‘Life in Ontario,’ 1947

Reader Pamela Arterburn brings to our attention the above film, “Life in Ontario: You and Your Friends.” The footage was found and uploaded by the Ellingwood Model Colony History Room at Ontario’s Ovitt Library. It’s almost an hour long but makes for interesting viewing.

As Arterburn describes the video, evidently compiled from several sources, it includes “a view of the Daily Report’s office (hard-boiled reporters included) and the printing press at work, newspaper boys (some who look about 10) and city officials doing official-looking things at special functions.

“Other highlights include orange juice being processed, Chaffey High students swimming, milling around and engaging in sports, Euclid Avenue before stop signs and lines to separate lanes of traffic, the good people of Ontario leaving church on a Sunday, and fascinating footage of a train crash that must have happened just before the film was taken — and this is just the highlights.

“The silence makes the viewer imagine what people are saying; it’s eerie, like a visual whisper. Even racism seeps through — the only people smiling are white; citizens of color seem almost physically downcast.”

Arterburn also wonders: “Why the heck did ladies’ Sunday hats go out of style, anyway?”

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