Film opens showing a U.S. Navy Gleaves-class destroyer in a bay. Closeup of radar antennas atop a U.S. Navy ship. A U.S. Navy submarine operating on the surface in icy waters. It has what appears to be a cylindrical shelter on its deck. The boat is covered in ice. Several men in foul weather gear are on its deck. Interior of a radar monitoring center, where a sailor, wearing a headset, monitors a plan position radar scope, where an unidentified aircraft is detected. Scene shifts to a U.S. Air Defense centers where such information is plotted on charts. Sign on table reads: "Supervisor GOC" (referring to the Ground Observer Corps) Civilian volunteer members of the Ground Observer Corps (organized by the U.S. Air Force in 1950) enter a room for a meeting. Narrator states that their mission is to operate 14 thousand observation posts and 49 filter centers. View shows predominately women volunteers in the group. Two uniformed Air Force men show silhouette diagrams of American military aircraft. Women connecting numerous phone callers at a large switch board installation. A barber serving a customer in his shop. A volunteer ground observer, at an outdoor post, watches as a flight of U.S. Air Force P-47 aircraft flies overhead in formation. A U.S. Army member of the Anti-aircraft Command, is seen at a desk. He receives a report of an unidentified aircraft and pushes a button to sound bells alerting soldiers who leave a dining hall in the midst of a meal to respond to their battle stations. They are joined by soldiers from elsewhere in the area. All rush to their assigned locations. View of them running across a field. A large suspension bridge in the background. Soldiers manning 120mm M1 anti-aircraft guns amidst views of rotating radar antennas. Soldiers loading shells into the guns. Soldier monitoring the unknown aircraft on radar equipment. View of hurriedly abandoned dining hall with uneaten meals on the tables. Soldiers lowering gun barrels and placing covers over them after the alert is cancelled.
The history of famous airplanes. Aviators Edward F Schlee and William S. "Billy" Brock at Curtiss Field in New York, United States. An aircraft parked on the airfield. Brock and Schlee stand beside the aircraft. Pilot Brock's head protrudes from the pilot's compartment of the airplane. 'Miss Wayco' painted on the nose section of the airplane. The pilot waves towards the spectators. Stinson monoplane model, 'Pride of Detroit' aircraft flown by the two men. The aircraft takes off. The two men stand beside their airplane at Harbor Grace in Newfoundland. Men work on their aircraft. A tarpaulin lying over the top of engine for protection. Men pour fuel in the wing tanks from five gallon containers. A man works on the engine. Spectators gather around the airplane. The aircraft takes off from Newfoundland. Spectators perched upon a hill nearby.
(Animated cartoons for majority of clip; actual office and early computer scenes near end of clip.) Accompanying narration about the origins of the United States census and establishment of the permanent Census office in 1902. Animation and cartoons illustrate the manner in which the census was taken over its history. A cartoon illustration of census worker, Henry Hollerith, developer of the punch card method of data recording and manipulation. (The 88 column punch cards shown in use in 1950, bear his name.) Equipment illustrated include: punch card sorting machinery; and early digital computer. Actual Images of 1970 era early computer and tape machines and related electronic computer keyboards. A worker mounting a tape on a machine in an office.
View of houses in an American residential neighborhood area in the suburbs, from low-flying airplane. Crowded street scene in a major city with black and white pedestrians walking on sidewalk in typical 1970s fashions. A public school No. 2. Yellow school buses carrying children. African American family with small children boarding a bus. A group of white people walking appearing to be a grandmother, her son, and three grandchildren. People enjoying a day in a park. African American woman standing near a large upright computer tape tape machine. She presses something on the machine to operate it. House with a "for sale" sign in the suburbs. A man opening the door of a 1969 or 1970 Ford Pinto car at a car sales dealership. Various report documents of the U.S. Census Bureau are displayed. Cattle being unloaded from a farmer's truck. A farmer cultivating a field, using a tractor. Views of State and Municipal Government buildings, including a view of the Justice Department in Washington DC, and including people entering and leaving the Compton, California City Hall building. Highway sign reading: "Leaving West Georgia Soil & Water Conservation District." Others, reading: Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, Silver Spring Branch Office," and "Wakefield County Park, Fairfax County Park Authority," "District of Columbia, Storm Sewer Vicinity, 14th St. & Kentucky Ave. S.E," and "Harford County Metropolitan Commission, Water Transmission System." A late 1960s car approaching a toll booth on a highway. A policeman directing traffic. Several medical personnel in whites, walking on hospital grounds. A railroad worker. A teacher posting a notice on door, at a school, as school girls behind him try to read the posting. A steel mill with smoke rising from tall stacks. Cars parked outside of Lasalle College New Athletic Facilities construction sign. A Washington DC police car patrolling a city street. Cars parked bumper-to-bumper along a city street.
New cars being offloaded from a ship at a port. Seaman and dock workers watching over railing of freighter, The "Chesire" with home port of Liverpool England. Closeup of the ship, Tara Maru, with home port Osaka, Japan. A Greek freighter in port. Passengers in rapid transit train traveling beside super highway of many lanes in the United States. View of car and truck traffic on busy highway. A Boeing 727-100 airliner and other passenger aircraft around runways and on tarmac at a civilian airport. Glimpse of various late 1960s and early 1970s cars and trucks on crowded section of highway during heavy traffic. People boarding a bus. Logs, steel tubes, and bulk cargoes being moved. A truck full of lumber. Cargo being loaded on an airplane. A cargo ship passing under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco California. Bureau of Census workers compiling data using early computers, with views of keyboards and tape drives. Bureau reports being placed in envelopes and mailed. Factory workers carrying lunch boxes. Men in business suits carrying brief cases. Entry gate of a prison, with view of permiter fencing and guard tower visible. View upward from inside the prison wall, with barbed wire atop the fence. A court building.
Pedestrians walking in a city where Cranes and high rise buildings are under construction. Sign announces sidewalk temporarily closed. Children playing in a school yard. Temporary additional classrooms at a school. A college campus. Aerial view of large scale development and construction activity in a Southern State. A large boring machine working. A construction machine at a tunnel entrance. A BART (Bay Area Rapid transit) train in San Francisco.
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