Motion Pictures to Make Good Citizens

"Motion pictures are being used by boards of health and civic bodies to teach citizens how to keep well. They are being used to promote civic reforms, to abolish child labor, contract prison labor, and to elect candidates to office." (Boyd Fisher)-1912 Fisher was simply showing the lucid development of the motion pictures, and how important it was in the development of society. Films that were made to educate the public on all aspects of life. Fisher also stated "They are being used to locate criminals and to report trials and furnish evidence of crime. They are being used for city planning records. They are depicting model prisons and model orphanages. They are teaching agriculture at United States experiment stations. They are campaigning for good roads. They are teaching industries and getting laborers for industries."(Fisher pg.234) As we can clearly see, the early motion pictures have given society a civic education. The type of education depicting the reality of the world as well as imparting the knowledge and skills for effective participation in the community, government, politics. The motion picture was the best way at the time, to reach and educate massive audiences. A lot of the early film companies adopted this idea of the civic films and began to work on civic themes for their own personal motion pictures.