This collection consists of ten episodes from the half-hour anthology television series Cavalcade of America. The series, which originally focused on incidents in American history, aired on both NBC (1952-1953) and ABC (1953-1957), was initially based on the broadcast radio anthology series Cavalcade, which aired from 1935 to 1953, and like its predecessor, pioneered the use of anthology drama for company voice advertising of its sponsor, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company (DuPont). Similarly the series celebrated acts of individual initiative and achievement through a historical-documentary format, often touching on stories featuring science and invention, in line with DuPont's motto of: “Better things for better living.” In response to increasing competition with other series at the time featuring “actuals” such as General Electric Theater and Armstrong Circle Theater, Cavalcade changed its format in its second season, introducing contemporary story subjects and began a focus on stories of “modern American life,” which resulted in a title change for the 1955-1956 season to DuPont Cavalcade Theater and again in its last season to DuPont Theater. In the fall of 1957 the series was replaced by The DuPont Show of the Month, a 90-minute live dramatization of popular novels and short stories which ran until 1961.
While a total of approximately 133 episodes of Cavalcade of America aired on NBC and ABC over its five year run, this collection contains only 10 of the original episodes from the last two seasons when the series was airing on ABC as the DuPont Cavalcade Theater and the DuPont Theater. All of the episodes in this collection consist of 16 mm black and white prints and include promotion spots for DuPont products and services. Each reel runs approximately twenty to thirty minutes. The visual quality of these prints is very good in general, but varies between individual reels.
