[Commlist] New book: Projecting America: The Epic Western and National Mythmaking in 1920s Hollywood

The book /Projecting America: The Epic Western and National Mythmaking 
in 1920s Hollywood/ was published yesterday by the University of 
Oklahoma Press.
_https://www.oupress.com/9780806196077/projecting-america/

Volume 3 in the Popular West series, edited by Andrew Patrick Nelson

Hardback, $45, 14th October
ebook, $32.95, 4th November
(Audiobook forthcoming from Redwood Audiobooks)

*/Projecting America: The Epic Western and National Mythmaking in 1920s 
Hollywood/*

In the mid-1920s, the heyday of silent film, the epic Western swept 
Hollywood and the nation. Movie moguls sought to add gravitas to their 
output with the productions—films they argued offered American audiences 
authentic history and lessons in citizenship at a time when Hollywood 
faced criticism for its movies’ morals and star scandals. Initially 
extremely popular, these now nearly forgotten Westerns were hailed by 
the movie industry’s proponents and critics alike for their “authentic” 
reconstruction of America’s nineteenth-century frontier period and the 
social benefits in portraying historical episodes foundational to 
American identity to the melting pot of moviegoers. In /Projecting 
America/, the first-ever book on these silent epic Westerns, Patrick 
Adamson demonstrates how these films indelibly impacted the genre, 
historical filmmaking, and Hollywood, inviting audiences to accept 
uncritical visions of Manifest Destiny as accurate history.

Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and punctuating his argument with 
film stills and intertitles, Adamson introduces readers to a variety of 
epic Westerns, with a particular emphasis on /The Covered Wagon/ (1923), 
/The Iron Horse/ (1924), and /The Vanishing American /(1925). These 
productions depict such key moments as pioneers on the Oregon Trail, the 
construction of the transcontinental railroad, and challenges faced by 
Indigenous peoples. Combining close analysis of these films’ 
historiography with exploration of their production and reception, 
Adamson investigates how the epic Western's emergence responded to and 
informed discourses far beyond those traditionally associated with the 
Western genre. He demonstrates that these movies not only represent an 
important chapter in film history but also collectively illustrate how 
American identity was formed and the motion picture medium was used as a 
vehicle for mass historical and cultural education.

In /Projecting America/, Adamson deftly shows how epic Westerns, at the 
heart of the 1920s’ pressing debates about cinema’s social influence, 
are integral to a broader understanding of the history of Western films 
and American identity.
  ----

“Ambitious and exceptionally well-written. Adamson shows how these 
mostly forgotten silent Westerns were crucial to Hollywood’s attempts to 
prove that it could uplift society by providing unifying national 
narratives. Long overlooked, these films are vastly important to our 
understanding of the development of film culture, particularly film’s 
path from low-grade entertainment to a respectable and educational art 
form.”—*Paul McEwan, *author of /Cinema’s Original Sin: D.W. Griffith, 
American Racism, and the Rise of Film Culture/

“Adamson’s illuminating work rectifies the academic conversation that 
tends to grant the silent epic Westerns of the 1920s a cursory glance at 
best. He has discovered a singular cycle of films whose content sought 
to address several cultural anxieties while also allowing Hollywood’s 
studios to assert their own historiographical authority and claim a 
sense of cultural legitimacy.”—*Dr. Lee Broughton, *author of /The 
Euro-Western: Reframing Gender, Race and the ‘Other’ in Film/


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