Edison Social Dramas

Film

The birth of the motion picture coincided with the Progressive Era in the US, and many early films deal with social and political themes that are still pertinent today—the rights of women, income inequality, workplace safety, prison reform, trust-busting, child care, and so on. The pioneer filmmaker Edwin S. Porter, best known for Edison’s Great Train Robbery of 1903, is here represented by two stark dramas centered on class distinctions: The Ex-Convict and The Kleptomaniac. Ashley Miller’s Children Who Labor and The Man He Might Have Been look at the abuse of children in New York’s manufacturing districts. Piano accompaniment by Ben Model (September 11), Donald Sosin (September 22).

Program approx. 60 min.

The Ex-Convict. 1904. USA. Directed by Edwin S. Porter.

Children Who Labor. 1912. USA. Directed by Ashley Miller.

The Kleptomaniac. 1905. USA. Directed by Edwin S. Porter.

The Man He Might Have Been. 1913. USA. Directed by Ashley Miller.

The Public and Private Care of Infants. 1912. USA. Directed by Charles M. Seay.

This film accompanies Biograph/Edison: Restorations and Rediscoveries from the Collection.

Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 1:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2
Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 1:00 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T2/T1, Theater 2

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2

Licensing

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA’s collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA’s archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].