. it is the elementary schools that are suffering. >> a documentary filmmaker talks about her latest film. >> why don't we use the kit houses? the best thing booker t. washington ever did was say no, i want the communities to build it. into 5000 it morphed schools, all over the south, including maryland. >> tonight at 8:00 eastern on q&a.

visits santifacts francisco's internet archive. produced from the 1920's through the 1950's, the collection was acquired by the library of congress in 2002. this program looks at educational films. am rick prelinger, founder of the prelinger archives. i am a board member of internet archives. it is located in south -- san francisco. we are sitting in the middle of the offices of internet archive. in 1982.ollecting film i was working as a researcher on a documentary project.

material about everyday life in a post-world war ii period. inecame interested educational films. these were considered trivial and useless. in the early 1980's, hardly collected. as an outgrowth of my work on the film, i began collecting. this collection grew extremely large. people began to ask me for access to the material. i had no archival training. i have started something which was an archive. the united states is the most media rich nation on earth. i have often thought we throw away more media than other countries. it was a time of media transition in this country, in the same way we are moving from physical to digital media now.

in those days, we were moving from film to video. they were difficult for the institutions or the companies that own them. i began by going to high school and college media libraries. i went to distributors. i started to go to the production companies, many of whom were out of business, located staff who might've kept some stuff. many of them did because they valued their work. so much effort and artistry and money went into making this stuff nobody wanted. i began to go to film laboratories. in a short amount of time, i had, gosh, the collection was about 200,000 items. >> it was not so long ago in the history of man's voyage toward a better world, that ships were

carrying eager passengers to the shores of a new nation. our forefathers were constructing the foundation of this nation by interlocking the blocks of our political and economic freedom. ♪ in the 20th century, when you try to get a sense of non-theatrical films were , they were not meant to be kept in the long run, it appears the total ephemeral film production between the 1920's and 1980's is between 400,000 and 500,000 items. we collected about 15% of the total production. a pretty decent cross-section. i collected actively.

and still do. we reached an agreement for our collection up to that date to be acquired by the library of congress. everything in our collection prior to the summer of 2002 is now stored at the library of congress. state-of-the-art audiovisual archives facility in culpeper, virginia. where they are beginning to open this up for public access, and it is available for research. it is an extremely large collection. it will take the good people at to library a long time process it. film takes a lot of special handling, it is quite difficult. subsequent to the library of congress acquisition, i continue to collect, but a little more selectively. i no longer try to collect everything in the genre, but to collect works of special merit.

film was mobilized to educate. one of the things funny to think about today, teachers who wanted to use film in the classroom were radical. they were -- that was quite far out. to say that textbooks were not the most vivid way of imparting knowledge, that was a wild thing to say. >> the projector is running, the classroom has become a setting for use of a very effective teaching tool, the classroom film. --t this rick: gradually, it took hold. there were lots of educational films in the 1920's. the catalyst of that was world war ii. >> hard work, working together,

the champion prepared for the difficult role ahead. 3, 4, 5, 6. enough of that. over.d that is >> 1000 details, special schools, map reading, military courtesy. war, there were projectors that went to schools in the u.s. and suddenly there was an infrastructure. around 2000 -- 200,000 educational films work produced in the united states and they ranged from works of art consciously produced as films

with some sort of special production value and creativity to tremendously banal films about how to brush her teeth or ask for a date. ,he value of educational films tremendous documentation of how they wanted young americans to turn out. they show us what we were supposed to be. century,ry of the 20th the media dominated century, was very much the history of media messaging and what we saw in school and what we were supposed to internalize. >> bob is hungry and the soup looks good. ,e is using his company manners but as we see, he is doing at least three things wrong. now that the soup is served, he

sees that the crackers are passed. should he have helped himself first or not? bob is eating before the others. what about that? >> think about gender roles. the films in the 1940's and 1950's would layout quite specific ways young men and women were supposed to behave. >> you may wonder what to talk about all evening on a date, but the secret of either the -- easy conversation is getting off to a good start. the girl can often take the lead. do you think this is a good start? what does he know about hairdressing problems? >> think about how that changed in the 1960's. when films were made in cambridge instead of new york,

berkeley instead of los angeles, there is this great kind of different kinds of behavior are no longer bad. educational films tracked that story. >> i am john and this is my class. this is our teacher. she is nice. it is a fun class and the students enjoy themselves. >> we are learning all kinds of things. clown.to be a and then i learned to listen. >> how was history taught over time? fascinating stories.

♪ >> what were the freedoms these men were fighting for? freedom to govern themselves, freedom to elect representatives manning their taxes, personal nurture age rising urge -- nurture a driving urge to build and grow. there have been settled only a narrow strip along the coast, a new united states was a long, thin country. but then the driving urge came welling up and it cannot be contained. >> i find very gratifying about my archival project, we now see scholarship building up around these films. for years, they were considered

symptomatic, documents that did not have primary research value. people are realizing these are tremendously important to understanding the history of ideas, history of persuasion, the history of who we are. >> kathy, the you recall the problem we -- do you recall the problem we discussed yesterday? fighting between ranchers and farmers and neither of them could become prosperous. summary.ery good in this film, we will learn about some other problems that faced these people and what they finally did about them. i want you to be able to identify and discuss the problems and to describe how the eventual solutions affected our country's history.

>> it was not like the days when cowboys fought indians. between cattlemen and farmers, nobody had the what for to make the difference. both had six shooters and both of them could use them. thorny hedge. years or more to grow. others tried plain old wire, but cattle shoved right through it. the search for offense that would combine -- for a fence would combine the low cost of wire with the thorns of a hedge. in 1874, a 60-year-old farmer was granted a patent for barbed wire that worked. the following year, jacob perceived a patent for his

improved bar. -- improved barb. the west got its fencing. >> who can give me some reasons the invention of barbed wire was so important to the development of the great plains? jimmy: the barbed wire helped more farmers and cattlemen because they could keep the cattle where they were supposed to be and the farmers could do more farming and less fighting. >> i'm especially fond of a series of films made by a company called cintron in kansas. lawrence, kansas, is a special town in kansas, the base for john brown, a university town. the company was started by two men and helped by a woman named margaret travis who wrote some

of the most interesting and unusual educational films. there is a series called "the the bully, the procrastinator, the outsider. one of the things that is great about those films, they have no answers. at the end, they say, what do you think? a giant question mark filled the screen. >> do you think you handled the problem in the right way? what do you think? that is a very democratic attitude to take. kids good think this through and talk this through and come up with some kind of an opinion. you do not see so much of that

in the 1940's and 1950's. the educational films tend to tell you how to behave. >> you might as well have the party over at my house. >> we will bring the records. >> i've got to go to class now. >> susan, what is the matter with you? why is everyone else having such a good time when you are not? why do they always leave you out? do you look different? is it some way you act? what makes you the outsider? the outsider, the one nobody asks. rick: they made a film in 1951 at the height of the cold war. it is a film about a family who finds himself too poor to buy a

thanksgiving turkey. they have a simple dinner and they sit around talking about what they feel thankful for. >> hello, everybody. what has been going on around here? >> mom says we will not have any thanksgiving. >> no turkey, no good things. have to bet we will thankful for. turkey foralways had thanksgiving. >> everybody else on the block will have it this year. .> we have always had turkey turkey on thanksgiving is a great american tradition. you kids are saying that the we haves the only thing

to be thankful for. it is easy to lose sight of what thanksgiving really means. we know it will mean a lot more to us the next time we do have turkey. hokeyit is a little bit -- what ise bit interesting is that it is completely non-materialistic. they do not equate patriotism with prosperity. they do not equate happiness with buying things. it is a film that really moves on a higher level and it is a deceptively simple film that masks a sophisticated and good idea. >> i am thankful for getting plenty of -- plenty to eat all the time.

i am hungry all the time anyway and if i did not live in a country where there was plenty, golly. i am thankful for the free public library, where i can get books about adventure. jack london, richard halliburton. good as being very yourself. it is free with only a library card. >> i am thankful my children have the privilege of being born safely and of growing up healthy and strong. i am thankful i have the privilege of guiding them as they become youthful men and women. i am thankful for all the things our american system makes possible for the smiths and the browns and the johnsons. washing machines, hot water out of the tap, and telephone to call the doctor.

a car to get dad to work. yes, i am thankful for all the things free people working together can produce. i am thankful when my neighbor drops in to borrow a cup of the right to talk about anything we want to. the parent-teacher project, the janeayor, or james hat -- 's hat. i'm truly thankful for the peace of mind that dad's job brings, for knowing that even though there are lots of luxuries we cannot afford, there will always be enough to go around for the things we have to have. i am glad dad does not work slave hours, there are evenings and sundays and vacations where we can all be together. --k: many different little

health and hygiene, some of those are pretty funny. a lot of times, there is a core truth. >> this is joan getting ready for school. joan learned it is important to choose the right clothing on a cold day. the temperature is 40, too cold for just a coat. she will need her snowsuit if she wishes to keep well for the dutch festival. brother,im, joan's they choose wraps to keep all of their body warm. george is eating an apple as he waits for them. that is a wise no thank you, joan. never share another's food. george has forgotten something. it is lucky for george joan has an extra tissue to lend him. some children learn to go around

puddles, but george waits right es rightuble -- wad into trouble because he forgot his galoshes. rick: we could do a whole program trying to understand that. during the world war ii, the american family fragmented. men worked late or they were sent overseas. women worked outside the home, often at night. kids were largely unsupervised. they got a little wild. rates of juvenile delinquency went up. teenagers were sexually active. a groundswell of anxiety -- well, there always is. they talked about the end of literacy. we have our moral panics now.

the moral panic then, margaret mead was afraid marriage was obsolete and would kids would no longer feel the need to have permanent partners. kind of like what we have now with the same-sex marriage debate, the fact that we would lose monogamy. as part of this cluster of anxieties, educational film companies partnered with scholars, the clergy, educators, psychologists, anthropologists and they made about 200 social guidance films. the idea was to train kids how to be kids again. how to save a generation from being lost. boys inschool dropouts, men's jobs, not good jobs, but jobs with paychecks.

they are not bad boys, not delinquents, not hoods. not yet. they may not even be stupid or lazy. this is pete, a nice boy. one of almost a million american youngsters who did not make the grade at high school. what makes a school casualty? , what makeser work him trade english and history and science for a broom and $1.10 an hour? school people in many american cities have been asking this question, checking cases, doing research. failure in our educational system. rick: these are some of the artifacts we see the most today. they are tremendously popular.

dating do's and don'ts, going steady. is it going -- is going steady a good idea? you can imagine what they say. no.answer is, of course, >> i do wish she would try going out with some of the other boys. >> why? i like jeff a lot. >> i know, dear. there are other boys in the world. >> i wish one of them would call. >> would you date with one if he did call? >> i don't know. i would rather go out with jeff. i wish the others would not ignore me. jeff does not ask me, he just shows up.

>> there are disadvantages to going steady. >> going steady? i guess i have been going steady with jeff. we never talked about it. regularlye have dated for quite a while. but it is not serious. >> i hope jeff does not feel he has the right to take liberties. >> that was alles. -- alice. >> some really great films were made as part of that movement. there was the marriage for modern series. choosing for happiness, this charming couple. made by famous documentarians, people who were part of the humanistic left-wing documentary

tradition. it left a lot of to the imagination and asked the audience to understand what was wrong with the relationship, why wasn't this marriage going to succeed? you have your low end hokey stuff and you have beautifully anythingilms good as anybody has made since. >> egotist. if he thinks i'm going to sit home and cry my eyes out, he has a door to slam, so have i. living as wellwn as he can make his. he ought to be glad i am working. just because he cannot stand competition, he wants me to quit. my work is not important enough,

i am only a woman. he would like me to be a slave to the house. look at this mess. the way he throws his clothes around. it would not hurt his highness to take a little interest in the house. you so yout marry would admire me and laugh at my jokes. you have a mind of your own. it is about time i accepted you as you really are. darling,rling, -- >> that is like getting a wonderful present. shoulder. my padded rick: most people think of film

as stories you see in theaters. film is a much broader category. the movies you see in theaters are only a small part of the total national and world production of films. when you begin to broaden out and look at these poorly , you are ablems to get a much broader sense of what our country's history is. you can download the stuff and edit it. you can make your own historical film. whether you are a student wanting to show stuff in the classroom or a teacher wanting to show some films to kids or a maker, there is so much there. my interest is in creating millions of new people who are authors, creators of moving images. one thing you can do is give them stuff to work with.

that is what our activities have been all about. the prelingerlore archives at archive.org. >> all weekend, american history tv is featuring hartford, connecticut, located in the middle of the state, hartford began as a trading post on the connecticut river in the 1600s. the town was incorporated in 1784. hartford allout weekend here on american history tv. >> we are in connecticut's old state house in the middle of hartford and this building has been here from 1796. the plot of land has been

important for a long time. inn thomas hooker came here 1636 for massachusetts, he founded hartford on this plot of land. it was in a couple of years later when he delivered a sermon and out of that sermon came the fundamental order, which later became the foundation of government for connecticut. this building was built in 1796 and the architect was a well-known architect of federal buildings and public buildings. is built in the federal style. it was placed on a hill overlooking the river. it was like a temple on the hill. even this new government was stable and firm and it was a monumental building. you can imagine what hartford look lat