“ WOMAN SPEAKS ” 1946 AFRICAN & AMERICAN WOMEN’S HAIR STYLES, JIU JITSU, SWIMMING, BALLET XD38944

Want to support this channel and help us preserve old films? Visit Visit our website This black and white 1946 theatrical short-subject film, directed by H.A. Spanuth and narrated by Virginia Gregg and Ann Tobin, surveys changing representations of women in post-war world society. This episode, Volume 1, number 4, features footage of African women’s hairstyles, Hollywood fashion, Jiu Jitsu classes, swimming races, and Russian ballet with female narration (TRT: 10:17). Opening credits. Title over the Statue of Liberty: “Still holding the main bastion in that fortress of the nation, the home, now in fields once strange to her-- Woman Speaks” (0:20). Our host invites us to “go backwards in time.” A crude map of Africa demarcates “The Congo” (0:35). African native villagers. Montage: African women with braided hair, necklaces, earrings, coiled wire adornments and bracelets, anklets (0:53). A painter’s palette, with a title: “Artistic Coiffures by Jean