''Ringling Brothers Parade Film'' is a 1902 short subject film produced by William Nicholas Selig. The three-minute film captures a

Ringling Brothers Circus Ringling Bros. World's Greatest Shows is a circus founded in Baraboo, Wisconsin, United States in 1884 by five of the seven Ringling brothers: Albert, August, Otto, Alfred T., Charles, John, and Henry. The Ringling brothers were sons of a Germ ...

parade featuring elephants, camels, and caged lions in

downtown Indianapolis Downtown Indianapolis is a neighborhood area in and the central business district of Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Downtown is bordered by Interstate 65 in Indiana, Interstate 65, Interstate 70 in Indiana, Interstate 70, and the White ...

Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...

. Onlookers are visible along the route as the parade moved south on Capitol Avenue, past the

Indiana Statehouse The Indiana Statehouse is the state capitol building of the U.S. state of Indiana. It houses the Indiana General Assembly, the office of the Governor of Indiana, the Indiana Supreme Court, and other state officials. The Statehouse is located i ...

, then east on Washington Street. The film was thought lost until 2011 when an

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, couple donated an unmarked canister containing the film to the

Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum is located in what is now the Niles district in the city of Fremont, California. The museum is housed in the Edison Theater building, a century-old Nickelodeon movie theater, just half a block from the fo ...

. After the film was researched, identified, and restored, it was uploaded to YouTube in October 2020. In 2021, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and was inducted into the

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation (library and archival science), preservation, each selected for its cultural, historical, and aestheti ...

by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...

. It was chosen because it depicted a rare glimpse of a northern Black community in the early 20th century. As of December 2021, it is the eleventh oldest film in the registry.

References

External links

* * 1902 films 1902 in Indiana 1902 short films 1900s rediscovered films 1900s American films African-American history of Indianapolis American silent short films Films set in Indianapolis Films shot in Indiana Films shot in Indianapolis Rediscovered American films Surviving American silent films United States National Film Registry films {{Short-silent-documentary-film-stub