Carl Gregory and the U.S. School of Military Cinematography (1918)

In January 1918, America's first school of Military Cinematography started at Columbia University in New York. Still photographers and motion picture cameramen were trained for the U.S. Signal Corps that had been assigned to record America's involvement in the First World War. A key role in setting up this school was played by pioneering cinematographer Carl Louis Gregory.

Left: Cover booklet on U.S. School of Military Cinematography (1918). Right: U.S. Signal Corps Lieutenant Carl L. Gregory. Photograph courtesy Buckey Grimm 

Link to low res image right

Gregory's name is listed as chief instructor in motion picture photography in a 1918 booklet on the U.S. School of Military Cinematography, that was kindly supplied to us by Buckey Grimm. A copy of this historical document can be read and downloaded here.

Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant, Gregory took charge of all lessons in military photography for the students at Columbia University. He worked closely on this with a British cinematographer Arthur H.C. Sintzenich - we will discuss his involvement in this project in an upcoming weblog. Another instructor in motion picture photography at this school was Victor Fleming, the well-known future director of Gone with the Wind.

Early Career in Cinematography

When Gregory entered Columbia University he had already earned himself a reputation as one of the foremost cinematographers in the American film industry. Born in Walnut, Kansas, in 1882, Gregory opened his first photography studio in 1905. In 1908 he transferred to the U.S. Reclamation Service where he was in charge of filing and classifying negatives, prints and lantern slides. It was here that Gregory had his first real experiences with making movies. In 1909 he joined the Edison Company as a cameraman and director. A year later he joined the Thanhouser Company and became the studio's chief cameraman. During the First World War Gregory was cinematographer for the Williamson brothers when they shot their groundbreaking underwater films in the West Indies. Gregory in 1916 worked with Sintzenich on a similar project, shooting underwater footage. Both would meet again when they set up the U.S. School of Military Cinematography at Columbia University in January 1918.

Carl Gregory, seated on a box behind his camera, at work for the U.S. Signal Corps (1918). Photograph Jonathan Silent Film Collection

Experiences at Columbia University 

Gregory's technical skills as a cameraman were highly acclaimed. A Moving Picture World article published July 10, 1915, mentions he was the first American photographer made an honorary member of the Royal Society of Photographers of Great Britain. After the Great War, the May 10, 1919, Moving Picture World published Gregory's article about his experiences as chief instructor at the U.S. School of Military Cinematography. In it he reported the school initially was handicapped by a severe shortage of film cameras. At the campus of Columbia University two large chemical labs were converted into a still and motion picture laboratory. A large building near the Cathedral of St. John served as barracks for the Signal Corps recruits. As described by Gregory, the crash course in motion picture photography took about six weeks:

".. After they had been taught the preliminary operations of setting-up, threading, cranking, tilting and panoraming, they were first permitted to take short sample scenes of familiar subjects about the University, and then after having demonstrated their ability to handle the camera, they were given definite assignments to obtain certain kinds of pictures, at events which were happening in the city or of various activities in the near-by camps."

In a letter to his mother Gregory also described his experiences at Columbia University:

"I am in charge of all photographic instruction ... So far I have had over two hundred students nearly half of whom have been sent away to go across to France with a class of twenty ready and waiting for orders to go. My hours are long but the work is pleasant for the boys are interested in their work and eager to learn and the University is probably as pleasant a place to work as any place that one could find in the city. The hours are 8 A.M. to 6 P.M. and every 6th day I am officer of the day when I have to be on duty from 5.45 A.M. to 9.00 P.M."

Carl Gregory (left) with the U.S. Signal Corps. The picture was probably taken at Columbia University in 1918. Courtesy Buckey Grimm. Colorized photograph

Link to original low res image

Gregory after the First World War was named Dean of Photography at the New York Institute of Photography. He still kept his hand in the business, directing and photographing movies, as well as publishing books on motion picture photography. In the 1940s he worked for the Library of Congress and was the first person to restore an historic collection of early films on paper prints. Gregory was working as Motion Picture Engineer at the National Archives at the time, and he had just designed and built an Optical Printer for shrunken and damaged film. They took the material to the Archives and Gregory modified the Optical Printer and was able to successfully copy the material.  Some of this material was used for the RKO Pathé "Flicker Flashbacks" Series back in the mid 1940s. Thus a precious collection of early American cinema was saved and restored on film.

Carl Gregory died in 1951 at his home in Van Nuys, California. More information on Gregory's fascinating life and work can be found in the article Life through a Lens by Charles "Buckey" Grimm for Film History journal (2001).

With special thanks to Charles "Buckey" Grimm for his input on this weblog.

The Rothacker Film Manufacturing Company

Buckey Grimm recently sent us an interesting photograph that he had posted on his Twitter account, which sheds some new light on the making of Wilbur H. Durborough's World War I feature documentary On the Firing Line with the Germans (1915). It shows a group of cameramen from Watterson R. Rothacker's film studio in Chicago, posing for a picture together with one of the fastest and sportiest cars at the time, a Stutz Bearcat roadster. The same car was used by Durborough when he covered the Great War in Europe.

Cameramen working for Rothacker's film company, together with Durborough's Stutz. Chicago, October 1915. Courtesy Buckey Grimm. Colorized picture.

Link to original high res image

The picture appears to have been taken shortly after Durborough had returned from Germany to the United States. A sign mentioning the Dutch harbor of Rotterdam, from which the car had been shipped back to America, can still be seen attached to the Stutz. As indicated by the picture, Durborough arrived in Chicago in October 1915 and the Rothacker Film Manufacturing Company presumably was the plant where he had his raw footage shot in wartime Europe developed and printed. Also, Durborough's camera operator Irving Guy Ries worked for this film company, which seems to have been an additional reason to visit the Rothacker studio.

Industrial Motion Picture Company

Orginally named the "Industrial Motion Picture Company", Rothacker had launched this firm in December 1909, together with his business partners Carl Laemmle and R.H. Cochrane. It specialized in the making of industrial films that were used for advertising companies, but Rothacker's studio also produced topical films which were sold to the American newsreels. In 1913, Laemmle sold his stock and concentrated his efforts on setting up the Universal Film Company. As a result, Rothacker became president and general manager. Apart from producing film, the plant which was located at 222-233 Erie Street in North Chicago, occupied 7,000 square feet of floor space and had one of the largest laboratories in the era of silent film for processing and printing motion pictures, including 12 printing machines, rooms supplied with air conditioning by hygrometers and sprinklers, as well as a drying room with a capacity for 10,000 feet of film at one time. "With present facilities, the company can put a battery of seven cameras in the field at one time", reported Motography on May 16, 1914.

Film poster The Lost World (1925). Right: Portrait Watterson R. Rothacker (1885-1960)

Watterson Rothacker had started his career as an editor for the trade paper Billboard and in 1927 became general manager for First National. He now probably is best remembered as a coproducer for the movie The Lost World (1925), which inspired Steven Spielberg to produce his famous Jurassic World films.

Watterson Rothacker died in Santa Monica, California, on January 25, 1960.

Chasing Pancho Villa - Tracy Mathewson in Mexico (1916)

In more ways than one, General "Black Jack" Pershing's expedition into Mexico of 1916 was a rehearsal for America's entry in World War I. The punitive expedition that was set up to capture Pancho Villa and take revenge on his attack on American soldiers in Columbus, New Mexico, not only tested the army's military capacity. For the first time in history the U.S. Army was also confronted with a new kind of reporter - the newsreel photographer.

Picture by Mathewson. From Moving Picture World, July 8, 1916

Link to trade paper article 

On March 16, 1916, Secretary of War Newton D. Baker - after consulting with the army - announced that six correspondents would be attached to Pershing's army. The only accredited photographer was William Fox who worked for Underwood & Underwood. His pictures would be syndicated to all American newspapers. Among the embedded journalists were no Hearst reporters and no cinematographers. Ignoring the newsreel companies did not prove to be a wise strategy. With the news of Villa's attack breaking in on all headlines, the Hearst organization sent one of their most enterprising newsreel cameramen to Mexico: Tracy B. Mathewson.

Born in 1876 in Augusta, Georgia, Mathewson started working as a photographer for the local papers in Atlanta around 1905. One of these newspapers, the Atlanta Georgian, was controlled by the Hearst news organization. Combining still photography with the latest medium of motion pictures, Mathewson became a newsreel cameraman. The Library of Congress has a picture showing both Mathewson and William Fox in Mexico, dated January 29, 1914. The photograph was copyrighted by the Mutual Film Company and this suggests that Mathewson at the time may have been covering the Mexican War for Mutual when the film company struck a deal with Pancho Villa to produce exclusive battle pictures of his military campaigns.

Mathewson and Fox in Mexico, 1914

Capturing the Klu Klux Klan

By 1916 Mathewson had earned himself a reputation as one of the most resourceful news photographers in the United States. According to Scott M. Cutlip in his book The Unseen Power on the history of public relations, when D.W. Griffith's Birth of A Nation was released in 1915, the public interest in the Klu Klux Klan had risen to a degree that Mathewson decided to become the first cameraman to capture the Klan. Accordingly, he dressed up a group of Afro-Americans as Klan members, just like he had seen in Griffith's movie, and produced some spectacular news pictures that were reproduced in renowned newspapers such as the New York Times.

When Pancho Villa's border raid made national headlines Mathewson was working nearby for the Hearst-Vitagraph News Pictorial. Mathewson said he got into Columbus, New Mexico, one day after Villa's attack and was allowed to follow General Pershing's forces until they reached Casas Grandes where Brigade Headquarters had been set up. Mathewson's pictures were by all accounts a major scoop. Moving Picture World in the issue of April 8, 1916, reported "stirring scenes" in the Hearst newsreels, showing General Slocum and his staff preparing to get Villa, while a guard of honor paces before his tent guarding the Americans who had been killed in the raid. More pictures by Mathewson, showing victims of the border raid, were to be released in Hearst-Vitagraph News no. 23, on March 20, 1916.

Despite all military regulations Mathewson managed to get himself attached to Pershing's staff, together with other correspondents. Around April 1, 1916, at Brigade Headquarters in Casas Grandes his picture was taken. Mathewson, proudly holding his movie tripod, can be seen in the middle together with his fellow journalists. The picture clearly shows that the War Department's attempt to regulate any kind of photography during the expedition was a dismal failure. Apart from the "official photographer" from Underwood & Underwood not only Mathewson was covering the war but also his colleague Adrian Duff, news photographer for the American Press Association. The U.S. Army clearly was at a loss to control any kind of pictorial coverage of their invasion of Mexico.

American reporters at Casas Grandes, April 1916. Mathewson is in the middle holding his movie tripod. To his right photographer Adrian Duff. The picture was probably taken by William Fox. Source: National Archives, Washington, D.C. 

Link to low res image

Avalanche of Complaints

To make matters even worse, the Hearst organization promoted Mathewson in their own publicity. In a press statement released on March 27, 1916, it was announced that Mathewson  - "designated as official photographer of the War Department" - had just returned to the United States together with his films that were sealed up "to be sponsored by the War Department" before exhibition. This attempt to cash in on the publicity value of Mathewson's war pictures created an avalanche of complaints by rival newsreel companies, notably the Selig-Tribune Weekly that was controlled by the Chicago Tribune. Editor Lucien Wheeler demanded that the War Department either confiscate Mathewson's films, because he had taken these without proper authority, or share prints of the negatives with other newsreel companies. On April 18, 1916, with Mathewson's films still in the custody of the War Department, all major newsreel companies combined forces and jointly requested the War Department to release his films for syndication. They desparately wanted Mathewson's pictures and were willing to work together if necessary.

The documents at the National Archives on Mathewson's film work do not reveal how his motion pictures were used in the end. But the government records do show that the military ban on private film makers entering Mexico was totally ineffectual. The U.S. Army simply didn't have an appropriate administrative mechanism to control motion picture photography. When America entered World War I in 1917, the frustrating experiences with Mathewson during the Punitive Expedition must have contributed to the decision to accredit no civilian photographer with the American army and make the U.S. Signal Corps solely responsible for any film coverage on the European battlegrounds.

Mathewson's own story on his experiences in Mexico - no doubt embellished by a Hearst copywriter - can be read and downloaded here.

Mathewson, cranking his movie camera, during the Prince of Wales' visit to Canada. Copied from Photoplay Magazine, March 1920 

Link to low res image

Until his retirement Tracy Mathewson remained active as a professional photographer and newsreel cameraman, working for Fox, Pathé and as a freelancer. He was personal photographer to Edward VII, Prince of Wales, during his visit to Canada in 1919. In 1955 Mathewson received the Burt Williams Award for distinguished service in photography.

Tracy Mathewson died in 1957 in Jasper, Georgia.

Digitizing First World War Film

To mark the centennial of World War I the Imperial War Museum has digitized its film collection - one of the oldest and largest in the world. Over 200 hours of film, contributing to one quarter of total footage, can be seen on the European Film Gateway 1914, the webportal featuring the Great War on film.

During our research on the American cinematographers of World War I we were fortunate enough to discover some interesting footage in the film collection of the Imperial War Museum, notably scenes from Albert K. Dawson's The Battle and Fall of Przemysl (1915).

Malins and McDowell, official cinematographers of Battle of the Somme (1916)

Battle of the Somme (GB, 1916)

A highlight of this film collection in the Imperial War Museum is the original 1916 record of The Battle of the Somme, now granted UNESCO "Memory of the World" status. Shot by two official cinematographers, Geoffrey Malins and John B. McDowell, the film depicts the British Army in the preliminaries and early days of the Battle of the Somme. A huge success, the film was watched by 20 million British people in the first six weeks of exhibition and distributed in eighteen more countries. The film had a terrific impact on public opinion. This was in part due to its graphic depiction of trench warfare, including showing dead and wounded British and German soldiers, as well as the fact that it opened while the battle was still raging and casualties were being taken.

British soldiers going over the top. Scene from Battle of the Somme (1916)

Check out the video for more information on how this movie was made and the historical World War I film collection of the Imperial War Museum.