Black Cinema-Going · Black Cinema-Going in New York of the Interwar Period
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2018-05-01 → 2020-04-30
- EU contribution
- €160,800
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Black Cinema-Going in New York of the Interwar Period
OBJECTIVES 1. To locate Black or predominantly Black cinemas operating in Manhattan from 1919 to 1939 2. To identify the top-grossing films in venues aimed at Black patrons 3. To enhance the understanding of the ways in which Black women experienced cinema culture 4. To create a map of Black movie-going in the interwar period SUMMARY This project demonstrated that Black cinemas created unique spaces for racial minorities in New York City. The operation of Black cinemas necessarily differed from their mainstream, white-only equivalents in the 1920s and 1930s. For instance, virtually all Black cinemas in Harlem were independent businesses operating outside of the studio system, which meant that most pictures screened there months, or even years after they premiered in downtown studio-owned theatres. Furthermore, Black theatres continued to include mixed bills – a combination of films and live performances – years after the practice fell out of fashion in white establishments. As such, Harlem’s theatres were aligned with the function of Black cinemas in the South, as they provided spaces that celebrated Black culture. This project revealed that Harlem’s Black moviegoers were not limited to the most renowned theatres, such as Lafayette, but could choose between many small or medium sized venues. Most of these movie houses received no scholarly attention to date. DIGITAL MAP The project has generated a website that includes a directory of Black cinemas in Harlem, available at https://Blackcinemagoing.wordpress.com/. Each location is linked to Google Maps. In addition to the work envisioned in the initial proposal, the website includes other useful information, such as a fully interactive bibliographical list for students and academics interested in the study of links between African Americans and film, available at https://Blackcinemagoing.wordpress.com/bibliography/. Dr Frymus will continue to update the list even now, when the project has been completed.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
This project aims to re-construct the experience of cinema-going in black communities of New York during the interwar period. In drawing on a plethora of multidisciplinary resources – personal correspondence, diary entries, cinema records, fan letters, local news stories and articles from historical black press – it will investigate the roles played by cinema, the dominant form of entertainment at the time, in shaping the lives of African-American women in Manhattan. New York is a fruitful site for the investigation of debates of race and mass entertainment because of the high concentration of black migrants and cinemas: 305 film venues operated in Manhattan in 1927, whilst other 39 were planning to open or were under construction. According to US census data, 12 percent of the Manhatanittes were black in 1930. The study will culminate in the creation of an interactive, digital map of cinema-going, which will allow its users to experience the richness of black movie culture through personalised stories of women who attended movie theatres at the time. Produced in Scalar – with written content supported by visuals such as film posters, cinema programmes and photographs of the location – each geographical location will provide a gateway for the map users to explore the plethora of historical data in a more accessible, narrativised format. The map will be a freely available online tool, which will further advance the work of scholars working across all domains in humanities. Existing, sparse scholarship on cinema-going in the early film period, concentrates itself with culturally dominant, white audience. In assuming a homogenic demographic, it overlooks the lived experience of African-American women in a racially segregated country. In looking at race and gender specific form of spectatorship, I seek to re-address this scholarly bias. The objective is to uncover how cinema-going became embedded in black communities, as well as in the lives of black individuals.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITEIT GENT · GentCoordinatorBelgium
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union