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Land of Our Forefathers (1941)

1941 · Short film · 32 min

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Synopsis

Produced by M. Minter Culver in 1940-41, the “Story of Civilization” was a series of educational films intended to tell the story of mankind through the use of stock footage culled from industrial films. This 1941 film "Land of Our Forefathers” looks at some of the different nationalities that have immigrated to the United States (the film uses the term “races”). It is divided into four chapters and looks at the French, Germans, English, and Russians with footage from each country on the basis of stereotypes for each group. The French are shown as individualistic, the Germans as industrious, the English as warriors, and the Russians as modernizing. Each chapter, except for the one on the English, also ends with a traditional folk dance for each cultural group. 0:09 Title “The Land of our Forefathers”, 0:19 Title “A Unit in the Series Story of Civilization”, 0:38 immigrants coming off a ship and being checked at US immigration, 1:17 different angles of the Acropolis in Athens, 1:51 Aerial footage of Rome including the Colosseum, 2:16 Roman Chariot race scene, 2:51 Map of Europe overlaying the different “races” including the Romans, Celtic, Germans, English, Slavs, 5:17 scenic views of a forest in France, 5:40 beautiful flower covered field with a farmer and his cows, 6:36 farmers in donkey drawn carriages on a road, 7:03 scenes from inside a rural French village including of animals, children, and a drummer, 7:27 men and women making wooden shoes by hand, 7:57 a wedding scene…

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Details

Running time
32 minutes
Collection
Ephemeral Films

Subjects on the Internet Archive

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