Archives and Absences

Author(s): William Uricchio

Source: Film History, Vol. 7, No. 3, Film Preservation and Film Scholarship (Autumn, 1995),
pp. 256-263
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3815092 .
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 FilmHistory,Volume7, pp. 256-263, 1995. Copyright?John Libbey&Company
Archives and
absences
WilliamUricchio
R eceived wisdom holds that virtualre-
ality seeks to create an ever more pre-
cise simulationof the physical world,
somethingakin to its exact replication.
Butthe increasingfeasibilityof virtualreality'stech-
nological fulfilmentthreatensan epistemological
crisisinwhichthe issueof greatestimportbecomes
not sameness or mimesis, but the difference be-
tween thevirtualworldand the 'real'world.Virtual
reality,extrapolatedto its fullestpointof develop-
ment,is far moresignificantforwhat it cannotde-
liver;as a discourseon the limitsof representation
it offersa compellingmeditationon the natureof
ontology.And so it is witharchives,at leastfroma
structuralperspective.Scholarsdraw uponvarious
archival holdings to constructrepresentationsof
the past, as tellingfor theirlimitationsas for their
'completeness'.As withvirtualreality,the effortat
totalizationteaches us as muchabout the limitsof
representationas aboutthe eventrepresented.
Thissort of discussionobviouslydraws upon
contemporarydebates in the field of culturalhis-
tory, particularlythose regardingthe (contingent)
natureof representation.Issuesranging fromthe
unstablenatureof facticity,to the balance between
determinantstructure and individualagency, to the
place of the researcher'ssubjectivityin the con-
structionof historicalnarratives,have all under-
minedtraditionalhistoriographicassumptionsand
invigoratedthe self-consciousinterrogationof the
historicalprocess'. Thenature,form,and implica-
tionsof the residuesof the past accumulatedin the
historicalrecordsthat we commonlytake as 'evi-
dence', while notalways centralto these debates,
have neverthelessplayed a crucialif implicitrolein
thedeploymentof historicalarguments.Of course,
scholarsemploy archivalrecordsfor purposesfar
exceeding 'mere' representation,and - at least
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ISSN:0892-2160. PrintedinGreatBritain
lookingat the situationfromthe archivists'perspec-
tive - the recurrenthistoricalproblemsof agency
and narrativeplay a minor role in acquisition,
cataloguing and preservation,but the virtualre-
alityanalogy raises intriguingquestionsabout the
constructionsof the past that can be extrapolated
from necessarilylimitedarchival holdings. In the
pages thatfollow, Iwouldliketo reflecton some of
the archivalexperienceswhich have informedmy
research,paying attentionto the shiftingfabricof
constraintsthat have veiled and shaped access to
the events of the past. Threetypes of structuring
limitationswill be discussed:overt policies which
restrictaccess to otherwise available material;
overt policies which define and restrictthe very
collectionof material;and, the general historical
filtrationprocesseswhich, by preservingsome rec-
ords and ignoringothers,shape the archivalrec-
ord every bit as effectivelyif far less overtly.
From controlled access to censorship
In the course of an extended visit to the Federal
Republicof Germany'sBundesarchivin Koblenz,I
came across severaldocumentsin the UFA-Kultur-
filmfilesof the mid-i930s whichdiscussedthe sale
and productionof films for televisionexhibition.
The documentswere intriguingas muchfor what
they revealedabout UFA'svision of its own future
as for what they suggested about a largely unex-
plored period in television history.Althoughmy
primary research task during that visit centred
aroundnon-fictionfilmtypologiesand production
William Uricchiois Professor
of FilmandTelevi-
sionatUtrecht Contact: Filmand
University. Theatre,
TelevisionStudies,UtrechtUniversity,Kromme
Nieuwegracht29, 3512 HDUtrecht, Netherlands.
 and absences
Archivesand
Archives absences257
patterns,IcollectedwhattelevisionmaterialIcould
find and meanwhile checked more obvious
sourcesto fill the evidentgaps in my knowledge.
ThepreliminaryresearchI accomplishedrevealed
that popular(or even scholarly)memoryhad ac-
cordedvery littleacknowledgementto the consid-
erable development that German television
underwentbetween 1935 and 1944. The more
closely I looked, the more I became intriguedby
the subjectof Germany'stelevisionhistory- a his-
tory marginalizedeven within the massive (and
otherwiseimpressive)televisionstudyprojectcen-
tredat the Universityof Siegen. Thiscloser investi-
gation also involveda degree of self-criticism:I,
likeotherscholars,had overlookedpassing refer-
ences to the developmentof Germantelevisionin
already examined sources such as the trade pa-
pers Lichtbild-Buhne and Der Kinematograph.I
realized that the aleatory nature of archival re-
search sometimes gave rise to surprising dis-
coveries but perhaps more often concealed yet
moreinterestingones. Furtherlessonsawaited as I
pursuedthe topic.
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257
Despitethe readyavailabilityof recordsoften
unavailableto researchersof othernationalbroad-
cast histories,myGermantelevisionprojectfaced
sometimessevere archivaldifficultiesfora number
of reasons, the firstrelatingto initialacquisition
and cataloguingdecisions. Before1944, the Ger-
man governmentdivided oversight of television
among three ministries,the postal authoritiesre-
sponsiblefortechnologicaldevelopments,the pro-
paganda authoritiesfor programming,and the air
ministryforpotentialmilitarycapabilities.Rivalries
withinand among these agencies inflectedthe pro-
ductionand archivingof records, resultingin dis-
tinctionsbetween form (technology)and content
(programming) thattoday seem misguided.
Butthe post-wardivisionof the Germannation
exacerbated this tripartdivision, posing further
problemsfor the researcher.An archival record
already affected by war-timeloss and destruction
was splitbetween the east and west, leavingeach
side with partialbut ideologically advantageous
documentation.Inthewest, the Bundesarchiv's col-
lection of propaganda ministryrecords encour-
258
258
aged examinationof theway thatthe Nazi's televi-
sion programminghad functionedwithin a top-
down political party structuredependent upon
'injecting'fascistideology intothoseat the bottom,
an interpretation that contributedto the 'Hitleras
madman' historiographicalexplanation that ab-
solved the mass of the German people from re-
sponsibility for Nazi outrages. In the east, the
German Democratic Republic (GDR) State
Archive,inheritorof the post ministryrecordson
technology,held evidence thatshowed active col-
laborationbetween the German Reichand multi-
national electronicscorporations,contributingto
the 'fascism as capitalism run amok' historio-
graphicalexplanationthatlinkedthecurrentrulers
of West Germanyto the Nazi past2.
Archivalaccess problemsadded to those al-
readyarisingfromdocumentdistribution and ideo-
logical agendas. Some record collections in the
west, such as the US-runBerlinDocumentCentre,
were only selectively accessible to east or west
Germanresearchers;othersin theeast, suchas the
StateArchive,provedextremelyreluctantto make
recordsavailable that hadn'tfirstbeen screened
by local experts. Restrictionsin both cases often
entailed requestsfor specific information,such as
the name and birthdateof the sender, the date,
and the contentsof the documentone wished to
inspect,a procedurethat preventedthe fortuitous
discoveries so crucial to historicalresearch.The
GermanReich'sinitialtri-partdivisionof responsi-
bilityfor the medium,togetherwiththe partialna-
tureof the east and west's archivalholdingsand
the pointedlyideological uses to which these rec-
ords had been put, contributedto the disappear-
ance of the historyof earlyGermantelevisionfrom
collectivememory.
Despite these and related problems, re-
searchersof the NS period tend to be aware of
theirprivilegedpositionvis-a-viscolleagues work-
ing in US, British,or Soviet historyof the same
period. Germany'sdefeat resultedin de facto de-
classification,as the victors,togetherwiththe new
regimes, seized, copied, preserved and made
available,albeitin limitedfashion,the relevantdo-
cuments.Butwhile usingGermansourcesto docu-
ment the history of German television proves
promising,pursuingthe search beyond German
archives proves more problematic.Forexample,
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William
William Uricchio
Uricchio
the Germanarchivalholdingsare far more useful
than those at the BritishPublic RecordsOffice,
where the records which deal with Britishintel-
ligence awareness (if any) of German television
remainclassified.Yeteven the PublicRecordsOf-
fice seems forthcomingby contrastwith the stone-
walling treatmentaccorded scholars by the US
companies, IT&T and RCA,that continuedto co-
operate withthe Reichin thedevelopmentof televi-
sion throughout the war. The trans-national
technologicalevolutionof the televisionapparatus
makesthe roleof US-basedmulti-national corpora-
tions in the developmentof Germantelevisionless
thansurprising,butactive collaborationin the de-
velopmentof television-basedguidance systems
for rockets,bombsand torpedoes,or in the manu-
factureof such militaryhardwareas fighterair-
craft, seems more transgressive.Fortunately,the
GDR archivists preserved the relevant German
holdingson thisinvolvement,butcheckingthatdo-
cumentationfromthe US perspectivehas been far
moredifficult.Thecorporations,with littleto gain
fromsuchhistoricalresearch,have not been eager
to open theirarchives.Butthe ever-vigilanteyes of
the Hoover-FBI provideat least some sense of the
USgovernment'slevelof interestin and awareness
of corporate activities. In the case of IT&T,for
example, a secret congressional sub-committee
authorizeda long termFBItap on chairmanof the
board Sosthenes Behn's telephone and do-
cumentedthe extent of his corporation'sinvolve-
mentwiththe Reich.Yetwhile evidence had been
collected, scholarscould not necessarilyaccess it,
since the strategicvalue of IT&T's holdingsin cen-
tralEuropeto a cold-warobsessed US government
resultedin the suppressionof the materialgathered
duringthe finalyears of the war. Freedomof Infor-
mation Act appeals to the FBInotwithstanding,
Behn'stelephone transcriptsremainunavailable,
and other material regarding the corporation's
German activities during the war are available
only in heavily censored form. The National
Archives,repositoryfor, among other things, the
original congressional investigating committee
files, was more responsiveto appeals for the de-
classificationof the relevantrecords,so that in the
end, muchof the materialconsideredoff-limitsby
the FBI(includingthe transcripts)can be found in
anotherfederalagency3.Atleast inthisinstanceof
Archives and absences
Archives and absences
governmentalresponsibilityfor the archival rec-
ord, inefficiency and duplication have had a
tremendousadvantage. The larger point, how-
ever, is that archivalpolicy can be responsiveto
the interestsof the state, and thatnationalinterests
can be mobilized to mask and delimit the re-
searcher'saccess to the existinghistoricalrecord.
Hence, the littlethat has been writtento date on
earlyGermantelevisionis shaped by the ideologi-
cal contextof the GermanReich,the post-wardivi-
sion of the nation,the cold war and multi-national
capitalism.
Structuralabsences
Restrictions and censorshipoffer particularlyvex-
ing barriersto archiveusers, but the presumption
that the offending documentsactually exist and
may some day be considered sufficientlyinno-
cuous to be made available still remains.More-
over, the ever-presentpossibilitythatthe material
censored by one agency (or individual,for in the
end appeals are decided by particularagents),
may be made available by another encourages
persistence as a particularly useful research
strategy.Butin the case of archivalfilmand televi-
sion holdings, the budgetary restrictions that
necessitatethe selectivepreservationof some texts
and the de facto destructionof othershave rather
more permanentand irrevocableconsequences.
Althoughthe basic problemsof preservingthe two
media are roughlythe same, filmis actuallyin a
muchbetter positionthan television.The relative
durabilityof celluloid,film'slongerinstitutionalhis-
its
tory(including place in museums, archives and
the academy), and its aestheticstatus,all contrib-
ute to a higher preservationprofilethan that ac-
corded television.So let's look at the limitsof this
'bestcase' preservationscenario.
Inthecase of bothfilmand television,farmore
materialshould be preservedthan can be. Most
filmarchiveswith active restorationand preserva-
tionprogrammeshave developeda reasonablyar-
ticulateset of prioritiesto distinguishbetween the
filmswhich will surviveand those which will be
abandoned, with organizationssuch as FIAFen-
couraging open communicationamong different
archivesto minimizedisaster.Yet, at least in the
case of many film archives, the criteriaused to
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259
259
prioritizefilmsforpreservationand henceto shape
the access of futuregenerationsto the cinema past
emerge froman historicallyspecific configuration
of the fieldof filmstudies.
Many of the people responsiblefor archival
preservationpolicy,likemanyof the readersof this
journal,were intellectuallyshaped duringthe for-
mativeyears of cinema studiesas a universitydis-
cipline.Theinstitutional apparatusfor 'filmas art',
so centralto the legitimacysought by proponents
of filmstudies(and theiruniversityadministrators)
includedthe auteurtheory,art museum-sponsored
screeningsof experimentalfilms,and the revival
and expansion of the art house circuit.Although
specialistsmaywell be struckby the field'sremark-
able intellectualgrowth,these formativeperspec-
tives and assumptionsof some thirtyyears ago
remaincentral to archivists'policies. Distinctin-
stitutionalincentivescontributeto maintaininga re-
strictiveand outmodedconceptionof 'filmas art'.
Some US filmprogrammesearn theirkeep by pro-
vidingcourseswhichfulfilartsrequirements, while
severalmajorfilmarchivesjustifytheirbudgetsby
strategicalliancewiththe traditionalelite arts. But
the interrogationof canons and taste hierarchies
mountedby proponentsof culturalstudies reveal
that an emphasis upon 'filmas art' may in many
instancesprecludean emphasisupon 'filmas cul-
ture', since the texts necessary for the latterap-
proachmay be excludedby archivalpreservation
policies.
Irecentlyasked mystudentswhichtheatrically
screened filmin the Netherlandshad the greatest
numberof viewersthisyear. Theanswerto thistrick
questionwasn't Schindler'sListor JurassicPark,
butany one of a numberof pre-featurefilmadver-
tisementsforGrolschor Heinekenor Camels,texts
seen on average by fiveor six timesthe numbersof
viewers of the biggest drawingfeatures.Many of
these advertisementsare quite engaging, some
pushingthe limitsof narrativeor representationbe-
yond thatseen in 'typical'feature.As textsin their
own right,as culturalobjects,and as centralcom-
ponentsin constructingthe conditionsof reception
forthe filmsthatfollow, these advertisementshave
tremendousimportance.Butthey seem to be as
invisible to many archivists, given their tunnel-
vision of 'filmas art', as they are to my students.
The marginalizationof 'ordinary'industrials,in-
260
260 William Uricchio
William Uricchio

structionals,advertisingfilms,and so forth,seems using non-cinematichistoricalsources in an effort

short-sightedeven withinan aestheticframework. to locate filmand televisionwithinthe culturalhis-
Ifthe 1 1thcentury'sdevotionalobjectsare the art toryof our century.Thefirstproblemis thatof the
treasuresof today, who can predictwhetheror not historicalfiltrationof evidence, a processby which
the late 20th century'sadvertisingwill be the art the archival selection criteria determined by a
treasuresof the future? period'sdominantsocial formationsshape and de-
Such marginalizationseems even moreshort- limitour access to the past. Evidencerelated to
sighted from the perspectiveof culturalhistory. marginalizedsocial formationsis oftensimplymis-
Archivalacquisitionpolicies mustbecome respon- sing fromthe historicalrecordsince period archi-
sive to 'the filmas culture'ratherthan the 'filmas vists deemed it unworthyof preservation.On the
art'paradigm,meaningthatarchivistsmustbegin other hand, a plethoraof readily available evi-
to takea longerand broaderview insteadof being dence entails a similarbut related problemcon-
attuned to the aesthetic norms of a particular cerning the researcher's historiographic
period. But because the expansionist years of assumptions. A fixation with readily available
manyfilmarchivescoincided with such factorsas 'facts'can obscurethecomplexitiesand contradic-
the deploymentof the legitimizingdiscourseof film tionswhich help to constructa historicalmoment,
of universitycinema
as art, the institutionalization privileging'dead certainties'over the ambiguities
studies programmes,and the trainingof a new of competingdiscourses.
generation of film archivists,the perceived com- In order to develop these points a bit more
mon interestsof archivistsand scholarshas grown fully, I would like to discuss two related projects
uncommonlyclose. Historicallyspecific notionsof that RobertaPearsonand I have worked on: the
an academic field ('filmas art'), reinforcedby in- firstconcernsthe conditionsof receptionfor par-
stitutionalconstraintsand the personalinvestments ticularfilmsand the second theculturalcontroversy
of those involved, has spilled over into archival over cinema theatresin New YorkCity between
preservationpolicy. 1907 and 19134. Thefirstproject,a book on the
Inthis regard, a latenttensionunderlyingthe VitagraphCompany'sliterary,historicaland bibli-
relationship of archivists and academic re- cal 'qualityfilms',looked at the filmindustry'suse
searchers might help us get beyond the familiar of such culturallyprominentfigures as Shakes-
debate between preservationvs use. We might peare, Washington, Napoleon and Moses in an
productivelyenhancethe tensionbetweenpreserv- effortto attain culturalrespectability.The book,
ing materialforthe researchquestionsof the future concerned not only with a 'top-down'analysis of
vs the researchagenda of the immediatepresent. the film-industry,butwitha 'bottom-up'analysisof
Such an effort might ironicallycontributea wel- the probableresponsesof workingclass and immi-
come dimensionto the traditionalantagonismbe- grant viewers, falls broadlywithinthe social his-
tween the interestsof archivistsand researchers, toryso muchin evidence since the Second World
serving the interestsof futuregenerations of re- War. As with many such projects, perhaps the
searchers. Butwhile so much of the filmed past greatestresearchdifficultystemsfromthe tendency
remainsat risk,we can only hope that the diver- of manyarchivesto collect materialrelatedto the
gent views of researchersand archivistscan be dominantsocial formationswhile ignoring more
productivelycultivatedand deployed in a com- marginalgroups. And while findingcopies of the
bined preservationeffort. Police Gazette, the nineteenthcenturyequivalent
of The National Enquirer,may be much harder
thanfindingcopies of the New YorkTimes,obtain-
The problems of historical filtration
ing evidence perhaps moredirectlyrelatedto the
While we mightcontest the existing preservation experiencesof immigrantand workingpeople of
criteriaof filmand televisionarchives,at least the the period poses an even moredifficultchallenge.
termsare now and have been in the past reason- The collectionsavailable at the New YorkPublic
ablyclear- generallywe knowwhatto expect. Far Library,the New-YorkHistoricalSociety, YIVO,
more complex archival challenges face scholars and the Libraryof Congressare testamentsto the

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 and absences
Archivesand
Archives absences 261
261

Fig.2. ThePrincessTheatre,anglingforan upscaleaudienceby programmingGrenadierRolandand

TheFallof Troy(191 1). [Courtesyof Q. DavidBowers.]

'bestand brightest'of the period,butfortheexperi- search approach) by a creative use of non-cine-

ences of 'ordinary'people, one mustlookeitherto
social surveystudiesor to morerecentlyobtained
oral histories.Ineithercase, the materialobtained
mustbe verycarefullyconsidered,for it is far more
mediated(eitherby a social science paradigmor
by the ravages of time)than the sortsof material
availablewhen consideringthe conditionsof cine-
maticrepresentationfor representativesof the 'bet-
ter'classes.
The difficultiesof historicalfiltrationcan to
some extent be offset (depending upon one's re-
matic sources at certain archivalcollections. De-
ciding thatwidely circulatingdepictionsof figures
such as Washingtonor Moses, or greatly simpli-
fiedversionsof Shakespeare'sJulius Caesaror Na-
poleon's career all helped to establish the
intertextual frame to which many 'ordinary'
viewers would have been exposed, we found
treasuretrovesof popularimageryin sucharchives
as the ArentsTobacco collectionat the New York
Public Library(with cigarette cards and cigar
labels) or the BurdickCollectionat the Metropoli-

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262
262
tan Museumof Art (withadvertisingand packa-
ging materials),or the Bella C. LandauerCollec-
tion at the New-York Historical Society (with
writingtablets and calendars).Thisextrapolated
intertextualframe, reinforcedby such sources as
school text books and classroom chromolitho-
graphs, churchsermons,public statuary,parade
floats, and public lectures, led to historically-
groundedspeculationsabout the probablecondi-
tions of reception for Vitagraph's films among
working class and immigrantaudiences which
contrastedsharplybothwith our presentistexpec-
tationsand withdominantperiodsources.Ininter-
rogatingcontemporaryconditionsof receptionwe
had in some respectsto 'create'ourown evidence,
butwiththe New YorkCitynickelodeonprojectwe
faced a potentiallyoverwhelmingarrayof 'facts'.
Intentupon understandingthe social/culturalposi-
tion of New York'snickelodeons,we attempted,
like several previous scholars, to determinethe
numberand locations of moving pictureshows.
Locating previously untapped material in New
YorkCity'sMunicipalArchives,we foundthatoffi-
cial city sourcesvarieddramaticallyin theircounts
of the city's movingpictureshows. New Yorkhad
upto seven departmentsinvolvedinsomeaspect of
exhibitionregulation,yet in 1908, the Department
of Policecounted239 nickelodeons,the Bureauof
Licences,550, and the Departmentof Buildings,
800. Recourseto otherarchives,suchas thepaper-
s of the civic reformorganization,the People'sIn-
stitute,located at the New YorkPublicLibrary,led
to still more 'facts', such as those of a People's
Institute report on 'cheap amusements' that
countedover 400 nickelodeons.Clearly,city offi-
cials and reformershad politicalagendas which
inflectedtheir'facts', butthe extentof the discrep-
ancy is striking.The situation is furthercompli-
cated, since manyof the moretransient,tenement
district nickelodeons were not recorded in the
more official sources such as Trow'sBusinessDi-
rectorybut ratheronly fortuitously enteredthe his-
torical record through newspaper reports of
nickelodeondisastersor police shut-downsof mov-
ing pictureshows.
The 'incompleteness' of this particularevi-
dence base need not necessarilyrestricthistorical
interpretation,since considering discursive evi-
dence concerningthe period's dominantpercep-
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William
William Uricchio
Uricchio
tionsof the new movingpicturemediumprovesfar
more profitable than searching for definitive
'facts'.Iwouldargue thatthe portrayalsof moving
pictureexhibitionoriginatingfromthe press and
pulpithad far greaterimportthan the numbersor
even locationsof theactualtheatres.Indeed,if one
wishes to understandthe mobilizationof public
sentiment,the passing of legislation,and the film
industry'sresponses, the period'sown depictions
tell us morethan a futileattemptto reconstructan
historical'reality'.Of course, some sense of 'em-
pirical reality' provides a necessary reference
pointby whichwe can appraise pressreportsand
othersuchdata, butdocumentingperceptionsgets
us far closer to understandingthe implementation
of culturalpolicy. We shouldcarefullyinterrogate
competingdiscourses,retaininga high tolerance
for ambiguity, ratherthan search for more and
more'facts'thatmightresultin a monolithicinter-
pretation.
Conclusion
Thedemandsof the new culturalhistoryencourage
a farmorecreativeuse of archivalsourcesthanhas
hithertobeen the case. Whether reading docu-
ments against the grain, or finding alternative
sourcesof documentation,or of 'reading'the very
process of archiving (a la Foucault6),strategies
exist to circumventthe originating 'intention'of
previousgenerationsof archivists.Butin conclud-
ing I wish to returnto my most importantpoint. I
take the inevitablecurse of 'presentism'far more
seriouslyin the case of filmarchives,where it has
an irrevocablecharacter,than in the case of other
archives, where it serves as a stimulantto more
creative researchstrategies.The difficultiesto re-
searchers,presentand future,posed by the aesthe-
tically oriented preservationcriteriaof most film
archivesfacing archivalcollectionsof filmsare far
less negotiable than those posed by problemsof
historicalfiltration.Those films lost because they
don't conformto presentistaesthetic criteriawill
constitutea significantabsence for the future.And
althoughfutureresearchersmaywell have an easy
time appraisingour archivalvalues and assump-
tions,theywillhavean extraordinarily difficulttime
conjuringup films that no longer exist. Despite
some strategicadvantages in maintaininga level
Archivesand absences
of tension between archivists and researchers on
the needs of the future vs the needs of the present,
there may be a longer term advantage to closer
cooperation at least with regard to the questions
raised by new developments in cultural history.
One can easily criticize any selection process with
such irrevocable consequences, and my point here 4.
is not to single out archival policy-makers as some-
how conspiring to impose a particularform on film
history, but perhaps thinking more about the pro-
cess and implications of constructing history, and
less about defending a presentist notion of 'aes-
thetics,' will encourage more far-sighted archival
policies.
5.
Notes
1. Recentexpressionsof these issuesmaybe foundin
theworkof HaydenWhiteand DominickLaCapra,
or in collectionsof essays suchas AramVeeser's
The New Historicismand LynnHunt'sThe New
CulturalHistory(Berkeley:Universityof California
Press, 1989).
2. Fora lookat the researchspawnedby thesediffer-
ent archivalsourcessee WilliamUricchio,Die An-
fange des Deutschen Fernsehens: Kritische
Annaherungenan die Entwicklung bis 1945 (Tub-
ingen:NiemeyerVerlag,1991). Foran overviewof
theresearchand itsideologicalimplications,see my
'Televisionas History:Representations of German
TelevisionBroadcasting,1935-1944', pp. 167-
196 in Framingthe Past:The Historiography of
GermanCinemaand Television,edited by Bruce
Murrayand ChristopherWickham(Carbondale:
SouthernIllinoisUniversityPress,1992).
6.
3. Thisis not to implythatall of my declassification
requestsat the NationalArchiveshavemetwiththe
samesuccess.Moreover,certaincollectionsseemto
have been purged,or at least I have encountered
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263
systematicepisodesof documentlosswhensearch-
ing for IT&T-related recordsin the State Depart-
mentsarchives.Inthesecases, the recordentrylog
indicates the existence of documentswhich the
archivistshave been unableto locate, and in the
case of the ITTrelatedrecordsIsought,over70 per
centof the entereddocumentswere missing.
Thefirstpartof this research,whichconsidersthe
conditionsof productionand receptionfor particu-
larfilms,appearsas Reframing Culture:Thecase of
the VitagraphQualityFilms(PrincetonUniversity
Press,1993): the secondpart,whichconsidersthe
debateover motionpictureexhibitionin New York
City, is forthcomingas TheNickelMadness:The
Struggleto ControlNew YorkCity'sNickelodeons
in 1907-1913 (Smithsonian Institution
Press).
ResearchersfromRussellMerrittand RobertAllen
(who challengedthe then dominantview thatnic-
kelodeonaudienceswere primarilyworkingclass
and immigrant) to BenSinger(whohas embarked
on an ambitiouslocationanalysisof NY nickelo-
deons) have contributedto this quest.See Russell
Merritt,'NickelodeonTheaters,1905-1914: Build-
ingan AudiencefortheMovies',inTinoBalio,(ed.),
TheAmericanFilmIndustry, Universityof Wisconsin
Press, Madison,Wisconsin, 1976, pp. 831102;
RobertAllen,'MotionPictureExhibition inManhat-
tan, 1906-1912: Beyondthe Nickelodeon'inJohn
Fell,(ed.),FilmBeforeGriffith,Universityof Califor-
nia Press, Berkeley,California,1983, pp. 162-
175; and Ben Singer, 'ManhattanNickelodeons:
New Data on Audiencesand Exhibitors', Cinema
Journal (forthcoming). Fora senseof ourapproach
to the issue, see WilliamUricchioand RobertaE.
Pearson,'Constructing the Audience:Competing
Discoursesof Moralityand Rationalization in the
NickelodeonPeriod',Iris17, 1994, 43-54 .
MichelFoucault,TheArchaeologyof Knowledge
and the Discourseon Language,(New York:Pan-
theon, 1972).