From Red Blanket to Civilization: Propaganda Recruitment Films for South Africa's Gold Mine, 1920-1940

This article higlights the importance of motion pictures in te Transvaal Chamber of Mines' strategy to recruit and educate African workers for the Witwatersrand gold mines during the interwar years. Responding to the need for an ever-expanding workforce, in the mid-1920s industry officials began producing and exhibiting recruiting films in the reserves and protectorates in a bid to establish hegemony over labour reservoirs. Miners on the Rand were also shown films promoting western medicine and safety procedures in abid to reduce contagion and worksite injuries. These films, overlooked in the historiography to date, are an important source for historians as they were among the earliest examples of colonial cinema produced south of the Sahara, and provided tens of thousands of African villagers with their first opportunity for viewing motion pictures. Accounts in white newpapers smugly reported on spectators 'running in terror' from the screen, but Chamber memos show that officials recognised the ability of Africans to understand the nuances of filmic narrative. Moreover, the films themselves provide a new venue that made it possible for potential recruits and their families to critique the minutiae of Labour contracts and working conditions on the Rand. Africans enjoyed the medium, but they were not its victims.