SESSION 6: PLENARY

Abstract

Movies might appropriately be the defining genre for the twentieth century. There were no movies before the twentieth century. Knowing what movies were made and seen by whom over time, and which messages and symbols were conveyed tells us a great deal about the American Century and about how people saw capitalists and capitalism. We argue that American movie culture evolved at a time when the debate about wealth and poverty and structural change was transforming the economy, and when most people could not explain or understand the revolutionary changes underway. We also suggest that who made the movies and how they made them mattered: a majority of the early movies were made by immigrant groups, such as Jews, and that mattered to how the movies perceived the outsiders and the insiders and how they portrayed capitalism and capitalists.