Group 1: Departments of the US Government

The U.S. Reclamation Service

The U.S. Reclamation Service led the way in the use of film and presented a film “showing the work of the Government in reclaiming arid lands” at the Jamestown Exposition as early as 1907 (p. 17).

The US Department of Agriculture

The US Department of Agriculture began using film two years later in 1909 by taking a film of a livestock show at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. The USDA found film to be a helpful training tool and would send films to educational universities on topics such as the “Texas Fever Tick. The USDA was also “the first branch of the Government to establish a laboratory of its own for the production of educational films” (p. 17). Below is an undated USDA film from the 1920s about the rotation of fields as well as a sound film “The Plow that Broke the Plains” the famous (and sometimes controversial) USDA film from 1936. The high quality of this film can be attributed to the experience the USDA had gained in almost twenty years of filmmaking as well as the high value placed on film by the Secretary of Agriculture (p. 17).

USDA- Undated silent film from 1920s

USDA- The Plow that Broke the Plains (1936)

The Committee on Public Information

The Committee on Public Information was established at the start of the first World War. This Committee established a film division, chaired by George Creel for the “dissemination of information concerning the government’s war activities” (Ellis and Thornborough, 1923, p. 20). In a book he wrote telling of this experience in 1920 titled How We Advertised America : The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information that Carried the Gospel of Americanism to every Corner of the Globe, Creel devotes an entire chapter to “The Battle of the Films.” The film division not only produced movies, such as “Pershing’s Crusaders,” it also established a relationship with the Education Department who “saw to it that all of the Committee pictures were furnished free of charge to every proper organization in the United States” (Creel, 1920, p. 123). These films were shown in “churches, schools, chambers of commerce…” ( p. 122) and dissatisfied with the typical distribution models, “the Committee on Public Information went into the motion-picture business as a producer and exhibitor” (Creel, 1920, p. 122). These were the “first intensive application of the motion picture to educational procedure” and were used before and during the World War, “largely for propaganda purposes” (Dent, 1939, p. 95). “Motion pictures were found to be so valuable during that period, that the close of the War brought into existence many types of educational films and film producers” (Dent, 1939, p. 95).

Pershing’s Crusaders- The first film from the Committee on Public Information in World War I

Committee on Public Information World War I movie reel

Group 2: Educational

The Educational category is comprised of Educational and Religious Groups Including State Universities. Educational groups were the first to attempt to provide “complete film coverage of a subject” (Saettler, 2004, p. 152). The Society for Visual Education produced several science and geography films and this was followed by the Yale University Press Chronicles of America Photoplays. In 1936 Dent declared these films to be “among the finest historical subjects ever produced, and are used extensively by schools throughout the United States” (Dent, 1939, p. 96).

Yale University Press still from the Chronicles of America Photoplays popular in the 1920s and 1930s.

Group 3: Industrials

These groups were industrial in Nature but distributed films that had some educational value although education was not always the primary goal. “The large industrial organizations had found motion pictures to be especially helpful within the organization, and began preparing pictures which could be used to educate the public with respect to the functions of those organizations.” (Dent, 1939, p. 95). Some industrials include: Ford Motor Company, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, International Harvester, Northeast Appliance Corp, Philadelphia Inter-State Dairy, Western Electric Co.

International Harvester

International Harvester ad appeared in the magazine The Educational Screen.

Western Electric

Western Electric was an industrial producer who distributed films such as this one here on the advantages of sound. From Western Electric, came ERPI, which was “organized as a subsidiary of the Western Electric Company, the manufacturing division of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company” (Saettler, 2004, p. 147). “ERPI’s first film explained how sound was put on film. Called Finding His Voice, it became one of the most popular short subjects of all time and was screened in all important theaters.” (Saettler, 2004, p. 147).

Finding His Voice- ERPI

Group IV: Film Producers

These groups specialize in making motion pictures to order. Among this group is the Bray Productions, Pathe Exchange, and Eastman Teaching Films.

Pathe Exchange

Ad for Pathe in Educational Screen

Eastman Teaching Films

Although this company was ultimately short-lived, many of the Eastman Teaching Films still survive. The company began in 1928 and made films in the areas of “geography, general science, and health” (Saettler, 2004, p. 147). However, Eastman Teaching Films fell victim to the “impact of the educational sound film, the depression of the thirties, and the deaths of George Eastman and Thomas E. Finegan”. These events combined to “bring an abrupt halt to the Eastman Kodak Company’s film production activity in 1932” (Saettler, 2004, p. 147).