Summary: Comparing sports with religion only goes so far, but in early-20th-century America, the reverence accorded baseball and its players resembled the trust and respect a priest might elicit from his parishioners. This program examines the life of the game between 1910 and 1920-the decade in which a godlike figure named Babe Ruth first appeared and the Black Sox scandal threatened, in the words of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: In 1871, Chicago burned to the ground, and from the ashes of the old city a new kind of metropolis rose up. This program shows the restless spirit embodied in the skyscrapers of American cities (as well as in the Statue of Liberty) but it also addresses new social problems, such as poverty and organized crime, that came with growing urbanization. Worker uprisings, immigration, and the expansion...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: A battle over a dry-goods monopoly in Lincoln County, New Mexico, exposes corrupt politicians, cattle rustling, and cold-blooded murder in 1876. Erupting into a full-blown range war involving numerous Western legends, such as Billy the Kid and John Chisum, the conflict ultimately accomplishes very little.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: This episode of American Stories by acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns presents the history of one of our greatest icons. For over a century, she has stood on Liberty Island, a gift from France created by sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi. Torch eternally aloft, Lady Liberty has been the symbol of hope for generations of immigrants. Interviews with ordinary Americans reveal the statue’s great...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1985
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Summary: The nation seethes with racial conflict as immigrants increasingly become targets of prejudice, and as settlers and soldiers massacre Western Indians and force them onto reservations. As European freedom-seekers continue to pour into America through Ellis Island, the Supreme Court finally rules that non-citizens are due equal protection under the law.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: The newly unveiled Statue of Liberty is a symbol of all that is best in America, inspiring a time of reform and compassion. Mother Jones brings the child labor issue to the forefront of the nation's consciousness, and Jane Addams, America's first social worker, creates Hull House. Ida Tarbell exposes the abuses of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Company.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: No sport is more American than baseball, but, contrary to popular opinion, the game likely predates the birth of our nation and has substantial roots overseas. This program explores baseball's origins as a folk pastime and depicts the early phases of its complex evolution. Refuting the myth that Civil War general Abner Doubleday single-handedly invented the game, the film looks at parallels in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: The War Between the States rages. In 1863, the Confederate Army seems poised for victory. Following the bloody battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Former slaves join the Union army in droves. With superior transportation (railroads), communication (telegraph lines), and battlefield technology, the Union prevails and America is on track to become a global...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: Get set for an adventure that marked a new era in America! Filmmaker Ken Burns presents the hilarious 1903 saga of the first transcontinental automobile trip. On a visionary whim and a
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
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Summary: Covering the years 1900 to 1910, this program introduces some of baseball's most celebrated and colorful characters-including Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, Walter Johnson, and Ty Cobb. The film spotlights Cobb's reputation as perhaps the most aggressive and least likeable player in the history of the game (a standing reflected in the episode's title, drawn from one of the outfielder's...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: In 1869, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America became linked through a massive implementation of rail technology. The Transcontinental Railroad connected Americans in new ways and altered the entire ecology of the continent. The vast Plains, where buffalo and Native Americans had once roamed, were remade by land speculators and industrialists. In less than a quarter of a century, the West...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: As industrial progress continues and the gap between the rich and poor widens, a new labor movement emerges to advocate for workers' rights. The strike at Lawrence, Massachusetts, is a victory for workers; and Susan B. Anthony paves the way for women's right to vote.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: Henry Ford's Model T and assembly line, together with the discovery of abundant oil reserves, opened up a new way of life for Americans in the early decades of the twentieth century. This episode looks at those developments and traces the significance of World War I, prohibition, African-American migration from the South to northern cities, and the origin and growth of the Hollywood film industry.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: America became a nation just as a revolution in commerce and industry swept the Western world. This program explores the economic growth of the United States in the context of rising friction between the North and South-over the moral issue of slavery, but also over the differences between industrial power and an agricultural economy focused on cotton. With the election of Abraham Lincoln,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: The Declaration of Independence stated 'all men are created equal,' but the nation’s slaves were a glaring exception. The colonial slave trade and brutal life for African-Americans on Southern plantations spark the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. This episode explores the role of Frederick Douglass, and then looks at the impact of the Lincoln-Douglas debates on the westward...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2002
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Summary: American inventor, scientist, and businessman, this episode of A&E Classroom profiles Thomas Alva Edison, dubbed 'The Wizard of Menlo Park' for his creation of the long-lasting electric light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the sound recording. Edison originated more than 1,000 U.S. and international patents for devices that greatly influenced communication around the world.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
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Summary: The U.S. Constitution is the world's oldest written charter of government in continuous effect. Much of the success of this document can be attributed to the way the Constitution has changed to meet the needs of the American people. The framers of the Constitution wisely anticipated the need to make changes to the Constitution as the world itself changed. Between 1787, when the Constitution was...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In the early 20th century, blacks moved north in hope of a better life with little more than a prayer and the shirts on their backs. In this program, poet Maya Angelou, NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, and a host of other African-Americans recount the story of the migration, of separated families, and of the hardships, prejudice, and struggle for acceptance in the North that resulted in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: Around 1850, the vast fertile lands of the Midwest attracted nearly a million farmers from Norway, where land was scarce and often unfit to farm. Their life as pioneers was hard, but their descendants have prospered.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: In 20 years, four million Italians entered the U.S. While all immigrant groups were disdained by those who had come even a generation before, Italians suffered especially. Many became poorly-paid laborers, but many others made good.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
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Summary: While we celebrate the adventurers who expanded our horizons, their discoveries often came at a price. Such was that in October, 1897, when renowned Arctic explorer Robert Peary returned to New York from his latest Greenland expedition. At an unusual request, he brought with him five polar Eskimos for study at the American Museum of Natural History where they were housed in an overheated...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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Summary: In this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, Ric Burns turns to the period when greed and wealth fueled an expanding metropolis, even as politics and poverty defined it. Now the spotlight shines on the growth, glamour, and grief of New York during America's giddy postwar “Gilded Age.” Exploring the incomparable wealth of the robber barons and the unabashed corruption of political leaders,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2003
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Summary: This poignant collage features members of the Oglala Lakota Sioux living on and off the Pine Ridge reservation who present their unself-pitying yet pointed observations on Lakota history and modern-day Lakota life. Their creation myth and their attitudes toward Mother Earth and the concept of time contribute insights into their worldview, while footage of a major powwow and a tepee-raising...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
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Summary: This program examines the conduct of the war, from Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, to the defeatist attitude of Spanish commander Admiral Cerveras, to Cuban General Gomez and his decision to side with the Americans. Actual footage taken at the battles of Las Guasimas, El Caney, and San Juan Hill supports excellent historical commentary, including photos, sketches, and firsthand accounts of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1998