Conducting Historical Research
on Screenwriters and Projects
If you are looking for information about film and TV writers and/or WGA and entertainment history, we can help. We have limited records of the Screen Writers’ Guild (precursor to WGA) and collections of individual writers’ papers. These are arranged primarily by name of writer and can be found in our catalog by browsing our cataloged Archival Collections or searching by titles and/or individual names. Many of our notable collections are listed at the Online Archive of California (OAC) and we are continually adding more. You can always email us at library@wgfoundation.org and we’d be happy to help.
If we don’t have what you’re looking for, someone else might. Individual scripts and collections from screenwriters that contain correspondence, project files, etc. can be found in institutions around the world, in library special collections and archives of all types. And remember, not everything shows up in an internet search. Sometimes you have to do a lot of detective work beyond Googling to find what you’re looking for. Here’s a listing of just a few institutions with script collections. Often, scripts that are more recent (i.e. from the last 10-15 years or so) are likely not going to be findable in libraries and archives because they have not yet been donated to such places (but hopefully will be someday).
The Society of American Archivists has a helpful primer on what an archive is, how to find and access archival collections (primary sources) and what a typical visit looks like. Much of the time, archives are part of university libraries and public libraries. After locating a repository that has a resource you might want to use, read the collection description to see what the contents are and which specific boxes will be helpful in your research. Collection guides are usually documents called finding aids, or they can take the form of a spreadsheet inventory, or a page on a website. Once you have an idea of what you want to see, contact a librarian/archivist to arrange a visit and find out if there is any more related material that you might have missed. We are the people most knowledgeable about what we do and do not have!
Typically, non-profit library, archive, and museum collections can be accessed by members of the public, regardless of institutional affiliation (or lack thereof), when a valid research request is made. Corporate and private archives operate differently and exist usually to serve the company internally and not the public. Institutions often have access instructions and policies on their websites so check those beforehand so you know what to expect. And remember that librarians and archivists want to help so get in touch!
If you’re overwhelmed or not trained in research, how do you know where to begin or find out if what you’re looking for even exists?
MEDIA Search Portals
Entertainment research - openly accessible
The Media History Digital Library is a free online resource, featuring millions of pages of books and magazines from the histories of film, broadcasting, and recorded sound. These have all been digitized from their original paper format and are fully text-searchable through the Lantern search portal. The bulk of the digitized content spans the early 1900s through the early 1960s.
The Screen Writers Guild journal, The Screen Writer (published 1945-1948), is included in MHDL and is a great source for information about how the Guild was founded and Guild activities in the beginning of the McCarthy and Blacklist era, in addition to information about people, titles and companies. The entire run is available online here. Screen Guilds Magazine was a joint publication of SWG and Screen Actors Guild from when our two guilds were forming between1934-1936. All issues have been digitized and can be found here. Both of these publications can be found at the freely accessible Internet Archive, which is a “digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. Like a paper library, we provide free access to researchers, historians, scholars, the print disabled, and the general public. Our mission is to provide Universal Access to All Knowledge.”
Entertainment research - subscription access
The Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive is a subscription database from ProQuest that has digitized and made searchable thousands of issues of periodicals from much of entertainment history. Titles include Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, American Film and much more. Writers Guild publications are included. The WGAW Newsletter (1965-1987), the WGAW Journal (1988-1996) and Written By (1996-2015). Many universities and some public libraries subscribe to this database, including Los Angeles Public Library and Glendale Public Library.
General Research
WorldCat is what it sounds like: A library catalog that has records for items located in tens of thousands of the world's libraries, including LAPL, UCLA, USC and numerous LA local contributing institutions. If you are looking to find a copy of a published book, published script, commercial DVD or other item, it will probably be listed here. Many of the bibliographic records in WorldCat are for published material, although it does also contain some listings for archival items.
For unpublished, unique archival material, the Online Archive of California (OAC) is a great place to start. It’s an aggregator of archival collection descriptions from over 200 organizations in CA, meaning you can keyword search thousands of collection descriptions all at once. You can search for names, titles of projects, locations, subjects, or anything else. Many southern California educational and cultural institutions have entertainment-related collections even if the institutions are not specifically part of the entertainment industry. “The OAC provides free public access to detailed descriptions of primary resource collections maintained by more than 200 contributing institutions including libraries, special collections, archives, historical societies, and museums throughout California and collections maintained by the 10 University of California (UC) campuses. The OAC is a core component of UC's California Digital Library (CDL) and is administered by the Digital Special Collections program.”
Similar to OAC, ArchiveGrid is an aggregator of collection guides from around the US and the world. “It includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented (primarily from the United States), ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.”
Individual Writer Collections
Many screenwriters’ archival collections have been donated to universities and libraries across the United States. A few organizations with collections related to entertainment and screenwriting are listed below.
AMPAS’ Margaret Herrick Library has many collections of screenwriters and all other industry crafts. Writers include Daniel Taradash, Charles Brackett, Richard Brooks, Bo Goldman, Nancy Dowd, and many others.
UCLA Special Collections holds many collections donated by film and TV professionals, notably Colin Higgins, Dudley Nichols, George P. Johnson, Jean Renoir, Jack Webb, Larry Gelbart, Rod Serling, and may others.
New York Public Library (particularly the Billy Rose Theatre Division) contains papers of professionals of theater and screen, many of whom wrote for stage, film and TV. Notable collections include Paddy Chayefsky and Terry Southern.
University of Wyoming’s American Heritage Center holds collections donated by people who worked in entertainment, notably Jack Benny, Adrian and Joan Scott, and Stan Lee among others.
UT-Austin’s Harry Ransom Center contains papers from some screenwriters, notably Ernest Lehman, Jay Presson Allen, Matthew Weiner, Woody Allen, Paul Schrader, and Lillian Hellman.
The Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research contains collections from many film, TV and radio writers including Reginald Rose, Nat Hiken, Paddy Chayefsky, Hal Kanter, Loring Mandel, Rod Serling, Emmet Lavery, E. Jack Neuman, Dory Schary, Howard Rodman and Blacklisted writers incl. Dalton Trumbo, Alvah Bessie, and Albert Maltz.
Researching silent era Women Writers
The Columbia University Women Film Pioneers Project features silent-era producers, directors, co-directors, scenario writers, scenario editors, camera operators, title writers, editors, costume designers, exhibitors, and more to make the point that they were not just actresses.
This LibGuide points to a number of books, scholarly articles and websites related to women writers of early cinema.
Locating Moving Image and Audio Material
If you’re trying to track down a recording of a title (non-paper material) and you’re not having luck with library catalogs or eBay, here are just a few suggestions to get you started. Like paper ephemera, AV recordings can be found in varied institutions and collections.
The Library of Congress is home to more than 1.1 million film, television, and video items. With a collection ranging from motion pictures made in the 1890s to today's TV programs, the Library's holdings are an unparalled record of American and international creativity in moving images.
Academy Film Archive: Dedicated to the preservation, restoration, documentation, exhibition and study of motion pictures, the Academy Film Archive is home to one of the most diverse and extensive motion picture collections in the world.
UCLA Film & Television Archive is renowned for its pioneering efforts to rescue, preserve and showcase moving image media, and is dedicated to ensuring that the collective visual memory of our time is explored and enjoyed for generations to come. Established in 1965, the Archive is the second-largest repository of motion pictures and broadcast programming in the United States, after the Library of Congress, and the world's largest university-held collection.
The Paley Center Archive has a permanent media collection that contains over 160,000 television and radio programs and advertisements.
The Harvard Film Archive is one of the largest and most significant university-based motion picture collections in the United States, with a collection of 40,000 audio-visual items, a growing number of manuscript collections, and nearly one million still photographs, posters, and other promotional materials from around the world and from almost every period in film history. Through a combination of preservation and access, the HFA supports the research and study of cinema at Harvard and beyond.
The Black Film Center/Archive at Indiana University Bloomington was established in 1981 as the first archival repository dedicated to collecting, preserving, and making available historically and culturally significant films by and about black people. The BFC/A's primary objectives are to promote scholarship on black film and to serve as an open resource for scholars, researchers, students, and the general public; to encourage creative film activity by independent black filmmakers; and to undertake and support research on the history, impact, theory, and aesthetics of black film traditions.
The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division (MIRS, pronounced “meers”) of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at NYPL collects and preserves audio and moving image (AMI) materials related to the experiences of people of African descent. The division has amassed nearly 400 collections, approximately 5,000 square feet, in a variety of formats, which captures the gestures and sounds of major historical, artistic and cultural moments and influencers. While the strength is the Black American holdings there is considerable Caribbean and African representation in the collection.