American Experience Season 1 Episodes

Episode 1

The Great San Francisco Earthquake

Tue, Oct 4, 198856 mins

An account of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent effort to rebuild.

Episode 2

Radio Bikini

Tue, Oct 11, 198856 mins

It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.

Episode 3

Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo

Tue, Oct 18, 198860 mins

A profile of historian Angie Debo and her exposure of the governmental conspiracy to steal mineral-rich lands from their tribal owners.

Episode 4

Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild a Dream

Tue, Oct 25, 198858 mins

Journalist Eric Sevareid recounts his experiences growing up during the Great Depression and World War II.

Episode 5

The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter

Tue, Nov 1, 1988

Episode 6

Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?

Tue, Nov 8, 198860 mins

A look at modern-day cowboys in the Wyoming Rockies.

Episode 7

Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close

Tue, Nov 15, 198852 mins

Filmmaker Robert Drew updates his 1963 documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963) which followed the confrontation between President Kennedy and Alabama governor George Wallace.

Episode 8

Geronimo and the Apache Resistance

Tue, Nov 22, 198856 mins

The life of Geronimo, as told by the Chiricahua Apaches.

Episode 9

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Revisited

Tue, Nov 29, 1988

Writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans revisit the Alabama tenant system depicted in their 1936 book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men".

Episode 10

That Rhythm, Those Blues

Tue, Dec 6, 198860 mins

A documentary covering the R&B (rhythm and blues) field from the 1940s to the early 1950s. Included is footage of performances by major R&B singers of the time, and interviews with singers, producers and others involved in the field.

Episode 11

The Radio Priest

Tue, Dec 13, 198860 mins

The story of Father Charles Coughlin who, during the Depression, used the radio to protest against what he saw as society's ills.

Episode 12

Hearts and Hands

Tue, Dec 20, 1988

The historical events of nineteenth-century America as depicted in the quilts of the country's women.

Episode 13

Views of a Vanishing Frontier

Tue, Dec 27, 1988

An exploration of the Native Americans of 1830s western America, as seen through the eyes of European travelers Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer.

Episode 14

Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings

Tue, Jan 3, 1989

A profile on American writer Eudora Welty.

Episode 15

The World That Moses Built

Tue, Jan 10, 1989

Documentary about architect Robert Moses who is responsible for public works projects like the Lincoln Center and the United Nations in New York.

Episode 16

Sins of Our Mothers: The Story of Emeline

Tue, Jan 17, 1989

The story of Emeline Bachelder, an early 19th-century New Englander who married a younger man - only to discover that he was the son she had give up when she was fourteen.