Early African-American Film Database, 1909–1930

Abstract

This dataset covers silent “race films”: films created before the year 1930 featuring African-Americans for primarily African-American audiences. The data was collected through research utilizing a wide variety of primary and secondary sources. It contains records on films, actors, production companies, and other key components of the early race film industry. The data is primarily stored on the research data repository site Zenodo and additionally within a relational database on Airtable. Reuse potential of the data includes pedagogical purposes, social network analysis and as a support for the extant study of silent era and race films. The data will also enable further research in film studies, African-American history, the history of film exhibition, and the digital humanities.

Keywords

• cinema
• film industry
• black people
• united states