Includes bibliographical references (pages 197-207) and index.

Foreword / Susan Doll -- Preface: Hollywood before Hollywood -- Thomas Edison, invention and the dawn of a new Chicago -- Edison's kinetoscope and pre-motion-picture entertainment -- The Columbian exposition -- The dawn of exhibition -- Chicago Rising -- Colonel William Selig -- George Spoor, George Kleine, and the rise of the Nickelodeon -- Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson -- The Edison trust -- The Golden Age of Chicago film production -- The Golden age of Essanay -- The Golden Age of Selig Polyscope -- Essanay signs Charlie Chaplin -- Chaplin in Chicago: His new job -- It all came crashing down -- The decline of the Chicago studios -- Major M.L.C. Funkhouser and the Chicago censorship code -- Epilogue -- Post Script: Oscar and Orson.

Flickering Empire tells the fascinating yet little-known story of how Chicago served as the unlikely capital of American film production in the years before the rise of Hollywood (1907-1913). As entertaining as it is informative, Flickering Empire straddles the worlds of academic and popular nonfiction in its vivid illustration of the rise and fall of the major Chicago movie studios in the mid-silent era (principally Essanay and Selig Polyscope). Colorful, larger-than-life historical figures, including Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Oscar Micheaux, and Orson Welles, are major players in the narrative -- in addition to important though forgotten industry titans, such as "Colonel" William Selig, George Spoor, and Gilbert "Broncho Billy" Anderson. -- Provided by publisher.