Lost Filmstrips: A Visual History's Silent Scream

Once a dominant educational medium, filmstrips from the 20th century are vanishing, representing a significant gap in visual history. These strips, containing 30 to 150 still images advanced manually, were widely used in schools, churches, and businesses for instruction on diverse topics.

By 1975, the U.S. filmstrip industry was valued at nearly $65 million, but the rise of VHS in the 1980s led to widespread discarding of these formats. Mark O'Brien began collecting filmstrips as a hobby in 2019 and discovered the lack of institutional preservation efforts.

O'Brien has since amassed over 4,500 filmstrips, digitizing about a third for free viewing on his website, Uncommon Ephemera. He is among the few actively preserving this format, which covers subjects ranging from health to historical events, though the delicate Eastmancolor film stock is prone to rapid degradation.

Academic historians like Professor Tom Rice highlight the urgent need for preservation, noting that filmstrips often fall between archival categories. Projects like Relocating Filmstrips, Remapping Europe are attempting to locate and save surviving examples, while O'Brien dedicates years to restoring each strip, facing the challenge of widespread apathy towards this unglamorous medium.