Constructing Californian Families: Home Movies from the Pacific Film Archive

Meghan Chandler
Visual Studies
UC Irvine

This project investigated the Pacific Film Archive’s collection of early home movies. In particular, their holdings feature extensive footage from the Black, Church, Haskell, and Wright families, in addition to several yet to be identified films by other Californian residents. The grantee proposed to utilize these under-explored films to conduct original, primary research into how Californian families interacted with and used new home movie technologies during the 1920s-1950s. Ultimately, the project sought to better understand how home users imagined and visualized what it meant to be a “Californian family” during different historical periods.