Tackling Universal Women as a Research Problem: What Historiographic Sources Do and Don't Tell Us about "Gender" in the Silent Motion Picture Studio

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By way of introduction to Alas and Alack ( Joseph De Grasse, US, 1915), the conference organizers asked me to explain in fifteen minutes or less "what historiographic sources do and don't tell us about 'gender' in the silent motion picture studio." This irresistible prompt offers several intriguing puzzles. Is it well worth considering, for example, how exactly information becomes a "historiographic source." It is also clear that the silent motion picture studio merits renewed investigation. But one cannot speak of everything all at once. I take a clue from the quotation marks singling out "gender" and infer that this term is more vexed than the others, and therefore of greater interest. …