Never Done

A History of Women’s Work in Media Production

By Erin Hill

Rutgers University Press

Winner of the 2018 Best First Book Award from the Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS)

Histories of women in Hollywood usually recount the contributions of female directors, screenwriters, designers, actresses, and other creative personnel whose names loom large in the credits. Yet, from its inception, the American film industry relied on the labor of thousands more women, workers whose vital contributions often went unrecognized.

Never Done introduces generations of women who worked behind the scenes in the film industry—from the employees’ wives who hand-colored the Edison Company’s films frame-by-frame, to the female immigrants who toiled in MGM’s backrooms to produce beautifully beaded and embroidered costumes. Challenging the dismissive characterization of these women as merely menial workers, media historian Erin Hill shows how their labor was essential to the industry and required considerable technical and interpersonal skills. Sketching a history of how Hollywood came to define certain occupations as lower-paid “women’s work,” or “feminized labor,” Hill also reveals how enterprising women eventually gained a foothold in more prestigious divisions like casting and publicity.

Poring through rare archives and integrating the firsthand accounts of women employed in the film industry, the book gives a voice to women whose work was indispensable yet largely invisible. As it traces this long history of women in Hollywood, Never Done reveals the persistence of sexist assumptions that, even today, leave women in the media industry underpraised and underpaid.

For more information: http://erinhill.squarespace.com

In addition to its commendable social agenda, Never Done's meticulous research, direct, elegant prose, and novel approach to an under-researched topic secure its status as an essential contribution to film history. Film Quarterly

Erin Hill's book is an eye opening look at 'women's work' in the entertainment industry. If you are asking why there aren't more women in the executive suite or the director's chair, the answer is here. Diane English, writer, producer, director

An absolutely essential work. Erin Hill's Never Done is elegantly researched and analyzed and profoundly moving, taking us through all the roles women created in early motion picture history. Exhilarating! Allison Anders, film and TV director and screenwriter

Exactly the history we need! Erin Hill provides a fascinating account of the work women have always done at all levels of the movie industry. Shelley Stamp, author of Lois Weber in Early Hollywood

Hill offers a unique and exciting analysis of the largely unacknowledged work done by women in the film industry, providing a new history that shifts our understanding of old ones. Never Done will make a significant impact in the field. Mary Desjardins, author of Recycled Stars: Female Film Stardom in the Age of Television and Video

At a time in which revelations about industry sexism and brutal power games emerge on a seemingly daily basis, Hill’s book stands as a valuable chronicle of not just the struggles but also the successes of studio-era Hollywood women. Enhancing our understanding of the past while helping to place present-day crises in their historical context, Hill demonstrates that a woman’s work in Hollywood is, indeed, never done. Media Industries

[A] ground‐breaking contribution to women's media history. Gender and History

Hill’s well-researched book...excels in exposing readers to female actors previously ignored by historians. H-Net

Hill’s project is also a necessary addition to any course on production studies, or media industry studies because it demonstrates a viable historical research method on media labor to students. It does so in a way that calls for further research on undervalued media laborers. And in conclusion, at a moment when many academic programs and departments are establishing archives of their own institutional histories, Never Done reminds us of the need for inclusive approaches to historicizing labor in our own communities. Cinema Journal

Hill’s project is...a necessary addition to any course on production studies, or media industry studies because it demonstrates a viable historical research method on media labor to students. It does so in a way that calls for further research on undervalued media laborers. And in conclusion, at a moment when many academic programs and departments are establishing archives of their own institutional histories, Never Done reminds us of the need for inclusive approaches to historicizing labor in our own communities. Journal for Cinema and Media Studies

[A] highly engaging read and inspir[es] models of historical scholarship that add volumes to our understanding of the roles that women played or were blocked from playing in the Hollywood studio system and the first decade of network television....Never Done draws from untapped sources to uncover history that few at the time thought was worth preserving in any systematic way. Signs

ERIN HILL worked in film development before returning to academia to study the media industry. She is currently a visiting professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Dartmouth College’s Foreign Study Program in Los Angeles.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1 Paper Trail: Efficiency, Clerical Labor, and Women in the Early Film Industry

2 Studio Tours: Feminized Labor in the Studio System

3 The Girl Friday and How She Grew: Female Clerical Workers and/as the System

4 “His Acolyte on the Altar of Cinema”: The Studio Secretary’s Creative Service

5 Studio Girls: Women’s Professions in Media Production

Epilogue: The Legacy of “Women’s Work” in Contemporary Hollywood

Appendix: Work Roles Divided By Gender as Represented in Studio Tours Films

Notes

Bibliography