Catalog Search Results
Series
Publisher
PBS
Pub. Date
1991.
Physical Desc
1 online resource (streaming video file) (71 minutes): digital, .flv file, sound
Language
English
Description
"It is blatant, it is cheap, it is the apotheosis of the ridiculous. But it is something more; it is like Niagara Falls or the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone Park; it is a national playground, and not to have seen it is not to have seen your own country," said Reginald Wright Kauffman in 1909 of Coney Island, the tiny spit of land at the foot of Brooklyn that, at the turn of the century, became the most extravagant playground in the country and one of...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
It was the year of the Beatles and the Civil Rights Act; of the Gulf of Tonkin and Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign; the year that cities across the country erupted in violence and Americans tried to make sense of the Kennedy assassination. Based on The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964 by award-winning journalist Jon Margolis, this film follows some of the most prominent figures of the time - Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barry...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
He has been portrayed in countless movies and television shows by some of Hollywood's greatest actors, including Henry Fonda, Jimmy Stewart and, more recently, Kevin Costner, but these popular fictions belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity on the American frontier. As a young man, Wyatt Earp was a caricature of the Western lawman, spending his days drinking in saloons, gambling,...
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Series
Language
English
Description
On January 8, 1902, a commuter train traveling through a tunnel in New York City's Grand Central Depot ran into another train, killing 17 people. An engineer's innovative response to the crisis gave birth to one of America's greatest establishments: Grand Central Terminal. By 1947, over 65 million people had traveled through the station. Today, it is one of New York's most famous spaces and a living monument to the nation's great railway age.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
High on a granite cliff in South Dakota's Black Hills tower four huge carved faces of American presidents. But is Mount Rushmore a monstrosity, or a masterpiece? A temperamental artist, Gutzon Borglum, propelled the project by sheer talent and guts, even as his ego and obsession threatened to tear it apart. Relive the hucksterism and hyperbole of his massive public works project during the Great Depression. Narrated by Michael Murphy.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
SILICON VALLEY tells the story of the pioneering scientists and engineers who transformed rural Santa Clara County into the hub of technological ingenuity we now know as Silicon Valley. The film spotlights the creativity of the young men who founded Fairchild Semiconductor, in particular the brilliant, charismatic young physicist Robert Noyce. Their radical innovations would include the integrated circuit that helped make the United States a leader...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
William “Buffalo Bill” Cody's legendary exploits helped create the myth of the American West that still endures today. Born in an Iowa log cabin in 1846, he fought Indians, worked as a Pony Express rider, and earned his nickname while hunting buffalo to feed the construction crews of the Kansas Pacific Railroad. After the Civil War he scouted for the U.S. Army along America's vast western frontier. In 1883, just as that frontier was disappearing,...
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Series
Language
English
Description
By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Alva Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, Edison had achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. Born on the threshold of America's burgeoning industrial empire, Edison's curiosity led him to its cutting edge.
Author
Series
American Experience volume 4
Language
English
Description
Geronimo - As the leader of the last Native American fighting force to capitulate to the U.S. government, Geronimo was seen by some as the perpetrator of unspeakable savage cruelties, while to others he was the embodiment of proud resistance.
Author
Series
American Experience volume 2
Language
English
Description
Tecumseh's Vision - In the course of his brief and meteoric career, Tecumseh would become one of the greatest Native American leaders of all time, orchestrating the most ambitious pan-Indian resistance movement ever mounted on the North American continent. After his death he would live on as a potent symbol of Native pride and pan Indian identity.
Author
Series
American Experience volume 5
Language
English
Description
Wounded Knee - In 1973, American Indian Movement activists and residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation occupied the town of Wounded Knee, demanding redress for grievances. As a result of the siege, Indians across the country forged a new path into the future.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
During the Depression-era of the 1930s, tens of thousands of teenagers hopped freight trains in search of a better life elsewhere. What they discovered was a mixture of adventure, camaraderie, hardship and loneliness. They saw a country in turmoil and found experiences that impacted them for the rest of their lives -- their ultimate freedom traded for despair, lack of jobs, and even death. Through first-hand accounts, "The American Experience" recalls...
Author
Series
American Experience volume 2
Language
English
Description
This episode follows Kennedy into the White House, offering fresh assessments of the successes and failures of his tenure. In 1961, the most challenging issue facing the new administration is the spread of communism and continuing Cold War fears. Only a few months into his first term, Kennedy launches the Bay of Pigs invasion, an unmitigated disaster that teaches him a powerful lesson. Nikita Khrushchev proves a stubborn foe, and Kennedy takes a stand...
Author
Series
American Experience volume 1
Language
English
Description
With illuminating interviews from family members, including sister Jean Kennedy Smith, historian Robert Dallek, and author Robert Caro, this episode offers new insight into Kennedy's early years. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of nine children born to one of the wealthiest men in America. Unlike his robust siblings, he is haunted by a mysterious illness. Finally diagnosed with Addison's disease, he will spend his life in and out of hospitals and in...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
He is celebrated by handsome equestrian statues in countless cities and towns across the American South, and by no less than five postage stamps issued by the very government he fought against during the four bloodiest years in American history. Nearly a century and a half after his death, Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration. This AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
In the early 20th century, the average American medicine cabinet was a would-be poisoner's treasure chest: radioactive radium in health tonics, thallium in depilatory creams, morphine in teething medicine and potassium cyanide in cleaning supplies. While the tools of the murderer's trade multiplied as the pace of industrial innovation increased, the scientific knowledge (and political will) to detect and prevent the crimes lagged. This changed in...
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
When a devastating famine descended on Soviet Russia in 1921, the United States responded with a massive two-year relief campaign that battled starvation and disease, and saved millions of lives. By summer 1922, American kitchens were feeding nearly eleven million Soviet citizens a day. At the time, the American rescue operation was hailed as "the beau geste of the twentieth century." The American expedition took place as the embers of the 1917 Russian...
Author
Series
American Experience volume 1
Language
English
Description
After the Mayflower - In 1621, Massasoit, sachem of the Wampanoags of New England negotiated a treaty with Pilgrim settlers. A half-century later, as a brutal war flared between the English and a confederation of Indians, this diplomatic gamble seemed to have been a grave miscalculation.
Author
Series
American Experience volume 3
Language
English
Description
Trail of Tears - Though the Cherokee embraced “civilization” and won recognition of tribal sovereignty in the U.S. Supreme Court, their resistance to removal from their homeland failed. Thousands were forced on a perilous march to Oklahoma.
Author
Series
Language
English
Description
Inspired by Timothy Egan's best-selling book, The Big Burn is the dramatic story of an unimaginable wildfire that swept across the Northern Rockies in the summer of 1910. The fire devoured more than three million acres in 36 hours, confronting the fledgling U.S. Forest Service with a catastrophe that would define the agency and the nation's fire policy for the rest of the 20th century and beyond.
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