tv FDR Home Movie Collection CSPAN August 5, 2018 3:35pm-3:46pm EDT
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war, they still issued hard drive, heart bread biscuits. 6:00tch the entire program p.m. on our weekly series called "american artifacts," only on american history tv. >> recently, the franklin d. roosevelt presidential library in hyde park, new york issued a unique film collection, and joining us on the phone to talk about is library director all barre paul sparro. what is the miss thy lehand? paul: she was a close friend of the president. she lived in the white house. she was intrigued with film cameras. she had a film camera and she would film a number of these
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informal picnics, events, and lunches, and also part of the selection were films from other super who gave home movie that were included in her collection. she had a stroke in 1941 and less the white house and took a lot of her possessions with her died several years later, so they did not become an initial part of the library when the library was created. d-nieces made the decision to donate the films, and this is the first time you put the whole sort of collection of films online for people to review. >> how many films are in the collection? paul: there were 11 different films, but they were strangely intercut. there are about two hours total.
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we quit 90 minutes online at the is point. there is somewhere trying to sort through. there is some footage that may be copyright protected, some we are not sure on ownership, so we are still trying to work through it. you have on one of these reels, you might have either six up or six sub-clips. there might be one from their home in canada look, a scene warm hyde park, from on spills, so they are all over. there is not a clear chronology of them, so we are trying to sort through them. we put together a little highlight reel where we get a clips from warmpts
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springs and from can tabella. >> so these are mostly black-and-white? paul: mostly black-and-white, but there is some colored footage, at the house with her irish setter and his mother, sarah, cutting roses in the rose garden and the children riding horses. it is very unusual color footage from that period. there is some of eleanor roosevelt knitting with some of her friends. library come fdr to acquire the collection? paul: it was acquired in august of 2017, and it has taken a wild go through it and have it transferred. some of the old film stock is fairly fragile, and there is the national archives worked in maryland, the color line, so
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they have to go through the process of getting it ready for transfer, and we transferred it in both what they call for a video files and high-definition video files so that he footage in the future.le >> is the collection previously unknown? entirety of the collection was unknown. some of the footage has not been enough or. -- seen before. some of it has been rarely seen. a film arbiter who worked for ken burns, for example, may have seen it, but some of it has never been seen. >> these are all pre-world war ii films? ofl: yes, from the period 1932 to 1938. after that, it sort of drops off. i imagine the life in the white house got too busy.
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what is wonderful as it shows you the sort of behind the scenes footage. there are some scenes where there are other reporters around but thereel crews, are some scenes with fdr in warm springs around the pool where you can see has very atrophied legs. that is something he would never reveal in a setting where there might be press present, but he was so comfortable with the other polio survivors at warm springs, and when you have someone like missy lehand taking the photos of him and he knew that would never get in the hands of a newsroom company. some of the thickness easy, be behind the scenes things you see, i'm informal look into the life of the roosevelts. >> how we you say the collection as to fdr's legacy? paul: one of the things that is
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really intriguing about the --sevelt's if they were had aelts is they very private life. the fact that he had julio was a secret kept from the american public for decades. people knew that he had polio, they knew that he was what they called crippled back then or he had a handicap or a on a walk, but very few people knew that he was paralyzed and so severely crippled, so when you see the home movies that show a side of him where he is not putting on the act. whenever there is cameras around or he is giving speeches, he is pretending to be able to walk or pretending to be able to stand without the assistance of the steel braces that they put on
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his legs. es missy lehand appear in any of these films? if so, are there any new observations about her relationship with fdr and eleanor roosevelt? paul: yes, missy lehand appears in a number of the videos, including at his home here in hyde park, and there are fun scenes that are home movies of missy that do not have the roosevelts at all where she is traveling with her sister and they are having a time. reallyre people who enjoy life. many of these are official photographs. she looks very serious. she is the president's secretary. you can easily get a perception of her as a very reserved and serious person. movies, see these home you get the sense that she was a lot of fun, she was vivacious, and of course she was
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a very powerful woman. she controlled access to the president. she was not given a lot of respect. there was a lot of sexism back then. even today, historians do not fully acknowledge the remarkable role she played with the roosevelts. we have first respondents from , ambassadors,e contacting missy and say "listen, i really need to see the president. in?"ou get me and her essentially providing backdoor access to the president for people she felt he needed to see, and the people she did not feel he needed to see you not get into see him. >> you talked a little bit about condition of the film. how is the library processing and preserving the election? paul: it was sent out to washington and was transferred to video files. we now have high-definition video files. the film itself will be stored in our collection rooms, which are temperature and humidity-controlled.
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we have a lot of film stock at audio tape here that are stored in what we call our sacks, and they are kept under very specific environmental conditions. >> how can people view the films and learn more about? point, we put them online, and there are a lot of of shots where we do not know everybody in the shot yet and we were debating whether we should debate and identify everybody and get public feedback. want to create processing opportunities of people can go through the footage. for example, there are several scenes of a big picnic they had home,eleanor roosevelt's and it looks like there are a number of reporters there, but they are not orders, they are just having fun. they are doing related races and eight races and just playing. we would like to get feedback and identify who all of the
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people are cared nine of the 11 rolls have been put online. somewhere working with issues of ownership. now both onilable the fdr library youtube channel, and there is a page on the fdr library website that will explain the collection and take you to the youtube playlist. >> paul sparrow, thank you for your time today. paul: i appreciate it. >> up next, "american history tv" was at the organization of american historians annual meeting in sacramento, california, where we spoke with historian carolee klimchock, about the role of coach drivers during the gilded age. she explores how relationships between coachmen and their passengers resulted in public scandals. this is about 15 minutes. steve: carolee klimchock, an independent scholar, graduate of yale university, living in texas, in your panel today, an interestin
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