Rockets: How They Work (First-ever captioned educational film, 1962)

In 1962 Congress amended previous legislation authorizing the captioning of entertainment films by passing Public Law 87-715 (PDF: http://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh243.pdf ), which added the captioning of educational films. That same year, Rockets: How They Work became the first educational film to be captioned. Indicating that the film was appropriate for the middle grades, the Captioned Films for the Deaf catalog described it as follows: The film shows how rockets achieve motion and compares rocket power with other types of motive power and gives a clear picture of the basic scientific techniques on which the modern use of rockets is based. A lesson guide for the film (PDF: http://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh244.pdf ) was subsequently written in 1969. The transcript and caption script for the film (PDF: http://www.dcmp.org/caai/nadh252.pdf ) are also available.

**Note: This video is presented for historical archive purposes, and does not have an accompanying description track.**

Category:

Education

Tags:

• rockets how they work
• rockets
• captioning
• captions
• captioned
• closed captioning
• closed captions
• educational
• 1960s
• archive
• black and white
• historical

[qed100]

This is viewable in full color (but without captions) over at archive.com.

[cressbad]

Although the autocaptions are cool.

[cressbad]

Cool! Might be worth adding current CC to the video, for understanding, searchability, and comparison!

[internetsubtitling]

Amazing film - thanks for making it public!

I'm particularly struck by the way the purpose of the captions seems to have been very different to the purpose of captions today, namely making the audio content accessible to deaf or hard-of-hearing viewers. Plus, of course, there's very little understanding of reading speeds, or of readability in terms of fonts, contrast etc. However this is, recognisably, captioning, and it's a heck of an achievement for a 1962 film.

Fascinating. Thanks again.