Born in 1866, Mattie Edwards is quite possibly the first Black leading lady in mainstream film. Her career started in vaudeville in the late 1880s, and she began working in film as early as 1913. Edwards was part of a company of Black actors that worked for the Lubin Manufacturing Company, an early production company that made silent short films between 1896 and 1916. Lubin produced notoriously racist films starring white actors in blackface, but between 1913 and 1915 the company produced a series known as “Colored Comedies.” Keep in mind that these shorts were almost as racist as the movies Lubin produced with white actors in blackface. Edwards was Lubin’s leading Black actress, and she starred in at least twenty-four of the company’s shorts. Her co-star was often John “Junk” Edwards, though it is unclear if they were related in some capacity, or just shared the same last name. Mattie Edwards also appeared in movies produced by Essanay Studios (which produced early Charlie Chaplin movies) and the Ebony Film Company, as well as appearing in two Oscar Micheaux productions. Mattie Edwards died in 1944, and has been largely left out of film history.
To learn more about actors like Mattie Edwards and companies like the Lubin Manufacturing Company, check out my new book Black Film: A History of Black Representation and Participation in the Movies will be released by Ten Speed Press on March 24, 2026. You can pre-order the book here.