Work Life Content Overview

Moving Images of Work Life, 1916-1960

Consistent with the characteristics of the region, the work life in the hidden collections represents a range of largely rural content with some industrial documents. One of the surprises was the strength of the scientific expedition coverage, which would otherwise have been unknown and thus unlikely to attract use without this identification.

Luther Holbrook Collection 1934 scientific voyage by Admiral Donald MacMillan, schooner Bowdoin to Labrador and Newfoundland. Dr. Alfred Gross of Bowdoin College, ornithologist, and Dr. David Potter of Clark University, botanist.

Irving Forbes Collection 1931 expedition by Alexander Forbes to survey the northern third of the Labrador coast. The expedition included the Ramah, and two airplanes, a Fairchild cabin monoplane and a smaller Waco biplane, Reel here.

Charles S. Houston Collection Mountain climber and expert in the effects of high altitudes on human physiology; mountaineering footage in Alaska, Nepal, and Pakistan.

Attracting scholarly attention presently, the itinerant women filmmakers who worked for the Amateur Theatre Guild, Boston, shooting Movie Queen films. The Moving Image (Univ. of Minnesota Press journal) in its most recent issue featured itinerant films and filmmakers. Evidence of itinerant filmmakers’ practices and the businesses they recorded has been recently discussed at the Association of Moving Image Archivists annual meeting, among the students at The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman House, and at our archives.

Belfast Historical Society Collection 1935 footage from Belfast, Maine, Movie Queen

John Bruner Collection 1939 Movie Queen by Margaret Showalter, shot in Groton, Mass.

Norwood Historical Society Collection 1935 Movie Queen shot in Norwood, Mass.

Daniel Lapointe Collection 1936 Movie Queen filmed in Van Buren, Maine, on the Canadian border.

Industrialization and mechanization is represented in several strong pieces depicting factory work with close attention by creators with ties to the industries in question. The themes include transition from handwork, pre-industrial processes, innovation, use of automobiles and internal combustion engines.

Charles B. Hinds Collection 1925 processes at Hinds Laboratory, manufacturing cosmetics in Portland, Maine.

Leadbetter Collection ca. 1932 from white pine lumber to spools for sewing thread at John MacGregor Corporation spool mill in South Lincoln, Maine.

Ernest Groth Collection 1926 ice harvesting and distribution, Spring Brook, Connecticut.

Edwin Bienick Collection, ca. 1929 American Writing Paper Company in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in a bilingual sales film.

Electrical generation, hydropower, the community and environmental impact.

Central Maine Power Collection 1920 to 1938 Central Maine Power Company and E.H. Maxcy. Bucksport, Maine. Paper mill and Wyman Dam in Bingham, Maine, corporate and community life.

Milford Baker Collection, 1930-1932 Wyman Dam in Bingham, Maine, construction details with laborers and equipment such as turbines, generation units.

Roger Lincoln Collection, 1915-1916 film from Enfield, Mass., which was destroyed when flooded by the creation of the Quabbin Reservoir in 1939.

Agriculture, fisheries and pre-industrial work, with extraordinary aesthetic qualities to the film in many cases. Traditional and persistent economic areas (tourism, summer camps, and forestry) are well represented.

Palermo Historical Society 1930-1960, Milton Dowe amateur film of haying, alewife fish run, documentation of wooden fences in agricultural fields, and other rural activities.

Irving Forbes Collection 1915 sheep herding on Naushon Island, Mass.

Pierce Pearmain Collection 1926 Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, Boston, and the suppliers of agricultural products the the market. By Philip Davis, a significant figure in sponsored films with a background in the union movement.

Philippe Beaudry Collection 1927 Cary Maple Sugar Company of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and Lennoxville, Quebec, the world’s largest maple sugar company.