains colliding into each other, all with the title of the film penciled in on the reverse of the photographs. Deciding to do some further research into the movie, we found out that the train scene cost $20,000 to film in the 1910s and that two old scrapped engines were purchased to make this scene. Since it cost so much to get the train disaster scene and the audiences loved it, Lubin decided to use it in five different films to get the most for his money (again, he was a savvy business man). There is a clip of the train scene on YouTube and you can watch it by clicking here.

Even though the whole collection was fascinating, the artifacts were the icing on the cake. There is a Lubin paperweight, a Lubin film projector from 1905, and even the hood ornament from Siegmund Lubin’s car: his logo created into bronze bell. Also included in the artifacts was a box of reels and VHS tapes about the company, film clips, and ones that only had vague names, like Reel 8. With no way to know what is on the reels and no equipment to view them on, it is sad that we couldn’t have spent more time finding out what they were and who they were about.

Starting the Lubin collection, we knew that we were going to have a fun time processing these materials. But one thing that I don’t think that we realized was the rarity of the collection and Lubin materials in general.

Because of the 1914 explosion, only 29 Lubin films have been located in the world, the majority of which are fragments. Luckily, while searching about the train scene, we came across the Betzwood Film Archive. Located at Montgomery County Community College, the archive maintains information about the Lubin company and Betzwood history. Every year they host the Betzwood Film Festival, at which a selection of Lubin films are screened the way they were meant to be shown: on a large screen and with live musical accompaniment. Needless to say, the Lubin collection at the Free Library is an exceptional resource to researchers interested in the Lubin film empire and the history of early moviemaking.