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“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.”
This film is a collection of three episodes from the series (1951’s episodes 35 and 42 plus 1952’s episode 84). Episode 35 begins with a look at the production of cortisone at the Upjohn Company’s Kalamazoo, MI plant (01:00). A man dumps a powder into a machine that compresses the substance into cortisone pills. A woman works on creating a synthetical version of cortisone (01:50). A man operates a machine that uses infrared rays to determine the chemical composition of substances. Viewers see atomic scientists working in a laboratory (02:44) and women producing vitamin capsules in the manufacturing plant. In the next segment, bags of U.S. mail are moved on a conveyer belt. At the B.F. Goodrich plant in Akron, OH, the belts are manufactured (05:27). Men stand at various machines and monitor the automatic process (06:13). Two men lower a press to join two pieces of belts together. A woman packs groceries coming off a belt at a grocery store (07:00). Fire bricks are produced at General Refractories Company’s plant in Baltimore, MD. Coal moves on a conveyer belt where it is crushed and moved into drying kilns. A man adds grains of magnesite to the coal (08:35); the mixture is then heated and pressed into fire bricks (09:18). At the Dixie Corporation’s ice cream factory, women sit at a conveyer belt and cap pints of ice cream (11:35). Men move the packed pints into a freezer to harden the ice cream. Viewers see the mechanical process of filling and capping Dixie Cups (12:38), and a woman putting wracks with sticks into molds for making chocolate-dipped “Frosticks.”
In episode 42, viewers see an aerial view of the port and canals of Houston, TX (15:11). Oil tanks sit above ground. Bales of cotton are loaded onto barges (16:04). Viewers see a steel mill, a chemical plant, a large shipyard, the San Jacinto Battle Monument and the retired U.S. battleship Texas. A tractor mows fields of alfalfa and clover (18:40). At Abco Manufacturing Corporation’s New Idea Farm Equipment division in Coldwater, OH (19:15), people assemble cutter bars for mowers. The assemblies are moved on overhead conveyers to be painted then to warehouses. Viewers see a finished New Idea mower. At a New York City pier, men move crates of fish (21:40). The episode then shows the Connecticut plant for U.S. Rubber Company, where rubber boots are manufactured. Men assemble rubber boots on the production line. A woman adds a reinforced inner sole to the boots (22:54). The rubber outsole is placed on boots and then pressed in a hydraulic press. Firemen fight a fire at a building in their rubber boots. In Thunder Bay, MI, men chop down cedar trees with axes. At a mill, the logs are peeled then split for fences. A man tapers the endpoints of the fence posts (25:25). In the episode’s final segment, viewers see a helicopter of the New England Helicopter Company transporting materials for the construction of a billboard in New Jersey (26:27). The helicopter brings in bags of cement and then water for mixing the cement.
In 1952’s episode 84, viewers see the manufacturing of steel pipes at the Benjamin Shaw Company’s plant in Wilmington, DE (28:57). A man examines a welded joint using a radiograph. A large section of pipe is heated by fire (30:15), then men bend the red-hot pipe to a 90-degree angle. At the Borrocks-Ibbotson Company’s building in Utica, NY (32:58), men and women make fishing rods. Filaments of glass are made into a yarn, which is bonded together with other strings and pressed in a draw tube. A man pulls the glass rods from the molds (33:53). Viewers see workers adding the hardware and applying the finishing varnish. A man fishes with an HI rod on a river (35:22). Sewing machines are manufactured at the White Sewing Machine Corporation’s plant in Cleveland, OH. A craftsman machines a tiny part (36:44). Another man works on the release lever of a machine. Machines move on overhead conveyers in the shop. In the episode’s final segment, viewers see a young boy from L.A. mowing a lawn with a push mower (39:32). He meets with the President of Standard Factors Corporation to secure an investment in his business in order to buy a power lawn mower. The boy is shown sitting at his “office” in his family’s garage, concluding the episode.
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 www.PeriscopeFilm.com