Why is Hollywood the home of the film industry?

While California offers warm weather and varied landscapes that can be used as sets, it didn’t have Thomas Edison. The New Jersey-based inventor ran a consortium of patent holders that monopolised everything needed to create and show movies. He would use the courts to prevent the unauthorised use of everything from cameras to projectors.

However, these claims were harder to enforce in California. Not only were the judges less friendly to Edison there, but cross-continental travel was expensive and cumbersome for federal marshals. This time lag was all the new Hollywood studios needed, as the consortium’s patents were expiring and the organisation was losing antitrust cases in the courts.