Fully revised, updated, and extended, the fifth edition of Hollywood's America provides an important compilation of interpretive essays and primary documents that allows students to read films as cultural artifacts within the contexts of actual past events.

* A new edition of this classic textbook, which ties movies into the broader narrative of US and film history

* This fifth edition contains nine new chapters, with a greater overall emphasis on recent film history, and new primary source documents which are unavailable online

* Entries range from the first experiments with motion pictures all the way to the present day

* Well-organized within a chronological framework with thematic treatments to provide a valuable resource for students of the history of American film

Steven Mintz is Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin and Executive director of the University of Texas System's Institute for Transformational Learning. He is the author and editor of fourteen books, including The Prime of Life: A History of Modern Adulthood, Huck's Raft: A History of American Childhood, and Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. He is the editor of African American Voices (4th edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), Mexican American Voices (2nd edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and Native American Voices (2nd edition, Wiley-Blackwell, 2000).

Randy Roberts is Distinguished Professor of History at Purdue University. His publications include John Wayne American (with James S. Olson, 1995), A Line in the Sand: The Alamo in Blood and Memory (with James S. Olson,2000), Joe Louis: Hard Times Man (2010), A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation (2011) and Rising Tide: Bear Bryant, Joe Namath and Dixie's Last Quarter (with Ed Krzemienski, 2014). Roberts has served frequently as a consultant and on-camera commentator for PBS, HBO, and the History Channel.

Fully revised, updated, and extended, the fifth edition of Hollywood's America provides an important compilation of interpretive essays and primary documents that allows students to read films as cultural artifacts within the contexts of actual past events.

• A new edition of this classic textbook, which ties movies into the broader narrative of US and film history
• This fifth edition contains nine new chapters, with a greater overall emphasis on recent film history, and new primary source documents which are unavailable online
• Entries range from the first experiments with motion pictures all the way to the present day
• Well-organized within a chronological framework with thematic treatments to provide a valuable resource for students of the history of American film

List of Illustrations ix

Preface xi

Introduction: The Social and Cultural History of American Film 1

Part I The Silent Era 31

Introduction: Intolerance and the Rise of the Feature Film 31

1 Workers in Early Film 33
Michael Shull, Silent Agitators: Militant Labor in the Movies, 19091919

2 Silent Cinema as Historical Mythmaker 42
Eric Niderost, The Birth of a Nation

3 The Revolt Against Victorianism 51
Lary May, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and the New Personality

4 Primary Sources 63

Edison v. American Mutoscope Company 63

The Nickel Madness 65

Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Commission of Ohio 68

Fighting a Vicious Film: Protest Against The Birth of a Nation 69

Boston Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1915 69

Analysis by Francis Hackett 69

Seeing Our Boys 'Over There' 71

Part II Hollywood's Golden Age 75

Introduction: Backstage During the Great Depression: 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1933, and Footlight Parade 75

5 Depression America and its Films 79
Maury Klein, Laughing Through Tears

6 The Depression's Human Toll 86
Peter Roffman and Jim Purdy, Gangsters and Fallen Women

7 Depression Allegories 95
Thomas H. Pauly, Gone with the Wind and The Grapes of Wrath as Hollywood Histories of the Great Depression

8 African Americans on the Silver Screen 104
Thomas R. Cripps, The Evolution of Black Film

9 Primary Sources 116

The Introduction of Sound 116

Pictures That Talk 116

Review of Don Juan 117

Silence is Golden 118

Film Censorship 120

The Sins of Hollywood, 1922 120

The Don'ts and Be Carefuls 122

The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 123

The State Department on Hollywood in Germany, 1934 133

The State Department on Hollywood in Latin America, 1934 134

Part III Hollywood in the World War II Era 137

Introduction: Hollywood's World War II Combat Films 137

10 Movies and Great Britain 141
Michael Todd Bennett, Anglophilia on Film: Creating an Atmosphere for Alliance, 19351941

11 Blockbuster as Propaganda 156
Randy Roberts, You Must Remember This: The Case of Hal Wallis's Casablanca

12 John Wayne and Wartime Hollywood 166
Randy Roberts, John Wayne Goes to War

13 The Woman's Film 184
Jeanine Basinger, When Women Wept

14 Primary Sources 191

Sumner Welles to Franklin Roosevelt, 1941 191

The 1941 Academy Awards: Hollywood and the President 192

Correspondence between Walter Wanger and Stephen Early 192

Franklin D. Roosevelt to the Academy Awards Dinner 195

Walter Wanger to Stephen Early 196

Madeleine Carroll to Franklin Roosevelt 196

U.S. Senate Subcommittee Hearings on Motion Picture and Radio Propaganda, 1941 196

Excerpts from The Government Information Manual for the Motion Picture Industry, 1942 200

Bureau of Motion Pictures Report: Casablanca 204

Part IV Postwar Hollywood 207

Introduction: Double Indemnity and Film Noir 207

15 The Red Scare in Hollywood 211
Peter Roffman and Jim Purdy, HUAC and the End of an Era

16 Movies Grow Up 219
Jennifer Holt, Hollywood and Politics Caught in the Cold War Crossfire

17 The Morality of Informing 229
Kenneth R. Hey, Ambivalence and On the Waterfront

18 Science Fiction as Social Commentary 240
Stuart Samuels, The Age of Conspiracy and Conformity: Invasion of...