Shelley Stamp

Among early Hollywood’s most renowned filmmakers, Lois Weber was considered one of the era’s “three great minds” alongside D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Despite her accomplishments, Weber has been marginalized in relation to her contemporaries, who have long been recognized as fathers of American cinema. Drawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, Shelley Stamp offers the first comprehensive study of Weber’s remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood provides compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture. Weber made films on capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and addiction, establishing cinema’s power to engage topical issues for popular audiences. Her work grappled with the profound changes in women’s lives that unsettled Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and her later films include sharp critiques of heterosexual marriage and consumer capitalism. Mentor to many women in the industry, Weber demanded a place at the table in early professional guilds, decrying the limited roles available for women on-screen and in the 1920s protesting the growing climate of hostility toward female directors. Stamp demonstrates how female filmmakers who had played a part in early Hollywood’s bid for respectability were in the end written out of that industry’s history. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood is an essential addition to histories of silent cinema, early filmmaking in Los Angeles, and women’s contributions to American culture.

Lois Weber in Early Hollywood

Karen Day

Kevin Brownlow

Bryony Dixon

Ellen Cheshire

Maria Giese

Tania Field

Francesca Stephens

K. Charlie Oughton

Patricia di Risio

Pieter Aquilia

Julie K Allen

Aimee Dixon Anthony

The first ever overview of women's contributions to the dawn of cinema looking at a variety of roles from writers and directors to film editors and critics. Why have women such as Alice Guy-Blache, the creator of narrative cinema, been written out of film history? Why have so many women working behind the scenes in film been rendered invisible and silent for so long? Silent Women, pioneers of cinema explores the incredible contribution of women at the dawn of cinema when, surprisingly, more women were employed across the board in the film industry than they are now. It also looks at how women helped to shape the content, style of acting and development of the movie business in their roles as actors, writers, editors, cinematographers, directors and producers. In addition, we describe how women engaged with and influenced the development of cinema in their roles as audience, critics, fans, reviewers, journalists and the arbiters of morality in films. And finally, we ask when the current discrimination and male domination of the industry will give way to allow more women access to the top jobs. In addition to its historical focus on women working in film during the silent film era, the term silent also refers to the silencing and eradication of the enormous contribution that women have made to the development of the motion picture industry. “The surprise of the essays collected here is their sheer volume in every corner of a business apparently better able to accommodate female talent then than now..” Danny Leigh, Financial Times, July 2016 “ It's a fascinating journey into the untold history of a largely lost era of film..” Greg Jameson, Entertainment Focus, March 2016 "This book shows how women's voices were heard and helped create the golden age of silent cinema, how those voices were almost eradicated by the male-dominated film industry, and perhaps points the way to an all-inclusive future for global cinema..” Paul Duncan, Film Historian “Inspirational and informative, Silent Women will challenge many people's ideas about the beginnings of film history. This fascinating book roams widely across the era and the diverse achievements and voices of women in the film industry. These are the stories of pioneers, trailblazers and collaborators - hugely enjoyable to read and vitally important to publish.” Pamela Hutchinson, Silent London “Every page begs the question - how on earth did these amazing women vanish from history in the first place? I defy anyone interested in cinema history not to find this valuable compendium a must-read. It's also a call to arms for more research into women's contribution and an affirmation of just how rewarding the detective work can be.” Laraine Porter, Co-Artistic Director of British Silent Film Festival “An authoritative and illuminating work, it also lends a pervasive voice to the argument that discrimination and not talent is the barrier to so few women occupying the most prominent roles within the industry." Jason Wood, Author and Visiting Professor at MMU “I was amazed to discover just how crucially they were involved from not just in front of the camera but in producing, directing, editing and much, much more. An essential read.” Neil McGlone. The Criterion Collection

Pioneers of Cinema

Silent Women

This volume examines women's films and filmgoing in the 1910s, a period when female patronage was energetically courted by the industry for the first time. It demonstrates that women significantly complicated cinema going throughout this formative, transitional era.

Women and Motion Picture Culture After the Nickelodeon

Movie-struck Girls

Charlie Keil

This 'transitional era' covered the years 1908-1917 & witnessed profound changes in the structure of the motion picture industry in the US, involving film genre, film form, filmmaking practices & the emergence of the studio system. The pattern which emerged dominated the industry for decades to come.

Audiences, Institutions, Practices

American Cinema’s Transitional Era

Shelley Stamp

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