Industry On Parade was a television series created by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) from 19501960. The series consisted of weekly episodes that highlighted American manufacturing and business. Hundreds of companies and products were documented during the [program’s] decadelong run.

The first episode of this set of three episodes is titled “Contents: Merchandise.” It looks at the packaging of various consumer products. Matches are produced at a production plant (00:44) and move along a conveyer belt. Cigars are machinewrapped on an assembly line (01:22). At Millprint Inc. in Milwaukee, people sketch out packaging artwork (01:57). New packaging tape is tested (02:20). The episode then shows a packaging production plant where cardboard packages are made and put together (02:52). Boxboard is transformed into an array of containers at Old Dominion Box Company in Charlotte, NC (03:20). Strips are fed into a machine (03:47) that cuts and glues them into small boxes. 6pack containers are manufactured at the Atlanta Paper Company (04:28) using massive printing machines; unassembled cartons are then fed into a machine that folds and glues them. Women at a St. Louis plant oversee the production of netting for bags used for produce (05:25). Propulsion cans are manufactured with large production machines (06:48). The episode then takes viewers to a New Jersey coffee packing plant (07:25). Coffee tins are filled with coffee then sealed (07:59) with pressure packing before undergoing a pressure test (08:24). Cigarettes are manufactured (08:50), packed and shipped at another factory. There are more shots of various production machines with people overseeing the production lines. A woman fills a bag with readymixed cake products (09:46). A grocery store conveyer belt shows a variety of grocery products in the latest packaging (10:43). Kids get a waxcoated milk carton from a vending machine (11:19).

The second episode discusses “profits and progress” using a suburban family to illustrate the importance of putting profits back into the business to fuel growth. A young boy and girl set up a lemonade stand in a suburban neighborhood (14:05). The episode cuts to their father’s Texaco Filing Station (15:29), where cars arrive for services. The father buys stock in the General Transistor Corporation. The episode shows the General Transistor’s small enterprise building (17:06) at Long Island, NY. A machine pulls crystals of germanium (18:10) as a skilled worker oversees the process. Other new machines are used for research. Women clock out of work at the company (19:53). There are shots of research labs and transistor testing in quality control. Transistors are fed into a machine to mark them for their capability (22:08).

The third episode (no. 122) is from 1953. It begins with a look at the surface mining operations of the Pittsburgh and Midway Coal Mining Company in Kansas. A drill is used to remove a layer of earth, then the hillside is blasted. A giant shovel moves coal and earth (27:56). Another machine punches through the earth to break it up. A train car loaded with coal is tipped (29:05) to remove the coal. Conveyer belts move and separate the coal by grade. The segment ends with shots of coal mounds leftover from surface mining (29:50). Next, viewers are shown the Shepherd Envelope Company plant (31:29) where various envelopes are produced. A machine dicuts paper; a woman feeds paper into a windowcutting machine (31:58). Envelopes move on a chain conveyer and are then boxed. The next segment shows the “tiltup technique” of building new factories. The Barrett and Hile Company of San Francisco, CA, pours concrete into wall forms on the ground; a crane lifts the wall panel (33:20) up and into position. The final segment of this episode follows a Maine Sardine Fleet fishing boat (35:18) as it fishes for sardines. Men take a smaller boat (35:47) out to circle the sardines with a net. A carrier boat arrives to take the catch (37:00), using smaller nets to transfer the sardines into the carrier boat. The fish are pumped out into a canning plant using a massive vacuum (37:54), where they are handpacked along an assembly line (38:31). A machine adds and crimps lids to the tops of the sardine cans (39:12).

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