For the Love of Pleasure

Women, Movies, and Culture in Turn-the-Century Chicago

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by Lauren Rabinovitz

Type

Studies

Subject

History of Cinema

Keywords

early cinema, Chicago, movie theater, United States, history of cinema

Publishing date

1998

Publisher

Rutgers University Press

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 256 pages
6 ¼ x 9 ½ inches (16 x 24 cm)

ISBN-10
ISBN-13

0-8135-2534-9
978-0-8135-2534-1

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Book Presentation:
"One of the most readable books on early cinema I have ever encountered. . . . Rabinovitz ably brings together a wealth of information about the exciting era of social change that marked the beginning of U.S. cinema."
--Gaylyn Studlar, atuhor of This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age

The period from the 1880s until the 1920s saw the making of a consumer society, the inception of the technological, economic, and social landscape in which we currently live. Cinema played a key role in the changing urban landscape. For working-class women, it became a refuge from the factory. For middle-class women, it presented a new language of sexual danger and pleasure. Women found greater freedom in big cities, entering the workforce in record numbers and moving about unchaperoned in public spaces. Turn-of-the-century Chicago surpassed even New York as a proving ground for pleasure and education, attracting women workers at three times the national rate. Using Chicago as a model, Lauren Rabinovitz analyzes the rich interplay among demographic, visual, historical, and theoretical materials of the period. She skillfully links cinema theory and women's studies for a fuller understanding of cultural history. She also demonstrates how cinema dramatically affected social conventions, ultimately shaping modern codes of masculinity and feminity.

About the Author:
LAUREN RABINOVITZ is Professor of American Studies and Cinema at the University of Iowa. She is the author of For the Love of Pleasure: Women, Movies, and Culture in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago and coeditor of Television, History, and American Culture: Feminist Critical Essays, published by Duke University Press.

ABRAHAM GEIL is an instructor in media history at the New School University in New York City.

See the publisher website: Rutgers University Press