Labor's Reward (1925): A Case Study

Throughout the silent era, and especially in the years following the end of World War I, American unionists and radicals complained about the negative ways in which they, their organizations, and their goals were portrayed by commercial filmmakers. A number of working-class groups, as we saw in previous sections, did more than just complain. They went out and made movies that presented their cause to a mass public.

It is one thing to make movies, but quite another to get people to come and see them. Worker filmmakers understood that in order to attract audiences they had to make their films entertaining. Yet, they also had to make sure that their political messages were not lost amid the emphasis on entertainment. The following discussion demonstrates how the American Federation of Labor (AFL) went about producing a film, Labor's Reward, that mixed politics and love in a manner designed to amuse and politicize audiences--while at the same time countering conservative images of unions and their struggles. The stills and video images we will examine come from the opening scenes and reel 3, the only parts of the film that have survived to the present.

Made in 1925, at the Rothacker Film studios in Chicago, the five-reel Labor's Reward was written and produced by the AFL's Union Label Trades Department. The filmmakers hoped to deliver two key messages: the benefits of unionization and the need to buy goods that carried the union label (a special label attached to clothing and other items that were made in union shops). These potentially boring messages about production and consumption were delivered in the form of a highly entertaining love story revolving around Tom, "a fine specimen of manhood," who works in a union shop, and Mary, "a beautiful girl," who toils in an oppressive non-union bindery.