“Industry On Parade was a television series created by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) from 1950-1960. The series consisted of weekly episodes that highlighted American manufacturing and business. Hundreds of companies and products were documented during the program’s decade-long run.”
This film is a collection of three 1952 episodes from the series (episodes 111, 83, 112). Episode 111 begins with footage of sulfur mining: a wall of earth is dynamited (00:58). A sulfur well stands over a sulfur dome (01:19). The episode shows a sulfur processing plant in Texas or Louisiana (02:20). Men walk along pipes that move liquid sulfur, and stack molds to hold the sulfur for drying. The next segment shows an aerial view Watkins Incorporated’s steel plant in Wichita, KS (04:05). Men fabricate steel beams and grind steel plates. Employees build a cylinder for an oil refinery (05:40). Company president E.A. Watkins watches work being done. At the Jantzen Manufacturing Company in Portland, OR, a woman models a swimsuit (06:22). Another woman dyes spools of cloth, which is then run through a machine to bend the fibers before making it into yarn. Several women work on the floor (07:42). A woman cuts out components of a swimsuit from a stack of fabric. Next, the episode takes viewers to a railway yard (08:57). Two Union Pacific officials inspect cargo (09:30). The plexiglass wall of train car is then crashed in a freight car safety test to demonstrate how cargo can be damaged. The episode then shows the exterior of the J.H. Monteath Lumber Company building in New York (11:13). A man demonstrates a very hard wood (12:21) by unsuccessfully trying to drive a nail. Men inspect boards of mahogany (13:08) as it is carted storage sheds.
The second episode, number 83, starts out by showing viewers the testing of diesel generators in sub-zero temperatures at the Stewart and Stevenson Company’s facility in Houston, TX (14:32). The episode shows a shot of a Stewart & Stevenson Services building (14:59). Men work on manufacturing engines at the company. A generator unit is equipped with a heater (15:40); men assemble burners while women put together electrical control panels. Two men prepare to test a generator in the arctic test room. The segment ends by showing the generators and engines operating on various jobs, including at a hospital, a sawmill, and irrigating farmland. The next segment begins with a close-up shot of a man’s hands sharpening a wood-carving tool (19:50). Uncle Joe builds a chair by hand at the Louisville Chair Company in Louisville, KY; the segment features the ornate woodwork in Uncle Joe’s home in Louisville. At the International Amphitheatre in Chicago (21:10), viewers see the Expo of American Society of Tool Engineers. At the Kodak booth, people learn about the company’s new contour projector that is used for gauging accuracy of small machined parts. At a plant, parts are machined (21:55). A woman compares machined parts to the original plans by magnifying the small parts with a contour projector. Two marionettes are controlled by a puppeteer in Kansas City, MO (25:13). Viewers see how Miss Mazel Rollins’ company builds the dancing dolls by painting the heads (25:50), attaching plastic shoes to legs, and gluing on hair (26:44).
In the final episode of this set, number 112, viewers see a large forge press at the Wyman-Gordon Company in North Grafton, MA (28:28). Men run metal through the press. Men work with a massive multi-story press (29:36), and the site where massive presses will be manufactured. In the next segment, viewers see the manufacturing of paper towels at the Brown Paper Company in Berlin, NH. Men push logs into a river, and the logs float down to the facility where they are run through a chipper. An acid bath turns the chipped wood into pulp. The pulp is moved along a belt and converted into paper towels (32:27). At Terminal Island, CA, the tuna clipper May Queen has its tuna catch unloaded (33:55). 500 women work in one of Star-Kist Food Incorporated’s warehouses (34:36), removing skin and bones from the meat. A machine dices the meat. A woman inspects the weight of a can. Sealed cans move into a detergent wash, then into the baskets of a pressure cooker (36:12). Cans are labeled and boxed. The final segment shows the manufacturing of saddles at the Hamley and Company building in Pendleton, OR. Several men build the saddles, cutting out leather pieces, compressing the leather, and fitting the pieces on the saddle tree. 40:38 A man works on tightening the strings on a nearly finished saddle (40:38), as another man stamps designs onto the leather.
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
