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Received from Robert Midkiff in 1993.
Theodore Richards travel films, Human Studies Film Archives, Smithsonian Institution
Amateur film shot by Theodore Richards. Films were taken mostly in Africa, China, Japan, South America, India, and Egypt.
Please note that the contents of the collection and the language and terminology used reflect the context and culture of the time of its creation. As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today. The information within this collection does not reflect the views of the Smithsonian Institution or Anthropology Archives, but is available in its original form to facilitate research.
Theodore Richards worked for the Hawaiian Board of Missions as well as the Kamehameha School for Boys.
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. It would seem that the cruise began in England and ended in Hawaii. The route is confusing based on the assembly of the film rolls as received but the countries include: England, Greece, Italy, Palestine, Egypt, Johannesburg, Argentina, Brazil, Mauritius, Martinique, India, Ceylon, Sumatra, Bali, Burma, Philippines, China, Taiwan, Japan and Hawaii. Film footage in general captures city streets, port and countryside scenes; tourist sites; tourists interacting with local peoples (photographing and filming, purchasing goods); inside views of various activities particularly at the missions; scenic views and shipboard activities.
HSFA 1993.25.1
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures London, England (street scenes, air show, womens tennis match and British Empire Exhibition at Wembley); other areas in England including Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, Warwickshire; Egypt (Cairo, Sphinx, Great pyramid of Giza, tourists on camels, aboard train filming scenes of the Suez); Palestine; Athens, Greece; Naples, Italy; and India (Darjeeling, Calcutta, Lucknow, Cawnbore, Agra, Taj Mahal.
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 1
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures Leaving pier; Japan; Montevideo, Argentina (horse track, industrial port, snake "farm" demonstration of snakes; large "rock island?" off coast); Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil (Museo Nacional, Copacabana Palace, cable car going to top of large rock, and large movie theater sign for "Papagaio Chinez" with Marion Nixon); South Africa (mine operations for Robert Dee Mine, Ltd; de Beers and Kimberley open mine; Methodist Episcopal Church Mission).
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 2
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures Durban, South Africa "Zulu Rickshaw boys" and other locales in South Africa include train stops in the countryside (Notwani and Bulawayo); Worlds View Outspan, Cecil Rhodes grave; trolley routes C and B; possibly Herero village; African school; staged Zulu "war" with men and women in decorative head and body dress; visit to missions including Union Church Boarding School for girls (church service, school buildings, African associates of the mission, white faculty, farm and dairy activities, water spring, kitchen, dormitory, and dining room), Mission Nursing home (Dr. Taylor, patients, maternity ward, school for blind and operating room); and the Bridgeman Memorial Hospital (an American Board Mission clinic) in Johannesburg. Cruise continues up the African coast possibly to Mozambique or Madagascar (street scenes and women picking leaves of unidentified plant); ship crosses the equator (Neptune ceremony, dancing, and games); unidentified harbor and possibly Sumatra and then Bali.
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 3
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures Cruise continues to what seems to be primarily Manila surroundings in the Philippines (working elephants and street scenes); Canton, China (military exercises, school children in uniform, various harbor scenes including junks and other boats, Tientsin East train station, military men in park, and Tangshan); sign on building ?"amateur Movies Supply Kodak?; Rangoon, Burma (temple); and a crossing the equator ceremony.
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 4
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures Nikko, Japan (temple with carved friezes showing monkeys including the three depicting hear, see and do no evil); Tokyo, Japan (street scenes, people and temple complex and/or park); Yokohama (leaving pier); equator crossing ceremony on Sunset Limited (line of westerners with cameras filming); Beppu (children and adults waving flags for ships arrival, large crossed British and American flags, TSURUUI J[T?]IGOKU' Crane Seeing Hell which appears to be some site of man or nature made pressurized water creating intense steam); Nara, Japan (temples, large log hitting temple bell and feeding deer); Kyoto, Japan (temple); Kamakura, Japan (giant Buddha); Miyanoshita, Japan; Fujiyama, Japan (landscapes of water, mountains and possibly volcano).
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 5
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures Niihau, Hawaii (taking train up into the mountains, shots of terrace agriculture from train and villagers meeting tourists at train for selling goods) and Nikko and Kyoto, Japan.
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 6
Footage taken by Theodore Richards, a minister who lived in Hawaii, of an around-the-world cruise. This roll captures shipboard activities including a games of horse racing and shuffle board, dancing, lounging in deck chairs.
HSFA 1993.25.1 - 7
Japan: Promotional and Theatrical Footage, circa 1927, 1993.25.002, clip 1
Japan: Promotional and Theatrical Footage, circa 1927, 1993.25.002, clip 2
Footage of 13 separate segments compiled for unknown reasons of Japanese film. Segment 1: Scenes of Miyajima Island (also known as Itsukushishima Island) off the coast of Hiroshima (deer, shrine gate of Itsukushima Shrine, rice paddles, carved stone marker, foliage, men and women walking and having tea). Segment 2: Three young women (or girls) taking a boat ride in the Htsugawa river. Two of the young women wear elaborate kimonos and have elaborate hairdos. The other young woman is dressed in a more casual kimono and less elaborate hairstyle. An intertitle in Japanese reads "Ko'ayu Waterfall." Segment 3: Five women in short cotton robes descend stairs from building to a mudbank for mudbaths (a man covers one of the women in mud and prepares a space for another and they eat slices of melon, leave their mud bath to enter the water and then to exit). Segment 5: Men work a water wheel with their feet under an umbrella in a rice field. There are phone and/or electric lines in the background. Segment 6: A young girl blows up a paper ball/baloon and tosses the ball in the air. Segment 7: Bon-odori or Bon dance is being performed by men and women.(The dance is usually performed in the summer for the Bon festival which is a time to remember one's ancestors.) Segment 8: From the headdress and kimono worn by the central woman this could be a wedding procession to a shrine for the ceremony. Attendants could be family members wearing dark kimonos that would be appropriate for a wedding. Segment 9: Two young women, one wearing an elaborate kimono with a butterfly on the back panel. One woman uses a "comb" to work on the hair of the other. Segment 10: A sequence from Futagawa Buntaro's 1928 chambara style theatrical samurai film, "Poisonous Snake". Film depicts a clash of men with swords and sticks in what is believed to be the Tokugawa period (1600-1869). Interestingly although guns were not used in Japan during the Tokugawa period, a rifle is fired in this sequence. The clash also involves a Japanese woman. Segment 11: A man is lying on his back and juggling a young boy on his feet. Segment 12: A parade of men in historical costumes of samurai in formal clothing and then in armor followed by what appears to be courtiers of the Heian period. Segment 13: Three young women (possibly girls) dressed in elaborate kimonos with elaborate hairdos. A single woman is shown who then has her elaborate hairdo dismantled and re-done by a professional hairdresser and assistant. Hairdresser is show wrapping up her tools in a cloth furoshiki. Segment ends with a very brief shot of a woman in kimono dancing with a fan.
HSFA 1993.25.2