American Experience
Season 1
TV-PG
"American Experience" combines dramatic re-enactments with commentary by historians and authors to present an absorbing look at the personalities, events and resources that have had a profound impact on the shaping of America's past and present.
Where to Watch Season 1
16 Episodes
- The Great San Francisco Earthquake
E1The Great San Francisco EarthquakeFrom Enrico Caruso to the ordinary San Franciscan, this film presents vivid memories of those trapped in the terrifying event of 1906. Four hundred eighty square blocks were reduced to rubble; thousands were killed, tens of thousands left homeless. Then the heroic struggle to rebuild a city from the ashes began. - Radio Bikini
E2Radio BikiniWhile the U.N. debated strategies for control of atomic energy, the U.S. Navy was preparing two highly-publicized nuclear tests. Seven hundred fifty cameras were shipped to Bikini to be used for a major propaganda film. Bikinians had no say about turning their idyllic island into an atomic test site. Forty years later, their home would still be too contaminated to support human life. - Indians, Outlaws and Angie Debo
E3Indians, Outlaws and Angie DeboAs a child in 1899, Angie Debo was taken to Oklahoma in a covered wagon. She would become her state's most controversial historian -- her career threatened when she uncovered a cache of documents which proved a widespread conspiracy to cheat Native Americans out of oil-rich lands. - Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild A Dream
E4Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild A DreamA touching memoir beginning with life in a small Minnesota town and taking us through a young man's early days as pacifist. Reporting on the rise of fascism in Europe, Sevareid, as a young CBS reporter, would change his belief. Based on Sevareid's best-selling book of the same title. - The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter
E5The Life and Times of Rosie the RiveterAn original look through newsreels, war department films, posters and interviews with five, real-life "Rosies" about the reality of working in the defense plants during WWII, and their reactions to having to give up those jobs for returning GIs. - Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?
E6Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?A year in the life of Wyoming cowboys and the ranching families who have lived in Big Piney for six generations. Although very much the same as it was one hundred years ago -- tough, lonely, but still romantic -- ranching is now a threatened way of life. - Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up CloseE7
Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up CloseAn intimate portrait of the Kennedy brothers and their confrontation with Alabama Governor George Wallace when he defied the courts by refusing to integrate the University in 1963. The film offers unprecedented access to the Oval Office as well as to strategy meetings held by Attorney General Robert Kennedy. - Geronimo and the Apache Resistance
E8Geronimo and the Apache ResistanceThe story of a tragic collision of two civilizations, each with startlingly different views of one another. In 1886, 5,000 U.S. troops mobilized to capture this one man and his band of followers, who by refusing to move onto a reservation, defied and eluded federal authorities. - The Radio Priest
E11The Radio PriestFather Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest from Michigan, uses the new power of radio to become one of the first media stars; every Sunday he would broadcast his message railing against the nation's economic and social system to millions of listeners caught in the grip of the Depression. - The World That Moses Built
E15The World That Moses BuiltFrom the late 1920s through the 1960s, Robert Moses held almost total power over the landscape of New York. He built bridges, highways, Jones Beach, Lincoln Center and the United Nations, some of the most ambitious public works ever conceived, and some of the most controversial.
