1939 United States

About this footage

Old Faithful erupts in Wyoming, and an arch of antlers marks the Tower Falls ranger station. The western reels in this 1939 collection spend a lot of time outdoors, filming a windstorm over rural land, a rainbow above the mountains and mist on the peaks. In Montana, a cowboy on a brown horse herds scattered cattle while young calves play in the herd and farmers load hay onto a horse-drawn trailer. Around Lake Chelan in Washington, men saw lumber at a campsite, haul an animal carcass on a sled through the forest, cook a meal in the woods and show off a fish pulled from a stream. Lake Tahoe shows up as pine forest and alpine water. Utah has sandstone walls and two women walking across sand dunes.

Closer to home, the cameras turned on children. A family in Danielson, Connecticut filmed a toddler walking toward an encouraging adult, a baby crying in a high chair and an infant in a wooden crib. In New York, a boy swings on a rope, children watch a goat graze in the yard and a man pushes a child in a wheelchair along a suburban sidewalk. There are weddings too. A bride walks down the aisle in Montana, and Wyoming newlyweds drive off in a car marked Just Married. The California reels add a small-town parade with a car and wagon, children racing down a street in front of a crowd, combine harvesters in a field and an Art Deco building with crenellated walls in San Francisco. In Cleveland, Ohio, a boss checks on a forklift worker.

Useful for stories on Western ranching and camp life, early national park travel, or American family life in 1939.