Ruth Storm

Item Data

  • Collection Title: Ruth Storm Collection
  • Item Title: World's Fair & Jones Beach, c. 1937-1939
  • ID Number: RS-004
  • Date Range: 1937-1939
  • Description: Ruth Storm's 1939 World's Fair footage includes construction footage shot before the fair opened as well as a visit to Jones Beach, which also opened in 1939.
  • Biographical/Historical Note: In 1939 Chennie and Mimi were in NYC. One possibility is that the women shown in the Jones Beach sequence were the mothers who were still very much present in all these lives. Ruth lived with her mother, Elizabeth Storm, in Yonkers, Mabel with hers, Hannah Glover in New City, and before Chennie and Mimi began to live together, Chennie stayed first with her own mother in Jersey City, and then with Ruth and her mother. The elevated road is the “Road of Tomorrow”, part of the Ford Exhibit. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/11/the-1939-new-york-worlds-fair/100620/ The “buggies” were apparently called carts or push chairs and were provided by American Express https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-e4a1-d471-e040-e00a180654d7 Other World's Fair footage: http://www.fairfilm.org/ https://archive.org/details/middleton_family_worlds_fair_1939
  • Genres: Amateur Films
  • Places: Jones Beach; Queens, NY
  • Access & Use: Contact Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) info@lesbianhomemovieproject.org. No re-use without permission.
  • Color or B&W: Mix
  • Related Versions:
  • Running Time: 15:47
  • Rights: Lesbian Home Movie Project (LHMP) holds all rights.
  • Sound: Silent
  • Subjects: World's Fair 1939, Jones Beach 1939, Lesbian
  • Creators: Ruth Huntington Storm (1888-1981)
  • Collaborators & Participants:
  • Source Format: 16mm
  • Format: 16mm
  • Viewing Log: World's Fair from across a road. Westinghouse building (blue with murals). Trylon & Perisphere beyond. DuPont pavilion. A line of people outside a door.USSR pavilion under construction, including statue. Clock tower areplica of Independence Hall, Pennsylvania pavilion. Trylon. Façade of a building with eagle statues (United States Pavilion?) Workers on the relief on the façade of a pavilion (USSR?). Ireland pavilion. Cars driving past a wooden archway. Trylon and Perisphere in the distance. The Corona gate. Statue of man holding what appears to be a wolf. The Ford pavilion. Other buildings. Corona gate. Construction workers still completing facades. Other pavilion exteriors. Ford. Jones Beach. Three women in hats & fur coats, possibly Ruth's mother Elizabeth (Lizzie) and Chennie's mother Nellie are two of the women. World’s Fair Administration building. Trylon and Perisphere under construction. Buildings under construction. Waves at Jones Beach. Three boys on the beach. People walking on the beach. Woman in camel's hair coat running toward the camera, possibly Chenoweth Hall or possibly Storm herself . (Both women appear elsewhere in Storm's footage in a camel coats.) Row of flags. Statue “Spirit of the Wheel” by Rene P. Chambellan. Cars on display on the “Road of Tomorrow” at the Ford pavilion. People lined up to enter a building. A young woman -- possibly Tibby Kramer, a student and onetime lover of Ruth's -- poses in front of a garden and mural (Communications Building - "Means of Communication" by James Owen Mahoney.) "Pony Express" by Carl Milles in front of the entrance to the AT & T pavilion. Statues in a fountain, including ‘Time and the Fates of Man" by Paul Manship. People on a tractor train. British Pavilion. Italian Pavilion. A relief façade with a hammer and sickle design (USSR Pavilion). "Spectroheliogram," a fair excursion bus, passes the Japanese pavilion. Flags along a pool, leading to a domed building. A fountain. Trylon and Perisphere with the Helicline walkway. Gardens and pavilions. Woman in a push cart and a man sitting on a bench. Pond. Flowers (lady slippers?) Tulip garden in front of the Italian Pavilion. Man lifts a toddler up to drink from a water fountain. A restaurant where the waitresses wear kimono/yukata. Artificial waterfall Japanese pavilion. People seated at a restaurant. Brass band performing. Man pushing someone in an "American Express" push chair, possibly Ruth's mother.