Watch Family Planning, Walt Disney’s 1967 Sex Ed Production, Starring Donald Duck

in Animation, History | August 27th, 2013

In 1951, Carl Djeras­si, a chemist work­ing in an obscure lab in Mex­i­co City, cre­at­ed the first prog­es­terone pill. Lit­tle did he know that, a decade lat­er, 1.2 mil­lion women would be “on the Pill” in Amer­i­ca, exer­cis­ing unprece­dent­ed con­trol over their repro­duc­tive rights. By 1967, that num­ber would reach 12.5 mil­lion women world­wide.

It was for­tu­itous tim­ing, see­ing that the post-war glob­al pop­u­la­tion was start­ing to surge. It took 125 years (1800–1925) for the glob­al pop­u­la­tion to move from one bil­lion to two bil­lion (see his­tor­i­cal chart), but only 35 years (1925–1960) for that num­ber to reach three bil­lion. Non-prof­its like the Pop­u­la­tion Coun­cil were found­ed to think through emerg­ing pop­u­la­tion ques­tions, and by the mid-1960s, they began pub­lish­ing a peer-reviewed jour­nal called Stud­ies in Fam­i­ly Plan­ning and also work­ing with Walt Dis­ney to pro­duce a 10-minute edu­ca­tion­al car­toon. You can watch Fam­i­ly Plan­ning above.

Even­tu­al­ly trans­lat­ed into 25 lan­guages, the film avoids any­thing sex­u­al­ly explic­it. The fam­i­ly plan­ning advice is vague at best and, per­verse­ly but not sur­pris­ing­ly, only male char­ac­ters get a real voice in the pro­duc­tion. But lest you think that Dis­ney was break­ing any real ground here, let me remind you of its more dar­ing for­ay into sex-ed films two decades pri­or. That’s when it pro­duced The Sto­ry of Men­stru­a­tion (1946), a more sub­stan­tive film shown to 105 mil­lion stu­dents across the US.

You can find Fam­i­ly Plan­ning and The Sto­ry of Men­stru­a­tion housed in the Ani­ma­tion sec­tion of our col­lec­tion, 4,000+ Free Movies Online: Great Clas­sics, Indies, Noir, West­erns, Doc­u­men­taries & More.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

No Women Need Apply: A Dis­heart­en­ing 1938 Rejec­tion Let­ter from Dis­ney Ani­ma­tion

How Walt Dis­ney Car­toons Are Made

Don­ald Duck Wants You to Pay Your Tax­es (1943)

Walt Dis­ney Presents the Super Car­toon Cam­era (1957)

 

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Did Hollywood Movies Studios “Collaborate” with Hitler During WW II? Historian Makes the Case

in History | August 26th, 2013

As any­one who watch­es the His­to­ry Chan­nel can tell you, sto­ries about the Sec­ond World War still fas­ci­nate. Sto­ries about Nazi Ger­many specif­i­cal­ly seem to fas­ci­nate more than they ever have before. Com­bine that with the cur­rent Amer­i­can desire to gaze upon the dark side of its own once-beloved insti­tu­tions, and Har­vard his­to­ri­an Ben Urwand may have a hit on his hands when his book The Col­lab­o­ra­tion: Hol­ly­wood’s Pact with Hitler comes out next month. (Read an excerpt here.) Emory Uni­ver­si­ty his­to­ri­an Deb­o­rah Lip­stadt uses an even more apt term: “I think what this guy has found could be a block­buster.” She is quot­ed in an arti­cle by the New York Times’ Jen­nifer Schuessler on Urwand, his dis­cov­er­ies, and his book. “On page after page,” Schuessler writes, “[Urwand] shows stu­dio boss­es, many of them Jew­ish immi­grants, cut­ting films scene by scene to suit Nazi offi­cials; pro­duc­ing mate­r­i­al that could be seam­less­ly repur­posed in Nazi pro­pa­gan­da films; and, accord­ing to one doc­u­ment, help­ing to finance the man­u­fac­ture of Ger­man arma­ments.”

As if Urwand’s find­ings about these deals between Hol­ly­wood stu­dios and the Third Reich won’t cause enough of a stir by them­selves, his per­spec­tive on them has already fired up an aca­d­e­m­ic con­tro­ver­sy. Schuessler quotes Bran­deis’ Thomas P. Doher­ty as call­ing Urwand’s use of the word “col­lab­o­ra­tion” a “slan­der” and men­tions, by con­trast, Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Cal­i­for­nia his­to­ry pro­fes­sor Steven J. Ross’ forth­com­ing book which tells “the lit­tle-known sto­ry of an exten­sive anti-Nazi spy ring that began oper­at­ing in Los Ange­les in 1934, financed by the very stu­dio boss­es who were cut­ting films to sat­is­fy Nazi offi­cials.” You can read a fuller cri­tique of Urwand’s argu­ments from Doher­ty at the Hol­ly­wood Reporter. At the top, you can watch that pub­li­ca­tion’s brief con­ver­sa­tion with Urwand him­self, in which he explains and defends his use of the word “col­lab­o­ra­tion” — which, he says, the Hol­ly­wood exec­u­tives in ques­tion used them­selves. Final­ly, just above, you can hear more from Urwand in Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty Press’ clip about The Col­lab­o­ra­tion. As with most mod­ern research into World War II, the book no doubt rais­es more his­tor­i­cal and moral ques­tions than we can answer, though I do doubt that any­one who reads it will ever watch pic­tures from Hol­ly­wood’s Gold­en Age in quite the same way again.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Redis­cov­ered: The First Amer­i­can Anti-Nazi Film, Banned by U.S. Cen­sors and For­got­ten for 80 Years

Rare 1940 Audio: Thomas Mann Explains the Nazis’ Ulte­ri­or Motive for Spread­ing Anti-Semi­tism

The Mak­ing of a Nazi: Disney’s 1943 Ani­mat­ed Short

The Nazis’ 10 Con­trol-Freak Rules for Jazz Per­form­ers: A Strange List from World War II

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

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The Very Concise Suicide Note by Kodak Founder George Eastman: “My Work is Done. Why Wait?” (1932)

in History, Technology | August 19th, 2013

eastman suicide

In 1932 George East­man, the 77 year old entre­pre­neur who estab­lished the East­man Kodak Com­pa­ny, pop­u­lar­ized the use of roll film, and brought pho­tog­ra­phy to the main­stream, found him­self in declin­ing health. Suf­fer­ing from lum­bar spinal steno­sis, a nar­row­ing of the spinal canal that can lead to con­sid­er­able back pain and dif­fi­cul­ty walk­ing, East­man was depressed and increas­ing­ly dis­abled. On March 14th, he com­mit­ted sui­cide by fir­ing a sin­gle gun­shot through his heart. An act as brief, and to the point, as the note he left behind. It read:

To my friends

My work is done

Why wait?

GE

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How Film Was Made: A Kodak Nos­tal­gia Moment

Ear­ly Exper­i­ments in Col­or Film (1895–1935)

Anne Sex­ton, Con­fes­sion­al Poet, Reads “Want­i­ng to Die” in Omi­nous 1966 Video

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What Prisoners Ate at Alcatraz in 1946: A Vintage Prison Menu

in Food & Drink, History | August 10th, 2013

alcatraz menuWhy would you want to escape from Alca­traz when you could eat Beef Pot Pie Anglaise for lunch on Tues­day, Baked Meat Cro­quettes on Wednes­day, and Bacon Jam­bal­aya on Sat­ur­day? On sec­ond thought, why would­n’t you want to escape.

Above, we have the actu­al menu for the meals served at Alca­traz dur­ing one week in Sep­tem­ber, 1946. (View it in a slight­ly larg­er for­mat here.) Alca­traz was, of course, a high secu­ri­ty fed­er­al prison that oper­at­ed off of the coast of San Fran­cis­co from 1933 until 1963. Some of Amer­i­ca’s more noto­ri­ous crim­i­nals spent time din­ing there — good fel­lows like Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kel­ly, Bumpy John­son, and James “Whitey” Bul­ger.

As you may know, Bul­ger is now back on tri­al in Boston. After being released from prison dur­ing the 1960s, he alleged­ly re-immersed him­self in the world of orga­nized crime, before even­tu­al­ly spend­ing 16 years liv­ing as a fugi­tive, large­ly in Cal­i­for­nia. While on the lam, he amaz­ing­ly had the chutz­pah to vis­it Alca­traz (now a tourist site) and pose for a pic­ture where he donned a striped suit and stood behind mock prison bars. I have to won­der whether he had some Puree Mon­gole for old times’ sake?

via SF Gate and Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Odd Col­lec­tion of Books in the Guan­tanamo Prison Library

See a Peru­vian Prison Seized with Dance Fever as They Try to Break a Guin­ness World Record

Phi­los­o­phy in Prison: Weighty Con­ver­sa­tions about Right and Wrong

Two Prison Con­certs That Defined an Out­law Singer: John­ny Cash at San Quentin and Fol­som (1968–69)

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Watch the First Commercial Ever Shown on American TV, 1941

in History, Television | August 2nd, 2013

Let’s set the scene: The Brook­lyn Dodgers are play­ing the Philadel­phia Phillies at Ebbets Field on July 1, 1941, and the game is being aired on WNBT-TV (lat­er to become WNBC). Before the game begins, TV view­ers see this: a 10-sec­ond adver­tise­ment for Bulo­va clocks and watch­es. The ad shows a clock and a map of the Unit­ed States, with a voice-over that says, “Amer­i­ca runs on Bulo­va time.” This litte spot (which ran at 2:29 pm, if you’re keep­ing Bulo­va time) marked the advent of some­thing much big­ger — com­mer­cial­ized tele­vi­sion. Ear­li­er in 1941, the FCC had approved a plan to turn TV into big busi­ness. When Bulo­va paid $9 dol­lars to plug its brand, the plan was actu­al­ized. Every adver­tise­ment seen since (for bet­ter or worse) has a com­mon lin­eage in this moment.

via Mash­able

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ing­mar Bergman’s Soap Com­mer­cials Wash Away the Exis­ten­tial Despair

Fellini’s Fan­tas­tic TV Com­mer­cials

Before Mad Men: Famil­iar and For­got­ten Ads from 1950s to 1980s Now Online

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A Subway Ride Through New York City: Watch Vintage Footage from 1905

in History, Technology | July 31st, 2013


If you’re a New York­er, you know this stretch of sub­way inside and out. You’ve schlepped from Union Square to Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion on the 4, 5, or 6 trains how many times? Prob­a­bly more than you care to count. But don’t wor­ry, you’re in good com­pa­ny. New York­ers have been mak­ing this jour­ney since 1904, and here we have some vin­tage video to prove it. Shot on May 21, 1905, sev­en months after the IRT sub­way line opened, the video shows a train mov­ing uptown. And then, dur­ing the last minute, you can see the New York­ers exit­ing the train, svelte and dressed to the nines.

If you’re won­der­ing how this clip was shot, let me add this: A cam­era was mount­ed on a sub­way train fol­low­ing anoth­er train on the same track. Light­ing was pro­vid­ed by a spe­cial­ly con­struct­ed work car on a par­al­lel track.

This pub­lic domain film can be found in the Library of Con­gress’ Ear­ly Motion Pic­ture Col­lec­tion. The video itself comes to us via the New York Dai­ly News, where you can see maps and pic­tures of the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry sub­way sys­tem.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The World’s First Mobile Phone Shown on 1922 Vin­tage Film

Berlin Street Scenes Beau­ti­ful­ly Caught on Film (1900–1914)

1927 Lon­don Shown in Mov­ing Col­or

Rare Col­or Footage of the 1939 World Series: Yan­kees v. Reds

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New Archive Reveals How Scientists Finally Solved the Vexing “Longitude Problem” During the 1700s

in Archives, Astronomy, Education, History, Science | July 31st, 2013

For cen­turies, sea­far­ing explor­ers and mer­chants reck­oned with the lon­gi­tude prob­lem. It was rel­a­tive­ly easy to fig­ure out a ship’s loca­tion on a north-south axis, but near­ly impos­si­ble to deter­mine how far east or west it was. And the stakes were high. Sail too far astray and your ship (and men) could end up so far afield that get­ting home before the food and water ran out might be impos­si­ble. The sail­ing world need­ed bet­ter tools to deter­mine loca­tion at sea.

In 1714 the British gov­ern­ment estab­lished the Board of Lon­gi­tude, offer­ing a cash prize to any­one who could fig­ure out how to detect how far east or west a ship was at sea. The Board was abol­ished in 1828, but only after fos­ter­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­niques that would for­ev­er change the nature of marine nav­i­ga­tion.

Cam­bridge Uni­ver­si­ty and the Nation­al Mar­itime Muse­um at Green­wich recent­ly released an archive mak­ing all of the let­ters, objects, and doc­u­ments relat­ed to the Board’s work avail­able, along with a spiffy set of videos that brings the Board’s his­to­ry and achieve­ments to life.

Dur­ing the Board’s tenure, clock­mak­er John Har­ri­son fig­ured out that sailors could find out their loca­tion if they knew local time at sea and com­pared that to the time at a com­mon ref­er­ence point. The moon was seen as a giant clock, and its posi­tion rel­a­tive to stars was record­ed in the Nau­ti­cal Almanac, giv­ing sailors the data to com­pare against the time at sea. One of the inno­va­tions vet­ted by the Board of Lon­gi­tude is John Harrison’s Sea Clock. Also dur­ing that time, Green­wich became the prime merid­i­an.

All of this work led to more accu­rate maps. The Board spon­sored jour­neys, includ­ing some aboard Cap­tain Cook’s ships with portable obser­va­to­ries for map­mak­ers to sketch and use tri­an­gu­la­tion to deter­mine accu­rate loca­tion on voy­ages, includ­ing one to the North­west­ern Unit­ed States.

You can start rum­mag­ing through the fas­ci­nat­ing archive here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Caught Map­ping: A Cin­e­mat­ic Ride Through the Nit­ty Grit­ty World of Vin­tage Car­tog­ra­phy

Play Cae­sar: Trav­el Ancient Rome with Stanford’s Inter­ac­tive Map

Cut­ting-Edge Tech­nol­o­gy Recon­structs the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg 150 Years Lat­er

Kate Rix writes about edu­ca­tion and dig­i­tal media. Fol­low her on Twit­ter @mskaterix or vis­it her on the web at .

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The Lost/Animated Interview with Fidel Castro: If the Revolution Fails, Cuba Will be “Hell Itself” (1959)

in Animation, History | July 30th, 2013

“If this Rev­o­lu­tion falls, what we will have here in Cuba is a hell,” Fidel Cas­tro said in Havana in 1959. “Hell itself.”

Cas­tro was 32 when he made the procla­ma­tion dur­ing an inter­view record­ed just weeks after the over­throw of dic­ta­tor Ful­gen­cio Batista. The new Cuba was still tak­ing shape after the rev­o­lu­tion led by the 26th of July Move­ment. Cas­tro spoke exten­sive­ly about his vision for Cuba dur­ing a 35-minute inter­view with an Amer­i­can jour­nal­ist that has nev­er been heard pub­licly until now.

The inter­view was dis­cov­ered a few years ago when Lau­ra Gal­loway found a tape in her late grand­fa­ther’s archives that sim­ply said “Galloway/Castro.” Clark Hewitt Gal­loway was the intra-Amer­i­can affairs edi­tor for U.S. News and World Report. Gal­loway cov­ered Latin and South Amer­i­ca for the mag­a­zine after serv­ing in the same region with the U.S. Army Intel­li­gence corps dur­ing WWII. Blank on Blank’s new episode for its PBS series ani­mates the sto­ry behind the tape and a col­lec­tion of out­takes from the inter­view. Cas­tro talks about: why Che Gue­vara, Raul Cas­tro and the 26th of July Move­ment were not Com­mu­nist; and why Cuba had issues with the Amer­i­can pres­ence in the Guan­tanamo Naval Base and, specif­i­cal­ly, Amer­i­can sailors stir­ring up trou­ble while out on the town in Guan­tanamo.

Blank on Blank has also post­ed the entire 35-minute inter­view in Span­ish with the Eng­lish trans­la­tion by Sebas­t­ian Bet­ti. Dur­ing the full inter­view, Cas­tro goes into great detail about how the Cuban econ­o­my would be rebuilt and how the agrar­i­an reform plan would be put into effect. He dis­putes whether Amer­i­can inter­ests in Cuba would be nation­al­ized. And he down­plays the idea of being asked to be a pres­i­den­tial can­di­date.

The release of this unearthed inter­view comes as Cas­tro’s broth­er, Raul, just gave a lengthy speech about the demise of Cuban cul­ture and con­duct despite what the rev­o­lu­tion has brought to the coun­try.

This post was brought to you by David Ger­lach, the founder of Blank on Blank.

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