Searching for Bodies in Galveston

Thomas Edison's film company recorded many significant events during the early twentieth century. In this video, now maintained at the Library of Congress, searchers try to find missing people after the deadly hurricane which crippled Galveston in September of 1900.

The film's description, in pertinent part, is listed in the Edison Films 1900 catalog:

At the first news of the disaster by cyclone and tidal wave that devastated Galveston on Saturday, Sept. 8th, 1900, we equipped a party of photographers and sent them by special train to the scene of the ruins. Arriving at the scene of desolation shortly after the storm had swept over that city, our party succeeded, at the risk of life and limb, in taking about a thousand feet of moving pictures.

In spite of the fact that Galveston was under martial law and that the photographers were shot down at sight by the excited police guards, a very wide range of subject has been secured. The series, taken as a whole, will give the entire world a definite idea of the terrible disaster, unequaled since the Johnstown flood of 1889.

...This great disaster which has startled the entire world, has made an indelible impression on the minds of the public, and everyone will be interested in seeing authentic moving pictures of a representative American city almost entirely wiped out by the combined power of water and wind.

The films we list below are genuine, and ours are positively the only animated picture films secured while the city of Galveston was in a state of chaos.