American Experience Season 4 Episodes

Episode 1

LBJ: Beautiful Texas

Mon, Sep 30, 1991112 mins

Award winning filmmaker David Grubin profiles one of the most controversial U.S. presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, only to suffer disillusionment and defeat. Witness the events that brought LBJ from Texas to Washington, the White House, and a landslide election in 1964. Follow his triumphs in passing a wave of social legislation then his downward spiral which ends in withdrawal from politics. This is the first of two parts.

Episode 2

LBJ: My Fellow Americans

Tue, Oct 1, 1991111 mins

Award winning filmmaker David Grubin profiles one of the most controversial U.S. presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, only to suffer disillusionment and defeat. Witness the events that brought LBJ from Texas to Washington, the White House, and a landslide election in 1964. Follow his triumphs in passing a wave of social legislation then his downward spiral which ends in withdrawal from politics. This is the second of two parts.

Episode 3

The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry

Mon, Oct 14, 1991

A story of the formation and service of the first all-Black military unit in the United States during the Civil War.

Episode 4

Scandalous Mayor

Mon, Oct 28, 1991

The story of the corrupt political dominance of Mayor James Curley and its effect on the city of Boston in the early 20th century.

Episode 5

The Johnstown Flood

Mon, Nov 4, 199151 mins

This Expanded version of the original half hour and Academy Award (R) winner, aired on WGBH'S American Experience. The is the story of one of the most devastating disasters in American history. Tells of the events leading up to and following the moment on May 31, 1889, when a private dam burst, unleashing 200 million tons of water into the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

Episode 6

Pearl Harbor: Surprise and Remembrance

Mon, Nov 11, 1991

Recounting the historic attack of 1941, including the planning and military outlook of both the United States and Japan at the time.

Episode 7

G-Men: The Rise of J. Edgar Hoover

Mon, Nov 18, 1991

To understand J. Edgar Hoover's rise to power is to understand the America of the 1920s and 1930s and the building of both the power and the mythology of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Episode 8

Duke Ellington: Reminiscing in Tempo

Mon, Dec 9, 1991

Episode 9

The Quiz Show Scandal

Mon, Jan 6, 1992

America's love affair with the quiz show is dealt a blow when it's revealed that the games are fixed.

Episode 10

Love in the Cold War

Mon, Jan 13, 1992

The story of Eugene Dennis and his wife Peggy, communist activists in the post-World War II era.

Episode 11

Wild by Law

Mon, Jan 27, 1992

Episode 12

Barnum's Big Top

Mon, Feb 10, 1992

Story of P.T. Barnum and his role in developing the American Circus into a large business and a cultural force.

Episode 13

In the White Man's Image

Mon, Feb 17, 199260 mins

In 1875, Captain Richard Pratt ordered 72 Indian warriors suspected who had fought white colonists to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. Once there, Pratt began an experiment which involved teaching Indians to read and write, making them learn English and forcing them to be Christians, barring Native languages and religions, and putting even children as young as five in uniforms and drilling them like soldiers. "Kill the Indian and the save the man," was Pratt's brutal motto. A film about cultural genocide that Richard Pratt began to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into white culture with the creation of the Carlilse School for Indians in 1879. Pratt's school, and others like it, claimed noble intentions. The death toll was high from physical abuse and disease. Similar efforts in Australis and Canada are considered genocide, leading to investigations and official government apologies. These forced assimilation efforts lasted well into the 1930s, when they were abandoned as destructive and worsening poverty, unemployment, and suicide rates.