Immigrants, Inventions, Sports, and Leisure in Pre-WWII America
About This Footage
Reel 2 of War Comes to America (1945) traces how immigrants and industry shaped the United States before World War II. Footage moves from blacksmith shops, sulfur mines, Texas oil fields, coal pits, and railroad crews laying track to steel mills, assembly lines, and the spread of steam engines and telegraph lines. Cities rise with early automobiles and airplanes, skyscraper construction, and massive dams and bridges. Everyday life fills the frame—schools, apartment living, and busy streets—alongside leisure and popular culture: baseball, football, basketball, horse racing, rodeos, skiing, water sports, and boxing, with music, dancing, marching bands, and jukeboxes. A crashing stock-ticker shot evokes the era’s economic strain. Together these scenes document America’s growth, resilience, and innovation on the eve of WWII.