Civic Culture at the Cinema: Local Public Life and Cinemagoing in Inter-War Britain

Abstract

Despite burgeoning scholarship on British civic culture, the inter-war cinema is still characterised as commercial entertainment divorced from social citizenship. However, cinemagoing was a key means of participation in the local public sphere. This article reveals the ‘public’ functions of cinemas, namely their deep involvement in philanthropy, civic rituals, and associational life. It shows the ways in which cinemas effectively integrated into traditional forms of civic culture whilst also rendering this culture more democratic in the process. This article seeks to dismantle the false dichotomy maintained between the commercial and the civic in historical analysis of everyday life in inter-war Britain.