ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ARE GENEALOGICAL BY NATURE, interlocked intellectual and social histories of the author. Writing itself is a lonely endeavor, but one draws solace from the richness of scholarly engagement in classrooms and conferences, the warmth of family and friendship, and the joy of scaffolding new knowledge. While I have made every effort to thank people by name for their role in making this book possible, I also want to note that every person I have discussed local films with over the past decade has contributed to what you have in your hands today.

My undergraduate training in the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University helped me realize the value of challenging dominant narratives of media history, and Wendy Chun, Michael Silverman, Elliot Colla, and Karl Schoonover helped me find my path as an academic and historian. This project germinated in 2003, when, in Robert C. Allen’s graduate seminar on the history of moviegoing in the United States, I first encountered the movies of H. Lee Waters, an itinerant filmmaker from North Carolina whose work remains as engaging as the day I first saw it at Duke University’s Special Collections. At the University of North Carolina, where I completed a master’s thesis on Waters, I benefited from Allen’s incisive commentary, as well as advice and mentorship from Robert Cantwell, Patricia Sawin, and, at Duke, Jane Gaines. At New York University, where I expanded my research into a dissertation, I added another roster of advisors and mentors, most notably Dan Streible, who, more than any scholar I know, has bridged divides between scholars and archivists, filmmakers and critics, bringing new vibrancy to film history, a field that for too long was stuck in the delta of Hollywood. Anna McCarthy, Jonathan Kahana, Dana Polan, the late Robert Sklar, and Moya Luckett also provided critical support for my project as it developed. My classmates, including Greg Zinman, Jinying Li, Dominic Gavin, Paul Grant, Jihoon Kim, Paul Fileri, Nate Brennan, Wyatt Phillips, Jennifer Zwarich, and David Parisi, were cheerful companions. Finally, I want to thank my colleagues in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the Catholic University of America. I appreciate the generosity and thoughtfulness of Steve McKenna, Alex Russo, Niki Akhavan, Maura Ugarte, Josh Shepperd, and Abby Moser, who were always there to give advice as needed.

As I presented my research at conferences, I developed colleagues and mentors at other universities. In particular, I wish to thank, in alphabetical order, Richard Abel, Michael Aronson, Stephen Bottomore, Joe Clark, Allyson Nadia Field, Caroline Frick, Oliver Gaycken, Marsha Gordon, Jennifer Horne, Sarah Keller, Jeffrey Klenotic, Paul S. Moore, Jennifer Peterson, Ryan Shand, and Gregory A. Waller. In addition, friends inside and outside of academia provided critical support, including Matt Cordell, Ben Healy, Alice Lovejoy, Kris Nesbitt, the late Johnetta Pressley, and Daniel Wilinsky.

Although I possess neither the training nor the manual dexterity to be a film archivist, I would like to think of myself as an honorary member of the archival community. Dwight Swanson, in particular, has been a generous friend, giving me his collection of VHS tapes and DVDs from his days as a pursuer of itinerant-produced films. Karan Sheldon, cofounder of Northeast Historic Film, and Margie Compton, of the University of Georgia, have been enthusiastic supporters of my research. I also wish to thank Kim Andersen, Snowden Becker, Skip Elsheimer, Karen Glynn, Siobhan Hagan, the late Cynthia Luckie, Meredith McDonough, the late Bill McFarrell, Julia Nicoll, Rick Prelinger, Amy Sloper, Albert Steg, Katie Trainor, Andy Uhrich, David Weiss, and Tim Wisniewski.

One never has enough time to spend at an archive, making the assistance of librarians and curators critical. For making my research trips more productive than they otherwise would have been, I would like to thank Maxine Ducey and Dorinda Hartmann of the Wisconsin Center for Theater and Film Research; David Kessler of the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley; Rosemary Hanes and Josie Walters-Johnston at the Library of Congress; Barbara Hall at the Margaret Herrick Library; Sandra Joy Lee Aguilar at the Warner Brothers Collection at the University of Southern California; Lydia Pappas of the Moving Image Research Collection at the University of South Carolina; and two archivists at Indiana University, Zach Downey of the Lilly Library and Brian Graney at the Black Film Center/Archive. This book has also benefited from the work of fellow researchers of itinerant filmmakers, and the descendants of the filmmakers themselves. Carl Ballenas, Hellen Newland Chaplain, John Dulaney, Anne Evans, Kathryn Gangel, Echo Heron, Hugh Jamieson, David Kuntz, Jeff Logan, Andy Poore, Joseph Tarabino, Nathan Wagoner, Ken Walston, Tom Waters, Tom Whiteside, and James Winslow all shared their research materials with me, demonstrating the appeal of local films for the communities they depicted.

Indiana University Press has been great to work with, and I wish to thank my editors: Raina Polivka, who first showed interest in the book, and Janice Frisch, who has helped make it a reality. My outside readers, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley and Mark Lynn Anderson, helped me see the book through new eyes and provided useful advice as I made the final revisions. This book was completed with the assistance of a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which gave me a full year to focus on completing the final chapters of the manuscript. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. While this book was written in home offices and coffee shops, in libraries and academic buildings, it was completed at the Writer’s Room in Boston, where quiet and 24/7 access made it a welcome respite from home and work.

Finally, I want to thank my family. My parents, Bob and Pam Johnson, have been supportive of this work from the beginning, as have my brothers, Jeremiah and Spencer, and my grandmother Norma Johnson. Without the patience and love of my wife, Melissa Gilkey, this project would have been hard to complete, and her parents, John and Sally, and sister, Anna, have shown warmth and kindness throughout this process. Melissa and I have welcomed to the world two children, Soren and Laurel, who have given us great joy. I hope this book is a small return for the forgiveness and love they have shown me.