Episode
American Experience: The Great Transatlantic Cable
Overview
Cyrus Field's struggle to lay telegraph cables across the Atlantic in the 1850s and '60s is chronicled. When Field finally succeeded, in 1866, it marked "the annihilation of space and time," says historian David Czitrom. But the 13-year effort -- recalled here in re-creations and comments from historians and engineers -- included many false starts and one spectacular failure. Still, says Czitrom, "he never let up."
Details
- Series
- American Experience
- Season
- Season 17
- Episode
- Episode 7
- Air date
- 2005-04-11
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
The Great Transatlantic Cable is Episode 7 in Season 17 of American Experience. It aired on 2005-04-11. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 6: Mary Pickford
Profiling Mary Pickford, the silent-screen "sweetheart" who blazed the trail to Hollywood and became "America's first superstar." Pickford (1893-1979) was also an astute businesswoman: She founded United Artists with Charlie Chaplin and her husband-to-be Douglas Fairbanks. But, as filmmaker Sue Williams stresses here, there was no glorious sunset. As Pickford biographer Eileen Whitfield puts it, she was "the first has-been created by film."
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