Video Details

American Experience: New York: A Documentary Film

Grade Levels:	6 - 13+
Core Subject(s):	Social Studies
Website:	http://www.uen.org/dms/
Usage rights:	Download and retain personal copies in perpetuity.

Availability information for this program

Episodes:

• Episode 01-The Country and the City (1609-1825)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. The first episode of the series chronicles New York's beginnings and identifies the key themes that shaped New York's history: commerce and capitalism, diversity and democracy, transformation and creativity.

  Length:	01:54:34

• Episode 02-Order and Disorder (1825-1865)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. This episode details New York's enormous growth as a booming commercial center and multi-ethnic port, and the mounting tensions that set the stage for the nation's bloodiest riot. The program reveals how the city's artists, innovators and leaders, from poet Walt Whitman to Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux (the designers of Central Park) grappled with the city's growing conflicts -- which culminated in the catastrophic Civil War Draft Riots of 1863.

  Length:	01:55:51

• Episode 03-Sunshine and Shadow (1865-1898)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. This episode turns to the period when greed and wealth fueled an expanding metropolis, even as politics and poverty defined it. Now the spotlight shines on the growth, glamour and grief of New York during America's giddy postwar "Gilded Age." The program examines the era when the expansion of wealth and poverty -- and the schism between them -- built to a crescendo, ending as the city itself dramatically expands its boundaries, annexing Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island into a single massive metropolis -- Greater New York.

  Length:	01:53:09

• Episode 04-The Power and the People (1898-1914)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. This episode follows the city into a new century, in the wake of an extraordinary wave of immigration and the birth of the skyscraper. As New York grew, the extraordinary interplay of capitalism, democracy and transformation surged to a climax.

  Length:	00:01:00

• Episode 05-Cosmopolis (1914-1931)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. During the fifth episode of the series, the post-war economic boom, the rise of consumer culture, and the birth of new mass-media industries fuel the convergence of an incredible array of human and cultural energies, ending with the Crash of 1929 and the construction of the Empire State Building.

  Length:	01:56:20

• Episode 06-The City of Tomorrow (1931-1940)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. During the sixth episode, the dramatic events that followed the Crash of '29 fuel the greatest economic depression in American history and plunge the city and the nation into economic gloom. In little more than ten years, immense new forces were unleashed in New York, from the Depression itself to the New Deal, which permanently altered the city and the country.

  Length:	01:56:35

• Episode 07-The City and the World (1945-Present)

  NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM chronicles the history of the city from its beginnings in 1624 as a Dutch trading post to its preeminence today as a global center of culture and commerce. During the seventh episode, the turbulent and often harrowing years from 1945 to the present are explored. Emerging from the Depression and the Second World War as the most powerful metropolis on Earth, New York soon confronted urban woes of unprecedented proportions, and fought for its very existence.

  Length:	02:20:18

• Episode 08-The Center of the World Part 01

  The eighth episode of filmmaker Ric Burns' award-winning series New York: A Documentary Film examines the rise and fall of the World Trade Center -- from its conception in the post-World War II economic boom, through its controversial construction in the 1960s and 1970s, to its tragic demise in the fall of 2001 and extraordinary response of the city in its aftermath. (NOTE: This 3 hour episode is being presented in two parts.)

  Length:	01:39:20

• Episode 08-The Center of the World Part 02

  The eighth episode of filmmaker Ric Burns' award-winning series New York: A Documentary Film examines the rise and fall of the World Trade Center -- from its conception in the post-World War II economic boom, through its controversial construction in the 1960s and 1970s, to its tragic demise in the fall of 2001 and extraordinary response of the city in its aftermath. (NOTE: This 3 hour episode is being presented in two parts.)

  Length:	01:21:52

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