And So They Live
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- Publication date
- 1940
- Usage
- Public Domain
- Topics
- Sponsored Film, Appalachian, Poverty, Community life, Educational attitude and adjustment, Clinical case history, Educational aims and objectives, Social issues, Southern and southeastern states, Community life, Educational attitude and adjustment, Clinical case history, Educational aims and objectives, Social issues, Southern and southeastern states
- Publisher
- New York University Film Library Contact Penn State University USA (800)826-0132
- Item Size
- 928.6M
Stark, realistic documentary showing poorly educated "mountain peoples" living in poverty and stricken with disease. Their solace comes in strong family bonds and the prospect of improved educational opportunities. (Prelinger, Rick. "The Field Guide to Sponsored Films." San Francisco: NFPF, 2006)
Search Educational Film Journals at Media History Project for references to this film.
Summary
Doc./ents the gap between the everyday needs of a particular southern rural community and the actual instruction in its schools. Shows the poverty, lack of proper diet and sanitation, and the need to adapt the school program to the community's needs.
- Access-restricted-item
- true
- Addeddate
- 2010-07-29 22:35:48
- Color
- b&w
- Identifier
- AndSoTheyLive
- Oclc_id
- 24941759
- Run time
- 24:14
- Sound
- sound
- Worldcat (source edition)
- 24941759
- Year
- 1940
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Reviews
(10)
Subject: Hard life unnecessarily
Subject: hi
My grandma was raised in the Smokey Mountains much the same way and she is 83.
Subject: Hill Folk,
I quote: "We tend to think of formal education as the enemy of folkways. But most societies have a folklore of learning which might be called their school ways. The backcountry was a case in point. It adopted educational folk customs which had long existed in North Britain.
The comments below exhibits a Severe Lack of Common Education and smug American 'manifest destiny' psychopathic disorder.
Reviewer: American Hero - August 26, 2011
Subject: Gaze upon these wretched souls!
if you post only to build your self worth through mindless attacks on a better people than you, I as a Anthropologist w/ a Major in Folklore can be permitted to call your attention to your abject stupidity and prejudicial intolerance.
further reading : A Treasury of Southern Folklore, B.A. Botkin, c, 1949, ISBN 0-517-33647-2
Encyclopedia of American History, C 1953 Edition by Richard B. Morris, Prof. of History, Columbia University.
A Treasure of American Folklore, ED.1944 by B. A. Botkin.Foreward by Carl Sandburg. My Copy has no ISBN number.
And Sir James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough" c 1922 1 Volume, Abridged Edition ISBN 0-02-095560-X
Before you make fools of your selves, study the People to Mock, as their Culture was Far Superior to yours.
One might also read the many works of Frank Randolph, Ozark Folklorist, who my Grandmother took me to meet when he was in a Nursing Home over Eurika Springs, Arkansas. I was 10 years old and we lived near Everton, Arkansas then, 1960.
Born February 23, 1892
Died November 1, 1980 (aged 88)
His Books include:
The Ozarks: An American Survival of Primitive Society (Vanguard Press, 1931)[2]
Ozark Mountain Folks (1932)
A Reporter in the Ozarks: A Close-Up of a Picturesque and Unique Phase of American Life (Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1944)
Ozark Superstitions (Columbia University Press, 1947); reissued as Ozark Magic and Folklore (Dover, 1964) ISBN 0-486-21181-9
Ozark Folk Songs (four-volume anthology,1946–50; 1980) ISBN 0-8262-0298-5
We Always Lie to Strangers (Columbia University Press, 1951)
Who Blowed up the Church House? (Columbia University Press, 1952)
Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech by Vance Randolph and George P. Wilson (University of Oklahoma Press, 1953)
The Devil's Pretty Daughter (Columbia University Press, 1955)
The Talking Turtle (Columbia University Press, 1957)
Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Folk Tales (Columbia University Press, 1958)
Hot Springs and Hell and Other Folk Jests and Anecdotes from the Ozarks (Folklore Associates, Inc., 1965)
Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales (University of Illinois Press, 1976; reissued 1997) ISBN 0-252-01364-6
(with Gordon McCann) Ozark Folklore: An Annotated Bibliography (University of Missouri, 1987)
Vance Randolph in the Ozarks (Branson, MO: Ozarks Mountaineer, 1991)
Roll Me in Your Arms: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore : Volume I Folk Songs and Music (1992) ISBN 1-55728-231-5
Blow the Candle Out: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore : Volume II Folk Rhymes and Other Lore (1992) ISBN 1-55728-237-4
Stiff As a Poker: A Collection of Ozark Folk Tales (Federal Way, WA: Agora Books, 1993) (Originally published as The Devil's Pretty Daughter)
Subject: Life in the Country
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *** (mostly for the child smoking scene; otherwise it would get an N/A). Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.
Subject: A fascinating documentary
Subject: Neil Young used this footage for his "Oh Susannah music video
interesting use of free archival footage. I would expect nothing less from one of the greatest songwriters of the modern world
Subject: Son title: ANSWER
You can read ... about this AND SO THEY LIVE scene and the two other films in the 1940 NYU Educational Film Institute "trilogy" in the book LEARNING WITH THE LIGHTS OFF: EDUCATIONAL FILM IN THE UNITED STATES (Oxford U Press, 2012), edited by Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible. "The Failure of the NYU Educational Film Institute" is one of 22 essays covering the history of ed films.
The book has a companion website,
http://www.us.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195383836/examples/?view=usa
linking readers to most of the key films discussed in the book. (Ergo, lots of links to archive.org, natch.)
Subject: Gaze upon these wretched souls!
Through most of the film, the voice over tells a story that’s objectively in direct contrast to what is actually being shown on camera. We hear how the children are uneducated as they read aloud from English literature. We are told their bleak meal of pork and fat and cornbread saps them of their energy and vitality – this is after carrying the meal miles through the snow on foot. Kids today can’t even carry a lunch when they are chauffeured to school in an SUV! And the narration goes on about skin infections, pellagra, rickets; yet the children in the film show no signs whatsoever of having any ailments unless not wearing designer sneakers or jeans is an ailment.
Marvel at the ambition to learn, the lack of childhood obesity (yet they aren’t overly thin), the energy to do hard chores around the farm, trudge miles though snow – and at the end of the film do some kind of Irish jig to dad’s banjo. Sure, it’s kind of odd that dad then shares a smoke with his 8 yr old son, but hey, it was the ‘40’s. He was just going to start smokin’ in a few years anyway. Heck it’s a lot better than beating their children.
Note the abundance and variety of foods, the potatoes, corn, chickens etc. Sure, there happens to not be any “fresh vegetables” around; perhaps because it’s the middle of winter and there wasn’t a Wal-Mart nearby.
And note the early nanny state in the narration telling us “they just don’t know that corn depletes the land. They just don’t know what to grow…” Sure, well how is it they know about the Kings of English literature, Dutch Windmills and the beaches of Hawaii but can’t find a book on what to grow?
Sure, life is different, harder even in some places. Sure everyone isn’t smiling all the time, but heck I could film that today.
I could go on but I’m left wondering -- what is Alfred P. Sloan trying to “tell us” in this film? Maybe Mr. Sloan, the former CEO of General Motors is just peeved that they don’t drive cars enough there?
Subject: Son title
Subject: And we think we have it hard?
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