A Better Missouri - WPA Work Projects

Shot List:

00:00:12;00

Scenes depicting the economic downturn in America during the Great Depression that lasted from 1929 to the late 1930s. Shows smoke stacks with no smoke, locked factory gate with “closed” sign. Scenes of unemployed men on park bench, man with sign that reads “unemployed Will Take Any Job”. Stranger gives a young man a coin which young man acknowledge with a tip of his cap. Shows a man looking through a trash can, homeless jobless man sleeping on park bench, man sleeping in doorway, man sleeping in alley. Shows men in soup (bread) line

00:00:53;13

Sounding of a factory steam whistle signals better times ahead as men began work on WPA projects in Missouri. Shows men at a pay windrow drawing a paycheck. The WPA program has removed a vast army from relief rolls bringing smiles to working families and happy children

00:01:46;19

Shows a steam shovel working in a rock quarry, men using air drills in rock quarry, placing dynamite and blasting rock in mining quarry. Shows men at work paving a city street with concrete in St. Louis. Shows a vintage concrete slipform paver (early concrete paving machine, vintage construction equipment)

00:02:39;03

County roads are surfaced with stone. Various scenes of an early (vintage) construction equipment road grader pulled by a team of mules. The Joplin airport is graded and surfaced. Shows kids playing in a public swimming pool. Shows artist painting murals on wall of new school

00:03:53;07

A square dance is held in a community hall. CU of couples square dancing. CU of musicians playing banjo and fiddle. Image of feet only of square dancers

00:04:17;19

Clay is dug, sampled, and made into pottery. Shows hands shaping a piece of pottery on a potter’s wheel. Image of a pottery wheel. Shows various pieces of finished pottery

00:04:58;11

Women using hand weaving looms to make cloth (woven material). Shows women using a spinning wheel to make thread

00:06:01;11

Missouri State Fair scenes at Sedalia, MO. CU of Ferris Wheel and other rides. Shows people watching horse racing from the grandstands at a new half mile horse race track

00:06:49;05

Shows nursery school operated by the WPA at Lincoln University in Jefferson City. Various scenes of Black children in the nursery school at Lincoln University. Shows Colored kids eating, being given medicine, and taking a nap

00:07:27;09

Shows a man “dowsing for water”. CU man using a “Y shaped” water dowsing stick to locate an area to drill a water well. This method of locating underground water is also called “water witching” or doodlebugging”. Shows a vintage well drilling machine or early cable tool drilling rig

00:07:55;19

Shows scientific methods used by geologist to locate sources of underground water reservoirs. Shows early cable tool drilling rig in operation. Drinking water is tested for mineral content in a laboratory. Images of a testing laboratory

00:08:59;02

Shows construction methods used in sewer construction in 1937. Sewer pipe is lowered into trench using hand winch and wooden “A-frame”. Trench for sewer pipe line is dug by hand, shows timber used for supporting trench walls

00:09:12;17

Shows homes in the late 1930s or early 1940s in the sub-division of Richmond Heights near St. Louis, Missouri. Shows a typical American new sub-division of homes and neighborhood prior to WWII