Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:54:41.766Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Vanishing American: Hollywood's Compromise to Indian Reform

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2009

Angela Aleiss
Affiliation:
Angela Aleiss recently received her Ph.D. in Film Studies at Columbia University, and has taught at the New School for Social Research in New York City.

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Notes and Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 It was not until 1934 that Hollywood again dealt with corrupt agents in Alan Crosland's Massacre, a story of white exploitation of Native Americans during the Depression.

2 See, for example, the following issues: Current History Magazine (07, 1923), 630–36Google Scholar; Review of Reviews (04 1926), 435–36Google Scholar; Outlook (18 11 1952), 441–44Google Scholar; Collier's (12 05 1923), 13Google Scholar; and Scientific American (01 1926), 57.Google Scholar

3 Collier, John, “America's Treatment of Her Indians,” Current History Magazine, New York Times, 18 08 1923, 771.Google Scholar

4 Work, Hubert, “Our American Indians,” Saturday Evening Post, 31 05 1924.Google Scholar

5 Mrs. Heinigke, Otto, “Address of the President,” The National Board of Young Women's Christian Associations, Proceedings from the meeting held 4 12 1925Google Scholar in New York, 28–29, Huntington Free Library, National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution), Bronx, New York.

6 Clark, John W. (Executive Secretary), Forty-Sixth Annual Report of the National Indian Association, Published by the Executive Board, 12 1925, 56, Huntington Free Library.Google Scholar

7 Downes, Randolph C., “A Crusade for Indian Reform,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 32 (1945), 340–41.Google Scholar

8 Stein, Gary C., “The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924,” New Mexico Historical Review, 47 (1972), 269.Google Scholar

9 Jackson, Carlton, Zane Grey (New York: Twayne, 1973), 2225, 78.Google Scholar

10 “Producing Indian Film Was a Stupendous Task,” New York Times, 20 09 1925Google Scholar and The Vanishing American Souvenir Program, New York Public Library, Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, New York City.

11 Jackson, Carlton, Zane Grey (New York: Twayne, 1973), 8081Google Scholar. Jackson relies upon Grey's personal correspondence regarding church reactions to his missionary portrayals. No public outcry against his story was evident in major periodicals at the time of the serial's publication.

12 Jackson quotes Grey from his letter to Briggs, William H., 23 05 1924, 81.Google Scholar

14 Lathrop, M. C., “Story Synopsis and Comment,” 8 04 1923, 12Google Scholar, Paramount Collection, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.

15 Nopah is a fictitious name, referring to the Navajo tribe.

16 Grey, Zane, “The Vanishing American,” in Ladies Home Journal, 39 (04 1923), 235.Google Scholar

17 Wheeler, Joseph, “Zane Grey's Impact on American Life and Letters: A Study in the Popular Novel,” Diss. George Peabody College for Teachers, Tennessee, 181–83.Google Scholar

18 Hubbard, Lucien, “Synopsis,” 10 04 1925, 1112Google Scholar, Paramount Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

19 Although the concepts of Darwinism, eugenics, and Aryanism were popular during the 1920s, social scientists became increasingly willing to accept the power of cultural determinants over individual behavior. Franz Boas (1858–1942) and Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) were both twentieth-century anthropologists who attacked evolutionary doctrine as neglecting to account for cultural similarities. Boas wrote numerous essays in the early 1920s bearing on the matter of evolutionary theory; many were reprinted in his Race, Language and Culture (1940).Google Scholar

20 Lathrop, M. C., “Story Synopsis and Comment,” 8 04 1923, 1Google Scholar, Paramount Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.