The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair

For more information and to download this film, please visit www.loc.gov/it...
Produced by Westinghouse for the 1939 World's Fair, this industrial film is a striking hour-long time capsule that documents that historic event within a moralistic narrative. Shot in Technicolor, the film follows a fictional Indiana family of five (mom, dad, son, daughter and grandma) as they venture from grandma's quaint house in Long Island to the fair's popular pavilions. The whole family enjoys the gleaming sights, especially the futuristic technologies located in the Westinghouse Pavilion (including something called "television"). While the entire family is affected by the visit, none are changed as much as daughter Babs (played by a young Marjorie Lord), who eventually sours on her foreign-born, anti-capitalistic boyfriend in favor of a hometown electrical engineer who works at the fair. Both charming and heavy-handed, "The Middleton Family" provides latter-day audiences with a vibrant documentary record of the fair's technological achievements and the heartland values of the age. Named to the National Film Registry in 2012.