Lois Weber in Early Hollywood
Shelley StampWinner of the 2017 Michael Nelson Prize from the International Association for Media & History (IAMHIST)
Weber made films on capital punishment, contraception, poverty, & 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 & 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 & 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, & women’s contributions to American culture.
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Shelley Stamp is author of Movie-Struck Girls: Women & Motion Picture Culture after the Nickelodeon. She is the Professor of Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz & editor of Feminist Media Histories, published by UC Press.