Iris Barry: American film archive pioneer

Henson, Bruce

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/78250 Copy

Description

Title

Iris Barry: American film archive pioneer

Author(s)

Henson, Bruce

Issue Date

1997

Keyword(s)

• Archives
• Film

Abstract

Since their creation in the early 1890s, motion pictures have emerged as one of the great art forms of the Twentieth Century. Today, a public awareness exists in America of the necessity of preserving the history of film. Until the mid 1930s, however, film was not acknowledged as an art form and was considered expendable after its commercial value was exhausted, a situation that resulted in the irrevocable loss of many films and enormous gaps in America's film heritage. Iris Barry's legacy to American film archives is pervasive in that she was able to remedy the failure of film producers, government, and the public to recognize the significance of preserving motion pictures, and to elevate film to the status of art, thus ensuring that film is available for study in perpetuity. Curator Barry made a comprehensive study of film possible, for the first time in the medium's history, at the Museum of Modern Art's (MOMA) Film Library, which opened in 1935. At MOMA, Barry established the foundations of an American field that would grow tremendously, creating industry-wide standards and practices for collecting and providing access to film.

Publisher

Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Series/Report Name or Number

Katharine Sharp Review ; no. 004, Winter, 1997

ISSN

1083-5261

Type of Resource

text

Language

en

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/78250

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 1997 is held by Bruce Henson

Owning Collections