The Spreading Dawn is a 1917 American silent drama film produced by Samuel Goldwyn in his first year of producing independently in his own studio and starring Broadway stage star Jane Cowl in her second and final silent film. It was directed by Laurence Trimble. The film is lost with a fragment, apparently only part of reel 3, surviving at the Library of Congress. This film was based on a short fiction The Spreading Dawn by Basil King that first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. It was later the title of a collection of short stories in 1927.