The majority of Northeast Historic Film's collections of moving images consists of regional film and videotape from Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont. Included are collections from local television stations dating from the 1950s to the 1990s, industrial films, silent dramas and independent works. A particularly strong emphasis is placed on amateur films and home movies.

Home movies are an important cultural and historical record that were too often neglected in the past. Not only do home movies offer intimate glimpses of family activities, they also capture unique events and places long gone.

1967 Halloween parade, BHS/WABI Collection

Northeast Historic Film has been a leader in raising an awareness of the need to preserve these films and make them accessible.

News desk, WCSH Collection

Thanks to a recent National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) grant, the majority of NHF's television newsfilm collections are now accessible to the public. Awarded in 2000, the NHPRC grant provided the funds necessary to catalog and create accessible video copies of four decades of television footage. Produced by stations in Bangor, Lewiston, Portland and Presque Isle, the images in these collections constitute Maine's surviving television record from the period 1953 to 1996. They depict events that are locally, nationally and even globally significant. From urban renewal in Bangor to the controversial 1965 Clay-Liston heavyweight bout in Lewiston, these stories preserve a sense of how Mainers lived in the second half of the 1900s.

The moving image collections at Northeast Historic Film also contain many industrial works created by and for corporate and industrial entities. The newly-preserved Goodall Mills Collection consists of 16mm industrial films which document the Sanford Mills and Goodall Worsted Company in Sanford, Maine. Included in the collection is The Goodall Summertime: The Story of Warm Weather Profits (1932). Framed around a fictional story about the owner of a menswear shop eager to increase sales, the film describes the manufacturing process and gives tips on how to market and sell the company's Palm Beach Suit. A 2002 grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) allowed for new negatives and release prints to be created from the original elements in the collection.

The Goodall Summertime: The Story of Warm Weather Profits, Goodall Mills Collection

Archie Stewart shoots 8mm, photo courtesy Mary Kelly and the Stewart Family

The amateur collections at Northeast Historic Film contain edited and unedited home movies, as well as the home movies of professional cinematographers. 

Within these collections is the Archie Stewart Collection, which consists of 174 reels of 16mm reversal film and 19 videotapes.  An active member of the Amateur Cinema League (ACL), aeronautics enthusiast and second-generation Buick salesman, Archie Stewart (1902-1998) began shooting 16mm film in 1926. Stewart recorded his automobile business with the life of garage workers, salesroom activities, auto shipments, and the family's new cars. Unlike most amateur filmmakers, who continued to shoot silent film, around Christmas 1935 he acquired a 16mm sound camera and used it to

document family activities. In 1937 he also published one of the first articles on amateur sound in the ACL magazine Movie Makers. The Archie Stewart Collection at Northeast Historic Film contains over 75,000 feet of 16mm film.

Collection-level information on many of Northeast Historic Film's moving image collections can

be accessed online through the Online Collections Guide. NHF's holdings are cataloged at

both the collection and item level.

Collection-level records give a broad description of a group of materials that came to the archives

from a single source. The record is a brief summary of content with information about the

physical material held by the archives, who made it, historical notes, and index terms. A single

collections-level entry can refer to hundreds of hours of television film, or to a 30-second fragment.

Item-level records give a more detailed description of a single item, such as an individual home

movie reel. While the fields are similar, including physical description, notes, and subject

headings, the level of detail is much greater. This helps people find specific shots, actions, and

events more easily.