Episode guide

American Experience: Season 1

16 episodes · first aired Oct 3, 1988

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1 The Great San Francisco Earthquake Oct 4, 1988 · 55m From 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…
2 Radio Bikini Oct 11, 1988 · 55m While 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…
3 Indians, Outlaws and Angie Debo Oct 18, 1988 · 55m As 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…
4 Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild A Dream Oct 25, 1988 · 55m A 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…
5 The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter Nov 1, 1988 · 55m An 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…
6 Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys? Nov 8, 1988 · 55m 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…
7 Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close Nov 15, 1988 · 55m An 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…
8 Geronimo and the Apache Resistance Nov 22, 1988 · 55m The 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…
9 Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Revisited Nov 29, 1988 · 55m An updated look at the Alabama tenant families that Walker Evans and James Agee documented in their 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, an American classic.
10 That Rhythm, Those Blues Dec 6, 1988 · 55m The evolution of rhythm and blues through the careers of singers Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, from the 1940s into the 50s, with contemporary performances by both.
11 The Radio Priest Dec 13, 1988 · 55m Father 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…
12 Hearts and Hands Dec 20, 1988 · 55m The design and art of quilting yields intimate clues about the lives of 19th century women, who stitched their personal and political stories into these artifacts of history.
13 Views of a Vanishing Frontier Dec 27, 1988 · 55m The journey of Prince Maximilian, German naturalist, and artist Karl Bodmer, who explored the Mississippi River area from 1832-34, meticulously documenting in paintings and journals the…
14 Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings Jan 3, 1989 · 55m Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Eudora Welty narrates the story of her own Southern childhood and early artistic development in Jackson, Mississippi. Based on her best-selling book of the…
15 The World That Moses Built Jan 10, 1989 · 55m From 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…
16 Sins of Our Mothers Jan 17, 1989 · 55m A Gothic tale of sin and redemption in 19th century New England. A small town in Maine reacts to the unconventional behavior of one of its young residents, a woman named Emeline Gurney. A…