AN AMERICAN IN THE MAKING. (1913, silent, 1reel, b&w, 35 mm)
Sponsors: united States Steel Corp.; united States Bureau of Mines. Production Co.: thanhouser Co. Director: Charles J. Hite. Cast: Harry Benham, Ethyle Cooke, Leland Benham. Resources: Copyright not registered; Before Video, 5–6. Holdings: nArA.
Dramatization showing the industrial training and “Americanization” of an immigrant steel- worker. The film tells the story of a Hungarian who comes to America and finds employment at the Illinois Steel Company, where modern industrial safety measures are practiced. The immigrant improves himself through education, marries a schoolteacher, and becomes thoroughly American. note: The film was shot on location on Ellis Island, at U.S. Steel’s facility in Gary, Indiana, and at the National Tube Works in Lorain, Ohio. Films like An American in the Making were part of a broad industry campaign to acculturate immigrants; see Gerd Korman, “Americanization at the Factory Gate,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 18 (Apr. 1965): 396–419.