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A number of socially concious photographers in America and Europe helped to highlight working conditions for children and women. These images played a major role in legistaltion to protect the vulnerable groups. I was aware of still photographers. We have since learned that in England and France there were also early documentaries, so called "Factory Gate Films. I do not know of any similar American films. Apparently Edwardian film makers made news reels at the turn of the 20th century. A lot of their films have been discovered in the cellar of their former studio in Blackburn Lancashire. The British Film Institute have renovated these. Some stills are available on their web site. The English film makers were Mitchell and Kenyon. The French Lumière Brothers were apparently the first to shoot these films and show them to fee paying audiences (1895). One was named the "Sortie de l'Usine". The film was taken at the factory gates in Lyon. The goal of the film makers was more technical than social. They wanted ti show how film could record movement and the factory gate when the whistkled sounded offered a good opportunity to film a large group of people moving. Mitchell and Kenyon shot their films in England and there were other early English film makers shooting at the factory gate. Cecil Hepworth filmed in southern England.
A number of socially concious photographers in America and Europe helped to highlight working conditions for children and women. These images played a major role in legistaltion to protect the vulnerable groups. This is the first major example that I know of where photography had a major impact on public policy. There were many subsequent examples, including the Depression, Civil Rights, and Viet-nam.
I was aware of still photographers. We have since learned that in England and France there were also early documentaries, so called "Factory Gate Films. I do not know of any similar American films. Apparently Edwardian film makers made news reels at the turn of the 20th century.
The French Lumière Brothers were apparently the first to shoot these films and show them to fee paying audiences (1895). One was named the "Sortie de l'Usine". The film was taken at the factory gates in Lyon. The goal of the film makers was more technical than social. They wanted ti show how film could record movement and the factory gate when the whistkled sounded offered a good opportunity to film a large group of people moving.
There appear to have been several British film maketrs.
One English group shooting at the factory gate were Mitchell and Kenyon. A lot of their films have been discovered in the cellar of their former studio in Blackburn Lancashire. The British Film Institute have renovated these. Some stills are available on their web site. The Blackburn fine is a winderful trasure house of images. Blackburn near Manchester is located in Lancashire. This was the English industrial midlands where the Industrial Revolution began which led to modern industrial economies. There were in 1900 about 0.6 million people, many of them women and children employed in the cotton spinning and weaving factories of Lancashire. There were 0.1 million more involved in cloth finishing trades. This made a major contribution to the British economy at the time. The Blackburn mills specialized in the dhoti, a traditional Indian garment. It was in fact a plain piece of cloth wrapped into place. English production put traditional Indian weavers out of business by undercutting them with cheap industrial production. (This is why Ghandi would after the War try to boycott British production anf boycott homespun.) Mitchell and Kenyon shot films at Blackburn factory gates, but there other factories within a short distance from Blackburn, including other cotton mills in Birmingham, worsted mills in Yorkshire, and dockyards in Liverpool.
Cecil Hepworth filmed in southern England. A Guardian article quotes frfom the promotional literature that: "A film showing workers leaving a factory will gain far greater popularity in the town where it was taken than the most exciting picture ever produced. The workers come in hundreds, with all their friends and relations, and the film more than pays for itself the first night."
Guardian
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