American Engineer (Part I)

About

A 1956s promotional and recruiting film about American engineering. It opens with radio-telescope "sounds of the sun and the stars" and issues a repeated "Help wanted" call for imaginative, curious, courageous men and women to take on the challenges of the age. The film runs through the usual qualifications, such as a mathematical mind, a degree, a knack for tinkering and a state license, but argues that the one essential trait is the courage to accept constant challenge: "Challenge makes an engineer." From there it surveys engineering triumphs, including harnessing rushing water for hydroelectric power, turning rivers into routes for commerce, mass-producing goods at prices ordinary people can afford, and "blueprinting" the skylines of American cities, which it credits with the highest standard of living in history. It then tours the disciplines: petroleum engineers searching for "black gold" with seismographs and offshore rigs, mining engineers extracting everything from coal to uranium, chemical engineers acting as "catalytic agents" that turn raw materials into conveniences, and research engineers exploring the laws of the universe. It closes on the optimistic note that every discovery advances humanity's destiny "toward perfection." The tone throughout is classic postwar Cold War boosterism.

Archive

Internet Archive, in Prelinger Archives

Licence or status

Public domain (Creative Commons dedication), as the Internet Archive states it.

Credit

Handy (Jam) Organization

Country

United States

Subtitles

Automatic captions

Who can watch

The archive gives no rating. Invisible Network shows it to Tweens profiles and older, judged from its collection and subjects. How films are placed