This 1957 color educational film about 1840s travel in the U.S. was produced by Coronet Instructional Films. The educational collaborator was Lewis Paul Todd, Ph.D., author and former Professor of Social Studies at New York University. The film’s narration begins in New York in 1840, where the narrator is working as a blacksmith under his grandfather’s watchful eye. The sound of hammer on anvil is heard (:42-1:20). A stagecoach arrives, having lost a rim from a wheel (1:21-1:53). Stagecoaches were also used in the late 1700s. Depicted are men dressed in capes and tri-corned hats (1:54-2:04). Two horses pull an open carriage. Such vehicles caused roads to be built, connecting towns together (2:05-2:20). Back at the blacksmith shop, the boy rolls a wooden wheel with a metal rim, shown up close as a symbol of how these vehicles travelled. The repaired wheel is put back on the stagecoach and the passengers loaded. The driver hands the narrator a letter from his family in Illinois, which asks him to join them (2:21-4:02). He plans his trip on a map by candlelight, pointing out the three major passages he could take from New York to Illinois. He chooses the northern option of following the Erie Canal. His travelling options shown are alone by horseback or travelling with another family (4:03-5:25). The next morning, he hitched a ride on the stagecoach as far he could before setting out to walk the next seven miles (5:26-6:08). At the Erie Canal, a large barge appeared, hauled by a pair of mules. The captain offered him the job of mule boy. This involved guiding the mules along a tow path on the bank (6:09-7:10). Sometimes they had to go through a lock to raise or lower the barge to meet different water heights. The process is shown, and the film says that trip required going through 83 locks. At Buffalo, the Captain shook his hand and the narrator continued on the last 600 miles he had to travel (7:11-8:13). He next got a job as a fireman’s helper on a lake steamer headed for Detroit. The mooring rope is cast off and the piston is shown moving as the steam whistle blows. Below, his job in the boiler room is to keep the fire hot, adding wood to keep up the steam (8:14-9:50). The Captain’s maps are shown, and the stops on Lake Erie are pointed out: Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo and Detroit (9:51-10:23). A paddleboat steamer on the Mississippi River is shown (10:24-10:35). The small steamer the narrator is on can come close to shore to load and unload passengers and supplies, including wood for the boiler (10:36-11:20). The narrator earned enough to ride the last leg on a steam train (11:21-11:35). A summary of 1840s travel is shown: stagecoach, canal barge, small steamer, big steamers, and long wagon trains, with the steam train as the next avenue (11:36-12:33).

We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”

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