Overview
Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood explores when, how, and why women were accepted as filmmakers in the 1910s and why, by the 1920s, those opportunities had disappeared. In looking at the early film industry as an industry-a place of work-Mahar not only unravels the mystery of the disappearing female filmmaker but untangles the complicated relationship among gender, work culture, and business within modern industrial organizations. In the early 1910s, the film industry followed a theatrical model, fostering an egalitarian work culture in which everyone-male and female-helped behind the scenes in a variety of jobs. In this culture women thrived in powerful, creative roles, especially as writers, directors, and producers. By the end of that decade, however, mushrooming star salaries and skyrocketing movie budgets prompted the creation of the studio system. As the movie industry remade itself in the image of a modern American business, the masculinization of filmmaking took root. Mahar's study integrates feminist methodologies of examining the gendering of work with thorough historical scholarship of American industry and business culture. Tracing the transformation of the film industry into a legitimate ""big business"" of the 1920s, and explaining the fate of the female filmmaker during the silent era, Mahar demonstrates how industrial growth and change can unexpectedly open-and close-opportunities for women.
Full Product Details
Author: Karen Ward Mahar (Siena College)
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.60cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.612kg
ISBN: 9780801884368
ISBN 10: 0801884365
Pages: 332
Publication Date: 05 January 2007
Recommended Age: From 17
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock 
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Table of Contents
"Preface Introduction: Making Movies and Incorporating Gender Prologue: ""The Greatest Electrical Novelty in the World"": Gender and Filmmaking before the Turn of the Century Part One: Expansion, Stardom & Uplift: Women Enter the American Movie Industry, 1908–1916 1. A Quiet Invasion: Nickelodeons, Narratives, and the First Women in Film 2. ""To Get Some of the 'Good Gravy' "" for Themselves Stardom, Features, and the First Star-Producers 3. ""So Much More Natural to a Woman"": Gender, Uplift, and the Woman Filmmaker Interlude: Women in Serials & Short Comedies, 1912–1922 4. The ""Girls Who Play"": The Short Film and the New Woman Part Two: ""A Business Pure & Simple"": The End of Uplift and the Masculinization of Hollywood, 1916–1928 5. ""The Real Punches"": Lois Weber, Cecil B. DeMille, and the End of the Uplift Movement 6. A ""'Her-Own-Company' Epidemic"": Stars as Independent Producers 7. ""Doing a 'Man's Work'"": The Rise of the Studio System and the Remasculinization of Filmmaking Epilogue Getting Away with It Notes Essay on Sources Index"
Reviews
<p> Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood differs from most recent work on the topic... The general idea here is one of several bold suggestions that merit (and will hopefully spark) serious consideration and further investigation.--Jon Burrows Early Popular Visual Culture (01/01/2008)
Adds significantly to the growing field of feminist film studies. -- Kathryn H. Fuller-Seeley, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
<p>Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood differs from most recent work on the topic... The general idea here is one of several bold suggestions that merit (and will hopefully spark) serious consideration and further investigation.--Jon Burrows Early Popular Visual Culture (01/01/0001)
<p> Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood differs from most recent work on the topic... The general idea here is one of several bold suggestions that merit (and will hopefully spark) serious consideration and further investigation.--Jon Burrows Early Popular Visual Culture (01/01/0001)
Author Information
Karen Ward Mahar is an associate professor of history at Siena College, New York.
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