General
Prelinger Archives (founded 1982), the largest privately held collection
of 20th-century American advertising, educational, industrial and amateur films
(and possibly the largest such collection in existence), is an unparalleled
historical and cultural resource. It
collects "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial) films;
historical and actuality footage; documentary films; and amateur films/home
movies. Its holdings constitute a
vast resource of imagery documenting both familiar and obscure aspects of
twentieth-century North American culture and society: its life, leisure,
history, industry, technology and landscape.
The archives focuses primarily on collecting, cataloging and documenting
films not held in other repositories, and attempts to preserve a broad
cross-section of ephemeral film for the use of scholars, researchers, producers
and interested members of the general public.
Since its organization in 1983, Prelinger Archives has served a wide
spectrum of patrons, including scholars, researchers, media producers, artists
and members of the general public. It
has furnished moving image material to thousands of film, television, multimedia
and other productions. Income from
stock footage licensing has sustained the archives, facilitated its rapid
growth, subsidized access for noncommercial users and permitted the rescue of
important collections that would otherwise never have been saved.
Though Prelinger Archives is one of a dwindling number of historical
moving image collections that remain under independent ownership, it is
currently represented for stock footage sales by Archive Films and The Image
Bank, subsidiaries of Getty Images.
The archives holds some 45,000 completed films; an estimated 30,000 cans
or rolls of unedited footage; and approximately 250 hours of amateur film.
The total can count exceeds 125,000.
A considerable amount of post-1935 footage is in color.
Of the completed films, it is estimated that 24,000 titles represent
sponsored films; 20,000 educational films; and 1,000 newsreels, entertainment
and television films. Approximately
60% of the completed films are in the public domain.
The collection continues to grow rapidly.
Videotape masters (approx. 600 hours) or viewing copies exist for
approximately 5,000 films and units of unedited footage in the collection.
Master tapes are generally Betacam SP, 1" and D2; viewing copies
generally 3/4" and VHS. Almost
all viewing and research is done with videotape copies; an Elmo film-to-tape
transfer unit is used in house to transfer 16mm positive film to videotape.
With few exceptions, Prelinger Archives has avoided collecting
productions that originate on videotape or videotape transfers from film for
which no film element is held. Our
priority is to collect endangered ephemeral film material, and the issues raised
by collecting videotape (format obsolescence, the necessity for recopying and
for retaining equipment capable of playing back obsolete formats) would severely
stretch our capabilities.
Coverage begins in 1903 and extends into the 1980s.
Preprint materials (original film elements or printing elements used in
the manufacture of copies for projection) are held on some 18,000 (approximately
40%) of the completed film titles in the collection.
This is a significant issue as far as ephemeral films are concerned.
Given the extremely large number produced and the specialized nature of
many titles, it is highly unlikely that funding will ever be available to
preserve a broad cross-section of the genre.
The existence of high-quality preprint materials, therefore, increases
the chance that the film will survive over time, and makes possible the
production of higher-quality copies in the future.
Content
and Significance
Ephemeral films were generally produced to fulfill specific objectives at
specific times, and most often were not considered to be of value afterwards.
In retrospect, they provide unparalleled evidence of the visual
appearance and ambiance of their time, and function as rich, evocative, and
often entertaining documentation of the American past.
Included in the collection are films produced by and for many hundreds of
important U.S. corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations,
community and interest groups, and educational institutions.
The collection currently contains over 10% of the total production of
ephemeral film between 1927 and 1987, and is arguably the most complete and
varied collection in existence of films from these poorly-preserved genres.
Tracing the history of public policy, popular culture, corporate culture,
commercial speech and sociopolitical discourse through much of the century, the
collection contains films representing a broad spectrum of points of view and
achieves great depth in many important subject areas.
The collection is an important primary research and teaching resource for
scholars and researchers in many fields, including American studies, history,
political science, business and labor history, media and communications, art
history, cinema studies, cultural theory, gender studies, material culture,
anthropology, and ethnography.
Frequently offering more than just evidence, ephemeral films document
past persuasions and anxieties. They
show us not only how we were, but how we were supposed to be.
Most of the films in Prelinger Archives were produced to promote
products, corporations or ideas; to educate, convince or to propagandize.
Consequently, the points of view they represent are often as interesting
as the images they include, and many of the seemingly antiquated perspectives
they espouse may in fact foretell our future as much as they recall our past.
Industry statistician and ephemeral film historian Thomas W. Hope
estimates that almost 400,000 ephemeral films were produced between 1917 and the
late 1970s. Although ephemeral
films constitute the numerically dominant genre in American film production,
archives have focused very little attention on preserving these often
historically and culturally important works, and many important titles appear no
longer to survive. Few repositories
focus their collecting efforts in this area, and the dissolution of many
production companies has resulted in the disposal of their materials.
Cataloging
and Database
Prelinger Archives maintains a database of film and videotape materials
in its collection that presently totals over 36,800 filmographic records.
The database includes physical inventory information, filmographic data,
shelf location, and, for many films, extensive visual and textual description.
The database is maintained in FileMaker Pro and is structured so as to
permit export into different database formats when and if this may be desired.
Each identifiable "cut" (completed) film is represented by a
distinct record, which lists all film or videotape elements associated with that
title in the "Holdings" field. Unedited
or raw footage, outtakes, amateur films and other materials not characterizable
as "cut" films is represented by a record for every can or container.
If all moving image materials currently held in Prelinger Archives were
fully accessioned and cataloged, we estimate the database would contain
approximately 75,000 records.
In addition, paper records, inventory sheets and finding aids exist or
have been prepared for approximately 5,000 additional items. As of yet, this information has not, for the most part, been
incorporated into the database.
Information in the database is derived from inspection of physical
elements, content analysis, third-party sources such as catalogs and reference
books, and material found in trade publications.
An effort is made to authority check database information on a regular
basis and to maintain high editorial standards. While certain records are densely detailed and editorially
sound, others are little more than simple physical inventory records.
However, inventory and cataloging work is continually in process and
constitutes a major part of the day-to-day activity around the collection.
Collections
Summary
This summary describes distinct motion picture collections acquired as
such by Prelinger Archives. It also
describes additional film materials by genre or subject matter when such
materials either were not acquired as part of a distinct collection, or in cases
where description by genre may be more meaningful than description by
collection.
Many items in the archives were acquired individually or extracted from
miscellaneous accumulations of film, and are not described as part of the
collections below.
Item counts and statistics represent best estimates and are designed to
err on the side of conservatism, but are naturally subject to revision and
inventory. ABILENE
CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY COLLECTION (ca. 1930s-1960s, 569 titles, 16mm; release
prints).
Abilene Christian University (Abilene, Texas) at one time maintained a
distribution library of educational and sponsored films, but placed the material
into storage for an estimated twenty years prior to 1996. The collection includes many release prints that appear to
have seen little or no use, and are thus in unusually good condition.
An estimated 25% of the collection is in color, mostly dye-stable
Kodachrome and ECO prints. Key subject areas include geography, economics, persuasion
and propaganda, social guidance, psychology and political science.
The collection contains a significant group of "free enterprise
education" films, produced by organizations such as the National Education
Program, that reflect free-market, anti-government interventionist ideology.
Most of these films were produced in the 1950s and early 1960s and were
intended for lunchtime workplace showings.
There is also a strong collection of World War II-era public information
and propaganda films produced by U.S. government agencies and civilian
organizations. Other key
educational titles include rare Kodachrome prints of Dating: Do's and Don'ts
(Coronet, 1949) and High School Prom (Coronet, 1958).
The entire collection has been inventoried and/or catalogued in the
archival database.
ALAMEDA
COUNTY (CALIFORNIA) PUBLIC SCHOOLS MEDIA CENTER COLLECTION (1940s-1970s,
approx. 500 titles, 16mm, release prints, color and black and white).
This typical media center collection contains educational films produced
by commercial producers and about 50 titles sponsored by corporations and
nonprofit organizations. Titles
include The Safflower Story (Pacific Vegetable Oil Corp.), Collegebound
(University of California at Berkeley) and Naturally a Girl (Personal
Products Division of Johnson & Johnson).
There is a significant collection of television programs produced by
National Educational Television (NET), and a number of documentaries originally
produced and aired by San Francisco educational TV station KQED.
A small but significant subset of the collection is made up of films
produced in or about the San Francisco Bay Area.
Condition varies from average to excellent.
Approximately 50% of the material is in color, and of that approximately
20% is Kodachrome or Ektachrome. Also
included in the holdings figure above is an undetermined but small number of
films originating from the Berkeley (Calif.) Public Schools media center.
AMATEUR
FILM COLLECTIONS (not elsewhere classified) (1915-1980, 16mm (approx. 75%), 35mm
(a small amount), 8mm and Super 8mm (approx. 25%), approx. 300 hours; mostly
reversal original).
Although widespread archival interest in amateur film is a relatively new
phenomenon, Prelinger Archives has been collecting these most ephemeral of all
films since its inception. It may
seem odd that a collection like ours, so devoted to the collection of
institutional and corporate expression, maintains an active interest in
personally produced "home movies" and unpublished amateur productions,
but this is in fact highly consistent with our interest in preserving the
history of everyday life and culture. As
personal, rather than institutional, expression, amateur film documents evidence
and histories that might otherwise go unrecorded, and contributes to a narrative
that is still almost completely untold: the story of individuals and their
engagement with the filmmaking process.
As shown in our extensive collection of amateur film, the camera was
witness to quotidian events and special ceremonies of many types, recording not
only what the makers wished to record but also an immensely rich world of
unconscious and unprocessed behavior. Ethnographers
and psychologists have long realized that home movies can be keys to
understanding body language, gender roles and relations, kinship and conflict.
Filmmakers, especially independent and documentary producers, are now
looking to amateur film for fresher
and more incisive visions of the past that will resonate with viewers' personal
experience. Of the hundreds of
incipient films waiting to be made from material in our archives, many of the
most compelling might be made from amateur film.
Most of our amateur material is held as part of distinct collections, a
few of which are described in this summary.
A large number of odd reels and miscellaneous amateur material was
acquired on a casual basis from flea markets, auctions and collectors, and there
are also amateur films that are contained within larger collections. Approximately 15% of the amateur film material has been put
through a preliminary cataloging and identification process.
Much of the information garnered through this process is now part of our
archival database, but some shotlists and content analysis is still in paper
form.
Subject areas covered and highlights include: family and leisure
activities in the United States and Canada, beginning ca. 1925; picketing and
strike activities by United Auto Workers of America (CIO) members in Michigan
(ca. 1937-38); V-J celebrations and postwar homecomings in San Francisco, 1945;
extensive coverage of U.S. and foreign travel; views of industrial towns and
landscapes in West Virginia, Ohio and Michigan; coverage of affluent families
and their home and leisure activities in Connecticut, Indiana, California,
Massachusetts and other states; a small collection of films picturing the life
of an affluent white family in Little Rock, Arkansas and their relationship with
African American domestic workers in their employ (early 1930s); films from a
Filipino American family in northern California (late 1950s-early 1960s); a
number of dramatic films produced by amateur filmmakers; and World's Fairs,
especially New York 1939-40, San Francisco 1939-40 and New York 1964-65.
AMERICAN
TELEPHONE & TELEGRAPH CO. / BELL SYSTEM / WESTERN ELECTRIC FILMS
(1930s-1970s, ca. 120 titles, 35mm and 16mm; original elements, printing
elements and release prints).
Prior to its breakup, AT&T (together with its related companies) was
one of the most prolific corporate media producers in North America.
Our holdings begin in the mid-1920s with How to Use a Dial Telephone,
produced in Fresno, California, and extend through the late 1950s and early
1960s, when AT&T produced a number of big-budget Technicolor spectaculars.
This group of films was made both for internal and external use, and
ranges from training to institutional and promotional films.
The collection traces the history of AT&T and its various
subsidiaries and operating companies, including Western Electric, Southwestern
Bell, New Jersey Bell and New York Telephone.
Key titles include A Nation at Your Fingertips (1951), on the
development of customer-dialed long distance calling; Once Upon a Honeymoon (1956),
a Hollywood-style musical directed by Gower Champion, on the telephone as design
accessory in the modern home; Century 21 Calling (1962), on innovations
in consumer communications technology, photographed against the backdrop of the
Seattle World's Fair; and Just Imagine!(1948), a stop-motion animation
film showing the assembly of a telephone set from hundreds of small parts.
We also hold 35mm color negatives and optical tracks on four of the Bell
System Science Series films, produced by Frank Capra Productions; these
films were seen by millions of American students and remain in distribution
today.
The collection is approximately 75% color.
Of the color material, about 33% is Eastmancolor print, the remainder
Kodachrome, color reversal or IB Technicolor.
Approximately 25% of the collection is held in preprint form.
Almost all of the collection has been catalogued or inventoried in our
database.
ATLANTA,
GEORGIA PUBLIC SCHOOLS / GEORGIA STATE LIBRARY COLLECTIONS (1930s-1950s, ca. 860
titles, 16mm; release prints)
The preponderance of these collections (which were acquired at the same
time from the same source) is nationally released educational films, but they
also contains significant holdings of regionally produced educational films and
a number of rare sponsored film titles.
Films from the 1960s and later are not represented in these collections,
which sat in storage for many years until we acquired them.
They serve, therefore, as a kind of "time capsule" that
indicates the nature of a typical urban educational library of 1950s vintage.
Subject areas of special interest include tuberculosis and its treatment;
the Southern textile industry (The Greater Goal); optics and human
vision; and numerous social guidance films.
One unusual title, The Alchemist in Hollywood, was produced by
Consolidated Film Industries in the 1930s and focuses on the chemistry of motion
picture processing. There are a number of scarce films by Sid Davis Productions
(5 titles); 220 Coronet titles; 101 Encyclopaedia Britannica titles; and 9
titles released by Almanac Films.
Approximately 15% of the collections are color, almost all Kodachrome and
ECO. Many of the color release
prints are in excellent condition, and in fact the overall condition of these
collections is much better than usual for release print collections. All titles have been inventoried or catalogued in our
database.
IVAN
BESSE COLLECTION (1938-39, 150 minutes, 16mm; camera original)
Ivan Besse, a projectionist at the Strand Theatre in Britton (Marshall
County), South Dakota, produced his amateur films as an attempt to increase
midweek attendance at the theatre during the Depression. With camera in hand, he ventured onto Main Street, then
throughout town and finally all over the county, shooting passersby, parades,
proms and public works projects. When each three-minute film came back from the
lab in Chicago, he turned it into a kind of self-published newsreel, screening
it on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings accompanied by his humorous, live
narration.
The one hundred and fifty minutes of Ivan Besse's films document the
great and small events of 1938-39 in a town that most of us will otherwise never
get to visit. They depict a small-scale, intimately featured landscape -- and
provide a richly detailed snapshot of human activity in a public space known as
Main Street. They also document landscape in one of its most profound senses: a
shared arena in which people work, desire and interact, experiencing a place and
leaving behind traces of their labors and activities.
Finally, they show the "dirty Thirties" in a manner that
transcends historical and institutional cliché.
In sum, this is one of the most important amateur film collections in the
archives, forming a rich record of life in the Great Plains during the
Depression.
In spring 1991, the films were brought back to the Strand Theatre and
shown at a special screening narrated by Ivan Besse himself. The event received national publicity and demonstrated the
remarkable power of amateur film as a means of stimulating consciousness of
local history. We hold a
videotape transfer of the collection narrated by Ivan Besse, in which he
identifies people and places contained in the films and offers his personal
interpretation of the events they show.
BETHEL
COLLEGE COLLECTION (1940s-1980s, approx. 188 titles, approx. 270 cans, 16mm,
release prints, color and black and white)
This collection was donated to Bethel College (North Newton, Kansas) by
Glenn D. McMurry, an alumnus who served as distribution chief for the National
Audiovisual Center. It consists of
release prints of primarily U.S. Government-produced films, most apparently
distributed at one time by the Center, plus a number of non-Government produced
titles, probably acquired for showing within U.S. Government agencies.
Prior to our acquiring the collection, some prints were given to the
Library of Congress and the Kansas Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, Kans.)
Titles, many of which are part of familiar government film series, range
from the quotidian (Cathode Ray Oscilloscope, Building a Wooden Rib) to
the unusual (Management of Mass Casualties: Psychological Casualties, A
Planned Town). A number of
titles, especially those produced by components of the U.S. Department of
Defense, appear to be difficult to obtain outside Federal agencies in ordinary
situations. In fact, since NAVC
drastically reduced its distribution collection several years ago, most of these
titles are no longer easily obtainable except through special order.
One title, My Trip Abroad, concerns the life of a German exchange
student in the United States, and was apparently directed or produced by Glenn
McMurry.
The collection appears to be in good to excellent condition.
All items are shelved and catalogued in our database.
BONOMO
COLLECTION (1928-68, approx. 10,000 feet, 28 items, 16mm, black and white and
color; reversal original and one release print)
This amateur film collection, donated by the Bonomo family, consists of
family home movies shot by Nathan Levy of Briston Street, Bronx, N.Y. (1928-49).
Mr. Levy was father of Rosakate Bonomo, donor of the collection.
There is coverage family activities, rituals and vacations, including
Lake Sunapee, N.H. (1930s); Miami, Florida (1936 and 1943-44); Key West (1947);
California (ca. 1930s-40s); and a honeymoon at Grossinger's Hotel in the
Catskills (1949). One reel, shot by
Mr. Levy, shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt opening two public works
projects coordinated by Robert Moses: the Whitestone Bridge and LaGuardia
Airport, New York City (1939). There
is also one release print (1000 feet) recording a Spanish lesson taught by
Rosakate Bonomo's husband in the New York City public schools.
The collection is in very good to excellent condition, with no sign of
vinegar syndrome. All items have
been inventoried and records are in our database.
LOUISE
BRANCH COLLECTION (ca. late 1930s-mid 1950s, approx. 30 titles, 200 cans, 60%
16mm, 40% 35mm (nitrate and safety); an additional six boxes of material remain
uncatalogued at this time; original elements, release prints, outtakes and
unedited footage).
Louise Branch, a member of a prominent family in Richmond, Virginia, made
films relating to post-World War II relief efforts, the prevention of cruelty to
animals, dog training, and Mexican art and culture. The collection includes cut films and unedited footage in
these areas; color reversal footage of Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House and
neon signs in New York's Times Square, circa 1940; and substantial
family-related material, documenting the life and activities of a comfortable
family living on a Virginia plantation, and picturing African American
plantation workers. We believe this
collection will yield many items of great historical interest when it is
completely catalogued.
The condition of this material varies.
Many of the films need recanning, conservation work and identification.
In addition to the material described and tabulated above, there are six
unopened cartons of miscellaneous material whose nature is now yet known.
BROOKLYN
CHILDREN'S MUSEUM COLLECTION (ca. 1930s-1970s, 150 cans, 16mm, release prints)
Deaccessioned by the Museum in 1995, the collection consists of
commercially acquired educational films, mostly relating to nature, science and
the arts. There are also four
locally produced films (sponsored by Brooklyn Botanical Garden and the Museum
itself).
The collection is in fair to very good condition.
About ten items have been damaged by poor handling in the past.
The collection is partially inventoried in our database at this time.
CALVIN
PRODUCTIONS / CALVIN LABORATORIES (ca. 1935-1981, approx. 1,800 titles, 3,500
boxes and 500 cans, 99.9% 16mm, mostly color and black-and-white reversal, the
remainder 35mm and 9.5mm; representing approx. 25,000 distinct film rolls;
original elements, printing elements, approx. 200 release prints, outtakes and
overs). Approximately 1,710 titles are held in preprint form,
totaling approximately 1,026,000 feet. We
hold release prints on approximately 200 titles, totaling approximately 120,000
feet. Finally, we hold between 7
and 10 million feet of outtakes, "overs" and other unedited footage;
75% of this material is color reversal, 25% black-and-white reversal, a trace
amount being negative and print.
The Calvin Company, first organized in 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri, was
throughout its life a technical innovator and creative force within the
nontheatrical film industry. Calvin
was an early developer of 16mm release printing and sound-on-film technology,
and a prolific producer until it ceased operations in the early 1980s.
The Calvin collection, which is made up almost exclusively of preprint
material and outtakes, contains both its own productions and film elements held
on behalf of laboratory clients. The
majority of the cut films are sponsored productions; others are educational
films. Many of these titles appear
to possess great historical or cultural significance, if their titles and
sponsors are any judge, but few have been seen.
Sponsors include Southwestern Bell Telephone, Caterpillar Tractor, D-X
Sunray Oil Company, the University of Oklahoma, Westinghouse, the Reorganized
Church of Latter-Day Saints, and numerous nonprofit, educational and community
organizations throughout the Midwest and Southwest. The coverage of mid-America is excellent and wide-ranging.
There are approximately 200 early 16mm industrial and sponsored films
(1931-1940); many old Calvin in-house productions shot in around Kansas City,
showing street scenes, local landmarks and activities; and numerous films from
small production companies in the lower Midwest, mountain states and Southwest.
The outtake collection is primarily drawn from in-house productions, and
contains a vast array of imagery. In
sum, this collection will take a great deal of time to catalogue, but promises
to contain a great deal of fascinating material.
We hold a number of early films directed by Robert Altman when he was a
staff director at Calvin, made in the early 1950s before his first feature The
Delinquents. These titles
include The Magic Bond (produced for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, 1956)
and The Sound of Bells (produced for B.F. Goodrich Co., early 1950s).
Also held is a selection of the Calvin Workshop films, produced by
and for attendees of the annual Calvin Workshops, held to orient, educate and
improve the work of nontheatrical filmmakers.
Often intentionally amusing, these films document the culture and
consciousness of this industry, about which little has been written.
Almost all the Calvin material is stored in an offsite storage facility.
Cut films for which we have preprint (except for approx. 600
uninventoried titles) are included in our database, but at this time they are
not accessible by specific location.
CITIZENS
FOR DECENT LITERATURE COLLECTION (ca. 1964-66, 2 cans, 2,400 feet, 16mm, color)
Citizens for Decent Literature was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, by
several Catholic laymen in the late 1950s.
One cofounder, Charles Keating, was later to become well-known in
conjunction with the savings and loan debacle of the 1980s.
As part of its crusade against obscenity and pornography, CDL produced
several films, two of which exist in our collection. Perversion for Profit (ca. 1964), narrated by Los
Angeles television personality George Putnam, rails against newsstand obscenity
and includes numerous examples of obscene and pornographic publications.
Printed Poison (ca. 1966) is a similar film with dramatized
sequences. Both films have great
value as documents of the continuing contention between free speech advocates
and the anti-pornography movement, and deserve to be seriously studied as
complex tracts of persuasion.
Both films are Eastmancolor release prints and undergoing fading.
However, these are uncommon titles whose historical value may outweigh
their degraded condition. Both are
in the public domain.
GEORGE
B.C. CLARK COLLECTION (1920s-1960s, 475 titles, 35mm and 16mm, approx. 400,000
feet, 99% release prints, 1% preprint)
George B.C. Clark, a longtime resident of the New Jersey shore area,
worked as a motion picture projectionist and collected a wide variety of film
over many years. This collection
comes to us through his daughter, a professional magician residing in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. Mr. Clark strove to
collect rare film material and at several points worked with the American Film
Institute and Library of Congress, donating nitrate film for preservation.
Our portion of the Clark collection includes everything except highly
deteriorated nitrate film and his erotic film collection, neither of which was
made available to us. The
collection spans many genres, including features, studio shorts, cartoons,
educational and industrial films, home movies, newsreels, trailers, musical
films (approx. 150 Soundies and Telescriptions), burlesque shorts, and much
miscellany. Many of the cans and
containers still hold Mr. Clark's obsessively detailed notes about the state of
the films and when they were screened. Together
the collection offers a well-rounded picture of a typical film collector's
tastes in the 1940s through 1960s. That
said, however, the collection also contains a number of unusual titles and
rarities.
In addition to dozens of titles distributed for home use by Official
Films, Castle Films, Niles and other companies serving film collectors in the
pre-video era, the collection contains such items as: Travel Time:
Freedomland (1963), a promo for the ill-fated Bronx amusement park in the
shape of the United States; twelve episodes of The Clue (late 1940s, ea.
10 min), an episodic detective series asking the audience to solve the mystery
at hand; The Cougar Hunt (ca. 1920s), a very old Federal Government film
on sanctioned hunting to control livestock losses; It's Fun to Reduce
(1955); Maintenance of Roads (U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, ca. 1920s); The
Human Bridge (1949), a Ford Motor Company-sponsored film peeking behind the
locked doors of the company's design and styling division; Through the Day at
Haines House (Dr. E.N. Altfather, ca. 1930s), showing life and activities at
a Presbyterian church camp and mission home for Alaskan children; and The
Road of Tomorrow (sponsored by Esso Standard Oil Company, ca. 1930s), on the
newly constructed Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Feature-length films (about 10) in the collection include The Forsaken
Jew, Jim the Penman, and The Lady Says No.
Cartoon series represented in the collection include: The Little King
series; Kiko the Kangaroo (Terrytoons); Private Snafu (Warner
Bros. for U.S. Army); Mr. Magoo; Felix the Cat; George Pal Puppetoons; Mickey
Mouse and many others.
The collection is 95% 16mm, 5% 35mm.
All but a few items have been inventoried and entered in the database,
excepting only some 35mm material and a few hard-to-identify items.
Condition of most films is good to very fine, except approx. 5% that have
been damaged by heat or water in the past.
SAMUEL
DATLOWE / SUN DIAL FILMS COLLECTION (1920s-1950s, ca. 60 items, 35mm and 16mm,
preprint and release prints, nitrate and safety)
This collection was obtained from the family of Samuel G. Datlowe,
producer and principal in Sun Dial Films, Inc., a New York-based production
company specializing in sponsored and educational films. It includes release prints for a number of films produced by
Sun Dial, including its most famous production, Preface to a Life (1950),
on child psychology. There are also
a number of family films.
In addition, there is a 35mm nitrate negative (4 reels) on The Babe
Ruth Story (ca. 1920s) and various other elements on that film. Relating to this film are also several binders of
documentation, logs and shot lists. We
also hold a small number of items documenting Mr. Datlowe's life and work in the
motion picture industry.
The collection is at present uninventoried and uncatalogued.
Condition ranges from good to very good, and there are at present no
signs of deterioration on The Babe Ruth Story.
DEARBORN
(MICHIGAN) PUBLIC LIBRARY COLLECTION (approx. 1,423 titles, 16mm; release
prints. A finding aid consisting of
partial copies of the Dearborn catalog cards is available).
The Dearborn Public Library collection was acquired on a continuing basis
as the City of Dearborn declared various subsets of it to be surplus property.
Our holdings include the entire "archival" portion of the film
collection (their term for noncirculating material of historic or artistic
value) and a large part of the remainder of the collection.
The collection was assembled largely by film librarian and scholar James
L. Limbacher, whose broad interests and open-minded perspectives on acquisition
resulted in the creation of an unusually diverse and interesting library.
It contains many rare sponsored films, a number of documentaries and
"films as art," and many educational films.
Well cared for by the Library, the collection is in better condition than
many other comparable collections. About
two-thirds of the color films which we have inspected are faded Eastmancolor;
the remainder Kodachrome or IB Technicolor.
Almost all titles have been inventoried and/or catalogued in our
database.
WALTER
ENGEL COLLECTION (1940s-1960s, 25 titles, 16mm, black and white and color,
release prints and 1 negative)
A gift of his daughter, the Engel collection contains television
commercials and a few sponsored films that Mr. Engel produced during his work
for his New York-based production company, Walter Engel Productions, and chose
to save when he retired. The
commercials include: a compilation of approx. 8 famous Chunky chocolate bar
spots, starring Arnold Stang; a compilation of "comedy in TV
commercials" (approx. 10 items); a selection of approx. 10 spots for
Newport cigarettes; 9 spots advertising Sunbeam bread (ca. 1960s); a roll of six
spots, including the famous "Think Small" spot for Volkswagen of
America, from the famous ad campaign created by Doyle Dane Bernbach; a roll of
spots from Grey Advertising; and a roll of spots from BBD&O. Longer films include: Greater Victory (National
Council of Christians and Jews, 1945), a dramatic vision of a post-World War II
world that has transcended racial and religious prejudice; two films for
American Bakeries Company, The Magic Bread Box and Menu Magic (ca.
1940s-1950s); Operation Big Chance, produced for Calso Chevron; and What
New Means (Ford Motor Company).
Also of note is New York World's Fair 1939 (16mm, 20 min., black
and white, negative only), with numerous views of the Fair. This appears to be an independently produced film in very
good to excellent condition.
The collection is in very good to excellent condition. A number of the TV spot compilation reels contain contents
lists. All items are inventoried in
our database.
JERRY
FAIRBANKS PRODUCTIONS (1940s-1970s, approx. 70 titles, 35mm and 16mm; release
prints. A few production records
are held).
Gerald "Jerry" Fairbanks (1909-1996) worked in Hollywood as
cinematographer, director and producer. His
early work on feature films gave way to a much-heralded career as a producer of
short subjects, including the Popular Science, Unusual Occupations and Speaking
of Animals series. In the late
1940s, he became a producer of films for television.
In the 1950s, he turned his attention to sponsored film production,
specializing in high-budget Hollywood-style industrial films.
Films in our collection representing his major clients include the Bell
System (Once Upon a Honeymoon and Decorating Unlimited),
Montgomery Ward & Co. (Styled in California), National Association of
Mortgage Bankers (The Road to Better Living), Chrysler-Plymouth, and a
number of conservative political organizations. His films exemplify sponsored film as art and product, and
continue to delight today's audiences.
The collection includes 35mm color preprint materials on a number of the Bell
System Science Series films, originally produced by Frank Capra Productions
and later reissued by Fairbanks's company.
Bearing familiar titles like About Time and Gateways to the
Mind, these films delighted school audiences throughout the 1960s and 1970s
and are still in homevideo release. Most
of the material in this collection, though, consists of Fairbanks' own studio
prints.
One key film, A Picture is Worth 2000 Words (produced ca.
1947-48), depicts the activities and product of the Fairbanks studios in
Hollywood, and offers a privileged (and unusual) glimpse inside an
industrial/sponsored film production company.
Century 21 Calling (1962), produced for the Bell System, is a tour
of the Seattle World's Fair and a preview of futuristic telephone innovations,
some of which remain with us today, some forgotten.
We also have three films in the Speaking of Animals series.
The collection is 75% color (mostly Kodachrome and IB Technicolor); 25%
black and white. Condition is good
to excellent, except for a few studio prints (duplicate copies) that were
cannibalized from time to time for replacement footage.
We hold a copy of Fairbanks' complete production list, which includes
many films not now known to exist or be obtainable, and a few other production
records.
FORD
FOUNDATION COLLECTION (ca. 1960s-1980s, approx. 17 titles, 16mm,
release prints)
Donated by the Ford Foundation, this uninventoried collection includes
films made by the Foundation to explain and publicize funding programs.
Most titles are approx. 30 min. and were probably produced or formatted
for half-hour TV slots.
The material has not yet been examined for condition or content.
FRITH
FILMS COLLECTION (ca. 1943-1970, approx. 88 titles, 16mm; release prints,
original and printing elements. Distribution
catalogs and some production records are held).
Emily Benton Frith produced educational films on home and farm life, the
activities of U.S. federal agencies, and middle-class life around the world.
Aimed mainly at elementary through junior-high level students, Frith's
films combine the visual style and language of amateur films with child-friendly
narration. However, their subject matter transcends banality.
As documents of farm life in the western San Fernando Valley prior to
urbanization (Fire: Patty Learns What To Do, Family Teamwork and Patty
Garman: Little Helper), Cold War-era homages to capitalism and individual
freedom (What It Means to Be an American, Bill Garman: 12-Year-Old
Businessman); and pleas for racial and intergroup tolerance (Mother
Mack's Puppies Find Happy Homes), they pack dense subtexts and offer a rich
visual record. Another series of
films combines social studies, geography and language instruction, visiting
children of middle-class families throughout the world.
As a whole, the collection includes original color reversal elements and
positive soundtracks for most titles, a number of duplicate negatives and
negative tracks, and the existing inventory of release prints maintained for
preview and sales purposes. All of
the color film materials are Anscochrome or Kodachrome, in very good to
excellent condition. Between 35 and
40 titles are listed in the database at this point.
We hold some production records, printed study guides for almost all of
the films, publicity stills, some sales records, and the Bell & Howell 16mm
camera with which Mrs. Frith shot the films.
In the 1970s, Mrs. Frith sold her production and distribution assets to
William Rusher of Carmel Valley, Calif., from whom we acquired them in 1985.
In addition to films directed and produced by Mrs. Frith, we also hold
several titles produced after she sold her company, including An
Afro-American Thing.
BERT
GOULD/BAY AREA ARCHIVES COLLECTION (1903-1970s, approx. 900 titles, 1,350 cans,
35mm and 16mm, nitrate and safety; original elements, printing elements and
release prints. Some production records, historical materials and
related still photographs are held. We
also hold various finding aids).
Bert Gould worked in the radio and motion picture industries for many
years and collected a substantial amount of film footage relating to Northern
California history and culture, centered on the San Francisco Bay Area.
He is a skilled preservationist, and over the years copied substantial
amounts of 35mm nitrate film to 16mm safety stock, but retained the original
nitrate whenever it was not severely deteriorated.
The collection is a highly significant historical resource relating to
this key region and contains a great deal of unique imagery.
Special strengths include early aviation (1910s-1940s); the
Panama-Pacific International Exposition (1915); shipping, railroads and
transportation; early cinematographic and sound experimentation; World War I;
Asians in California; trade and tourism on the Pacific Rim; sports; feats of
endurance and endeavor; labor history; post-earthquake real estate and
infrastructure development in the San Francisco Bay Area; political and social
history; early experimental animation, including the mud animation work of
Chinese American animator Joseph Sunn; early newsreels; and agriculture.
There are also 93 Universal Newsreel "locals" (stories centered
on the northern California region) dating from 1950 to 1957, all 35mm, which may
not survive elsewhere.
Also in the collection are a significant number of release prints
representing mostly sponsored films from the 1950s through 1970s. Industries represented include agribusiness, aerospace,
railroads, shipping and stevedoring, food processing, telephone and rubber.
Some of the films in this group, such as Why Braceros? (1959)
contain unusual imagery of minority groups in California.
The combination of the Bert Gould collection with the W.A. Palmer
Laboratories, Multichrome Laboratories, the University of California Extension
Media Center collection, the Frank Vail collection and the Vista Productions
collection (see below) constitutes a major documentary resource for the study of
California, especially its northern portion.
Collectively, these Northern California-oriented collections total over
6,000 titles (over 12,000 cans). The
majority of the Gould material appears to be unique to his collection.
The Gould collection is very complex and consists of many diverse
elements. Following is a summary of
the most significant groups of film elements.
The best way to derive an understanding of the collection, however, is to
examine his inventories plus other lists and finding aids in our possession.
As we acquired this collection in a number of stages, his correspondence
and packing lists is also well worth examining for descriptions of material not
listed earlier.
16mm reductions from 35mm nitrate.
This subset of the collection (about 550 cans) is perhaps most easily
accessible and best-documented. These
are usually positive finegrain masters, occasionally positive print, sometimes
reversal. There are also dupe
negatives of some material. We hold
a lot, but not nearly all, of the matching 35mm material.
Most all of the 16mm (and corresponding 35mm) is included in his
checklist. The physical condition
of the 16mm materials is excellent, but image quality will vary with the state
of the 35mm source material, some of which had deteriorated by the time it was
copied. Most of this material is
B&W except for tinted material, much of which relates to the Panama-Pacific
International Exposition.
35mm nitrate. Some
has been copied to 16mm as above; some has not.
Most, but not all of it, is enumerated in his checklist.
There is tinted material from the Panama-Pacific International Exposition
here, the Joseph Sunn cartoons, the 1934 longshore strike, and much more.
Subsequent to the original Gould purchase and shipment, he furnished us
with additional nitrate materials, which are mostly uncatalogued but shelved
with other Gould material. There
are early sound (Reiber-Metcalf, 1931) and color film tests (the Dunning
system). Most of the nitrate is in
good to excellent condition; a bit of it is in early stages of deterioration.
35mm safety. This
includes vintage as well as preservation safety materials.
One standout is a collection of Universal Newsreel San Francisco
"locals" (93 regionally specific stories, 1951-57) which may not exist
in other repositories. They are
enumerated in the checklist. Condition of the safety material is excellent.
Misc. 16mm materials and release prints (approx. 250 items).
These include amateur films of the Northern California region; Kodachrome
footage of area scenes and the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-40);
world travel footage; release prints (and sometimes preprint) of films relating
to San Francisco and Bay Area history and culture; release prints of industrials
made by and for San Francisco companies; a print of the Lenny Bruce performance
at the hungry "i" in San Francisco (ca. 1964); original elements on
William Hall's and Dave Butler's film "Peking Remembered" (1967); and
much more. There is also a complete
set of materials on the film of John Steinbeck's "Flight", including
preprint, a 35mm release print and production documentation.
(More to come.) A collection
of stock film from the California Redwood Association is also included.
Finally, there is material from the Reiber-Metcalf sound tests (1931),
copied to 16mm. Condition of all this material is very good to excellent, as
Bert Gould tended to junk film in a damaged or deteriorated state.
Documentation relating to the films and their subjects.
This includes copies of news clippings on aviation and historical events
and promotional material from early Bay Area film companies, including the Duhem
company. There are also a few
(approx. 20) still photos or frame enlargements from films in the collection.
GUILD
FILM LIBRARY (ca. late 1940s-early 1950s, approx. 150 rolls, 16mm, black and
white, release prints)
This collection is a syndicated stock film library apparently sold to
television stations in the early days of live production, when "library
footage" was "rolled in" as part of live programming.
In the form of a large box containing about 150 smaller, labeled boxes,
each itself containing a 100-foot reel of 16mm positive footage, the collection
is apparently designed to meet most stations' needs for generic stock scenes.
It contains U.S. and world cities and landmarks, some historical scenes,
weather, modes of transportation, industrial scenes, and generic location shots.
The origin and producer of the library is unknown.
The collection, not yet in our database, is accompanied by a mimeographed
checklist and inventory. The
condition of our materials is very good to excellent.
JAM
HANDY ORGANIZATION (1925-1980s, approx. 1,598 titles, 4,000 cans, 35mm and
16mm; preprint elements and release prints; some production records, promotional materials, in-house memoranda and still
photographs are also held. We also
hold card indexes and a variety of finding aids).
The Jam Handy Organization (JHO) (Detroit, Mich. plus satellite
production and sales offices located in other cities) was founded by Henry
Jamison "Jam" Handy (1886-1983) in 1917, and pursued film production
activities until 1968, when it was sold to Teletape Industries and operated
briefly under the name Teletape Detroit. Beginning
in the 1970s, JHO recommenced production under its own name, completing a
limited number of films until dissolving in the early 1980s.
Jam Handy was the son of Moses P. Handy, a Chicago newspaper editor and
promoter of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition.
Early in life, Jam Handy became acquainted with noted industrialists and
business figures, including Thomas A. Edison and John H. Patterson, founder of
National Cash Register. In the
1910s, Handy became conscious of persistent communication gaps between worker
and employer and between corporations and the public, and committed himself to
bridging these gaps through visual media. Beginning
this process by producing filmstrips (known then as slidefilms), he soon
expanded into motion picture production, traveling to revolutionary Mexico to
shoot his first film, an encounter with Pancho Villa sponsored by the Chicago
Tribune.
Patterson, Handy's intellectual mentor, was a strong believer in visual
education. Patterson had assembled
a library of tens of thousands of lantern slides, picturing transactions,
relationships, and industrial processes. By
combining these slides into sequences, he created specialized (and
idiosyncratic) narratives that anticipated still image sequences as embodied in
slidefilms. Handy built upon
Patterson's theories and created oblique and often distanced image sequences
designed to affect and convince viewers' minds in ways that conventional sales
or training pitches could not. Although
he is little known today, his contributions to the development of public
relations and commercial speech are immense.
The JHO quickly began producing films for major corporations such as
General Motors, RCA and duPont. Important
early titles represented in our collection include Troubles of a Merchant
(for National Cash Register, 1925) Sand on the Slippery Sidewalks of Sales (for
Frigidaire Division of General Motors, 1926), and General Motors Around the
World (for General Motors Export Corporation, 1927).
Most JHO films produced prior to the early 1930s apparently have not
survived, but we have extensive holdings beginning in 1933.
The Direct Selling Series (produced for the Chevrolet Division of
General Motors, 1935-41) epitomizes Handy's distinctive style and approach.
(We hold 35mm safety copies of over 100 titles in this series.)
These sponsored films contain no explicit advertising, although almost
all cars they show happen to be Chevrolets.
They present scientific and technological concepts and innovations in a
highly accessible manner, often with enthusiastically bombastic newsreel-type
narration. Examples include Magic
in the Air (1941, remade 1949 and 1955), on the promise of early television;
Precisely So (1937), on precision gauging and measurement; Spot News
(1937), on the transmission of photographs by wire; How You See It
(1937), an elegant explanation of persistence of vision in motion pictures; and Conquering
Roads (1938), picturing new highway design prototypes.
Also in this series are several key films picturing workers, labor
processes, work life and community life during the Depression. Master Hands
(for Chevrolet, 1936), believed to be unique to our collection, presents the
process of automobile manufacturing as a Wagnerian elemental drama, and is an
excellent example of "capitalist realism," using the representational
techniques of the Soviet cinema to promote free-enterprise activities. From
Dawn to Sunset (for Chevrolet, 1937), a portrait of a day in the life of a
composite General Motors worker, shows factories, streetscapes and daily life in
twelve cities where Chevrolet had plants, and represents a complex and
antagonistic response to the birth of the United Auto Workers and the union's
recent victory in General Motors plants.
The Direct Mass Selling series also includes a number of
Technicolor cartoons, for which we hold 35mm safety copies, including A Coach
for Cinderella (1936), reputed to be the first sponsored film produced in
three-strip Technicolor; and four others, all faintly promoting Chevrolet motor
vehicles. Other films in the series
contain fascinating examples of stop-motion animation, still unattributed but
resembling the European work of Oskar Fischinger.
The Jam Handy collection also contains a significant number of World War
II-era films produced both by private industry and the Federal Government.
Many of the privately sponsored films picture wartime activities from a
perspective that is rarely seen by researchers today.
The collection covers the 1950s and 1960s extensively, with numerous
films (often in color) produced by and for industries such as automobile, steel,
chemicals, electrical utilities and building materials.
Many films that constitute important historical documents in themselves,
including Give Yourself the Green Light (for General Motors Public
Relations, 1954), produced to rally public support for legislation to enable the
Interstate Highway System; New Neighbor (for U.S. Steel, 1953), on the
planning and construction of the Fairless Hills mill and the adjacent suburb of
Levittown, Pa.; and American Engineer (for Chevrolet, 1951), a
Technicolor extravaganza on the extraction of raw materials and their
incorporation into the modern automobile, and, not incidentally, an assertion of
American self-sufficiency in wartime.
Broad social and cultural themes expressed in this period include the
articulation of a consumerist ethos, the celebration of design and styling,
American economic protectionism, the transition from mechanically based to
electronically based technologies, American car culture, and the development of
postwar suburbia. Since it includes
so many films produced by America's largest and most influential corporations,
the JHO collection constitutes a particularly privileged (and often tendentious)
view of these themes.
In addition to its breadth and richness, the JHO collection reflects the
idiosyncrasies of its primary creative influence, Jam Handy himself.
The films are quite unlike the products of other production companies, at
times reflecting a persistent nineteenth-century sensibility, even well into the
atomic age. They frequently employ
Brechtian alienation or estrangement techniques, which often appear quite out of
place in a business-oriented setting.
The JHO collection comprises a complex array of film elements.
Here is a basic description of some of its components.
Release prints from the in-house preview print collection (known
internally as the "Sales Example" collection).
Some of these have been recanned, while others still reside in their
original fiber cases and are known as Sales "A", Sales "B",
etc. These are mostly all 16mm
except for certain standouts, like our 3 IB Tech prints of Max Fleischer's Rudolph,
the Red-Nosed Reindeer, produced by Jam Handy for Montgomery Ward (1948) and
the 110 35mm prints from the Direct Mass Selling series (1935-41).
Condition of these materials is excellent.
About half of these are black and white, half color; of the color, 85%
are stable Kodachrome and ECO, 15% Eastman.
Preprint materials. We
hold a number of JHO films in preprint form, primarily from the safety film era.
35mm vintage release prints. These
include black and white and color 35mm prints of approx. 110 films in the Direct
Mass Selling series (1935-41), all on safety stock.
This series includes very significant titles like Master Hands, From
Dawn to Sunset and Leave It to Roll-Oh, all of which we believe to be
unique to this collection, and many others.
IB Tech prints in this group include the Chevrolet promotional cartoons A
Coach for Cinderella, A Ride for Cinderella, Peg-Leg Pedro, One Bad Knight
and Nicky Nome Rides Again. The
latter four we believe to be unique. We
also hold 35mm Technicolor prints on American Harvest, American Engineer,
American Maker and American Look, the last three also in SuperScope.
There are also 35mm color prints of other films (see database).
Production records and promotional material.
We have production number records, vault records, production completion
notices, music cue cards and sheets, promotional brochures, scrapbooks of
promotional and marketing materials (1920s-1940s), several dozen still
photographs, a "pitch book" for AMERICAN LOOK prepared by Jam Handy
for their presentation to their client Chevrolet, and miscellaneous similar
material. Production records are
not always complete, but tend to cover most of Handy's productions from the
1930s through 1968. There are also
two binders containing several hundred sales information sheets, originally
intended for the orientation of company salespeople (known as "contact
men"). These sheets reveal the
intentions and audience(s) for several hundred films (approx. 1946-68) and
provide a rare window into the strategy and practices of the sponsored film
industry.
HARDCASTLE
FILM ASSOCIATES / HARDCASTLE FILMS (1940s-1980s, 158 titles, approx. 450 cans,
mostly 16mm; original elements, printing elements, release prints and stock
footage).
Hardcastle (St. Louis, Missouri) produced films for Southwestern Bell
Telephone, Anheuser-Busch, Monsanto, Heritage Homes, Six Flags over Mid-America,
the Dairy Council of St. Louis and numerous community and regional associations
and organizations.
The collection contains extensive coverage of industrial, commercial,
recreational and philanthropic activities in eastern Missouri and in the upper
Mississippi Valley, and documents St. Louis as a thriving metropolis.
Several early films directed by Charles Guggenheim promote community and
social service organizations. Sample
titles include Two Little Rats and How They Grew, Posture and Personality
and And One to Grow On, all produced for the Dairy Council of St. Louis.
As Others See Us (1953), another Dairy Council-sponsored film, was
designed to train high-school students in the rules of social etiquette, and
shows the cafeteria, the prom, and other social events at Webster Groves High
School. Two 1930s-era films
produced for the St. Louis department store Stix, Baer and Fuller show internal
store operations, the life of employees and a trip to New York City's garment
district by a store buyer.
The Kodachrome stock footage collection includes imagery of 1940s and
1950s St. Louis, its industries and institutions, including coverage of the
African American community. Other
unedited footage was shot for the CBS News Special documentary Sixteen
In Webster Groves (1966), Arthur Barron's famous film on youth and their
attitudes, and for a followup documentary on Webster Groves ten years later.
A few of the cut films were not produced by Hardcastle, but were held in
their storage vaults when their collection came to us.
We hold title lists and paper inventory records, and have inventoried
between 60 and 70 titles in our database. The
condition of the material is generally good to excellent, except for some early
Kodachrome footage and several magnetic tracks that suffer from vinegar
syndrome.
HIGHWAY
SAFETY FILMS, INC. COLLECTION (1960s-1970s, approx. 35 titles, 16mm; original
elements, printing elements and release prints).
Highway Safety Films (Mansfield, Ohio) produced many of the celebrated
"shock" films for use in driver training and driver education.
Using actuality footage gathered on ridealongs with the Ohio Highway
Patrol, HSF produced many films whose titles have made their way into suburban
legend: Signal 30, Wheels of Tragedy, Mechanized Death, The Third Killer
and others. Other HSF films in this collection include The
Paperhangers, on check fraud, and several films about the activities of
state police agencies.
Preprint materials appear to be in very good to excellent condition, and
outnumber release prints in this collection.
Titles are inventoried in our database.
JOHN
H. HUMPHREYS COLLECTION (ca. 1950s-1980s, approx. 27 films, 16mm, color and
black and white, preprint and release prints.
Collection also includes approximately 20 multimedia kits, with slides
and audio cassettes.)
John H. Humphreys shot films beginning in the 1950s, when he studied
cinema production at the University of Southern California. The collection, obtained directly from him, contains films on
Iran and the Middle East and on American folkways.
Condition is very good to excellent.
An annotated inventory prepared by Mr. Humphreys is on file. The material has not yet been catalogued by us.
HUNTINGTON,
WEST VIRGINIA AMATEUR FILM COLLECTION (1940s-1970s, approx. 40,000 feet, 16mm,
80% color, 20% black and white, reversal original)
Representing the lifelong career of an accomplished amateur filmmaker,
this collection contains material shot at home, on the road, and in the region
over a long period of time.
Condition is very good to excellent.
There is no sign of vinegar syndrome.
About 50% of this collection has been inventoried and included in our
database, and about half of that again has been described by notes taken while
viewing videotape copies.
INDEPENDENT
SCHOOLS MULTI-MEDIA CENTER COLLECTION (1940s-1980s, ca. 840 titles, 16mm,
release prints)
Acquired July 1999 in New York from a consortium representing private
schools, this collection comprises most of a well-rounded media center
collection. Almost all titles
appear to be commercially acquired educational films targeted to K-12 students. Sample titles include: What Happens When You're Sick;
Climates of the United States; The Cat's Meow; Meet the Grebes; Divorce and
Other Monsters; Clean Up Your Act; Curious George; and Meeting Strangers;
Red Light, Green Light.
Titles have been inventoried and are currently being entered into our
database. Condition varies from
good to excellent for used media center prints.