The only statue of Charles Dickens, in the world,
is in Philadelphia
Statue of Charles Dickens with Little Nell Family visitors - great grandson Cedric Charles & Elizabeth Dickens
The statue of Charles Dickens with Little Nell is located in Clark Park, Philadelphia, was created by Francis Edwin Elwell
Dickens and Little Nell, a statue of Charles Dickens, located in Clark Park in West Philadelphia is rumored to be the only known statue of Charles Dickens in the world. Sculpted by Francis Edwin Elwell, the statue was exhibited at the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893. Although Elwell took the statue to England, he was unable to install the piece there as Dickens’ will specifically forbade the creation of any monuments, memorials, or testimonials to him. The sculpture was returned to the United States where it was stored in a warehouse in Philadelphia before eventually being installed in Clark Park.
Cedric Charles Dickens (1916-2006) - enchanting and energetic guardian of the memory of his great-grandfather's most congenial creation, Mr. Pickwick. Cedric Dickens was born in 1916, the grandson of Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, sixth of Charles's ten children. Cedric attended Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, and after taking three trips to the West Indies (Caribbean) he joined the British Tabulating Machine Company (the IBM of its day) in 1937, and joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1939.
He met his future wife, Elizabeth, while riding his bicycle along the dockside of a Naval base in Portsmouth, England. The sight of her as a WREN at the wheel of a truck caused him to fall off his bicycle - wheel, he tries to tell everyone, got caught in train tracks on the wharf. She stopped to help him and gave him a ride to his destination. Cedric likes to tell people that he was literally picked up by the most beautiful girl in the world. They were married in 1948.
When Cedric retired in 1976, he devoted his time establishing Pickwick Clubs in different parts of the world - Ireland, Australia, The Netherlands, USA - Philadelphia in1981, and also worked ceaselessly to preserve the heritage of Gad's Hill, the home where Charles Dickens lived. Cedric frequently graced us with with his presence at Philadelphia Pickwick Club luncheons during the 1980's and 90's. He loved this city.
Sigmund Lubin 1851 - 1923
Philadelphia
Famed as the first Movie Mogul in America, Sigmund Lubin created a Philadelphia-based motion picture dynasty.
Sigmund Lubin (1851-1923), America's pioneer filmmaker. Sigmund Lubszynski was born in Breslau (then part of Prussia) and came to America in the Centennial year of 1876. Educated in Optometry at the University Heidelberg, ironically, Lubin lost sight in his right eye in a factory accident, but it did not impede his early professional pursuit as an Optician.
It all began with a small optical shop, which Lubin opened on 21 S. 8th Street, Philadelphia. A towering man, Sigmund Lubin had a sharp business acuman that turned his practise into the equivlent of a 19th-century Lenscrafters. At that time, those seeking eyeglasses had to go to one specialist for an exam, another to grind lenses, and a third to be fitted for frames. Lubin did it all under one roof, and, in 24 hours! He'd later apply this approach to movie making.
Between 1896 and 1916, Sigmund Lubin produced more than 3,000 movies, built four studios, opened one of the citty's first movie houses, invented, manufactured and marketed film cameras and equipment, and created a chain of over 100 movie houses across the country - including the first multiplex, which opened in Baltimore in 1907. Lubin was the only established film producer who built a vertically integrated business in the motion-picture industry.
Lubin's film catalog began with a few mundane subjects such as "Horse Eating Hay" (1896), about a mare munching breakfast, which was shot in a stable behind his home at 1608 N. 15th Street. Not only was it Lubin's maiden voyage in filmmaking, but it was also the first movie made in Philadelphia. Mundane was dcidedly not in Lubin's make up, and it didn't take long before he progressed to more interesting titles like "Reproductions of a Prize Fight", "Thrilling Detective Story", "The Spoiled Child", and "The Great Train Wreck" - one of the most famous of Lubin's films. The wreck cost Lubin $25,000, but with his innovative mindset Lubin soon figured out how to get his money out of it. A dozen cameramen, protected with armored shields, were stratgically posiioned in different locations around the crash scene. Taking clips of the crash from different positions, the scene ended up in five different movies between 1914 and 1916. Only one of those films exists today "A Partner To Providence", which was originally Episode 8 in a serial entitled "The Beloved Adventurer".
For all the business acumen and innovation that Sigmund Lubin was about, his journey in filmmaking was not without entanglements on the legal front. While Thomas Edison saw film in terms of cameras and projectors, Lubin saw it as an industry, an art and an entertainment. Lubin's enterprise invoked the wrath of Edison, who claimed the copyright to manufacture and sell motion-picture films and equipment in the United States. The two were enmeshed in litgation from 1898 until 1907
During that time, Europe had entered the filmmaking arena, and the United States began to lag behind, possibly because money that might have gone into production was spent instead on costly lawsuits. Once Edison declared peace with Lubin and a few other patent infringers, they all agreed to pool their patents and formed the Motion Picture Patents Company. With legal squabbles out of the way, Lubin relocated his studio above the Victoria Theater and stepped up his film production with stars such as Oliver Hardy, Marie Dressler, and Florence Lawrence.
More than a sprinkling of Lubin's films had disaster scenes such as, lives lost in mines and mills, the burning of the abandoned Tacony Iron Works, and the spectacular train crash. Perhaps these screen disasters prophesied Lubin's personal calamities. In June 1914, the vault where he stored his films exploded, destroying negatives of the films he'd produced. Of his 3,000 films, fewer than 300 are known to have survived.
With the outbreak of World War 1, revenues from Lubin's European market shriveled so drastically, that when the Drexel Bank called in a $500,000 loan, which Lubin was unable to repay. Even though Lubin's Betzwood Studio was shuttered, other producers continued to make films there until 1922.
See Sigmund Lubin on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0Nc3Bo308
See Sigmund Lubin's Great Train Wreck on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-SV46oJR8o
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