Dressed for Adventure: Working Women and Silent Movie Serials in the 1910s

Enstad, Nan

doi:10.2307/3178317

Cited by 11 publications

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“…contest for increasing circulation by 100,000 subscribers. 52 As a tie-in to the serial, Ladies World ran contests to actively engage the readership. Each month, the serial posed the question "What will happen to Mary next?"…”

Section: Women's Serial Film Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The historical process of fandom as a participatory pastime: film discourse in newspapers from 1911 to 1918.

Whitehead¹

2021

Preprint

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"Who Will Be Ruth?" was a headline that dominated small town newspapers from 1915- 1918. This headline corresponded with a contest that targeted young women to participate in the new national pastime of cinema by having local women vie for the roles in a film with citizens voting for their favourite woman to play the lead character of Ruth. The "Who Will Be Ruth?" contest became a local phenomenon, which garnered tens of thousands of votes in each town the contest ran. The contest exemplifies the film contest trend that occurred in newspapers from 1911-1918, which elicited audience participation in the creation of film content. Movie contests reveal an early participatory culture, which contradicts critical theory's notion of a passive audience. Mass produced cinema in fact actualized publics that participated in the creation of the very content they consumed. The formation of movie fans can be studied by exploring early participation in collective practices, as reflexive circulation of discourse is integral to the creation of a public (Warner, 2002). My research involves studying three distinctive film contests that demonstrate the historical process of creating fandom through the use of newspaper texts. The transformation of film into American mass culture in the 191 Os is directly connected to fan groups who were largely made up of female fans who both legitimized film going and created a distinctive fan public. Film contests gave women agency in creating content for mass culture before voting rights were universal. An exploration of movie contests from 1911-1918 will provide new insights into the relationship between participatory cultures, aesthetic objects and discourse.

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Section: Women's Serial Film Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The historical process of fandom as a participatory pastime: film discourse in newspapers from 1911 to 1918.

Whitehead¹

2021

Preprint

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“…The Adventures of Kathlyn (Selig, 1913), for instance, relocates its protagonist's escapades to the jungle; The Exploits of Elaine (Pathe, 1915) draws on detective fiction; and Ruth Roland, Pathe studio's second prominent serial queen next to Pearl White, appears in Western serials like Ruth of the Rockies (1920) and The Timber Queen (1922). This first decade of film-serial production has garnered the most attention so far, with studies analyzing their place in the development of cinematic viewing practices, their negotiations of shifting gender norms and stereotypes, the relation between film serials and their coexisting tie-ins in newspapers and magazines (Denson 2014b;Enstad 1995;Morris 2014;Singer 2001;Stamp 2000;Vela 2000), the emergence of the star system or the showcasing of particular stars (Bean 2001;Solomon 2010), and the transnational travels and appropriations of serials and their 'queens' (Canjels 2011;Canjels 2014;Dahlquist 2013a;Smith 2014). The 1920s saw both the continuing appearance of serial queens, most notably Pearl White and Ruth Roland, and an increase in physically vigorous, gun-slinging, fist-fighting male protagonists.…”

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Film Serials and the American Cinema, 1910-1940

Brasch¹

2018

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Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. In writing this book, I have had the pleasure and the honor of benefiting from the input of many bright scholars, close friends, and simply brilliant human beings. The single most influential person in this project was Ruth Mayer, my adviser, who offered both encouragement and criticism throughout the years, and who, when the project felt most overwhelming and the chapters didn't seem to form a flowing argument, stepped in and told me what I needed to do to get this finished. I am indebted to a group of people at and around the University of Hannover in Germany, who encouraged me to start the project, who shaped its very beginnings, and who continued to be influential over the years. These include everyone who read and commented on my chapters in the American Studies colloquium, especially

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“…Edison's What Happened to Mary (1912), for example, which is often considered the first American film serial, portrays a working, self-reliant protagonist and lacks the male rescuer, the weenie, and the soon-common cliffhanger endings (cf. Enstad 1995). Subsequent serials establish and adhered to more stable narrative and cinematographic conventions and found their variations in theme, settings, or gestures towards specific filmic or literary genres instead.…”

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confidence: 99%

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1. Introduction

2018

Film Serials and the American Cinema, 1910-1940

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The introductory chapter provides the book's theoretical framework by detailing an anecdotal approach to the study of film history, and it addresses the shifting definition and function of the anecdote in historiography. The chapter furthermore introduces concepts of seriality in the context of nineteenth and twentieth-century modernity and establishes that, rather than reflecting processes of production and dissemination, serial narratives themselves activate and propel the processes of serialization and industrialization that enable their existence. Viewers approached serials with an awareness of their industrial and commercial character, and repetition assured their continued popularity across more than four decades rather than threatening to subdue it.

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Dressed for Adventure: Working Women and Silent Movie Serials in the 1910s

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

The historical process of fandom as a participatory pastime: film discourse in newspapers from 1911 to 1918.

The historical process of fandom as a participatory pastime: film discourse in newspapers from 1911 to 1918.

Film Serials and the American Cinema, 1910-1940

1. Introduction

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