Film opens with illustrations showing development of culture and the arts as America developed from earliest centuries. A crowded theatre scene and a lead woman opera singer on stage in a long dress during her performance, with sympony in the background. The audience applauds. Images of writers James Fenimore Cooper; Edgar Allan Poe; Ralph Waldoe Emerson; Nathaniel Hawthorne; and Mark Twain are shown. Children in a school yard, some wearing straw hats, are seen returning to the school house. Boy and girl children entering a one room school house in a rural area of America in the early 1900s. Views of early school rooms, students, and teachers.
Weather Bureau forecasting operations and the activities dependent upon weather forecasting in United States. A pilot seated in the cockpit of an aircraft, aircraft takes off and in flight. Aircraft navigates air. Naval vessels underway in sea as a Navy aircraft flies over them. United States airship Shenandoah in flight, Shenandoah moored to the United States ship Patoka. United States airship Los Angeles in flight as crew members look down, airship flies over a bridge. Airships fly over Washington Monument and Capitol building in Washington DC.
Weather Bureau forecasting operations and activities dependent upon such operations in United States. A vehicle pulls up near a mail plane and men load mail onto the plane in United States. Plane takes off and in flight over a city. Plane lands and mail unloaded. Plane takes off and lands as men stand around it.
Weather Bureau forecasting operations and activities dependent upon such operations in United States. An aircraft patrols forest fire as smoke rises from the forest. Plane in flight with pilot in the cockpit as it patrols the area affected by fire. An aircraft dusts the boll weevil on cotton fields. Aircraft releases a smoky trail as it flies across the cotton fields. A weather forecast by the weather bureau.
Weather Bureau forecasting operations and activities dependent upon such operations in United States. An aircraft in flight with clouds all around. Kites with instruments to record weather data used for weather forecasting. Kite reel house mounted on turn tables and kites released. Head kite with the instruments attached to record weather data. Kites brought down after recording the relevant data.
Weather Bureau forecasting operations and activities dependent upon such operations in United States. A man works on a meteorograph that records temperature, humidity and air pressure at different levels above the surface of the earth. Two men look through theodolite used for computing the direction and speed of wind.