The factories on film: verdicts, firm by firm

1935–1970 · SEVENTEEN REELS AT IUSB · FOUR VERDICTS

The archive that answers three of the four tests: Indiana University South Bend's archives hold the Mishawaka Woolen and Rubber Company Film Collection — seventeen 16mm reel-to-reel films "produced by the Mishawaka-based operations of the Uniroyal Company – and its predecessors," the plant complex on the river from the nineteenth century into the first decade of the 2000s; the collection is open for research, its copyright transferred to the Trustees of Indiana University, processed April 3, 2012. Three of the four firms tested are one corporate succession credited under its successive names in this single collection, and each takes its verdict under its own name.

Ball Band — positive: the company's own pictures survive as the Foreman's Club picnics: "Ball Band Foreman's Club Picnic," Christian's Tavern, South Bend, June 1935; the picnic at Berrien Springs Country Club, June 1936, the reel also containing 1937; and the picnics of 1938 and 1939 — the firm's foremen at leisure, filmed by or for the firm, the social record of the plant in the last years before the war.

U.S. Rubber — positive: the successor's credited productions are the collection's working core: "25 Gallon Aeriel Delivery: Free Drop of Fuel Container Test for Durability" (U.S. Rubber, n.d.); "Filament Winding Facilities," illustrating the major fabrication of the Polaris missile (U.S. Rubber Company, July 1963); "Portable Rubber Containers: A New System For Moving Cement Around the World" (U.S. Rubber Company, 1970); the "Sealed Tank Collapsible Container" film (Transportation Products Department, Providence, Rhode Island, late 1950s–early 1960s); and the Sports Afield sporting films of the 1950s — "Recreation and Sports: Boating," "Recreation and Sports: Camping," and "Game Fishes of the World: The Tarpon" (U.S. Rubber/Sports Afield). The Mishawaka plant's film work was defense work and product work: fuel cells, missile filament winding, collapsible containers — and, for the consumer lines, the outdoors.

Uniroyal — positive: under its own name the company made the "A-3 Polaris Operations Movie" (June 1965), "Containment for Cement: Scenes from Vietnam" (1965), and "Uniroyal Capabilities," its capabilities reel. The collection also holds prints the plant kept of other makers' films — Boeing's "Chinook CH-47A" (1966), a head-restraint sled test from AC Electronics Division, Milford, Michigan (September 1969), a Hercules Powder Company insulation film for Polaris, and a 1959 Radio Plane impact-bag crash-test film — the viewing library of a defense contractor, catalogued with its own productions in the finding aid and distinguished from them there.

Dodge — negative, with a disambiguation the record requires: the Dodge tested here is the Dodge Manufacturing Company of Mishawaka — power-transmission machinery, founded 1878 as a wood-specialties shop, in time a division of Reliance Electric — not Dodge Brothers of Detroit, whose film department's Dodge Motor Cars (c. 1917) is preserved by the National Film Preservation Foundation and is a different company's picture. For the Mishawaka Dodge, the firm's own archive answers: the Dodge Manufacturing Company Records at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (NMAH.AC.1092; 38 cubic feet, donated by the company in 1969) are described in the museum's guide as "a collection of photographs, some prints but mostly negatives, documenting the facilities, products and staff of the Dodge Manufacturing Company between 1905 and 1924" — a photographic archive, with no motion pictures in the finding aid. No Dodge of Mishawaka film was found in the searches run in November 2026. Verdict: negative at found size; settling source, the Smithsonian Archives Center's full processing of NMAH.AC.1092 (the collection is noted as unprocessed) and the successor records of Reliance Electric.

AM General — negative at found size: the searches run in November 2026 for the firm's own industrial or promotional film archive — the Mishawaka plant that has built the HMMWV since 1984 — returned the company's history in print and photography and no film collection, finding aid or titled company picture. Settling source named: AM General's corporate records and communications office, and the Studebaker National Museum / History Museum collections that hold the South Bend military-vehicle record.

Sources:

1. Indiana University South Bend Archives, Guide to the Mishawaka Woolen and Rubber Company Film Collection (processed by Joshua Crain, April 3, 2012) — items 1–17 as catalogued, library.iusb.edu.
2. Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Guide to the Dodge Manufacturing Company Records, NMAH.AC.1092 (photographs, 1905–1924; donated 1969).
3. National Film Preservation Foundation, "Dodge Motor Cars (ca. 1917)" — Dodge Brothers Motors, Detroit; a different company, printed to prevent the confusion.
4. Searches run, November 2026: "AM General Mishawaka promotional film archive," "Dodge Manufacturing Company Mishawaka film" — no film record returned for either firm.