Essanay Studios, officially the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, was an early American motion picture studio. The studio was founded in Chicago by George Kirke Spoor and Gilbert M. Anderson, origin
Essanay Film Manufacturing Company logo in a still frame from a Charlie Chaplin film
Group photograph of the Essanay stock company in Chicago, Illinois, 1911: Top row, left to right: Joseph Dailey, F. Doolittle, Inez Callahan, William J. Murray, Curtis Cooksey, Helen Lowe, Howard Missimer, Miss Lavalliet, Cyril Raymond. Middle row: Florence Hoffman, Harry Cashman, Alice Donovan, Frank Dayton, Harry McRae Webster (producer/director), Lottie Briscoe (leads), William C. Walters, Rose Evans. Bottom row: Eva Prout (Evebelle Ross Prout), Bobbie Guhl, Jack Essanay (dog), Charlotte Vacher, Tommy Shirley (Thomas P. Shirley).