Anonymous

Prior to World War I, movies were considered cheap entertainment for the working class. As the motion picture industry expanded in the 1920s, however, it began to produce epic films with glamorous stars such as Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, and others. By the mid-1920s, 35 million Americans were attending the movies at least once a week. And the allure and enchantment of the silver screen was responsible for fueling fashion fads among young women. In the following excerpt, an unnamed twenty-two-year-old college senior discusses the effect movies had on her life to renowned sociologist and author Herbert Blumer.

My real interest in motion pictures showed itself when I was in about fourth grade at grammar school. There was a theater on the route by which I went home from school and as the picture changed every other day I used...