100 results found

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  Film

  Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man in the World

  Andrew Carnegie built a fortune in telegraphy, railroads, and steel. And then began, systematically, to give it all away.

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  Film

  The Quiz Show Scandal

  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.

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  Film

  George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire

  Four times governor of Alabama, four times a candidate for president, he was feared as a racist demagogue and admired as a politician who spoke his mind. A lightning rod for controversy, Wallace both reflected and provoked tensions in American society over more than four decades. This film traces the rise of the firebrand politician from his roots in rural Alabama to the assassination attempt that suddenly transformed him.

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  Film

  The Greely Expedition

  In 1881, 25 men led by Adolphus Greely set sail from Newfoundland to Lady Franklin Bay in the high Arctic, where they planned to collect a wealth of scientific data from a vast area of the world’s surface that had been described as a "sheer blank." Three years later, only six survivors returned, with a daunting story of shipwreck, starvation, mutiny and cannibalism. 

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  Film

  The Lobotomist

  In the 1940s Dr. Walter Freeman gained fame for perfecting the lobotomy, then hailed as a miracle cure for the severely mentally ill. But within a few years, lobotomy was labeled one of the most barbaric mistakes of modern medicine.

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  Film

  Triangle Fire

  It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history.

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  Film

  The Forgotten Plague

  By the 19th century, the deadliest killer in human history, tuberculosis, had killed one in seven of all people who had ever lived. The disease struck America with a vengeance, touching the lives of almost every family.

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  Eyes on the Prize | Timeline

  Timeline: Eyes On The Prize

  A timeline of events that took place during the civil rights era and beyond.

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  Film

  Walt Whitman

  He is today one of the most-recognized figures in American literary history: poet, patriot and faithful advocate of democracy.

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  Film

  Citizen Hearst

  Explore the life of William Randolph Hearst, the pioneering media mogul and inspiration for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Wielding unprecedented power, Hearst forever transformed the media’s role in American life and politics.

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  Film

  Woodrow Wilson

  President Woodrow Wilson led America during World War I, created the Federal Reserve, and helped create the League of Nations. Part of the award-winning collection  The Presidents.

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  Film

  Silicon Valley

  Decades before Steve Jobs dreamed up Apple or Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, the invention of the microchip launched the world into the Information Age.

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  Eyes on the Prize | Article

  Civil Rights Today

  In 2006, American Expereince spoke to Alan Jenkins about the civil rights movement as it entered the twenty-first century.

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  Film

  TR

  Author, soldier, scientist, outdoorsman and caring father, he was the youngest man to become president. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.

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  Soundtrack for a Revolution | Article

  Background

  This film tells the story of the American civil rights movement through its powerful music; freedom songs that propelled the movement evolved from slave chants, the labor movement, and the black church.

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  Seabiscuit | Article

  Biography: Seabiscuit

  From 1936 to 1940, Americans thronged to racetracks to watch the small, ungainly racehorse become a champion.

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  Film

  John Brown's Holy War

  Martyr, madman, murderer, hero: John Brown remains one of history's most controversial and misunderstood figures. In the 1850s, he and his ragtag guerrilla group embarked on a righteous crusade against slavery that was based on religious faith — yet carried out with shocking violence. His execution set off a chain of events that led to the Civil War. 

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  Streamliners: America's Lost Trains | Article

  Edward Budd

  Although the rail and automotive industries were always competitors, they shared technology and talent occasionally. Manufacturer Edward Gowen Budd left his mark on both industries during the first half of the century.

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  Clearing the Air: The War on Smog | Article

  The Fight for Blue Skies

  How ordinary Angelenos battled the smog stealing their sun.

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  Tupperware! | Article

  Positive Thinking in America

  Tupperware culture is infused with the rhetoric of positive thinking manuals, a genre of writing with a long history in the United States.