UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Antebellum, Inc: Hollywood and the Construction of Southern Identity, 1920–1940 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6347g0w3 Author West, Cameo Lyn Simone Publication Date 2018 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO Antebellum, Inc: Hollywood and the Construction of Southern Identity, 1920–1940 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Cameo Lyn West Committee in charge: Professor Rachel Klein, Chair Professor Daniel Widener, Co-Chair Professor Jessica Graham Professor Rebecca Plant Professor Nicole Tonkovich 2018 The Dissertation of Cameo Lyn West is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Co-Chair ______________________________________________________________________________ Chair University of California San Diego 2018 #iii EPIGRAPH! Reality is not a function of the event as event, but of ! the relationship of that event to past, and future, events.! Robert Penn Warren, All the King’s Men #iv TABLE OF CONTENTS! Signature Page........................................................................................................... iii! Epigraph..................................................................................................................... iv! Table of Contents........................................................................................................ v! Vita.............................................................................................................................. vi! Abstract of the Dissertation........................................................................................ vii! Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………. 1! Chapter I: The Southern Genre…………………………………………………………… 13! Chapter II: Making History: Film Production During the Studio Era…………………. 72! Chapter III: Satire of the Abject: Race Pictures and the Southern Gothic…………… 133! Chapter IV: “White and black children played together:” What the Southern Taught Americans About the South……………………………………………………………… 187! Conclusion................................................................................................................. 236! Bibliography............................................................................................................... 240! #v VITA! 2011: Bachelor of Arts, University of South Florida Tampa! 2012–2017: Teaching Assistant, University of California San Diego! 2014: Master of Arts, University of California San Diego! 2016: History Head Teaching Assistant, University of California San Diego! 2016: Instructor of Record, University of California San Diego! 2016–: Instructor of Record, San Diego Community College District ! 2017–2018: Graduate Instructional Designer, Teaching + Learning Commons! 2018–: Postdoctoral Researcher, Teaching + Learning Commons! 2018: Doctor of Philosophy, University of California San Diego! FIELDS OF STUDY! Major Field: United States History! Studies in Cultural History! Studies in Film History! Studies in the History of the United States South! Studies in African American History! #vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION! Antebellum, Inc: Hollywood and the Construction of Southern Identity, 1920–1940! by! Cameo Lyn West! Doctor of Philosophy in History! University of California San Diego, 2018! Professor Daniel Widener, Co-Chair! Professor Rachel Klein, Chair! During the first half of the twentieth century, Americans understood the history of the South as singularly significant in the construction of the modern U.S. nation- state, due to an intense revival of popular interest in the Civil War, the development of a public discourse around the socio-political idea of the “New South”, and a cultural zeitgeist that valued both nostalgia and authenticity. “Antebellum, Inc.: Hollywood and the Construction of Southern Identity, 1920 - 1940” explores the process by which Hollywood crafted a mainstream socio-political narrative of “the South”, by using what I describe as the Southern genre of film as the primary lens to understand the formation of a collective cultural knowledge and historical memory of that region. American audiences eagerly consumed the fictionalized antebellum and gothic narratives that were a hallmark of the Southern genre, as evidenced by the popularity of Faulkner as a screenwriter, and the watershed moment in popular culture that occurred around release of Gone with the Wind’s 1940 film adaption. Crucially, that #vii interest extended beyond the movie theatre, as Americans also engaged in discoursing about distinctly contemporary “southern” issues, like prison chain gang labor, and a partial and unjust court system. The Southern genre was crafted through the cooperation of producers (film studios), consumers (audiences), and interpreters (academics), and “Antebellum, Inc.” evinces its parameters by pressing the primary source material to reveal a mutually-dependent relationship between movie studios, audiences and scholars. The repercussions of this national moment, and of the Southern genre, have been retained in the way Americans talk about the South and southerners as homogenized, anachronistic, and predictable while still seeming strange, unknowable, and just foreign enough to be palpably di$erent and separate from the rest of the Union.! #viii Introduction ! “Antebellum, Inc.: Hollywood and the Construction of Southern Identity, 1920 - 1940” explores the process by which Hollywood crafted a vision of the South that resonated with audiences during the interwar period. Those decades saw an explosion of popular movies that centered on the South and, in the process, created what might be called a distinctive southern genre of film, comparable in some ways to the western. This dissertation explores how these southern films interpreted southern history and considers the significance of their many mystifications. During the interwar era, around 50 films about the south were released; this is keeping with an overarching trend toward favoring history pictures and movies representing social issues—most southerns fit into one of these categories.1 The most central intention of the southern is a preoccupation with educating the viewer, rather than simply entertaining them; educating the audience about the minutiae of antebellum clothes and homes, and selling the racist histories of the Dunning school as part of that authenticity. Or, alternatively, educating the non-southern spectator about the social ills of the South as a kind of communal nation-building dialog made possible only by the new technology of the narrative motion picture. That the southern genre produced some of the most successful films of the first half of the twentieth century is no coincidence; Hollywood producers were not uncritical about the quality of movies being released, because the issue of legitimacy loomed large for politically-engaged artists and producers hinging their reputations on the success of the movies as a commercial enterprise. ! 1 Total number of films released between 1920 and 1940 depicting the American! South and/or southerners primarily, according to intact AFI release and distribution records: 49 titles. See bibliography for detailed notes. #1 Southern films most broadly fall into one of two categories: the history picture, or the issue picture. This dissertation examines 26 of these films broadly, focusing on 13 as case studies.2 6 of those 13 of those fall into the former category, with the rest falling into the latter. For example, The Santa Fe Trail is a history picture that explores themes of white nationalism and imperialism in the guise of an action film, while The Grapes of Wrath tackles the hardships faced by displaced, white tenant farmers during the Great Depression. Movies like The Little Colonel and Hearts in Dixie, while not strictly either issue or history pictures, do not pose a direct challenge to this dichotomy, because they nevertheless rely on the audience buying into either the worldview pushed by antebellum nostalgists, or progressive activist rhetoric. Even black- produced narratives relied on this formula, with Oscar Micheaux’s social commentary- driven Within Our Gates exploring the residual trauma imparted by being from the South in his middle-class, migrant, mulatto protagonist, and Noble and George P. Johnsons’ Trooper of Company K, about the “fighting 10th” all-black regiment fighting the Mexican imperial army in Texas, presenting the historical perspective. The purpose of the history picture was to romanticize the American past in a manner that encouraged national reconciliation during a period when white solidarity was at the forefront of the cultural discourse shaping the historical memory of the Civil War. History pictures also o$ered an alternative perspective on the history of the South that flattened all race, class, and gender conflicts as secondary to the real drama: that which happens between families. Oppositely, issue pictures encouraged the spectator to practice empathy—and pity—toward southerners