A ‘Reel’ National Treasure Films Made of Wooster in 1912 Survive the Decades
By ADAM BURROUGHS
By ADAM BURROUGHS
Staff Writer
Invaluable pieces of history — reels of film shot in 1912, which have value to both Wooster and the nation — beat the odds to endure nearly 100 years.
From the perspective of the Wayne County Historical Society, Greg Long said, the contents of the films are invaluable. He said there are many static pictures remaining from that era, “but we don’t have anything of real people doing real things.”
The films show life “in a moving document,” he said, capturing how people looked and how they acted.
“We have lots of pictures, but only one movie,” Long said. “It’s one of a kind.”
Harry McClarran, Wooster’s official historian, said the 1912 films are from the silent era of movies. Produced in Wooster as a promotional piece shot in the downtown streets, the films showed people around town as they were, coming in and out of businesses and walking about.
The film attracted people to the Alhambra Theater with the promise of seeing their own image on the big screen. The value of the film then is twofold, said McClarran: First, historians can see people and places in Wooster as they were during that time period. But the second aspect is what makes the film priceless.
The promotional pieces were shot on nitrate film, a volatile material that is prone to combustion, he said. It is the delicate nature of this medium that makes the films so valuable.
When McClarran wrote to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and told them he had films on nitrate stock dating back to 1912, the director of the archive told him that was impossible. But when he produced the films, it was discovered he had a rare piece of national history.
McClarran said 85 percent-90 percent of nitrate stock film no longer exists; partially because of its delicacy, and partially because the films used an emulsion made of silver, which could be lifted using a process that destroys the film, but retains the valuable metal.
James Dudley Shamp of Wooster had been a projectionist for the Wallace and Lyric Theater in 1915. The theater was in direct competition with the Alhambra — a competition that grew fierce when John McCormick, operator of the Alhambra, set a bomb beneath the organ in the Lyric Theater. The explosives were traced to McCormick when the shipping label was discovered. His conviction, ironically, led to the bankruptcy of his theater in 1917.
Around 1920, Shamp was an electrician doing work for George Steinments when he discovered the 1912 films lying on the dirt floor of Steinments’ garage.
Shamp asked if he could have the films, and they were handed over.
Had it not been for his experience with films, these treasures would be lost, said McClarran. Shamp had the wherewithal to clean the film with trichloroethylene, a now banned cleaning substance, which preserved the films.
Shamp discovered around 1976, after years of keeping the films, that he is the cousin of McClarran.
McClarran said he pestered Shamp for about five years to let him have the films, his interest being in their preservation.
In 1981, Shamp handed the films over. Three weeks later, Shamp died.
Around 2003, Jeff Musselman approached McClarran about selling the films to the Wayne County Historical Society.
Speaking today, Musselman said he and McClarran were discussing Civil War veterans when McClarran asked if he’d like to see a film that showed veterans of Wooster.
“It was just amazing to see,” said Musselman. “Nobody knew (the films) existed.”
“It was a holy grail piece of history for the community,” he said.
He asked McClarran to sell the Historical Society the films. To his surprise, McClarran gave the films for free.
Musselman contacted the chief archivist at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, and asked if he would restore the films. The archivist agreed and said the extremely rare films were “national treasures,” and because of their national merit, the federal government paid the $25,000 it cost to restore the films. Currently they are being held in trust by the federal government at Wright Patterson.
McClarran said DVD copies of the movies have been given to the Wayne County Historical Society and have been shown in 2005 and 2006 as a fundraiser.
On Aug. 9, as part of Wooster’s bicentennial celebration, the films will be shown once again at The College of Wooster’s Papps Stadium and eventually will be offered for sale to the public.
Long said the film’s showing is a popular attraction, since nothing like it exists.
“(There is) no other benchmark for what life might have been like back then,” he said, “They are really special. The stuff on them is just priceless.”
Reporter Adam Burroughs can be reached at 330-287-1623 or e-mail aburroughs@the-daily-record.com.
Originally published by By ADAM BURROUGHS Staff Writer.
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