Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America

Steven J. Ross shines a light on a little known and rarely examined period of cinema and labour history. In Working-Class Hollywood (Silent Film and the Shaping of class in America), he looks at the movies created by, for or against the labour movement and its emerging class identity. It is so interesting as it is a time of growth and struggle for both the cinema and the labour movements and the author shows how these two forces bumped and grinded with each other in a way movies never would again. Movies helped create a certain image of class and by the thirties this was pretty much set in stone so it is the period of the silent film where the struggle to shape that identity ensued. This book is amazingly well researched and accessible for the reader of either cinema, labour, or American history. Sometimes the author stretches his point and the reader will be frustrated that many of the films discussed are unavailable for viewing but these are small caveats to an impressive work.

Anyone interested in films dealing with social issues will love this book. In the 1910's the movie studios made many films that dealt with the relationship between management and workers. In the 1920's, a combination of lack of funds, censors and powerful movie studios combined to restrict stories of class conflict from the screen. This book explores one-reel melodramas by D.W. Griffith, comedies by Charlie Chaplin that ridicule people in authority, the "Red Scare" films from after World War I, and the films produced by labor activists themselves. It shows how many films used stereotypes of violent strikers that were not realistic. By necessity, this book is sympathetic to labor unions, but that does not interfere with the author's analysis of his subject.