To the Rescue: How Immigrants Saved the American Film Industry, 1896-1912

A groundbreaking monograph of the brief period during the first fifteen years of the film's inception in which large numbers of recent South and East European immigrants discovered (and fell in love with) the movies. This generally understudied period gave rise to extreme middle class reaction against films as well as the first efforts by immigrants themselves to become theatre owners/operators, distributors and finally filmmakers.