The Moving Picture Girls series

The advent of silent movies had a profound effect on society in just about every way one could imagine.  While we classic film fans are well familiar with by-products of the film industry in the form of memorabilia and fads, I recently came across a series of children’s books published during the Silent Era called The Moving Picture Girls.

I’ve been researching, for too many years that I care to count, a book I’m working on (off and on) about children’s chapter books written during World War II with the war as a background.  These include the Dave Dawson series, the Cherry Ames series, and many, many that are lesser knowns today that reflected the anxieties of the youth of that time and were intended to involve them in a world at war and to inspire them.  In the process, I stumbled upon this interesting series for girls of an earlier generation.

I would think the Moving Picture Girls series might have inspired a few girls to head for Hollywood in those early, heady days; for the most part, they were reflective of a new medium, a new industry, a new art form, and a new career for young women.

The author is Laura Lee Hope, which is actually a pseudonym for a team of writers, whose most famous series might have been The Bobbsey Twins. The seven original books in the series were published from 1914 to 1916.  These are the books in order:

The Moving Picture Girls
The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm
The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound
The Moving Picture Girls Under the Palms
The Moving Picture Girls at Rocky Ranch
The Moving Picture Girls at Sea

The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays

In the first book, stage actor Hosmer DeVere struggles to find work and support his two teenage daughters, Ruth and Alice, when he has lost his voice and needs rest and medical treatment.  He accepts a job working in silent films, where he does not have to speak.  He accepts reluctantly, because, of course, he thinks the flickers are vulgar and beneath the stature of a stage actor. 

His daughters become involved in mysteries and hijinks traveling with him on location shoots through the series, and even become film actresses themselves.

Now in public domain, you can read these books through the Project Gutenberg website, or purchase in eBook here at Barnes & Noble, or you will probably find a few old copies on eBay, if your bent is collecting.  Have a look at this website for more descriptions of each book.

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Jacqueline T. Lynch is the author of Ann Blyth: Actress. Singer. Star. and Movies in Our Time - Hollywood Mirrors and Mimics the Twentieth Century and Hollywood Fights Fascism.  Her latest book is Christmas in Classic Films. TO JOIN HER READERS' GROUP - follow this link for a free book as a thank-you for joining.