Including Working Poor, African American Self Assistance, Food Stamps, Food Assistance to Children and More
Poverty and its effects are explored in this fil collection which looks at a variety if mid-20th century films reflecting poverty, welfare and the trying lives lived by the poor in this country.
This collection of our films runs for 1 hour 10 minutes. Here are the films in this collection.
The first film is Poverty in Rural America produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1965. The film highlights various poor areas of the United States and shows the "War on Poverty" social and economic programs the government is implementing to help these people.
The second film is Till It Helps! produced in 1959. This film examines how the United Fund helps the poor residents of St. Louis. It includes rare footage of low income areas of St. Louis in the 1950s.
The third film is It Happens Every Noon produced in 1966. This film details the National School Lunch Program, a program designed to provide from a third to one-half of the student's daily nutritional needs. This important program was set up to ensure that the poor children in the nation had access to some nutritious food every school day.
The last film is With No One To Help Us produced in 1967. This documentary - shot in the African American neighborhood of Newark, NJ shows how welfare mother there took on the high price charged to them for basic food and necessities. It shows how they organized a food buying club for the neighborhood and were able to better their lives by actively participating in programs that they created to make a material difference in their day to day life. There are great examples of the resistance of government and society to this program included in this film and portrays the great efforts these people had to take to make the program a success.
Here are some sample clips from the DVD
