That her soul may remain pure: Women in American silent film

The grappling for a definition of women's roles during the era of American silent film, 1895 through 1930, reflected changes occurring in mass morality. The earliest silents portraying women as second-class citizens were soon joined by valiant heroines and social problem films offering a more balanced picture of the capabilities and concerns of womanhood. As the blossoming "new morality" generated apprehension, a Victorian dichotomy emerged between the "pure" women of D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford who were rewarded with marriage and family, and the sexually perverse vampire like Theda Bara who caused destruction and death. But by the 1920s the films of Cecil B. DeMille, Clara Bow and Greta Garbo displayed the emancipated new wives, flappers and sophisticates in full-force. Yet underlying these impeccably modern women was an affirmation of traditional morality. By insisting that a woman's soul did indeed remain pure, films reflected a widespread desire to cling to rapidly decaying values.