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Asian Americans History Immigrants United States Imperialism United States History Imperialism United States History Industries United States History Industries United States History Labor United States History Labor United States History Race discrimination United States Economic conditionsSummary: The new immigration laws of 1965 were a turning point for the Chinese in America and allowed a new wave of immigrants to enter the country. Chinese American life has flourished in the years since. Narrated by Bill Moyers, this program presents intimate portraits of the new Chinese Americans who face a struggle common to so many immigrants: to reconcile some losses of their old culture in order...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the early 1880s, abetted by the Chinese Exclusion Act, a wave of anti-Chinese sentiment swept across America. This program examines the exclusion years through the stories of Chinese Americans and their families who were kept apart by both ancient custom and U.S. law. These immigrants were trapped between countries, at home neither in the U.S. nor in China. The law of the land, which...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the 1840s, civil war and famine in southern China drove thousands of young men to seek their fortune in the California Gold Rush. This program traces the Chinese experience in America, from their welcome in San Francisco as "celestial men of commerce," through the Gold Rush and building of the Transcontinental Railroad, to the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act banning their entry into this country....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Polish immigrants were the driving force behind Chicago's remarkable industrial growth. But they never achieved political cohesiveness, and while a million Poles now live in Chicago, their political power is not commensurate with the number of votes they cast.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The British had it the easiest of all. As long ago as the settlement in Jamestown, they came not to escape poverty but to find prosperity. As a group, they found it the easiest to reap the material rewards of an expanding America.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: From the Czarist persecutions to those of Hitler, America provided a haven for Jews. Their influx made New York the world's most densely populated city. They went on to become one of the most influential immigrant groups in America.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The story of 35 million Europeans who left their troubled homelands for the promise of freedom and opportunity, and the hardships of the transatlantic voyage they endured to reach America.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: More than 10% of Americans have German blood in their veins. Their ancestors came as religious and political refugees, but their dream of building a German society within America was largely shattered by the two world wars.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The great immigration from Europe ended in the 1920s. Today these descendants of the immigrants are trying to rediscover their heritage. How do they now view the Old World? And how do they view America's future?
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Around 1850, the vast fertile lands of the Midwest attracted nearly a million farmers from Norway, where land was scarce and often unfit to farm. Their life as pioneers was hard, but their descendants have prospered.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 20 years, four million Italians entered the U.S. While all immigrant groups were disdained by those who had come even a generation before, Italians suffered especially. Many became poorly-paid laborers, but many others made good.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: Eighty years ago, Elliot Bobo was taken from his alcoholic father's home, given a small cardboard suitcase, and put on board an “orphan train” bound for Arkansas. Bobo never saw his father again. He was one of tens of thousands of neglected and orphaned children who roamed the streets of New York in search of money, food, and shelter. Beginning in 1853 a young minister named Charles Loring...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1995
View online at AVOD
Summary: Henry Ford's Model T and assembly line, together with the discovery of abundant oil reserves, opened up a new way of life for Americans in the early decades of the twentieth century. This episode looks at those developments and traces the significance of World War I, prohibition, African-American migration from the South to northern cities, and the origin and growth of the Hollywood film industry.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1869, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of America became linked through a massive implementation of rail technology. The Transcontinental Railroad connected Americans in new ways and altered the entire ecology of the continent. The vast Plains, where buffalo and Native Americans had once roamed, were remade by land speculators and industrialists. In less than a quarter of a century, the West...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: America became a nation just as a revolution in commerce and industry swept the Western world. This program explores the economic growth of the United States in the context of rising friction between the North and South-over the moral issue of slavery, but also over the differences between industrial power and an agricultural economy focused on cotton. With the election of Abraham Lincoln,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: In 1871, Chicago burned to the ground, and from the ashes of the old city a new kind of metropolis rose up. This program shows the restless spirit embodied in the skyscrapers of American cities (as well as in the Statue of Liberty) but it also addresses new social problems, such as poverty and organized crime, that came with growing urbanization. Worker uprisings, immigration, and the expansion...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: The War Between the States rages. In 1863, the Confederate Army seems poised for victory. Following the bloody battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Former slaves join the Union army in droves. With superior transportation (railroads), communication (telegraph lines), and battlefield technology, the Union prevails and America is on track to become a global...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: While Progressive leaders showed their distrust of power in their dealings with large corporations at home, they still grasped the growing need for an aggressive national stance in world relations. This program covers the opening of Japan, the acquisition of Alaska and Hawaii, the Open Door Policy in China, the Spanish-American War, and the Boxer Rebellion. The doctrinal struggle between...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: During the presidencies of Teddy Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and Woodrow Wilson, America was witness to so many political, corporate, and social reforms that the period came to be known as the Progressive Era. This program provides an excellent overview of the times, underscoring the importance of women's suffrage, the Square Deal, the temperance movement, and other signal initiatives. In...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006