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Local funding for history programming is
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 American
Experience, The Presidents
Begins
Sunday, May 5 at 9 p.m.
“A
glorious example of what television
can accomplish ...”
Akron
Beacon Journal
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This
spring, as a pivotal presidential election approaches,
American Experience presents The Presidents: seven
20th-century biographies that offer an intimate and compelling
look at the men who have defined and re-defined the modern
presidency, and who have led the country through some of
the most turbulent moments in our history.
For
the first time, all seven films, 25 hours of programming
in all, will be available as downloadable vodcasts at pbs.org/presidents/2008.
Ranging
from the unlikely story of the patrician New York governor
who led the nation during the
twin crises of the Great Depression
and World War II, to the Hollywood leading man who became
the icon of modern conservatism, the series begins in May
2008
with the premiere of a profile of George H.W. Bush, and
features subsequent programs on Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
Harry Truman,
Lyndon Johnson,
Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. |
Focusing
on the intersection of public and private, character and
history, the presidential
biographies have captivated viewers, delighted teachers,
impressed critics and won virtually every documentary award
worth winning.
Most
satisfying of all, they have educated a generation of Americans
about their leaders and their
history, and provoked
many American voters to think about what they should expect
from
the person they elect president of the United States.
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George
H.W. Bush
Monday,
May 5 and Tuesday, May 6 at 9 p.m.
Repeats
Wednesday, May 7 and Thursday, May 8 at 3 a.m.
When
George H.W. Bush left the Oval Office in 1992, rejected
after one tumultuous presidential term, his 30-year
career in public service came to an abrupt and unexpected
end.
Despite
soaring approval ratings following military victory
in the Persian Gulf, his years as president after
the war were marked by almost unrelieved decline.
A sluggish economy and an earlier decision to raise
taxes, despite an explicit campaign oath, led to
his defeat. By the end of his term, many observers
dismissed him as an artifact of an irrelevant Cold
War past.
George
H.W. Bush tells the story of a man born
to both economic and political privilege and tutored
in modesty, a man who enlisted in the Navy on his
18th birthday and became a hero in World War II.
It recounts Bush’s post-war time at Yale
University, where he excelled in athletics, and
his marriage to Barbara Pierce.
The
film tells of his adventurous days as a Texas oil
wildcatter, the tragic loss of a daughter to leukemia
and his entry into Republican politics at a time
of roiling change. |
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FDR Mondays,
May 12 and May 19 at 9 p.m.
Repeats
Wednesdays, May 14 and May 21 at 3 a.m.
Radio
broadcasts beamed his voice into living rooms around the
country; his picture hung on Americans’ walls. His
wife was the most admired woman in the country.
One
of the nation’s most popular presidents, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt served three terms — longer than
anyone before or since — and led the country through
two great crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression
and World
War II. The series includes archival film, home movies
and audio clips; newly filmed footage of significant landmarks
in Roosevelt’s life; an album of family photographs;
and interviews with family members, friends and witnesses
to history.
FDR goes beyond the familiar words and images to offer an intimate,
incisive and often surprising portrait of a man who changed
America’s ideas about the presidency,
who still shapes our understanding of the role of government
and whose influence defines the terms of much of our political
discourse.
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Truman
Sunday,
May 25 at 9:30 p.m. and Monday, May 26 at 9 p.m.
Repeats
Tuesday, May 27 at 3:30 a.m. and Wednesday, May 28 at 3 a.m.
He
was a farmer, a haberdasher gone bankrupt, an unknown politician
from Missouri who suddenly found himself president. Of
all the men who had held office, he was the least prepared.
Yet
Harry S. Truman would have to end the war with Germany
and Japan, decide whether to use
the most terrible weapon
ever devised, confront the Soviet Union and wage war in Korea. |
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Copyright©2006-2008,
Northeastern Educational Television of Ohio, Inc. All rights
reserved. |
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