Swimming Pool, Palm Beach - 1903

Country: United States
February 05th, 1903
Production company: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.

Fording the Lincoln Highway - 1924

Country: United States
Footage of the ten millionth Ford traveling along the Lincoln Highway across the United States. Crowds, parades, celebrations and motorcades greeted them in locations along the route. Text regarding journey: "The ten millionth. New York to San Francisco"--"Meeting the mayor of Jersey City on the way to Kearny plant"-- "Governor Silzer extends a hearty welcome at Trenton, N.J."--"Mayor Donnelly of Trenton"--"If William Penn and his Quaker colony culd only see the 10 millionth Ford in Philadelphia"--"Big parades greet the 10 millionth at every turn. Fifty cars parade through Philadelphia"--"Just a short visit at Gettysburg, where history was made"--"Eddie Plank, onetime famous baseball pitcher, said 'this is the 10 millionth hit for Ford'"--"In the Blue Ridge Mountains"--"The old covered bridge"--"The summit of the Allegheny Mountains on the Lincoln Highway"--"Maybe Magee greets us at the City Hall Pittsburg"--"Ohio heralds our arrival with a boy band"--"Where Nebraska, Wyoming, the Lincoln Highway and the 10 millionth meet"--"Pine Bluff, Wyoming"--"The 13th Calvary band played 'Cheyenne' and we know where we were"--"The late Governor W.B. Ross acted as though he would like to see all the rest of the ten million Fords come to Wyoming......but not at the same time"-- "A cool reception awaited us near Laramie"--"Westward again"--"When yesterday and today meet in a picturesque setting of the West".

Parade of Floats, St. Louis Exposition - 1904

Country: United States
Production company: American Mutoscope & Biograph Co.
One of the parades of floating craft held in the waterways of the St. Louis Exposition is shown in this film. The cameraman placed equipment on shore at a distance to include each of the competing craft. Photographed were twelve small craft, some motot-powered and some rowed, but all decorated with foliage and bunting and containing foreign representatives and dignitaries.

Auto Boat Race on the Hudson - 1904

Country: United States

Language: English

Release Date: June 1904 (USA)

Also Known As: Auto Boat Race on the Hudson River

Filming Locations: Hudson River, New York, USA

Production Co: American Mutoscope & Biograph

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Plot Keywords: Boat | Boat Racing

Genres: Documentary | Short

With a few buildings and a canopied grandstand visible on the far shore, we watch motorized boats pass us on the Hudson, then pass a rowboat with a large U.S. flag and three judges. Some of the racing boats have three passengers, some have one or two. A few spectators watch from small boats near the judges. Up river, we see a large sailboat at anchor. If these are races, they appear to be against the clock rather than head to head. This is not a one-take reel, but contains splices.  

Princeton and Yale Football Game - 1903

Country: United States

Release Date: November 1903 (USA)

Filming Locations: New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Production Co: Edison Manufacturing Company

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Genres: Documentary | Short

First is shown a fine panoramic view of the grandstand at the Yale field, showing the enormous gathering of football enthusiasts who have come from far and near to witness the giants struggle for the collegiate championship. The Tigers are next seen entering the field on a run, closely followed by the Yale men. The principal plays of the game are next seen. Some of the good work of Captain DeWitt, of Princeton, and Hogan, of Yale, is also shown. The finest football picture ever secured in animated photography. Written by Edison Catalog      

Oakland Airport KOAK - 1928

Country: United States
Appears to be a (pre-merger) Western Air Express Fokker F.10 and some Boeing 40A Mailplanes

Miami: The Magic City - 1926

Country: United States
Gorgeous shots of Miami; the damage shown was from the September '26 hurricane.

New York Police Parade - 1899

Country: United States

Stars: William S. Devery

Release Date: June 1899 (USA)

Filming Locations: New York City, New York, USA

Production Co: Edison Manufacturing Company

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Genres: Documentary

"An excellent view of 'The Finest,' on their annual parade and inspection, June 1, 1899. The head of the column is just turning into 14th street from Broadway, the Morton House forming part of the background. Crowds line both sides of the cable car tracks, falling back as the band heading the first division swings around Dead Man's Curve, and passes the camera. Chief Devery makes a fine showing; as also do his men, with their white gloves and helmets, shining buttons and spick and span appearance in general." Written by Edison Catalog    

The Famous 1930s Skyscraper Daredevil - Dangerous New York Stuntsman 'Ben Dova'

Country: United Kingdom
Famous 1930s Skyscraper Daredevil - Dangerous New York Stuntsman 'Ben Dova'.
Taken from the British Pathe newsreel "There's One Born Every Minute".

Departure of Robert Peary and the Roosevelt from New York - 1905

Country: United States
The camera pans to show the schooner "Roosevelt" docked at a covered pier on the Hudson River on Manhattan's west side. Then, from a camera position on board, men in straw hats and fashionably dressed ladies are seen boarding the ship. Next, the famous polar explorer Robert Peary appears on the gangway in a dark jacket, mustache and straw hat [Frame: 4552]. He tips his hat, consults his watch, then, just before the film ends, motions to order the departure. On this expedition he achieved the "farthest north" record, but failed to reach the North Pole. Completed only four months prior to this film, the "Roosevelt" was specially designed to withstand Arctic ice. She was 184 feet long, 35 and a half feet wide, with a hull over two and a half feet thick. Fully loaded the ship weighed 1,500 tons while drawing only 16.2 feet. In addition to sail power, the ship was driven by a 1000 horsepower steam engine, which could produce short bursts of even greater power to get the ship through thick ice. The "Roosevelt" served Peary on this expedition as well as the following one in 1908-1909. Sold numerous times to a variety of commercial concerns, the "Roosevelt" was abandoned to the elements on a mud flat in Cristobal, Panama in 1937, where she eventually rotted away.
Filmed on July 16, 1905 at a dock on the Hudson River in New York.
(American Mutoscope & Biograph Co./Library of Congress/Tehrkot Media)

First Aerial Film of New York City - 1912

Country: United States
Frank Coffyn's Hydro-Aeroplane Flights
Vitagraph Film Co. / 16 February-March 20, 1912
Producer: J. Stuart Blackton
Frank Trenholm Coffyn (October 24, 1878 -- December 10, 1960) was a member of the Wright Brothers Exhibition Team and a pioneer aviator. This film was part of his first independent work after going out on his own. This is the first hydro-aeroplane with pontoons to successfully use New York waters for take off and return. Coffyn is also the first pilot to take a press photographer along, Adrian C. Duff of the American Press Association, who took the first aerial photos of the city.*
The New York Herald, 1912
FRANK T. COFFYN WATER FLYING UNDER NEW YORK BRIDGES
Frank T. Coffyn flying his hydro-aeroplane, took his craft off from the Battery yesterday afternoon for a sixteen minute flight that covered a course toward the Jersey shore, half a mile up the Hudson River, then back and across the Navy Yard and over the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges at a height of 1,500 feet, then back beneath each bridge and home to the landing raft. Thousands of spectators stood at the Battery for hours to see the new machine. The wind was so strong that he was almost blown out of his seat. At the Brooklyn Bridge, he was only fifteen feet below the roadway and was caught in the warm blast of a tug's smokestack.
The aeroplane was able to land and take off from the ice floes because of two hickory runners which protected the aluminum floats. These were built and designed by Coffyn and Russell A. Alger, governor of the Aero Club of America.
New York Times, Feb. 17, 1912, 'Coffyn Finds Hole In Air Over Bay': http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00612F63C5813738DDDAE0994DA40...
Metropolitan Magazine, May 1912 (excerpt)
WATER-FLYING / A NEW SPORT by Henry Woodhouse
A Convincing Demonstration
THIS last was a convincing demonstration. It convinced the man in the street, as nothing ever before had, that the day when he can take to the air without first making his will is drawing nearer. To the hundreds of New Yorkers, who deserted their offices to crowd to the water-front to watch Coffyn, it was a matter of wonder that this craft did not seem to have any limitations. Again and again hundreds would hold their breath watching the winged thing skim the water heading straight for the ice, expecting to see a smash. But they were pleasingly disappointed; for each time the machine slid on the ice, speeding on its runner swift and light, and ere long it was in the air, circling like a strange, big bird. Then the spectators looked at one another and the comments ran something like this: Did you ever! . . . Can you beat that! . . . and some remarked that they had seen Wilbur Wright fly over that same spot during the Hudson-Fulton celebration, or Curtiss at the finish of the Albany-New York flight, or Atwood or Ovington in their over-the-city flights, but had never felt over impressed. But this was different, they could see it at close range, it did what they would have liked to do, and seemed as easy as anything.
Helicopter Magazine / May 1946 -- Pg. 34 (excerpt)
'CONTRAPTIONS AND 'COPTERS' by Frank Coffyn
Toward the end of my two year contract with the Company, I was loaned to Russell Alger, of Detroit, to teach him and his brother Fred, to fly. Their homes were located on the edge of Lake St. Clair, so it was decided to attach pontoons under each of the two skids of the Model B Wright plane. John W. Hacker, a well known motor boat builder, was requisitioned to construct them. They were of mahogany, covered with varnished cloth, and on September 30, 1911, I made my first flight with them, but they were too lightly constructed and did not survive the test. Hacker then built aluminum pontoons, with a wood ash frame work, and these were the first of their kind ever constructed for a plane.
My contract with the Wright Company having expired, I shipped the plane, equipped with the aluminum pontoons, to New York with high aspirations of setting myself up in my own business. So I finally approached J. Stuart Blackstone [sic], president of the Vitagraph Company of America, in the prospects of obtaining good aerial moving pictures for his motion picture company. After a lengthy discussion I persuaded him to let me try this, and armed with a sizable contract in my pocket plus a newspaper photographer who had never been in a plane, I took off my seaplane to take moving pictures of New York City and the Bay on one of the coldest days in February 1912. Through John McKenzie, who was later in charge of Laguardia Airport, I was granted permission by the Dock Department to use Pier A at the Battery, making it the first seaplane base operated by the City of New York.
*Three of Adrian Duff's aerial shots of New York can be seen here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=354108031283841&set=a.35410766461...

New York City Street Scene Easter - 1900

Country: United States
Horse drawn carriages along street. Various views of fashionably dressed men and women walking along. Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Chicago-Michigan Football Game - 1903

Part 1

Part 2

Country: United States

Language: English

Release Date: 1903 (USA)

Production Co: Thomas A. Edison

Sound Mix: Silent

Color: Black and White

Plot Keywords: American Football

Genres: Short | Sport

Chicago Cardinals and Bears Football - 1929

Country: United States
16mm B&W home movies of various Cardinals and Bears games in 1929. Includes the Green Bay Lumberjack Band (although the film is silent). Games played in Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field (old configuration).

Portage Silent Film-Comedy, Chicago, Illinois - 1915

Country: United States
Part of the Silent Film at Portage Theater, Chicago IL. Film was shot in 1915, and the subject is Turkey (Turkiye, at that time it was called Ottoman Impror -or Osmanli Imparatorlugu), the Sultan and the Harem.

Silent footage of 1920s Los Angeles with focus on automobiles and motion picture industry

Country: United States
Overview of 1920s Los Angeles from air and ground: automobile traffic with nineteen tens and twenties models,; film industry in action showing hand-cranked cameras, set lighting and musicians, actors being directed, and the set in general.
http://www.myfootage.com/details.php?gid=58&sgid=&pid=18127

Los Angeles - 1917

Country: United States
Ford Educational Library
Archives and Records Administration - ARC Identifier 92280 / Local Identifier FC-FC-2434 - LOS ANGELES, ca. 1917 - Ford Motor Company.