A timely and captivating account of America’s first women directors who, with little recognition, helped pave the way for females in the film industry today.
Originally published in 1977 as Early Women Directors, Anthony Slide’s The Silent Feminists was the first volume to recognize and honor the work of female directors in the American silent film industry. With a new foreword by the author, this invaluable resource documents these pioneering women’s lives and careers and provides an introduction to the notable yet often overlooked history of female film directors. It introduces readers to such trailblazers of the motion picture as Alice Guy Blaché, Lois Weber, Mrs. Wallace Reid, Ida May Park, Margery Wilson, and many others.
More than forty years after its original publication, The Silent Feminists remains an important and influential study, providing original documentation on a subject that has steadily and deservedly grown in significance.
Anthony Slide is the author or editor of more than 200 works on the history of popular entertainment. Among his achievements are the first volumes on early American cinema, the Vitagraph Company, early women directors, the cinema and Ireland, and many more. His books have been honored by the American Library Association as Outstanding Reference Sources of the Year, and by Choice Magazine as Outstanding Academic Books of the Year. In 1990, he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by Bowling Green University, at which time he was hailed by Lillian Gish as “our pre-eminent historian of the silent film.”
Table of Contents
Foreword vii
Introduction: Rediscovering America's First Women Directors xiii
1 Women and the American Silent Film Industry 1
2 Alice Guy Blache 15
3 Lois Weber 29
4 The Universal Women 41
5 Vitagraph's Women Directors 61
6 Margery Wilson 71
7 Mrs. Wallace Reid 83
8 Frances Marion 97
9 Dorothy Arzner 103
10 An Ever-Increasing Number 117
Appendix A "Woman's Place in Photoplay Production" Alice Guy Blaché 139
Appendix B "The Motion-Picture Director" Ida May Park 143
