NEW EDUCATIONAL DVDS

The Green Free Library has received donations of the following educational

The Valley That Changed the World

Excerpt from the WQED website:

The program explores historic events leading up to 1859 and the Drake oil well, the oil companies that sprang out of the boom, the developments of towns like Oil City, Franklin, and Titusville, and the people and families instrumental in the industry. Like the California Gold Rush, people flocked to the region from all over the country after the discovery of oil to make their fortunes.

 

The Valley That Changed the World includes the following little-known facts:

· How Pithole, Pennsylvania, an oil boom town, grew to 15,000 people in 1865 and ended up a ghost town by 1867.

· How John Wilkes Booth came to the Oil Region during the boom and why he left.

· Why Drake's oil well was called "Drake's Folly."

· What happened to Colonel Edwin Drake after his well began production.

· How the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania "saved the whales."

· How the fledgling oil industry brought Union and Confederate soldiers together after the Civil War.

· How people used petroleum for medicinal purposes – hence the term "snake oil."

 

Stories of a Third-generation Independent Oil Producer, As Told by Bill Huber

Excerpt from Oil150.com:

In this 30-minute DVD, produced for the Oil Region Alliance by Pittsburgh's Legion Media, Bill Huber recounts his family's history as independent oil producers in the Oil Region National Heritage Area. The film is highlighted by entertaining and informative anecdotes as well as by historical photographs and film from the Huber family archives.

Presentation by Mayor Calvin Tillman of Dish, Texas- Gas Drilling: What You can Do About It

From the cover: Mayor Tillman talks about his town's fight to protect the health of it's people from the impact of toxic emissions in gas fields. (Live presentation recorded February 20, 2010 in Elmira Heights, NY)

Out in the Silence Love, hate, and a quest for change in small town America

From the Overview: Out in the Silence captures the remarkable chain of events that unfold when the announcement of filmmaker Joe Wilson's wedding to another man ignites a firestorm of controversy in his small Pennsylvania hometown.

Drawn back by a plea for help from the mother of a gay teen being tormented at school, Wilson's journey dramatically illustrates the universal challenges of being an outsider in a conservative environment and the transformation that is possible when those who have long been constrained by a traditional code of silence summon the courage to break it.