Elizabeth Ewen was a scholar of women's history, immigration, and film. She was among the first feminist historians to write about early American cinema.[1] Ewen was a professor of American Studies at the State University of New York at Old Westbury (SUNY).[2]

Noted film historian Robert Sklar described Ewen's 1980 article, “City Lights: Immigrant Women and the Rise of the Movies,” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, as 'the first significant writing by a historian on early American cinema to follow the author's and [Garth] Jowett's books.”[3] Ewen's book, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars, examined the role of cinema in the lives of immigrant girls and women in New York City's Lower East Side.[4] Filmmaker Ellen Noonan has explained that the book was the inspiration for the 1993 documentary Heaven Will Protect the Working Girl.[5]

Elizabeth Ewen authored several books with her husband, media historian Stuart Ewen,[6] and her colleague Rosalyn Baxandall,[7][8] including Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness (1992),[9] Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened (2000), Typecasting: On the Arts and Sciences of Human Inequality (2006).[10]

Ewen's work is frequently cited by contemporary historians.[11][12]

Elizabeth Ewen died May 29, 2012, in Manhattan, New York.[13]

Selected publications

References

  1. ^ Louise McReynolds (2003). Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era. Cornell University Press. pp. 265–. ISBN 0-8014-4027-0.
  2. ^ " No ____ Need Apply". New York Times. By DAVID BERREBY, February 4, 2007
  3. ^ Robert Sklar, "Oh! Althusser!: Historiography and the Rise of Cinema Studies ," Radical History Review 41 (1988): 27,
  4. ^ Susan L. Roberson (1998). Women, America, and Movement: Narratives of Relocation. University of Missouri Press. pp. 119–. ISBN 978-0-8262-1176-7.
  5. ^ "Remembering Elizabeth Ewen | Now and then: An American Social History Project blog".
  6. ^ Sammy Richard Danna (1992). Advertising and Popular Culture: Studies in Variety and Versatility. Popular Press. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-87972-528-0.
  7. ^ Jean-Christophe Agnew; Roy Rosenzweig (15 April 2008). A Companion to Post-1945 America. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 250–. ISBN 978-1-4051-2319-8.
  8. ^ "Picture Windows: Suburbs Happen".Journal of Urban Affairs Volume 24, Issue 2
  9. ^ Steven J. Ross (1999). Working-class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. Princeton University Press. pp. 287–. ISBN 0-691-02464-2.
  10. ^ "ELIZABETH R. EWEN Obituary (2012) New York Times".
  11. ^ Laura R. Prieto (2001). At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America. Harvard University Press. pp. 256–. ISBN 978-0-674-00486-3.
  12. ^ Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Ezra Mendelsohn Professor of History; Institute of Contemporary Jewry The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Richard I. Cohen Professor of History (30 November 1990). Studies in Contemporary Jewry : Volume VI: Art and Its Uses. Oxford University Press, USA. pp. 362–. ISBN 978-0-19-506188-8.
  13. ^ http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=157878129 "ELIZABETH R. EWEN - Obituary".
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