Summary Rituals of domestic happiness ‘History is not the prerogative of the historian’, Raphael Samuel once wrote. Indeed, in the last century ‘do-it-yourself’ history became a common domestic activity. Film and photography offered people new opportunities to record their own history. These media have become so popular that by now it is hard to imagine that someone does not have a photograph, a home movie or a home video. This book is about recording one’s own family on film with an amateur film camera. It explores the different meanings of home movie making as a new social and cultural practice of the twentieth century. It is a serious attempt to bring forward home movies as an important historical source. At first sight, home movies give us plain and easily recognizable images of family life. They have great authentic value that can hardly be surpassed by any other source. Home movies are about the happy life of happy people. In his manual ‘How to make your own movie’, author Dick Boer writes: ‘Making home movies is a hobby for people who want to experience the good moments of life and who wants to keep records of these moments’. Hobby, happy moments and the wish to preserve: these are three important elements of home movie making. In his book Dick Boer constructs an ideal image of an idyllic hobby. But home movie making is not quite as simple as it may appear. In fact, it is a rather complex practice. Consequently, this study explores the practice of home movie making on a historical as well as on a theoretical level. It makes clear that home movie making is not just about film, but also about fatherhood and motherhood, about the role of industry, about media technology and the emergence of a consumption culture, and about the relation between visual culture, cinema, memory and family history. The first part of the book is about the history of amateur film. This history cannot be separated from the history of the family. As the film camera came to occupy an increasingly important place in the private sphere, ...