White Wings on review / - movie film screenshot

"A fine picture of the celebrated "White Wings" or street- cleaning department of one district of Greater New York, showing over 350 men in line, and over 100 carts that are used to carry the refuse away to the dumping wharf, marching through the streets of New York. Length 225 feet"--Edison films catalog.
H32033 U.S. Copyright Office
Copyright: Thomas A. Edison; 20May1903; H32033.
Camera, James Blair Smith.
Duration: 3:53 at 15 fps.
Photographed April 29, 1903. Location: New York, N.Y.
In 1895, under the reform administration of Mayor William L. Strong, New York City's Department of Street Cleaning was headed by Colonel George Waring. It was he who garbed his workers in the white duck suits (earning them the name "White Wings") seen in the film. He is also recognized as a brilliant sanitary engineer who marshalled the two thousand man force to clean four hundred and fifty miles of streets each day. According to Jacob Riis, "his broom saved more lives in the crowded tenements than a squad of doctors." By 1903, the date of the filming, a new city administration was in power and Waring had been replaced.
Paper print shelf number (LC 2239) was changed when the paper prints were re-housed.
Additional holdings for this title may be available. Contact reference librarian.
Sources used: Niver, K. Early motion pictures, p. 363; American Film Institute catalog, film beginnings, 1893-1910, p. 1183; Edison films catalog, no. 185, October, 1903, p. 9.
Early motion pictures : the Paper Print Collection in the Library of Congress / by Kemp R. Niver. Library of Congress. 1985.
Available also through the Library of Congress Web site as digital files.
35 mm dupe neg pic renumbered: FPE 5373 to FZA 2744.