Evan Barber Collection, Britton, South Dakota, 1942-44

This home movie compilation from the Evan Barber Collection, filmed between 1942 and 1944 in Britton, South Dakota, likely in Kodachrome, offers an intimate look at small-town life during WWII. Spanning two years, the footage captures the Barber family and their community in rural Marshall County. Scenes likely include Evan—perhaps the patriarch or a young filmmaker—recording daily routines: kids playing in snowy yards or dusty streets, adults harvesting crops on the surrounding prairies, and neighbors gathering for a church picnic or wartime fundraiser. Britton’s modest Main Street might appear, with its grain elevators and general store, alongside a parade featuring locals waving flags or a soldier home on leave. The film reflects the era’s austerity—ration books in hand, Victory Gardens blooming—yet brims with resilience, as families pose proudly by a new tractor or a radio broadcasting war updates. Seasonal shifts from blizzards to summer fairs frame this personal chronicle, blending quiet domesticity with the distant echo of global conflict in a tight-knit farming town.