1960 United States

About this footage

A large white passenger ship sails through Miami's harbor, and Florida fills more of these 1960 reels than any other state. In Tampa, passengers board an Illinois Central train with an observation car, a woman holds up her catch on the dock, and a motorboat runs down a canal past a white house. Visitors watch dolphins swim in Miami, and a trainer works with one at Marine Studios in Marineland. Away from Florida the cameras went sightseeing. There is the Statue of Liberty seen from a boat, Manhattan from the top of the Empire State Building, and in Washington, DC, the FBI building, a security officer at the White House and an aerial view of construction. Families drove empty Nevada highways past cacti toward the mountains, filmed a dancer in a war bonnet at the Manitou Cliff Dwellings in Colorado, and watched cowboys get ready for the rodeo at Frontier Days in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Back home, one family in Wauconda, Illinois, filmed a building project in detail. Men build a porch while a woman watches, mix concrete with shovels and a mixer, pour steps into wooden forms and hoist the house with pulleys. Meanwhile a white dog gnaws a bone on the porch step, and the family crowds around a litter of puppies. In Camden, New Jersey, children swing at the playground, splash in an inflatable pool, eat corn on the cob in the backyard and march in costume in a Halloween parade. A bride and groom kiss among formal guests in Bel Air, Maryland. In Baltimore, two young women talk in rocking chairs.

Useful for stories on Florida tourism, do-it-yourself home building, or American family life in 1960.