The Hollywood Trust: Trade Associations and the Rise of the Studio System offers a rare look at the Hollywood trade organizations that rose during the early years of cinema. This book offers a detailed account of three successive trade organizations from 1915 to 1928: the Motion Picture Board of Trade, the National Association of the Motion Picture Industry (NAMPI), and the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The book shows how trade organizations acted as the forum for internal and external conflicts as well as the facilitators for cooperative action on censorship, public relations, government regulation, film distribution, and other issues.

Kia Afra has worked in the film and television industry as a director, editor, and sound recordist. Afra has taught film history at Brown University and Moorpark College and his articles have appeared in Film History, Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and Cinema Journal.