Project description
Fan mail to Danish film stars in the 1910s. Exploring the agency and practices of early film fans
The project investigates the emergence of film fans in the 1910s as well as the establishment and formation of early film fan practices. Instead of relying on third-party accounts about film fans, as has been done in research so far, the investigation makes use of two extensive collections of fan mail to the Danish actors Olaf Fønss and Clara Wieth from the 1910s in the archives of the Danish Film Institute. This globally unique source material, supplemented by fan mail to Betty Nansen, Asta Nielsen, Valdemar Psilander, Emilie Sannom, Aage Fønss and Carlo Wieth, not only makes it possible to reconstruct the agency and practices of early film fans and their sociological, cultural, gender and age diversity. At the same time, the difference to the media representation of ›the‹ fan and his/her fandom provides insights into the functionalization of the discourse on fans and fandom in the respective cultural, social and media-historical context.
Three subprojects will analyze (1) who the letter writers were as social and cultural agents, (2) how the writing of fan letters was constituted as a practice in the 1910s and how it changed, which discursive strategies and discourse regulations the letters exhibit, what kind of fan practices and self-constructions of ›fan‹ and ›fandom‹ are recognizable in the letters and how these relate to the contemporaneous and later mass media constructions, (3) what the fan perspective can contribute theoretically and specifically to the historiography of a New Cinema History and to a reception history with a globalized outlook.
Currently, there are 2641 mail units recorded in our database: 2288 mail items sent to Olaf Fønss, 169 sent to Clara Wieth, 134 sent to Asta Nielsen, 45 sent to Betty Nansen, 1 sent to Valdemar Psilander, 1 sent to Emilie Sannom, 1 sent to Aage Fønss, 1 sent to Carlo Wieth, and 1 sent to Gunnar Tolnæs (who was Norwegian, but became an international star in Danish films). We have opted for the term ›mail unit‹ because our research material consists not only of letters in the narrower sense (total: 2315), but also of postcards (total: 200), visiting cards with messages written on them (total: 71), photographs with messages written on them (total: 20), poems sent to the star in question (total: 21), and, in special cases, printed letters whose authenticity is ascertained (total: 9). The somewhat cumbersome term ›sender unit‹ is intended to suggest that sometimes the mail item was signed by two or more names.
Once the project has ended, all entries in the database will be made available to the public, provided that the copyright holders allow it.
Poster presentation of the project (from 2024, please click on the image to download the poster as a PDF file, 10.8 MB), © Alice A. Salamena:
The transnational ›Fan History Initiative‹ was also initiated in the context of our project. So please take also a look at the website fanhistoryinitiative.com as well!
(DFI, Clara Pontoppidan collection, no. 1)