Harry Warner
American film studio executive (1881-1958)
Harry Morris Warner (born Hirsz Mojżesz Wonsal; December 12, 1881 – July 25, 1958) was an American studio executive, one of the founders of Warner Bros., and a major contributor to the development of the film industry. Along with his three younger brothers (Albert, Sam and Jack), Warner played a crucial role in the film business and establishing Warner Bros., serving as the company president until 1956.
Early life
Warner was born Hirsz Mojżesz "Wonsal" or "Wonskolaser" to a family of Ashkenazi Jews from the village of Krasnosielc, Poland (then part of Congress Poland in the Russian Empire). He was the son of Benjamin Wonsal, a shoemaker born in Krasnosielc, and Pearl Leah Eichelbaum. His given name was Mojżesz (Moses), however, he was called Hirsz (Anglicized to Hirsch) in the United States. In October 1889, he came to Baltimore, Maryland with his mother and siblings on the steamship Hermann from Bremen, Germany. Their father had preceded them, immigrating to Baltimore in 1888 to pursue his trade in shoes and shoe repair. At that time that he changed the family name to Warner which was used thereafter. As in many Jewish immigrant families, some of the children gradually acquired anglicized versions of their Yiddish-sounding names. Hirsz became Harry, and his middle name Morris was likely a version of Mojżesz.
“Harry Warner” enters the record as american film studio executive (1881-1958). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Harry, Warner and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q104161. VIAF identifies the subject as 125149196278274790895. The Library of Congress control number is n89125914. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1958, 1956 and 1889.
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This entry incorporates text from “Harry Warner” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.