A study of how and why women in early twentieth-century Hollywood went from having plenty of filmmaking opportunities to very few. 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. “With meticulous scholarship and fluid writing, Mahar tells the story of this golden era of female filmmaking . . . Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood is not to be missed.” —Samantha Barbas, Women’s Review of Books “Mahar views the business of making movies from the inside-out, focusing on questions about changing industrial models and work conventions. At her best, she shows how the industry’s shifting business history impacted women’s opportunities, recasting current understanding about the American film industry's development.” —Hilary Hallett, Reviews in American History “A scrupulously researched and argued analysis of how and why women made great professional and artistic gains in the U.S. film industry from 1906 to the mid-1920s and why they lost most of that ground until the late twentieth century.” —Kathleen Feeley, Journal of American History “Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood offers convincing evidence of how economic forces shaped women’s access to film production and presents a complex and engaging story of the women who took advantage of those opportunities.” —Pennee Bender, Business History Review

The most visible cultural institution on earth between the World Wars, the Hollywood movie industry tried to satisfy worldwide audiences of vastly different cultural, religious, and political persuasions. The World According to Hollywood shows how the industry's self-regulation shaped the content of films to make them salable in as many markets as possible. In the process, Hollywood created an idiosyncratic vision of the world that was glamorous and exotic, but also oddly narrow. Ruth Vasey shows how the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), by implementing such strategies as the industry's Production Code, ensured that domestic and foreign distribution took place with a minimum of censorship or consumer resistance. Drawing upon MPPDA archives, studio records, trade papers, and the records of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Vasey reveals the ways the MPPDA influenced the representation of sex, violence, religion, foreign and domestic politics, corporate capitalism, ethnic minorities, and the conduct of professional classes. Vasey is the first scholar to document fully how the demands of the global market frequently dictated film content and created the movies' homogenized picture of social and racial characteristics, in both urban America and the world beyond. She uncovers telling evidence of scripts and treatments that were abandoned before or during the course of production because of content that might offend foreign markets. Among the fascinating points she discusses is Hollywood's frequent use of imaginary countries as story locales, resulting from a deliberate business policy of avoiding realistic depictions of actual countries. She argues that foreign governments perceived movies not just as articles of trade, but as potential commercial and political emissaries of the United States. Just as Hollywood had to persuade its domestic audiences that its products were morally sound, its domination of world markets depended on its ability to create a culturally and politically acceptable product.

Silent films were, of course, never silent at all. However, the sound that used to accompany the screen picture in the early days of cinema has been neglected as an area of study. Altman explores the various musical, narrative, and even synchronized sound systems that enriched cinema before Jolson spoke.