This guide highlights the film collection in the T.D.A. Cockerell Papers. This collection includes over 60 reels of early film that all date between 1920 and 1950. The films center on scientific topics, as both T.D.A. and Wilmatte Cockerell were biologists. The Cockerell's themselves did not shoot the footage but often commissioned films. They also collected them from other publishers to use in education and outreach. This page will orient you to the Cockerells and the content of the film collection, as well as link you to all of the digitized films. Use the tabs above to delve deeper into certain topics in the collection.
T.D.A. and Wilmatte Cockerell lived in Boulder from 1906 through the 1930s. T.D.A. taught zoology at CU Boulder and Wilmatte taught biology at Boulder's State Preparatory High School. They traveled extensively around the world as entomologists, collecting and describing insects. They were also engaged is a variety of outreach activities using film, including employing film in conservation. As teachers, they were early advocates of using film for educational purposes and in the classroom.
Below is a list of all the digitized films from the collection, organized roughly by topic. You can further explore these topics by using the tabs at the top to learn more about individual films, highlights, and the film processes exhibited in this collection. The Cockerells were, first and foremost, biologists, but other films in the collection highlight local mountaineering, scenes around Boulder, anthropological topics, and other miscellaneous films that are difficult to classify.
Colorado Films
| Around Boulder |
|---|
| Antoinette Bigelow in Gold Hill and Boulder (1930-1939) |
| New Garden Picture, Mr. Fine's (1935-1940) |
| Mountain Climbing in the Front Range (1939-1941) [the first 2 minutes show the CU Boulder campus] |
| Entomology |
|---|
| Guests of the Flowers (c. 1930) [Colorado Bees] |
| Some Water Insects: A Silent Teaching Film (1945) |
| Our Common Enemy (1921) [Flies] |
| Leafcutter Ants (1940-1948) |
| Mammals |
|---|
| Chipmunks, Grey Squirrels, and Pollinators (1930-1940) |
| Young Gorillas (1930-1940) |
| Old Roses and New Roses (1930-1940) |
| Yellow Spiderflower and Pollen under the Microscope (1933) |
| Andrew's Nursery Short Film (1935-1937) |
| The Smoke Tree (1930-1940) |
| Travel Films |
|---|
| The Belgian Congo (1931) |
| Kaiteur Falls and the Amazon (1926) |
| "Indigenous" Conservation |
|---|
| Pilgrims of the Wild, Reel 1 (1935) |
| Pilgrims of the Wild, Reel 2 (1935) |
| Paricutin Volcano (1944-1945) [Mexico] |
| Eruption of Mauna Loa Volcano (c. 1940) [Hawaii] |
| Sulphur Mining (1939) |
| Unidentified People and Animals (1930-1939) |
| Unidentified Wool Spinning (1930-1948) |