Go West, Young Women!: The Rise of Early Hollywood

by Hilary A. Hallett

In the early part of the twentieth century, migrants made their way from rural homes to cities in record numbers and many traveled west. Los Angeles became a destination. Women flocked to the growing town to join the film industry as workers and spectators, creating a "New Woman." Their efforts transformed filmmaking from a marginal business to a cosmopolitan, glamorous, and bohemian one. By 1920, Los Angeles had become the only western city where women outnumbered men. In Go West, Young Women, Hilary A. Hallett explores these relatively unknown new western women and their role in the development of Los Angeles and the nascent film industry. From Mary Pickford’s rise to become perhaps the most powerful woman of her age, to the racist moral panics of the post–World War I years that culminated in Hollywood’s first sex scandal, Hallett describes how the path through early Hollywood presaged the struggles over modern gender roles that animated the century to come.

Genres: History, Film, Nonfiction, Feminism, Media Tie In

328 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 15, 2012

Reviews

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Go West, Young Women! Hilary A. Hallett takes a closer look at the women who migrated to Los Angeles in the teens and twenties to work in the early film industry, and the women who consumed the increasingly glamorous products the industry created for them. Hallett makes excellent use of business, labor, and demographics statistics to show that nearly 75% of Hollywood’s product was made for women, and nearly all film secondary industries, such as fan magazines, were aimed at the female consumer. Women were employed in the film industry in larger numbers and at higher wages than were the norm in other industries, from the storied female producers, directors, and actresses such as Mary Pickford, Clara Kimball Young, and Norma Talmadge, to women working behind the scenes as editors, writers, designers, and in other capacities.

Hallett also examines the often bipolar social attitudes toward these New Women--attitudes that are still thick on the ground today--from the positive views of Pickford, Talmadge, Pearl White, and others, to the overwhelmingly negative views of the woman at the center of Hollywood's first sex scandal, Virginia Rappe. Hallett again makes excellent use of primary source materials from the Arbuckle-Rappe scandal to pointedly criticize the view of Rappe as a disease-ridden trollop who deserved what she got. This reviewer has no argument with that.

Although Hallett is correct in her depiction of the contemporary and current spin on the scandal, she does make factual mistakes about Virginia Rappe and other people involved in the scandal that, while not germane to her thesis, were careless and easily avoided. Hallett is also far more diplomatic than I’d be, burying this critical statement in a note instead of in the first chapter:

“I found no transcript for any of the following three trials. The first biography interested in clearing the comedian’s name was David Yallop’s. Yallop claims to have obtained copies of the transcripts, but in comparing his use to the one in my possession, I found that he misrepresents the dialogue. Two other popular biographies display similar tendencies: Andy Edmonds’s…Stuart Oderman’s…[Robert] Young also presents a similar portrait of Rappe, relying on Yallop whom he otherwise criticizes, and on an oral history by Arbuckle’s wife. When I asked Young about the evidence he used for his portrait of Rappe, his reply demonstrated his absorption of such assumptions himself.”

Although the book is dense and information rich, it’s engagingly written, thankfully Hallett has eschewed academese. Go West, Young Women! is a welcome addition to the film and women’s history bookshelves.

[Beth Cato · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must warn readers straight up: this is an academic book, and though it reads like a textbook, it does contain a great deal of interesting material on the major role women played in the early years of silent film. Just work through the slow start and be aware there's some repetition throughout. Especially large paragraphs make for awkward reading as well.

So much has been lost in regards to the history of silent movies in America. Many movies have not survived, and knowledge has been lost as well. The simple fact is, in 1920, Los Angeles was the only major city where women outnumbered men in the west. These were New Women of the era, women trying to survive. It's estimated that over half of early movie scenarists (that's what they were called rather than screenwriters) were women. Many early movie stars were women as well. Mary Pickford, is of course, the best example (actress, producer, founder of United Artists, savvy businesswomen) but she was one of many. While many Jewish men were studio heads, Jewish women also thrived as actresses.

The end of the Great War--and the devastation of the French and German film industries--secured Hollywood's place as the film capital of the world. The existing order did not approve of the new independence of women, however. As the 1920s began, hate groups escalated. Immigration from perceived "lesser" nations to America was stopped, and the KKK experienced a revival that opposed Catholics, Jews, and New Women. Along with major church groups, they argued that if women left the home, white society would be destroyed. Movies were considered a major instigators, inspiring women to be adventurous and independent. The Fatty Arbuckle case--and the character assassination of the victim, Ms. Rappe--only proved their point. Independent women were fallen women. Therefore, as federal censorship began and the Hays Code kicked in, depictions of women also changed as well.

If you have any interest in women in Hollywood in this era, work through this book. It's not always an easy read, but it's still a fascinating one... and a sad one as well, as we're only repeating history when it comes to the rights of women and immigrants. A century has passed, yet so little has changed.

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Joan said! Thanks for the recommendation!

[Carlos Filipe Bernardino · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, above all, an academic book that helps us understand the importance of the female element, not only as an audience, for the growth of the film industry. This works helps to understand the silent movies and at the same time, tell us that Los Angeles and Hollywood attracted women to the city, allowing them not only social advancement, but independence. The book is strongly supported by written sources, and opens so many doors that deserved to be explored about world cinema, the heroines of action films, the actresses who become successful businesswomen, although I recognize that it would go beyond the author's purposes.
Finally, I find it interesting to explain how the Hays code came about.
A necessary book to understand the evolution of women in the 20th century, and the same challenges that are once again facing them.

[Emma Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the early days of Hollywood. Go West, Young Women is a book that will appeal to film-lovers, historians and criminologists alike. With well-researched information on the infamous Fatty Arbuckle scandal and an inside peek at the treatment of actresses in days when studios owned their leading ladies, Go West, Young Women is a fascinating and informative read.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was more scholarly in tone than I was anticipating, but I learned tons about women in early Hollywood. I had no idea Mary Pickford was such a powerful woman! Fascinating.