“A Maze of Intricate Relationships”: Mae D. Huettig and Early Forays into Film Industry Studies

Mae Huettig’s Economic Control of the Motion Picture Industry: A Study of Industrial Organization, first published in 1944, presents an analysis of Hollywood’s mechanisms of oligopolistic control similar to the one developed by the US government during the Paramount case. Though economists from several fields had previously issued comparable research, hers was the first book to attempt to offer a more general readership such a foray into what we now call film industry studies. This essay revisits Huettig’s book and provides a close analysis of the political, economic, academic, and personal contexts within which it was researched, written, and published.