deployment is one of the key factors in economic growth. one of the things i found striking is that in the 21st century, there has been a democratization. i see people using the broadband connection to build businesses in a previous era, and either would have had to migrate to one have coasts or would whitherred on the vine but because of that connection, they're able to innovate, and i think that's something special in rural america. >> watch "the communicators" on c-span 2 monday night. > next, american artifacts of san francisco's internet archive, to learn about the archives, amateur films produced from the 1920s through the 1960s. the collection was acquired by the library of congress in 2002. this first of a two-part program

looks primarily at educational films. national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]. >> i'm rick prelinger. i'm founder of the prelinger archives, which is a large archive of f this films in san francisco. and also a nonprofit internet library. and this morning, we're sitting in the middle of the offices of internet archives. i began collecting film in 1982. i was working as a researcher on a documentary project, and this project involved searching for a material that wasn't in conventional collections, specifically, material about everyday life in the post world ar ii period, so i became very interested in industrial advertising and educational films. these were considered trivial and useful and at that point in early '80s, hardly collected.

but i began collecting and quite quickly, this collection grew extremely large and people began to ask me for access to the material and suddenly, even an unschooledtill film collector with no archival training, i had started something which was, by default, an archive. the united states is the most media-rich nation on earth. away more e throw median than other countries create. media s was a time of transition in this country in the same way we're moving from physical to digital media, in those days we were moving from film to video, so there were film huge collections of market,re dropped on the that were difficult for the institutions or the companies that owned them. so i began by going to high school and college media libraries. ultimately started to go to

production companies, many of business out of already. many of them were good. work, the d their artistry, not to mention the money that went into making this stuff nobody wanted. and i went to some film laboratories as well, so that in a comparatively short amount of time, i had, gosh -- well, ultimately, the collection was about 200,000 items. >> it wasn't so long ago in the history of man's world, that hips were carrying eager passengers towards the shores of the new nation that was just in the building. our forefathers were constructing the foundation of this nation by interlocking inseparably the blocks of our political and economic freedom. >> when you walk the cap back

through the 20th century and get a sense of the films produced, and i call them ephemeral films. they were created for specific purposes and specific times, they were not meant to be kept in the long run. but it appears that the total ephemeral film production between the '20s and '80s is between 4-500,000 items. we ended up collecting about 16% of the total production, which is not bad. it's a pretty decent cross-section. so i collected actively. but in 2002, we reached an agreement for our collection up to that date to be acquired by the library of congress. o everything that was in our collection prior to the summer at the is now stored library of congress, in the

audio-visual archives facility in virginia. to where they are beginning open this up for public access, research vailable for use. it's an extremely large collection, so it will take the good people at the library a long, long time to process it. special s a lot of handling. it's quite difficult. ubsequent to the library of congress acquisition, i continued to collect a little more selectively. i no longer tried to collect to ything in these genres collect works of special merit. at the beginning of the film, they were mobilized to educate. one of the things that's kind of a little funny to think about today is that teachers who wanted to use film in their classroom were radicals. they were really -- that was uite far out, you know, to say that text books weren't the most efficient or the most vivid way of imparting knowledge, that was a wild thing to say.

>> the lights are admitted, the projector is running. the classroom has become a setting for use of a very for ive teaching tool, classroom film. these young people learn and how well they learn it rests largely with how the film is used. >> it gradually took hold, and there were many, many educational films in the '20s '30s, the catalytic event because world i, as training lm use effectively and on a broad scale. >> distance training, hard work, and working together. this way, the capital is road ed for the difficult ahead. ne, two, three, four, five, six, all right, enough with that.

>> and i thought i was in position. >> there were a thousand details. special students, athletes, captain'sall used the files. war, they woulde all be projected, that went to the schools in the u.s., and so suddenly, there was an infrastructure. i think in the neighborhood of around 200,000 educational films was produced in the united states. and they range from works of produced as sly ilms with, you know, some sort f special production value and creativity to, you know, put out for about how to ask dates. he value of educational films today is that they're a tremendous documentation of how they wanted young americans to

turn out. they show us what we were be, and the history of the 20th century which is, of course, the media-dominated century, is very much the istory of media messaging and what we saw in school and what we were supposed to internalize, is a really important and fascinating story. >> bob is hungry and the soup looks good. manners,ng his company ut we see he is doing at least three things wrong. now that the soup is served, the crackers are passed. he passes the crackers first before he helps himself. should he have helped himself first or not? bob is eating before the others. what about that? >> think about gender roles. in the '40s and '50s boysut quite specific ways

and girls, young men and women were supposed to behave. to talk y wonder what about all evening on a date, but the secret of easy conversation is getting off to a good start and here, the girl can often lead. he >> hi, did i ever have a time at the hair dresser today. -- oh, it was so funny. >> if you think this was good stuff? hardly. what would bob know about hair dressing problems? >> and you begin to think about changed in the '60s, free to be you and me. and when films were made in new york and berkley angeles, there's a florescence of different kinds of behavior are no longer bad. films track that story. my i, i'm jan, and this is

class. wait until you meet our teacher. she's nice. students enjoy themselves. oh, it's more than that. we're learning all kinds of things, and how to get along with each other, you know? and used to be a clown, then i learned history. >> and history taught over time, how did that change from the '20s to '30s to the world war ii war.d, and then the cold there's fascinating stories there to tease out. >> what were the freedoms these men were fighting for? freedom to govern themselves. freedom to elect representati s

representatives. the driving urge to build and grow. in nearly 200 years since the colonies began, a new united states was a long, thin country with a long continent at the back. but then that driving urge came welling up. nd the heavy air of freedom could not be contained. >> the thing i find gratifies archival ifelong project is that we now see scholarship building up around these films. for years, educational industrial films were considered symptomatic, you know, documents that didn't have primary research value, and now people actuallyzing these are tremendously important to history of g the ideas, the history of ersuasion, the history of who we are. > cathy, do you recall the

problem about the plane theory that we discussed yesterday? >> well, there was constant fighting between ranchers and farmers over the land so neither f them could become really prosperous, and we decided that this situation kept many people who might have otherwise come and settled the great land. the end. >> very good summer, cathy. in this film, we'll learn about other problems that faced these people and what they finally did about them. afterwards, i want you to be able to identify and discuss the problems, and to describe how the eventual solution of these problems affected our country's histor history. >> it wasn't like the days when cowboys fought indians. farmers, ttlemen and nobody had what could make a difference. both had six-shooters and both could use them. finding a cheap and practical fence. some tried authority hedge. others, yarn for fencing, and it

was pig-tied, horse-high, and bold strong. took four years and more to grow. others tried just plain-old wire. but cattle shoved right through it. and the search continued. for a fence that of d combine the low cost wire with the thorns of a hedge. barwell glinton, farmer was d credited for creating the first wire.d fence hash llowing year, jacob received a patent for his barbed wire. both were practical and inexpensive. the west got its fencing. >> who can give me reasons why the invention of barbed wire was so important to the development of the great plains? jimm jimmy. >> well, the barbed wire helped cattlemen rs and

because they could keep the cattle where they were supposed to be and the farmers could do less fighting. >> yes, and this is the only kind of wire fencing ever nvented that could do the job, wasn't it? >> i'm especially fond of the series of films that was made by a company called centron in lawrence, kansas. lawrence, kansas is a very special town in kansas. it was an abolition town. it's a university town. and centron was a company started by two men, and then helped by a woman named margaret trudy kravitz, who wrote some of ost interesting and unusual films i've ever seen. there was a series titled "the nob", "the bully", "the procrastinator." "the outsider". teenagers could talk about, different things that were troubling. one of the greatest things about no e films is they have

answer. at the end they say, what do you think? and a giant question mark, you screen. led the you answer? do you think they answered the problem in the right way? really, how do you think? this is a very democratic attitude to take that, you know, kids could think this through talk this through, and come up with some kind of an opinion. see that enough in the 40s and '50s are about -- the educational films tend to tell you how to behave. it the fact that they left up to the students was quite great. > you might as well have a party over at my house. >> you bring the meat, and we'll bring the records. >> okay. go to class t to now. so long, bye. >> bye.

susan jane, what's 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. nobody asks. >> that team at centron made a at the height of of cold war called "bay thanksgiving." and it's a film about a family themselves too poor to buy a thanksgiving turkey so they sit around talking with one another about what they feel thankful for. hello, everybody. >> hi. susan.her, vick, what's been going on around here? what's the matter with everybody, anyway? >> mom says we aren't going to

have any thanksgiving, no things.no good to hat we're going to have be thankful for. >> i don't think you kids really mean that. >> we do too. turkey for had thanksgiving. >> yes, and everybody else on the block is going to have it always. r, same as >> yes, we've always had turkey, just as a lot of americans have having and we'll keep on it. turkey on thanksgiving is a great american tradition. but what you kids are saying makes it sound as if the turkey to be only thing we have thankful for. >> oh, gee, whiz, no, dad, it's all. hat at >> i know, dick. with turkey, it's easy to lose is sight of what thanksgiving really means. >> don't make any excuses just because we don't have any turkey this year. it will mean a lot more to it the next time we do have it. know, it's a little kinduirky and a little bit

of gendered in the way we think about these things today. but what's interesting is that it's completely nonmaterialistic. patriotism quate with prosperity. withdon't equate happiness buying things. and it's a film that i think level, oves on a higher and it's a deceptively simple sophisticated, , smart and good ideas. >> i am thankful for getting to at all the time, with extras that count, like cookies and milk at the school. like mom says, i'm hungry all the time anyway, and if i didn't live in a town where there was golly!to go around, and i'm thankful for the free public library where i can get adventures. jack london, richard halliburton. gee, the way they tell a story is as good as being there ourself, and it's free, with

only a library card. > i am thankful that my children have the privilege of being born safely and are healthy and strong. i'm thankful that i have the privilege of guiding them as they become youthful men and women. and i'm thankful for all the things our american system makes ossible for the smiths and the browns and the thompsons. the washing machines. hot water out of a tap. and the telephone to call the family isn one of the sick. to work.get dad yes, i'm thankful for all the working ee people together can produce. that when my neighbor drops in to borrow a cup of flour, we've got the out anything we want to. the parent-teacher project, the

new mayor or jane joan's hat. and last of all, i'm truly thankful for the peace of mind for dad's job brings, knowing that even though there are lots of luxuries we can't afford, there still will always be enough to go around for the we have to have. i'm thankful that there are evenings and sundays and all be s, where we can together. > there's many, many different little things on the educational health and ealth, hygiene. some of those are pretty funny. although, a lot of those, they have a core of truth in those films as well. >> this is joan getting ready for school. joan learned at school that it's important to choose the right cold day. a the temperature is 40, too cold for just a coat.

she will need her snow suit if she wishes to keep had for the dutch festival. and this is jim, joan's brother. they choose wraps to keep all of their body warm. jim's friend george is eating an apple as he waits for them. is a wise no thank you, joan. never share another's food. george has forgotten something, something that helps keep him clean. it's lucky for george that joan him.n extra tissue to lend some children learn to jump over puddles.d but george wades right into rouble, because he forgot his go lashes. >> it's a social guidance film. that's a whole story. we could do a whole program trying to understand that, but basically what happened is that world war ii, the american families fragmented.

men worked late or they were sent overseas. women quite often, you know, worked outside their home often at night. unsupervised, ly wild.ey got a little delinquency enile rates went up. they were sexually active in ways that was quite threatening to the power structure, and there was anxiety. is.e always everybody talks about, you know, kids d of literacy and spending too much time on facebook and all of this kind of, so we have our mild panics then, the mild panics margaret, frankly, was afraid marriage was obsolete and kids would no longer feel the need to have prominent partners, kind of the same we have now, the same-sex marriage debate, the act that we would lose monog

me, and as part of this cluster educational companies would partner with the scholars, the clergy, educators, psychologists, even margaret gists like mede, and made about 200 and it was to train kids how to be kids again, how to save a generation from being lost. >> high-school drop outs, boys in men's jobs. not good jobs, of course, but jobs with pay checks that will pay for a car or its gas, or cover a big tab on a saturday night. boys, these not bad dropouts, not delinquents, not hoods, not yet, that is. they may not even be stupid or back ward or lazy. this is pete, a nice boy, as a matter of fact, just one of almost a million american

youngers who makes the grades in high school. what makes a school casualty? this is harder work than bill might be doing in a classroom right now. what makes him trade english, math, history, science, for a broom at 1.10 an hour? why is the dropout? school people in many american cities have been asking this question checking cases like this one, doing research, thinking hard about so terrible a waste of youth, so big a leak in our manpower reserve, so great a failure in our educational system. >> and i think some of the artifacts that we see the most they're certainly tremendously popular on our site, you know, social sex, attitudes in adolescence, dating don'ts, going steady. and, of course, you can imagine is,t they say, the of course no.

>> i do wish you'd try going out with some of the other boys as jeff. s >> why? but i like jeff a lot. >> i know, i like him too. but after all, there are other boys. >> if there are, i wish one of them would call. >> now, would you date with one if he did call? >> oh, i don't know. i'd rather go out with jeff. others wouldn't ignore me so. oh, mother that's the whole trouble. me.f doesn't ask he just shows up. waiting for be him, so he doesn't call. neither does anyone else. >> sarah, there's advantages to going steady. going steady? yes, i guess i have been going steady with jeff. we never talked about it. but then, we did it regularly for quite a while.

really, itot serious, isn't. >> why, i hope jeff doesn't feel -- he has the right to >> oh, mother. he wants me to come over and make some fudge with him. anyway. ss i'll go >> some great films were made as part of that movement. series,riage for matters including films such as choosing for happiness, this charming couple, made by famous documentarians like lord van dyke, and alexander hammons, eople who were kind of the humanistic left wing documentition. left a lot ofthat imagination up to the audience and to ask the audience what was relationship.is why wasn't this marriage going to succeed. similar, you have your kind of stuff and then you have really beautifully crafted film that is as good as

anything anybody's made since. >> if he thinks i'm going to sit home and cry my eyes out, he's slam, well, so have i. i can make my own living just as make his. can he ought to be glad i'm working. stand cause he can't competition, he wants me to quit. enough.isn't important i'm only a woman. but he is the man and boss. slave to me to be a the house. look at this mess. his clothes rows around. t wouldn't hurt him to pick up the house. i am the one who's married but single.ct as if he was

>> jenny, i didn't marry you so laugh at my and jokes. you've got a mind of your own, and you've got to use it. it's about time i accepted you as you really are. >> how much you're saying, i've wonderful present. i feel like, i don't know. here's my (indiscernible). >> most people think of film as stories that you see in theater, and the truth is is that film broader s in a much category and the movies you see in theater are really only a of the total of national and world production of films and when you begin to these out and look at poorly remembered films like you can see on the internet archive,

you're able to get a much broader sense of what our history is and, once more, you can actually download it. stuff and edit you can make your own synthesis. you can make your own historical ilm, whether you're a student wanting to show stuff in a classroom or a teacher wanting kids or a e films to maker, there is so much there then, you know, my interest is in creating millions of new authors, who are creators, with moving images, and one thing that you can do is give them stuff to work with. ive them material to add it, and so that's what our activity has been all about. >> you can explore the prelinger rchives and view thousands of films at the internet archives at archives.org.

>> for this year's student cam documentary contest, students are telling us the issue they want the presidential candidates to discuss, and we're hearing about the students as they produce their video. hano,s a treat from andrew eighth grade social studies teacher in winston sallem, north carolina. congressman bob goodlap tweeted help with their student cam project this afternoon in roanoke, good luck. students in arizona tweeted more of our day at the capital. state again arizona representative john vines and senator clark for the tour, and pagle, social studies teacher tweeted interviewing jay our student for cam project about school bullying. $100,000 in prizes with a grand prize of $5,000. deadline is january 20, 16