A 1921 article in Scientific American claimed that Hollywood films held "first place" in Britain, Western Europe, and South America and were poised to do the same in Africa, Central America, Eastern Europe, and Asia.(4) These claims were confirmed by the official trade statistics of the Department of Commerce; a few years later, an official of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (
BFCD) surveyed field reports from consular officers around the world and was struck by "the way America dominates the motion picture market nearly everywhere."(5)