Selected DVDs

African American lives
240 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer: Kunhardt Productions, Inc.
Call Number: DVD 973.04 Afr

An unprecedented four-part series, AFRICAN AMERICAN LIVES uncovers a new level personal discovery. Using genealogy, oral history, family stories, and DNA analysis to trace lineages through American history and back to Africa, the series provides life-changing journeys for a diverse group of highly accomplished African Americans including Whoopi Goldberg, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Quincy Jones, Dr. Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, and Oprah Winfrey.

Age of AIDS
240 minutes, produced 2006
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 616.97 Age

On the 25th anniversary of the first diagnosed cases of AIDS, after more than two decades of stigma, research, debates and education, FRONTLINE presents the definitive chronicle of one of the worst pandemics ever known. Through interviews with researchers, leaders, activists, and patients, FRONTLINE investigates the science, politics and human cost of this disease, and asks: What has been learned, and what must be done to stop AIDS?

America Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
240 Minutes on 2 Discs, produced 2003
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 305.89 Ame

Henry Louis Gates Jr. travels the length and breadth of the United States to take the temperature of black America at the start of the new century. Gates visits the East Coast, the deep South, inner-city Chicago and Hollywood to explore the rich and diverse landscape, social as well as geographic.

American Experience: Fatal Flood
60 Minutes, produced 2001
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 977.03 Fat

In 1927, weeks of spring rain sent the Mississippi River rampaging from Cairo, Illinois, to New Orleans, flooding dozens of towns, killing hundreds, and leaving a million homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted a black majority against an aristocratic plantation family, the Percys -- and the Percys against themselves. Liev Schreiber narrates this dramatic story of greed, power, race, and natural disaster.

American Experience: Influenza
60 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 614.51 Inf

As the nation mobilized for war in the spring of 1918, ailing Private Albert Gitchell reported to an army hospital in Kansas. He was diagnosed with the flu, a disease about which doctors knew little. Before the year was out, America would be ravaged by a flu epidemic that killed 675,000 people--more than died in all the wars of this century combined--before disappearing as mysteriously as it began.

American president
560 minutes on 5 discs, produced 2004
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.09 Ame

THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT, first series to profile all 41 U.S. chief executives, uses exclusive interviews with Presidents Clinton, Bush, Ford, and Carter and the voices of well-known figures for leaders before sound recording: Colin Powell, H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Bob Dole, Walter Cronkite, Don Imus, Ben Bradlee, John Glenn, James Carville, Andrew Young, and the Rev. Billy Graham. Narrated by Hugh Sidey, veteran Time Magazine correspondent.

American Roots Music
240 minutes on 2 discs, produced 2001
Producer: Palmer Pictures.
Call Number: DVD 781.62 Ame

This series traces the development of uniquely American music genres during the 20th century, including blues, country, gospel, bluegrass, Cajun, zydeco, western swing, Tejano and Native American. Archival footage of the pioneers of this music, collected from more than 150 sources throughout the United States and Europe, is combined with newly filmed performances and interviews with performers and scholars.

An inconvenient truth
96 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Paramount.
Call Number: DVD 363.73 Inc

Former Vice President Al Gore explains the facts of global warming, presents arguments that the dangers of global warning have reached the level of crisis, and addresses the efforts of certain interests to discredit the anti-global warming cause. Between lecture segments, Gore discusses his personal commitment to the environment, sharing anecdotes from his experiences.

Big sur
60 minutes, produced 2001
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 917.94 Big

Experience the daily life along California's Big Sur coast from the frenzy of feasting shearwaters at daybreak to the alien underwater world that is revealed at sunset. See otters, condors, peregrine falcons, elephant seals and more.

The Blues
900 Minutes on 7 Discs, produced 2003
Producer: Columbia Music Video.
Call Number: DVD 781.64 Mar

THE BLUES grew from field hollers, work songs, and church choirs, evolving into a uniquely American art form. This cultural odyssey takes viewers from Africa to the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, and Chicago, capturing the essence of the blues in social, spiritual, and musical impressions. Then take a front-row seat to performances by early bluesman Ali Farka Toure, legends B. B. King and Blind Willie Johnson, Ray Charles, and Eric Clapton.

Broadway: The American Musical
360 Minutes on 3 Discs, produced 2004
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 782.14 Bro

Hosted by Academy Award-winning star of stage, film and television, Julie Andrews. "Broadway" tells two stories: the 100-year history of musical theater, and the story of its relationship to 20th-century American life, from the immigrant experience at the turn of the century to today's Broadway, where big budget new productions and revivals of classic favorites compete side by side for box office success.

Building on ground zero
56 Minutes , produced 2006
Producer: WGBH Boston Video.
Call Number: DVD 690.21 Bui

Looks back at the events of 9/11 and reviews the major investigations into the causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center. Compares the collapse of the Twin Towers with the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Discusses the structural features and fireproofing methods that made these buildings vulnerable and the costs, practicality, and possibility of completely correcting these weaknesses. Features two new buildings that demonstrate advances in skyscraper safety and construction, World Trade Center 7 and Leslie Robertson's World Financial Center in Shanghai.

Can you afford to retire?
60 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: PBS Video.
Call Number: DVD 331.25 Can

The baby boomer generation is headed for a shock as it hits retirement: boomers will be long on life expectancy but short on income. In addition to Social Security, the pillars of retirement income for Americans have been either lifetime corporate pensions or employee-contribution plans such as 401Ks. But both retirement strategies are in trouble. Buffeted by pension cuts, corporate bankruptcies, and the 2001-2002 stock market crash, most boomers now expect to be working into their retirement years.

Catch me if you can
Minutes, produced 2003
Producer: DreamWorks Home Entertainment.
Call Number: DVD 791.43 Cat

Based on the autobiography of a brilliant young master of deception and the FBI agent hot on his trail. Frank W. Abagnale, Jr. passed himself off as a pilot, a lawyer, and a doctor all before his 21st birthday.

Chaos & order: making American theater
68 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Call Number: DVD 792.09 Cha

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) is one of the most respected and innovative dramatic institutions in the United States. Through the prism of the A.R.T., this program explores the organizational and creative challenges facing today's theater community and describes the flexibility and resilience arts groups must have in order to survive in today's cultural climate.

Chicago
57 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Bullfrog Films.
Call Number: DVD 307.14 Chi

Scott Simon interviews a group of inspirational environmental activitists from various backgrounds who are dedicated to the greening of Chicago. The 24-acre Millennium Park, City Hall Roof Garden, Green Roof Initiative, and an outdoor classroom and nature preserve at Elgin High School are among the projects highlighted.

Connect with English
5 Disc, produced 1997
Producer: The Annenberg/CPB Collection.
Call Number: DVD 420.7 Con

Connect with English is a new way for speakers of other languages to learn English. Through the story of Rebecca, an aspiring singer on a journey across America, the series touches on life's important issues: leaving home, parenting, education, work, love, success, and loss.

Crash
122 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Lionsgate.
Call Number: DVD 791.43 Cra

A car accident brings together a group of strangers in Los Angeles. Crash takes a provocative, unflinching look at the complexities of racial tolerance in contemporary America.

Denali, Alaska's great wilderness
60 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer:  PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 917.98 Den

Depicts the natural wonders of Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, including Mount McKinley.

Do you speak American?
180 Minutes on 3 Disc, produced 2005
Producer: Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
Call Number: DVD 427.97 You

Examines sociolinguistic questions and the dynamic state of American English, a language rich in regional variety, strong in global impact, and steeped in cultural controversy.

The Edward R. Murrow Collection
390 Minutes on 4 Discs, produced 2005
Producer: New Video.
Call Number: DVD 070.19 Edw

Famous for electrifying interviews, journalist Edward R. Murrow held TV audiences spellbound with "Harvest of Shame," on migrant farm workers, and "The McCarthy Years," his challenge to witch-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Also includes "This Reporter," fellow journalists' reflections on his career, and "The Best of 'See It Now'," highlighting Murrow's documentary series.

Free Speech: Jim Lehrer with Ben Bradlee
57 minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
Call Number: DVD 070.4 Fre

The legendary Ben Bradlee, retired executive editor of the Washington Post, joins the NEWHOUR's Jim Lehrer for a candid and often witty look at the current state of journalism. Lehrer and Bradlee tackle issues such as celebrity journalism, handling anonymous sources and providing balanced perspectives. They also discuss how to regain the public's trust in a media environment rife with declining ethical standards and dubious practices.

Freedom: A History of US: Fighting for Freedom
120 minutes, produced 2003
Producer: Kunhardt Productions.
Call Number: DVD 973 Fig

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM recalls the forging place of American liberty, the Revolutionary War. British colonial subjects, certain Great Britain would eradicate their freedoms, staked everything on a risky war for liberty. Thus American freedom was "born in revolution," but the glaring contradiction of slavery undermined its "experiment in freedom." Only through four years of awful bloodshed-civil war-could America again emerge as land of the free.

Frontline: From China with Love
60 Minutes, produced 2004
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 327.12 Fro

Her code name was "Parlor Maid." For 20 years a spy whose information about China found its way to four American presidents, Katrina Leung's handler was a freewheeling FBI agent named J. J. Smith, also her lover. FRONTLINE investigates a tale of sex, secrets, risk, patriotism, and power, exploring how U.S. intelligence about China was compromised and the government's arrest of J. J. and Katrina, as a double agent for China.

FRONTLINE: The Dark Side
90 minutes, produced 2006
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.91 Dar

For years the United States has been fighting the war on terror. From the beginning there was internal struggle for control of the intelligence agencies, labeled "the dark side," between Vice President Cheney and the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet. Follow the war-behind-the-war with interviews of key participants, thousands of pages of documents, and a step-by-step examination of what happened behind the headlines.

If you can't beat 'em blog 'em
20 minutes, produced 2005
Producer: Films for the Humanities & Sciences.
Call Number: DVD 070.43 Ify

The rise of the blog as a form of serious news reporting means that conventional journalists must become familiar with the blog format and rethink typical journalistic approaches. This ABC News program examines the blogger "community," reviews major news stories that were broken by bloggers, and demonstrates ways in which blogging differs from traditional reporting methods.

In the shadow of the Moon
110 Minutes, produced 2007
Producer: Lionsgate.
Call Number: DVD 629.45 Sha

Presents the story of NASA's Apollo program and the lunar landings by American astronauts made between 1968 and 1972. Features rare archival footage and interviews with surviving astronauts.

Inside American Power
180 Minutes on 3 Discs, produced 2002
Producer: National Geographic.
Call Number: DVD 355.6 Ins

Three legendary U.S. institutions open up to National Geographic for in-depth visits in this exclusive collection. Deep INSIDE THE PENTAGON, witness the inner workings of the nation's military nerve-center, gearing up for the war on terrorism. ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE, celebrate the remarkable legacy of the world's most powerful airplane. And when crossing INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE, feel the glorious history of Washington's most famous residence.

I.O.U.S.A
85 Minutes, produced 2009
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 338.97 Iou

I.O.U.S.A. tells the story of America in debt. Faced with key deficits in budget, savings, trade and leadership, increased foreign competition and ballooning financial obligations, the federal government is critically overextended. With the economy already in shambles, 78 million baby boomers are now expecting retirement benefits from their indebted federal government. Weaving together archival footage, economic data and candid interviews with Warren Buffett, Alan Greenspan, Paul O'Neill, Robert Rubin, Alice Rivlin and Paul Volcker, along with David Walker of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and Robert Bixby of the Concord Coalition, the film offers a vivid and alarming profile of America's financial status.

Just the Facts: Understanding Government
150 Minutes on 3 Discs, produced 2004
Producer: Goldhil Video
Call Number: DVD 320.97 Und

Make civics fun, fast-paced, and appealing while you give students a solid foundation in the basics of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Noted educators and elected officials share their insights on the unique features of our tripartite government, including the checks and balances that serve to both represent and protect its citizens. A must for understanding how our government works today.

Ken Burns American Lives
1480 Minutes on 8 Discs, produced 2004
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 973 Ken

Ken Burns' stunning cinematography and gripping storytelling have a unique way of documenting our country's history and depicting how it has shaped the American identity. The American Lives Collection is a compilation of seven biographies and stories of some of America's most celebrated pioneers and historical events beginning with Thomas Jefferson in 1997 and concluding with Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson in 2005.

Liberty! The American Revolution
180 Minutes on 3 Discs, produced 2004
Producer: PBS DVD Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.3 Lib

Dramatic readings from letters and diaries and re-creations of events leading up to America's fight for freedom chronicle the course of revolution. Follow the exciting course of action as new leaders emerge and ordinary colonists come together to forge a new nation. Episodes: "The Reluctant Revolutionaries," "Blows must Decide," "The Times that Try Men's Souls," "Oh, Fatal Ambition," "The World Turned Upside Down," and "Are We to be a Nation?"

The March
32 Minutes, produced 1963
Producer: USIA.
Call Number: DVD 342 Blu

The March on Washington, on August 31, 1963, involved hundreds of thousands of civil rights marchers who gathered on the Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.

Martin Luther King [videorecording] : "I have a dream."
60 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer: MPI Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 323.4 Mar

Videodisc release of newsreel containing King's entire inspirational speech in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.

Martin Luther King Jr.: the man and the dream
58 Minutes, produced 2002
Producer: A & E Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 323.09 Mar

Rare insight into the legendary civil rights leader's personal and public life is seen using interviews and rare footage of the Reverend.

Michael Jackson : a remarkable life
60 Minutes, produced 2009
Producer: Chrome Dreams.
Call Number: DVD 782.42 Mic

A tribute to Michael Jackson, possibly the finest performer the world has ever witnessed. A documentary about his life, and a disc of interviews with the man himself.

The national parks
750 Minutes, produced 2009
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 333.78 Nat

Traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, and what Burns believes is the most stunning cinematography in Florentine Films' history, the series chronicles the steady addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them and save them from destruction.

One woman, one vote
106 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer:  PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 324.62 One

Documents the 72-year struggle for women's suffrage which culminated in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. It illuminates the alliances, infighting, betrayals and defeats that paved the way for victory in the battle for women's right to vote. Historical footage is enhanced with vocal performances, and interviews with historians provide the viewer with both current and historical perspectives.

Philadelphia
57 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer:  Bullfrog films.
Call Number: DVD 307.14 Phi

Faced with severe budget limitations, Philadelphia created a network of volunteer organizations who have brought about rebirth through volunteerism and community outreach. Mayor John F. Street created the Neighborhood Transition Initiative program to come up with practicable and affordable solutions to remove blight, promote quality restoration, stimulate investment in new housing, and improve how the city delivers services to its businesses and residents.

Point of Order
90 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer: New Yorker Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.92 Poi

U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy gained fame-and eventually, his own downfall-in his witch-hunt for Communist "moles" in the U.S. government. A decade after the landmark 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, Point of Order sifted through 188 hours of original television footage to paint a devastating, damning portrait of political theater. Directed by Emile de Antonio, this black-and-white documentary is about power and its abuses.

The Road to 9/11: A Brief History of Conflict in the Middle East
60 minutes, produced 2005
Producer: Meserve - Kunhardt Foundation.
Call Number: DVD 303.6 Roa

Since September 11, 2001, Americans have wondered how their nation had become such an anathema in the Muslim world. The Road to 9/11 is a detailed look at the forces that have shaped the Middle East to give an understanding of the current crisis. Viewers are taken on a journey through a chronicle of steadily worsening social, political and economic conditions, the growing power of religious fanaticism, and the increasing problem of terrorism.

Rocky
120 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: MGM Home Entertainment.
Call Number: DVD 791.43 Roc

Rocky Balboa is a struggling boxer trying to make the big time. He works in a meat factory in Philadelphia for a meager wages so he also earns extra cash as a debt collector. When heavyweight champion Apollo Creed visits Philadelphia, his managers want to set up an exhibition match between Creed and a struggling boxer. The promoters are touting the fight as a chance for a "nobody" to become a "somebody". The match is supposed to be easily won by Creed, but someone forgot to tell Rocky, who sees this as his only shot at the big time.

Saturn's Titan : voyage to the mystery moon
56 minutes, produced 2006
Producer: WGBH Boston Video.
Call Number: DVD 523.9 Sat

The largest moon of Saturn may help reveal how life got started on Earth and whether or not it exists on other worlds. Nova takes a dramatic voyage to an exotic world unimaginably different from our own.

The Sixties: The Years That Shaped the Generation
120 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.92 Six

The 1960s was a decade of change and hope that transformed America. Trace the events of one of the most turbulent and influential periods of political and cultural change in the 20th century and the powerful impact forced on an entire generation. Experience the 60s through revealing interviews with the prominent figures of the era, including: Daniel Ellsberg, Jesse Jackson, Tom Hayden, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Bobby Seale and others.

Slavery and the Making of America
240 Minutes on 4 Discs,  produced 2005
Producer: Ambrose Video Pub.
Call Number: DVD 306.3 Sla

This groundbreaking 4-part documentary presents a rich, detailed look at the institution itself, a national practice which helped transform tiny colonies into the world's strongest nation. The program asserts that U.S. slavery gradually evolved from a loosely defined labor system, under which Africans and their descendants retained legal and property rights, into the tightly regulated enslavement of individuals based solely on race.

Watergate Plus 30: Shadow of History
120 Minutes, produced 2003
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 973.92 Wat

What lessons has America learned from Watergate? Three decades after an infamous break-in helped topple President Richard Nixon, all the facts are still not in. But as this documentary shows, Watergate remains a nearly unbelievable tale of ordinary men corrupted by power-and their desire to keep it. Interviews with investigator Sam Dash, co-conspirator John Dean, and journalist Bob Woodward re-create the history and speculate on its effects.

West Point
120 minutes, produced 2002
Producer: PBS DVD Video.
Call Number: DVD 355 Wes

This program tells the 200-year story of The United States Military Academy and reveals its tremendous influence on the nation. Anecdotes of the people, places and traditions of the Academy are featured, including tales of famous West Point dropouts such as Edgar Allan Poe and James McNeill Whistler. The program conveys the sense of fraternity and fierce loyalty that mark the West Point experience.

Who killed the electric car?
93 Minutes, produced 2006
Producer: Sony Pictures Classics.
Call Number: DVD 629.22 Who

Investigates the birth and death of the electric car, as well as the role of renewable energy and sustainable living in the future.

Wild river
60 minutes, produced 2006
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 910.9 Wil

Follow the Colorado River from the Rocky Mountain National Park, through Utah's Westwater Canyon, the national parks of Canyonlands, and Zion, the fragile beauty and rapids of Grand Canyon, and into Mexico.

The World Trade Center
50 minutes, produced 2002
Producer:  A & E Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 720 Wor

A special presentation, originally produced in January, 2001. Includes post-production commentary by Harry Smith and interview with Angus Gillespie of Rutgers University that address the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Yellow stone
60 Minutes, produced 2005
Producer: PBS Home Video.
Call Number: DVD 917.87 Yel

A look at the rich Yellowstone ecosystem, replete with wolves and grizzly bears, elk, and mountain lions. 

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