However "innovative" work of the country's groundbreaking female documentarians is now being championed by a new generation.
The Scottish collective Invisible Women have helped to spotlight their films, as part of wider work focused around forgotten women in the film industry. Yet they were both filmmakers themselves throughout the 1930s, with Ruby creating work such as the pacifist film People of Britain and wartime propaganda piece They Also Serve, while youngest sibling Marion created a series of travelogues.Ms Baier, who lives in Edinburgh, explained: "They got a foot in the door as script girls and other jobs on set with John Grierson, but then they started making their own films.
Tragically, Ruby died while filming British children being evacuated to Canada in 1940 during World War II. Throughout March and April the group will screen a series of films at the Glasgow Film Theatre from Dorothy Arzner, widely regarded as the only female director working in Hollywood throughout the 1930s and 40s.Ms Clarke believes that understanding the past can also help modern women working in the film industry.