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.
The first episode is titled “Water, Water Everywhere.” This episode discusses the importance of water use, and shows footage of fields in the San Joaquin Valley being irrigated (00:42), cars being transported on a barge through a loch or canal (01:50), water used for a chemical reaction to purify low-grade copper ore (02:13), men testing water absorption in a desert (04:11), and officials of the Portland General Electric Company (05:02) meeting with community members to discuss storm collection and irrigation systems. Other shots of this segment include the Laguna Municipal Reservoir (06:49), the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonia, TX (08:03), and trees being harvested for the Institute of Paper and Chemistry in Wisconsin (10:49).
The next episode, episode 428 from 1958, discusses the ways in which industry is helping people live “with our climate”: a man walks into his air-conditioned home (14:07); a man sprays insulation into the attic of a house (14:31); two men install lightning rods on a home (15:08). The episode shows a textile manufacturing plant in Maine, where machines make fabric using nylon fibers (15:24) and compress the fabric (16:04) for extra insulation. Workers fry onions at Mrs. Kornburg’s Food Production plant in White Plains, NY (16:59), aided by the work of scientists who test ways to counteract the odor of frying onions. Science is used to help reduce or eliminate other unpleasant aspects of industry, and the episode shows a cement plant (18:50) and a sewage disposal plant (19:38). A woman drives her car up to a gas station (20:28) where the employee hooks up an AC unit to the woman’s car while she waits for gas to be pumped. A man climbs into a Black Hawk tractor with an air-conditioned hood (21:13). A man tests drafts and air flow at a Wisconsin school (22:20). At a Kroger supermarket in Cincinnati, OH, airflow keeps the climate pleasant for shoppers. The episode ends with a shot of the South Dale Shopping Center in Minnesota (23:57), where the weather is centrally controlled from headquarters (24:58). An employee at General Electric tests the creation of artificial snow using dry ice (25:40). 1954’s episode 172 begins with a look at an avocado nursery in California (27:27). Workers measure the seedlings then graft them with another variety to produce high quality avocados. Young avocado trees are ready to be planted (29:33). At a nursery in Florida, men harvest avocados from mature trees (29:55). The harvested avocados are taken to a packing plant where they are examined and then packed using conveyer belts (31:07). The next segment looks at the process of making hand-blown glass at the Blenko Glass Company in Milton, WV. Men use the freehand method to create decorative glass pieces (33:40); a vase is ground during the finishing steps (35:32). The episode takes viewers to Long Island in the next segment, “Shopping Shift!” At the Smithtown Shopping Center (36;40), customers enjoy the ease of one of the first self-service drug stores. Architect Lothrop Douglas (37:17) looks at land and early construction of a new shopping center. The final segment of this episode features the sprawling west coast aircraft factory of North American Aviation (38:28). The factory’s large aisles convert into recreation stations for employees during lunch break, complete with horse shoe courts, ping pong tables, and shuffle boards. The segment ends with a shot of the F-86 Saber Jet production line (40:00).
The Southdale Shopping Center, located in Edina, Minnesota, was the first totally enclosed shopping center in the nation. In 1952, its developers, the Dayton family, commissioned the architecture firm Victor Gruen & Associates to create a new form designed to reflect and serve changing patterns of suburban living. The master plan combined elements of the village green of European city centers, with elegant arcades and gallerias, in a constantly temperature-controlled enclosure. When Southdale opened in 1956, it included 72 stores and was anchored by two major department stores, all arranged around a brightly lighted center court. It offered free parking, and its 5000 parking spaces were grouped into lots, well marked by clever symbols to aid in locating one’s own car. Not only did Southdale fulfill the vision of its creators as a center of commerce and of social life for suburban residents, it also fueled suburban growth and became a much-imitated model.
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