The Kaliska-Greenblatt Home Movie Collection at the UGA Libraries’ Media Archives is the most locally significant film footage we have in the home movie collections. The films were taken by William Kaliska and his friend Sidney Greenblatt of Atlanta. The majority of the footage we have transferred to date was taken by Mr. Kaliska who worked for Coca-Cola in the 1930s through 1950s. His friend Mr. Greenblatt’s films, also in the collection, document his young family but have not yet been preserved to new formats.
The films came to us from a gentleman who bought them at the old Lakewood antiques/flea market and donated them to us since we had been helping him at the time with his father’s home movie materials. As we went through the collection, it became clear from the labels on the cans that these were images of both Athens and Atlanta, and that they covered scenes and people of import in both places. By doing research into the names and addresses on the boxes of film, Media Archivist Margaret Compton was lead to the William Bremen Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, where the Kaliska family papers are preserved. With the help of the Bremen’s archivist, she made contact with the films’ original owners who said that the home movies were lost during several moves. The family was thrilled to discover that not only were the films not lost, but that they were respected as valuable historic visual documentation of Georgia, and would be properly cared for at UGA’s Media Archives.
Mr. Kaliska’s films date from the late 1920s to the mid-1930s and show the enthusiasm he had for taking film footage of the varied events he was involved with as a marketing manager for Coca-Cola.
The films include the earliest known films of the UGA campus, being scenes at Harold Hirsch Hall (Law School), around the time of its dedication in 1932. Prominent in the group of people in that shot is Coca-Cola’s then Vice President in Charge of Sales, Harrison Jones (UGA Class of 1900), later president of the company. Jones was influential in donating Coca-Cola funds for the building of Hirsch Hall, and was a key player in structuring much of Coca-Cola’s success. Hirsch Hall Film (Kaliska-Greenblatt Home Movies) (1932) (silent, 4 min) streaming video
This same reel contains the only known footage of Moses Michael, longtime Athens resident, founder of Michael Bros. Department Store (Clayton at Jackson St.), and first president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce. His wife Emma appears with Jean Kaliska in the footage, and the young couple in the segment are the Michaels’ son and daughter-in-law, David and Sarah Hall Michael and their children, at their house on Milledge, next to the Phi Epsilon House.
Mr. Kaliska filmed carving work on Stone Mountain in 1929, and several university sporting events: a regional track meet at Georgia Tech’s campus which includes Olympian Ed Hamm, and the UGA vs. Tech football game in Athens in 1929. He was also in Athens in Sanford Stadium for the UGA v. Tech baseball game and Senior Parade of 1929. Mr. Kaliska also filmed Tech football player Stumpy Thomason and the bear “Bruin” who is shown drinking a Coca-Cola. In July 1930, he was filming from a window of a building along Peachtree Street in Atlanta to capture parts of the July 1930 tickertape parade for Bobby Jones’s Grand Slam.
The reels also include a trip to Miami that Harold Hirsch took with family and friends. They stayed at one of Miami Beach’s most prestigious hotels, the Roney Plaza Hotel, built in 1925, with 17-stories, a Florentine bell tower and copper dome. The hotel was demolished in 1968 and replaced with a 1,162-unit, two-tower apartment building. Aside from this and other archival footage, the original Roney Plaza exists only in old photographs and postcards. Hirsch’s daughter, Ernestine, and cousin Jake’s wife Marjorie and her son Jack are shown sunning at the hotel beachfront. During the trip, Hirsch’s group cruised Biscayne Bay, and we are treated to views of many long-gone Miami beachfront buildings, an alligator and an ostrich farm, Seminole Indians, and other cruise ships and lines which regularly traveled to Cuba.
Mr. and Mrs. Kaliska were dog fanciers and owned schnauzers. A brief segment of the footage includes Beno Stein, a dog trainer in Atlanta, likely connected with the Atlanta Kennel Club, putting several dogs through a routine around a training obstacle course.
One of the reels is of a garden party at Atlanta mansion of Robert and Nell Woodruff (Coca-Cola magnate and his Athens-born wife) for the wife of a California Coca-Cola executive who was visiting Atlanta. Another depicts a day of fun at the Brookhaven Country Club 1939--pitching horseshoes, swimming, golfing, and, of course, several people drinking Coca-Cola. The Brookhaven District in Atlanta is on the National Register of Historic Places.
A ride in the Goodyear blimp “Defender” from Atlanta Airport around 1930. This footage was used in a 2007 Georgia Public Broadcasting documentary, The South Takes Flight: 100 Years of Aviation in Georgia.
The Kaliskas and friends filmed a vacation to the Cumberland Gap area and Nashville, including President Polk’s grave, and Kentucky.
There are summer camp scenes shot at Camp Victor, connected to the Atlanta Hebrew Orphans Home. There is also footage of the family of prominent Atlanta businessman Victor H. Kriegshaber at their home.
All in all, with the UGA connections, the prominent Athenians, and the ties with the Jewish and business community in Atlanta, this is an extraordinary group of films shot by one extraordinary man, and we are privileged to have it here at UGA Libraries.
