Watch Full Films | American Experience | Official Site

New York: A Documentary Film

Aired November 14, 1999

This seven-part, 14 and a half hour television event explores New York City's rich history as the premier laboratory of modern life. A sweeping narrative covering nearly 400 years and 400 square miles, it reveals a complex and dynamic city that has played an unparalleled role in shaping the nation and reflecting its ideals. This program was produced before the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

More

Mr. Miami Beach

Aired February 2, 1998 | 53 min

A master promoter, Carl Fisher created Miami Beach on a narrow spit of Florida swamp land, a tropical paradise of sand and palm trees, then masterminded a dazzling sales campaign.

More

Big Dream Small Screen

Aired February 10, 1997

In 1921, a 14-year-old boy working in a potato field in Idaho had a vision of sending pictures in waves over the air, like sound waves for radio.

More

The Battle Over Citizen Kane

Aired January 29, 1996

It was a clash of the titans. William Randolph Hearst, the lord and ruler of San Simeon. And Orson Welles, the ambitious young man with a golden touch, who set out to dethrone him. It was a fight from which neither man ever fully recovered.

More

Murder of the Century

Aired October 16, 1995

In 1906, the murder of Stanford White, New York architect and man-about-town, by Harry Thaw, heir to a Pittsburgh railroad fortune, was reported "to the ends of the civilized globe"; much of the focus, however, was on Evelyn Nesbit, the beautiful showgirl in the center of the love triangle. It was a sensational murder story that had everything: money, power, class, love, rage, lust and revenge.

More

The Quiz Show Scandal

Aired January 6, 1992

When CBS premiered "The $64,000 Question" in 1955, the show was more than a hit; it was a national phenomenon. More quiz shows followed. What the audience was to learn, much later, was that many of these shows were fixed. Slowly, painfully, the deceit unravelled. A look at the formative years of television and the scandal's impact on the TV business and a naive America.

More

Coney Island

Aired February 4, 1991

Coney Island is the story of a tiny spit of land at the foot of Brooklyn that at the turn of the century became the most extravagant playground in the country. In scale, in variety, in sheer inventiveness, Coney Island was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, and sooner or later everyone came to see it.

More