Jazz Age materials in the Office of Media and Technology collection

The following list of OMT holdings related to the Jazz Age has been compiled for your reference. Entries encompass a diverse range of topics, in an effort to err on the side of inclusion and to reflect the diversity of America and the world during the years between WWI and the Great Depression.

Each entry includes: title, OMT catalog number, brief description (as provided by OMT), and length (if available). All entries are videos unless otherwise indicated.

Find the OMT Media Lab on the second floor of the Thaddeus Street Education Center (ECTR), or visit their web site at http://omt.cofc.edu.

#14 Jazz (10-part series)
Ken Burns's award-winning documentary exploring the history of jazz from its beginnings through the 1990s. Includes interviews, performances, archival video, and photographs. Ca. 2000. Lengths as noted.
1: Gumbo (90 min.)
2: The Gift (120 min.)
3: Our Language (120 min.)
4: The True Welcome (120 min.)
5: Swing - Pure Pleasure (90 min.)
6: Swing - The Velocity of Celebration (105 min.)
7: Dedicated to Chaos (120 min.)
8: Risk (120 min.)
9: The Adventure (120 min.)
10: A Masterpiece by Midnight (120 min.)

#3220 Biography of America
A 26-part series exploring the history of America using first-person narratives, archival photos, documents, and footage. Ca. 2000. Two parts are related to the Jazz Age:
Part 19: A Vital Progressivism
Part 20: The Twenties

#2908 Bix: An Interpretation of a Legend
A film based on the life of 1920s jazz legend Bix Beiderbecke, using many authentic locations in and around Bix's hometown of Davenport, IA. Ca. 1990. 100 min.

#3540 The Jazz Singer
A melodramatic story of a Jewish cantor's son (Al Jolson) who aspires to be a jazz singer despite his father's objection and religious tradition. In motion picture, this was the first feature film to utilize synchronous sound. Jolson's songs include "Toot, Toot, Tootsie," "Blue Skies," and "Mammy." Directed by Alan Crosland and starring Al Jolson, Myrna Loy, William Demarest. 89 min.

#2078 Buster Keaton: 1919-1922
Classic silent movies from Buster Keaton, one of the leading stars of the fledgling 1920s movie industry. Titles include: "The Garage," "Playhouse," "Blacksmith," and "Cops." 108 min.

#2072 College
Silent Buster Keaton comedy about the reluctant athletic endeavors of a love-struck college freshman. Republic Pictures, ca. 1927. 66 min.

#1512 Black American Literature (Eminent Scholar Series)
The development of black American literature from the 1890s through the 1930s, with particular attention to the major poets and novelists of the Harlem Renaissance. 45 min.

#1513 An Introduction to Ernest Hemingway (Eminent Scholar Series)
Alfred Kazin presents an appraisal of Hemingway's life and career. 45 min.

#3529 F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great American Dreamer
A look at the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the novelist who epitomized the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. 50 min.

#1953 American Literature of the Twenties (Eminent Scholar Series)
Michael Reynolds explores the influences of modern art, technology, and ideas on American culture. 45 min.

#2272 Fortune's Fool
An industrialist becomes trapped by his own standard of living. Starring Emil Jannings. Silent with English subtitles. Ca. 1921. 88 min.

#1481 The General
Buster Keaton comedy about a young Southerner who kept trying to enlist in the Confederate Army, but was repeatedly refused because he was more valuable as the engineer of the General. Silent. Ca. 1926. 106 min.

#1130 The Gold Rush
The Tramp, Charlie Chaplin, takes to the Klondike in search of wealth and love. Silent with musical score. Ca. 1925. 80 min.

#3522 The Great Gatsby
1974 adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the same name. Stars Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Karen Black, Sam Waterston, and Bruce Dern. Screenwriter: Francis Ford Coppola. Academy Awards for Best Costume Design and Best Original Song Score/Adaptation. 146 min.

#1546 Gullah Tales
Three Gullah tales set in 1930 in Southern Georgia and South Carolina. Based on the folklore of peoples of African descent. 30 min.

#2123 Hemingway: Grace Under Pressure
A film biography of the man who single-handedly forged the modern novel. Shows the relationship between Hemingway's life and works, and evaluates both. Contains old photographs, newsreel footage, and clips. Ca. 1978. 55 min.

#1659 Swanson and Valentino (from series entitled, Hollywood: The Silent Years)
Host James Mason recounts the stories of silent film stars Gloria Swanson and Rudolph Valentino. Ca. 1980. 52 min.

#1661 Comedy: A Serious Business (from series entitled, Hollywood: The Silent Years)
Host James Mason remembers when comedy was king, and four actors were battling for the throne: Lloyd, Keaton, Langdon, and Chaplin. 52 min.

#1666 End of an Era (from series entitled, Hollywood: The Silent Years)
When Warner Brothers first gambled on talking pictures in 1927, it signaled the beginning of the end for silent movies. 52 min.

#1866 I Remember Harlem (4-part series)
Pt. 1: The Early Years, 1600-1930
Harlem's growth from fishing village to Dutch farming community, wealthy New York suburb, and finally to burgeoning black neighborhood. Ca. 1981. 58 min.
Pt. 2: The Depression Years, 1930-1940
Harlem's ethnic heritage, music & show business tradition, Father Divine, and Joe Louis. Ca. 1981. 58 min.

#3230 I'll Make Me a World (6-part series)
Pt. 2: Without Fear or Shame
A look at the lives of African-American leaders, the Harlem Renaissance, and women blues singers. Emphasis on African-American artisans, including: writers, poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers, film makers and actors. Ca. 1999. 60 min.

#1242 Inherit the Wind; also available on DVD, catalog #46
Story of famous "Scopes Monkey Trial" of 1925, when a Tennessee schoolteacher was prosecuted for teaching the theory of evolution. Spencer Tracy. Ca. 1960. 127 min.

#2109 Marcus Garvey: Toward Black Nationhood
Examines the career of legendary black nationalist Marcus Garvey. Ca. 1983. 60 min.

#1136 Metropolis
Fritz Lang's depiction of the struggle between capital and labor in the city of the 21st century. Originally released in 1928. Silent. 139 min.

#3462 Monkey Trial
The American Experience examines the 1925 John Scopes trial that challenged Darwin's theory of evolution. Includes interviews with leading historians, biographers, scientists, and Dayton residents. 90 min.

#2782 Paris Was a Woman
Documentary of the community of women writers, photographers, artists, and editors who flocked to the Left Bank of Paris in the early 20th century. In English & French, with English subtitles. Ca. 1996. 75 min.

#2900 People's Century: 1900-1999 (13-part series; 56 min. each)
Pt. 4: 1919 - Lost Peace
Revisits the popular hopes and experiences in the years following WWI.
Pt. 5: 1924 - On the Line
Struggles between labor & management over dividing the fruits of prosperity.
Pt. 6: 1927 - Great Escape
Moviegoers remember how the new medium offered refuge from the era's pressures.
Pt. 7: 1929 - Breadline
Personal experiences of the Crash of '29 and its fallout in American life.

#1057 The Plow that Broke the Plains
Social & economic history of the Great Plains, from settlement to WWI boom to years of depression and drought. Ca. 1936. 30 min.

#2102 Porgy: A Gullah Version
Story of a crippled beggar who lived at Cabbage Row in Charleston. Presented as a Gullah music special by the Cabbage Row Company, Garden Theatre, Charleston from June 28 - July 13, 1991. 120 min.

#3380 Porgy: A Gullah Version
Gullah music special recorded for ETV at the College of Charleston in 1998. 57 min.

#1720 Voices and Visions (13-part series from the Annenburg/CPB collection)
The lives and works of renowned American poets. Illustrated poems in each segment are accompanied by insights about their historical and cultural connections. Covers the terminology of poetry and the larger roles of these poets in literature. 60 min. each.
Pt. 2: Hart Crane
Pt. 4: T. S. Eliot
Pt. 6: Langston Hughes
Pt. 10: Ezra Pound - American Odyssey
Pt. 13: William Carlos Williams

#1580 Who Built America (8-part series)
Pt. 8: Up South - African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War
Between 1916 and 1921, half a million African Americans moved from the South to cities in the North. This 30-min. film is part of a series which explores the central role working men and women have played in the key events and developments of American history. Ca. 1987.

#2049 The World: A Television History (26-part series)
Pt. 24: End of the Old Order, 1900-1929
Covers WWI, the Bolshevik Revolution, collapse of the world economy, fascism and the destruction of democratic liberty. Ca. 1984. 26 min.

#0825 Ernest Hemingway Reading
Collection of Ernest Hemingway's speeches, recorded from 1948-1960. Includes: Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, Second Poem to Mary, In Harry's Bar in Venice, The Fifth Column, Works in Progress, and Saturday Night at the Whorehouse in Billings. Audiotape. 45 min.

#0826 Gertrude Stein Reads from Her Works
Collection of Stein reading from her own works. Audiotape. Length n/a.

#0852 The Great Gatsby
Fitzgerald's classic novel of Jazz Age life and values. Audiotape. 270 min.