Based on a True Story: New Western Women and the Birth of Hollywood

Abstract

This article explores early publicity about Hollywood that promoted Los Angeles as a New West supporting a New Western Woman who became a key, if often slighted, element in the “grounding of modern feminism.” The New Western Woman was both an image that sought to attract more women into movie audiences and a reality that dramatized the unconventional and important roles played by women workers in the early motion picture industry. By describing these women as expertly navigating the city, the West, and professional ambitions simultaneously, this publicity created a booster literature that depicted Los Angeles as an urban El Dorado for single white women on the make. In response, tens of thousands of women moved west to work in the picture business, helping to make Los Angeles the first western boomtown where women outnumbered men.