Ken Burns: American Lives

Frank Lloyd Wright (1998)

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Frank Lloyd Wright was the greatest of all American architects. He was an authentic American genius, a man who believed he was destined to redesign the world, creating everything anew.

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02:30
Frank Lloyd Wright

Mark Twain (2001)

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Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become Mark Twain, America's best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time as the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism.

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04:00
Mark Twain

Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (2003)

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HORATIO'S DRIVE recounts the simultaneously inspirational and hilarious saga of Horatio Nelson Jackson, an eccentric Vermont doctor, who in 1903—on a visionary whim and a 50-dollar-bet—became the first person to drive an automobile across the continent, heralding the future of the "horseless carriage" as a vehicle destined for more than inner-city travel and as a machine that would transform Am

Grade Level: 
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Length: 
02:30
Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip

Thomas Jefferson (1996)

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Revered as the author of the Declaration of Independence, the most sacred document in American history, yet condemned as a lifelong owner of slaves, THOMAS JEFFERSON remains the enigma that is America.

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03:00
Thomas Jefferson

Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery (1997)

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Sent by the President Thomas Jefferson to find the fabled Northwest Passage, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the most important expedition in American history—a voyage of danger and discovery from St. Louis to the headwaters of the Missouri River, over the Continental Divide to the Pacific.

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Length: 
04:00
Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery

Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson (2004)

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UNFORGIVABLE BLACKNESS: THE RISE AND FALL OF JACK JOHNSON tells the story of the first African-American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports and his struggle, in and out of the ring, to live his life as a free man.

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03:40
Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson

Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony (1999)

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Not For Ourselves Alone tells the dramatic, little-known story of one of the most compelling friendships in American history. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were born into a world ruled entirely by men. By the time their lives were over, they had changed for the better the lives of a majority of American citizens.

Grade Level: 
Middle
High
Length: 
03:00
Not For Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony