M.A. Neff

M.A. Neff (b. Rome, Ohio, March 1858*;  d. New York, New York, 6 October 1915) 

M.A. Neff, known familiarly as "Mell," was born Melvin Augustus Neff, the youngest of ten children of  Abraham Neff (1806-1890) and his wife Tabitha Hall (1816-1876), who were married in 1831.

Neff was married twice, the first was in 1883, but it did not last more than a few years. Around 1891 he married Mary A. Haefner (1875-1955). They had two children, James Blaine Neff (1895-1983), and another that died in infancy. Neff and his wife were based in St. Louis in the mid-1890s when their son was born.

In the 1901 U.S. Census, Neff is listed in Cincinnati as a commercial salesman. But he soon gravitated to the growing motion picture industry. Around 1910 he founded the Motion Picture Exhibitors League of America, with annual conventions beginning in 1911. Neff was its President for the last four years of his life. He wrote and produced one full length silent film, The Battle of Ballots, which debuted in August 1915. It is catalogued at the American Film Institute as five-six reels, which translated to 75 to 90 minutes. It is a melodrama that centers around prohibition. Neff appeared as himself in a short documentary newsreel (Gaumont Weekly no. 72), released on 23 July 1913, when he was elected President of the Motion Picture Exhibitors League for the third time.  

Neff's one book was the self-published 118-page paperback Paradise Found, which came out in January 1914. According to Lyman Tower Sargent, in his online version of his classic Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present (2016), it describes "a series of worlds, including two eutopias," the first of which is called Paradise. There people live long lives and fly about individually, living in trees. The second eutopia is Square Land, where everyone gets a 'square deal" including a lot on which to build a small house, and a three day work week of six hours each day. The book is very rare. 

Neff died in New York City on 6 October 1915, after a brief illness (kidney trouble), and an unsuccessful operation. 

 *Neff gave his birth details as March 1859 in the 1900 U.S. Census, but other sources suggest the year was 1858.