Sunday, September 28, 2014

Prelinger Archive: Harvest of the Years

We have discussed the societal impacts of the industrial revolution and the assembly line is a popular topic of conversation in our course. I searched the word "assembly" in the Prelinger Archive to find a video that could provide insights as to what an assembly line actually looked like. The video Harvest of the Years brings viewers inside the a Ford plant. The narrator explains the innovations of the production process, but the visual allows us to see things such as worker conditions. I think this is useful for students in our class, and can relate well to our last discussion. One of the few positive effects of companies deindustrializing their production process was that workers could have a safer atmosphere in which to work. I think this video is a good way to see such an atmosphere, rather than just read about it.

https://archive.org/details/HarvestOfThe

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with Will, I feel like the video is a great representation of workers conditions. What especially struck me going off of this idea, was the smoke that poured out of the factory on a daily basis. It filled the city with immense smog and completely shadowed it. If we as an audience can see the smoke from a video, imagine how dense it was in real life. The smoke probably had a huge effect on the citizens lungs and overall health, aiding to the horrible working conditions these factory plants provided.