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Exploring the Internet Archive -- Newsreel of FDR's first inaugural speech

 

 

 

Public Domain image -- downloaded from Wikimedia Commons

I've been foraging the Internet Archive daily for the past several weeks now.  The archive is a bottomless respository of fascinating material.

Below is a Universal newsreel of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inauguration in 1933.  The nation was in the depths of the depression and talking film was still a novelty when it was produced.

The 7 minute and 44 second film opens with a narrated action sequence of the film cannister of the event being loaded onto an airplane, flown to New York, and taken to the studio in a car with policemen perched on the running board.  The scene was included to emphasize the speed with which the newsreel was being distributed to the public.

To put this opening into context, ponder the fact that many of the older people in the audience had experienced childhood with no automobiles, no airplanes, and no movie theaters.  Talking film had just become widespread a few years previously.  The novelty of seeing and listening to a presidential inauguration within a week or two of the event, in the depths of the Great Depression,  must have seemed like a futuristic technological marvel.

This newsreel includes the opening sequence boasting about the speediness of the film transport, the swearing-in, an excerpt from Roosevelt's inaugural address, and closing praise of the new president.  It's a fascinating glimpse into the way news was distributed before television and the internet.

 

 

 

Exploring the Internet Archive -- San Francisco Earthquake film from 1906

The Internet Archive has a phenomenal collection of digitized early film.  This one is of the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. 

It consists of 5 minutes and 13 seconds of of people traveling through the rubble and viewing the devastation.  One of the most interesting things from my perspective is that 1906 was in the decade in which the automobile began making inroads into American cities.  There are shots of people walking, cycling, riding in horse drawn carriages, and in automobiles, often in the same shot.

 

 

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Exploring the Internet Archive -- Gunsmoke: the radio series and comic book

Exploring the Internet Archive -- Gunsmoke: the radio series and comic book

Gunsmoke was one of the best radio dramas ever made.  Further, it holds up well today.  The show was created by Norman Macdonnell and  John Meston, and ran from 1952 to 1961, overlapping with the television series.  The radio series dealt with a number of topics too edgy for the television series, including drug addiction and prostitution.  Another notable difference about the radio series is that the good guys did not always win.

William S. Paley, chairman of CBS, was a fan of Raymond Chandler's detective works, and came up with the basic idea.  His concept was a hard-boiled adult western, similar to Chandler's hard-boiled detective works.  The project was partially developed, then shelved, and came back to life a few years later when Macdonnell and Meston discovered it, and decided to run with the idea.

It starred William Conrad as Matt Dillon

Here is an audio file of the first show, "Billy the Kid".  It aired on June 26th, 1952 (when, incidentally, I was about to celebrate my first birthday).

 Here is a link to the entire radio series.

Another treat for Gunsmoke fans in the Internet Archive is a series of comic books based on the television version of the series.  The comics available available here are from a series run by Dell from 1958 to 1962.  Be sure to click on "full screen" to make the comics large enough to read.

Here is the link to the comic books.

The Internet Archive contains an overwhelming number of treasures like this.  I hope you enjoy them.

Exploring the Internet Archive -- The Grateful Dead Collection

The Internet Archive has a fantastic collection of recordings of Grateful Dead live concerts, mostly from the 1970s and 1980s, free for the listening.

Here's a link to the entire collection.

And here's a 1972 live concert at Winterland Arena:

Exploring the Internet Archive -- A Liberace Video from 1954

I love the Internet Archive.  It's a bottomless pit of movies, classic TV shows, radio drama, Grateful Dead concerts, books, audio materials, comics, and thousands of other things that are hard to categorize.  The materials on the site are for the most part either public domain or under various types of free license.  I've embedded a video I found in the archive this evening.  It's a 1954 television show hosted by Liberace, that leads off with his piano rendition of "Turkey in the Straw".  The thing that fascinated me about it is my realization that it aired when I was three years old.  

  The Internet Archive is a treasure trove of cultural artifacts like this.  You should dive in and explore it.