Paul Duncan Film Collection
odd: label: Abbreviations
content: OF = Original Film  

RV = Reference Video

MV = Master Video
name: label: Creator
content: Duncan, James T.
label: Creator
content: Duncan, Paul
label: Names
content: McMillen, Clark
topic: label: Topic
content: Agriculture -- Pennsylvania
label: Topic
content: Draft horses
label: Topic
content: Agricultural machinery
label: Topic
content: Farmers
label: Topic
content: Farm equipment
label: Topic
content: Harvesting -- Pennsylvania
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Donated to the Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian by James T. Duncan, son of Paul J. Duncan, in November 2002.
creator: label: Creator
content: Duncan, James T.
label: Creator
content: Duncan, Paul
setName: label: See more items in
content: Paul Duncan Film Collection
abstract: label: Summary
content: One film documenting use of farm tools and machinery of the late 19th early 20th century.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: Between 1937 and 1941, amateur film maker, Paul Jasper Duncan (1899-1986), documented non-mechanized farming practices in the eastern Pennsylvania region where he had grown up.   Duncan was born in Meadville, Pennsylvania on March 21, 1899.  He was the son of Raymond and Nellie Thayer Duncan.   Duncan's maternal grandfather, Charles F. Thayer (1848-1933), lived in nearby Atlantic next to the W. Clark McMillen farm.   In 1901, Myrna K. Thayer, one of Duncan's maternal aunts, married W. Clark McMillen.   Clark McMillen was a full-time farmer.  About 1918, Raymond Duncan and his family moved to Atlantic and lived in the Thayer home next door to the McMillen farm.   During his youth, Duncan worked on the McMillen farm when labor was needed and when he needed to earn some money but he never had any interest in becoming a farmer.   Duncan graduated from Meadville High School in 1919.

Duncan attended Pennsylvania State University for a year studying mechanical engineering.   He returned to Meadville taking a job as a teacher for manual training (shop, woodworking, etc.).   He married Alice Driver but within a month she died of "milk fever".   Duncan returned to Penn State completing one more year toward a degree before moving to Chicago in the fall of 1922.   He married Gertrude Glover in 1924 and in the fall of 1938 they moved to Des Plaines, Illinois.   They had two children: Margaret (b. 1929) and James (b. 1932).   Duncan worked as a mechanical design engineer for the Universal Oil Company and the Ludlow Typograph Company.  

In 1937, Duncan purchased an 8mm movie camera.   He had an interest in still photography and this interest extended to motion pictures.   During summer family trips to Atlantic in 1937, 1939 and 1941 Duncan documented three farming practices on the McMillen farm: making hay (1937), threshing wheat (1941), and cradling and flailing (1941).   During this time the farm was being worked by McMillen and his son-in-law Roy Ferrin (d. 1945).   With the exception of cradling and flailing, the farm work was not staged and coincided with the Duncan family visits to Atlantic.   At the time that Duncan filmed cradling and flailing the wheat had been cut, so McMillen is seen cutting and binding sheaves of oats instead.   In addition to McMillen, Ferrin and Duncan's nephew Neil Duncan are seen in the films.

After retiring from the Ludlow Typographic Company in 1968, Duncan and his wife moved to Dos Cabezas, Cochise County, Arizona.   He died in 1986.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 0.5 Cubic feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1937-1941
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0827
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Motion pictures (visual works)
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Collection arranged into one series.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., archivist, January 2005
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Motion pictures (visual works) -- 1930-1950
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Filmed entirely on location at the W. Clark McMillen Farm in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the Paul Duncan Film Collection documents three types of now obsolete farming practices using draft horses and manual labor: making hay (1937), threshing wheat (1939), and cradling & flailing (1941).   The film is 8mm, black and white and color.   Edge codes date from 1926, 1932, and 1934-35.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials in the Archives Center

The Robinson and Via Family Papers, 1845-2000 (AC0475)

The William C. Kost Farm Records, 1939-1989 (AC0481)