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.
Episode 194, from 1954, begins with “To Give Us More Miles!” The segment recaps testing gasoline mileage in cars during a race from Los Angeles, CA to Sun Valley, ID. Officials of the American Automobile Association walk into a dealership to appropriate a new car for the race (00:44). The 20 cars to be used in the race are impounded in a garage in Pasadena (01:22). Officials examine the cars and test the automobile parts, including the engines. Drivers are weighed in (02:03) prior to start of race at a garage in L.A. The cars (02:26) are pushed out to the starting line (02:26), and a flag waves to signal the start of the race. One of the cars enters Yosemite National Park (03:31). The cars arrive at Merced to check and measure fuel (03:47). There is a shot of San Francisco (04:22). The drivers stop to put chains on their cars (04:40) before climbing Donner Summit (04:54). A view from the passenger seat of one of the cars shows the highway cutting through a desert (05:07). The cars cross the finish line in Sun Valley (05:16) and the judges announce the winners. The next segment is titled “Academy For Artists!” It covers correspondence education offered by the Art Institution of Minneapolis. The segment shows the Art Institution Incorporated building in Minneapolis (07:16), where supplies are packaged and sent to students. An art instructor reviews students’ work (07:50). Famous students include cartoonist Charles Schulz (08:32). “Fabricated Firewood!” is the next segment, which shows the manufacturing of presto logs from sawdust at the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company’s Longview, WA lumbermill. A man cuts boards at the mill (09:00), and the sawdust is turned into fire logs, which are used aboard a railroad dining car kitchen (09:59). The final segment, “Hospitality, Old Style!”, shows the Treadway Inn on Cape Cod, MA (11:08), where guests golf, ride horses, and enjoy dinner with views of the lake.
Episode 452 from 1959 is titled “Still Going Strong,” and looks at modern methods of manufacturing, as well as old methods still in use. The episode shows a lantern manufacturing plant (13:51; 16:33), a man making a wooden wagon wheel with traditional tools (14:21) and the blacksmith preparing the metal tire for the wheel (15:03), a modern horseshoe factory (15:30), a match stick (17:45) and clothes pin (19:15) manufacturing plants, a broom plant (20:22), a factory where wooden barrels are made (22:14), men building a log home (24:24), and a plant where furniture is manufactured (25:59).
1953’s episode 147 begins with a look at scientific farming and the cross-breeding of different cotton seeds at the Delta and Pine Land Company (27:18). Here, pollination is done by hand, and the company provides employees with free or subsidized housing (29:20). “Summertime Skiing!” shows men and women waterskiing, before showing PlyCurves’ water ski manufacturing plant in Grand Rapids, MI (31:00). Charles Sly (33:34), the former national waterskiing champion, goes skiing on a new pair of skis. The next segment is “The War On Pests!” Chemists at the Orkin Exterminating Company in Atlanta, GA create new pest control chemicals (34:36). Men remove termite-damaged siding and wood from a home (35:25), then spray poison along the home’s border. A car sprays a pesticide gas on a lake as swimmers and sunbathers stand by (36:58). The final segment looks at an RCA experimental car model at the David Sarnoff Research Laboratory Center in Princeton, NJ that uses electric sensors to allow for automated driving (38:07).
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