American Experience
Building a Supply Road for the Pipeline
Show title: American Experience
Video title: Building a Supply Road for the Pipeline
Video duration: 1m 9sVideo description: On April 29, 1974, construction began on a haul road that would link the Yukon River to Prudhoe Bay. Truckers would use the road throughout the construction of the pipeline to transport goods to the North Slope as well as to camps along the way. By fall, the 360-mile long road was ready and would be used to haul three million tons of pipe, machinery, spare parts, fuel and food for 2 1/2 years.
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Triangle Fire Preview
30s
On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York's Greenwich Village. By the time the fire had burned itself out, 146 people were dead. The landmark legislation that followed gave New Yorkers the most comprehensive workplace safety laws in the country.
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Interview with Author Kirstin Downey
15m 13s
Author Kirstin Downey on the labor rights activist Frances Perkins, who would go on to become the secretary of labor and the first woman in a U.S. Cabinet.
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Jimmy Carter Preview
30s
Jimmy Carter traces the ascent of an ambitious country boy from a peanut farm in Plains, Georgia, to the Oval Office; it examines the failings of Carter's political leadership in the context of the turbulent 1970s; and explores the role religion played in his career.
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Preview | Reagan, Part 2
28s
Ronald Reagan left the White House one of the most popular presidents of the twentieth century — and one of the most controversial.
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Chapter 1 | Reagan, Part 1
10m 38s
A passionate ideologue who preached a simple gospel of lower taxes, less government, and anti-communism.
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Reagan Announces SDI
2m 30s
In a televised address to the nation, delivered on March 23, 1983, President Reagan announced his vision of a world safe from nuclear threat. His Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), later dubbed "Star Wars" by the press, is an idea that remains controversial to this day.
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Reagan Preview
30s
In 1988, after two terms in office, Ronald Reagan left the White House one of the most popular presidents of the twentieth century -- and one of the most controversial. One by one, his opponents underestimated him; one by one, Reagan surprised them, rising to become a president who always preferred to see America as a "shining city on a hill."
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The Greely Expedition Preview
30s
An epic story of adventure, abandonment and human tragedy, The Greely Expedition tells of an 1881 scientific mission to the Arctic that ended with death and rumors of cannibalism.
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Interview with Michael Robinson
7m 8s
Historian Michael Robinson talks about the American scientific landscape in the 19th century and the significance of The Greely Expedition.
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Panama Canal: Early Inefficiencies
1m 3s
On November 12, 1904, the first Bucyrus steam shovel arrived in Colón, able to excavate five cubic yards of spoil in a single scoop. Despite the efficiency of the steam shovel, the 50-year old rail system proved incapable of carrying that amount of spoil away.
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Building the Locks
2m 7s
In all, approximately 5 million bags and barrels of concrete went into building the Panama Canal's locks, dams, and spillways. The locks were engineered to be hollow and water tight, making them buoyant, so that the weight and pressure on the hinges would be significantly reduced. The locks at Gatun were 80 feet high, completely powered by electricity generated by a nearby hydroelectric spillway.
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The Decision to Build a Lock Canal
2m 22s
Stevens realized that building a sea level canal would doom the project to failure. His answer was to build a lock canal -- a highly mechanized and engineered waterway that would raise ships up over the continent through a series of lock chambers, ultimately solving the environmental challenges they were facing.
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Connecting the Atlantic and Pacific
1m 56s
On December 10, 1913, after a final push of excavation, the unbroken waterway finally connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. The project had taken ten years and more than $350 million. To that date, it was the largest single federal expenditure in history. More than 5,000 workers lost their lives, but the successful completion defined the US as a superpower of the 20th century.
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Repairing the Panama Railroad
2m 2s
Upon the arrival of new Chief Engineer John Stevens, the rusty and decrepit Panama Railroad was by that time 60 years old. Stevens realized that he was unable to cart out the spoil at the same furious rate that the canal was being dug. He ordered all excavation in Culebra Cut to be temporarily halted and turned his attention toward the repair of the railroad.
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The Inspiration: A Short Film from Freedom Riders
3m 32s
Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent movement to free India from British colonial rule inspired American civil rights activists who had immersed themselves in Ghandi's teachings and viewed non-violence as an effective way to challenge the tyranny of the Jim Crow South.
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The Exchange Student: A Short Film from Freedom Riders
4m 56s
After deciding to participate in the Freedom Rides in May 1961, Jim Zwerg called his parents for support only to be told that he was "killing his father." As a white Freedom Rider, Zwerg was among the first to be attacked and sustained severe injuries.
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The Strategy: A Short Film from Freedom Riders
4m 57s
In the decades after WWII, civil rights leaders relied on legal and legislative challenges to dismantle segregation. But in the early 1960s, activists impatient for change turned to a new strategy: non-violent direct action.
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The Music: A Short Film from Freedom Riders
4m 53s
Group singing provided solace for Freedom Riders facing the constant threat of violence. It was also an effective political tool. "Without singing, we would have lost our sense of solidarity," John Lewis says.
Pagination
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