Some one needs to tell them to use their WHITE PRIVILEGE...

This film started the Obesity Epidemic lol.
My grandma was raised in the Smokey Mountains much the same way and she is 83.

as a matter of fact. this film is rather tame. i don't need to invoke a library of congress bibliography either. these days the poor hill billy is in far worse shape. the work is the same, chopping wood, shooting animals , brewing up batches for scratch, etc, etc, etc. the hill billies detest education, in more than one instance, ive witnessed children being removed from school, cuz if they got edumacated, theyed move away.

Ignorant they were not. These people were sent as indentures slaves from the northern counties of England [Albion's Seed, David Hatecher Fischer], indentured servants or criminals. [Read Pg:716-Hatcher] Albion's Seed: Page:715 ff Backcountry Literacy. through P.727.
I quote: "We tend to think of formal education as the enemy of folkways. But most societies have a folklore of learning which might be called their school ways. The backcountry was a case in point. It adopted educational folk customs which had long existed in North Britain.

The comments below exhibits a Severe Lack of Common Education and smug American 'manifest destiny' psychopathic disorder.

Reviewer: American Hero - August 26, 2011
Subject: Gaze upon these wretched souls!

if you post only to build your self worth through mindless attacks on a better people than you, I as a Anthropologist w/ a Major in Folklore can be permitted to call your attention to your abject stupidity and prejudicial intolerance.

further reading : A Treasury of Southern Folklore, B.A. Botkin, c, 1949, ISBN 0-517-33647-2

Encyclopedia of American History, C 1953 Edition by Richard B. Morris, Prof. of History, Columbia University.

A Treasure of American Folklore, ED.1944 by B. A. Botkin.Foreward by Carl Sandburg. My Copy has no ISBN number.

And Sir James George Frazer's "The Golden Bough" c 1922 1 Volume, Abridged Edition ISBN 0-02-095560-X

Before you make fools of your selves, study the People to Mock, as their Culture was Far Superior to yours.

One might also read the many works of Frank Randolph, Ozark Folklorist, who my Grandmother took me to meet when he was in a Nursing Home over Eurika Springs, Arkansas. I was 10 years old and we lived near Everton, Arkansas then, 1960.
Born February 23, 1892

Died November 1, 1980 (aged 88)
His Books include:
The Ozarks: An American Survival of Primitive Society (Vanguard Press, 1931)[2]
Ozark Mountain Folks (1932)
A Reporter in the Ozarks: A Close-Up of a Picturesque and Unique Phase of American Life (Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1944)
Ozark Superstitions (Columbia University Press, 1947); reissued as Ozark Magic and Folklore (Dover, 1964) ISBN 0-486-21181-9
Ozark Folk Songs (four-volume anthology,1946–50; 1980) ISBN 0-8262-0298-5
We Always Lie to Strangers (Columbia University Press, 1951)
Who Blowed up the Church House? (Columbia University Press, 1952)
Down in the Holler: A Gallery of Ozark Folk Speech by Vance Randolph and George P. Wilson (University of Oklahoma Press, 1953)
The Devil's Pretty Daughter (Columbia University Press, 1955)
The Talking Turtle (Columbia University Press, 1957)
Sticks in the Knapsack and Other Ozark Folk Tales (Columbia University Press, 1958)
Hot Springs and Hell and Other Folk Jests and Anecdotes from the Ozarks (Folklore Associates, Inc., 1965)
Pissing in the Snow and Other Ozark Folktales (University of Illinois Press, 1976; reissued 1997) ISBN 0-252-01364-6
(with Gordon McCann) Ozark Folklore: An Annotated Bibliography (University of Missouri, 1987)
Vance Randolph in the Ozarks (Branson, MO: Ozarks Mountaineer, 1991)
Roll Me in Your Arms: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore : Volume I Folk Songs and Music (1992) ISBN 1-55728-231-5
Blow the Candle Out: "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore : Volume II Folk Rhymes and Other Lore (1992) ISBN 1-55728-237-4
Stiff As a Poker: A Collection of Ozark Folk Tales (Federal Way, WA: Agora Books, 1993) (Originally published as The Devil's Pretty Daughter)

And So They Live (https://archive.org/details/AndSoTheyLive#). This 1940 documentary shows us the lives of the poor mountain people in rural Kentucky. It focuses mainly on one poverty-stricken family that lives in a log cabin, farms corn on depleted soil, and eats a diet consisting mainly of biscuits, cornbread, fat pork, potatoes, wild berries, and little else. Their lives are shown with little narration, and the visuals tell the story. What narration there is focuses on how the curriculum taught in the one-room schoolhouse the children go to has little relevance for them, and how necessary subjects that could improve their lives, such as improving the soil through crop rotation, or milking the goats that they keep, are not even mentioned. The most striking scene, though, is at the end of the film, when the father of the family gets out his banjo and plays a ditty. One of his young sons, who couldn’t be more than 6 years old, dances a jig to the music. His father is so pleased with his son’s dance that he rewards him with a cigarette, which the boy promptly lights and smokes like an experienced smoker. The striking images of poverty and rural life in this film are unforgettable, and give the film lots of historical interest.
Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: *** (mostly for the child smoking scene; otherwise it would get an N/A). Weirdness: ****. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ****.

Much could be written about how this fascinating and well-crafted documentary has been constructed, with some imagery seemingly at odds with narrative. However, it remains an invaluable record of the past. My own offering at https://vimeo.com/169068998 is a tribute to the filmmakers and the universal struggle of parents to raise and educate their children.

http://youtu.be/ei2PVpSKkF4

interesting use of free archival footage. I would expect nothing less from one of the greatest songwriters of the modern world

The tune sung by the banjo player is usually entitled "Going Across the Sea," now a standard in bluegrass and "old-time" music circles.

You can read about this AND SO THEY LIVE scene and the two other films in the 1940 NYU Educational Film Institute "trilogy" in the book LEARNING WITH THE LIGHTS OFF: EDUCATIONAL FILM IN THE UNITED STATES (Oxford U Press, 2012), edited by Devin Orgeron, Marsha Orgeron, and Dan Streible. "The Failure of the NYU Educational Film Institute" is one of 22 essays covering the history of ed films.

The book has a companion website,

http://www.us.oup.com/us/companion.websites/9780195383836/examples/?view=usa

linking readers to most of the key films discussed in the book. (Ergo, lots of links to archive.org, natch.)

You know, for a “stark realistic documentary” showing poor ignorant hillbillies stricken with disease, this film is surprisingly short on ignorance, disease and (in a relative sense) poverty. Rather than a starkly “realistic documentary” this film is a window into the a particular point of view of the era it was made.

Through most of the film, the voice over tells a story that’s objectively in direct contrast to what is actually being shown on camera. We hear how the children are uneducated as they read aloud from English literature. We are told their bleak meal of pork and fat and cornbread saps them of their energy and vitality – this is after carrying the meal miles through the snow on foot. Kids today can’t even carry a lunch when they are chauffeured to school in an SUV! And the narration goes on about skin infections, pellagra, rickets; yet the children in the film show no signs whatsoever of having any ailments unless not wearing designer sneakers or jeans is an ailment.

Marvel at the ambition to learn, the lack of childhood obesity (yet they aren’t overly thin), the energy to do hard chores around the farm, trudge miles though snow – and at the end of the film do some kind of Irish jig to dad’s banjo. Sure, it’s kind of odd that dad then shares a smoke with his 8 yr old son, but hey, it was the ‘40’s. He was just going to start smokin’ in a few years anyway. Heck it’s a lot better than beating their children.

Note the abundance and variety of foods, the potatoes, corn, chickens etc. Sure, there happens to not be any “fresh vegetables” around; perhaps because it’s the middle of winter and there wasn’t a Wal-Mart nearby.

And note the early nanny state in the narration telling us “they just don’t know that corn depletes the land. They just don’t know what to grow…” Sure, well how is it they know about the Kings of English literature, Dutch Windmills and the beaches of Hawaii but can’t find a book on what to grow?

Sure, life is different, harder even in some places. Sure everyone isn’t smiling all the time, but heck I could film that today.

I could go on but I’m left wondering -- what is Alfred P. Sloan trying to “tell us” in this film? Maybe Mr. Sloan, the former CEO of General Motors is just peeved that they don’t drive cars enough there?

Can anyone advise the name of the song he plays and sings after giving the child a cigarette (!) ?

Anyone who thinks they have it hard should take a good look at this film.Very well done!