Hollywood, soon to become the United States' national film industry, was founded in the early teens of the twentieth century by a group of film companies which came to Los Angeles at first to escape the winter conditions of their New York- and Chicago-based production locations. However, the advantages of production in southern California - particularly the varied landscapes in the region crucial for exterior, on-location photography - soon made Hollywood the dominant film production center in the country.

Hollywood, of course, is not synonymous with filmmaking in the United States. Before the early 1910s, American filmmaking was mostly New Yorkbased, and specialized in the production of short films (c. 1909, a one-reel short, or approximately ten minutes). At the time, French film companies dominated global film distribution, and it was more likely that one would see a French film in the United States than an American-produced one. However, by 1917, the effects of World War I on global film distribution - severely limiting French companies' abilities to release films world-wide yet having little effect on the global demand for new films - would allow the Hollywood film industry to expand and stabilize.