“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 110, 102, and 99). Episode 110 begins with a look at the Donora, PA (00:39) and its steel factory owned by the U.S. Steel Corporation (01:24), where waste is reprocessed into usable material. A pump moves gas-contaminated water (01:58). Flames melt down the collected iron from the cleaning process (02:43). There are more shots of the town’s streets, shops, a football team, and a bagpipe group marching in a parade. The next segment takes viewers to the Porter-Cable Company’s New York factory (05:17) where men build various tools. A man puts together a portable saw. A woman adds the motor to the saw body (06:15). A contractor on a jobsite uses a Porter-Cable circular saw. Next, viewers go to Kansas City to see the industrial research center for Midwestern Research Corporation (08:22). Here, scientists work in laboratories, conducting research with beakers, scales, and fluidizers (09:16). A man looks at an x-ray (09:44), while another man works with a spectrograph. The following segment features the manufacturing and test flying of helicopters at the American Helicopter Company in Manhattan Beach. A man climbs into an XA-6 (11:29). At the company’s plant, employees design and build helicopters. A man tests a part used for the aircraft (12:24). Another employee tests a jet engine at the company’s plant in Mesa, AZ (12:44). A man climbs into an XH-26, then takes off and flies around.

In the second episode, no. 102, viewers learn about the television network relay system that uses the Bell System. At a New York City studio, a ballet is being filmed and broadcast (15:00). Men in the production control room direct cameras and lights. The episode then shows a telephone communications building (15:40) where the broadcast is sent through the Bell System via coaxial cable. The next segment covers the manufacture of rubber belts at the Gates Rubber Company in Denver, CO (19:15). Natural rubber is put in a mixer and blended. The blended rubber mix is moved along to a coating machine (19:50). Cords are treated with adhesives before coated with rubber. A man builds a tire with several plies of rubber (20:25). The episode shows V-belts being manufactured and a shot of the factory. The next segment begins with a grandmother and her granddaughter pushing strollers down a sidewalk (21:48). Employees of the Welsh Baby Carriage Manufacturing Company in St. Louis build strollers (22:12). Women cover metal frames with cloth for the basket. A man assembles a carriage (23:12). People pack the collapsed strollers in boxes for shipping. The final segment of episode 102 shows several young women looking at wedding rings at a jewelry store (24:42). A woman sketches a ring design at J.R. Wood and Sons Company in New York. Metals are placed in a crucible with gold and melted down (25:17); a bar of the gold alloy is compressed and is put through a flanking machine, which stamps out circles of gold alloy.

In the final episode of this set, viewers see how sleeper cars are serviced in Chicago, IL. A man cleans the inside of a Pullman sleeping car (29:00). At the Pullman Coach Company’s testing laboratory building (29:42), a man puts samples of sheets in a tensile-testing machine (30:30). Back on a Pullman sleeping car, a porter unpacks clean sheets and towels (31:07). A female passenger boards the train (31:46) and is escorted by a porter to her car, where he explains the lights and temperature controls. In the next segment, a man poses with boxing gloves and headgear (33:55). At the Everlast Sporting Goods plant in New York City (34:15), viewers see a woman as she sews seams into material used for making gloves. A man shapes the sewn glove (35:03); women stuff material into the gloves and weigh them. Finished gloves are boxed for shipping. Women dance on the set of a television studio (36:32). At the production campus of the Alexander Film Company in Colorado Springs (36:45), viewers see the inside of the control room of a set. For animated commercials, men transfer drawings to film using an optical printer (27:49). The final segment features young women from Florida working on a tobacco farm near Melrose, CT (38:56). The teenagers harvest tobacco leaves in the field. A truck hauls the harvested leaves to a barn, where more of the young workers loop tobacco onto sticks and hand them up to a man who hangs the tobacco up to dry.

This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com