LGM Film Club, Part 569: Three American Beauties

I am teaching my Gilded Age/Progressive Era course this fall for the first time in five years, so it’s fun to revisit some of the great silent films I show as primary sources in the class. One I have never put into this series is the 1906 Edison film Three American Beauties, which is useful for two things. First is the use of stenciled color, an early attempt to bring films out of the black and white era, if rudimentary and always very difficult due to the sheer amount of labor this required. Second is the third of the American beauties–the flag, which is a good reminder of how patriotism is manufactured, which itself was something Edison–a very conservative Republican–was interested in.