Opens with montage of illuminated signs for various businesses on Wells Street and environs in Old Town area of downtown Chicago, Illinois. Camera focuses on the Stagecoach Restaurant and zooms in on its sign. The camera then shows brief scenes in darkened night spots featuring jazz musicians performing. Glimpse of cars on dark street. Several young people outside a place featuring "topless" Go Go dancers. A young woman showing disapproval, turns away from a young man with her. Closeups of people mingling on Wells Street. Shimmering dress of a dancer along with closeup of a musician playing bongo drums. More glimpses of people on the sidewalks. Inside a club, a woman in a short dress is singing and dancing accompanied by a band of musicians. Momentary glimpse of a street artist at work. View down on a piano being played by a jazz musician. A woman dancing alone, as musicians play. Two views of drummer playing in a band.
Start of a documentary production titled,"The Inheritance." Introductory slate tells how in December, 1914, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (Union) was founded in a meeting at Webster Hall, New York City. It also describes how far and wide that union had grown in the ensuing 50 years. An ocean liner is seen in the mist in New York Harbor. Fog horn sounds. The statue of Liberty is seen dimly through the fog. A commercial ship and a tug boat pass in front of Ellis Island. Views of building interior, Sign in boiler room reads: "U.S. Immigrant Station. Ellis Island. N.Y.H." Furnace door and thermometer and pressure gauges are seen. Large hall is seen. Camera pans through the empty corridors and rooms of the facility. The frame of an iron baby's crib sits in an empty room. View through window of Ellis Island proper, just outside, and of New York City buildings across the water. Montage of still photo images: Immigrants on the deck of a ship in 1901. Views of small children. A group of immigrants wearing the fez. Immigrants waving their hats as they see the Statue of Liberty. Broader view of the ship packed with immigrants. Interior of Ellis Island building with queue of new arrivals being processed. Immigration officers seated on high stools, checking documents of arrivals. Medical officer examines a boy with a stethoscope (screening for TB). View shifts to passengers arriving. They walk across the pier, carrying their belongings.
Girls and boys engaged in child labor working on machinery in textile mills. Boys working in coal mines, A boy working at blacksmith's forge and one in a machine shop. Lady and gentleman in riding habit on horseback. All members of a family engaged in needlework, at home. Closeups of miners and a woman worker. Workers including children, parade with American flags and a sign reading: "Give us A Living Wage, Not Charity." New York City Garment workers from various unions, such as Pants makers, marching with placards. Workers jammed in a Chicago city square to hear Hannah Shapiro, initiator of the garment workers strike against clothing firm, Hart, Schaffner, & Marx. Some carry signs. One reads: "Do you belong to a Union. If not, why not." Closeup of Hannah Shapiro, standing on a ladder, with a Union banner beside her. Large group of marching workers with many children in the front rank. They carry American flags. Mine owners' spokesman assuring workers about their rights and interests. Closeups of a decorated senior uniformed policeman on horseback and another policeman in uniform. Group of uniformed policemen armed with Browning shotguns. Contingent of policemen mounting their horses in formation, and several riding along a cobblestone city street containing trolley tracks. An early vintage car is following them. Policeman walking ahead of women marching with a banner about Union Contracts for New Yorkers. Mounted police dispersing an unruly crowd. Policeman taking a young man into custody. A 1910 Auburn automobile, with right-hand drive. Policemen taking protesting workers into custody.
Clothing workers in a factory in the United States. Street scene in garment district of Midtown Manhattan, New York City, in 1912. Garment workers, and supporters of their labor rights quest for better pay and shorter hours, pose for a photograph. Workers display many signs expressing their needs, in English, Italian, Russian, Hebrew and other languages. Garment workers, of various specialties, gather in demonstration for better treatment. Employees of the Alfred Benjamins Company refute management's claim that they are satisfied with working conditions. They display a large sign on the sidewalk. Four-sided box signs are also seen (written in Italian and Hebrew). Mounted police move along a street as a foot patrolman arrests a protester. Photograph of lawyer, Fiorello LaGuardia. Garment workers at work in a sweat shop. A large group of young women garment workers marching in a labor rally or demonstration during a strike. Two signs are seen, one reading: "Why are we prohibited from picketing?" and the other, partly hidden, explains why they are striking. A contingent of uniformed policemen with night sticks, stand in front of a building in Baltimore. Smiling women stand carrying signs. One reads: "Our employers are powerful (because) they are organized.We shall be more powerful." Another reads,"We shall fight until we win." Many other signs express similar sentiments. Portrait photograph of 17 year old Ida Brayman, with caption reading: "Who was shot & killed by an Employer Feb. 5th 1913 during the great struggle of the Garment Workers of Rochester (New York)."
United Garment workers (UGW) Union members discuss plan for 1914 convention in Nashville Tennessee. View from railroad locomotive traveling on a straight train track. A steam locomotive pulling a passenger train. Trainman on rail car waving a lantern. Views of the convention, October 12, 1914, in Nashville, headed by UGW President Thomas A. Rickert of Chicago. Labor union locals from New York, Boston, Rochester, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, were deemed in arrears on dues (although they had been on strike) and not allowed to participate. They walked out, with the Chicago delegation too. View of Telegram sent from Nashville, by the dissidents, to Sidney Hillman in New York, October, 1914, asking him to head a rival union. Photo of Hillman taking telephone call. A special convention at Webster Hall, in New York City, where dissidents join with Journeyman Tailors union and form the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, with Sidney Hillman as President. Key members of the new union are seen standing in front of a car. Sidney Hillman in his office dictating to his secretary. Copies of the new union's House organs in various languages. Amalgamated Clothing Workers holding signs in various languages. Workers pose on a truck by a sign reading:"A Fair Deal, A Chance to Live, Arbitration is all we ask." Workers in cars. Girls on roller skates wearing sashes reading: "Don't Be A Scab." A man in a barrel with sign reading: "Can't afford to wear pants. Pa works in an open shop." Women pose in sandwich boards that spell out: "Closed Shop." Philadelphia garment worker ostensibly writing letter to Sidney Hillman. Shop owners examine sewn item and shop records while man works at sewing machine.
America in the World War 1 years, before and during the U.S. involvement in the war. View of Woodrow Wilson in academic robe and cap, as President of Princeton University. Steel mill with stacks belching smoke. Workers tap an open hearth furnace in steel mill. Children on a city street dancing and being sprayed with a fire hose to keep cool in summer. Boy hopping over the backs of his friends. Boys seated on a bench. Scenes from early motion pictures, interposed with images of Uncle Sam from Army recruiting poster: They are rapid montage comedy and stunt scenes, including Keystone Cops chasing fugitive; cars racing, gangster shootouts from cars; automobile hijinks; men raising barrier at railroad level crossing while a woman is left dangling from the raised crossing gate; car races and crosses railroad track in front of rapidly approaching locomotive; comic car chase down; line of 3 open top cars racing over an edge into a deep ditch, a motorcycle taking flight off of a road and into a river; a man waving warning flag frantically at a blasting site; The Cunard Ocean Liner ship, RMS Lusitania, underway; Newspaper front page about torpedoing of the Lusitania. American soldiers boarding troop ship for France in World War 1; View of the troop ship deck filled with U.S. soldiers. Various scenes of U.S. troops in the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France during World War I: amid war torn ruins and destroyed buildings in France; firing French 75s and heavier artillery; soldiers charging across no-man's land; French and American soldiers caring for wounded behind the lines and in trenches of the battlefields; soldiers placing helmets and identification cards of fallen soldiers on rifles that are inverted, bayonet into ground.
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