Research Assistant: Investigating Women's Labor Migrations in the Early Film Industry

Introduction to the topic

Before Hollywood’s studio system emerged, the American film industry flourished on the East Coast, maintaining vibrant exchanges with European cinema. The silent era offered women surprisingly extensive opportunities in filmmaking – from celebrated directors like Alice Guy-Blaché and Lois Weber to countless other contributors whose stories remain hidden.

This project recovers these lost narratives by examining cinema’s gender dynamics within the broader context of women’s changing labor patterns during industrialization. Rather than treating film as an isolated industry, this research aims to map how women’s experiences in early cinema either reflected or diverged from contemporaneous shifts across emerging modern industries, revealing the gendered nature of industrial transformation itself.

Project details

The Research Assistants will play a central role in uncovering the names and career paths of women workers in early cinema through systematic collection and analysis of data from digitized archival sources. This hands-on research experience will equip Research Assistants with advanced methodological skills in digital humanities while developing their ability to critically evaluate and interpret historical archives.

As a Research Assistant on this project, you may be asked to:

Conduct literature review examining women’s roles in North American Industrialization drawing from published scholarship
Extract and compile data on early film workers in New Jersey using online digitized repositories, census and immigration databases
Learn to clean and create good data sets for historical research using tools like OpenRefine
Analyze and visualize transatlantic mobility patterns of film workers migrating between Europe and the East Coast
Write research summaries and collaborate on potential scholarly publications.

Selected relevant publications

Bell M (2021). Movie workers: The women who made British cinema. University of Illinois Press.
Gaines J, Vatsal R, Dall’Asta M, eds. (2013–2025). Women Film Pioneers Project. Columbia University Libraries. doi:10.7916/m4dc-n768
Gledhill C, Knight J, eds. (2015). Doing women’s film history: Reframing cinemas, past and future. University of Illinois Press. doi 10.5406/illinois/9780252039683.001.0001
Hill E (2016). Never done: A history of women’s work in media production. Rutgers University Press.

Syllabus

The syllabus for this course is currently under development. A draft syllabus will be listed here as soon as it is available.

This is a draft syllabus. The final syllabus will be available here a few days prior to the new course’s first start date.

Additional research application required

You will need to submit an additional research application through Student Registration in order to enroll in this course.

To submit your research application, you must already be admitted to DIS.

All research application materials must be submitted on the following dates by 23:59 Central European Time:

November 1 for spring semester applicants
May 1 for fall semester applicants

Complete your additional research application through Student Registration.

If you are not already enrolled, use this link to apply to DIS before completing a research application.

Faculty

Clara Auclair

Faculty

PhD, Visual and Cultural Studies (Art and Art History Department, University of Rochester, USA and Langues, Littérature et Image, Université Paris Cité, France, 2023). Certificate in Film Preservation (L. Jeffrey Selznick School for Film Preservation, George Eastman Museum, Rochester (NY), USA, 2014). Clara has been teaching at University of Rochester and guest lectured in Swedish universities. She also works as a research consultant for film archives and museums since 2022. Fields of interest includes: early film studies, media studies, visual and cultural studies, gender studies and labor studies. With DIS since 2023.

Research Assistantship FAQ

Learn more about research at DIS.

: Earning authorship within the course of a semester is challenging. Exceptional Research Assistants may be considered for co-authorship, subject to evaluation from the supervising Research Mentor.

Though you may not ultimately become an author on a published paper, you will gain many practical skills and insights into the publication process.

: Many research projects last across several semesters, so not all RAs on the same project will conduct the same research.

: On average, students in 3-credit Research Assistantships spend at least 10 hours a week on research tasks. These 10 hours per week consist of a variety of different research-related tasks, including conducting a literature review, data collection, analyses, coding, documentation, and meetings with your mentor. You may decide on a particular block of time (consistent each week) for you to carry out the work, or adjust it on a week-by-week basis.

Students in a 6-credit Research Assistantships spend an average of 20 hours per week with lab and clinically based research tasks. You decide the exact meeting and lab times with your supervisor, but your schedule consists of classes at DIS two days a week, with two days a week in the lab.

There may be peak times in the research process where all Research Assistant students are expected to spend a few more hours, and then possibly fewer hours another week – to reflect the individual research project and process.

: Work for the 3-credit Research Assistantships may take place outside DIS, on your own time at a location of your choosing, or at DIS – this varies from project to project. The 6-credit research assistantships generally take place at labs in Copenhagen or Stockholm outside DIS.

: Students with a variety of academic backgrounds are encouraged to apply for the 3-credit Research Assistant course. While some courses do have prerequisites, many opportunities do not require prior research experience.

The 6-credit Research Assistant opportunity is designed for highly motivated students who have a strong science background within the field of interest and some basic research experience. The student must be willing to commit a large portion of their semester to an engaging opportunity involving hands-on research in universities and medical institutes in Copenhagen or Stockholm.

Introduction to the topic

Project details

Syllabus

The syllabus for this course is currently under development. A draft syllabus will be listed here as soon as it is available.

Additional research application required

Faculty

Clara Auclair

Research Assistantship FAQ

Will I publish a research paper?

What exactly will I do?

What is the time commitment for a 3-credit or 6-credit Research Assistantship?

Where is the research work carried out?

What type of student applies for the 3- and 6-credit Research Assistant courses?