"Our Wonderful Schools"

Hello researchers,

​

Help us find a set of 4 motion pictures from 1915! It might be called “Our Wonderful Schools” with Rob Wagner as the director of the documentary film. The series highlights California schools and was shown at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) at the California building’s educational exhibit at Fifth Street and Avenue B, in the Palace of Education in 1915. 

​

Here is everything I have gathered about the films:

 

• A four-reel motion picture was created.

​

• The film was shown daily in the Palace of Education at the Panama Exposition.

​

• Piedmont schools were included prominently.

​

• Architectural still photographs were also created for an educational exhibit and contest.

​

• Both Piedmont schools were selected among the featured California school examples.

​

• Bonita Avenue School: approximately 4 minutes 10 seconds

• ​Lake Avenue School: approximately 2 minutes 30 seconds

​

• A new feature in Educational Meetings was that on Motion Pictures Geo W Frick President of the Motion Picture Section prepared an interesting and instructive display of educational films this covering the work of the County Library throughout the state and of school activities and educational features in Alameda County These pictures were shown during the noon period each day and were accompanied by a lecture by Mr Archie Rice Gardens [Source]
   

• Page 106, A new note in the school activities has been struck by George W. Frick, Superintendent of Schools in Alameda County, who has had moving pictures taken in eighteen schools to show the distinctive ideas in educational work that have been developed. These will be shown through the state, especially in the rural districts, and will be a feature of the exhibit at the Exposition during the convention of the National Educational Association in August. They depict the children in manual training, domestic science, athletics and recreation and are intended to do away with the usual type of school exhibit. The pictures were staged by Archie Rice, of Berkeley, and consists of four reels. [Source]
   

• Of the still photographs taken for the architectural-prize contest among California's schools, there are half-tone reproductions illustrating these pages. The hope was to qualify with perhaps two, possibly three. Eight were finally admitted : both Piedmont schools, San Leandro, Hayward Union High School, Alviso, Centerville a small one-room school just east of Niles, and Mission San Jose. Pictorially, the story of the county's school activities will play on the screen in approximately this geographical sequence, with the time allotment roughly indicated : Albany, ISO second; Emeryville, 90 seconds; Piedmont's Bonita-avenue school, 250 seconds ; Piedmont's Lake-avenue school, 150 seconds; San Lenadro, 420 seconds; Hayward Union High School, 180 seconds ; Hayward Grammar School, 240 seconds ; Castro Valley, 100 seconds ; Valle Vista, 45 seconds; Decoto, 180 seconds; Alvarado, 160 seconds; Alviso, 90 seconds; Washington Union High School, 250 seconds ; Centerville Grammar School, 120 seconds : Niles, 150 seconds ; Mission San Jose, 360 seconds; Pleasanton, 250 seconds; Livermore Union High School, 190 seconds ; May School, 45 seconds. The total will be just one hour. [Source]
   

Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) - EXHIBITION AT THE EXPOSITION:

• At the San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition, which opened on February 20 and ran through December 4, all but one of California’s exhibits on education featured motion pictures of school activities…[Source]
   

• Recently, the Venice High School Alumni Association found among its archives a June 1915 school publication that carried an article of a “moving picture” of the school being shown at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco. No other documentation was found in the archives, let alone the film itself. [Source]
   

• In addition to the two general-purpose theaters, California and New York relied heavily on moving pictures in the exhibits they mounted in the Palace of Education and Social Economy. From 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, California screened a variety of films, all documenting successful “public educational activities” in Event Cinema 185 “certain progressive California communities,” including a reel on the agricultural courses taught at the high schools of Imperial County and seven reels covering the Los Angeles school district from kindergarten to junior college, which won a PPIE Grand Prize.159 [Source]
   

• In addition to the two general-purpose theaters, California and New York relied heavily on moving pictures in the exhibits they mounted in the Palace of Education and Social Economy. From 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, California screened a variety of films, all documenting successful “public educational activities” in Event Cinema “certain progressive California communities,” including a reel on the agricultural courses taught at the high schools of Imperial County and seven reels covering the Los Angeles school district from kindergarten to junior college, which won a PPIE Grand Prize.159 Addressing visitors to the National Education [Source]
   

• California Educational Exhibit. 5 & B (Fifth Street and Avenue B , in the Palace of Education.) Showing educational activities from kindergarten to college. Counties represented Alameda [Source]
   

• Rob Wagner's documentary film, "Our Wonderful Schools" (1915), won a bronze medal at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition fair in San Francisco. [Source]
   

• “First with Its School Exhibit,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 1915, 18; “How Our Schools Won Grand Prize,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1915, sec. 2:3. The Los Angeles footage Notes 281 was exhibited in Los Angeles as a seven-reel “educational film,” entitled Our Wonderful Schools (“School Films Are Free,” Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1915, sec. 2:2). Filming across the state for the California exhibit in the Palace of Education was well covered by local newspapers. See, for example, “Motion Pictures Are Taken in Los Altos,” San Jose [CA] Mercury News, April 22, 1915. [Source]
   

• Miscellaneous Silent Film Work 1915 Our Wonderful Schools. DIST-P: Los Angeles Board of Education (produced with the help of D. W. Griffith's Reliance-Majestic Co.). D-S: Rob Wagner. CAM: Hugh McClung. FC may have taken part in the making of this documentary on the Los Angeles school system, partly filmed at Manual Arts High School in the spring of 1915. R: June 11, 1915. [Source - tbd]
   

• The California Educational Exhibit in the Palace of Education is located at 4th and 5th streets and Avenue B, Arthur H. Chamberlain, Director. Motion pictures of school architecture, equipment, class work and activities. Photographs of school [Source]
   

• As important as the actual meetings of the association will be the educational exhibits at San Francisco which has been termed a world university for 1915 August 21st will be the National Education Day at the Exposition During the entire two weeks of the convention special arrangements will be made for the entertainment of teachers at the Fair particularly in the Education and Sociology Building where school exhibits from all parts of the world are being made [Source]
   

• PPIE Department of Education on the recommendation of the Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools. The project was undertaken by the English Department resulting in two reels of film of 1,100 feet each. It was then contributed to the exhibit of California High Schools and shown in the theater of the Palace of Education. [Source]
   

• Recently, the Venice High School Alumni Association found among its archives a June 1915 school publication that carried an article of a “moving picture” of the school being shown at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco [Source]
   

• The story opens with the title, “Jack and Beth attend the Venice Union Polytechnic High School, Venice California,” following which the location of Venice as the nearest beach to Los Angeles is shown. A Map of the Union High School District coming on the screen indicated the location of the several grammar school districts and schools included, with the Polytechnic High School, on its twenty-nine acres of ground and costing $300,000, near the geographic center of the district. [Source]
   

  • ​The approach used in the film was to have two students as leading characters – “Jack” and “Beth” – who are followed through their various classes and activities at the school 
     

• The motion picture theater was recognized by those who designed and installed the exhibit as an exceptional means of portraying to the visitor the public schools of California in action, and at the same time preserving for the future living records of the school system as it existed in 1915. These films do not contain pictures of school classes in action after long rehearsals, but depict the classes in everyday activity. Pictures are shown indicating from a scientific standpoint how we are teaching the child to be ready to fight the life battles. Illiteracy is being banished in California just as the pictures show the visitor and the student. The schools of this State are in a position to invite healthy criticism, and California regards herself as generally equal and in many points superior in systems, not only in teaching the child, but teaching the parent.  State normal schools, open-air schools, playgrounds, athletic grounds and gymnasiums, as well as structures wherein are taught domestic science and manual training. Art has been featured to a great degree and the exhibit is rife with the products of scholars taught under California's system of domestic science and manual training. Not only are the city and rural public schools shown, but the State schools for the abnormal child and the private school for the atypical child are depicted in film, models and exhibits. [Source]

​

• Several counties and cities have, through motion pictures. featured in whole or in part, activities of their schools. These pictures include buildings and grounds; out-of-door activities, such as athletics, gymnastics and the like; actual classroom processes in book, laboratory, home economics, industrial education and art subjects; agriculture, library work, music, folk  dancing and dramatics; and in fact, everything that pertains to education from the kindergarten and playground to college. Many thousands of dollars have been spent in securing these pictures, and they are shown daily in the California Motion Picture Booth in the Palace of Education. Much of the credit for securing the exhibits from Southern California, is due to Mr. Hugh J. Baldwin. Exhibits from other portions of the State and the installation and arrangement of the collective exhibit, has been in the hands of Miss Ardee Parsons. [Source]