Ransohoff’s Tahoe Summer, 1939

This 1939 Ransohoff Collection home movie captures a Lake Tahoe summer vacation, blending fashion shows, sheep herding, and family fishing with motorboat races and kids on a wooden raft. A woman reads a San Francisco Chronicle headlined "Germany Rushes Army Trucks Into Danzig," hinting at pre-war tension. San Francisco scenes include Russian Hill pans, Navy ships in the Bay, Fleishhacker Zoo, and a convertible cruising Pacific Heights, all in faded color or black-and-white.