J. C. Glessner films of Iraq
odd: label: Local Number
content: HSFA 1981.3.1
name: label: Creator
content: Glessner, J. C. (Jefferson Carlyle), 1895-1962
place: label: Place
content: Middle East
label: Place
content: Iraq
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Received from Lois Kratz in 1981.
creator: label: Creator
content: Glessner, J. C. (Jefferson Carlyle), 1895-1962
physdesc: label: Extent
content: Film reels (1 hour 51 minutes, black-and-white color silent positive; 1600 feet, 16mm)
unitdate: label: Date
content: circa 1928-1957
custodhist: label: Custodial History
content: Previously titled "Reverend J.C. Glessner's Footage of Iraq ca. 1928-1957"
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Human Studies Film Archives
identifier: label: Identifier
content: HSFA.1981.03
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Film reels
label: Type
content: Silent films
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Titles are supplied by the archivist for untitled films.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: silent films
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: Footage shot in Mesopotamia (Iraq) while Glessner worked as a missionary for the United Mission. Indigenous peoples filmed include the Iraq Bedouin, Yezidi, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkamen. Documentation covers a wide range of daily subsistence and domestic, ceremonial, and religious activities including: outdoor church services, animal husbandry (sheep), harvesting and threshing of wheat, water wells and wheels, Bedouin tents and dancing at Sulimani, Yezidi festival and whitewashing of a Yezidi shrine, circumcision ceremony, women carrying pans of yogurt on head to Bagdad, operations of a brick factory in Bagdad, tarring roads, and building Glessner home as well as other mission buildings.  Footage annotated by Mrs. Glessner and daughter, Lois, in 1983.

Supplementary materials: 3,4

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 As an historical document, its contents may be at odds with contemporary views and terminology and considered offensive today.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.