has been visiting the graves of u.s. presidents and vice presidents since he was nine and documenting his adventures on his websites. he talks about those visits and his interest in american history. >> the one great site that everybody had trouble getting to is the rockefeller gravesite. >> nelson rockefeller. >> how did you do it? >> we were able to get to it through what my father described as an act of god. my father walked on the perimeter and saw this tree had fallen. crushed the fence. he went in and saw nelson decidedler's grave, and he would have to get me there fairly quickly after that. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. >> the library of congress audiovisualus for conservation in culpeper, virginia, preserves access to the library's vast collection of

films, television, radio broadcast and sound recordings. american history tv visited the facility to learn about the paper print collection. films from the earliest era of motion pictures produced between 1894 and 1912. createder prints were for copyright purposes that cannot be projected. they must be scanned one frame at a time in order to be copied. is mike mashon head atthe moving image section the library congress, the home of the largest collection of video and the world. within this building, they have not only the film, video and sound recording of the library, but we also have preservation laboratories that are dedicated to making sure that all of this material is available for future generations. campusry of the packard action begins in the late 1990's. our benefactor david packard was

interested in creating a facility for the library that would house the collections and the preservation laboratories. there was a facility here in culpeper that would -- had gone up for sale. use to belong to the federal reserve bank of richmond. at its height in the late 1960's until they close in 1993, it stored $3 billion in coin and currency that was going to be used to pump up the u.s. economy use of the mississippi in the event of a nuclear catastrophe. the building was for sale. the packard humanities institute purchased it in 1997. constructiond the over the next several years, next 10 years. and over time, we worked with people from the packard humanities institute into what the facility is today -- the vision expanded over time. now the facility that is almost half a million square feet not the collections and the preservation laboratories,

but also houses our data infrastructure, our cataloging teams are here. everything that we need to describe or reserve and make available to the american public our audiovisual collections. our collections previously had been held in four states plus the district of columbia. film, for example, was stored at wright patterson air force base in dayton, ohio. that is where our film preservation laboratory was. the video and audio preservation labs were in the madison building up on capitol hill. we had storage in pennsylvania, storage in maryland, virginia, district of columbia. it is nice to have it all in one place. our collection begins with the beginning of cinema. the earliest film we have comes from 1891. this is a camera test that was

produced by the thomas edison company. the film is called "newark athlete." chose a young man swinging some indian clubs. part of a series of experience that -- experiments that edision engaged in the early 1890's. where our collection really begins is in 1893, with the first films registered for copyright. the earliest surviving registered film we have came to the library in january of 1894. it is called in edison kinetoscope it record of a sneeze. it is known as fred ott's sneeze. only a few frames long. it shows one of the engineers who is known for his comical sneezes.

you see a little bit of snuff in his nose. then he has a very violent phase. -- sneeze. this did not come to the library on film. there was no provision in the copyright law to allow for celluloid film to be registered for copyright, because reall justlluloid roll film being in the process of being invented. what edison did is he exposed the negative on strips of them to aper, afixed cardboard backing and sent it into the larvae to be registered as a photograph. the library to be registered as a photograph. you have to think about this. collection, as it came to be known, really wasn't historical accident. the name has been lost in the time,-- in the mist of

but we are grateful for what ever bureaucrat decided that it would be ok to register this as a photograph. it is not one photograph, it is a series of photographs. but yet they allotted to be registered. once that happened, then the floodgates opened. so, edison started registering with thes on paper library, starting in 1894. and edison was a very prolific film producer. until 1900, he produced 800 films. so, there started to be more and more films coming in for copyright on paper. then other producers started following behind. the biograph company which was started by edison's former engineer. and then many, may others - many

others through the first decade of the 20th century. and they, all of these people were registering their films with us as paper print. that continued up until 1912, when the copyright law was changed to allow for the submission of motion picture film. so now people, which were registering celluloid film, the type of filming know today. but the library did not have any storage, really, for the film. it was printed on film stock, which was highly flammable. and so, the library did not keep any of the film that came registered as film. we did not do that until the late 1940's when we acquired storage that allowed us to keep nitrate film. up until 1912, we have this glorious collection of films on paper print. roughly 3,300 titles, all of

which are available to view. the crownprints are jewel of our collection. they form the basis of everything we have collected since then. we have put more effort into the paper prints than any other single collection we continue to work on them today. at the very very beginning of vast majority of films produced are not what we would take up his fictional. they were called actualities, documentaries, showing everyday life, people at work, people at leisure, current events. so there was a tremendous amount of -- one of the examples that i have here comes from 1904. this is a series of films that was shot by the american

biograph company. part of a series called the westinghouse works. this was shot for the 1904 world's fair in st. louis. there were roughly 29 films. for this produced series, of which 21 survived in the paper print collection. several chronicles factories that were owned by westinghouse. this one is called the panorama, the machine company aisle. beautiful film that was taken from an overhead crane. that was moving along a track there in the factory and showing people below on the factory floor doing their work. record of amazing what american industry looks like at this particular time. and so, these films were incredibly popular when they st. louis.in 1904 in

they had special screenings for the westinghouse employees, and pittsburgh. and so, you will see these films used a lot in documentaries. these films were commissioned by westinghouse. they were paid for, and american biograph actually shot them. the cameraman for these films, a man named billy, becomes much more well-known in film history because he was the chief cameraman for d.w. griffith later on. but these are very important and beautiful films that he shot for westinghouse. the intent of these films was to show the work as it was progressing. not to have anything set up. not being staged. certainly, when you look at the you are going to

see people looking up at the camera. farby and large, there is too much activity going on on the floor for it to be staged. watch,s fascinating to as a document of american industry at the time. an1904, a film like this, actuality like this, would not have been novel at all. there were a lot of films made like that, but the way in which these were shot, the sort of chronicling of a lot of activity in a particular aspect of american industry, that was very unique. like thisnly, a shot one, the panorama of the machine very uniquee is because of the camera angle he was able to get. the vast expanse of the factory floor, to this day, it remains an astonishing film to watch. some of the actuality films that

we have in the collection are particularly fascinating, and we see researchers coming back to them again and again. is newat i think of, one fishmarket.etto there are whole series of films shot in new york because that is where the center of a film production was at the time. lm, whichan edison fi again, you are seeing a camera placed above a street scene. the vendors lot of below. costumes andee the the faces of people looking up at the camera. it's a fascinating film. a lot of people have gone back to again and again.

there were several films that were taken of immigrants arriving at ellis island. shots of people getting off the aat at ellis island, which is wonderful film. we have a whole series of films that were shot before and after the san francisco earthquake. we got some that were made literally in the weeks before the san francisco earthquake. particularlys popular called "a trip down market street," which a camera was mounted on the front of a streetcar and follows the path all the way down market street in san francisco. that was taken a few weeks before the san francisco earthquake in april 1906.

of course, cameramen washed out to chronicle the fire and destruction that happened in san francisco in the wake of the earthquake. we have other little interesting oddities in the collection, like, for example we have advertisements. the very earliest ad we have in our collection comes as an -- in called admiral cigarettes. interesting,is this is from 1903. this is for gold dust scouring p owder. ok, now, you will notice the unique format of this. this is from a biograph camera 1903. the paper is whiter.

it has this unique center perforation. the way the camera was manufactured. and this is an ad for gold dust scouring powdering featuring the gold dust twins, they were on the packaging for gold dust powder. mucht's -- ther'e's so information you can learn about american culture. the paper prints serve as an endless resource from the study -- for the study of manufacturing and popular culture and lived experience at the beginning of the 20th century. there's really nothing else like it. so actuality are these documentary films were there important, very popular up until the turn-of-the-century. in 1902, things start to change. and we know this because of the paper prints. we start to see more fiction fi lm, more films with actors or

acting out a scene. this is not real life. this is a constructed reality. director inired a 1902, a man named edwin s. porter, who becomes important for the history of film. made a few early narrative films in which he is playing around some of the editing techniques. with aculminates in 1903 film called "the great train robbery." this is a very important film in history as well. we think of this as the first feature-length narrative film. it tells the story of a train robbery. the action is inter-cut, where you see the mail train being rob bed. you see the outlwas, th -- the outlaws, the action taking place

in different locations, and it cut together in such a way that you can easily understand the story, but it is radical editing at the time. this is our original paper print deposit of "the great train robbery," including the famous scene at the end in which the outlaw george barnes fires his gun directly into the camera. so this is very iconic at the end of our paper print. this was registered for copyright on december 1, 1903. we actually have two copies. this is copy one. and it's interesting, too, that we also have some original prints and negatives from the paper print era. not a lot, but we do have some. we also have in our collection the original camera negative from "the great train robbery," in addition of having two copies of the paper print.

but this is an important film in the history of cinema as we are tracing the narrative evolution of what cinema would become. now, of course, over more years, at aa starts to evolve faster pace. films, filmmakers coming along, people starting to play with techniques of film. were in the early 1900's, are also starting to see copyrighted films by the celebrated french trick filmmaker george miller. we have several of his films -- george millier. but the next big leap occurs in d.w.when a young man named griffith was hired by the american biograph company. and later direct

films for them. know is as we now considered to be the father of the narrative cinema. the giant who developed a lot of the narrative techniques, of course, that we take completely for granted today. when we are watching a film, but it had to start somewhere, and by and large, we think it started with griffith. i say we think we started with griffith -- it started with griffith. there is a reason why we know some much about griffith is because biograph, the company he worked for, was really good about registering their films. but when you think about the hundreds of thousands of films that were not registered for lost,ght, and all that's there were other filmmakers out there who may have been doing similarly interesting things, but we have so much griffith material available to us, we can study him. career follow griffith's

literally on a weekly basis through the paper print collection. so for example,, this is a griffith film registered for copyright 1909. this film is called "the lonely villa." this is one of his best example of crosscutting against action. so, you have sisters who are trapped in their house. there are burglars trying to get at them. and people on the way to rescue them. cuts back andth forth between all this competing action. you see the girls, the burglars, you see the people coming to the rescue, all culminating in a wonderful rescue at the end. i'm sorry if i spoiled the ending for anybody. but this is just one of the most prominent examples of the d.w. griffith film that we have in our collection. ♪

griffith actually started in the theater. was like a lot of people from the theater in those days, was reluctant to get into motion picture films, because he thought it was beneath him. but he went to work for biograph and started as an actor, saw some promise in films. was also going to get paid a little bit of money for being a director. and eventually discovered this is something he was quite good at. he's responsible for bringing us mary pickford, another stage actor, who came to work in the films. she worked at biograph for several years.

we have a lot of the pickford, a lot of mary pickford films in our collection. they come not only from the paper prints, but also mary pickford's personal collection, which was donated to the library in the 1940's. a visionary.was and we are very fortunate to s represented in our various collections. -- we have in t collectionh the collection, the original camera negative for "birth of a nation." in 1915, this is the apex of cinema. everything that d.w. griffith has learned about cinematic grammar he throws into this film. it is an astonishing work. amazingl of storytelling techniques, terrific acting, beautiful editing. it is truly one of the most

important films in the history of the evolution of narrative cinema. unfortunately, it is also one of ehe vilest racial tracks in th history of america'n cinema. griffith was an unreconstructed racist who had very, to be kind, paternalistic attitude towards african-americans. so "birht of a -- birth of a nation" is the story of civil war and construction -- and reconstruction based on a novel called "the klansmen." it tells the story of families torn asunder by the civil war. and the portrayal of southerners in the film is very sympathetic, including the fact that the rescue at the end of the film is thecting by -- affected by

ku klux klan. so, this is a film that is very difficult to watch out of context. people who see it today, people who come to it fresh without knowing the background, without knowing the era, find it a very difficult film to deal with. to it's part of our job provide the context for the film. i'm not excusing the inherent grotesque racism of the film. i can look at it as a social historian, you can look at it one way, as very much a piece of his time. but as a cinema historian, you can still admire the technique. that d.w. griffith brought to this film. as a film, it is astonishing. as a cultural document, it is still astonishing, just in a different way.

[classical music playing] mike: after the libra decided that paper prints were ok to register for film -- after the library decided that paper prints was ok to register, the next thing we had to look for was the fact that nobody threw them away. they were stored in the basement of the library's jefferson building for many years. people knew that these artifacts were in the basement, but nobody really ever did anything with it the 1940'sd walls in took it upon himself to create an inventory of the paper prints. all over just stacked the place. and sometimes not in very good conditions, but by and large, they survived quite nicely in the basement of the jefferson building. and so, the library began a process of trying to get some sort of intellectual control over the paper prints. they were talking with other

people about ways in which they could get film copies of the paper prints, because, let's not forget, you could not projects the paper. you could not view it on a flatbed viewer. they were on paper. grants. applied for they worked with other organizations. the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, fo example, in california, to talk aboutr ways in which the paper prints could eventually be transferred to film. then in the 1950's, a man named -- was hired to transfer the paper prints to film. he actually started a company that allowed him to do this. he built a printer that allowed him to take, he did what we refer to now as optical printing. he was taking a photograph of each frame. then at a printer that would

keep moving the paper prints at a one frame at a time, would take a photograph of it. he was creating a new film from it. he transferred all the paper millimeter film stock and creating a negative and positive that could be viewed. and those film prints are still in use in our reading room on capitol hill today. 3,330 paperly prints that are extant, about 500 of them are available online via the library's american memory website today. but all the others you actually have to come to washington, d.c., to see them. but we are going to be changing that very soon. now, this wasn't the end of the paper print story. so, we have kemp niver, creating the 16mm elements. got involved in reprinting

some of the paper prints in the 1960's. they were creating 35mm elements. the libraryn, when and establish its own film preservation laboratory, our lab went back to the original paper prints and started transferring them to 35mm. roughly 500 titles are onc you cannot -- -- are ones you can now see online. so, the reason why the paper prints are so important is we really do not have an accurate figure of how many films were produced from 1894 to 1912. certainly, not every film from that era survives. the survival rate is quite low. the paper prints represent the survivors. those are the ones where a studio, a producer took care to

actually register it for copyright. now, the first decade of the 20th century was a time of g reat tumult in the film industry. there were a lot of competing companies, and they were competing mostly in terms of patents. they were patenting their cameras, projectors, anything that could be patented. hnd that is the reason why t copyright registration became so important, because the studios wanted, the film producers wanted some legal standing for copyright violation. so we are very fortunate that that was all happening at the same time. there's really no better insight , at least in terms of moving image, to what life was like at the beginning of the 20th century than the paper prints. there is practically no documentary you will watch today that has moving images from the turn of the 20 century that do not reference the paper prints, that don't have