WATCH:
The Indian Sanitarium Will Help You (?)
A 1940s U.S. Department of Interior film produced by the Office of Indian Affairs. A film about health practices and hospitals:
https://archive.org/details/TheIndianSanitariumWillHelpYou
During the 1950s in the USA, a large amount of prescriptive material
appeared in the form of magazines, handbooks, and guidance films,
teaching proper manners and good behavior in a rapidly evolving post-war
society. In this context, the U.S. Department of the Interior
commissioned two short films produced by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in
1952 aimed at teaching young Native Americans how to properly use a
telephone and answer calls.
The political context of the era is key here, as the 1950s represented a
kind of pinnacle in the federal government's assimilationist intentions
about Native American communities, whether it be the attempt to abolish
protected reservation territories or the forced teaching of
Anglo-American values in federal residential schools.
These short films, which at
first seem to resemble the innocuous orientation films of the time in
their format and approach, in fact aim not simply at the acquisition of
new cultural codes, but at the complete rewriting of the most
traditional thought patterns. Analyze
their scenography and purpose in the light of ethnographic and
anthropological data, as specifically relevant to the Navajo culture, as
the students and the examples in the movie are clearly aimed at this
community.
Two short films here:
Telephone Etiquette
Receiving a Telephone Call
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| We didn't need their help. |
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