American Experience - Season 36

In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a "Pro-American Rally." Images of George Washington hung next to swastikas and speakers railed against the "Jewish controlled media" and called for a return to a racially "pure" America. The keynote speaker was Fritz Kuhn, head of the German American Bund. Nazi Town, USA tells the largely unknown story of the Bund, a 1930s pro-Nazi group which had scores of chapters in suburbs and big cities across the country and represented what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States. The Bund held joint rallies with the Ku Klux Klan and ran dozens of summer camps for children centered around Nazi ideology and imagery. Its melding of patriotic values with virulent anti-Semitism raised thorny issues that we continue to wrestle with today.

Fly With Me tells the story of the pioneering young 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. Becoming a "stewardess," as they were called, offered unheard-of opportunities for travel, glamour, adventure and independence. Although often maligned as feminist sellouts, these women were on the frontlines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace. Featuring firsthand accounts, personal stories and a rich archival record, the film tells the lively and important but neglected history of the women who changed the world while flying it.

The Trailblazers who landed the first blow against cancer.

The story of how the life-saving cervical cancer test became an ordinary part of women's lives is as unusual and remarkable as the coalition of people who ultimately made it possible: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolau; 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 known as cyto-screeners. But the test was just the beginning. Once the test proved effective, the campaign to make pap smears available to millions of women required nothing short of a total national mobilization. The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the people who fought tirelessly to save women from what was once the number one cancer killer of women.

Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal tells the dramatic and inspiring story of the ordinary women who fought against overwhelming odds for the health and safety of their families. In the late 1970s, residents of Love Canal, a working-class neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York, discovered that their homes, schools, and playgrounds were built on top of a former chemical waste dump, which was now leaking toxic substances and wreaking havoc on their health. Through interviews with many of the extraordinary housewives turned activists, the film shows how they effectively challenged those in power, forced America to reckon with the human cost of unregulated industry, and created a grassroots movement that galvanized the landmark Superfund Bill.

When Black neighborhoods in scores of cities erupted in violence during the summer of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders––informally known as the Kerner Commission––to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again? The bi-partisan commission's final report, issued in March of 1968, would offer a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations––a verdict so politically explosive that Johnson not only refused to acknowledge it publicly, but even to thank the commissioners for their service. The Riot Report explores this pivotal moment in the nation's history and the fraught social dynamics that simultaneously spurred the commission's investigation and doomed its findings to political oblivion.

What happens when the president is unable to serve? The American Vice Presidentexplores 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, when a grief-stricken and then scandal-plagued America was forced to define the role of the vice president, the film examines the passage and first uses of the 25th Amendment and offers a fresh and surprising perspective on the process of succession in the executive branch.

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 — the only coup d'état in the history of the US. 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. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history.

Meet Edwin Land, the visionary scientist and inventor of the Polaroid camera. When it was introduced in 1948, the Polaroid revolutionized amateur photography with a camera that provided pictures instantly – by the 1970s, people across the globe were shooting over a billion Polaroids a year. The camera not only revolutionized how we take pictures and capture memories, but it also helped earn Land a reputation as one of the most visionary and prolific inventors and entrepreneurs of the 20th century. His invention of a new product and a new and creative corporate culture would inspire the leaders of the 1990s tech boom, including Steve Jobs, who saw Land as both a guru and godfather.