This study provides a meticulous account of the reception and regulation of cinema in the United States during a decade of upheaval, transition, and industrial consolidation affecting all realms of film culture. The time frame for this volume is from 1905 to 1915. Written in close dialog with contemporary journalism, the book has as its primary focus film culture in Los Angeles up to the era of Hollywood. Jan Olsson discusses exhibition practices, regulatory efforts and reforms, the burgeoning film journalism pivoted around the feature format and serial films, and not the least the critical role women played in all dimensions of film culture. His work provides an important contribution to both film history and urban studies during the Progressive Era in a city predicated on Midwestern sensibilities in spite of its eclectic mix of ethnicities. "Los Angeles Before Hollywood: Journalism and American Film Culture, 1905 to 1915, the long-awaited study of early cinema culture in Los Angeles, delivers even more than we expected. It has been some time since the field has seen a book on urban reception with so much original material, and no other book has given us the comparative urban perspective we find here." Jane Gaines, Professor of Literature and English, Duke University.
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