The Associated Press and British Movietone have uploaded more than 550,000 archival newsreels — about 1 million minutes of footage — on YouTube.
Spanning the period 1895 to 1985, this incredible collection of newsreels can help genealogists learn about the social history of their ancestors who lived during the 20th century. How about a newsreel about ladies’ footwear fashions in 1930?
This is the largest upload of historical news content on YouTube to date.
The Associated Press and British Movietone have partnered to create two new YouTube channels that will run their comprehensive archives of news footage, an effort to digitize and broaden access to their content for hobbyists, historians, and filmmakers.
According to British Movietone, this global archive “contains many of the world’s enduring images and is rich in coverage of news events, celebrities, sports, music, social history, science, lifestyle and quirky happenings.”
For example, viewers can see newsreels of the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, exclusive footage of the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, art being removed from Le Louvre during WWII, VE Day in London, Marilyn Monroe, and Twiggy modeling the fashions of the 1960s.
“The AP archive footage, combined with the British Movietone collection, creates an incredible visual journey of the people and events that have shaped our history,” said Alwyn Lindsey, AP’s director of international archive. “At AP we are always astonished at the sheer breadth of footage that we have access to, and the upload to YouTube means that, for the first time, the public can enjoy some of the oldest and most remarkable moments in history.”
Searching
To help us wade through the newsreel collection, AP and British Movietone have created several categories, such as Momentous Events, Disasters and Tragedies, Movietone At War, Vintage Glamour, and Iconic Moments in History.
To find something in particular, search within the British Movietone or AP channel by clicking on the magnifying glass next to About (as shown in the image below). Enter a keyword or words in the search box that appears. A search of Canada produced several results, including a newsreel about British children arriving in Canada during WWII. A search of war brides produced a few newsreels.
I also searched for Canadian provinces and found a very short newsreel about the mining disaster in Springfield, Nova Scotia.
Click on the magnifying glass, to enter keywords that will narrow down your search.
The content is available on two YouTube channels: AP Archive and British Movietone.
Last year, U.K. newsreel archive company British Pathé uploaded its entire 100-year library of 85,000 historic films in HD to YouTube, comprising some 3,500 hours of footage.
