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.
Good times depicted in America during the so-called "Roaring Twenties." Automobile workers on a production line or assembly line. Double-decker buses and taxi cabs fill street in New York City. President Calvin Coolidge, accompanied by his dog, quietly fishing from a canoe. Girls in swim suits dancing around a Tuba player at a beach. Young women dancing happily at a cabaret, nightclub, or club. Behind them on stage is Texas Guinan (actress and speakeasy club manager). President Coolidge casting his fishing line, with another person seen in the rear of the canoe. View of couple's feet as they dance the Charleston in a cabaret. Girls,in bathing suits at a beach, run, like a chorus line, at the camera. Next are shown more mundane aspects of the period and some scenes of poor life, poverty, and unemployment shortly before the onset of the Great Depression. A city back street early in the morning. A man washes his face with water from a horse trough. A Milkman steps from his horse-drawn wagon or carriage to deliver two bottles of milk. People buying slabs of ice from an ice house (for their ice boxes at home). Boy and girl stand on slum or tenement fire escape. Laundry drying on clothes lines stretched across tenement alley. Two children in a family lying in a single bed. Other beds in the same crowded tenement apartment. Union-sponsored housing (founded in 1927) in the lower east side of Manhattan with sign affixed reading: "Amalgamated Cooperative Dwellings, 504-520 Grand Street. 83-91 Broome Street." Views of the Cooperative low rent apartment buildings.
Documentary depicts the end of the 1920s good times in the U.S. ("Roaring 20s"), leading into the Great Depression. Mildred Unger, age 10, performs a wing walker charleston dance while out on the wing of a JN-4 "Jenny" airplane in flight over Los Angeles in 1926. Four girls dancing on the top of a building higher than those around it, in Boston, Massachusetts. Amusement park patrons riding a roller coaster. People out driving through a park in their automobiles. Patrons enjoying themselves at the Steeplechase amusement park in Coney Island, New York. A crane piling old cars in a heap at a junk yard. But following the Wall Street crash (stock market crash) of 1929, conditions change in America. Group of men, women, and children standing together, looking sad and dejected, poor and desperate, due to conditions of the Great Depression affecting families. Still photo of group of people receiving food assistance or food relief in a bread line in a city. A man, woman, and baby, in a tent (probably migrant workers). The famous 1936 photo, "Migrant Mother" by Dorothea Lange, of migrant worker, Florence Owens Thompson, with two of her children in California. Men receiving food from a city soup kitchen. Dejected unemployed men.
Men work assembling transmissions on an automobile production line. John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers Union, giving a speech supporting formation of the Congress of Industrial organizations (CIO). Group of workers gather to listen to a union speaker. Many wear miners hats. Cheering Union workers march in street carrying posters reading: "Long-Live the C.I.O." and "Forward with C.I.O." Leaders of the early C.I.O., Sidney Hillman, President of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America (ACWA); Philip Murray, Vice President of the C.I.O.; and John L. Lewis, C.I.O. President, circa 1938. David Dubinsky, President of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (ILGWU); along with Sidney Hillman, and John L. Lewis, are seen mingling with clothing workers. View of a steel mill from workers' residential street on a snowy day. Steel worker in a mill. Deckhand and an engine man aboard a merchant ship. Roustabouts and riggers at an oil well. Nonferris metal miner in rail car. Worker in tire factory. Electrical worker. Union leader speaking to group of workers carrying banner reading: "Shirt workers, Local 128 Allentown, Pennsylvania Joint Board." Labor organizers passing out leaflets to workers leaving a factory. Labor discussions with workers at lunch tables. Draftsman preparing labor organization protest signs calling for "Sanitary Conditions" and "Fair Play." Working women singing a union song. Union workers marching and carrying signs for various causes. Man riding a bicycle displaying sign:"Don't Scab." Car overloaded with people with sign: "Come To Lafollette Labor Rally Monday, July 5, 1937." ACWA workers of Local 95, Atlas Plant. UMWA members of Lafollette, Tennessee. Miners playing cards and playing musical instruments. Miners on strike below in mine for 5 days, cheer leader. Poster encouraging Americans to travel and visit in the USA. Police with batons or billy clubs and military units repel, combat, beat, and arrest striking and protesting workers during labor disputes. Scenes of military uniformed men throwing tear gas grenades into crowds of workers as workers disperse. People assisting injured protesters. Police firing various weapons at protesting workers during labor protests and strikes in San Francisco. U.S. Army soldiers arresting a civilian and throwing tear gas grenades.
American Jitterbug dancers seen at a contest in 1938. View of feet in shoes, as wearers tap their feet and beat time to music. View of drummer using wire brush on drum. Stadium of people cheer for a dancing cinematographer who is using a motion picture camera to film the event. In contrast, Nazi troops seen parading by torchlight. Nazi flags everywhere and Nazi party ceremonies, overseen by Adolf Hitler, in Germany. Nazis burning books. "Attention Jews" with skull and crossbones painted on stores and business establishments. Nazi Storm Troopers intimidating Jewish businesses and advocating boycott. Glimpse of Heinrich Himmler, in foreground, and Hermann Goering, in center of group of Nazi officials. Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bombers attacking Poland in 1939. German artillerymen firing heavy guns. A German railroad gun firing. German paratroopers jumping from Ju-52 trimotor transport aircraft. In contrast, patrons are seen descending in parachutes on the Parachute Jump ride at Coney Island Steeplechase Park, in Brooklyn, New York. Life Savers company sponsorship sign seen atop the parachute jump tower. People eating hot dogs, and firing guns at the shooting gallery on Coney Island's boardwalk. Germans march Polish prisoners of war. German troops invading Denmark and Norway. German troops passing a road sign for Chemin des Dames in Picardy, Northern France. Bomb exploding at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. American forces engaged in war against japan in the Pacific and against the Axis powers in Europe. U.S. soldiers throwing hand grenades. American wounded being carried on litters. People cheering liberating Allied forces in a European town. British soldiers on a vehicle displaying cartoon of Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Soviet forces advancing in snow. U.S. steel and war plants in operation. Men and women war production workers in American defense plants and war materiel factories, using drills, lathes, and power tools in the spirit of "Rosie the riveter." C.I.O. Poster to promote voting, during the war. Closeup of Sidney Hillman, President of Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America. Spectators line sidewalks to get glimpse of President Franklin D.Roosevelt (FDR) in a motorcade. Silhouette of two soldiers helping wounded comrade. FDR's funeral cortege. U.S. troops taking a break, in a war zone. American school children run into a field. An atomic bomb explosion.
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