American Experience Films

In the late 19th century, as America₂s teeming cities grew increasingly congested, the time had come to replace the nostalgic horse-drawn trolleys with a faster, cleaner, safer, and more efficient form of transportation. Ultimately, it was Boston, a city of so many firsts that overcame a litany of engineering challenges, the greed-driven interests of businessmen, and the great fears of its citizenry to construct America's first subway.

L. Frank Baum was 44 when he published the first book about Oz, having spent most of his life reinventing himself with each new career in pursuit of the American Dream. When in Chicago, his observations of an uncertain nation during the Gilded Age informed his magical tale of survival, adventure, and self-discovery which went on to become a quintessential classic.

In 1969 off the California coast, a US Navy crane carefully lowered a massive tubular structure into the waters. It was designed for an elite group of divers to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor. The video tells the little-known story of the daring program that tested the limits of human endurance and revolutionized undersea exploration.

Walt Disney was uniquely adept at art as well as commerce, a master filmmaker who harnessed the power of technology and storytelling. This new film examines Disney's complex life and enduring legacy. Features rare archival footage from the Disney vaults, scenes from some of his greatest films, interviews with biographers and animators, and the designers who helped turn his dream of Disneyland into reality.

"Radicals. Agitators. Troublemakers. Liberators. Called many names, the abolitionists tore the nation apart in order to create a more perfect union. Men and women, black and white, Northerners and Southerners, poor and wealthy, these passionate anti-slavery activists fought body and soul in the most important civil rights crusade in American history"--Container.

Documentary about Thomas Edison that explores the complex alchemy that accounts for the enduring celebrity of America's most famous inventor. It offers new perspectives on the man and his milieu, and illuminates not only the true nature of invention, but its role in turn-of-the-century America's rush into the future.

The fire that tore through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the gruesome culmination of years of unrest in America's most profitable manufacturing industry. Two years earlier, led by a spontaneous walkout in the same factory, twenty thousand garment workers, in the largest women's strike in American history, took to the streets of New York to protest working conditions. They gained the support of both progressives...

Chronicles the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator who would test the limits of American decency and democracy.

Chasing the moon reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much of the mythology surrounding the effort. The series recasts the Space Age as scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses and personal drama. Utilizing overlooked and lost archival material, the film features a cast of characters who played key roles in these historic events.