The map-as-jigsaw opens and closes Avalon Daggett's documentary on the Navajos in Arizona and New Mexico, accompanied by this commentary: 'America, a jigsaw puzzle of checkered colors and scenes, denoting many things in many places. (…) This golden country of canyons and of sand, one colorful segment of the jigsaw that is America today.'
(You can watch the complete film here.)
In Herds West (which you can watch here), her film on the movement of cattle along a 'production line', Daggett uses a cinemap as illustration:
In Herds West (which you can watch here), her film on the movement of cattle along a 'production line', Daggett uses a cinemap as illustration:
(The brochure above is from the Iowa Digital Library, Universities of Iowa.)
| 'Traveler, Photographer, Film Producer, Lecturer': Florence Avalon Daggett made a large number of educational documentaries, beginning in the late '40s and continuuing into the '70s. In the 1950s and '60s she toured with her films across the United States, earning herself - in Prescott Arizona at least - the soubriquet of 'cine-tourist'. Her company was based in Los Angeles, with an office in Baton Rouge. She was born in Jennings Louisiana, and was particularly interested in the culture of Native Americans in her home region.  |  Evening Courier, 15 February 1950 |
From the sample of titles I have been able to find it is clear that she understood her educational brief to cover very varied aspects of 'America the Beautiful':
Louisiana Gayride (1949), Indian Pow-Wow (1951), Villages in the Sky (1952), Tribe of the Turquoise Waters (1952), Peaceful Ones (1952), Smoki Snake Dance (1952), Warriors at Peace (1952), Mississippi Magic (1954), Tournament of Roses Parade (1954), Arizona Adventure (1954), Weavers of the West (1954), Father of the Southwest (1957), Copper, Steward of the Nation (1959), Marshes of the Mississippi (1961), A Way of Life (1961), Rice, America’s Food For the World (1962), Signs, Signals and Safety (1966), School Bus Driver VIP (1967), Swamp Expressway (1972)
Louisiana Gayride (1949), Indian Pow-Wow (1951), Villages in the Sky (1952), Tribe of the Turquoise Waters (1952), Peaceful Ones (1952), Smoki Snake Dance (1952), Warriors at Peace (1952), Mississippi Magic (1954), Tournament of Roses Parade (1954), Arizona Adventure (1954), Weavers of the West (1954), Father of the Southwest (1957), Copper, Steward of the Nation (1959), Marshes of the Mississippi (1961), A Way of Life (1961), Rice, America’s Food For the World (1962), Signs, Signals and Safety (1966), School Bus Driver VIP (1967), Swamp Expressway (1972)
Another article in the Prescott Evening Courier gives interesting detail about the camera Daggett used, and about the relation of her work to television:
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She died in 2002, leaving a bequest to fund three professorships at Louisiana State University, the 'F. Avalon Daggett Professorships in Rice Research', a callback perhaps to her 1962 film Rice, America’s Food For the World.
