ABOUT THE AUTHORS
JILL S. TIETJEN, P.E. is an author, speaker, and electrical engineer. She is the co-author of Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America, which received the Daughters of the American Revolution History Award Medal. Jill has conducted research into historical women around the world for the past thirty years, and speaks around the country about womens contributions to history. One of the top historians on women across all fields of endeavor in the U.S., she works to bring more visibility to women through her continual nominations of historical and living women for national, state and local awards. Her nominees have been successfully inducted into the National Womens Hall of Fame, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and a number of state womens halls of fame. Jill is often profiled and quoted in the media, and her articles have been printed in a wide variety of publications. She has received numerous awards and has been inducted into the Colorado Womens Hall of Fame.
BARBARA BRIDGES has spent much of her life as an entrepreneur and businesswoman. In 2006, she founded Women+Film, a program in partnership with the Denver Film Society, where she has been bringing audiences together with films, by and about women, that ignite discussions around global issues facing women today. With the annual Women+Film Festival, a section of movies in the Denver Film Festival and movie screenings throughout the year, it is a popular film program that not only entertains, but educates and inspires as well. Barbara speaks to various groups about the role of women in the movies and has been involved with various film festivals. The Denver Post named her one of Colorados Top Thinkers in Arts and Culture. Barbara has served on the boards of several womens organizations, both locally and nationally, and has received numerous awards as a result.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Our gratitude and appreciation go to all of our friends and family who gave us tireless enthusiasm throughout the process of writing this book. In particular we would like to thank:
Our book agent, Sandra Bond, for seeing this books possibilities and for providing unflagging assistance throughout.
Rick Rinehart and Ellen Urban, our editors at Rowman & Littlefield, for believing in this project.
Our book designer, Laura Klynstra, whose vision brought beauty and life to the book, inside and out.
Our copy editor, Deirdre Langeland, for her thorough understanding of words, punctuation, transitions and omissions.
To Abby Disney, for her friendship and for her support of this book, bringing to it her thoughts about women and film.
To all of the women who are in this book, for all that they are doing and have done to create the movies that we love.
To David Tietjen, Jills husband, for his patience, love and support.
To Barbaras son, Jeff Bridges, for his knowledge of computers and his generous help when needed.
To Gerry Hammond, for his patience and encouragement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Acker, Ally, Reel Women: Pioneers of the Cinema, The First Hundred Years (Volume 1: 1890s 1950s; Volume II: 1960s 2010. Reel Women Media Publishing: Roslyn Heights, New York, 2012.
Bobo, Jacqueline, Editor. Black Women Film & Video Artists. Routledge: New York, New York, 1998.
Bridges, Melody and Cheryl Robson, Silent Women: Pioneers of Cinema. Supernova Books: Twickenham, United Kingdom, 2016.
Francke, Lizzie, script girls: Women Screenwriters in Hollywood, British Film Institute: London, United Kingdom, 1994.
Gregory, Mollie, Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story. University Press of Kentucky: Lexington, Kentucky, 2015.
Kelly, Gabrielle and Cheryl Robson, Editors. Celluloid Ceiling: Women Film Directors Breaking Through. Supernova Books: Twickenham, United Kingdom, 2014.
Krasilovsky, Alexis, Women Behind the Camera: Conversations with Camerawomen. Praeger Publishers: Westport, Connecticut, 1997.
Lowe, Denise, An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930. The Haworth Press: Binghamton, New York, 2005.
Margolis, Harriet, Alexis Krasilovsky and Julia Stein, Shooting Women: Behind the Camera, Around the World. Intellect and The University of Chicago Press: Bristol, United Kingdom and Chicago, Illinois, 2015.
Meuel, David, Women Film Editors: Unseen Artists of American Camera, McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers: Jefferson, North Carolina: , 2016.
Slide, Anthony, The Silent Feminists: Americas First Women Directors. The Scarecrow Press, Inc.: Lanham, Maryland, 1996.
Sova, Dawn B., Women in Hollywood: From Vamp to Studio Head, Fromm International: New York, 1998.
Stamp, Shelley, Movie-Struck Girls: Women and Motion Picture Culture After the Nickelodeon, Princeton University Press: Princeton, New Jersey, 2000.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: www.oscars.org
IMDB: www.imdb.com
Wikipedia: en.Wikipedia.org
Women Film Pioneers Project, https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/
An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.
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Copyright 2019 Jill S. Tietjen and Barbara Bridges
Book design by Laura Klynstra
Interior illustrations by Shutterstock
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-1-4930-3705-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4930-3706-3 (e-book)
Printed in China, 2019
HALF TITLE: Mary Pickford
TITLE PAGE: Dorothy Dandridge, Anna May Wong, Elizabeth Taylor, Florence Vidor, America Ferrera; Hattie McDaniel, Marilyn Monroe, Edith Head, Julia Roberts, Greta Garbo, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Louise Brooks
Abigail E. Disney
FOREWORD
H istory books have a problem. Women have always been approximately 50% of the population, but for thousands of years, they have not been included in much of recorded history. This is not a fair, nor is it an accurate, representation of the truth.
The fact is that women have been left out of the stories we tell ourselves about our past over and over againwritten out, rendered invisible. There have been and still are many talented, feisty, wise and witty women who ought to be celebrated. Their stories need to be told and written back into our cultural memories and historical narratives.
When you watch the credits roll at the end of a film, you discover that it takes many people with diverse skills and talents to create the movie you have just seen. Women have filled all of these roles at one time or anotheractress, director, stuntwoman, screenwriter, composer, animator, editor and on and on. We can easily see that womens creativity, hard work and flair have helped to create the moving pictures on the screen that entertain and reach our hearts and minds.