1970 United States

About this footage

Washington, DC fills more of these 1970 reels than any other place. Cameras ride past the Washington Monument and flag-topped government buildings, stop at the Lincoln Memorial plaque, and walk the rows of white headstones in military cemeteries, including James Forrestal's grave. Across the river in Arlington, Virginia, a sign marks the Kennedy gravesite and a flame burns in a stone fire pit with grass growing between the pavers. Annapolis, Maryland, gets its own set of reels. Naval cadets stand outside a historic building, sailboats race with crews in orange gear, and the Mystic Whaler sits at the marina. The New York City footage was shot in winter. Couples and families skate at Rockefeller Center under the Christmas tree, a man steadies a child learning to skate, and a boy poses with a snowman in front of a brick house.

In the Minnesota footage it is spring, with big piles of snow melting by the road and a family of brown ducks on a pond. A Goodyear blimp rests on a grass field, a red open-top 1920s car shows off its yellow-spoked wheels, and a man tills his garden at Mille Lacs. In California, people line up for tickets at a cable car station, a family rides a yellow amusement park train, and the Disneyland marquee stands next to a turning Denny's sign. In Hawaii, a long-haired woman sings and laughs at a microphone on a tour boat, passengers in headscarves sit on deck benches at Pearl Harbor, and a woman in pink Bermuda shorts tees off. Farther west, a lone walker crosses slickrock below Wilson Arch in Utah, the camera pans down to a muddy river bend at Goosenecks State Park, and a lodge of cut stone and logs sits above the pines at the Grand Canyon. Family reels from Michigan show Easter baskets beside the cars and a boy in a red jacket running across a field.

Useful for stories on sightseeing in Washington and its military memorials, winter in New York City, or American family vacations in 1970.