User:Adelaideowens16/sandbox

Response to Peer Review

I found this peer review process extremely helpful for a number of reasons. Specifically, I liked that there was no set outline on how to do the peer review, which gave me two completely different reviews, both with information I feel is helpful and necessary. I read Julia's review first which was more in the style of the peer reviews I wrote. I found it helpful to see what the article was missing from an outside perspective because after working for so long on one project, one can become blind to the gaps. I thought it was interesting that Julia made a similar comment to one that I made on the articles that I reviewed which is that I would like to have learned more about the director's life instead of just the career. After going back and re-reading the lead section, I agree, and will be conducting more research into Davenport's early life to make the section more comprehensive. I also appreciate her comment about adding to the section on Wallace Reid's death; however, I think it is tough to decide how much to add because before I felt like the article was focused too heavily on her husband, though I do agree that his death was important in her career. Evan's peer review was a completely different format, and something that I found very helpful. I often struggle with editing and I think that having someone go over my word choice and my grammar will improve my article. Overall, I'm excited to add these changes and continue working, and I feel good about what I have so far.

Addie Owens Peer Review by: Julia Kaplowitz

Addie—as a whole, I think your lead section (as well as the rest of your article, great job getting ahead) is super successful! One of your strongest elements is the fact that you were able to produce very smooth, well-written sentences that are very coherent without sounding biased at all. The lead touches on all aspects on Davenport’s life, which is beneficial, but perhaps you could add more about her personal life rather than just her career. You talk about her childhood in the “personal life” section, but it could be useful to add a few sentences about it earlier, in the lead. Also, I agree with the other Wikipedian that commented—the death of Davenport’s husband was clearly influential (and is definitely intriguing to readers) in the films she produced, so you might want to add more information about this. Maybe you could even include these facts in the lead section. Overall, it seems like you are definitely on the right track! You do a great job including many sources, and all of your citations appear credible.

DRAFT

Lead Section work:

Fannie Dorothy Davenport, Dorothy Davenport (March 13, 1895 – October 12, 1977) was an American actress, screenwriter, film director and producer. Davenport's family was heavily involved in the theater. Her father Harry Davenport was a comedian and her mother Alice Davenport was a well-known actress. She began working in the fledgling film industry, and subsequently moved to California to work at Nestor Film Company. Davenport was a Hollywood star at age 17. While working at Nestor, Davenport met her future husband, actor Wallace Reid whom she married in 1913.

After the birth of her son in 1917, Davenport began to act less; however, she again gained notoriety when her husband Wallace Reid's career took off. However, he soon came under the spotlight as reports that he was a severely ill drug addict began to surface. Davenport became the source of information about his condition, and after his death in January 1923 she co-produced Human Wreckage(1923). The film dealt with the dangers of narcotics addiction, and Davenport played the role of a drug addict's wife. Billed as "Mrs. Wallace Reid", she followed its success with other social-conscience films such as Broken Laws (1924) and The Red Kimono (1925). After the release of The Red Kimono, Gabrielle Darley sued Davenport for 50,00 for using her name and life story without approval.

As her on-screen roles continued to diminish, she transitioned to directing, producing and screenwriting. Davenport's successful transition is often attributed to her range of positions in life, including mother, widow, Hollywood producer and social activist.

While Davenport's company dissolved in the late 1920s, she continued to take on traditional writing and directing roles. In 1929 Davenport directed Linda a film about a woman who gives up her happiness for the sake of men and social expectations. Davenport directed her last film in 1934; however, she continued in the film industry in other roles until her last known credit in 1956 as dialogue supervisor of The First Traveling Saleslady.

Davenport died in October of 1977 at the age of 82.

Work On Early Career:

Davenport's family was well known in the theater. Her father, Harry Davenport, was a Broadway star and comedian, and her mother, Alice Davenport was a film actress who appeared in at least 140 films. Dorothy's grandparents were 19th-century character actors, Edward Loomis Davenport, a successful tragedian stage actor and Fanny Vining Davenport, who began acting at the age of three. Their daughter and Dorothy's aunt, Fanny Davenport, was considered one of the great stage actresses of the time.

Davenport's first professional role was in a stock company at the age of just six. At age fourteen, Davenport continued in the entertainment industry, doing a type of burlesque.

At the age of just 16, she moved from Boston to Southern California to pursue acting. At the time that she began her career she was one of the first in the fledgling film industry. She began her career in what is now known as Hollywood with the Nestor Film Company, later acquired by Universal Pictures. Her first known film appearance was in Life Cycle in which she was cast as the supporting actress. By the time she was just 17 she was a star in the company, one of the outstanding members. She was a horsewoman of distinction, and did many of her own stunts in films.

While with Nestor, Davenport met a young actor named Wallace Reid on the set of a film. Both were prominent within Nestor during the early years of the company and although Wallace Reid had left to pursue another film for six months, he promptly returned to Nestor and the pair married. They continued to work together as he directed and starred with her in two films per week for the next year. After this year, the pair left universal to work on other films but returned in 1916. After the birth of her son Wallace Reid Jr. in 1917, Davenport took a break from acting to focus on being a mother.

Adding Section: Personal Life:

Dorothy Davenport was born in Boston Massachusetts in 1885. Davenport attended school in Brooklyn and in Roanoke Virginia. By six years old Davenport had her first professional role. As a young girl she loved riding horses and playing outside After performing vaudeville for a year and a half, Davenport moved to Southern California at the age of 16.

She married fellow Nestor company actor Wallace Reid in October of 1913. "Called on to act with him in a film, she was frustrated by his apparent lack of acting ability on the first day, but was smitten with him on the third day of their work together." The pair seemed to share a picturesque life as successful actors in the budding Hollywood. They worked on over a hundred films together the first year that they were married, and continued gaining notoriety.

On June 18, 1917 Davenport gave birth to her first son, Wallace Reid Jr, in Los Angeles California. The birth of her son prompted Davenport to take a step back from her career, and become a full time mother. In 1919 Davenport gave birth to the couple's second child, daughter Betty Anna Reid.

While filming on location in Oregon for The Valley of the Giants (1919), Davenport's husband, Wallace Reid was injured in a train wreck. As a remedy for the pain from this injury, studio doctors administered large doses of morphine to Reid to which he became addicted. Reid's health slowly grew worse over the next few years, and as the couple were prominent in the film industry, their personal lives also became a subject of the public's interest. Reid specifically was a target of speculation, when it was reported that he was put into a sanitarium for his drug addiction. Davenport became a sort of liaison between the media and her husband, reporting on his condition. Wallace Reid succumbed to his addiction on January 18th of 1923, prompting the beginning of her later career in the film industry, focused on social commentary films.

After the release of her film The Red Kimono in 1925, Davenport was sued by Gabrielle Darley for using her name and story. After this lawsuit Davenport's directing career began to collapse, as she was bankrupted by the settlement.

Adding Section: Cinema:

Human Wreckage

Davenport's 1923 lost silent film Human Wreckage was the first film after the death of her husband earlier that year. Davenport and Thomas Ince directed the film in which Davenport stars as the wife of a drug addict.

"Ethel McFarland (Davenport) presents her attorney husband, Alan (Kirkwood), with the case of a dope addict named Jimmy Brown (Hackathorne). With the help of Alan's impassioned defense, Jimmy gets acquitted.

Alan feels the pressures of his job and is introduced to a doctor at his club. When he becomes addicted, he is blackmailed by his peddlers to represent their friends in court. Jimmy, now off the smack and a taxi driver, hears of these goings-on. When he discovers that his passenger is the leader of the dope ring, he resolves to aid the war on narcotics by crashing the vehicle head-on into an oncoming train, killing them both. Alan gets treated for his addiction and begins to fight the pushers in court, all the while pushing for stronger laws against addictive substances.

At the film's close, the film's producer, Dorothy Davenport, who plays Ethel, and who was Wallace Reid's wife, addresses the audience directly, imploring them to support her in her crusade to wipe out the menace of narcotics."

This film is the first of her "social conscience" that followed the death of her husband.

The Red Kimono

Both written and directed by Davenport, the 1925 silent film starred Priscilla Bonner as a prostitute in New Orleans. (add more about the actual film). After the release of the film, Gabrielle Melvin sued Davenport, claiming that she had not given Davenport permission to use the details of her life in the film. She claimed that the film exposed her and left her subject to humiliation.

Broken Laws

Davenport produced and starred in this 1924 silent film about the relationship between a mother and her son.

"Joan Allen (Davenport) is a loving mother who can't help indulging her son Bobby, spoiling him to the point where he is an irresponsible "jazz-mad" teenager on trial for vehicular manslaughter. She wakes up with a start at the end of the trial, with new resolve to provide the right amount of parental discipline."

Comments: Great additions to the article! The lead sections somewhat touches on this, but under the Cinema header emphasize how her body of work was a reflection of her tumultuous marriage to her drug addicted husband. I'm also curious about the one line mentioning that she is a social activist for drug addiction? Did this phase in her life happen after her time in Hollywood or did her activism coincide with her directional efforts?

Week 7

Dorothy Davenport: Finalize Topic/Find More Sources

For Dorothy Davenport's article I have a few ideas of what to contribute. The first thing that I hope to do is to make the opening portion of her article more comprehensive about her and her career. As of now the opening seems a bit random, and focuses too much on her late husband in my opinion. One page that I found particularly comprehensive was Maya Deren's page, and for my article, I would like to model much of the information that I find around this structure. The pages that are included are a comprehensive biography to begin with adding a short portion about her style of film and focus on her career, then I would like to model the page around "early career," "later career," "personal life," "cinema," and "legacy." The section that I'm most excited to add to is the "cinema" section which will hopefully be an area where I can go in depth into her films and also be a place that future contributors can add. One main critique I have of the current article is that it seems to go in depth about Davenport's early life and then become very vague when discussing her later career and films which is something I hope to fix.

Bibliography:

Anderson, Mark Lynn. "Dorothy Davenport Reid." In Jane Gaines, Radha Vatsal, and Monica Dall’Asta, eds. Women Film Pioneers Project. Center for Digital Research and Scholarship. New York, NY: Columbia University Libraries, 2013. Web. September 27, 2013. < https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-dorothy-davenport-reid/ >

A Pair Of Stellar Attractions. (1915). The Movie Magazine: A National Motion Picture Magazine, 1-2, 83-85. doi:Jun 9, 2015

Mahar, K. W. (2008). Women filmmakers in early Hollywood. Baltimore: Md. (p.148-153)

McMahan, A. (2000). FIRST LADIES: EARLY WOMEN FILMMAKERS, 1915—1925. Cinéaste, 26(1), 58-59. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41689323

Motion picture news: DOROTHY DAVENPORT. (1911, Oct 07). The Billboard (Archive: 1894-1960), 23, 15. Retrieved from https://login.proxy.library.emory.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.proxy.library.emory.edu/docview/1031435600?accountid=10747fil

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/j.ctt1gxxpmt.10.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3Af4613afdc4c8174293caa65d3bebf6ef

Week 6

Top three filmmakers ranked & 3 sources for each: 1.First Ladies: Early Women Filmmakers, 1915-1925 by Alison Mcmahan
 * 1) Dorothy Davenport:

This journal article has extremely interesting information about not only Davenport’s personal life, but on her films and how her life is thought to have affected her films.

2.Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood- karen ward mahar https://books.google.com/books?id=8Y6IMGGiZfoC&pg=PA150&dq=Dorothy+Davenport&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip1Kv2t7DZAhUMmeAKHXOsAUcQ6AEIPzAE#v=onepage&q=Dorothy%20Davenport&f=false

This source has good information about Davenport’s marriage to Wallace Reid, a large part of her life that is glossed over in the Wikipedia article. This would be added to a section called “personal life” that I would hope to add.

3. The Movie Magazine: A National Motion Picture Magazine

https://books.google.com/books?id=HHRJAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA83&dq=Dorothy+Davenport&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip1Kv2t7DZAhUMmeAKHXOsAUcQ6AEISzAG#v=onepage&q=Dorothy%20Davenport&f=false

This source has information about Dorothy’s early life that could be a good addition to her page. It seems to state facts, and is more in depth than what is currently on the page.

2. Dorothy Arsner:

1.Noteable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary by Suzanne Ware

This book mostly focuses on Dorothy Arnser’s working life. However, I think that the source is especially interesting because instead of only focusing on the content of Arsner’s films, it talks about the behind the scenes aspects of Arsner’s work, allowing me to add to the career section of her page.

2.Directed by Dorothy Arsner: Judith Mayne

This book goes in depth to talk about seven aspects of Dorothy Arsner’s career. It would be especially good to read the section on her films, as for part of this page I would hope to make a separate category to begin to discuss her films more in depth.

3.Feminism and Film Theory: Claire Johnston

I think that this work would add a lot to the page because it clearly explains why Arzner is so important to feminist film history. I could see adding the information about what Arzner achieved as a feminist filmmaker to either her career section or a section about her impact as a filmmaker.

3. Maya Deren:

1. In the Mirror of Maya Deren by Martina Kudlácek

This work has a vast amount of information not only about Deren’s career, but about her life outside of film that could be very interesting in the section of her wikipedia called “Early Life” or “Early Career”

2.  Expressionism in the Cinema. Chapter title: Maya Deren Person in Expressionism by Graeme Harper

This chapter goes into depth about Maya Deren’s film work, specifically focusing on Meshes of the Afternoon, which could be added to the section “Meshes of the Afternoon” on her page.

3. An Introduction to the Notebook of Maya Deren by Catrina Neiman

This work serves to explain what is found in photographs and letters and notes by Maya Deren, it is extremely interesting because it delves into Deren’s thoughts behind her work which could fit well in the “Cinema” section of her page.

Article Evaluation: Barbara Hammer
 * There is nothing particularly distracting about the article; however, her sexuality seems to be an overarching theme in the article that takes away from the history of her filmmaking.
 * The article is neutral
 * The viewpoint that her sexuality defines her career seems overrepresented to me
 * Overall the citations are good, one link is outdated but the rest work and seem to be good sources.
 * The source about what inspired Hammer to make her first experimental films is out of date and needs to be redone, also the link to the wikipedia page of the Berlin film festival is out of date.
 * Most of the conversation is about fixing out of date links; however, one user brings up that the author uses the phrase "experimental lesbian" which seems problematic and could use rewording which I agree with.
 * This article is part of Wiki projects: Actors/Filmmakers, LGBT Studies, Women Artists, and Women Writers