American Experience

In 1901, government chemist Harvey Wiley set out to prove that Americans were being harmed by chemicals in food. Wiley organized volunteers for human trials to test the effects of chemical food ...

In 1883, Dr. Harvey Wiley joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture as chief chemist. After two decades, President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drugs Act in 1906, largely written by ...

In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy declared to Congress that Far East scholar Owen Lattimore was a "top Russian spy." Lattimore tried to clear his name before two congressional committees. He was ...

The rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin senator whose zealous anti-communist crusade would test the limits of American decency and democracy.

In 1953, the author Langston Hughes was called before Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Investigations to answer questions about Communist influences in his writing. The private, closed-door ...

Senator Margaret Chase Smith asked Senator Joseph McCarthy for evidence to support his allegations of communists in the State Department, but he ignored her requests. In June 1950, Smith delivered a ...

Senator Joseph McCarthy hired Cohn in 1953 as Chief Counsel for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. McCarthy relied heavily on Cohn—for contacts, information, ideas, and political ...

In February 1950, McCarthy gave a Lincoln Day address in Wheeling, West Virginia. He claimed that over 200 communists held jobs at the State Department.

Tony Sarg delighted children and adults, alike, with wondrous puppets: from the huge, other-worldly sea serpent that washed up on Nantucket’s shore in 1937 to the giant balloons bounding along New ...

n 1878, Randall accused a relative of Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield of stealing one of the McCoys’ hogs. Randall took the more affluent Hatfields to court in Kentucky but lost. A vicious, ...

The most famous family conflict in American history, the Hatfield-McCoy feud evolved into a mythic American tale of jealousy, rage and revenge.

In 1882, Anderson “Devil Anse” Hatfield's brother was murdered by three sons of Randolph McCoy. Within a matter of days, Devil Anse and his ad hoc militia executed the three McCoys. Despite ...

50 years ago, organizers of the historic Woodstock Music and Art Fair in upstate New York searched for someone who could handle the unprecedented challenge of running their sound system. Luckily for ...

In 1969, Joel Rosenman and his business partner John Roberts joined hands with Artie Kornfeld and Michael Lang to hold a big concert in New York. This concert would eventually become the legendary ...

In August 1969, nearly half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened over the next three days, however, was far more than a concert.

Max Yagur’s farm provided natural amphitheater seating for Woodstock in August. Over 400,000 people showed up for the music festival.

Hugh Romney, otherwise known as Wavy Gravy, was an American figure of the 1960s counter culture. Gravy helped establish the “Hog Farm” commune in California. In 1967 the Hog Farm began traveling ...

Get an inside look at the making of Chasing the Moon. Premieres July 8, 9/8c on PBS.

Michael Collins piloted the command module nicknamed the Columbia, while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

50 years ago, the moon became a symbol of human progress. Long before we could reach its surface, the moon held special meaning for humanity. Today, the moon continues to inspire—in the night sky ...

Most remember the space race of the 1960s as a moment of rare national unity around the cause of scientific exploration. Public opinion polls from the 1960s show that the majority of Americans ...