The BEST episodes of American Experience season 1

Every episode of American Experience season 1, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of American Experience season 1!

Presents an absorbing look at the personalities, events and resources that have had a profound impact on the shaping of America's past and present.

Last Updated: 11/17/2024Network: PBSStatus: Continuing
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star
9.00
3 votes

#1 - Geronimo and the Apache Resistance

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/22/1988

Account of the famous Native American leader's battle against the US in the American southwest from the viewpoints of historians and modern Apaches.

Directors: Neal Goodwin
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
8.00
2 votes

#2 - Indians, Outlaws and Angie Debo

Season 1 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/18/1988

The US government attempts to claim lands that have value from Native American dwellers.

Directors: Martha Sandlin
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
8.00
2 votes

#3 - Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild a Dream

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/25/1988

Mid 20th century America through the eyes of famous journalist Eric Sevareid.

Watch Now:Amazon
star
8.00
3 votes

#4 - The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter

Season 1 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/1/1988

A treatment of women's contributions to the World War II defense industry including interviews with women who participated.

Directors: Connie Field
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star
8.00
1 votes

#5 - Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/8/1988

A visit to working ranches in western Wyoming to examine the lifestyle of modern-day cowboys and compare it to the romantic historical notions.

Directors: Jon Blair
Writer: Jon Blair
Watch Now:Amazon
star
8.00
2 votes

#6 - Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Revisited

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/29/1988

Life on Alabama tenant farms in the 1930s with comparisons to the living situation today.

Writer: Alan Yentob
Watch Now:Amazon
star
8.00
1 votes

#7 - The Radio Priest

Season 1 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/13/1988

A Catholic priest (Charles Coughlin) takes to the radio airwaves in the 1930s and broadcasts his views on the condition of the country.

Writer: Irv Drasnin
Watch Now:AmazonApple TV
star
8.00
1 votes

#8 - Hearts and Hands

Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/20/1988

An examination of the women of 19th century America - as suffragists, abolitionists, authors - and the record they and many others left through quilt-making.

Directors: Pat Ferrero
Watch Now:Amazon
star
8.00
1 votes

#9 - Views of a Vanishing Frontier

Season 1 - Episode 13 - Aired 12/27/1988

A German prince and a Swiss painter interpret the United States in a new light during a visit to the American west during the 1830s.

Directors: Craig T. Fisher
Watch Now:Amazon
star
7.14
35 votes

#10 - The Great San Francisco Earthquake

Season 1 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/4/1988

From Enrico Caruso to the ordinary San Franciscan, this film presents vivid memories of those trapped in the terrifying event of 1906. Four hundred eighty square blocks were reduced to rubble; thousands were killed, tens of thousands left homeless. Then the heroic struggle to rebuild a city from the ashes began.

Watch Now:Apple TV
star
7.08
12 votes

#11 - Radio Bikini

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/11/1988

The story of atomic bomb research after World War II and how above-ground testing led to the evacuation of a previously-populated atoll in the Pacific Ocean.

Directors: Robert Stone
Watch Now:Apple TV
star
7.00
1 votes

#12 - Sins of Our Mothers

Season 1 - Episode 16 - Aired 1/17/1989

A tale of a woman in the 1800s who risked scorn by marrying a man much younger than herself, and a person later found to be her biological son from long ago.

Directors: Matthew Collins
star
6.00
2 votes

#13 - That Rhythm, Those Blues

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 12/6/1988

The growth of rhythm and blues music and its eventual acceptance by mainstream audiences in the 1950s.

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0.00
0 votes

#14 - Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/15/1988

John Kennedy and George Wallace clash over questions of civil rights in early 1960s Alabama.

Directors: Robert Drew
Watch Now:Apple TV
star
0.00
0 votes

#15 - Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings

Season 1 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/3/1989

The work of photographer and author Eudora Welty and her impressions of the south after the turn of the 20th century.

Directors: Patchy Wheatley
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0.00
0 votes

#16 - The World That Moses Built

Season 1 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/10/1989

A biography of Robert Moses, single-minded visionary behind many of New York City's largest and most expensive construction projects.