IU Libraries Moving Image Archive Launches New Digital Online Exhibit of WWII Propaganda Films
In honor of the 70th anniversary of D-Day and the Battle of Normandy, the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive (IULMIA) has digitized 117 World War II propaganda films now available as part of IULMIA’s “WWII Propaganda Films and IU: Audiovisual Production, Circulation, and Education in the 1940s” permanent online exhibition. The exhibition focuses on IU’s use of mass media to educate and inform American audiences during WWII.
This online exhibition is available for free to the general public and may be browsed by film title and subject. The original movies were distributed by Indiana University during and after the war years as part of the IU Bureau of Audio-Visual Aids and are now part of IULMIA’s core collection of educational films, which is one of the largest such collections in the world.
A number of titles in the exhibition are available online for the first time, such as The Children See It Through, a 1941 film produced by lauded wartime documentarian Paul Rotha that focuses on the life of British children during the war. The exhibition also features a wide selection of government-sponsored films and newsreels from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, with content ranging from the purchase of war bonds, to the growing of victory gardens, to the war efforts made by students of historically African-American colleges. Additionally, the exhibition includes instructional films intended for limited audiences, such as a film instructing engineering students on how to build a B-26 medium bomber. Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Orson Welles, Bing Crosby, and Dylan Thomas are among the many credited performers and creators of the films.
The original 16mm prints that were selected for this project were distributed by Indiana University during and after the war years as part of the Indiana University Bureau of Audio-Visual Aids and are now part of IULMIA’s core collection of educational films, which is one of the the largest such collections in the world. IULMIA utilized historical catalogs and correspondence related to the Bureau of Audio-Visual Aids while curating this digitized collection excerpt, with films presented online much as they would have been in the 1943 Bureau of Audio-Visual Aids War Films bulletin. This War Films bulletin was prepared to facilitate the effective utilization of films both by schools and adult discussion groups during the wartime years, and suggests films under subjects such as “Women at War”, “Salvage”, and “Pre-Flight Training.”
This digital collection and exhibition are part of the IU Libraries Moving Image Archive continued commitment to digitizing and providing online streaming access to archival motion picture film collections and to raising awareness among the general public of the wide variety of films available at IU. By providing free online access to these films, IULMIA also hopes to promote a deeper understanding of the ways in which governments and filmmakers presented the many aspects of wartime life through the use of moving image recordings.