The University of Chicago Press Art Libraries Society of North America

From Ephemera to Art: The Birth of Film Preservation and the Museum of Modern Art Film
Library
Author(s): Justin McKinney
Source: Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, Vol. 33,
No. 2 (Fall 2014), pp. 295-312
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Art Libraries Society of North
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From Ephemera to Art:
The Birth of Film Preservation and the Museum of
Modern Art Film Library
Justin McKinney
Abstract—The medium of film has occupied an important space in the public consciousness
since the first public screenings of moving images took place in the 1890s. From its inception,
film was commonly seen as a disposable object, designed for the entertainment of the masses,
but having little artistic or historical value. From the 1890s to the 1930s numerous individuals
and institutions argued for the importance of preserving film , but it was not until the creation of
the Museum of Modern Art Film Library—the first film archive in the United States—that film
was finally recognized as a valuable and unique art form worthy of preservation.
introduction
The birth of film in the late nineteenth century had a significant impact on culture
around the world. The creation of the medium led to both a new art form and a new
form of documenting ideas, concepts, and events. As the medium gained popularity
and traction in the United States and around the world, there remained a great deal of
uncertainty about its long-term value. Many viewed film as ephemeral, transitory, and
explicitly commercial with little artistic merit. The critical and commercial success of
films such as D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation and the increasing belief
that film was a quintessential American art form helped change perceptions about
the value of film and gave rise to calls for preservation. The eventual creation of the
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Film Library in 1935 was a watershed moment in the
reevaluation of film as an artistic medium worthy of long-term preservation.
the origins of fi lm
In order to understand the significance of the film preservation and archiving move-
ments of the 1920s and 1930s, it is important to examine the origins of the medium.
Justin McKinney recently received his MLIS degree from the School of Information Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec,
and is currently participating in the TD Bank Art Librarianship Internship at the National Gallery of Canada Library Archives;
justin.mckinney@mail.mcgill.ca.
Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 33 (fall 2014)
0730-7187/2014/3302-0009 $10.00. Copyright 2014 by the Art Libraries Society of North America. All rights reserved.

296 | ART DOCUMENTATION | FALL 2014 | Vol. 33, No. 2
They offer insight into some of the challenges of preservation, as well as the general
perception of the value of film. The earliest moving images date back to 1878 when
Eadweard Muybridge produced a series of photographs depicting a horse in motion,1
and the earliest films were created by inventor Louis Le Prince in 1888.2 Despite these
early innovations, the key force in the creation and dissemination of moving images
was Thomas Edison, who invented and patented the kinetograph, which was in es-
sence the first moving image camera, and the kinetoscope (Figure 1), which allowed
these moving images to be viewed by the public.3 The first moving image to be shown
was Dickson Greeting in 1891,4 which was produced, directed, and acted in by W.K.L.
Dickson, the chief engineer of Edison’s laboratories and a pioneering force in the
development of the medium and the industry. The film industry in America was
paralleled in France by pioneering filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière, the in-
ventors of the cinematograph, a portable camera, printer, and projector.5 They began
to publicly screen their films in late 1895. The films produced by the Lumière brothers
and by Edison’s studios during the decade were frequently under one minute in
length, non-narrative, and were often showcases for movements, gestures, people,
and events.
In the midst of the embryonic developments of the film industry, there also oc-
curred the earliest documented instances of film preservation. Beginning in 1893,
W.K.L. Dickson submitted “paper prints,” so-named because the images on the cel-
luloid film strip were printed on paper, to the Library of Congress (LOC) for copyright
purposes. US copyright law at that time had no parameters for film, and the copyright
law for books and other printed media required the submission of one copy to the
LOC.6 Ironically, while Dickson’s goal was not to preserve the physical copy of the
film, but rather to protect Edison’s commercial interests, the thousands of paper
prints that were submitted faithfully by Dickson and the Edison studio from 1893 to
1912 resulted in the formation of the LOC’s film collection.7 The collection of paper
prints was significant, because many of the prints contained the only known copy of
their respective films. Thanks to large-scale restoration efforts, thousands of these
earliest documents of cinematic existence were transferred back onto celluloid and
once again made accessible.8
the origins of fi lm pr eser v at io n

Interestingly, the notion of developing a film archive in which works could be seen by
future generations was suggested during the infancy of the film industry. Peter
Decherney notes that “as early as 1895 . . . Dickson envisioned a national film collec-
tion” that would preserve history “free of the historian’s cant and with greater preci-
1. Brian Clegg, The Man Who Stopped Time: The Illuminating Story of Eadweard Muybridge—Pioneer Photographer, Father of the
Motion Picture, Murderer (Atlanta, GA: Joseph Henry Press, 2007), 141.
2. Richard Howells, “Louis Le Prince: The Body of Evidence,” Screen 47, no. 2 (2006): 180, doi:10.1093/screen/hjl015.
3. Anthony Slide, Early American Cinema (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994), 5.
4. The Center Team, “Dickson Greeting,” Advent Filmmakers (May 20, 2012), http://www.adventfilmmakers.org/941/.
5. Slide, Early American Cinema, 5.
6. Mike Mashon, “Film Preservation at the Library of Congress,” College and University Media Review 8, no. 2 (2002): 16.
7. Mashon, “Film Preservation at the Library of Congress,” 16.
8. Ibid.

Figure 1. Schematic drawing of W. K. L. Dickson’s Kinetoscope, mid 1890s. Image in public domain. http://
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kinetoscope.jpg.

sions than written texts.”9 Dickson states quite optimistically in the History of the
Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kineto-phonograph (Figure 2) that the “advantages to
students and historians will be immeasurable. Instead of dry and misleading ac-
counts, tinged with the exaggerations of the chroniclers’ minds, our archives will be
enriched by the vitalized pictures of great national scenes.”10 Dickson’s vision was
one of an archive with a civic responsibility to preserve national cinema for the en-
richment of future generations. Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on his vision, and
no further action was taken. In 1898, Boleslaus Matuszewski, a Polish cameraman
working for the Lumière brothers, described an early framework for the creation of a
national archive. He recommended the formation of an official depository at the
Bibilothèque nationale de France, suggesting that both professional and amateur
filmmakers should contribute films, and he advocated for the creation of a “compe-
tent committee [that] will accept or reject the proposed documents according to their
historic value.”11 Matuszewski nominated himself as the first curator based on his
experience filming historic events. His proposition seems a bit self-serving in that he
lists his qualifications and suitability for the position.12 Though Matuszewski’s vision
did not come to fruition, he notes presciently that an archive “will sooner or later come
to pass in some great European city.”13 It is also significant that both Dickson’s and
Matuszewski’s archival visions evaluated films according to their perceived historical
and educational value, making no mention of film as an art form.
The calls for film preservation or the creation of a film archive continued sporad-
ically over the next couple of decades. The December 1, 1906 issue of the industry
trade paper Views and Film Index editorialized about the need for film preservation,
noting that in examining film catalogs, “we observe specially important subjects of
great public interest, such as President Roosevelt at gatherings, Veterans processions,
Scenes in busy streets, Political meetings, and a host of other subjects”14 and that
possibly “the day will come when motion pictures will be treasured by governments in
their museums as vital documents in their historical archives. Our great universities
should commence to gather in and save for future students films of national impor-
tance.”15 It is telling that the films the author deems worthy of preservation are all
documentaries, rather than fictional narratives; this again demonstrates the lack of
consideration of film as an art form. In a similar 1915 editorial from the British trade
paper Motography, it was suggested that the events of World War I offered the “first
extraordinary opportunity to establish archives of film records, to preserve into the
indefinite future the exact replicas of today’s actions”16 adding that the “cost of an
adequate vault, and even the labor (just now a more important factor) to build it . . . is
9. Peter Decherney, Hollywood and the Culture Elite: How the Movies Became American (New York: Columbia University Press,
2005), 14.
10. W.K.L.Dickson and Antonia Dickson, History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kineto-Phonograph (Salem, NH: Ayer,
1894), 51.
11. Boleslaus Matuszewski, A New Source of History: The Creation of a Depository for Historical Cinematography (Paris, 1898),
trans. L. Bloch Frey, http://tlweb.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/screeningthepast/classics/clasjul/mat.html.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. “History and Motion Pictures,” Views and Film Index 1, no. 32 (December 1, 1906): 1.
15. Ibid.
16. “Can Films Be Preserved?” Motography 13, no. 14 (April 3, 1915): 521.

Figure 2. Cover of History of the Kinetograph, Kinetoscope, and Kinetophonograph by W.K.L. Dickson. Salem,
NH: Ayer, 1895.

surely inconsiderable in view of the opportunity to imbue future sons of England with
a proper patriotism.”17 Much like those of Matuszewski and Dickson, these calls for
film preservation were predicated on the historical and educational value of film.
fil m is not art: mutual corp v. industrial

commission of ohio
It is evident from these dialogues about film preservation that the notion of film as art
was not seriously considered during the early years of cinema. This tended to hinder
the public’s and the industry’s perceptions of the long-term value of film, while it also
diminished the potential for systematic preservation efforts. This point of view was
reinforced by the 1915 US Supreme Court case Mutual Corp v. Industrial Commission
of Ohio, which Garth Jowett noted “denied the motion picture the constitutional
guarantees of freedom of speech and press.”18 The official judgement of the Supreme
Court stated that the “exhibition of moving pictures is a business, pure and simple,
originated and conducted for profit like other spectacles, and not to be regarded as
part of the press of the country or as organs of public opinion within the meaning of
freedom of speech and publication guaranteed by the Constitution of Ohio.”19 This
ruling can be seen as reinforcing the vision of film as temporal and disposable.
the ro le of private collect o r s in fi lm p r ese r v at io n

In the absence of a national film archive during this period, there were occasional
examples of private film collections being compiled. Decherney notes several private
collections used for “experiments in visual historiography, scientific study, and per-
sonal enjoyment,”20 including the collection of Abbé Joseph Joye, a Swiss Jesuit priest
who compiled over 2,000 films to be used for teaching in the school he founded in
Basel. Joye purchased prints on the secondhand market and was described as “om-
nivorous in his tastes, collecting comedies, melodramas, classical adaptations, trav-
elogues, actualities, trick films, histories, science films, fairy tales, industrials,
coloured films: the whole rich panoply of early cinema production.”21 The mandate
for Joye appeared to be the acquisition of films of all types. The collection, rediscov-
ered in 1975, serves to demonstrate that there were individuals who recognized the
value of collecting films for long-term usage. This foreshadows the film society move-
ment of the 1920s, although such collections were the exception rather than the rule,
and they exist more as interesting footnotes than indicators of changing attitudes
toward the value of film.
17. Ibid.
18. Garth S. Jowett, “A Capacity for Evil: The 1915 Supreme Court Mutual Decision,” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and
Television 9, no. 1 (1989): 59.
19. Mutual Film Corp. v. Industrial Comm’n of Ohio - 236 U.S. 230: (1915), http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/236/230/
case.html.
20. Decherney, Hollywood and the Culture Elite, 16.
21. Urbanora, “Lost and Found No. 1—Joseph Joye,” The Bioscope (blog) (July 25, 2007), http://thebioscope.net/2007/07/25/
lost-and-found-no-1-joseph-joye/.

From Ephemera to Art: The Birth of Film Preservation | 301
Figure 3. Dorothy & Lillian Gish, D.W. Griffith, 1922. Press photograph from the George Grantham Bain
Collection, purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dorothy_%26
_Lillian_Gish,_D.W._Griffith_2.jpg.
d. w. gri ffi th, vachel lind sey , an d t h e id e a o f a fi lm

libra ry
It is impossible to discuss the burgeoning film industry without mentioning pioneer-
ing filmmaker D.W. Griffith (Figure 3), frequently called the father of film and often
credited with numerous filmmaking innovations, ranging from the close-up to cross-
cut editing. Griffith significantly influenced the change in the popular perception of
film. Anthony Slide suggests that film was generally reviled by critics of the period,
and that to combat this viewpoint, the “American film industry needed a visionary
who could represent the best that the motion picture could offer . . . who could serve
as a spokesman when the industry was attacked as being artless.”22 Slide argues that
Griffith was able to build “on the work of his predecessors . . . and refine the tech-
niques that [the] early pioneers had introduced” and had the unique ability to present
“dramas that were alive and that moved audiences.”23 Though Griffith was already
well respected in the film community, it was his 1915 Civil War epic The Birth of a
Nation which was considered a landmark film and became the most popular film of its
22. Slide, Early American Cinema, 96.

23. Ibid.

time, grossing an estimated $20,000,000.24 As one of the earliest feature-length

films, it marked a sea change from the prevalence of short one- and two-reel films, and
it pointed to the potential for film to tell stories of vast scope, as well as giving the event
of going to see a film a certain respectability.25 The film was frequently presented with
much fanfare and shown in large upscale theatres, instead of the dingy nickelodeons
of earlier days.26 For many, the film marked the moment when film could be taken
seriously as an art form. The Birth of a Nation was perceived as the work of a highly
skilled and artistic filmmaker.
In addition to the impact of his filmmaking, Griffith followed in the footsteps of
Dickson and Matuszewski by putting forth ideas about the future possibility of a film
library:
Imagine a public library of the near future. There will be long rows of boxes or
pillars, properly classified and indexed, of course. At each box a push button and
before each box a seat. Suppose you wish to ”read up” on a certain episode in
Napoleon’s life. Instead of consulting all the authorities, wading laboriously
through a host of books, and ending bewildered, without a clear idea of exactly
what did happen, and confused at every point by conflicting opinions about
what did happen, you will merely seat yourself at a properly adjusted window, in
a scientifically prepared room, press the button and actually see what hap-
pened.27
Griffith’s vision, while interesting, is certainly quite preliminary and perhaps a bit
fanciful. It is not clear whether he is advocating the creation of new films depicting
historical events, or the preservation and storage of existing films. Additionally, in
spite of his reputation for great artistry, his proposed film library makes no reference
to film’s artistic value, instead concentrating on its historical and educational value.
Much like previous calls for a film library, Griffith’s concept did not move beyond the
idea stage.
By the mid-1910s, film had become firmly entrenched as a leading form of enter-
tainment. In 1915, poet Vachel Lindsay authored The Art of the Moving Picture, which
is one of the earliest texts that described film’s place in American society. Lindsay was
formerly an art student and had no qualms about aligning cinema with more tradi-
tional art forms: “I have gone through my old territories as an art student, in the
Chicago Art Institute and the Metropolitan Museum, of late, in special excursions,
looking for sculpture, painting, and architecture that might be the basis for the pho-
toplays of the future.”28 Decherney argues that Lindsay was defining a “parallax
vision . . . of the museumized film and the filmic museum,”29 in which film is ele-
24. James Monaco, How to Read a Film: Movies, Media, and Beyond (London: Oxford University Press, 2009), 262.
25. Arthur Lennig, “Myth and Fact: The Reception of The Birth of a Nation,” Film History 16, no. 2 (2004): 118,
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815447.
26. Ibid., 119.
27. Richard Barry, “Five Dollar Movies Prophesied,” New York Times, March 28, 1915.
28. Vachel Lindsay, The Art of the Moving Picture: Being the 1922 Revision of a Book First Issued in 1915 (New York: Liveright,
1970), 114 –15.

vated to a stature worthy of preservation. In fact, Lindsay’s opening salvo for the 1922
edition of his book outlines the need for film preservation on a par with the first
newspapers:
I put there on record the first crude commercial films that in any way establish
the principle. There can never be but one first of anything, and if the negatives
of these films survive the shrinking and the warping that comes with time, they
will be, in a certain sense, classic, and ten years hence or two years hence will
still be better remembered than any films of the current releases, which come
on like newspapers, and as George Ade says: “Nothing is so dead as yesterday’s
newspaper.” But the first newspapers, and the first imprints of Addison’s Spec-
tator, and the first Almanacs of Benjamin Franklin, and the first broadside
ballads and the like, are ever collected and remembered.30
The power of Lindsay’s sentiment is that in recognizing the perception of film as

ephemeral and then aligning it with another ephemeral but vital medium, he created
a case for the value of film as a cultural object worthy of preservation.
Like Griffith and others before him, Lindsay also advocated for the concept of a film
library, suggesting that it be born out of the increasing number of films being pro-
duced both commercially and locally for educational and journalistic purposes. Lind-
say described the way films would be produced and compiled for use in schools: “The
motion pictures will be in the public schools to stay. Text-books in geography, history,
zoology, botany, physiology, and other sciences will be illustrated by standardized
films. Along with these changes, there will be available at certain centres collections of
films equivalent to the Standard Dictionary and the Encyclopedia Britannica.”31
Beyond the educational sphere, Lindsay prophesied that “sooner or later we will
have a straight-out capture of a complete film expression by the serious forces of
civilization,”32 which can be interpreted as a prototype for a film archive. Though the
idea of a “complete film expression” was by 1915 not even close to being viable, the
optimism of Lindsay’s vision for an inclusive and representative film collection dem-
onstrates an acute awareness of the value of films of all types, not merely commercial
successes. Lindsay further explained that the creation of “photoplay libraries [is] in-
evitable, [destined to be] as active if not as multitudinous as the book-circulating
libraries.”33 Though Lindsay’s concept of “photoplay libraries” did not come to pass,
his vision still proved influential due to his recognition of film’s value as an art form
and the growing importance of film in American society.
the firs t institutional fi lm co lle ct io n s

An additional development that occurred in the wake of Lindsay’s book was the
creation of the Columbia University film program in 1915. Initially established as a
screenwriting program to help facilitate the increasing demand from the film indus-
30. Lindsay, The Art of the Moving Picture, 1–2.

31. Ibid., 253.
32. Ibid., 253–54.
33. Ibid., 254.

try for original material, the program also resulted in the creation of one of the earliest
institutional film collections. The program was spurred by the patronage of studio
moguls Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky from Famous Players-Lasky (later Paramount)
who hoped to utilize the material of the program’s students.34 Victor Oscar Freeburg,
the program’s head, developed a three-pronged approach: “He taught courses devoted
to the craft of screenwriting, he started a film society for ’cinema composers’ [screen-
writers] to see films not available in commercial theaters, and he developed a ’photo-
play museum’ that collected scripts rather than films.”35 In an interesting precursor to
the creation of the program and the relationship between Famous Players and Co-
lumbia University, the January 11, 1913 issue of Moving Picture World offered the
following anecdote: “Brander Matthews, of Columbia College, has made an offer to
the Famous Players to preserve in his private collection a copy of every film made by
the company and to make suitable provision for the conveyance of these at his death
to some organization which will guarantee their care.”36
Decherney indicates that there is “no evidence that the agreement progressed
beyond this announcement”;37 however, it does point to the desire of the university to
build a film collection and the desire of the studio to preserve its films for posterity,
suggesting it to be a “concern directly related to the film industry’s mid-1910s struggle
for cultural legitimacy.”38
diffic u lties of fi lm pr eser v at io n

In discussing the desire to preserve film for posterity’s sake, it is worth examining
some of the issues regarding the preservation of film as a medium. Paolo Cherchi
Usai notes that “from the end of the 19th century, cellulose film was established as the
preferred material for the reproduction of moving images,”39 adding that the “base of
most films produced up to February 1951 [was] cellulose nitrate, a highly flammable
substance.”40 The instability of the medium posed a problem for studios and theaters.
Fires were quite common and, combined with the lack of awareness or interest in film
preservation, often proved to be catastrophic. Decherney notes that “a fire [which
killed 125 people] at an 1897 Charity Bazaar screening in Paris served as the ur-story
of film’s precariousness.”41 Stories of fires caused by nitrate film at studios were also
common. David Pierce makes note of a June 1914 explosion and fire in a storage vault
at the Lubin Film Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia, adding that the “Thomas
Edison plant burned on 9 December 1914 when a fire started in a vault in the film
inspecting building and quickly spread.”42 The fires at film studios could prove par-
ticularly disastrous from a preservation perspective due to the concentration of ma-
terials all in one location—a studio’s film catalog could be wiped out instantly.

35. Ibid., 45.
36. George Blaisdell, “Adolf Zukor Talks of Famous Players,” Moving Picture World 15, no. 2 (January 11, 1913): 136.
38. Ibid.
39. Paolo Cherchi Usai, Silent Cinema: An Introduction (London: British Film Institute, 2000), 66.
40. Ibid., 1.
42. David Pierce, “The Legion of the Condemned—Why American Silent Films Perished,” Film History 9, no. 1 (1997): 11.

Figure 4. A frame showing nitrate decomposition, taken from a silent film. Image in public domain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nitratedecomp.png.
The threat of fire was just one of the risks facing the preservation of nitrate film.
Another less eventful, but more insidious, challenge with preserving nitrate cellulose
is the fact that it is prone to decomposition (Figure 4). George Reis notes that “[nitrate]
stock reacts chemically with the air to produce nitric acid—a highly-corrosive chem-
ical which literally ’eats’ film [and that] the decomposition of nitrate film cannot be
halted, although in the right conditions, it can be slowed.”43 The National Film Pres-
ervation Foundation outlines five stages of decay for nitrate film:
1. Image fading. Brownish discoloration of emulsion. Faint noxious odor.

2. Sticky emulsion. Faint noxious odor.
3. Emulsion softens and blisters with gas bubbles. More pungent odor.
4. Film congeals into a solid mass. Strong noxious odor.
5. Film disintegrates into brownish color.44
The chemical instability of nitrate meant that these symptoms tended to be quite
common and, given the view of film as a primarily commercial and ephemeral prod-
43. George R. Reis, “Reel Concern: American Movie Classic’s Fifth Annual Film Preservation Festival,” Fund Raising
Management 28, no. 6 (1997): 25.
44. The Film Preservation Guide: The Basics for Archives, Libraries, and Museums (San Francisco: National Film Preservation
Foundation, 2004), 16.

uct, the widespread practice of movie studios was to destroy any prints that “displayed
the symptoms of nitrate decomposition . . . [and that] evidence of decomposition in
any reel would be justification to junk the entire film, since a rotting film was a much
greater fire hazard, and an incomplete print or negative would be of no use.”45 In the
absence of proper storage and a lack of awareness, studios of the period were woefully
ineffective at preserving their holdings, a factor that hastened requests for the cre-
ation of a national archive during the 1920s.
go v ernm ent intervention an d calls f o r an

a meric a n fi lm ar chive
As the new decade began, no serious measures had been taken towards the cre-
ation of a national or even formal film archive, though calls continued to be made
for steps to be taken to preserve America’s film history. In 1921, California senator
James D. Phelan introduced the first congressional motion regarding film pres-
ervation, calling for the creation of an American film collection that would pre-
serve “noteworthy motion-picture films . . . if . . . a motion-picture film so
registered records a historical or otherwise noteworthy event.”46 It was observed
that the motion “died with minimal discussion,”47 and much like previous calls
for a film library, Phelan’s vision makes no mention of film’s artistic value, in-
stead emphasizing film’s value for documenting history. This governmental in-
terest in film preservation, however slight, did help pave the way for the activities
of Will Hays, former postmaster general, who was hired in 1921 to head the
Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), the film indus-
try’s trade organization.48 Hays utilized his political connections and his role as
the spokesperson for the organization to guide significant media attention to-
wards the preservation cause. In May 1923, it was reported that Hays had con-
sulted President Warren G. Harding and that “steps are to be taken by President
Harding to preserve motion picture films portraying events of historic value . . .
[to be] stored in a special vault in the White House.”49 Harding died shortly after,
and the plans did not proceed further. Caroline Frick outlines additional actions
taken by Hays and the MPPDA, including petitioning the Bureau of the Budget for
funding to preserve films in 1924, employing a lobbyist to convince federal com-
missions about the importance of collecting historical films, and meeting with
President Calvin Coolidge in 1926 to ask for the creation of a film archive.50 Much
like previous efforts to hasten the creation of a national film collection, Hays’s
efforts in the 1920s did not produce immediate results, though the national media
attention garnered by Hays’s actions did serve to heighten public awareness.
45. Pierce, “The Legion of the Condemned,” 10.

46. Caroline Frick, Saving Cinema: The Politics of Preservation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 29.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., 30.
49. “Harding to Preserve Films in White House,” New York Times, May 11, 1923.
50. Frick, Saving Cinema, 31–32.

iris ba r r y and the rise of t h e fi lm so cie t y

The 1920s witnessed another influential development towards the creation of a na-
tional film collection: the advent of film societies in Germany, France, and the United
Kingdom. Haidee Wasson notes that during this time “small and often elite groups
began gathering to watch, discuss, and debate select films.”51 Wasson observes that in
spite of the rapid spread of film societies in Europe, the United States was slower to
adopt the concept. Until the formation of the New York Film Society and the Film
Forum in 1933, the movement had little traction.52 A possible cause may have been
the prevalence of Hollywood’s commercial ideals. Viewers may have been more re-
luctant to accept the idea of film as art in the face of mass marketing and the rapid
turnover of films. In contrast, the British film society movement quickly grew in the
1920s. Jamie Sexton notes that “a growing number of intellectuals in Britain became
fascinated by film’s potential as a new and unique art form.”53 Sexton argues that a
primary characteristic of the movement was the rejection of the “view of cinema as
mass entertainment; for them cinema was primarily an art form, not a commodity.”54
The Film Society was created in 1925 to cater to “those who wanted to see films that
were not otherwise available for viewing in Britain,”55 including avant-garde, interna-
tional, and classic films. The Society’s first program included short German abstract
films, an early American western, and an early Charlie Chaplin film, which Sexton
notes was “representative of the main trend in programming.”56 The impact of these
societies was significant. First, the screening of repertory films meant a demand for
old prints, which brought attention to the need for preservation and access. Second,
the societies envisioned the medium of film as an art form, and this viewpoint was
espoused by the societies’ members, including filmmakers such as Anthony Asquith
and Ivor Montagu, and film critics including Iris Barry, the future curator of the
MoMA Film Library.57
In order to understand Iris Barry’s eventual selection as the first head of the MoMA
Film Library, it is important to review her early involvement in the film society move-
ment and her role as a film critic. Barry served as film critic for the Spectator from 1923
to 1927 and for the Daily Mail from 1925 to 1930, while also participating as one of the
founding members of the Film Society in 1925.58 In addition, in 1926 Barry authored
an early text of film criticism titled Let’s Go to the Pictures. Russell Lynes notes that
Barry’s writing made an “effort to prove that cinema was capable of aesthetic achieve-
ment . . . [and] formal distinctiveness and individual genius.”59 Barry, though a Brit-
ish film critic, frequently championed American popular films. Lynes describes her
51. Haidee Wasson, Museum Movies: The Museum of Modern Art and the Birth of Art Cinema (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2005), 41.
52. Ibid.
53. Jamie Sexton, “The Film Society and the Creation of an Alternative Film Culture in Britain in the 1920’s,” in Young and
Innocent? The Cinema in Britain 1896 –1930, ed. Andrew Higson (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2002), 291.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Ibid., 294 –95.
57. Ibid., 293.
58. Haidee Wasson, “Writing the Cinema into Daily Life: Iris Barry and the Emergence of British Film Criticism in the 1920’s,”
in Young and Innocent? The Cinema in Britain 1896 –1930, ed. Andrew Higson (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2002), 321.
59. Russell Lynes, Good Old Modern: An Intimate Portrait of the Museum of Modern Art (New York: Atheneum, 1973), 325.

“unapologetic embrace of Chaplin, Fairbanks, Griffith, early animation, cowboy se-

rials and slapstick,”60 noting that she frequently made reference to films in connec-
tion to other art forms, for example, when she likened the “swashbuckling [of Douglas
Fairbanks] to the ‘grace of ballet.’”61 Barry’s belief was that cinema could be “a poly-
morphous form with the promise of multiplying utility, presenting new configura-
tions of aesthetics and knowledge,”62 and it held great power to liberate and enlighten
audiences. Her knowledge and appreciation of cinema and her invocation of its ar-
tistic properties would help her to become a powerful and persuasive advocate upon
her arrival in America to curate the MoMA Film Library.
ha rv a rd university and fur t h er at t em p t s t o cr e at e

a fil m li brary
Building upon the modest impact of the Columbia University film program and its
early film collecting aspirations, in 1927 Harvard University announced its intentions
to create a film library in partnership with the film industry. Wasson states that the
library was created when “a group of Harvard professors—in association with the
Department of Fine Arts, the Fogg Museum, and the university’s library—set out to
obtain and preserve films past and present as essential contributions to ‘the cultural
development of the country’ and as foundational elements in any ‘serious and tech-
nical study of the arts.’”63 The project developed out of a lecture series at the Harvard
Business School that featured film industry luminaries such as the aforementioned
Lasky and Zukor, as well as Fox studio head William Fox and director Cecil B.
DeMille.64 While the Columbia program had the support of one studio, Harvard’s
film library would have the support of Hollywood, as Hays and the MPPDA were key
players in the creation of the library. The cooperation of the industry would mean
access to a wide catalog of films and potential funding, but it also had its pitfalls.
Wasson notes that a condition of Hollywood’s support was that films selected for the
library “were to be chosen only from American offerings,”65 an obvious limitation for
a cultural institution trying to preserve the whole of an art form. Another concern was
the matter of how films from the collection were to be exhibited. Decherney notes that
the authors of the library’s agreement with Hollywood “went to great lengths to
prohibit Harvard from reaping any financial reward from the exhibition of its
films . . . [stipulating] that films could only be shown to ‘members of the Harvard
community’ and that no ticket sales or loans of films were permitted.”66 Additionally,
the agreement’s language indicated that “film prints continued to belong to the pro-
duction companies even after they were deposited in the Harvard vault.”67 These
conditions would prove to be significant obstacles towards the effectiveness of the
library as a cultural institution, because without the freedom to choose international
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid.
62. Ibid., 329.
63. Wasson, Museum Movies, 127–28.
64. Ibid., 128.
65. Ibid.
67. Ibid.

films and to exhibit and loan films, and lacking ownership of the collection, the library
was not truly given the opportunity to function with autonomy. Wasson notes that just
several years later, the library’s films “were promised to MoMA,”68 a sign of the
ineffectiveness of the program.
the ris e of talk ies ( and the en d o f sile n t s)

Apart from the events at Harvard, 1927 would also prove to be a revolutionary year in
the film industry as it marked the birth of talking films and the rapid decline of silent
film. The Jazz Singer was released in October 1927 by Warner Brothers as the first
feature film to contain spoken dialogue. Attempts at synchronizing sound and mov-
ing images dated back to 1895 when Edison and Dickson produced an experimental
sound film.69 In 1926 Warner Brothers released Don Juan and a series of talking
Vitaphone shorts featuring synchronized sound.70 It was The Jazz Singer, however,
that truly captivated the public and solidified sound as the future of film technology.
Scott Eyman notes that The Jazz Singer grossed “$2.6 million on a cost of
$422,000,”71 a feat that was all the more remarkable given the fact that at the time of
the film’s release “it could [only] be shown in about a dozen theatres around the
world.”72 Despite the restrictive costs of the new technology, both in terms of in-
creased production costs (sound recording cost $500,000 per film on average), and in
terms of equipping theaters for sound (costs ranged from $8,500 to $19,800 depend-
ing on the size of the theater), studios and theaters rapidly converted to the new
technology.73 In the resulting furor, studios ceased production on new silent films, or
added talking sequences to silent films that were in production or recently com-
pleted.74 The result of the transition was that by late 1929, the major Hollywood
studios had ceased to produce silent films,75 and the once great art form was quickly
discarded and forgotten by studios and audiences alike.
The practice of movie studios was to either dispose of or neglect any films that they
no longer deemed commercially viable. In most cases, this meant everything but
first-run films. The wild success of The Jazz Singer and the talking pictures that
followed served to exacerbate this problem, as studios no longer saw silent films as
commercially viable. Pierce notes that in addition to the lack of commercial viability,
silent films were also costly to store, citing producer Sol Lesser’s decision to junk “all
of his silent productions in the 1930s when his production company needed storage
space for newer films.”76 Alternately, many film prints were screened repeatedly and
became heavily worn and unusable without significant restoration. This resulted in
the silver content of the nitrate stock being the “only residual value for the heavily
68. Wasson, Museum Movies, 128.

69. Walter Murch, “Dickson Experimental Sound Film 1895,” FilmSound.org (2000), http://filmsound.org/murch/dickson.htm.
70. Scott Eyman, The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution, 1926 –1930 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 89.
71. Ibid, 145.
72. Ibid., 139.
73. Ibid., 180.
74. Ibid., 208.
75. Ibid., 342–43.
76. Pierce, “The Legion of the Condemned,” 8.

worn prints.”77 Many studios regularly sent these prints to silver recovery centers, like
the one created in 1918 by Kodak in Rochester, New York. In a typical case, “United
Artists sent 130 well-worn prints of Suds (1920), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), Rosita
(1923) and other older [Mary] Pickford titles to Rochester. The resulting income was a
modest, but undoubtedly welcome, $302.74.”78 The desire to save money and recoup
any possible money from the no-longer-relevant silent films resulted in the loss of
many films.
the bir th of the m useum of m o d er n ar t fi lm lib r ar y

In 1929, the Museum of Modern Art was founded in New York City to house the
world’s finest modern art. Alfred Barr, the museum’s first director, offered the fol-
lowing statement on the eve of its opening: “The Museum would probably expand
beyond the narrow limits of painting and sculpture in order to include departments
devoted to drawings, prints, and photography, typography, the arts of commerce and
industry, architecture . . . stage designing, furniture, and the decorative arts. Not the
least important collection might be the filmotek, a library of films.”79
Though no formal plans for a film library appear to have been made in 1929, a 1932
MoMA report hinted at some progress: “The establishment of a Motion Picture De-
partment is almost an accomplished fact. . . . The collection in a film library of signif-
icant pictures is also contemplated.”80 It was around this time that Iris Barry was
handpicked by Barr to head the creation of the MoMA Film Library. In 1933 she, along
with the MoMA advisory committee chair, Nelson Rockefeller, helped to form the
New York Film Society for which she organized a program titled “The Motion Picture
1914 –34.”81 Lynes noted that Barry “assembled the films, which at that time, was a
matter of running down each to its source, to the company that had made it or, in
some instances, imported it. There were no film libraries or depositories . . . [to] which
to turn.”82 Undoubtedly Barry’s success in running this program, her prior experi-
ence as a film critic and author, and her relationship with Rockefeller led to her
appointment as the Film Library’s first curator in 1935. Additionally, Barry’s husband,
John Abbott, was hired as the Film Library’s first director.
The Film Library was officially opened in 1935, with funding of $100,000 from
Rockefeller and $60,000 in private subscriptions. The library had the following man-
date: “To trace, catalog, assemble, exhibit, and circulate to museums and colleges
single films or programs of films in exactly the same manner in which the Museum
traces, catalogs, exhibits and circulates paintings, sculpture, architectural photo-
graphs, and models of reproductions of works of art, so that film may be studied and
enjoyed as any other one of the arts is studied and enjoyed.”83
77. Ibid., 6.
78. Ibid.
79. Museum of Modern Art, “Philip Johnson Discussing the 1934 Exhibition Machine Art,” Archives Highlights, 1991, http://
www.moma.org/learn/resources/archives/archives_highlights_10_1991.
80. Lynes, Good Old Modern, 110.
81. Ibid.
82. Ibid.
83. “The Founding of the Film Library,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 3, no. 2 (November 1935): 4.

A central belief of Barry and the Film Library was that film was in fact a worthy art
form to be viewed on par with traditional art forms, such as painting and sculpture. A
significant challenge for Barry was to locate and acquire films for the collection. As
seen in the restrictions placed upon the Harvard Film Library, the film industry was
quite reluctant to give up control of its holdings, even when it saw little commercial
potential in them and were simply letting them rot away in vaults, or willfully destroy-
ing them. Nonetheless, Barry saw the importance of having industry support. As
Wasson notes, “keeping the industry close . . . [would] make it seem less suspicious
and more complementary to rather than competitive with standard industry
practices . . . [and that] the cooperation of film producers who held copy and exhibi-
tion rights was essential to the Film Library’s success.”84 Barry and Abbott traveled to
Hollywood and sought the support of some of the industry’s leading names, includ-
ing Mary Pickford, Harold Lloyd, Walt Disney, and Samuel Goldwyn.85 Appealing to
what Wasson termed “Hollywood’s own vanity and ambition,”86 Barry and Abbott
made impassioned appeals that sold the Film Library “as an enduring monument to
industry accomplishment, a shrine to its preeminence, and a promise of its enduring
position.”87 These efforts proved to be partially effective as Lloyd promised access to
all of his films, and an estimated one-to-two million feet of film were acquired for the
museum.88 Nonetheless, Barry still had to ease industry fears that the Film Library
would not encroach upon their profits, and in October 1935 she was able to broker the
“first North American legal definition of nonprofit, feature film exhibition.”89 Under
the definition, which was agreed to by studio lawyers, “after two years, a film’s com-
mercial run would no longer be threatened by the Film Library’s project.”90 This
would prove to be quite significant, allowing much greater versatility, both in terms of
what could be shown and how it could be shown, either by loan or through exhibition.
Having successfully established a legal framework for possible exhibition, Barry
set about creating a film program to document film’s history. The first series was
titled “A Short Survey of the Film in America, 1895–1932”91 and included early films
by Georges Méliès and Edwin S. Porter, as well as more recent films such as the 1930
All Quiet on the Western Front. Though the series used several European titles, the
focus was predominantly on American films. Decherney suggests that this was in-
tentional, noting that Abbott “generated support for the project by lecturing on films
as ‘an original native American art,’”92 and suggesting that with “film, the [Library’s]
administration thought they had found something incontrovertibly and uncontrover-
sially American.”93 An interesting facet of the Film Library’s vision for exhibition was
that in addition to exhibitions in New York, they arranged for traveling programs,

85. Ibid., 130 –31.
86. Ibid., 134.
87. Ibid., 135.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid., 137.
90. Ibid.
91. “Founding of the Film Library,” 7.
93. Ibid.

featuring regular exhibits in venues across North America.94 Decherney notes that
the “Film Library played a key role in defining film as the American art,”95 in no small
part by treating film as both vitally important and as art, and through presenting film’s
history and disseminating it to a wide audience.
As the 1930s came to a close, the impact of the Film Library’s programming
became increasingly apparent. The November 1940 Bulletin of the Museum of Modern
Art boldly proclaims that “through the instrumentality of the Film Library a number
of colleges and universities have instituted courses in the study of the motion pic-
ture.”96 The Film Library’s agenda as purveyor of film as a truly American art form is
suggested by the fact that of the ten film series the Film Library prepared between
1935 and 1940, six series had entirely American content, two contained American and
European films, and only two were “entirely composed of foreign films.”97 The Bul-
letin also notes that American films accounted for more than two-thirds of the films
circulated to 335 cultural and educational institutions, and the Film Library’s archives
were composed of 1,432 American films and only 229 foreign films.98 The program-
ming of the Film Library also helped to cement the notion of a film canon, as many of
the films exhibited in the early programs, such as F.W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh
(1924), D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), and Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari (1919),99 came to be seen as masterpieces and still appear frequently on
critics’ lists to this day.
c on c lusion
The history of film’s transition from an ephemeral and disposable object to a
venerated American art form is marked by the conflicting beliefs and interests of
filmmakers, producers, critics, academics, and politicians. The creation of an Amer-
ican film archive proved to be quite fortuitous, filled with many obstacles and dead
ends, and ultimately was contingent on the establishment of film as an art form. The
impact of the film society movement in Europe with its emphasis upon film’s artistic
value and the eventual import of Iris Barry to head the Museum of Modern Art Film
Library would prove to be significant. Early attempts to emphasize film’s historical
value failed to resonate with politicians or the public, and it was only once film began
to be described as an art form—and not just an art form, but an American art form—
that the archive movement started to gather strength. The creation of the MoMA Film
Library in 1935 stands as the true birth of film preservation and archiving in North
America, and it became the foundation for the field as it exists today.

96. “American Art and the Museum,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 8, no. 1 (November 1940): 16.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. “Work and Progress of the Film Library,” The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 4, no. 4 (January 1937): 8 –11.


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From Ephemera to Art: The Birth of Film Preservation and the Museum of Modern Art Film

This content downloaded from 132.206.27.24 on Mon, 2 Feb 2015 06:29:04 AM

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the origins of ﬁ lm pr eser v at io n

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ﬁl m is not art: mutual corp v. industrial

the ro le of private collect o r s in ﬁ lm p r ese r v at io n

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d. w. gri fﬁ th, vachel lind sey , an d t h e id e a o f a ﬁ lm

22. Slide, Early American Cinema, 96.

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time, grossing an estimated $20,000,000.24 As one of the earliest feature-length

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The power of Lindsay’s sentiment is that in recognizing the perception of ﬁlm as

the ﬁrs t institutional ﬁ lm co lle ct io n s

30. Lindsay, The Art of the Moving Picture, 1–2.

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difﬁc u lties of ﬁ lm pr eser v at io n

34. Decherney, Hollywood and the Culture Elite, 44.

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1. Image fading. Brownish discoloration of emulsion. Faint noxious odor.

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go v ernm ent intervention an d calls f o r an

45. Pierce, “The Legion of the Condemned,” 10.

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iris ba r r y and the rise of t h e ﬁ lm so cie t y

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“unapologetic embrace of Chaplin, Fairbanks, Grifﬁth, early animation, cowboy se-

ha rv a rd university and fur t h er at t em p t s t o cr e at e

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the ris e of talk ies ( and the en d o f sile n t s)

68. Wasson, Museum Movies, 128.

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the bir th of the m useum of m o d er n ar t ﬁ lm lib r ar y

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84. Wasson, Museum Movies, 130.

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94. Wasson, Museum Movies, 156.

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