A year later, Blackton and business partner Smith founded the American Vitagraph Company in direct competition with Edison.

The first film adaptation of the novel Les Misérables, a short silent historical drama starring Maurice Costello as Jean Valjean and William V. Ranous as Javert, is distributed by the Vitagraph Company of America.

In 1910, a number of movie houses showed the five parts of the Vitagraph serial The Life of Moses consecutively (a total length of almost 90 minutes), making it one of many to claim the title of "the first feature film."

In 1911, Vitagraph produced the first aviation film, The Military Air-Scout, directed by William J. Humphrey, with future General of the Air Force Hap Arnold as the stunt flier.

In 1915, Chicago distributor George Kleine[citation needed] orchestrated a four-way film distribution partnership, V-L-S-E, Incorporated, for the Vitagraph, Lubin, Selig, L-KO Kompany, and Essanay companies.

With the loss of foreign distributors and the rise of the monopolistic studio system, Vitagraph was slowly but surely being squeezed out of the business.

In 1960 Vitagraph returned to theater screens (starting with 1960's Looney Tunes cartoon Hopalong Casualty), with the end titles reading "A Warner Bros.

[16] It includes a very detailed history of Vitagraph and a lengthy list of people who had been in the Vitagraph Family which included Billy Anderson, Florence Lawrence, Florence Turner, Florence Auer, Richard Barthelmess, John Bunny, Francis X. Bushman, Dolores Costello, Maurice Costello, Sidney Drew, Dustin Farnum, Flora Finch, Hoot Gibson, Corinne Griffith, Alan Hale, Oliver Hardy, Mildred Harris, Hedda Hopper, Rex Ingram, Alice Joyce, Boris Karloff, J. Warren Kerrigan, Rod La Rocque, E.K.

Lincoln, Bessie Love, May McAvoy, Victor McLaglen, Adolphe Menjou, Antonio Moreno, Conrad Nagel, Mabel Normand, Lottie Pickford, Billy Quirk, Wallace Reid, May Robson, Wesley Ruggles, George Stevens, Anita Stewart, Constance Talmadge, Natalie Talmadge, Norma Talmadge, William Desmond Taylor, Alice Terry, George Terwilliger, Florence Vidor, Earle Williams, Clara Kimball Young, and hundreds of other people are listed.

In the text of the book he also refers to hiring a 17-year-old Rudolph Valentino into the set-decorating department, but within a week he was being used by directors as an extra in foreign parts, mainly as a Russian Cossack.

The Vitagraph Studios building, located in the Midwood neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, held a significant place in the early history of American cinema.

As one of the first motion picture studios in the United States, Vitagraph was responsible for producing hundreds of silent films in the early 20th century.

The building, with its recognizable smokestack, remained a physical reminder of the silent film era long after the studio ceased operations and was acquired by Warner Bros. in 1925.

[26] In the latter half of the 20th century, as New York City’s landscape rapidly changed, film historians and preservationists began advocating for the protection of the Vitagraph building due to its historical importance.

[34] In 2015, after years of neglect and unsuccessful attempts to preserve the structure, the Vitagraph Studios building was demolished to make way for new apartment complexes.