Digital Collection Finding Aid: Film Chest Vintage Cartoons
By: Mickayla McDowell, Jacqueline Ornelas, Adam Richardson
School of Information, San Jose State University
Dr. James Hodges
Introduction
Tasked with finding a collection on the Internet Archive and creating our own finding aid, our group chose to focus on a collection from Film Chest Media Group of vintage cartoons spanning from the 1930s to 1950s. Below you will find the result of our collaborative efforts:
URL: https://archive.org/details/classic_cartoons?tab=collection
Summary
Creator | Film Chest Media Group
Title | Film Chest Vintage Cartoons
Date | March 10, 2005
Size | 18.8 GB (in 2,022 files)
Date Range | 1930-1950
Bulk Dates | 1931-1937
Language of Materials | English
Acquisition Information | Film Chest Media Group purchases, restores, and remasters vintage film with their state-of-the-art equipment. This particular collection was made available to the public through Internet Archive’s site and published on March 10, 2005.
Conditions Governing Access | Materials are available to view online for free. Anyone with internet access can view, share, and download the videos from the Film Chest Vintage Cartoons page on the Internet Archive website.
Conditions Governing Use | Film Chest Media Group’s content consists of both public domain and proprietary assets. Usage rights of some items in the Film Chest Vintage Cartoons collection are defined on their individual details pages. When the usage rights are not listed, it is up to the user to contact Film Chest Media Group to determine usage rights and restrictions. Film Chest Media Group’s contact information can be found here: https://www.filmchestmediagroup.com/contact
Processing Notes | Staff of the Film Chest Media Group digitized the original 35mm film reels and stored them as per company policy. The digital files of the films were processed by several archivists on the Internet Archives website along with the metadata that accompanies each item.
Creator History
The Internet Archive was founded by Brewster Kahle in May of 1996. It began as a way to archive web pages on the internet, but expanded to host born-digital and digitized collections of video, audio, documents, and software. On March 10, 2005, archivists began adding the Film Chest Vintage Cartoons collection–created and owned by Film Chest Media Group–to the Internet Archive. Film Chest Media Group was founded in 2000 in New York, New York by Phil Hopkins and Ralph Stevens. The company specializes in acquisition, preservation, development, and distribution of film and television media. Since its inception, the company has collected approximately 2,000 film and TV titles in its privately-owned film library. In 2010, they purchased a 45,000-square-foot warehouse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where they continue to operate today. The facility has climate control capabilities and equipment used to carefully house, scan, restore, manage, and distribute their film collections.
Scope and Content
The scope of this archive is a collection of 81 moving images featuring classic cartoons spanning from the 1930s through the 1950s. The archive is organized into series of popular characters and cartoon series, including Betty Boop, Gabby, Felix the Cat, Popeye, The Three Stooges, and many others. The entries are arranged into series and sub-series which correspond to the cartoon collection and director respectively. This is further broken down by year in the file-level, and then each cartoon listing is itemized. This finding aid serves as a comprehensive reference for researchers and enthusiasts interested in the history of animated films, specifically those from the early days of animation, showcasing the contributions of notable creators like Max and Dave Fleischer, Ub Iwerks, Walter Lantz, and others.
The arrangement of entries in Film Chest Vintage Cartoons reflects an approach grounded in the archival principle of respect des fonds, prioritizing the maintenance of the original order and provenance of materials. While other access methods are available through the Internet Archive's website, the collection itself is organized in a manner that honors these archival principles. Each entry includes key information such as the title of the cartoon, studio, publication year, number of views, average rating, reviews, and subject identifiers with clickable hyperlinks. These details are presented across all series, grouped by topic or subject, with each series clearly labeled by an underlined title at the top. Furthermore, every series is hyperlinked to its full digital file within the Internet Archive, ensuring that the collection remains accessible while respecting its original organizational structure.
In creating this finding aid, we decided to keep the naming conventions that the original record creators had chosen. This is to allow for ease of finding the corresponding record on the Internet Archive. It is unclear why some titles contain numbers or vary in capitalization and punctuation methods. Additionally, the original record creators sometimes upload multiple copies of the same film. We have chosen to list each duplicate as its own record to honor the provenance.
Finding Aid Arrangement
Repository-level | Internet Archive
Record group-level | Moving Images
Fonds-level | Film Chest Vintage Cartoons
Series-level | Cartoon Series and Director
Sub-series-level | Director (if various)
File-level | Year
Item-level | Title
Subject Terms
1930s Animation, 1940s Animation, 1950s Animation, Animated Films, Betty Boop, Cartoons, Cartoon Techniques, ComiColor Cartoons, Cultural Impact of Animation, Cultural References in Animation, Dave Fleischer, Early Animation, Felix the Cat, Film History, Fleischer Studios, Gabby, Historical Animation Styles, Max Fleischer, Mother Goose Stories, Noveltoons, Popeye the Sailor, Superman (Animated Series), Ub Iwerks, Woody Woodpecker
Related Materials
For anyone interested in classic cartoons or who wish to dive deeper into the works of legendary creators like Max Fleischer and Ub Iwerks, several online resources provide access to vintage animations and archival materials. The Vintage Cartoons archive features rare cartoons and detailed information about animation history. The Cartoonian Archive has many animated shorts, which showcase the work of early animators, with an emphasis on Fleischer and Iwerks’ contributions. Animation and Cartoons is a resource that curates rare animated films, both popular and lesser known. Fleischer Studios Legacy site has many materials pertaining to the animation studio, including characters, films and influence on the animation industry. All links can be found below:
Content Listing
Please visit this link to access the google doc imaged below that has navigable links to each item in the collection: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L7Ki55zST09WZZpbgg4JOAInfldtwiwzHkeAE3ggVSA/edit?usp=sharing
