The Moving-Picture Camera Aids the Nation

A note on the text: This text is from the file copy in the JCMR papers. It has a few corrections in the hand of Adeline Barry, notably the change of Binkley’s institution from Columbia University (where he taught in 1937-38) to his home at Western Reserve University.

Citation: Robert C. Binkley, “The Moving-Picture Camera Aids the Nation”, c.1938; Library of Congress, Joint Committee on Materials for Research Records, Box 27, “Archives projects, general”.

Text

[C1] The motion picture camera bids fair to revolutionize old reserves of knowledge. In small and portable form, the camera has adopted a scholarly role, introducing a stream- lined technique for concentrating vast resources of facts so that men may better plan for the future.

[C2] Libraries welcome its advent, and public buildings offer it a dignified place. The federal government turns to it for important services affecting the welfare – and even the existence – of a large bloc of the population; in fact, such laws as Social Security and Railroad Retirement depend on it. The historical associations endorse it, and societies of professors hail it as the herald of a better day for research and study.

[C3] For the past two years it has toiled in service of the nation, quickly and efficiently condensing copies of our most valuable records by the million on rolls of minute film, which can be read only with a projector. The camera’s ability to reduce images leads it an importance as great as that of the printing-press in the history of Man’s effort to use and to store the wisdom of the past. The minute films it produces can be duplicated easily and cheaply, transported conveniently, and distributed widely.

[C4] The films occupy little storage space, despite the great amount of information they contain. This means that the nation’s ever-growing mass of documents may de condensed to fit available space, and furthermore, large quantities of basic data, reduced to convenient film form, may be shipped to distant scholars who hitherto had two alternatives; either to travel to the material, or to drop their research. In addition, the camera technique serves to unroll broad panoramas of data so that experts may survey the gaps and discover superfluous material. This aids in the troublesome task of classifying, storing and cataloguing data. And last, but not least, the new process of copying and storing records is cheaper than its predecessors.

[C5] All this, the microfilming projects of the Works Progress Administration have proved on a wide scale in cities, counties, and states. The federal organisation supplied “white collar” personnel from relief rolls to man all sorts of inventory and index projects. Among these are the projects on which the new technique was tested.

[C6] Local and federal government bureaus, libraries, and organisations of scholars all benefited directly from the work. The major part of the work, that proportion concerned with cataloguing library collections or with copying and indexing state, county and municipal records, was grouped under the Historical Records Survey, a “white collar” subdivision of the WPA. The Historical Records Survey is directed by Dr. Luther H. Evans, former assistant professor of politics at Princeton University. Other WPA indexing and cataloguing projects were sponsored and directed by various federal agencies.

[C7] In the Philadelphia and Cleveland areas, relief workers filmed the catalogues of of dozens of libraries. This resulted in a “union catalogue” for each city. This type of combined catalogues, the latest advance in the library field, discloses where all local books are located. The Quaker City catalogue, now on file at the Pennsylvania Historical Society, contains four million cards, the Cleveland catalogue three million. A busy Philadelphia professor who fruitlessly had sought an important reference work in every nook and cranny of his city’s libraries first developed the plan for such a combined catalogue. In the same way at the Nation’s Capital, relief workers filmed the lists of books in all the government collections and in the public libraries. The Library of Congress will assemble from these films the information for a Washington union catalogue.

[C8] For the Bureau of Census, in Washington, the index to the population records of the 1900 Census was filmed by relief workers. This index involved 34,000,000 cards which contain information on approximately 70,000,000 individuals. The index now occupies fifty square feet of floor space, in contrast to the 7000 feet the records formerly filled in the 9600 drawers of 1200 filing cabinets. As Dr. T.F. Murphy of the Bureau of Census put it, “Formerly we virtually required a Baby Austin to move about among the files but now whole floorsful of records have been compressed into a roomful of film reels.” The floorsful of cards had been filled out by WPA workers in St. Louis, who had copied the information from old tomes, and then had filed it by the Soundex system. The largest job of all, not yet ready for filming, embraces approximately 50,000,000 population records of the 1920 Census. These records are now being filled out from the Census books by WPA workers in New York City.

[C9] Throughout New Jersey, the new micro-filming technique served to save 15,000 old county records, some of them going back before the Revolution, from the ravages of Time. Because the New Jersey material is vital for research purposes, various university and public Libraries – among them the libraries of Princeton and of New York Universities, of City College of New York City, the New York City Public Library, and the State Library of Pennsylvania – have requested duplicates. The duplicates, as clear and clearer even in some cases than the originals, are inexpensive. The low cost of duplication has made it possible for various states to obtain copies of population data from the Bureau of Census for the first time in history. Hitherto the states had been forced to send experts to Washington in order to search out and to abstract Regional population data.

[C10] In four of Indiana’s southern counties, the camera managed to cheat the flooding Ohio River of invaluable historical data. Throughout these counties and twelve more, some 200,000 pages of important old documents were filmed shortly before muddy waters ruined a goodly number of the originals. The latter, among the oldest records in the state, were stored in the public buildings of counties where the pioneers, beating their way long the river, first had settled.

[C11] Men need common records as “maps of ground already covered” which “carry hints of likely progress”, declared M. Llewellyn Raney, director of Chicago University’s Library, in a recent address. “We must prove able”, he pointed out, “on short notice to concentrate the world’s knowledge of a given situation in the hand that can with it drive the deepest salient into the unknown.” But such a marshalling of records requires speed, and the new moving-picture camera, developed originally to supply banks with facsimiles of depositors’ checks, furnishes greater and speedier service than any of its fore-runners: the printing-press, or the photostat, or other simpler types of photographic recording. The moving-picture instrument is only ten years old. Just two years ago, when Dr. Murphy began his first experiments with it at the Bureau of Census, the new camera was regarded, he declared, “as a toy.” Now that the camera has demonstrated its superiority on the large WPA projects, commercial organizations are adopting it, said Dr. Murphy, and, “no one can predict how far it will go except that it promises to revolutionize the entire technique of making and of preserving records.”

[C12] One of the new photographic aids, half the size of an ordinary desk, reproduces texts shot into its hopper on 16 mm film. This is the Recordak. Within it the camera, no larger than the ordinary portable instrument favored by amateurs, is suspended so that the lens faces a revolving drum. The latter automatically picks up the material dropped into the hopper, bathes it in the proper light, places it before the lens, releases and closes the camera shutter, moves the film, counts the exposures, and drops the originals below in their proper order. The operator simply feeds the original records as fast as humanly possible into a slot about eight inches wide, and then removes them as they pile up below.

[C13] The Recordak reduces a three-by-five inch card with complete detail to a tiny image, smaller than the finger-nail on the smallest finger. It will reproduce any loose material up to letter-wide sheets, capturing eighteen full-size pages of the latter on a foot of film and five thousand three-by- five inch cards on a 100 feet of film, the length of a roll. With this instrument, the WPA workers consumed just a few minutes to copy whole drawersful of cards on the library projects in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Washington. As a result, not one of the libraries was forced to remove catalogues from circulation, a practice to which they had been addicted in the old days of tedious transcribing by typewriter. Matter of fact, a single operator averaged three reels, or 15,000 cards a day on the WPA projects, while the average rate for ordinary transcribing by typewriter had been 160 cards a day in Cleveland, according to Mr. Raney. Compare 15,000 to 160! Mr. Raney added that the film cost of transferring 5000 cards to file amounted only to $2.75 including processing.

[C14] Filming formed just part of the work on the union catalogue projects. After the films were made at the various libraries, they were assembled at special centers where WPA typists read them with projectors which enlarge images to more than actual size. From the images, the workers extracted pertinent information which they typed on the union catalogue cards. Then, discarding duplicates, they placed on a single card appropriate symbols to show which libraries harbor copies of a given book.

[C15] On the larger WPA projects, the workers made no card catalogues from the files. Instead the films themselves serve as catalogues, a technique used for the population records of the 1900 Census. As markers the workers inserted sheets bearing special code symbols at intervals among the original cards. The coded sheets were filmed along with the original cards. Now, as the film whirls through the projector the code-marks catch the eye, instantaneously revealing categories and sub-categories of records. According to Dr. Murphy, the Census clerks find it easier and quicker to locate an individual record on one of these files than in an old-fashioned card index.

[C16] A special version of the Recordak, called the Microfile, is used on some of the projects. There are two types of Microfile, both using 35 mm film. These machines will photograph material varying in size from small sheets to full-size newspapers. In one type, the camera is focussed above a perforated roll. The roll draws over it the material fed by the operator into a slanting cradle. The perforations permit suction, by a complicated process, to revolve the roll, to turn on illumination, to open and close the camera shutter, and finally to move the film within the camera. With this instrument a full newspaper page is reduced on film to half the size of a cigarette coupon. This Microfile is being used commercially by many newspapers to record their old copies because wood-pulp, of which newspapers are made, deteriorates rapidly.

[C17] The other type of Microfile, a gigantic machine, will photograph anything from the tiniest card to two newspaper pages at once, or two pages of the largest tome in the government’s files. In this instrument, the camera slides vertically on a thick pole so that the operator may adjust it to focus on material which rests on a large flat table below. Bright side lamps furnish the illumination.

[C18] The operator sits at the table and with a single operation, the pressure of a foot pedal, controls the camera shutter, rolls the film for the next exposure, and shifts the table from side to side. With his hands, he turns the pages and clamps them flat. The Bureau of Census keeps two of these machines in constant operation to record very old and oversized Census tomes in which the script is almost too faded to decipher. The Library of Congress recently has acquired a similar machine.

[C19] Still a third type of moving-picture camera, the portable Folmer-Graflex Photorecord, has played am important role in this new movement. It served the New Jersey and Indiana historical records projects of the WPA. This camera, which reproduces cards, letter-size documents, and even bound books, on 35 mm film of the sort used in Leicas, averaged the cost of copying a page at approximately a cent. The cheapest of the older recording processes amounts to three times as much. The workers turned out nearly a thousand feet of film on the New Jersey project.

[C20] A few months ago a historical research worker in St. Paul, Minnesota, in need of data on America’s earliest Swedish settlement as background for a celebration in his city, obtained a copy of the New Jersey film by mail. Before the camera era, he would have been forced to travel two-thirds across the land for his data. Such information, in its original form, is too voluminous to copy by ordinary methods and far too precious to ship.

[C21] Leading historians, librarians and archivists long bad deplored the nation’s neglect of its records and their consequent deterioration. The director of the Archival service of the National Archives, Dorse Hyde, Jr., told an assemblage of Librarians last summer that formerly it was a common procedure for valuable records to be destroyed as “useless” or sold as “waste paper.” Only 14 states had made any attempt to collect and to store precious archives all together in some central building, reported Paul A.T. Noon, Librarian of the Ohio State Library, while just 16 states had set aside funds for historical libraries, none of which were equipped to permit public use of this source material. An “appalling” increase in the quantity of public documents over the years served to aggravate the situation, according to Miss Margaret C. Norton, superintendent of Archives of the Illinois State Library.

[C22] Finally, a few years back, the federal government set up the National Archives to centralize, preserve and catalogue federal records. In a period of eighteen months, according to Mr. Hyde, the agency was given some 41 miles of records which had been scattered over the land. Under his direction, a crew of relief workers in the nation’s Capital searched out the records of 50 subdivisions of federal government, while in the states on another project an army of relief workers, who numbered 3000 at the peak, surveyed 28,379 bureaus for federal records. These records had been stored in 62,364 rooms of 25,178 buildings. Tue workers by May of this year had found and filed reports on 775,844 groups or “series” of records. The “series” had spread over 4,828,836 linear feet of space. The average “series” covered six linear feet, but some filled as much as 310,000 linear feet.

[C23] The relief workers helped to preserve many of the most tattered documents, and to ship, catalogue and index others. On the basis of their recommendations, experts are planning ways and means for storing and indexing the records. As a result of their work, Mr. Hyde declared, “many valuable records, which otherwise would have been destroyed, have been saved for the use of posterity.” He added that the micro-filming process, used for an index to 2,600,000 Veterans’ Administration records, has proved invaluable. It serves to mobilise records and to compact them into narrow space. Furthermore, the camera makes it possible to eliminate great quantities of documents, after they have bean filmed, in order to free space for still other documents.

[C24] The centralization of the federal records solved the problem only in part, since local records by law must remain under the control of state, county, and municipal government agencies even though the latter have neither funds nor personnel to handle their archives. Some of these local records, according to Dr. Jean Stephenson, national chairman of genealogical records for the Daughters of the American Revolution, had been “tied into bundles, tossed into boxes, in dumps, in janitors’ closets, or hidden behind books”, while others had been “piled in vaults, from floor to ceiling, without order.” Such neglect, over the years, had reduced a good part of the data to illegibility. To save the rest, back in 1931 Dr. Stephenson proposed a wide-scale inventory, but the D.A.R. lacked the facilities to undertake so vast and scattered a program.

[C25] Eventually the general public woke to the problems when “old age pensions acts flooded State Archives with frantic and generally futile appeals for aid in locating proofs of age”, according to Miss Norton. As a last resort, many appealed to the Bureau of Census. The latter agency, said Dr. Murphy, has received a daily average of 500 to 600 requests for age data. Without extra facilities for such searches, the Bureau has been swamped. Today, 45,000 queries await replies.

[C26] To clear the confusion of local records, the WPA through the Historical Records Survey tackled the tremendous job of preserving, copying, and cataloguing these documents in much the same way as National Archives handled the federal records. It all began with a single relief project under the Civil Works Administration. That was a survey of historical records in Pennsylvania, directed by Dr. Curtis W. Garrison, Archivist for the Keystone State. “The demonstration”, said Dr. Stephenson, “brought the whole plan for nation-wide inventory within the realms of possibility.” Under the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which followed the CWA, another crew of relief workers filled out 50,000 cards on history in New York City. Not until the WPA was set up, however, did Dr. Stephenson’s “possibility” turn into reality. At that time Dr. Stephenson and other leaders in the field banded together to act as sponsors of the inventories, among the sponsors, in addition to the D.A.R., are the American Historical Association, the Library of Congress, the National Archives, and, of course, the Joint Committee on Materials for Research, which has played a most active role in the movement.

[C27] One of that group, Dr. Luther H. Evans, drew up the manuals and forms for the inventories, organized the work and had projects operating in twenty states and in Washington, D.C., by the beginning of 1936, a few weeks after funds were allocated for the work. The Survey functions as part of the Women’s and Professional Projects, which is directed by Mrs. Ellen Woodward.

[C28] By the end of October, 1937, the workers on the Survey had completed the task of listing records in 2,021 counties and were working on the lists of the remaining counties in the nation. They had published 50 inventories of the records and were editing still others in preparation for publication. In addition, they had completed the listing of records in 1040 towns. They had also listed the documents of 40,453 churches.

[C29] Tne county and town listings required an enormous amount of research. In eleven counties of Iowa, for instance, the workers had combed 42,353,346 records for data to place on 77,930 forms. Similar quantities of records were involved on most of the other county projects. There are 3066 counties in the nation.

[C30] Besides this work, the workers had calendared and indexed important collections of manuscripts in various parts of the nation. On some of the local records projects they had established a basis for indexes on vital statistics, immigration and naturalization which local governments will continue. Under the Federal Writers Projects they had compiled a reference library of municipal records for the U.S. Conference of Mayors. These records cover cities of more than 50,000 population.

[C32] In various libraries, they had catalogued 18,272,529 volumes, and all in all, had catalogued and indexed 256,306,118 separate items on all the projects. For the Historic Buildings Survey, relief workers had measured 2,302 ancient structures of which they had made 16,244 drawings and 17,480 photographs. They had performed similar work for the American Merchant Marine Survey. On this project they had measured 270 historic vessels of which they had made 677 drawings and 545 photographs.

[C33] The workers made many discoveries of rare and interesting documents. They located the marriage bonds of Chatham County, North Carolina, from 1772 to 1850, and found a volume of pre-Civil War records in Orangeburg, South Carolina, although it was believed all these records had been destroyed by General Sherman. They discovered the records of plate from 1786 to 1818 in Athens, Ohio, and in the early treasurer’s reports of Andover, Massachusetts, a list of the “bringings-in”: the individuals who, with the endorsement of townsman, had been permitted to settle there.

[C34] “Purely as a re-employment and rehabilitation projects”, said Dr. Stephenson, "the Survey has been and is a distinct success though it has never had more than 4500 workers on its payroll at once. There is abundant evidence that the workers are in general enthusiastic about the work and feel they are doing something greatly needed and worth while. There has been a steady though small flow of workers from the Survey to private employment.

[C35] “The reaction to the Survey has been most gratifying”, she continued, since many local governments have taken steps to preserve and to house the old documents in accordance with the recommendations of the relief workers. Though much yet remains to be done, “the progress made thus far is remarkable”, she added. “The work is probably the greatest single contribution to historical and genealogical research that can be made, and one that is of far-reaching consequence.”

[C36] In this effort the camera plays a bright and important role. It has brought order out of chaos among government records. Private enterprise as well is making increasing use of its gifts. As business firms which handle enormous quantities of records turn more and more to the new technique, the trained WPA workers will form the vanguard of a growing camera army.

[C37] Meantime the workers are rapidly rolling up on film tens of thousands of records with every passing hour. Their work serves to deny Time its former toll of old documents. As Mr. Raney pointed out; “There must be no such thing as our failing the coming generations in the matter of our troubled country’s record. At this juncture the offer of film to preserve is most welcome. We prefer the original, if excellent, to a copy if we can afford it. Ah, but that’s a big if….. No Library can acquire all or house it. Microphotography offers the best present hope of completeness in a specialty at a cost that can be borne. This is its supreme gift. Not in five centuries has so gallant a figure appeared on the frontiers of record.”