Keywords
Motion picture history, brooklyn, urban history, film studies, precinema, cultural history, popular amusements, new york city history, urbanization, mass entertainment
Abstract
This study discusses how motion picture spectatorship practices in Brooklyn developed separately from that of any other urban center in the United States between 1893 and 1928. Often overshadowed by Manhattan's glamorous cultural districts, Brooklyn's cultural arbiters adopted the motion picture as a means of asserting a sense of independence from the other New York boroughs. This argument is reinforced by focusing on the motion picture's ascendancy as one of the first forms of mass entertainment to be disseminated throughout New York City in congruence with the Borough of Brooklyn's rapid urbanization. In many significant areas Brooklyn's relationship with the motion picture was largely unique from anywhere else in New York. These differences are best illuminated through several key examples ranging from the manner in which Brooklyn's political and religious authorities enforced film censorship to discussing how the motion picture was exhibited and the way theaters proliferated throughout the borough Lastly this work will address the ways in which members of the Brooklyn community influenced the production practices of the films made at several Brooklyn-based film studios. Ultimately this work sets out to explain how an independent community was able to determine its own form of cultural expression through its relationship with mass entertainment.
Notes
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Graduation Date
2014
Semester
Spring
Advisor
Foster, Amy
Degree
Master of Arts (M.A.)
College
College of Arts and Humanities
Department
History
Degree Program
History; Public History
Format
application/pdf
Identifier
CFE0005217
URL
http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0005217
Language
English
Release Date
5-15-2017
Length of Campus-only Access
3 years
Access Status
Masters Thesis (Open Access)
Subjects
Arts and Humanities -- Dissertations, Academic; Dissertations, Academic -- Arts and Humanities
STARS Citation
Morton, David, "City of Superb Democracy: The Emergence of Brooklyn's Cultural Identity During Cinema's Silent Era, 1893-1928." (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4638.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4638