An Elder's Story
Individual Film Price:
Higher Education Institutions & Government Agency DVD | $49.95
K-12 & Public Libraries DVD | $49.95
Home Video DVD License – Restrictions Apply | $5.95
Precious Places Compilation Price:
This video is available for purchase as part of a Precious Places Community History Project Vol.1 compilation DVD.
Higher Education Institutions & Government Agency DVD | $139.00
K-12 & Public Libraries DVD | $79.00
Home Video DVD License – Restrictions Apply | $20.00
Scribe Video Center Program:
The Precious Places Community History Project is a community oral history project inviting members of the Philadelphia region's many neighborhoods to document the buildings, public spaces, parks, landmarks and other sites that hold the memories of our communities and define where we live. Precious Places teaches the video production process to participating groups, fostering projects authored by those who intimately know the featured neighborhoods.
Production and Humanities Consultant and Post Production Faciliator: Manuel Diaz-Barriga
Film Summary:
A huge electric sign in the neighborhood once proclaimed "What Chester Makes Makes Chester." These words begin the story of the former glory of a great industrial and cultural center on the Delaware River, a few miles south of Philadelphia. The documentary An Elder's Story features the reminiscences of elderly residents who fondly recall the streets lined with shops and theaters, the factories and shipping docks by the river, and a large religious community of neighborhood churches. A sense of security and prosperity pervaded in those times, before the post-industrial economic and social changes of the 1960s. Says one resident, "We looked at that sign as our leaders saying to us: 'you can be someone, and be very proud, living in the community of Chester.'" Featuring interviews with residents and archive photos from the era, An Elder's Story is a lively journey back to the city's prosperous past and the good times that residents remember.
Press:
October 16th, 2007 | “Chester, Pa. Residents Produce Documentary with Help of Swarthmore Anthropologist” by Anita Pace, Swarthmore University
Public Screenings, Broadcasts and Festivals:
October 21, 2007 | Broadcast on WHYY-TV
January 31, 2017 | Broadcast on WHYY-TV
December 26, 2018 | An Elder’s Story is on permanent display at the Museum of Black Civilizations in Dakar, Senegal
Film Stills:
