Episode
American Experience: The Telephone
Overview
At first rented only "to persons of good breeding," seen as an expensive luxury for doctors and businessmen, within a decade the telephone had begun to transform American life. Trees gave way to telephone poles as operators known as "hello girls" began to connect a sprawling continent.
Details
- Series
- American Experience
- Season
- Season 9
- Episode
- Episode 5
- Air date
- 1997-02-03
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
The Telephone is Episode 5 in Season 9 of American Experience. It aired on 1997-02-03. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 4: Hawaii's Last Queen
Liliu'okalani moved easily between two worlds -- she had dined at the White House, had been a guest at Buckingham Palace, yet never abandoned her Hawaiian traditions. A writer and composer, she was thrust into a role she was never prepared to play, caught between two opposing forces.
Episode 6: Big Dream, Small Screen
The little known story of Philo T. Farnsworth, a Utah farm boy who first sketched out his idea for electronic television at the age of fourteen. An eccentric genius, Farnsworth spent years battling corporate giants to receive acknowledgment for his invention.
More episodes from this season
Episode 3: The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie
A look at the poor emigrant boy who built a fortune in railroads and steel, and, unlike any industrialist of his time, began to systematically give it away; a man full of contradictions and inner conflict.
Episode 7: New York Underground
It began with the blizzard of 1888 -- mountains of snow twenty feet high, horse cars and omnibuses abandoned, the city paralyzed. There was no doubt New York needed a public transportation system. It would be an American epic -- the largest public works project in history, overshadowed only by the Panama Canal.
Episode 2: T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (2): The Bully Pulpit
After McKinley's assassination, Roosevelt becomes an "accidental" president. Seeing himself as a crusader, TR uses the presidency to advance his agenda of social reform. He expands the power of the presidential office and comes to dominate American politics. Yet, the night he is elected to a second term, TR announces he will not run again, ultimately weakening his second term.
Episode 8: Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern
A story of the realities leading to the vanishing role of the family farm in the United States.
Episode 1: T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (1): The Long Campaign
TR is born into a wealthy New York family that has a strong sense of social justice. He fights his severe asthma through a strenuous exercise program. He becomes New York State assemblyman. Then tragedy strikes with the untimely deaths of his beloved first wife and his mother. To escape his grief, he flees to the Dakota Badlands for the rigors of ranch life. When he returns, his political career flourishes; he eventually becomes William McKinley's Vice President.
Episode 9: Around the World in 72 Days
At the age of nineteen, Nellie Bly talked her way into an improbable job on a newspaper, then went on to become "the best reporter in America." She was serious and spunky. To expose abuse of the mentally ill, she had herself committed. But when she travelled around the world in just 72 days, beating Jules Verne's fictional escapade, she turned herself into a world celebrity.
Episode 10: Gold Fever
The 1890's in America were desperate times. A depression brought bank and business failures and forced millions of men and women from their jobs. When gold was discovered in a frozen no man's land between Canada and Alaska, 100,000 people made the treacherous journey in search of riches.
Episode 11: Vietnam: A Television History (Part 1 & 2)
"Vietnam: A Television History" begins by tracing the "Roots of a War" to French colonialism.
"America's Mandarin" looks at the start of America's involvement in Vietnam during the 1950s and '60s.
Episode 12: Vietnam: A Television History (3): LBJ Goes to War
LBJ Goes to War (1964-65) examines the escalating American involvement following the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. Interviewed: Gen. William Westmoreland (USA Ret.) and former Secretary of State Dean Rusk.
Episode 13: Vietnam: A Television History (4): America Takes Charge
In "America Takes Charge (1965-67)," GIs recall combat experiences during the years of U.S. military escalation. Also: a sequence in which Americans and Vietnamese describe the same operation.