Daybreak (c. 1971)

Duration: 14:24

Year Published: c. 1971

Format: 16mm

Sound: sound

Description: This industrial film, narrated by El Paso film star Gilbert Roland, profiles the human side of Farah Manufacturing Company, Inc. From the company’s founding through the 1960s, Farah was considered a patriotic American company that offered its employees on-site health care, cafeteria benefits, and a generous wage. This film describes the family atmosphere of the company where supervisors are empathetic and called by their first name, where there are “no titles, no bosses, no distant executives”, and employees are paid higher than the industry standard. At the time of this film, Farah had just expanded to include international operations, was the second largest employer in El Paso, and was achieving record-breaking sales. Due to this sudden growth, Farah began to demand that workers meet higher quotas and benefits were tightened. This film was likely a response to increasing tensions within the corporation, tensions that exploded in 1972 when 4,000 workers went on strike, resulting in a national boycott of Farah slacks from which the company never quite recovered. The film attempts to communicate to its employees that “all that technology and all those machines wouldn’t amount to a ‘hill of jeans’ without the real wealth of Farah: its people.”