Edwin F. Weigle: Cameraman for the Chicago Tribune

In the period before and during World War I, American newspapers were involved in a cutthroat war to increase circulation. To do so, they increasingly turned to tie-ins with the new popular medium of motion pictures in order to boost readership, and to increase newspaper profits by theatre receipts as well. In response to these pressures, the Chicago Tribune decided to groom photographer Edwin F. Weigle as its film correspondent overseas. To this end, it sent Weigle to Vera Cruz to film conflict in April 1914, and in August, after the World War broke out, to Belgium. In 1915 and 1916 the Tribune sent him to Europe on two different occasions, where he made feature documentary films. When the United States entered the war in 1917, Weigle joined the U. S. Army Signal Corps, and filmed with the 35^th Division in France. After the war, Weigle and his wife filmed in Ireland during the Troubles in the 1920s. Weigle retired as a film correspondent shortly after World War I. The article investigates the changes in film production in the dawning age of big newsreel companies.