American Experience | PBS

When Arctic explorer Robert Peary returned from Greenland in 1897, he brought with him a seven-year-old boy named Minik.

NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr and American University historian Allan Lichtman discuss the role of the party conventions in 2008.

Harvard University sociologist Orlando Patterson places Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign in the context of Democratic Party history.

At the height of the Great Depression, more than 250,000 teenagers were living on the road in America.

Historian Dan Carter places John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign in the context of the American conservative movement.

MIT historian Meg Jacobs examines the impact of economic issues during election years.

After eighty-two days as Vice-President, Harry Truman became the thirty-third President of the United States.

In March 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office and gave hope to a nation in crisis.

John Jay College historian Blanche Wiesen Cook looks back at Eleanor Roosevelt and discusses the role of the First Lady.

Filmmakers Austin Hoyt and Callie Taintor Wiser discuss the Bush family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.

New York Yankees pitcher LaTroy Hawkins discusses the legacy of Roberto Clemente.

Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz discusses his biography of baseball's first Latino superstar.

Contemporary writers and poets read excerpts from Walt Whitman's signature work, Leaves of Grass.

International relations professor Ernest May from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and history professor Kristen Hoganson from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign describe foreign policy, presidential leadership, and elections.

Georgetown University historian Michael Kazin looks back at the 1968 presidential campaign and discusses the theory of "critical elections."

In the 1930s, Joe Louis crossed boxing's color line to become the most famous and influential black person in America.

As the American frontier was disappearing, William Cody transformed himself into a master showman named Buffalo Bill.

The legendary trapper, scout and soldier was fluent in Spanish and five Indian languages. When the West was a mystery to most Americans, Kit Carson mastered it.

Boston University historian Bruce Schulman, author of The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics, looks back at the 1976 presidential campaign and finds parallels to the 2008 campaign.

Walter J. Freeman was an ambitious neurologist that invented a radical surgery to combat mental illness: the transorbital lobotomy. A patient of Doctor Freeman and families of lobotomy recipients describe how the procedure changed their lives.

The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963 left a psychic wound on America that is with us still today. Filmmaker Robert Stone discusses his deconstruction of the assassination and how this single event forever changed the face of American culture.

In 1975, the U.S. sponsored Operation Babylift, evacuating war orphans from Vietnam. Author Aimee Phan talks about the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE program DAUGHTER FROM DANANG, which tells the story of a Babylift evacuee's troubled reunion with her Vietnamese birth mother.

In October 1967, in a jungle in Vietnam, a Viet Cong ambush nearly wiped out an American battalion, prompting some in power to question whether the war might be unwinnable. Survivors of the Black Lions battalion recall the Vietnam War and reflect on what it was like to return home from battle to a nation divided. http://www.pbs.org/amex/twodays Voices: Ernie Buentiempo, Private, U.S. Army Tom Hinger, Medic, U.S. Army Joe Costello, Private, U.S. Army Mike Troyer, Private, U.S. Army Clark Welch, Commander of Delta Company, U.S. Army Mike Arias, Private, U.S. Army Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

On October 4, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik. Americans feared the implications of the first man-made satellite orbiting above the Earth. Roger Launius, curator at the National Air and Space Museum, describes Sputnik's impact on the Space Race. http://www.pbs.org/amex/moon Voices: Roger Launius, National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution Miles Neff, podcast narration Audio of Sputnik 1 telemetry courtesy of NASA Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

During World War II, over eleven million American military personnel served abroad. World War II veterans describe the brutal conditions and deadly combat faced on the battlefronts of Europe and the Pacific. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/nuremberg/sfeature/sf_ww2.html Voices: Ed Stewart, Sergeant, 84th Infantry, from the film Battle of the Bulge Robert Body, U.S. Army, from the film Bataan Rescue Roger Rutland, First Sergeant, 106th Infantry, from the film Battle of the Bulge Jerome Connolly, U.S. Army Medic, from the film Victory in the Pacific Al Turnbull, U.S. Navy, from the film Victory in the Pacific Bart Hagerman, Private, 17th Airborne, from the film Battle of the Bulge Edward "Tommie" Thomas, Prisoner of War, from the film Bataan Rescue Unknown American soldier, from the film D-Day George Niland, 6th Marine Division, from the film Victory in the Pacific John Richardson, 6th Ranger Battalion, from the film Bataan Rescue James Hildebrand, U.S. Army, from the film Bataan Rescue Unknown American soldier, from the film D-Day Bob Conroy, Private, 75th Infantry, from the film Battle of the Bulge Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

In the mid nineteenth century Chicago emerged as an industrial metropolis, fueled by a diverse work force. Their organized efforts were emblematic of a growing national labor movement that was marked by century's end with a new national holiday: Labor Day. Historian Dominic Pacyga describes Chicago's prominence in the national labor movement and its reaction to the holiday. http://www.pbs.org/amex/chicago Voices: Nancy Koehn, historian Dominic Pacyga, historian William Cronon, historian Donald L. Miller, author Perry Duis, historian Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

From the day that a 14-year-old Ansel Adams first saw the transcendent beauty of the Yosemite Valley, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth-gesture of the Sierra." Adams helped transform the meaning of wilderness in America; his greatest images of the American West changed forever what Americans thought about their own land. Nature and wilderness photographer Michael Frye describes following in Adams' footsteps, working in Yosemite. http://www.pbs.org/amex/ansel Voices: William Turnage, Ansel Adams Trust Michael Frye, photographer, The Ansel Adams Gallery Andrea Gray Stillman, Editor & Assistant to Ansel Adams Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

Former Commissioner of Major League Baseball Fay Vincent talks about one of the greatest sports heroes ever. Joe DiMaggio joined the New York Yankees in 1936 and quickly rose to become the star of baseball's golden age. He was graceful, elegant, and inspiring; his 56-game hitting streak electrified the nation. http://www.pbs.org/amex/dimaggio Voices: Maury Allen, biographer Frank "Spec" Shea, New York Yankee pitcher, 1946-1951 Fay Vincent, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, 1989-1992 Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain Director of New Media: Maria Daniels American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

In the summer of 1967, thousands of young people from across the country flocked to San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district to join in the hippie experience, only to discover that what they had come for was already disappearing. Now in their fifties and sixties, a few people who were in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury district in the summer of 1967 look back at how the Summer of Love affected their lives. http://www.pbs.org/amex/love Voices: Mary Kaspar, 1967: hippie; later: artisan Sandi Stein, 1967: hippie; later: Ph.D. Phil Morningstar, 1967 and later: hippie Claudia King Yunker, 1967: hippie and civil rights activist; later: community organizer Charles Perry, 1967: hippie; later: author, The Haight Ashbury: A History Joel Selvin, author, The Summer of Love, music critic Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

In tape recordings from the 1970s, Jim Jones describes his church, the Peoples Temple. Jones refers to historical events like the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Malcolm X, and shares his views on "revolutionary suicide." http://www.pbs.org/amex/jonestown ---- This podcast offers excerpts from the following audio tapes, recovered by the FBI after the Peoples Temple mass suicide/murder at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978: Tape Q 1059-1, San Francisco, Spring 1973 Tape Q 953, Los Angeles, May 1974 Tape Q 384, Jonestown, October 1978 Tape Q 833, Jonestown, March 1978 Source tapes courtesy of the Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple Web site. http://jonestown.sdsu.edu/ For more information on the historical topics Jones mentions, visit these American Experience Web pages: Martin Luther King, Jr. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/mlk/ John F. Kennedy http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kennedys/ Robert Kennedy http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rfk/ Malcolm X http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/ W.E.B. DuBois http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/garvey/peopleevents/p_dubois.html Voices: Jim Jones, preacher Miles Neff, podcast narration Produced by: Ravi Jain American Experience is produced by WGBH Boston. Major funding for American Experience is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.