The Gateway to History Collection from Alexander Press can be found online, where it is open to general viewing until the end of August 2013. The principal resources concentrate upon the United States and in particular the Civil War. Thus historians whose field is US history will revel in the online collections for ‘The American Civil War’, ‘The American Civil War Letters and Diaries’ and other Civil War and US collections, including ‘Manuscript Women’s Letters and Diaries’, ‘Black Thought and Culture’ and ‘North American Indian Thought and Culture’.
Britain is represented by a collection entitled ‘British and Irish Women’s Letters and Diaries’, whilst there is a four minute recording of ‘The Drunkard’s Child’ by Emily A. Pankhurst. Australasia features too, with ‘Early Experiences in Australasia: Primary Sources and Personal Narratives 1788-1901’ (the title indicating that Australia from invasion to federation is the timeframe). And, although again with a strong US bias, ‘Women and Social Movements International’ provides insights into women’s history at an international level.
‘The March of Time’, albeit again focused primarily upon the United States, extends the range of coverage in that it features Time Inc.’s ‘unique and controversial newsreel series, “The March of Time”’. As the blurb says, the series was shown to US theatregoers and television audiences from 1935 through to 1967. In its Archives Collection, HBO has restored the newsreels to ‘their original luster … allowing viewers to experience these historic newsreels as audiences did in earlier decades’.
The full script of each newsreel is included in the online collection, with titles ‘Inside Nazi Germany – 1938’ featuring alongside ‘Children in Trouble’, ‘Metropolitan Opera’ , ‘Show-Business at War’, ‘Children in Trouble’, ’18 Million Orphans’ and ‘Mid-Century: Halfway to Where’.
‘Inside Nazi Germany – 1938’ is particularly notable for it was recorded in January of that year – well before the Second World War began, and long before the US entered that war. The ‘show window’ of ‘Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany’ is observed as being the capital city, Berlin, where ‘the casual visitor may be surprised by the air of prosperity’ featuring ‘well-dressed crowds’ and an ‘abundance of rich food’ served in ‘cafes and terraces’ where visitors do not see ‘privation or hunger’. Rather, Berlin’s parks and playgrounds are ‘filled with groups of plain cheerful people’ showing ‘no signs of dissatisfaction with the Fascist dictatorship which controls their lives’ and ‘no apparent resentment against a government whose campaign of suppression and regimentation has shocked the world’s democracies’. All this is attributed to Adolf Hitler’s ‘fanatic little propaganda minister Paul Joseph Goebbels’ who has conducted ‘the most concentrated propaganda campaign the world has ever known’. Hence, in ‘five years of Nazi rule’, Minister Goebbels has ‘whipped 65 million people into a nation with one mind, one will, and one objective: expansion’.
This affirms that there can be little doubt that at this time, despite not infrequent denials of ‘knowledge’ the world was well aware of the genocidal ideology and practices upon which Adolf Hitler’s regime was founded:
‘Still going on as pitilessly as brutally as it did five years ago is Goebbels’ persecution of the Jews. Signposts at city limits bear the legend, “Jews not wanted, Jews keep out.” Even in parks, if Jews are allowed at all, special yellow benches are set apart, labelled, “For Jews.”’
Hitler’s Mein Kampf is quoted: ‘All propaganda must be confined to a few slogans … repeated over and over … until the last man [sic] understands what they mean.’
Like boys, girls were indoctrinated. As the narrator says:
‘From the time the German child is old enough to understand anything, he [sic] ceases to be an individual and is taught that he was born to die for the fatherland … When at 14, the Nazi boy enters the Hitler [Youth], he receives his first uniform and his first rank in the German war machine … Along with her brother, the Nazi girl is taken over by the state … [s] must build strength [and]serve in the Girls’ compulsory Labor Service, do farm work and house work without pay. Then follows government schooling, how to conserve precious food and fuel, which the nation preparing for war dare not waste. Most important, how to care for the babies the Army expects her to bear …’
This nod to girls is a rare acknowledgement of the existence of women on the planet during the first half of the 20th century. In the programme headed ‘The New York State Youth Commission presents Children in Trouble’, women and girls go unmentioned. It is almost as if the streets and homes, penitentiaries and youth reform centres are populated solely by men and boys. The sole concession seems to be the word ‘mostly’ in the introductory paragraph, although even this is ambiguous, and could be referring to the notion that ‘some’ boys and men are redeemable, whilst others are not:
‘Shut away behind the walls of the nation’s many prisons is a lost army, mostly American men and boys who might have made useful citizens, an army which today is crowding our penal institutions to capacity and costs us some $15 billion a year. Who are these lost citizens? How did they get here? Many of them grew up in crowded neighborhoods where there was no space for the right kind of play. As they grew older with no place to go, they just hung around drifting into trouble … An unhappy boy feels more at ease out on the streets with his pals, his gang, their comradeship compensates him for the affection he’s missed at home. The gang admires a fellow who is a leader, the first one to experiment and try things even little things. And later when the gang gets into bigger things, a boy begins to think that nothing equals the excitement that comes from doing something really dangerous …’
‘Metropolitan Opera’ recognises few women, albeit referring to women in the list of performers … far more men than women operatic roles and performers makes the dearth of women predictable. Yet at least ‘Show-Business At War’ acknowledges female performance and performances, stars and personalities. This is evident from the opening lines referring to ‘gaudy doings of the men and women of ‘show-business’ that have been ‘reported to the world by Variety, a weekly theatrical paper edited from an inconspicuous building off Broadway …’ Here, the narrative breaks down through a failure to recognise the existence of any women journalists or feature writers at all. The ‘inconspicuous building off Broadway’ is populated by ‘men who carry on in their own way the colourful journalistic tradition of its founder, the late great Sime Silverman, osteopath of the English language and inventor of some of the most unfettered journalese ever to be set in type.’ Where Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons described in Wikipedia as ‘America’s first American movie columnist’ are, Show-business at War’ does not recite.
As for performers, Olivia de Havilland, Marlene Dietrich and Deanna Durbin rate a mention whilst Hedy Lamarr is allowed to utter the words ‘fine with me’ when asked whether she would be happy ‘to seal it with a kiss’ (in reference to an army man winning a $25.00 bond). When the listener at last concludes that it’s now time for women to come into their own in the programme, the script runs swiftly back to male performers centre stage:
‘Women stars carry on their work as near the battle line as Army regulations will allow. And far from home, the greatest jazz singer of them all, Al Jolson, finds that soldiers still like the old songs best.’
Nonetheless, tribute (of sorts) is paid to Carole Lombard ‘the well-loved film star’ who ‘gave her life’ on a bond drive in the campaign that sold hundreds of millions of dollars of war bonds: at the age of 33 she died in an aeroplane accident.
HBO is to be applauded nonetheless for ensuring that this archive can be brought to light, readily available online – at least until the end of August, when access will be limited to those with the ability to pay. Alexander Press is serving a positive need In bringing these historical records into the public arena.
Jocelynne A. Scutt (c) August 2013
Sources:
Alexander Publishing Online, http://alexanderstreet.com/gatewaytohistory (accessed 20 August 2013)
Hedda Hopper, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedda_Hopper (accessed 20 August 2013)
Louella Parsons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louella_Parsons (accessed 20 August 2013)
Dr Jocelynne A. Scutt is a barrister and human rights lawer, filmmaker and historian. Her films include ‘A Greenshell Necklace’ and ‘The Incredible Woman’ (with Karen Buczynski-Lee) and the DVD Installation in three streams, ‘Covered’. She is Visiting Professor at the University of Buckingham and member of the Victorian Bar and Inner Temple.