About Thanhouser Film Preservation
Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. is a non-profit charitable 501(c)(3) mission based organization involved in the research, acquisition, preservation, and publication of educational materials related to the early silent motion picture era, with a specific focus on the Thanhouser film enterprise.
About the studio
The Thanhouser Film Studio
Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser came with years of experience in the theater. In 1909, with brother-in-law and newspaperman Lloyd Lonergan, they founded the Thanhouser Company in New Rochelle, New York. Between 1910 and 1917 the studio released over 1,000 films to audiences around the world. It was one of the most respected independent studios of the silent era, and at its peak it made a quarter of all the independent films in the United States.
Ned Thanhouser's award winning 52-minute documentary The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema tells the studio's story. It premiered at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy in October 2014.
Who runs it
Our board
Ned ThanhouserPresidentNed Thanhouser is an independent film scholar, preservationist, and the founder and president of Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc. a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. As a researcher and award winning filmmaker, Thanhouser frequently presents papers at international cinema conferences on the history of early American motion pictures and the Thanhouser enterprise, alongside guest lectures and archival screenings worldwide.
Michele KribsBoard MemberMichele Kribs spent over 40 years as a moving image archivist at the Oregon Historical Society, managing thousands of newsroom videotapes and over 8.5 million feet of motion picture film. The wife of Ned Thanhouser, she is a co-founder and former board member of the Association of Moving Image Archives (AMIA) and a recipient of its prestigious Silver Light Award for her leadership and expertise in film preservation and Pacific Northwest film history.
Kathy Fuller-SeeleyBoard MemberKathy is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication at the University of Texas Austin. Her research specialization focuses on American film, radio and television history and audience reception studies. She has published book chapters in numerous anthologies on topics such as film stars Jack Benny, Francis Ford, Shirley Temple, and Rin-Tin-Tin, Dish Night giveaways in Depression-era movie theaters, early TV audiences, film exhibition and moviegoing history.
Charlie KeilBoard MemberCharlie is Professor of the Cinema Studies Institute and Department of History at the University of Toronto. His research has consistently focused on early and silent American cinema, though he has also published on later periods and on topics as diverse as documentary, stardom, and modernism/modernity. Many of his publications have examined what he has termed the “transitional” period of early American cinema, understood to coincide with the single-reel era of production and stretching into the years of the early feature film.
Shelley StampBoard MemberShelley is Professor of Film + Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is a film historian and curator, author of the award-winning books on Lois Weber in Early Hollywood and Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon, and the curator of the award-winning 6-disc set Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers, and author of many articles on women’s filmmaking and moviegoing. She is also the Founding Editor of the journal Feminist Media Histories.
Tom GunningBoard MemberTom is Professor Emeritus of Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, at the College of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago. He is a renowned scholar whose extensive publications focus primarily on early cinema and its roots in modern culture, connecting film to photography, stage melodrama, World Expositions, and spiritualism. He is widely known for formulating the concept of the "cinema of attractions," which links early film development to modern visual culture and the evolving experiences of space and time rather than traditional storytelling alone.
Bill ThanhouserBoard MemberBill is a product manager living in the San Francisco Bay Area. The great-grandson of Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser and the son of Ned Thanhouser, he grew up around the family's films and developed a love for film and history at a young age. He built and maintains this website and is focused on using technology to make early cinema easier for the next generation to discover and enjoy, starting with his own two kids.
Ed ThanhouserBoard MemberEd is a writer, musician and teacher, now living in Brattleboro, Vermont. He is the great-grandson of Edwin and Gertrude Thanhouser and the son of Ned Thanhouser. His credits include "The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema," "Urizen Wept: William Blake and the Sublime in Milton: A Poem" and "The Liar's Dream" by Ed & The Red Reds.
From the archive
News
October 6, 2026Lost and Found: 1913 Silent Film A Victim of CircumstancesThanhouser Company Film Preservation announces the debut of the recently recovered 113-year-old silent film: A Victim of Circumstances. Originally produced in New Rochelle, New York, in 1913 by the pioneering Thanhouser Company, this long-lost film will make its modern premier at the 45th Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone, Italy this October.February 15, 2025Thanhouser Company Film Preservation Publishes 46 Films Now Streaming Online for FreeThanhouser Company Film Preservation announced today an additional 46 Thanhouser
Studio productions from 1910 to 1917 are now available for streaming online at no charge. This brings the total number of films available for online viewing to 122.April 5, 2022Lost Thanhouser Feature Film from 1916 Discovered in Norwegian ArchiveThanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc in cooperation with the National
Library of Norway announced today the discovery of a rare surviving five-reel feature film from 1916 produced by the pioneering Thanhouser studio based in New Rochelle, New York.
Get in touch
Contact
Questions, corrections, press, or word of a print. A person on the family team reads every message.
- Thanhouser Company Film Preservation, Inc., 2335 NE 41st Ave, Portland, Oregon 97212 USA