turn of the 20 century that do not reference the paper prints, that don't have something from the paper print collection in them. you cannot write a meaningful history of film without referring to the films in the paper print collection, because it traces the evolution of cinema from a cinema of attractions and actuality through the development of the narrative form. it's such a wonderful resource to students and scholars of cinema. [classical music] >> you can view many of the earliest films in the library of congress by visiting loc.gov. >> the library of congress packard campus for audiovisual

conservation in culpeper, virginia, preserves and provides access to the library's vast collection of films, television, radio broadcast home and found recordings. american history tv visited the campus to learn about the earliest public affairs films, including u.s. presidents the , spanish-american war, world war i, and the first ever political ad created in 1912 by the democratic party. -- my name my nigh is mike mashon head of the , moving image section of the library of congress, the home of the largest collection of video and the world. today we are at the packard campus in culpeper, virginia, a facility that opened in the summer of 2007 dedicated to preserving our audiovisual heritage. in the late 1880's, edison started thinking about doing for the eye what the phonograph did for the ear.

so began a whole series of experiments with motion picture film. most of that work was done by his engineer, a guy named dickson,ennedy sometimes an unjustly forgotten figure in history. it was dickson who did most of the work and developing the motion picture camera. he is responsible for a lot of those early camera tests. ark athlete."w he is the person who shot the record of a sneeze. he is featured in the very first sound film. it is called the "dickson experimental sound film." this is an interesting story. we have the film of the "dickson experimental sound film," with

-- which is somebody operating a phonograph with d.w. griffith playing the violin into a horn. is being recorded on a wax cylinder. two of his fellow engineers in front of the camera dancing. so, on the wax cylinder you can actually hear somebody say ."- "start coat the edison historical site in west orange, new jersey, had a copy of the wax cylinder. we had a copy of the film. several years ago working with walter murch, an academy award-winning sound engineer, and people at industrial light and magic managed to marry the two together. so we have a great example of the very first sound film. [violin playing]

mr. mashon: another interesting aspect of what we have in our collection, including the paper prints, is our political coverage. very first president is captured on film is one mckinley. -- the very first president captured on film is william mckinley, so we have a film of mckinley during the time in the spanish-american war. a conflict, incidentally, that was covered by several motion picture producers, sometimes re-creating scenes of the spanish-american war in new jersey. [no audio] mr. mashon: on its website, the

library has a whole special section devoted to the spanish-american war on film. so, there is actuality footage of the war. there were some cameramen who tried, who got them to cuba, the philippines to shoot some footage there. there is footage of theodore roosevelt and the roughriders that tends to be in the united states. troops disembarking from florida heading off for cuba. but of course, there is also re-created footage of the sinking of the maine, for example. they might shoot that in new jersey with models, or they might stage battles. so there is sort of a mix of actuality footage and re-created footage. [no audio]

mr. mashon: but this really is the first conflict ever captured on film. [no audio] mr. mashon: we also have, for example, footage from mckinley's inauguration in march, 1901. it is the very first inauguration we have in our collection. the footage of mckinley's inauguration -- it's certainly going to be nothing like what we see today. in fact the film is rather , short. you can see mckinley very

clearly. he is on the east side of the capitol which is where inaugurations used to take place surrounded by the dignitaries. you see him isolated in a box giving, taking the old of -- the oath of office. i think you see a little bit of him giving his speech, which is totally unamplified, so i cannot imagine that too many people beyond the immediate vicinity heard him. we see a little bit of a parade afterwards on constitution avenue. so they captured a little bit of that. it is not a lot of footage. the same thing with the theodore roosevelt inauguration in 1905. they tend to be longer shots. you are not getting close-ups of anybody taking the growth of office inthe oath of any of those early films. then we have a whole series of films of mckinley's visit to the pan-american exposition in buffalo in september, 1901, where he was assassinated.

we don't, there's no footage of that, but there are certainly -- there is film taken of a mob outside the temple of music not long after mckinley was shot. so, people are milling around, not knowing what is going on. and then there is extensive coverage of mckinley's funeral leaving hisege house in ohio. there is just a tremendous amount of coverage of that. and the films of mckinley's funeral are, you know, they show the black-draped coffin being put into a hearse, and then there being, his body was taken back. he died in washington, but his body was taken back to his home

in ohio. for burial. and so, they just follow the whole funeral procession. various films, mckinley's body arriving at the canton, ohio, station, those sorts of things. [no audio] mr. mashon: you see a lot of those same kind of films for theodore roosevelt when he died at his home in long island. there is plenty of footage of people coming by to pay their respects. roosevelt's coffin and burial

service. you see these things starting to be very well covered. ironically, of course, the next president who died in office really was not long after roosevelt was warren harding. i do not think we have any footage of his funeral. in fact, we don't have much footage of harding at all. after mckinley dies, theodore roosevelt, very young becomes the new president of the united states. and roosevelt is a fascinating figure, especially for us here in the moving image section, because he is an astonishingly well-chronicled president. there is a lot of film on theodore roosevelt. and the reason why is because he died in 1919. after that, a roosevelt memorial association was established that was devoted to collecting as

much information about theodore roosevelt as possible. so they went out and asked a lot of people, a lot of producers, among others, if they would donate material relating to theodore roosevelt to the memorial association. they gathered up nearly 500 films from various producers. a lot of newsreel produces, for example, who had film about roosevelt that they donated to the roosevelt memorial association. and then later in the 1950's, the roosevelt memorial association donated their film collection to the library of congress. we have that today. so, roosevelt is captured not only in the paper print collection, because, of course, companies like edison and others were shooting footage of roosevelt. roosevelt's inauguration in 1905, roosevelt visits here, at

the panama canal. there is a lot of footage that came in through the copyright process. then through the roosevelt memorial association, they are getting newsreel producers, for example, that did not register their films, but they had a lot of films relating to roosevelt particularlu after he left , office. this was a man who had an amazing decade after he left office, going to africa, serving as a roaming foreign ambassador. running for president again, as a progressive candidate in 1912. going to brazil and traversing the river of doubt. and there was a lot of film taken of the river of doubt. all of that is here at the library of congress. we are busy preserving and digitizing that material as well.

the most interesting thing about the roosevelt films, ironically, there's a good deal of film taken during his presidency, which lasted from 1901 to 1909, but the vast bulk of the film that we have in the collection relating to him comes in the post-presidency era. now, when he made this expedition to south america and the river of doubt, there is actually a paid film company that went along to help, they were going to produce a film called "the river of doubt," about the expedition. and it helped underwrite some of the costs of the expedition. and it's a feature-length film. and it's fascinating to watch. in fact, all of those -- even for those of us who might be horrified by the idea of a safari, it is fascinating to see

these films of roosevelt, the outdoorsman, the strenuous life. [no audio] mr. mashon: you have got films of him on safari in africa. [no audio]

mr. mashon: you've got him going out west, opening national parks. they're just -- reliving his cowboy days, reunions with the rough riders. he is such a, he is one of those magnetic figures that whenever you see him, even on this old film, your eye is just drawn to him. we have some films of him campaigning for the presidency in 1912. and these are very nice films of him campaigning on the back of train platforms. you really wish you can hear him. we have recordings of roosevelt from 1912. he actually cut a few records of speeches that could be distributed to supporters. so we do have roosevelt's voice as well, which is surprisingly high and squeaky, which is not

something you might expect from seeing him on film. theodore roosevelt: we stand for a living wage. wages are sub normal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and industry to industrial occupation. the monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to membership. it must be enough to secure the normal elements of a normal standard of living a standard , high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for members of the family, to maintain the family during sickness and to provide for old age. mr. mashon: i do think roosevelt was very aware of his image. and he cultivated a particular image of being a strong, robust, can-do kind of guy. that's one reason why he cooperated with people who

wanted to take movies of him so much. and i'm grateful for that. as an historian, that we have all these films that we can use to study theodore roosevelt's life. i wish more presidents after that had been a little bit more camera friendly. there is not very much footage of william howard taft. ironically, the first color footage we have of a president is from william howard taft. so, we have that in our collection. there were a lot of experiments taking place in color motion picture photography. at the time. and this was a very, taft was captured in a very early color process. mr. mashon: between the roosevelts, there is a regrettably small number of films.

it's striking that these two roosevelts, both had sort of same approach to the media. of course, by the time franklin roosevelt takes office, radio is part of everyday american life and with his fireside chats, he takes advantage of that. but he was a very visually savvy president as well. he welcomed newsreel cameras. he welcomed people shooting film of his activities. obviously, he did not want people to see him in a wheelchair. he did manage that, but there is just a lot of film on franklin roosevelt in the same way that there was with theodore roosevelt, but in between the two, just not. i don't think that those presidents for whatever reason felt that it was important to manage their presence in that way. one of my favorite films that we

have in the collection is what we believe to be the very first political ad. it comes from 1912. and this is a race in which william howard taft is a republican candidate. woodrow wilson is a democratic candidate. and theodore roosevelt is running in the progressive party the bull moose party. , the film is produced by the democratic national committee. it is called "the old way and the new." it opens up with this very rich, fact, plutocrat, who comes into his office, where one of his flunkies is dusting off portraits of theodore roosevelt and william howard taft. they are grouped in this together. as an example of the old way of doing things.

and so, he's got lots of money, and he is dispensing favors. and there is all sorts of bribes and political corruption taking on. they were contrasted with the new way of doing things, represented by woodrow wilson, who's the champion of the common man. the film ends with a plea for people to send $1.00 to the democratic national committee on behalf of the woodrow wilson campaign, because woodrow wilson is for the common man. republicans are for the wealthiest 1%. somehow, those tropes have not changed in the last 100 years. we have 1.4 million items in the collection. so there are plenty of treasures out there to be discovered. and the great thing is with new technology that we have, not only the ability to preserve

these older films on newer film stock, but we have a lot more technology available to digitize the film and make them available for people. so, we have known about the film. now we have ways of getting it out there for people to see. [no audio] mr. mashon: the very first sound film we have featuring a president is calvin coolidge talking about economic policy. it is not the most scintillating film in the world, but it is fascinating to see him this very early sound technology. deforest phonofilm, they called it. speaking to the camera about policy, just hearing silent cal talk is amusing in and of itself. with which toe:

raise the standard of existence. it increases the value of everybody's property, raises the scale of everybody's wages. one of the greatest favors that can be bestowed upon the american people is the economy in government. mr. mashon: i have said that in 1912 the copyright law changed. we were no longer receiving films through copyright, or we weren't keeping the films registered to copyright, but that does not mean we do not have any films between 1912 and the 1940's when we really did start keeping a lot of films that were coming in for copyright. we have gone back and retrospectively collected over the years, so we have nearly 140 million feet of nitrate film in the collection. and a great amount of that film is actually chronicling world

war i. we are in the process of doing more preservation and digitization work on those films now leading up to the centenary of world war i. so these are films that were not only made by newsreel companies, because you started to see more newsreels come along in the mid- teens. but also made by the burgeoning hollywood studios. so we have fictional films that are set during world war i. some of which made by d.w. griffith were actually shot overseas during the war. but there is also, just a tremendous amount of actuality footage, a little of it there , are some battlefield footage. political leaders, leaders of all the major countries that were involved in world war i. films of bond rallies which, of course, were hosted by very

popular stars like mary pickford, charlie chaplin, douglas fairbanks. there is a fair amount of coverage of world war i in our collection as well. much of that world war i footage is known to researchers. we have long had a good -- to all our world war i related material that is available in the reading room. so, scholars have been able to get access to it, but most of that footage we have is in the public domain. so, now that we have these digital tools available to us, it makes for good access copies. we are going to preserve the films. we want to make sure that the films themselves are preserved and stored in cold storage so they last for a long time. but digitization is such a great access tool. it allows many more people to see some of these world war i films that we have in the collection. we are collaborating, for

example, with a worldwide consortium of archives that are trying to preserve and make available the world war i films. so, working very closely with the group in italy that is coordinating amongst many archives, both in the united states and europe, especially among the combatant nations, to gather as much world war i film as possible to make it available online. this is the earliest videotape in our collection. it comes from may, 1958. this is the inauguration of color television at wrc, nbc-owned station in washington, d.c. a ceremony hosted by the president of nbc and attended by president eisenhower. during the ceremony, he flips

the switch. >> the cameras you see before you are color cameras. they are now transmitting a black and white picture. by pressing this button, which i now do, the cameras are transmitting a live color picture. when you step before them, you will be making your first appearance on color television from washington. mr. mashon: it goes from black and white to color. and he tells president eisenhower, we are making two copies on this new kind of videotape for you, mr. president. >> i have a strip of this new tape. i have asked our engineers to make two copies of this program. one will be sent to the white house for your personal retention. the other will be presented to the library of congress so it's archives may permanently possess a visual record in color of this significant occasion. i think all of us realize that in these fast-moving times, it is highly important that our

nations capital should be attached to every single citizen in this country by the very fastest best kind of decisions of the nation and of a government that one time could tolerate three or four weeks of study now demand almost instantaneous reaction. mike: and that is the copy that we have here. our engineers recently did a new transfer of it. so amazingly enough, 55 years later, we are still able to copy this video. ["hail to the chief" playing mike: the way that most people

today are able to see our films is to visit the moving image reference center in the madison building on capitol hill, washington, d.c.. but that is starting to change because we have a lot of, we are employing a lot of scanners here at the packard campus. working with the library's web development team in order to get more content available online. and i believe that we are currently in the midst of a sea change, a paradigm shift, that is going to see a lot more of our content available online. and we are a long way off from today with everything we have -- will be available online, but with some of the work taking place at the packard campus, we are going to reach a day very soon when i inked there is just tremendous amounts of material

-- when i think there is just meant as amounts of material out there for a new generation of researchers to discover and make something meaningful. there is a lot of stories that can be told in our collection, and we are just so eager to make more of it available for people to discover and enjoy, and tell us more about what we have. ♪ >> you can view many of the earliest films from the library of congress by visiting loc.gov. >> you are watching american history tv on c-span 3.

next, professional tennis player arthur ashe, his personal life, career, and has involvement in the civil rights movement. the book "arthur ashe: tennis and justice in the civil rights era" explains how he overcame racial and class barriers to win three of the four grand slam tennis tournaments. this hour-long program was hosted by the virginia historical society. host: virginia's own arthur ashe was one of the best tennis players in the 1960's and 1970's, winning multiple davis cup and multiple grand slam events, u.s. open, the australian open, and wimbledon. he was also deeply committed to human rights and civil rights