Sequences from a melodramatic presentation. A girl sits near her mother and weeps. A Native American Indian man arrives and takes the mother into a forest. In the forest a group of men walk with arrested husband of the woman. The Indian man and woman try to convince them that the husband is not a murderer.
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.
Immigrants on board a ship arriving in New York Harbor, circa 1905, see New York City buildings across the water. A couple walking along the avenue in New York City. The man buys a newspaper from a newsboy or newsie (newspaper boy). A trolley car passes in the center of the avenue. A sign on the trolley reads: "Broadway." Several automobiles drive along a street, each close behind the other. One is decorated with American flags. A school building at side of the street displays numerous American flags. Pedestrians walking along 5th Avenue in New York City. Some men are wearing top hats, and others bowlers. Women are wearing bonnets. Several high society gentlemen in formal attire seat seated at a banquet table. They smoke cigars and have after-dinner drinks. Flowers adorn the table and the men wear boutonnieres. They all sport mustaches and wear some sort of garlands of greens (or paper) on their heads. The scene expands to reveal more aristocracy men at the table,similarly attired, including the garlands. Scene of wealth at turn of the century with couples dancing in an elegant ballroom. Change of scene shows waiters serving guests at an outdoor dining venue. Most of the men wear straw boaters (hats) and the women wear summer dresses and bonnets. A gentleman in a top hat with two women at a fashionable outdoor affair. The women wear large-brimmed hats. Ann Harrison Vanderbilt (Mrs. Willian K Vanderbilt) seated in a rolling straw chair, pushed from behind, chats with a gentleman in Florida. Lady in striped jacket and white skirt, with tennis racquet under her arm talks to chauffeur, standing next to a Locomobile limousine, parked at the curb. The Vanderbilt home, "the Biltmore," in Asheville, North Carolina, viewed from the back of the mansion.
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.
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.
A huge crowd on streets of New York City cheering and celebrating victory over Germany in World War I after signing of the Armistice. A cemetery of U.S. soldiers died in World War I. Cross burning and views of hooded Klan members at a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) ceremony, with several uniformed U.S. Army soldiers in foreground, dimly lit (possibly at Stone Mountain Georgia but location not confirmed). Palmer Raid victims: Suspected leftists, left wing, and anarchists seen being led away in a group by police after their homes were raided and searched without search warrants, and some were deported, under program led by U.S. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, during 1919 and 1920. (Second group shown is likely in Paterson, New Jersey; note sign for J.T. Doremus Hardware on building in background.) Palmer Raid arrestees seen behind barbed wire fences where they were held without charges for three months and denied legal representation. Some arrestees being escorted by U.S. soldiers in uniform. Vigilante businessmen and town leaders enforcing 12 hour work days at Steel factories in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Gary Indiana. Vigilantes (deputized and armed by local authorities) seen with rifles and shotguns marching down streets enforcing labor demands and countering steel workers on strike. They approach a striking worker on the road side and seize a stick he is holding. They beat a protestor with sticks. Together with police they begin to hit and beat back the protesting crowd of men. Someone fires a gun in the crowd and shooting starts on both sides during fight. An injured or dead steel worker on the ground is lifted up by a man and carried away.
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