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"Our Wonderful Schools"

A film featuring Lake Avenue
& Bonita Avenue Schools
(Beach & Havens Schools) in 1915

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THE WESTERN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION

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Picturing School Activities

By Archie Rice

Vol. 21, 1915

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While directing the filming of the educational, vocational, and recreational activities of the country schools of Alameda county, to produce four reels for daily free exhibition in the Palace of Education at the Panama Exposition, I was requested to direct also the taking of artistic photographic views of the best of the county's school buildings, from which types might be selected for the architectural exhibit in the Palace of Education.

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Prior to eight years ago. when the present county superintendent, George W.. Frick. came into office for what has developed into a third consecutive four-year term, there was not a domestic science course, a manual training" shon. any school hardening in the county's schools. Those features have been added during his regime, and of those innovations the movie-reels have made record.

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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.

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Pictorially, the story of the county's school activities will play on the screen in approximately this geographical sequence, with the time allottment 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.

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The range is from the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay back seventy miles into the interior, with schools and scenic effects selected for their value in completing the composite picture. Chapters in a book are roughly of equal length, but they are not of uniform value. Some little incidents necessary to the whole story may be quite brief. That is why the schools get varying time on the screen. In many of the smaller places it cost more in time and travel to get fifty seconds of action than it did at other places to get three hundred.

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Hello researchers,

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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. 

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Here is everything I have gathered about the films:

 

  • 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.
     

  • 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]

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The photos mentioned are shown in “Picturing school activities” [source]

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Names/search queries:

  • Geo W Frick, President of the Motion Picture Section

  •  Mr Archie Rice Gardens lecturer with these pictures

  • Rob Wagner's documentary film, "Our Wonderful Schools" (1915), 

  • Piedmont's Bonita-avenue school, 

  • Piedmont's Lake-avenue school,

  • Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) in San Francisco, 1915

  • “certain progressive California communities,”

  •   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 

  • Palace of Education

  • Moving pictures, reels, newsreels, films

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