In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, during what has become known as the Gilded Age, the population of the United States doubled in the span of a single generation. As national wealth expanded, two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life. These disparities sparked passionate and violent debate over questions still being asked in our own times: How is wealth best distributed, and by what process? Does government exist to protect private property or provide balm to the inevitable casualties of a churning industrial system? The outcome of these disputes was both uncertain and momentous, and marked by a passionate vitriol and level of violence that would shock the conscience of many Americans today.
An account of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent effort to rebuild.
Based on eight years of continued prosperity, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted ...
Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the iso...
As a general, he had fought to preserve the Union. As president, he helped to oversee the transforma...
As a general, he had fought to preserve the Union. As president, he helped to oversee the transforma...
In the 50s and 60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden ho...
Arguably one of the most fateful and resonant events of the last half millennium, the Pilgrims journ...
Tuberculosis is the deadliest killer in human history, responsible for one in four deaths for almost...
In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “...
The Triangle Fire chronicles the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City kill...
On August 8, 1908, at a racetrack outside Paris, Wilbur Wright executed what was, for him, a routine...
The remarkable story of Earl Silas Tupper, an ambitious but reclusive small-town inventor, and Brown...
American Experience celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Founded by R...
One of the most popular rockers of the 1950s and early 60s, Fats Domino and his record sales were ri...
On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans and signali...
In 1988, after two terms in office, Ronald Reagan left the White House one of the most popular presi...
Influenza 1918 is the story of the worst epidemic the United States has ever known. Before it was ov...
Filmed over five years in Kansas City, this documentary follows four transgender kids – beginning at...
Actor Dustin Hoffman narrates this decade-spanning documentary that highlights the contributions of ...
He was a farmer, a businessman, an unknown politician who suddenly found himself president. Of all t...