Visual Education: Pedagogy and Propaganda in Early Cinema, 1901-1920

FAIN: FT-58499-11

William Marsh
CUNY Research Foundation, Queensborough Community College (Bayside, NY 11364-1432)

In the first two decades of the 20th century, educators and entrepreneurs, in concert with social reformers and government officials, shared a common interest in the new medium of cinema as a potential educational technology. For this project I will write a history of the early Visual Education movement, focusing on an under-explored area of early film history. By studying the Visual Education movement as a time of "new media" exploration and experimentation, I hope to provide some useful historical context for current trends in new media pedagogy. The resulting book will also address unanswered questions about the role of film in early-20th-century education. Film history, media studies, and education scholars will benefit from this interdisciplinary study of the early Visual Education movement.