American Experience

American Experience, TV's most-watched history series, brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

Episodes

Filter By:

Season 36

  • Preview

    Nazi Town, USA

    Nazi Town, USA tells the story of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi group which in the 1930s had scores of chapters across the country, representing what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States. They held joint rallies with the KKK and ran summer camps for children centered around Nazi ideology and imagery, melding patriotic values with virulent anti-Semitism.

  • Episode

    Fly with Me

    Fly With Me tells the story of the pioneering women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card or get a prescription for birth control. The job offered unheard-of opportunities for travel and independence. These women were on the frontlines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.

  • Episode

    The Cancer Detectives

    The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the coalition of people who fought tirelessly to save women from cervical cancer: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolaou; his intrepid wife, Mary; Japanese-born artist Hashime Murayama; Dr. Helen Dickens, an African American OBGYN in Philadelphia; and an entirely new class of female scientists.

  • Episode

    Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal

    The dramatic and inspiring story of ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families. In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, NY, discovered that their homes, schools, and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump. Housewives activated to create a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

  • Episode

    The Riot Report

    When Black neighborhoods across America erupted in violence during the summer of 1967, President Johnson appointed a commission to determine what happened, why it happened, and what could be done to keep it from happening again. The bi-partisan commission’s final report offered a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations that would doom its finding to political oblivion.

  • Episode

    The American Vice President

    The American Vice President tells the little-known story of the second-highest office in the land, tracing its evolution from a constitutional afterthought to a position of political consequence. Focusing on the fraught period between 1963 and 1974, the film examines the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment and offers a fresh perspective on succession in the executive branch.

  • Episode

    American Coup: Wilmington 1898

    American Coup: Wilmington 1898 tells the little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina’s largest city in 1898. Stoking fears of “Negro Rule,” self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington’s democratically-elected, multi-racial government.

Season 35

  • Episode

    Casa Susanna

    In the 1950s and ’60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place to express their true selves.

  • Episode

    The Busing Battleground

    The Busing Battleground viscerally captures the class tensions and racial violence that ensued when Black and white students in Boston were bused for the first time between neighborhoods to comply with a federal desegregation order.

  • Episode

    The Harvest: Integrating Mississippi's Schools

    Explore what happened when the small Mississippi town of Leland integrated its public schools in 1970. Told through the remembrances of students, teachers and parents, the film shows how the town – and America – were transformed.

  • Episode

    The War on Disco

    The War on Disco explores the culture war that erupted over the rise of Disco music. The hostility came to a head on July 12, 1979, when a riot led by rock fans broke out at “Disco Demolition Night” during a baseball game in Chicago

Season 26

  • Short

    Freedom Summer

    The story of 10 memorable weeks in 1964 known as Freedom Summer, when more than 700 student volunteers from around the country joined organizers and local African Americans in a historic effort to shatter the foundations of white supremacy in Mississippi - then one of the nation’s most viciously racist, segregated states.

Season 23

  • Short

    Freedom Riders

    The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called Freedom Riders who in 1961 challenged segregation in the American South.

Season 15

  • Episode

    The Murder of Emmett Till

    The murder and the trial horrified the nation and the world. Till's death was a spark that helped mobilize the Civil Rights movement. Three months after his body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River, the Montgomery bus boycott began.

Explore More