Made by Eastman Classroom Films in the 1930s, this historic silent film shows views of the Chesapeake Bay the "Mother of Waters". The film starts with shots of a small ketch or sailboat (:17), before showing the geography and history of the area through an animated map (:45). At 2:40 aerial shots, possibly shot from a blimp given their stability, show the area around Jamestown. At 3:16 are shots of a bridge near Jamestown. At 3:42 remains of the earthworks at Jamestown are seen as well as the church (4:00). At 4:00 the Norfolk area on the James River is shown. At 4:37 is an arial view of Portsmouth. At 4:55 a coal pier is shown at Norfolk and at 5:10 a steam locomotive moves cargo at a railroad loading dock. At 5:27 the SS Pennsylvania liner is shown. This vessel was a US turbo-electric ocean liner. She was completed in 1929 as SS Pennsylvania, and refitted and renamed as SS Argentina in 1938. From 1942 to 1946 she was the War Shipping Administration operated troopship Argentina. She was laid up in 1958 and scrapped in 1964. At 5:41 Fortress Monroe is shown. Fort Monroe (also known as the Fort Monroe National Monument) is a decommissioned military installation in Hampton, Virginia at Old Point Comfort, the southern tip of the Virginia Peninsula, United States. At 5:55 one of the fortresses' folding artillery pieces is shown in action. At 6:25 a train departs Norfolk on a ferry or barge, on its way to New York. At 6:42 the oyster and clam business is explored with fishermen puling the shellfish from the sea floor using rakes. At 7:49 Crisfield, Maryland -- the center of the soft shell crab industry -- is shown. Fishermen haul up crab traps and nets at 8:10. At 8:49 crabs are sorted. At 9:37 the Baltimore area is shown. At 10:45 are sweeping shots of the harbor and at 10:58 sugar refineries. At 11:17 the Liverpool Maru, a Japanese cargo vessel, unloads cargo on the docks. This ship was sunk by the American submarine SS Snook on July 4, 1943 off of Okinawa. At 11:35 raw iron ore from Cuba arrives in Baltimore. At 12:00 a title card indicates that one-fifth of the world's copper is refined at Baltimore. Raw copper is shown being stacked at 12:19. At 12:40 a small train pulls ingots or anodes of copper. At 12:52 the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis is shown. At 13:45 some of the fishing fleet and other vessels are shown at anchor. We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example: "01:00:12:00 -- President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference." This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
