The Columbia River

(21:11) b/w, sound
Congress had passed the Bonneville Project Act in 1937 to distribute the electricity generated at Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams on the Columbia River. The law said publicly-created utilities had preference, or first choice, on that power; investor-owned utilities could buy any surplus. The law also provided a block of power to new heavy industries that bolstered the region’s contributions during World War II. A new power agency, t...

Creator: Bonneville Power Administration, Department of the Interior, Stephen B. Kahn

Year: 1948

Quality: Excellent

The Land

(41:26), b/w, sound
Documentary showing the poor state that American agriculture had fallen into during the Great Depression. Flaherty made this documentary about the dire consequences of 100 years of over-production of cotton just as the USA was entering World War2, & it wasn’t shown then, because it might give the enemy a propaganda advantage. In fact the musical score, which fills the entire 45 minutes of the film is as striking as the poetic imagery of the dus...

Creator: Agricultural Adjustment Administration, Department of Agriculture, United States Film Service

Year: 1942

Quality: Excellent

The Road Is Open Again 7 Mins

(7:22) b/w, sound
A Songwriter falls asleep while writing a song about the NRA. He dreams that Washington, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt appear in his room asking him why he wants to write such a song and they’re reassuring him that FDR is the right way. When he starts singing his new song, he finds himself alone, but he knows that the FDR will lead the USA back on the road to prosperity.

The Road Is Open Again containing a song of the same n...

Creator: Warner Brothers

Year: 1933

Quality: Excellent

New Deal Film Festival 4 Hope For The Future Building Community Berkeley Gray Panthers

(1:02:47) b/w, sound
New Deal Film Festival disc 4: Hope for the Future, Building Community

FDR: A Warning
A Model Home
Alaska: The Last Frontier
Texas: The New Frontier
FDR’s Family
Power and the Land
FDR Re-elected
Out of the Red

Rural Electrification

(29:51) b/w, sound
RURAL ELECTRIFICATION IN OHIO features three films commissioned by Rural Electrification Administration for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and created by legendary filmmakers Pare Lorentz and Joris Ivens. The landmark 1940 documentary Power and the Land tells the story of the Parkinson family, farmers in rural Ohio who electrified their farm with the help of a REA loan. Before electrification, work was done in old-fashioned, manual-labor...

Creator: Department of Agriculture, Rural Electrification Administration

Year: 1940

Quality: Excellent

The City

(31:30), bw, sound
Visionary documentary that contrasts the conditions of life in small towns and in the industrialized cities, starting with a brief portrait of pre-industrial United States, then moving into the modern chaotic, industrial and commercial city to reflect on the effects of this environment on family life and the raising of children, and finally proposing a return to a simpler life, in an idyllic “new city” in Maryland, constructed as a New Deal pr...

Creator: American Documentary Films Inc.

Year: 1939

Quality: Excellent

The Fight for Life

(4 parts, 21:36, 21:37, 21:36, 4:37) b/w sound
Dramatizes a young doctor’s training in obstetrics at the Maternity Center, Chicago. Reel 1, Dr. O’Donnell sees a mother die in childbirth and decides to study obstetrics. Reel 2 shows him working and learning at the Center. Reel 3 consists mostly of a lecture to a class of doctors at the Center on procedures for delivering babies at homes. Reel 4, O’Donnell assists in the preparation for and the del...

Creator: Elizabeth Myer, Tommy Atkins

Year: 1940

Quality: Excellent

Cradle of the Father of Waters

(10:11) b/w sound
Shows Minnesota lakes at the head waters of the Mississippi River. CCC men work in Itasca Lake State Park and in Scenic State Park. Pageants re-create the days of the Indians and backwoodsmen with log cabins, covered wagons, stockades, and Indian wigwams. Includes views of Indians on a reservation, picnickers in a park, and a CCC camp.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

(10:24) b/w sound
CCC men ride in trucks, work with pick and shovel, operate bulldozers, graders and pneumatic drills, construct parapets and guard rails, and march with pick and shovel in the park. Includes views of forests, flowers, and underbrush. Rangers in towers watch for forest fires.

Rebuilding Indian Country

(35:26) b/w sound
Reel 1, maps show the origin and history of the American Indian. Modern Indians work in Wisconsin’s lumber industry, keep watch for forest fires, and clear bushes in the forest. Includes a close-up of a Delaware Indian treaty. Reel 2, Chippewa Indians make fishnets. Indians work on roads with tractors, picks, and shovels, stand in line at a field kitchen, engage in native handicrafts, and spear salmon on the Columbia River. Pima Indi...

Creator: Department of the Interior, Division of Motion Pictures

Year: 1933

Quality: Excellent