Johnston, Sally Collection

SummaryThe Sally Johnston Collection consists of home movies shot by Lauren and Violet Woods, mostly in New England, between 1936 and 1968. Footage includes casual views of cast and crew members at the Lakewood Theatre, a summer playhouse near Skowhegan, Maine, and the arrival of a train in Madison, Maine, as well as recreation including tennis. Among the actors identified at Lakewood is Humphrey Bogart. Woods filmed excursions to the Skowhegan Fair, an agricultural fair near Lakewood that included harness racing and circus performers with an elephant. There is footage of the Lippitt Players at the Barn Theatre, in Cumberland, Rhode Island. A sequence shows nurses caring for female patients in outdoor beds at a hospital in Massachusetts in the 1930s. The collection also includes views of household domestics including an African American woman in uniform and a baby nurse with the family at their lake house. Coverage includes the Woods children as infants and as toddlers. There is an incomplete amateur comedy, "Mr Doodle," about a housebreaker. Interior footage from "Mr. Doodle" and travel footage of Florida are out of focus; there are other focus and exposure problems. Later footage depicts Sally Woods Johnston's two small daughters at play. There are trips to Miami, Florida, and Roanoke, Virginia, a beauty pageant parade with contestants waving from open cars, and 1968 backyard color footage.

Biographical/Historical NotesLauren K. Woods was a theater professional who worked in the Chautauqua circuit in the 1920s. He was involved with summer theaters including Lakewood in Madison, Maine, and the Barn Theatre in Cumberland, Rhode Island. With his wife, Violet McClure Woods, Woods founded the Amateur Theatre Guild in Boston, which sponsored itinerant directors of small town performances including "The Circus" and "Movie Queen." Woods wrote the scripts and supervised the traveling directors, who were mostly young women. Movie Queen home talent shows also included a short film, also called "Movie Queen," shot in that town. The Woods' daughter, Sally Woods Johnston (1937- ), appears in the collection, as does her brother, Lauren K. Woods III. Around 1939 the Woods family left Boston and moved to Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They worked with the Lippitt Players in Cumberland, and ran a cinema, The Strand, in Hope Valley, Rhode Island. The Lauren K. Woods Theater at Monmouth University, Monmouth, New Jersey, is named after Violet and Lauren's son, LKW III; his son is LKW IV.

RepositoryNortheast Historic Film

AvailabilityThe Collection is open for research.

Conditions Governing Reproduction and UseAuthorization to reuse and/or reproduce must be obtained from Northeast Historic Film. See http://www.oldfilm.org/research for more information.