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Tennessee Valley Authority, National Defense Advisory Committee
Summary:
Narration introduces this report as "the story of the development of the Tennessee River," showing ongoing construction of major public works projects conducted under the Tennessee Valley Authority, including dams and hydroelectric plants. Touts the harnessing of waterpower to generate electricity for industry and farmers. Lists the improvements to quality of life in the region brought by electricity, including home amenities, pumped water for irrigation, and community refrigeration for food storage. Emphasizes the development of fertilizer manufacturing, as well as munitions and aluminum for defense industries. Includes footage of Wilson dam, Norris dam, Wheeler dam, Pickwick Landing dam, Guntersville dam, Chickamauga dam, and Watts Bar dam and generating station.
Presents ballad singers singing three authentic American folk songs: "Strawberry Roan," "Grey Goose," and "John Henry." The background for the singers is a farmhouse kitchenyard after the noonday meal.
United States. Department of Interior. Division of Motion Pictures
Summary:
Recounts the history of land ownership by small farmers in the U.S. Free land for farmers gradually disappeared as the west was settled through the 19th century, resulting in the necessity for farmers to buy land with mortgages. Describes the creation of the 1916 Federal Farm Loan Act and regional land bank systems to enable tenant farmers to become landowners. "Shows how the cooperative mortgage credit system works in the everyday lives of John and Mary Farmer, who are typical of the 600,000 members of national farm loan associations now using their own credit system to achieve the goal of owning debt-free farms" (Motion Pictures of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1945, 21).
A Columbia short subject presentation, distributed for classroom exhibition by Teaching Film Custodians. Presents Stanley Brown, Donald Grayson, and others in a program of Stephen Foster songs: Oh Susanna, Beautiful Dreamer, Jeanie with the Light Browns Hair, Old Folks at Home, Camptown Races, and My Old Kentucky Home. Costumed performers in an antebellum Southern plantation setting, each song is given a brief introduction with invitation for the audience to sing along. [Spoken dialogue and song lyrics include mutliple uses of the pejorative "darky."]
History of the settlement of the western Canadian prairie lands, from pioneers in covered wagons to the booming wheat industry of the early 20th century. Shows that the prosperity brought by wheat built the western cities and led to rampant increases in production, when "wheat flowed like a golden river." The plowing of vast acreage without concern for soil conservation led to the disastrous collapse of the western agricultural economy. "Long years of intensive drought, coupled with a disastrous fall in prices, forced many Prairie farmers to board up their homes and seek work elsewhere. But the majority remained, hating to leave the land they had broken, often lacking the capital to make a fresh start. To these, the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration, working through engineers and scientists on the experimental farms and stations, restored faith and morale. Conservation of moisture, development of new methods of farming and conversion of sub marginal land to other uses all helped to put these derelict farms once again on a working basis" (National Film Board of Canada catalog record http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/our-collection/?idfilm=18392).
Teaching Film Custodians classroom film of excerpts from the 1939 Warner Bros., feature film, "Juarez". Dramatizes the struggle of Benito Juarez to maintain independence and republicanism in Mexico from 1863 to 1867. Focuses on the Juaristas' resistance to French-supported Emperor Maximilian. Records that, with the end of the Civil War, the United States government warned Napoleon to withdraw his troops from Mexico. Shows Maximilian gambling on a victory by the loyalist Mexican troops over the Republican Army, failing, and being executed.
ERPI Classroom Films, Inc., Encyclopaedia Britannica Films Inc.
Summary:
Promotes the catalog of ERPI Classroom Films to educators, presenting excerpts from dozens of films with narration extolling their effectiveness (ERPI Classroom Films was the predecessor to Encylopædia Britannica Films, an acronym derived from Electrical Research Products, Inc.). "Designed to show how the sound film can surmount many barriers to human learning by bringing to the classroom concepts otherwise difficult or impossible to present" states narration. Examples of microphotography, animated diagrams, time-lapse and slow motion photography demonstrate the applications of the motion-picture film in the classroom. Travelogue, foreign cultures, training and trades are brought to the classroom. Cites a study finding that classroom films are particularly effective with "low I.Q." students. Includes time-lapse film of the solar eclipse of 1932.
Erpi Classroom Films, Lawson Robertson, Dean Cromwell, Brutus Hamilton, Harold A. Bruce, Amateur Athletic Union of the United States
Summary:
Includes races from 1,000 to 10,000 meters and steeplechase. Style of distance runner contrasted vividly with that of dash man. Differences in typical physiques. Steeplechase portrays various methods employed by participants in clearing barriers. An instructional sound film.
United States. Department of Agriculture. Bureau of Animal Industry
Summary:
An address given by Dr. John R. Mohler, Chief of the USDA Bureau of Animal Industry, provides narration for this film reporting on the work of the Bureau. "Animal husbandry and veterinary science increase the usefulness of domestic animals to mankind. Research, regulatory, and informational work of the United States Department of Agriculture; Cooperation with the States in the eradication of diseases; inspection of herds; laws regulating dairy conditions; livestock improvement; scientific poultry raising" (Motion Pictures of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1945, 35).
Presents a fictionized story woven about episodes in the life of Robert Burns. Includes Burns's trip to Edinburgh to visit wealthy patrons and his ill-treatment at their hands. He recites to them "A Man's a Man for a' That." Returning to his native village, he stops the wedding of his sweetheart to another man.
This informative short film narrated by Father Bernard Hubbard 'The Glacier Priest' shows in detail the large and lucrative salmon fishing industry in Alaska, from the catching of the fish to their canning.
"Grierson had always admired the documentary work of American filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North) and hired him to make Industrial Britain, though he and his staff ultimately had to complete the film when money ran out. As with other Grierson influenced documentaries of the mid-1930's, its frequent low angle close-ups heroicize the workers, their patience and their toil. The skills of glass blowers, machinists and other craftsmen are, the narration suggests, the bedrock of England's industrial might and the ability to sustain the British Empire"--Videodisc sleeve.
