Angela Murray Gibson

Early life

Angela Murray Gibson was born in Scotland in 1878. Her family immigrated when she was five settling in Casselton, North Dakota. Due to her father rarely being home working as a travel agent to help support the family, Angela lived with her mother and her older sister Ruby in a small apartment in Fargo, ND. She became infatuated with the film industry making her own productions featuring her Scottish heritage. While attending college, her sister Ruby worked at the Herbst Clothing Store. The owner realized that Ruby had a gift of merchandizing and helped her open her own store called the Bee Hive Store. Angela became one of the first women to graduate from what is now known as North Dakota State University . With the profits that were made from the store, once Angela graduated her sister paid for a trip to Scotland in 1908 for Angela to study the culture and dress of her homeland. When Angela returned to the U.S. she put together a show performed on a Scottish harp. In 1911 she took her performance all over the U.S. and Canada. She was soon approached by famous motion picture actress Mary Pickford who was making a movie called The Pride of the Clan. Mary flew her out to Hollywood for 6 weeks to work on this production where Angela helped as the adviser and assistant director to Maurice Tourneur in the 1917 film. Tourneur wanted the movie to be authentic and with Gibson's Scottish background she was able to offer advice on costumes, Scottish dances and dialogue. These two got along very well making a successful film. She also gained acting experience from this film as she played a small role in it. This is how Angela began her successful career.

Career

After Angela's first assistant directing production wrapped up she then attended Columbia University to study cinematography. After graduating from this prestigious school she bought a camera and one lens and headed back to her home town of Casselton, North Dakota. Gibson opened the states first movie studio that was completely run and finance by women. Here she became the studio's writer, director and actress while her sister Ruby ran the business side. Somebody had to crank the camera which was the job of Angela's mother as she became the film crew. Angela took advantage of the natural light at her studio where she made outdoor canvases to film her movies with. She was known to do all of her own film processing as well as editing. Angela started off with two film documentaries, one about the life of a grain of wheat and the other about a rodeo. When the movies were completed she would go to local film distributors to help distribute the films gaining popularity. Her first successful film was called 'That Ice Ticket'. With the start of the great depression, Angela was forced to stop making films due to her financial situation, and turned the Gibson Studio into a dance studio, where she became the instructor.

Later Years

In the late 1940s Angela was diagnosed with tuberculosis and later died on October 22, 1953. During the time she was sick she spent most of her time at an institution for chronic diseases. During the later years a lot of her films and documentaries had disappeared or had greatly deteriorated. However, in 1976, the Centennial Commission discovered what remained of some of her lost films. The Centennial Commission contracted with Snyder Films to salvage what films and documentaries that could be restored. A lot of the film had water damage, but some was able to be saved since Gibson backed up some of her work on safety films. In 1997, the film "The Angela Gibson Experience" was released letting later generation see what extraordinary work was done by this talented woman. This film was also featured in the 2001 Fargo Film Festival.