Synopsis
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…
Uploader's description on archive.org
Details
- Running time
- 11 minutes
- Collection
- Ephemeral Films
Subjects on the Internet Archive
- 1969
- Western Electric
- Telegraph
- Telephone Communication
- Stock Footage
- Periscope FIlm
