Lois Weber

Lois Weber June 13, 1879 November 13, 1939 was an American silent film actress, screenwriter, producer, and director, who is considered the most important female director the American film industry has known, and one of the most important and prolific film directors in the era of silent films. Film historian Anthony Slide asserts that Along with D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber was the American cinemas first genuine auteur, a filmmaker involved in all aspects of production and one who utilized the motion picture to put across her own ideas and philosophies.

Florence Lois Weber was born on June 13, 1879 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania since 1907 Pittsburghs Northside neighborhood, the second of three children of Mary Matilda Tillie Snaman born Mathilda Schneeman in March 1854 in Reserve Township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania died 1935 in Miami, Florida and George Weber born June 1855 died about 1910, an upholster and decorator, who had spent several years in missionary street work, and the younger sister of Elizabeth Bessie Snaman Weber Jay born April 9, 1877 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania died February 26, 1966 in Florida and older sister of Ethel Weber Howland born July 3, 1887 in Pennsylvania, who later appeared in two of Florences films in 1916, and married assistant director Louis A. Lou Howland. The Webers were a devout middle class Christian family of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.Weber was considered a child prodigy, and an excellent pianist. As a girl, music was her passion, and her most treasured possession was a baby grand piano. Weber left home and lived in poverty while working as a streetcorner evangelist and social activist for two years with the evangelical Church Army Workers, an organization similar to the Salvation Army, preaching and singing hymns on streetcorners and singing and playing the organ in rescue missions in redlight districts in Pittsburgh and New York, until the Church Army Workers disbanded in 1900. 41 ........

Source: Wikipedia