Pioneering Woman Directors (National Film Preservation Foundation)

Pioneering Woman Directors
This web exhibition from NFPF's Treasures from American Film Archives DVD showcases work by five women filmmakers:

• Falling Leaves (1912) Preserved by the Library of Congress
• The Hazards of Helen: Episode 13 (1915) Preserved by the Library of Congress
• Peyote Queen (1965) Preserved by Anthology Film Archives
• Rural Life in Maine (ca. 1930) Preserved by Northeast Historic Film
• Where Are My Children? (1916) Preserved by the Library of Congress

The Hazards of Helen: Episode 13 (1915), directed by Helen Holmes and Leo Maloney.

Preserving Historic Films

The National Film Preservation Foundation site offers online access to examples of its preservation work. Three of these films document the history of women:

Wohelo Camp (ca. 1919) (Northeast Historic Film), a promotional film about the pioneering all-girls summer camp in Maine, includes footage of the girls involved in a variety of activities: jewelry making, pottery, canoeing, cooking, gardening, and horseback riding.

Manhattan Trade School for Girls (1911) (George Eastman House) This  promotional documentary film (16 min., 10 sec) includes footage of students playing basketball, dancing, cooking, sewing, and making hats. Jennifer M. Bean's commentary provides historical context throughout the film.

A Trip through Japan with the YWCA (ca. 1919) includes footage of women in traditional occupations,  fleeting images of workers outside a textile factory, and scenes with Ainu women (pictured at left). For background on the Ainu, see Ainu: Spirit of a Northern People (Smithsonian Institution in Association with University of Washington Press, 1999).

Silent Films Coming Home (National Public Radio)

Image caption: Mabel Normand directed and starred in the 1914 film, Won in a Closet (National Film Preservation Foundation).

A Happy Homecoming for Long-lost Silent Films (4 min 27 sec) This short NPR segment answers some intriguing questions. How did 75 American silent films end up in New Zealand? What formerly lost Clara Bow film is in the collection? Why does film historian Shelley Stamp consider the first reel of director Lois Weber's Idle Wives the gem of the collection?

For additional background information, see the "Women and the Silent Screen" theme issue of Film History (edited by Stamp and Amelie Hastie), and Karen Ward Mahar's Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).