“Overseas Flying Classroom” (1957) was produced by the Air Transport Association of America and sponsored by Michigan State College. It documents a pioneering civilian effort in 11 European countries to assess implementation of the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was a program enacted in 1948 to provide economic and technical assistance to European countries after WWII.

00:00 European citizens going about daily life. 01:37 New York International Airport; a contingent of 65 Americans board a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser. Manhattan skyline. A stewardess serves meals at sunset. 03:10 Aerial view of Paris, France and the Paris-Orly Airport. 03:55 Arc D’Triumph, The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Roman Colosseum, St. Peter’s Cathedral. 04:36 A Swiss city and a bomb damaged German city. 04:48 The fountain of Gefion in Copenhagen, The Little Mermaid statue at Langelinie, Copenhagen. Royal Danish guards at the Amalienborg Castle. 05:18 Fisherman 05:25 Oslo 05:34 A boater punting on a canal in Holland, tulips at Castle Treslong-Hillegom, and a windmill. 05:53 Brussels, Belgium. 06:02 Views of London, Buckingham Palace, the changing of the guard ceremony, Windsor Castle. 06:28 Office of the Economic Cooperation Administration, the U.S. agency that managed the Marshall Plan. 07:14 Factory workers and herdsmen at a farm. Film screening at a film studio. 07:43 Communist political rally criticizing the Marshall Plan. 08:07 West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. 08:10 The Cathedral of Madeleine in Paris. 08:20 A Communist rally. 09:00 A mule-drawn cart wheels down a rural Italian road. 09:20 A woman ladles soup for children 09:45 A steel mill in operation, a man tends to cows and cattle, a tractor plows a field. 10:35 Rotterdam Dockyard. 10:58 Bombed out buildings. 11:03 Public farmer’s market. 11:52 Italian construction workers dig trenches. 12:15 A German boy sells “particularly inexpensive” fruit. 12:25 Germans go about daily work amongst war-damaged buildings. 12:52 Children play outside government housing in Norway. 13:26 New apartments in Sweden. 13:37 Families rest outside single family homes in Switzerland. 13:54 School children ride a merry-go-round; citizens enjoy public parks. 14:58 School children and a headmaster pose for a portrait. 15:03 Dr. Banning, of Holland’s National Health Service 15:34 London: Parliament, Trafalgar square, and Buckingham Palace. 16:20 A mother and child tend to a flower garden, a streetcar / tram / trolley car, Le Cristal cafe in Paris. 16:47 Community garden plot, boats for sale, a sail boat cruises a lake, cyclists 17:17 Participants of a pageant ride horseback, women at outdoor markets, St. Peter’s church in Rome; a steel mill, workers walk and cycle to factories, a shipyard, pounding railroad spikes, a woman molds clay dishes. 19:51 Timber floats down river to conveyor belts for processing. Cut lumber is stacked. Women cut sheets of paper. 20:40 Auto factory for 1951 Opel Olympia. 21:09 A potter’s wheel at ceramics factory 21:39 A river by a mill, Motta Confectionery Factory at the Milan Fair 22:46 A sign in Britain advertises factory jobs for women and girls; Piccadilly Circus, London. 23:14 Farmers with horse-drawn ploughs; a grower pushes a wheelbarrow. Thinning grapes in vineyard, fruit trees grow in greenhouses; three generations of farmers in Italy pose, draw water from a well, gather bundles of branches, herd pigs, tend to rabbits. 25:33 Farmer on a tractor sprays insecticide on trees 25:48 Farm in Switzerland 26:11 Danish farmer talks with an Agricultural Cooperative agent 26:45 Parliament 26:56 An outdoor rally for the Communist Party. 27:01 A passenger train pulls into a station. 27:10 Government apartment housing. 27:21 A Citroen 11B stops for military guards at a gate. Copenhagen. 27:48 A woman spreads washed clothing on bushes to dry. 27:57 Guardsman march at Castle Amalienborg, Copenhagen. 28:12 Soldiers at a shooting range. 28:26 Bombed out bridge is rebuilt. 28:36 German school children in front of bombed buildings; Swiss children leave a polished school; female university students in Sweden 30:06 A cricket match. 30:18 Children in school uniforms walk to school; children play on swings outside government housing. 30:56 Victor Emmanuel Monument in Rome. 31:04 Harbor in Sweden; a church steeple. 31:27 Aerial view of English countryside, and the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. 32:00 END

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