The Shipbuilders of Essex 1947 United States Information Agency (USIA)

more at http://quickfound.net/

'This film chronicles life in the village of Essex in Massachusetts -- a town famous for its hand built wooden fishing boats. Scenes give a complete account of the building of one of the boats, a 60-foot trawler, the St. Rosalie. Traditional singing and dancing accompany the various stages of the work. The hand-made methods depicted are similar to 19th century techniques used when Essex was a leading supplier of wooden sailing vessels for Atlantic fishing communities.'

Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex,_Massachusetts

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Essex is a coastal town in Essex County, Massachusetts, 26 miles (42 km) north of Boston and 13 miles (21 km) southeast of Newburyport. It is known for its former role as a center of shipbuilding. The population was 3,504 at the 2010 census.

The central village areas of Essex and South Essex make up the census-designated place of Essex...

History

Essex was incorporated as a town in 1819. It was previously a part of the town of Ipswich and was then called Chebacco Parish. The first European settlers arrived in 1634. At that time, the land formed part of an area inhabited by Native Americans of the Agawam tribe. The name Chebacco is Agawam in origin and refers to a large lake whose waters extend into neighboring Hamilton. Conomo Point, the easternmost part of the town, is named for the Sagamore or Chief of the Agawams, Masconomo, the leader of the tribe in the late 17th century. Early on, Chebacco Parish lobbied for status as an independent town, asking for permission to build a meeting house. In colonial times, the existence of a meeting house in a settlement conferred de facto autonomy, so Chebacco Parish was denied permission to build such a structure. Popular history tells that one written dictate was issued stating that "no man shall raise a meeting house", so the residents of the settlement interpreted it as to mean that women would be allowed to do so. It is reported that a local woman, Madam Varney, assembled the town's women and construction of a meeting house was carried out by them while the men looked on. Jeremiah Shepard was a minister at the church in Chebacco Parish from 1678 to 1680. He was succeeded by John Wise, who was pastor of Chebacco Parish from 1680 to his death in 1725...

Former shipbuilding center

The town of Essex was once home to a prosperous shipbuilding trade. This industry accounted for most of the revenue of the town from the days of its settlement as Chebacco Parish until the early part of the 20th century. Once a leading supplier of schooners for Gloucester and other Atlantic fishing communities, Essex did not adapt to the transition from sail-powered wooden ships to engine-powered metal vessels, and this activity disappeared around World War II. There have been recent attempts to return to shipbuilding on a small scale as a tourist attraction and they have met with some success. The Essex Shipbuilding Museum stands as a living testament to the wooden shipbuilding industry and the neighboring boat yard owned by generations of the Story Family still constructs and launches classic wooden ships built in the Essex tradition...