Alan Gevinson is the editor of Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960 (University of California Press, 1997), associate editor of The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States: Feature Films, 1931-1940 (University of California Press, 1993), and author of Library of Congress Motion Pictures, Broadcasting, Recorded Sound: An Illustrated Guide (Library of Congress, 2002). He is the curator of the exhibition Hope for America: Performers, Politics & Pop Culture at the Library of Congress (2010). He received a PhD in history from Johns Hopkins University and teaches history at George Mason University.