Skip to content

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema Paperback - 2008

by Kristen Whissel


From the publisher

In Picturing American Modernity, Kristen Whissel investigates the relationship between early American cinema and the experience of technological modernity. She demonstrates how between the late 1890s and the eve of the First World War moving pictures helped the U.S. public understand the possibilities and perils of new forms of "traffic" produced by industrialization and urbanization. As more efficient ways to move people, goods, and information transformed work and leisure at home and contributed to the expansion of the U.S. empire abroad, silent films presented compelling visual representations of the spaces, bodies, machines, and forms of mobility that increasingly defined modern life in the United States and its new territories.

Whissel shows that by portraying key events, achievements, and anxieties, the cinema invited American audiences to participate in the rapidly changing world around them. Moving pictures provided astonishing visual dispatches from military camps prior to the outbreak of fighting in the Spanish-American War. They allowed audiences to delight in images of the Pan-American Exposition, and also to mourn the assassination of President McKinley there. One early film genre, the reenactment, presented spectators with renditions of bloody battles fought overseas during the Philippine-American War. Early features offered sensational dramatizations of the scandalous "white slave trade," which was often linked to immigration and new forms of urban work and leisure. By bringing these frequently distant events and anxieties "near" to audiences in cities and towns across the country, the cinema helped construct an American national identity for the machine age.

Details

  • Title Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
  • Author Kristen Whissel
  • Binding Paperback
  • Pages 288
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Duke University Press
  • Date 2008
  • Illustrated Yes
  • ISBN 9780822342014 / 0822342014
  • Weight 0.93 lbs (0.42 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.25 x 6.13 x 0.6 in (23.50 x 15.57 x 1.52 cm)
  • Library of Congress subjects War films - United States - History and, Silent films - United States - History and
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008013869
  • Dewey Decimal Code 791.436

About the author

Kristen Whissel is Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

Back to Top

More Copies for Sale

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
Condition
Used - Very Good
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 8.19
SGD 5.46 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press Books. Used - Very Good. May have light to moderate shelf wear and/or a remainder mark. Complete. Clean pages.
Item Price
SGD 8.19
SGD 5.46 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema

by Kristen Whissel

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
New
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 8.21
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke. Used - Like New. Fine. Paperback. 2008. Originally published at $25.95.
Item Price
SGD 8.21
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema

by Kristen Whissel

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Very Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 8.21
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke. Used - Very Good. 2008. Paperback. Very Good.
Item Price
SGD 8.21
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, & the Silent Cinema

by Kristen Whissel

  • New
  • Paperback
Condition
New
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 8.55
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke. New. Fine. Paperback. 2008. Originally published at $25.95.
Item Price
SGD 8.55
SGD 4.79 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity : Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

Picturing American Modernity : Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Kristen Whissel

  • Used
  • Good
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Seattle, Washington, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 8.73
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press, 2008. Paperback. Good. Disclaimer:A copy that has been read, but remains in clean condition. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. The spine may show signs of wear. Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include previous owner inscriptions. At ThriftBooks, our motto is: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Item Price
SGD 8.73
FREE shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Very Good+
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 11.63
SGD 6.84 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press, 2008-10-03. Paperback. Very Good+. Tight and clean. NOT ex-library. Exterior looks great, spine is uncreased. An all-around excellent copy. Ships same or next business day from Dinkytown in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Item Price
SGD 11.63
SGD 6.84 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity  Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
  • Very Good
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Very Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Pflugerville, Texas, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 13.61
SGD 5.40 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press Books. Very Good. 2008. Paperback. 0822342014 . This book is in very good condition; no remainder marks. It does have some cover shelfwear. Inside pages are clean. ; 9.10 X 5.70 X 0.60 inches; 288 pages .
Item Price
SGD 13.61
SGD 5.40 shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
Condition
UsedVeryGood
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
UsedVeryGood. signs of little wear on the cover.
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
Condition
UsedVeryGood
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Bensalem, Pennsylvania, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 3 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
UsedVeryGood. signs of little wear on the cover.
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA
Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Picturing American Modernity: Traffic, Technology, and the Silent Cinema

by Whissel, Kristen

  • Used
Condition
UsedVeryGood
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822342014 / 0822342014
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Bensalem, Pennsylvania, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
UsedVeryGood. Minor shelf wear
Item Price
SGD 27.89
FREE shipping to USA