A Trip Back in Time

Deep in the bowels of the internet are some amazing archives of American arcana, including the Prelinger Archives. What are the Prelinger Archives?

"Prelinger Archives was founded in 1983 by Rick Prelinger in New York City. Over the next twenty years, it grew into a collection of over 60,000 "ephemeral" (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films. In 2002, the film collection was acquired by the Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division. Prelinger Archives remains in existence, holding approximately 5,000 digitized and videotape titles (all originally derived from film) and a large collection of home movies, amateur and industrial films acquired since 2002. Its goal remains to collect, preserve, and facilitate access to films of historic significance that haven't been collected elsewhere. Included are films produced by and for many hundreds of important US corporations, nonprofit organizations, trade associations, community and interest groups, and educational institutions.Getty Images represents the collection for stock footage sale, and over 2,800 key titles (now in the process of increasing to over 5,000) are available here."

There is much more to be found in the archives, so when facebook / twitter /etc. begins to bore you (and from things I'm reading scattered around the internet, those diversions are beginning to bore a lot of people) it's well worth a look. 

This video is a tourism video of Puerto Rico, some of which is pretty funny/not so funny. I couldn't find a date it was made, but it looks like the late 50's or early 60's. Thanks to my daughter Sarah for finding this one for me! 

Of course, you'll notice they don't mention Culebra or Vieques; maybe holidaying on islands being bombed by the US wasn't exactly the stuff of the Tourism Department's dream machine. 

Vintage Puerto Rico postcard and my favorite!

 Have a wander to the past Wednesday. Do something wishful.