Commentary: A hundred years ago, one Hollywood studio was a great, safe place for a woman to work
Imagine a movie industry where women write half the films, where renowned female directors are the rule and where casting couches aren't a fixture in the boss' office. It's not a futuristic fantasy but a world that existed 100 years ago, when Carl Laemmle's Universal Studios made feminist history.
Laemmle was a rebel producer in New York City who fought Thomas Edison's monopoly on moving pictures. He owned a string of nickelodeons and charged immigrants a few pennies to see one-reel films. Nickelodeons were such a booming business that Laemmle desperately needed product
