This reel from the Orris D. Brown Collection contains footage from a number of events. The first part includes examples of early film credit techniques, footage of a then-modern, diesel electric streamlined train at Houston’s Railway Post Office, fireworks over Houston’s Buffalo Stadium, and scenes of Clara Mae Brown, Orris D. Brown’s mother, visiting family […]
This home movie from the Orris Brown Collection captures scenes of the Texas Centennial Exposition at the Texas State Fair Grounds in Dallas in 1936. It was the first world’s fair south of the Mason-Dixon Line. At a cost of $25,000,000, the central exposition was built, occupying fifty buildings, including The Hall of Negro Life, […]
This home movie captures scenes of the Great Houston Flood of 1935, primarily of the flooded downtown district, including Main, Milam, Prairie, and Texas Streets. Houstonians are seen rowing canoes down these metropolitan streets, alongside submerged storefronts and homes. Brown then includes before and after shots of the downtown district. The flood began on December […]
This home movie captures scenes of the Brown family on vacation in June 1939. The family first travels to Tennessee, through the Appalachians and the Smoky Mountains, then into Washington D.C. where they go sightseeing. Footage of the United States Capitol Building, the Supreme Court Building, the Washington Monument, the White House, the Arlington House, […]
This home movie captures scenes of the Brown family driving to then vacationing in New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 1930s. The family makes stops in Lake Charles and New Iberia as they drive to New Orleans, where they see farm workers harvesting sugar cane. In New Orleans, they spend time in the French Quarter, […]
This film from the Orris D. Brown Collection documents notable locations, battles, and citizens that tell the story of early Texas at the time of its centennial in 1936. Intertittled to introduce each place and its significance, footage is included of statues of La Salle and Sam Houston, the Spanish Governor’s Palace and the Alamo […]