Episode
American Experience: Big Dream, Small Screen
Overview
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.
Details
- Series
- American Experience
- Season
- Season 9
- Episode
- Episode 6
- Air date
- 1997-02-10
- Runtime
- 55 min
Episode context
Big Dream, Small Screen is Episode 6 in Season 9 of American Experience. It aired on 1997-02-10. The runtime is 55 min.
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Episode 5: The Telephone
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.
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.
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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 3: The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie
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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.
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Episode 10: Gold Fever
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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 11: Vietnam: A Television History (Part 1 & 2)
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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.