1957 United States

About this footage

A man lays cinder blocks on a foundation in Birmingham, Alabama, and later reels show the house going up. Bricks go on against a level, two men work on the roof installing shingles, and a bulldozer clears the land nearby. A boy rides a red bicycle down the street. In Michigan, a family works a vegetable field together, men work in a farm field and a person walks across tilled ground toward a barn. The Nebraska reels stay indoors with one family, where a grandfather watches a boy explore the living room, a man in a wheelchair kisses a young boy and a girl in red tights dances on the porch.

Christmas fills the Wheeling, Ohio footage. There is a tree with lights and wrapped gifts, a holiday table with cake, cookies and a wreath, and an outdoor tree lit up at night. The same Wheeling reels include a horse show with riders and spectators. Summer means lakes in Wisconsin, with people swimming and diving near a wooden cabin and a motorboat. Winter brings couples and a parent with a child walking out on a frozen lake. At the Catskill Game Farm in New York, bear cubs climb a tree and cranes, camels and a llama share the grounds. The travel reels take in a hotel pool in Las Vegas, ships docked in San Francisco, tide pools on the California coast and snowy mountains reflected in an Oregon lake.

Useful for stories on postwar home building in the South, Christmas at home in the 1950s, or family summers at lakes and roadside attractions.