The Patriotic Play: Roosevelt, Antitrust, and the War Activities Committee of the Motion Picture Industry

This dissertation examines the role antitrust law played in the collaboration between the motion picture industry and the U.S. government during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency. It is largely an industrial analysis that incorporates legal, political, and social histories in its attempt to investigate the impact of antitrust law on the industry during the Great Depression and World War II. Antitrust law in the U.S. was relatively new when the first round of lawsuits were filed against the Hollywood studios in the 1910s, and it played a key role in the development of the business and economic structure of the industry. This study offers a basis for a more complete understanding of how antitrust shaped the motion picture industry by addressing three areas of historical specificity: first, government-industry relations during the Great Depression; second, antitrust law and its on the structure and behavior of the motion picture industry throughout the decade; and, finally, the reasons behind (1) the Department of Justice issuing a consent decree in the middle of the United States v. Paramount; (2) the subsequent creation of the Motion Picture Committee Cooperating for National Defense (later renamed the War Activities Committee-- Motion Picture Industry); and (3) Hollywood's substantial efforts to aid the government in its national defense work for the duration of the war. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that the motion picture industry's close relationship with the Roosevelt administration played a key role in its ability to stave off the commencement of government actions against them until the postwar period