Elizabeth Ewen Explained

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

• Elizabeth Ewen, “City Lights: Immigrant Women and the Rise of the Movies,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Vol. 5, no. 3, 1980.
• Book: Elizabeth Ewen. Picture Windows. 4 January 2008. Basic Books. 978-0-465-01178-0.

Notes and References

1. Book: Louise McReynolds. Russia at Play: Leisure Activities at the End of the Tsarist Era. 2003. Cornell University Press. 0-8014-4027-0. 265–.
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/04/books/review/Berreby.t.html " No ____ Need Apply"
3. Robert Sklar, "Oh! Althusser!: Historiography and the Rise of Cinema Studies," Radical History Review 41 (1988): 27,
4. Book: Susan L. Roberson. Women, America, and Movement: Narratives of Relocation. 1998. University of Missouri Press. 978-0-8262-1176-7. 119–.
5. Web site: Remembering Elizabeth Ewen | Now and then: An American Social History Project blog.
6. Book: Sammy Richard Danna. Advertising and Popular Culture: Studies in Variety and Versatility. 1992. Popular Press. 978-0-87972-528-0. 23–.
7. Book: Jean-Christophe Agnew. Roy Rosenzweig. A Companion to Post-1945 America. 15 April 2008. John Wiley & Sons. 978-1-4051-2319-8. 250–.
8. http://www.readcube.com/articles/10.1111%2F1467-9906.00124?r3_referer=wol&tracking_action=preview_click&show_checkout=1 "Picture Windows: Suburbs Happen"
9. Book: Steven J. Ross. Working-class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shaping of Class in America. 1999. Princeton University Press. 0-691-02464-2. 287–.
10. Web site: ELIZABETH R. EWEN Obituary (2012) New York Times.
11. Book: Laura R. Prieto. At Home in the Studio: The Professionalization of Women Artists in America. registration. 2001. Harvard University Press. 978-0-674-00486-3. 256–.
12. Book: 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. Studies in Contemporary Jewry : Volume VI: Art and Its Uses. 30 November 1990. Oxford University Press, USA. 978-0-19-506188-8. 362–.
13. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?pid=157878129 "ELIZABETH R. EWEN - Obituary".