History
The film was made to encourage farmers to grow hemp for the war effort because other industrial fibers, often imported from overseas, were in short supply. The film shows a history of hemp and hemp products, how hemp is grown, and how hemp is processed into rope, cloth, cordage, and other products.
Before 1989, the film was relatively unknown and the United States Department of Agriculture library and the Library of Congress told all interested parties that no such movie was made by the USDA or any branch of the US government. Two VHS copies were recovered and donated to the Library of Congress on 19 May 1989 by Mia Farrow, Carl Packard, and Jack Herer.
The only known copy in 1976 was a 3/4" broadcast quality copy of the film that was originally obtained by William Conde in 1976 from a reporter for the Miami Herald and the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church of Jamaica. It was given in trust that it would be made available to as many as possible. It was put into the hands of Jack Herer by William Conde during the 1984 OMI (Oregon Marijuana Initiative). The film 20 years later is now available anywhere on the Internet.
As it was made by the US Government, it is public domain and is freely available for download from the Internet Archive.
Read more about this topic: Hemp For Victory
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“At present cats have more purchasing power and influence than the poor of this planet. Accidents of geography and colonial history should no longer determine who gets the fish.”
—Derek Wall (b. 1965)