American Experience: Season 14
Season 14 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of American Experience Season 13.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 14 Progress Shield
New York (6): The City of Tomorrow
Sep 10, 2001 · 55 min
"City of Tomorrow (1929-45)" focuses on Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, who used his close ties to FDR to make the city "a gigantic laboratory of civic reconstruction"; and master builde
New York (7): The City and the World
Sep 17, 2001 · 55 min
Conclusion. "The City and the World" begins in 1945, with New York "at the pinnacle," says historian David McCullough. By 1975 it was: "Ford to City: Drop Dead," as a Daily News he
War Letters
Nov 1, 2001 · 55 min
War letters from the American Revolution to the Gulf War are read by 15 actors (including Joan Allen, Edward Norton, Kevin Spacey and Courtney B. Vance). Accompanied by clips, home
Woodrow Wilson (1): A Passionate Man
Jan 6, 2002 · 55 min
A two-part profile of Woodrow Wilson in which news clips, atmospheric re-creations and readings (Rene Auberjonois and Blair Brown provide the voices of Wilson and his first wife, E
Woodrow Wilson (2): The Redemption of the World
Jan 13, 2002 · 55 min
Woodrow Wilson reluctantly enters World War I in an effort to "make the world safe for democracy" as this two-part profile concludes. He wins the war but loses the peace, as he's c
Mount Rushmore
Jan 20, 2002 · 55 min
Chronicling the 16-year struggle (1925-41) to fashion Mount Rushmore in South Dakota's Black Hills, and profiling sculptor Gutzon Borglum, its creator. Borglum was 60 when plans fo
Miss America
Jan 27, 2002 · 55 min
Recalling the 80-year history of the Miss America Pageant and what narrator Cherry Jones calls "a barometer of America's shifting ideas of American womanhood." Included: eight form
Zoot Suit Riots
Mar 1, 2002 · 55 min
"Zoot Suit Riots" recalls a week of violence that rocked Los Angeles in June 1943, pitting Mexican-Americans against Anglos, many of them servicemen. Hector Elizondo narrates the h
Monkey Trial
Feb 23, 2002 · 55 min
Recalling the "epic battle" over evolution waged in 1925 by fundamentalist titan William Jennings Bryan and freethinking Clarence Darrow. This chronicle also explores trial odditie
Public Enemy #1
Feb 17, 2002 · 55 min
John Dillinger may have been "Public Enemy No. 1" in 1933 and '34, but Americans didn't reflexively hate him, and this hour explores reasons why as it chronicles his 14-month bank-
Ansel Adams
Apr 21, 2002 · 55 min
Ric Burns' profile of the photographer whose connection to Yosemite is such that a mountain near the park is named for him. Adams (1902-84) first visited Yosemite at age 14. "It co
A Brilliant Madness
Apr 28, 2002 · 55 min
Mathematics genius John Nash recalls his bout with schizophrenia (the subject dramatized in the Oscar-winning film "A Beautiful Mind"). Nash is joined by his wife, Alicia; son John
Ulysses S. Grant (1): The Warrior
Apr 1, 2002 · 55 min
A moody two-part biography of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85). Part 1, "Warrior," quickly sketches his largely unsuccessful pre-Civil War life and ends on Good Friday 1865, when his wif
Ulysses S. Grant (2): The President
Apr 2, 2002 · 55 min
The conclusion of this biography of Ulysses S. Grant (1822-85) covers the last 20 years of the life of "the most popular man of the 19th century," as historian Donald Miller calls