Hollywood comes to you

The story of Hollywood and the motion picture industry is perhaps America’s most quintessential immigrant success story.  All of the major film studios during Hollywood’s Golden Age were founded by German and Eastern European immigrants or their descendants. Nearly all of them were of Jewish heritage; Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Studios, the Fox Film Corporation, and Columbia pictures stand as some examples. Universal Studios, one of the most iconic, was founded by German immigrant Carl Laemmle. Hollywood’s story would be very different without the “Laemmle Effect”—the vision of a pioneering German immigrant who built the largest film studio in the world at that time on a chicken ranch in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles a century ago.

GAHMUSA captured this great era and in an astonishing exhibit told the stories of 100 years of Hollywood.  Now the exhibit is traveling,  with its first stop on July 24th at German-American Heritage Center in Davenport, Iowa.   The Center will accompany the exhibit with a children’s activities,  film festivals and lectures.  Stay tuned for more information.

We realized however that not all will have access to the exhibit as it travels throughout the United States,  so we have gone digital.   Enjoy 100 years of Hollywood online at hollywood.gahmusa.org.  You will be able to travel through time as well as admire the German-Americans that made a difference in the industry on our “Wall of Fame”.  While not exhaustive,  it is a very representative display.

In an effort to reach out to our widespread membership,  we intend to bring you more digital exhibits.  Stay tuned.

If you are interested in hosting “100 Years of Hollywood” – “the Laemmle Effect” please contact us at [email protected].