A documentary made by the Civilian Conservation Corps documenting life and work in several Massachusetts camps. The intertitle cards tell the story of the CCC from its inception to around 1937. Commentary by Stephen Slappe, Head of the Video & Sound Department at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, Oregon, for the Orphans 2020 Film Symposium. sslappe@gmail.com
Here on the eve of the Orphan Film Symposium on Water, Climate, and Migration, artist and film collector Stephen Slappe sends this piece for the occasion. He shares thoughts about and footage from a 16mm print rescued from a flea market in South Carolina twenty years ago. Steve was then an MFA student in the art department where I was teaching when Orphans was born.
In 2007, after I’d moved to New York and he to Portland, Oregon, he wrote to me about a 1,500-foot reel of 16mm film (more than 40 minutes) about the Civilian Conservation Corps. We share an enthusiasm for what appears to be an semi-official production about life in among CCC workers. Perhaps an amateur documentary. Shot in places ignored by newsreel cameras. Splicing together clips from other films. And no record of it yet found in any archival collection. An orphan.