Items and Collections

Creator
Kaliska, William

Contributor to Resource
Greenblatt, Sidney

Date of Original
1923/1937

Location
United States, Florida, 28.75054, -82.5001
United States, Georgia, 32.75042, -83.50018
United States, Tennessee, 35.75035, -86.25027

Type
Moving Image

Description
The Kaliska-Greenblatt Home Movie Collection is the most locally significant film footage in the home movie collections of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives. The films were taken by William Kaliska and his friend Sidney Greenblatt of Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Kaliska's films date from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s and show the enthusiasm he had for taking film footage of the varied events he was involved with as a marketing manager for Coca-Cola. The films include the earliest known films of the UGA campus, being scenes at Harold Hirsch Hall (Law School), around the time of its dedication in 1932. Prominent in the group of people in that shot is Coca-Cola's then Vice President in Charge of Sales, Harrison Jones (UGA Class of 1900), later president of the company. This same reel contains the only known footage of Moses Michael, longtime Athens resident. His wife Emma appears with Jean Kaliska in the footage, and the young couple in the segment are the Michaels' son and daughter-in-law, David and Sarah Hall Michael and their children, at their house on Milledge, next to the Phi Epsilon House. Mr. Kaliska filmed carving work on Stone Mountain in 1929, and several university sporting events: a regional track meet at Georgia Tech's campus which includes Olympian Ed Hamm, and the UGA vs. Tech football game in Athens in 1929. He was also in Athens in Sanford Stadium for the UGA v. Tech baseball game and Senior Parade of 1929. Mr. Kaliska also filmed Tech football player Stumpy Thomason and the bear "Bruin" who is shown drinking a Coca-Cola. In July 1930, he was filming from a window of a building along Peachtree Street in Atlanta to capture parts of the July 1930 tickertape parade for Bobby Jones's Grand Slam. The reels also include a trip to Miami that Harold Hirsch took with family and friends. They stayed at one of Miami Beach's most prestigious hotels, the Roney Plaza Hotel. Aside from this and other archival footage, the original Roney Plaza exists only in old photographs and postcards. Hirsch's daughter, Ernestine, and cousin Jake's wife Marjorie and her son Jack are shown sunning at the hotel beachfront. During the trip, Hirsch's group cruised Biscayne Bay, and there are views of many long-gone Miami beachfront buildings, an alligator and an ostrich farm, Seminole Indians, and other cruise ships and lines which regularly traveled to Cuba. Mr. and Mrs. Kaliska were dog fanciers and owned schnauzers. A brief segment of the footage includes Beno Stein, a dog trainer in Atlanta, likely connected with the Atlanta Kennel Club, putting several dogs through a routine around a training obstacle course. One of the reels is of a garden party at the Atlanta mansion of Robert and Nell Woodruff (Coca-Cola magnate and his Athens-born wife) for the wife of a California Coca-Cola executive who was visiting Atlanta. Another depicts a day of fun at the Brookhaven Country Club in 1939 - pitching horseshoes, swimming, golfing, and several people drinking Coca-Cola. There is also footage of a ride in the Goodyear blimp "Defender" from Atlanta Airport around 1930; the footage was used in a 2007 Georgia Public Broadcasting documentary, The South Takes Flight: 100 Years of Aviation in Georgia. The Kaliskas and friends filmed a vacation to the Cumberland Gap area and Nashville, including President Polk's grave, and Kentucky. There are summer camp scenes shot at Camp Victor, connected to the Atlanta Hebrew Orphans Home. There is also footage of the family of prominent Atlanta businessman Victor H. Kriegshaber at their home.

Metadata URL
http://www.libs.uga.edu/media/collections/homemovies/kaliskagreenblatt.html

Holding Institution
Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection