Hearst Metrotone produced this 1969 film, “100 Years,” for Western Electric’s (W.E.) 100 Years of Communication and Century of Progress promotional campaigns. The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company founded in 1869 and dissolved in 1984. For most of this time, W.E. was a subsidiary of AT&T, manufacturing telephones and equipment. “100 Years” features communication technologies – from the telegraph to the telephone – facilitating historical events in U.S. history. Credits: William Fitzgerald, direction; Vincent Apollo, editorial supervision; Robert Brown, Sal B. Cavera, editing; Edmund Reek, Jerry M. Merola.

Opens with “voice” of Ulysses S. Grant taking Presidential oath of office in 1869 (00:08). Steam locomotive pulling passenger train (00:18). Hand tapping a telegraph Morse key; title “100 Years” (00:23). Hand filling out a Western Telegraph Company card regarding Suez Canal opening (00:28). Montage of telegraph clacking over still photos and illustrations of Suez Canal, the 1871 Chicago Fire, Henry Morton Stanley finding Doctor David Livingstone, Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn (00:30). Closeup of a telegraph key (00:45). Closeup of Alexander Graham Bell’s water transmitter telephone (00:50). Split-screen of a hand cranking an acoustic wax cylinder, playing Thomas Edison’s recording of “Mary Had a Little Lamb”; shots of Edison; a phonograph; an incandescent bulb (00:56). Operation of a wall-mounted telephone with separate transmitter and receiver (01:08). Shot of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt’s Rough Riders during Spanish American War; Teddy giving a “Square Deal” speech (01:25). Split-screen of ballroom dancing, women clocking in for work, a candlestick telephone, early automobiles driving over rutted road, women parading in bathing suits (01:44). Split-screen contrasting Henry Ford watching a production line with a mule team pulling (02:12). Men erecting a telegraph pole (02:40). Woodrow Wilson; World War I (WWI) doughboys; trench warfare (02:50). Closeup of a candlestick model telephone (03:27). The Gem Theater (03:30). The Spirit of St. Louis taking off; Calvin Coolidge awarding Charles Lindbergh the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1927 (03:48). Babe Ruth hitting a home run and running the bases (04:16). Jack Dempsey smiling (04:32). Bobby Jones putting (04:37). Bootleg liquor production and Prohibition era speakeasies; Alphonse Al Capone (04:46). Alfred E. (Al) Smith’s 1928 Presidential campaign (05:00). Herbert Hoover (05:09). Wall Street ticker tape closeup; brokers aggressively trading (05:16). Cotton field pickers (05:22). Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR)’s “New Deal” speech at the 1932 National Democratic Party Convention (05:39). Model 202 D1 telephone (05:50). King Edward VIII’s 1936 abdication address plays over shots of Edward and Wallis Simpson (05:53). Adolf Hitler; Benito Mussolini; German military parades; Haile Selassie (06:03). Edward Bowes ringing a bell on WHN’s “Major Bowes Amateur Hour” (06:27). Edward R. Murrow; the London Blitz during World War II (WWII); shots of Winston Churchill over audio of Churchill’s June 17, 1940 “Curse of Hitler” BBC broadcast (06:42). Pearl Harbor bombing and FDR’s “Day of Infamy” address (07:08). World War II (WWII) montage: Douglas Macarthur; Dwight Eisenhower; naval destroyers; artillery turrets; bombers; D-Day landing; tanks; Marines raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi at the Battle of Iwo Jima; Enola Gay; atomic bomb mushroom cloud; Harry Truman announces Japan’s surrender; Victory in Europe (V-E) Day celebration crowds (07:17). Eisenhower presidential campaign; “I Like Ike” signs (08:03). The Beatles performing; Beatlemania (08:17). Fidel Castro smoking a cigar in a parade (08:33). John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)’s “Cost of Freedom” speech (08:37). 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr. (MLK)’s “I Have a Dream” speech (08:41) Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) pinning a medal on a soldier (09:04). Trimline telephone (09:07). 1969 montage: Richard Nixon’s inauguration parade; Apollo 11 launch and the Eagle’s moon landing; astronauts on the moon over Armstrong’s “one giant leap” audio; audio of Nixon congratulating Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong; ticker tape parade (09:12). Woman using a Model 2500 telephone (10:40). Credits over split-screen of hands hanging up telephones (10:42).

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