UCLA Center for the Study of Women

This past spring I received a CSW Travel Grant to examine the film collections of the Harry Ransom Humanities Center (HRC) housed at the University of Texas at Austin. This research pertains to my dissertation project, in which I argue that female film stars used their contractual labor to achieve creative and professional autonomy in the 1930s American film industry (often referred to by film historians as “the studio system”) by choosing to work independently as freelance artists. The HRC’s David O. Selznick, Myron Selznick, and Jock Whitney collections all contain contracts and legal documents that are critical for my dissertation in that they illuminate the unique contractual provisions and terms negotiated by these women in their pursuit of professional autonomy in Hollywood during an era of presumed monolithic economic control.