ABSTRACT
Can you imagine a time before movie stars? This chapter delves into the period in history when movies got their start, and its celebrities were first created. As we will see by examining the historical context of the early twentieth century, for most Americans life was a difficult struggle for survival, and the promise of upward mobility meant becoming economic ally stable, not necessarily rich. Just as Max Weber wrote of an elective affinity between capitalism and Protestantism in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, the rise of the movies and its celebrity culture coincides with the expansion of the middle class in the early twentieth century. Both the movies and their city-dwelling workingclass patrons attempted to upgrade their image in order to appeal to middle-class, native-born Americans. To that end, fan magazines and the advertisements within them both promote the notion of rising beyond subsistence, through becoming part of the industry or through buying products promising to help consumers become (or look and feel) middle class. Genuine opportunities did exist for modest levels of upward mobility as the economy became more automated between 1900 and 1920.
