MIT Libraries logoDSpace@MIT

MIT
View Item 
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
  • DSpace@MIT Home
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • MIT Open Access Articles
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

Films in the Archive: Hollywood in Detroit

Author(s)
Shell, Hanna Rose
Thumbnail
DownloadShell_Films in the.pdf (644.4Kb)
PUBLISHER_POLICY

Publisher Policy

Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.

Terms of use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
Metadata
Show full item record
Abstract
The Prelinger Archives, a collection of over 60,000 so-called ephemeral films, approximately 6,500 of which are freely available online for viewing and public download, is an amazing resource for research and teaching in the history of technology. [superscript 1] Collector, archivist, writer, and filmmaker Rick Prelinger began assembling his collection in the early 1980s. Over the next decades, his collection of 35 mm and 16 mm films grew into the tens of thousands. Films designed as educational, industrial, vocational, or advertising (overlapping categories often subsumed under the term sponsored), along with amateur and 8 mm home movies, were gathered from far and wide. [superscript 2] Films from any of these genres are often referred to as ephemeral, a term applied based on the idea that such a film’s period usefulness, in the sense of actual time being shown for the purpose for which it was created, is limited. The term’s appropriateness becomes questionable once the lifespan of these films has been extended through the development of new contexts in which they are useful (for example, for scholarly research or nostalgic film series programming). [superscript 3]
Date issued
2014-07
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/95989
Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Society
Journal
Technology and Culture
Publisher
Muse - Johns Hopkins University Press
Citation
Shell, Hanna Rose. “Films in the Archive: Hollywood in Detroit.” Technology and Culture 55, no. 3 (2014): 711–715. © 2014 The Society for the History of Technology
Version: Final published version
ISSN
1097-3729
0040-165X

Collections
  • MIT Open Access Articles

Browse

All of DSpaceCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

My Account

Login

Statistics

OA StatisticsStatistics by CountryStatistics by Department
MIT Libraries
PrivacyPermissionsAccessibilityContact us
MIT
Content created by the MIT Libraries, CC BY-NC unless otherwise noted. Notify us about copyright concerns.