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Cinema Exhibition In St. Louis, 1920: A Thriving Business, Sarah E. Boslaugh

Undergraduate Research Symposium

In 1920, St. Louis was the 6th largest city in the United States, with a population of 772,897, and density of 11,684/square mile (twice today's density). The population was primarily (90.9%) white, with 14.7% of the white population foreign born. The city had a dense trolley network, while private ownership of automobiles was relatively rare (15.8 residents per car). Cinema exhibition was a thriving business in the city, with 120 cinemas and 29 film exchanges (as compared to, for instance, 12 live theatres in the same year).

Cinemas were located throughout the city, primarily on or near trolley lines. This …

The Making Of Everyday Hollywood: 1930s Film Influence On Everyday Women’S Fashion In Nebraska, Anna Naomi Kuhlman

Department of Textiles, Merchandising, and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This research examines the influence of film fashions on middle-class, Nebraskan women’s dress during the Great Depression (1932-1940). The Great Depression challenged the middle class: while standards of living remained high, the economic means to achieve those standards diminished. Despite the crisis, women strove to keep up with current fashion trends. While previous literature has examined how Hollywood directly affected trends and styles of the 1930s in major American metropolitan contexts, the manifestation of trends in the dress of middle to lower socio-economic classes in Middle America remains under-examined. Against the backdrop of Depression-era hardships specific to Nebraska’s agricultural economy, …