Thanhouser Company

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The Thanhouser Company (later the Thanhouser Film Corporation) was a motion picture studio founded in New Rochelle, New York in 1909 by Edwin Thanhouser (November 11, 1865 - March 21, 1956), Gertrude Thanhouser (April 23, 1882 - May 29, 1951) and Lloyd Lonergan (March 3, 1870 - April 6, 1937).

In the spring of 1912, the Thanhousers and Lonergan sold their interest in the company to the Mutual Film Corporation and remained involved in films released through early 1913. Lloyd Lonergan remained with the company where Charles J. Hite was responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations until his death in a car accident in 1914. The Thanhousers, having fled the outbreak of World War I while vacationing in Europe, resumed their duties as a now-salaried studio executives in 1915 and ran the company until it closed in 1918.

The Thanhouser Corporation, in excellent financial condition despite an industry-wide depression, leased its studio space to the Clara Kimball Young Film Corporation and ceased operations in 1917.

Actresses featured in Thanhouser films include Mignon Anderson, Jeanne Eagels, Maude Fealy, Muriel Ostriche, Marguerite Snow, and Valda Valkyrien. From 1911 until 1917, actress Florence La Badie was the companies most prominent star. La Badie left Thanhouser Company less than one month before her untimely death due to an automobile accident in 1917.

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The Evidence of the Film, one of the over 1,000 films produced by Thanhouser, was selected in 2001 for inclusion in the National Film Registry [1] by the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress because of its cultural, historical or aesthetic significance.