Calvin Company
| Private | |
| Industry | Film production |
| Founded | 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Founders |
|
| Defunct | October 31, 1982 |
| Headquarters | Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Products | Movie-Mite film projector |
| Services | Educational and industrial films |
The Calvin Company was a Kansas City, Missouri-based educational and industrial film production company that for nearly half a century was the largest and most successful film producer of its type in the United States.
The Calvin Company was born, lived, and died in Kansas City. It was the child of Forrest ("F. O.") Calvin, a kid from Pleasanton, Kansas, who studied journalism and advertising at the University of Kansas in the late 1920s. In 1928, F. O. was called upon to sketch a briefly used version of the KU mascot, the Jayhawk. After graduating from college, F. O. went to work for an advertising agency in Kansas City, doing direct mail advertising and commercial art and finding both rough-going. However, his tenure at that agency did lead to an interesting discovery. The ad agency was occasionally using a 16 mm movie camera to make little advertising films for its clients. This was an almost unheard-of practice, as the 16 mm film format was at the time reserved mostly for home movies, though it was convenient and inexpensive and just perfect for educational and business films. F. O. Calvin was determined to invest in the future of 16 mm.
The agency did not survive the Great Depression, but in 1931 F. O. and his wife Betty went into business for themselves, founding the Calvin Company, originally an advertising agency that just happened to specialize in 16 mm business movies. They started out in a one-room office in the Business Men Assurance Building, across the street from Union Station in Kansas City. Betty Calvin managed the business side; F. O. Calvin was the salesman. In the early years, most of their time was divided between convincing prospective industrial clients that 16 mm was right for them, and then actually producing the movies. Early on, the Calvins took advantage of Kansas City's proximity to locations, industry, and commerce, and their earliest clients were area-based businesses and organizations such as Kansas Flour Mills, the Security Benefit Association of Topeka, Kansas, the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, Western Auto, and Kansas City Southern Railways.
...
Wikipedia