Tag: national archives

Silent footage of World War I Draft and Mobilization

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Historic anniversaries and social media are increasingly used to promote and make available archival footage. This footage from the U.S. Army shows the process of instituting a draft and mobilizing for the “war to end all wars”. The footage remained under-described, inaccessible, and without high quality digital surrogates for many years, until the centennial anniversary of U.S. involvement in that war arrived in 2017. Because of the attention the anniversary brought to the topic, the National Archives prioritized the digitization, description and access of this silent footage. Sadly, many thousands of U.S. Government produced moving image titles (as well as material donated to the National Archives) don’t attract the same attention and remain undescribed and largely unseen.

Professional researchers such as myself play an essential role in locating critical footage and stills for documentary films and publications. These uses draw attention and resources toward describing, preserving and making available millions of hours of recorded moving image content.

Oak Ridge Nuclear Lab footage from the Early 50’s

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https://videopress.com/v/GEolySXx
Oak Ridge National Laboratory Stock Footage

This footage, shot in the early 1950’s, was found in the National Archives under the Records of the Atomic Energy Commission. It shows the early work done at Oak Ridge, including scenes of testing “exposed” workers for radiation. My favorite scene, toward the end, shows a museum exhibit modeling the “Gaseous Diffusion” process that was used to collect and concentrate Uranium 238, the method used to accumulate enough material for the first Atomic Bombs. It looks a lot like the high tech equipment used each night to pick lottery winners!

I captured this video using a mirrorless digital camera directly from a 35mm film work print displayed on the flatbed film viewers available for use in the National Archives Research Room. It was captured at 23.976 frames per second, close to the native 24fps film frame rate, so no film “flicker”. Of course, much better quality is available from a high quality scanner using archival film elements, but this produces a perfectly serviceable “screener” for editorial purposes.