{"product_id":"working-class-hollywood-silent-film-and-the-shaping-of-class-in-america-9780691024646","title":"Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis path-breaking book reveals how Hollywood became \"Hollywood\" and what that meant for the politics of America and American film. \u003ci\u003eWorking-Class Hollywood\u003c\/i\u003e tells the story of filmmaking in the first three decades of the twentieth century, a time when going to the movies could transform lives and when the cinema was a battleground for control of American consciousness. Steven Ross documents the rise of a working-class film movement that challenged the dominant political ideas of the day. Between 1907 and 1930, worker filmmakers repeatedly clashed with censors, movie industry leaders, and federal agencies over the kinds of images and subjects audiences would be allowed to see. The outcome of these battles was critical to our own times, for the victors got to shape the meaning of class in twentieth- century America. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Surveying several hundred movies made by or about working men and women, Ross shows how filmmakers were far more concerned with class conflict during the silent era than at any subsequent time. Directors like Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and William de Mille made movies that defended working people and chastised their enemies. Worker filmmakers went a step further and produced movies from \u003ci\u003eA Martyr to His Cause\u003c\/i\u003e (1911) to \u003ci\u003eThe Gastonia Textile Strike\u003c\/i\u003e (1929) that depicted a unified working class using strikes, unions, and socialism to transform a nation. J. Edgar Hoover considered these class-conscious productions so dangerous that he assigned secret agents to spy on worker filmmakers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Liberal and radical films declined in the 1920s as an emerging Hollywood studio system, pressured by censors and Wall Street investors, pushed American film in increasingly conservative directions. Appealing to people's dreams of luxury and upward mobility, studios produced lavish fantasy films that shifted popular attention away from the problems of the workplace and toward the pleasures of the new consumer society. While worker filmmakers were trying to heighten class consciousness, Hollywood producers were suggesting that class no longer mattered. \u003ci\u003eWorking-Class Hollywood\u003c\/i\u003e shows how silent films helped shape the modern belief that we are a classless nation.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Steven J. Ross\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Princeton University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/03\/2000\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 392\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.15lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.29h x 6.07w x 0.94d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780691024646\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSteven J. Ross\u003c\/b\u003e is Professor of History at the University of Southern California, where he teaches courses in American Social History and popular culture. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eWorkers on the Edge: Work, Leisure, and Politics in Industrializing Cincinnati, 1788-1890\u003c\/i\u003e, and has published numerous articles on film history, labor history, and social history.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Princeton University Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":40682927685747,"sku":"9.78E+12","price":75.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_55c4841b-f3fa-48c7-98af-7bfd68295958.jpg?v=1674831584","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/en-de\/products\/working-class-hollywood-silent-film-and-the-shaping-of-class-in-america-9780691024646","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}