Weavers of Dreams, Unite! Actors’ Unionism in Early Twentieth–Century America by Sean P. Holmes (review)

Scholars have been quite interested in the rise of mass culture around 1900—the emergence of motion pictures, the rise and fall of vaudeville, the popularity of the sexually assertive chorus girl, and the growth of celebrity culture have all been significant themes in recent US cultural and social history. But historians have paid more attention to the significance of acts and images on stage and screen or in the efforts to reform those images than to the labor involved in creating those scenes. In this fine new book, Sean P. Holmes addresses this imbalance by showing how actors in legitimate theater organized the Actors Equity Association (AEA) in 1913, launched a strike in 1919, enforced the Equity contract, and constructed a respectable professional identity within the framework of craft unionism.

The world of work “behind the scenes” in commercial theater was difficult and unfair. Actors paid their own transportation to the starting point of tours, they were often stranded when a touring production became unprofitable, and many performers had to pay for their own costumes. Actors were angry at the consolidated theatrical trusts that perpetuated these abuses and put profits ahead of artistry. Thus, responding as much to the commercialization of theater as to the poor working conditions, the AEA initially sought a professional identity and articulated a defense of theatrical artistry. It put its faith in friendly relations with theater managers, but when actors could not make any headway with stubborn managers, they finally turned to the AFL. This decision was fraught, however, because the high-culture status of the legitimate theater seemed to conflict with working- class unionism.

Holmes’s history uncovers many surprises about actors’ unionization. The AEA’s campaign in the early twentieth century featured several double-edged swords. The star system encouraged individualism, not collective action, but the “cult of celebrity” also helped the strike in 1919 by attracting positive attention to the cause; the strike became an “entertainment experience as well as an industrial dispute” (73). Their work in commercial theater diminished the impression that actors were serious workers, but it also diffused a sense of militancy, thus drawing more popular support for their cause. The AEA, for example, sent chorus girls to Wall Street, advertised as “the prettiest strikers in history,” to distribute Equity literature to merchants and bankers. Holmes acknowledges that previous strikers, such as the shirtwaist makers, used fashion and pageantry in their strikes, but the striking actors were “objects of popular fascination” because of their theatrical careers (73). Finally, while their elitism initially held actors back from union affiliation, eventually their goals fit well with craft unionism.

Holmes refuses to see the AEA strike of 1919 as a definite success or as a secure point of closure. After thirty days, the strikers convinced theater managers to use a standard contract, and the AEA won the right to bargain collectively. The AEA won these victories with the support of small businesses, as did other theatrical unions (musicians and stagehands, for example), and the theatrical style of the striking actors created an appealing, not antagonistic, image for the public. The strike also exposed a radical road not taken—a cooperative theater run entirely by actor-workers. Striking actors, for example, staged successful benefit performances without any managerial oversight. The AEA, however, did not pursue the radical potential of theatrical production outside the trusts’ management; instead, it focused on enforcing the standard contract and uplifting the profession by policing actors’ personal habits—mainly drinking, promiscuity (particularly female promiscuity), and homosexuality. Although actors were at the forefront of redefining Victorian respectability, the AEA sought to secure their status in “the American mainstream” (140). Its efforts to regulate the “theatrical shop floor” thus crossed over into debates about broader social changes related to gender and sexuality.

The strike helped stabilize the theatrical industry and exposed tensions between cultural hierarchy and worker solidarity. In these matters...