William Fox

• "The first titans to emerge were two New York showmen, William Fox and Adolph Zukor, both Hungarian Jews."
• "Fox made the first breakthrough into middle-class audiences."
• showed movies as half the program in vaudeville houses - filled larger and more comfortable theaters that attracted middle class
• led opposition to Mayor McClellan 1908
• won court battle against Edison's Trust to keep his license, "the only distributor to resist takeover successfully"
• "pioneered in the vertical integration of the movie industry"

Adolph Zukor

• attained wealth as a furrier, penny-arcade operator, Hale's Tours exhibitor (failure)
• 1910 treasurer for Marcus Loew but kept own theaters
• "more than any other exhibitor of his time, Zukor had contact with the entire range of popular entertainment."
• Famous Players in Famous Plays based on the stage formula - Sarah Bernhardt in 4-reel Queen Elizabeth
• followed Al Lichtman's state rights system of distribution
• hired Porter to make feature film Count of Monte Cristo
• Zukor sought to "kill the slum tradition" in the movies
• "The movies expanded into the middle classes without leaving their storefront audiences behind."

Sources:

• quotes from chapter 3 of Robert Sklar. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. Revised and Updated. New York: Vintage, 1994, 1975.
  
• Hollywood Moguls and Laemmle and Griffith
  
• Filmnotes includes Birth of a Nation
  
• Birth of the Movies