American Archive of Public Broadcasting to Preserve Fifty Years of Sesame Street for Posterity

WGBH Educational Foundation and the Library of Congress will preserve and make accessible to the public historic and contemporary episodes of Sesame Street.

Photo credit: Sesame Workshop

BOSTON (February 14, 2019) – As Sesame Street begins to mark its 50^th anniversary, the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the WGBH Educational Foundation, has announced that Sesame Workshop has donated a collection of digitized episodes from the past 50 years of Sesame Street, to be preserved for posterity. Over the next year, nearly 4,500 episodes from the first 49 seasons of the iconic children’s television program will be incorporated into the AAPB’s extensive archive of public media from across the United States. The Sesame Street collection will be available to view on-site at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and by appointment at WGBH in Boston.

“Sesame Street changed the landscape of children’s media at a time when television was viewed as a ‘vast wasteland’ and transformed a medium that strongly appealed to children into a source for knowledge and social development for our youngest citizens,” said Sesame Street co-founder and AAPB Executive Advisory Council Member Lloyd Morrisett, Jr. “I am proud that we are entrusting the American Archive of Public Broadcasting with the task of preserving Sesame Street’s stories and characters for future generations.”

The Sesame Street preservation project comes on the heels of Sesame Workshop’s announcement last week detailing plans to celebrate Sesame Street’s 50^th year of broadcast. Sesame Workshop is the nonprofit education organization behind Sesame Street, which has been teaching and inspiring children since its first episode aired on November 10, 1969. Sesame Street’s groundbreaking research-based methods, dedication to entertaining educational content and outreach to families in underserved communities established a legacy for educational television and for public media as a whole.

Sesame Street: 50th Anniversary Highlight Reel

Among the episodes preserved in the AAPB’s Sesame Street collection are indelible scenes like the touching “Farewell, Mr. Hooper,” in which Big Bird, the program’s guileless surrogate for curious children, learns about death and how to cope;  Ernie’s “Rubber Duckie, You’re the One,” which made it to the 16^th spot on the Billboard top singles chart in 1970; Grover’s frantic back and forth in “Near/Far,” Cookie Monster’s turn as “Alistair Cookie,” the cookie and classics-obsessed host of Monsterpiece Theater; and Kermit the Frog’s hopeful tune, “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” which stressed self-acceptance.

“As a historian and academic, I can’t stress enough the importance of preserving groundbreaking media like Sesame Street, which was the first TV show to address big issues like poverty, family and the environment in a way that children could understand,” said Kathryn Ostrofsky, Ph.D. and author of the forthcoming book Sounding It Out: How Sesame Street Crafted American Culture. “Early episodes of Sesame Street provide a window into the pressing issues of the times, as well as changing views about education. The American Archive of Public Broadcasting’s Sesame Street collection is a critical resource for studying and understanding so many facets of these societal changes.”

The mission of the AAPB is to digitize, preserve and make accessible historic public media content from across the country, dating back to the early 1940s. Given its age, much of the original audio and video tape is fragile and deteriorating. The AAPB is in a race against time to ensure that future generations, researchers and the public will be able to access these programs for years to come.

“We’re honored that Sesame Workshop has entrusted the preservation of their decades of work to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “To this day, Sesame Street is a key part of our national educational, television and public broadcasting landscape. I hope that everyone whose lives were touched by Sesame Street will visit the Library and WGBH to experience this historic collection.”

Photo credit: Sesame Workshop

Now in its fifth year of service, the AAPB has preserved for posterity over 90,000 digitized and born-digital audio and video materials. Among the collections preserved are more than 8,000 episodes of the PBS NewsHour Collection, dating back to 1975; more than 1,300 programs and documentaries from National Educational Television, the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS); full “gavel-to-gavel” coverage of the Senate Watergate hearings; raw, unedited interviews from the landmark documentary Eyes on the Prize; raw, unedited interviews with eyewitnesses and historians recorded for American Experience documentaries including Stonewall Uprising, The Murder of Emmett Till, Freedom Riders, 1964, The Abolitionists and many others. The AAPB also works with scholars to publish curated exhibits and essays that provide historical and cultural context to the Archive’s content.

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About the American Archive of Public Broadcasting

 The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and the WGBH Educational Foundation to coordinate a national effort to preserve at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity and provide a central web portal for access to the unique programming that public stations have aired over the past 70 years. To date, over 50,000 hours of television and radio programming contributed by more than 100 public media organizations and archives across the United States have been digitized for long-term preservation and access. The entire collection is available on location at WGBH and the Library of Congress, and more than 35,000 programs are available online at americanarchive.org. 

About WGBH

WGBH Boston is America’s preeminent public broadcaster and the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web, including Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience, Arthur, Pinkalicious & Peterrific, and more than a dozen other primetime, lifestyle and children’s series. WGBH’s television channels include WGBH 2, WGBX 44, and the digital channels World and Create. WGBH TV productions focusing on the region’s diverse community include Greater Boston, Basic Black and High School Quiz Show. WGBH Radio serves listeners across New England with 89.7 WGBH, Boston’s Local NPR®; 99.5 WCRB Classical Radio Boston; and WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR® Station. WGBH also is a major source of programs for public radio (among them, PRI’s The World®), a leader in educational multimedia (including PBS LearningMedia™, providing the nation’s educators with free, curriculum-based digital content), and a pioneer in technologies and services that make media accessible to deaf, hard of hearing, blind and visually impaired audiences. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards and Oscars. Find more information at wgbh.org.

About The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov; and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.

Tune in Tomorrow for AAPB’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum on Reddit!

Join the Ask Me Anything forum (AMA) at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/!

Hosted by Ask Historians (a.k.a /r/AskHistorians), staff from the American Archive of Public Broadcasting will be answering questions during an Ask Me Anything forum (AMA) tomorrow, Wednesday, February 13, 2019 from 12pm – 4pm ET! The AMA will take place at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/!

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), a collaboration between the Library of Congress and Boston public broadcaster WGBH, will be answering the public’s questions about how we collect, preserve and provide access to the collection, as well as any specific questions about the content of the archive, and of course how scholars might collaborate with the AAPB to use the archive for research or in their teaching (we’d love to hear your ideas!).

The AAPB coordinates a national effort to preserve at-risk public media before its content is lost to posterity and provides a centralized web portal for access to the unique programming aired by public stations over the past 70+ years. To date, we have digitized nearly 100,000 historic public television and radio programs and original materials (such as raw interviews). The entire collection is accessible for research on location at the Library of Congress and WGBH, and more than 45,000 programs are available for listening and viewing online, within the United States, at http://americanarchive.org.

Among the collections preserved are more than 8,000 episodes of the PBS NewsHour Collection, dating back to 1975; more than 1,300 programs and documentaries from National Educational Television, the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS); raw, unedited interviews from the landmark documentary Eyes on the Prize; raw, unedited interviews with eyewitnesses and historians recorded for American Experience documentaries including Stonewall Uprising, The Murder of Emmett Till, Freedom Riders, 1964, The Abolitionists and many others. We aim to grow the archive by up to 25,000 hours of additional digitized content per year. The AAPB also works with scholars to publish curated exhibits and essays that provide historical and cultural context to the Archive’s content. We have also worked with researchers who are interested in using the collection (metadata, transcripts, and media) as a dataset for digital humanities and other computational scholarship.

The collection, acquired from more than 100 stations and producers across the U.S., not only provides national news, public affairs, and cultural programming from the past 70 years, but local programming as well. Researchers using the collection have the potential to uncover events, issues, institutional shifts, and social movements on the local scene that have not yet made it into the larger historical narrative. Because of the geographical breadth of the collection, scholars can use it to help uncover ways that national and even global processes played out on the local scene. The long chronological reach from the late 1940s to the present will supply historians with previously inaccessible primary source material to document change (or stasis) over time.

The staff who will be answering questions are:

Karen Cariani, Executive Director of the WGBH Media Library and Archives and WGBH Project Director for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Casey Davis Kaufman, Associate Director of the WGBH Media Library and Archives and Project Manager for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting

Ryn Marchese, Engagement and Use Manager for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting at WGBH

Tune in tomorrow at https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/.

New AAPB Special Collection of Raw Interviews from American Experience’s ‘The Abolitionists’

The Abolitionists takes place during some of the most violent and contentious decades in American history, … bitter debates over the meaning of the Constitution and the nature of race.  – American Experience

Collection Summary

The Abolitionists Interview Collection is comprised of 51 raw interviews from the three-part American Experience miniseries of the same name, which aired on PBS in 2013. The series follows the lives of prominent abolitionists including Frederick Douglass, John Brown, Angelina Grimké, William Lloyd Garrison, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and explores differing and often conflicting approaches to abolishing slavery in the United States.

The Abolitionists interviews examine the historical contexts of the subjects and their lasting legacy on American history and law. Interviews were conducted with authors, educators, and historians, including Manisha Sinha, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; James Brewer Stewart, Professor of History at Macalester College, and Founder of Historians Against Slavery; John Stauffer, author and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University; and Lois Brown, Professor of African American Studies at Wesleyan University. Subjects discussed include abolition, slavery, racism, the American Constitution, Christianity, civil rights, and the American Civil War.

Access the collection at http://americanarchive.org/special_collections/the-abolitionists-interviews!

Collection Background

The Abolitionists interviews were conducted in 2012 for the three-part series of the same name. Nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series, Rob Rapley served as the director. In 2017, the WGBH Media Library and Archives digitized The Abolitionists interviews and in 2018 submitted them to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

Featured Interviews

Manisha Sinha is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is the author of “The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina” (University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and “To Live and Die in the Holy Cause: Abolition and the Origins of America’s Interracial Democracy.”

James Brewer Stewart, James Wallace Professor of History Emeritus, Macalester College, retired, and the founder and director of Historians Against Slavery. Stewart’s books include Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery. He has published biographies of four very well-known enemies of slavery: Joshua R. Giddings, Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and Hosea Easton. His most recent books include Abolitionist Politics and the Coming of the Civil War (2008) and Venture Smith and the Business of Slavery and Freedom (2009).

Lois Brown is a professor in the African American Studies Program and the Department of English at Wesleyan University. Brown’s scholarship and research focus on African American and New England literary history and culture.

Erica Armstrong Dunbar, associate professor of Black American Studies with joint appointments in history and in women and gender studies at the University of Delaware.

Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor American Colonial and Revolutionary History; Women’s History, Weissman School of Arts and Sciences, Baruch College. Her publications include: Civil War Wives: The Life and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant (2009).

John Stauffer is Chair of the History of American Civilization and Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Among his works include: GIANTS: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln (2008), The Writings of James McCune Smith: Black Intellectual and Abolitionist (2006), and The Problem of Evil: Slavery, Freedom.

AAPB Launches New Special Collection of Radio Programs from Georgia Public Broadcasting, 1992-2007

Collection Summary

The Georgia Gazette Collection consists of 102 Georgia Gazette radio programs produced by Georgia Public Broadcasting in Atlanta, Georgia from 1992-2007. Georgia Gazette started under the name Georgia Journal as an hour long weekly call-in radio magazine that covered a wide array of Georgia topics. It is unclear when the title Georgia Journal changed to Georgia Gazette. The main host of Georgia Gazette was Bruce Dortin. After 2007, the program became a daily thirty-minute broadcast hosted by Rickey Bevington. Georgia Gazette is considered to be the longest running Georgia focused radio program in the country. Each episode focused on a variety of topics with reports from all across the state. It covered Georgia legislative issues and political events including the Georgia general assembly and elections. Common segments that were featured throughout the magazine included sports briefs, the arts calendar, fictional legal advice, and commentaries. Guests often included well-known and lesser-known Georgian writers, comedians, journalists, scholars, lawyers, artists, psychologists, and doctors. Major topics included the 1996 Olympics, teen pregnancy, race issues, and local protests.

Along with the weekly show, the Georgia Gazette team also produced an hour long monthly call-in program called Georgia Gazette Consumer Call-In, which featured guests who would give advice and inform the public on a single consumer-related topic. The Georgia Gazette Consumer Call-In program focused on the single topic of consumer rights. From time to time the program focused on a particular consumer issue such as auto recalls, credit card scams, and telecommunication development. Some guests featured in the program were the Secretary of the State of Georgia Lewis Massey and later, Cathy Cox as well as representatives from the Governor’s Office of Consumer Affairs, Berry Reed and Trilis Halford. During this program, Georgians could call in and get help and advice directly from the experts about their consumer issues. Occasionally, the program would re-release popular segments from past shows together in an episode titled Best of Georgia Gazette.

Collection Background

The Georgia Gazette Series was contributed to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) by GPB during the AAPB Public Broadcasting Digitization Fellowship, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in 2018. Collection digitized by Virginia Angles and Riley Griffin.

Featured Radio Items

 

 

AAPB Launches New Special Collection: 1964 Interviews Collection from American Experience

It was the year of the Beatles and the Civil Rights Act; of the Gulf of Tonkin and Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign; the year that cities across the country erupted in violence and Americans tried to make sense of the Kennedy assassination. Raw interviews from American Experience’s film 1964 follows some of the most prominent figures of the time — Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., Barry Goldwater, Betty Friedan — and brings out from the shadows the actions of ordinary Americans whose frustrations, ambitions and anxieties began to turn the country onto a new and different course.

Collection Summary

The 1964 Interviews Collection is made up of 71 raw interviews from the American Experience documentary of the same name. The film, partly based on Jon Margolis’s The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964, discusses 1964 as a year that defined American politics and culture for decades to come. 1964 begins with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, and discusses the major events of 1964, including the British Invasion, the publication of The Feminine Mystique, Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston’s boxing match, Freedom Summer and the Civil Rights Movement, and President Lyndon B. Johnson and Barry Goldwater’s contentious presidential election. Interviews took place with activists, historians, authors, and journalists, including Hodding Carter III, a journalist who worked on Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential campaign; Stephanie Coontz, a historian; Dave Dennis, a Civil Rights activist who planned Freedom Summer with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE); Robert Lipsyte, a sportswriter; and Phyllis Schlafly, a conservative activist and author of A Choice Not an Echo. Subjects include music and the Beatles, feminism, civil rights, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Barry Goldwater, Muhammad Ali, boxing and sports, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and the Harlem Riots.

Collection Background

The 1964 interviews were conducted in 2014 for the American Experience documentary of the same name, directed by Stephen Ives. In 2017, the WGBH Media Library and Archives digitized the 1964 interviews and in 2018 submitted them to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

Example Interviews

Dave Dennis, 1960s Civil Rights Activist

In this clip, Mr. Dennis speaks about the power of Fannie Lou Hamer as a voice for the people.

 

Direct Link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-k35m90338c

Leah Wright Rigueur, Historian

In this clip, Ms. Rigueur gives perspective on the social climate of 1964.

 

Direct Link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-rv0cv4cx1j

 

Phyllis Schlafly, Conservative Leader 1964

In this clip, Ms. Schlafly talks about her canvassing efforts for Barry Goldwater, Republican Party nominee for President of the United States in 1964.

 

Direct Link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-086348h98h

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Like this content? Explore more interveiw collections at http://americanarchive.org/special_collections.

 

 

A Retrospective on WGBH and Experimental Television, 1968-1970

This year, the WGBH Media Library and Archives (MLA), a participating station of the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB), has begun hosting quarterly archives screenings as part of the WGBH Insiders Screening Series. Last week’s screening, A Retrospective on WGBH and Experimental Television from 1968-1970, offered a unique look into WGBH’s role as one of the first public media stations to explore television as an artistic medium. Over 100 members and guests visited WGBH to view segments of WGBH’s experimental television, including What’s Happening, Mr. Silver?; Madness and Intuition, The Medium is the Medium, and Violence Sonata.

Panelists included:

• Fred Barzyk, the original producer of WGBH’s series New Television Workshop

• George Fifield, Founder and Director of Boston Cyberarts Inc.

• Aldo Tambellini, Multimedia artist who created work for WGBH/Public Broadcasting Laboratory’s 1969 production called The Medium is the Medium

The event was moderated by Ryn Marchese, Engagement and Use Manager for the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, and Peter Higgins, Archives Manager at WGBH Media Library and Archives. Digital Archives Manager Leah Weisse curated an exhibit of relevant production and promotional materials to provide context to the evening’s focus. AAPB and MLA thank Elizabeth Hagyard for her support and collaboration on the event, as well as other staff in events, legal, marketing, and engineering, and WGBH volunteers who helped make the night a success!

Introductory slide for The Medium is the Medium (1969) displaying the six contributing artists. From left to right on stage: Peter Higgins, Ryn Marchese, Fred Barzyk, and George Fifield.

Aldo Tambellini speaks about his video art in The Medium is the Medium (1969).

Digital Archives Manager Leah Weisse curated an exhibit of relevant production and promotional materials to provide context to the evening’s focus.

Event slide deck:

Original post from WGBH Media Library and Archives’ blog at https://wordpress.com/view/blog.openvault.wgbh.org.

Vote for AAPB’s Breakout Session Proposal for the PBS Annual Meeting!

‘Engage Your Community to Celebrate Your History’ – Voting closes January 11th!

Help the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) connect with more public television colleagues by voting for our PBS Annual Meeting session proposal: ‘Engage Your Community to Celebrate Your History’.

Vote for #12 at https://pbs.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1ef18d7e30fe3109d60695e37&id=1015068778&e=0fc245cef2!

Many stations have piles of tapes in closets, basements, off-site storage, or hard drives under desks, that represent our local and national cultural heritage. The AAPB has proposed a session to help stations learn about easy steps toward preserving and making their collection available. Through collaborative grants with stations both large and small, the AAPB has preserved nearly 100,000 programs and original materials contributed by 125 TV and radio stations.

Joining the session would be Broadcast Journalist Judy Woodruff, Chair of our Executive Advisory Council and from the PBS NewsHour, Archivist Chris Alexander from WETA, and AAPB Stations and Producers Advisory Committee Member Kevin Crane from Nashville Public Television to discuss preservation, funding, and engaging initiatives that help preserve broadcasting’s legacy!

It’s as easy as:

1. Click the voting link: https://pbs.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1ef18d7e30fe3109d60695e37&id=1015068778&e=0fc245cef2
2. Press ‘NEXT’ to #12
3. Select AAPB’s Session titled ‘Engage Your Community to Celebrate Your History’
4. Click ‘NEXT’ until you’ve submitted!

Please spread the word with your fellow pubmedia fans! Thank you.

#InnovationMonday: Dr. Michael DeBakey and Heart Surgery

Want to help make this interview searchable and accessible online? While listening to Dr. DeBakey’s interview, audiences can edit the grammatical errors made in the computer-generated transcript at http://fixitplus.americanarchive.org/transcripts/cpb-aacip_17-73bzmhcc!

Produced by Louisiana Public Broadcasting (LPB), this episode of the series “Louisiana Legends” (1982) features the first part of an interview with Dr. Michael DeBakey, a native of Lake Charles, LA who was a preeminent surgeon whose innovations revolutionized heart surgery. During his interview, Dr. DeBakey discusses his father’s immigration to Lake Charles from Lebanon, how he became interested in the heart, the impact of Dr. Alton Ochsner on his career, and his interactions with President Richard Nixon, President John F. Kennedy, and President Lyndon B. Johnson.

“Louisiana Legends” is a talk show hosted by Gus Weill conducting in-depth conversations with Louisiana cultural icons. This series has been digitized and preserved in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) and the public can help make this interview searchable and accessible through the Transcribe to Digitize Challenge!

How does it work? The AAPB has created computer-generated transcripts for each radio and television program in the archive. Stations like LPB are engaging the public to help correct puncutation or misspelled words to make the program available online. These programs are then searchable by keywords and timestamps much like this interview with James Baldwin (WGBH, 1963) – http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-0v89g5gf5r.

You can start editing here http://fixitplus.americanarchive.org/transcripts/cpb-aacip_17-73bzmhcc.

Or watch the full interview at http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_17-73bzmhcc.

To learn how the Transcribe to Digitize Challenge is providing FREE digitization to AAPB’s participating organizations, visit https://americanarchivepb.wordpress.com/2018/10/22/aapbs-transcribe-to-digitize-challenge-with-george-blood/.

Thank you!

National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference Resources

Available Online: 35,000+ Educational Video and Audio Resources and Primary Sources

The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) recently met with K-12 educators, administrators, and teachers-in-training at the annual National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) Conference, a melding of the minds to help advocate and build capacity for high-quality social studies through leadership, services, and support.

As a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation, the AAPB provides an online archive, open and available to the public, of historic public radio and television programs from across the nation, spanning public broadcasting’s 70+ year history. From local and regional to national productions, the AAPB allows the public to access 36,000 (and growing) programs and original materials, from local news and documentaries to talk shows and raw interviews, and more all available at americanarchive.org!

To learn more about the AAPB, watch this informational video with example clips at https://vimeo.com/108272934.

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For easier access and navigation, below is a deeper dive into AAPB’s resources:

The AAPB provides online access to users anywhere in the United States with a wide range of historic public television and radio programs that were submitted for digitization by more than 120 stations and archives from across the country. More than 36,000 programs are available online for research, educational and informational purposes, spanning public broadcasting’s 70+ year history. The entire collection is available for research on location at WGBH and the Library of Congress.

*Start with AAPB’s Road Trip Special Collection at http://americanarchive.org/special_collections/aapb-road-trip!

Check out our participating organizations at http://americanarchive.org/participating-orgs.

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Because of the geographical breadth of the material, students can use the collection to help uncover ways that national historical events played out on the local scene. The long chronological reach from the late 1940s to the present provides researchers with previously inaccessible primary source material to document change over time.

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Some notable collections are featured on the Special Collections page with finding aids that include information such as the scope and content of the collection, provenance and background information about its creator and source, recommended search strategies, and related resources. Collections include:

Raw interviews –

1964 (American Experience)
The Abolitionists (American Experience)
Jubilee Singers (American Experience)
Freedom Riders (American Experience)
The Murder of Emmett Till (American Experience)
Reconstruction (American Experience)
Africans in America (WGBH)

American Masters (WNET)
Ken Burn’s The Civil War (American Documentaries, Inc.)

Early educational broadcasting –

National Association of Educational Broadcasters Programs
National Educational Television Collection

Locally and nationally distributed programs and documentaries –

Center for Asian American Media
Firing Line
Georgia Gazette (GPB)
Oklahoma Educational Television Authority (OETA) News and Cultural Programming
PBS NewsHour
Say Brother (WGBH)
Vision Maker Media Documentaries
Woman (WNED)

Direct link to our Special Collections: http://americanarchive.org/special_collections

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AAPB staff and guest curators create exhibits of selected programs and recordings that focus on themes, topics, and events of cultural and historical significance. Primary and secondary sources contextualize a diversity of perspectives concerning the exhibit’s focus and as a result, AAPB exhibits often illuminate how public broadcasting stations and producers have covered topics such as the Watergate hearings, climate change, protesting in America, civil rights, and more!

Direct link to our Curated Exhibits: http://americanarchive.org/exhibits

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Contact Ryn Marchese, AAPB’s Engagement and Use Manager, to inquire about bringing these materials into your classroom: ryn_marchese@wgbh.org!

And feel free to share our resource with your local school, public and academic librarians! We’ve created a AAPB Library Communications Kit with details on how to describe the AAPB on website/resource guides and embed our player and harvest metadata from our catalog. We’ve also included a link to our webinar with the Boston Library Consortium on the “Accessibility of AAPB in Academic Libraries,” most of which will be applicable to the public librarian community.

For information about the AAPB that you can print for your classroom, email to fellow teachers, or post about online, feel free to use our Informational Flyer!

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Most recommended content during NCSS?

Based on our conversations with teachers, below are a few programs we most recommended during the conference!

1. PBS NewsHour Special Collection – The PBS NewsHour Collection includes more than 8,000 episodes of PBS NewsHour’s predecessor programs from October 1975 to December 2007 covering local and national conversations.
2. “Gavel-to-Gavel”: The Watergate Scandal and Public Television Curated Exhibit – Here you will find guides to each episode of the public hearings that were digitized, links to transcripts, and highlights to peruse. To help identify people in the videos, the Cast of Characters page includes photos and titles for the important figures in the hearings. The Watergate Scandal, 1972-1974 page gives an explanation of the who, what, when, where, and why of Watergate to help guide you through the coverage. If you would like a more in depth essay on the significant role that Watergate played in the history of public broadcasting, please click on the Watergate and Public Broadcasting link.
3. Field Trip Series from Main Public Broadcasting – Field Trip is a series of short educational documentaries that explore Maine’s history, culture, and agriculture from fish hatcheries to how low/high tides work — there’s so much to explore!
4. Local Content – Search our participating stations for local content!

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The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston that preserves and makes accessible significant public radio and television programs before they are lost to posterity. The AAPB collection includes more than 50,000 recorded hours comprising over 90,000 digitized and born-digital programs, and original materials dating back to the late 1940s, and is growing!

Written by Ryn Marchese, AAPB Engagement and Use Manager

@amarchivepub

Remembering George H.W. Bush through Public Broadcasting

Today the nation lays to rest George Herbert Walker Bush, America’s 41st president who lived a long life dedicated to public service until his death at the age of 94. The American Archive of Public Broadcasting (AAPB) is honored to have preserved for modern audiences several historic public television and radio programs featuring or discussing President Bush, providing the American public the opportunity to learn more about his remarkable career in moving images and sound.

Below is a curated selection of programs with, or related to, George H.W. Bush beginning with his role as CIA Director, then on to his presidential campaigns, moderated debates, and the local reactions to his impact as a leading politician. All programs are available online thanks to the listed contributing stations.

1976

The CIA and the Intelligence Community from the Hoover Institution Library and Archives, Stanford University

In this episode of Commonwealth Club of California, George H.W. Bush discussed the responsibilities of the director of central intelligence (DCI), the role of the CIA, and the central importance of national security. He also talked about secrecy, accountability, and having faith in the strength and effectiveness of our democratic institutions.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_514-2j6833np4c

1977

George Bush in Boston from 10 O’Clock News

As a former CIA director, George H. W. Bush, spoke on national security and foreign affairs. In regards to relations with South American countries, Bush explained his belief that one should not use 1977 morals to pass judgment on events that happened in the past. He denied allegations that the CIA used the African Swine Fever Virus in Cuba to “destabilize”. Also denied that he ever authorized any use of chemical or biological warfare agents. He touched briefly on his potential candidacy for presidency.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-5t3fx73z3d

1979

– George Bush Profile; George Bush for President from The MacNeil/Lehrer Report

The main topic of this episode was George H.W. Bush’s candidacy for president of the United States. The guests included Bush’s three campaign leaders Peter Teeley, David Keene, and James Baker, as well as George H.W. Bush.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-db7vm43k4v

– Presidential Hopeful George H.W. Bush from Iowa Public Television

Iowa Press interviewed George H.W. Bush, a relatively unknown candidiate at the time and his strategy to leverage Iowa toward his party.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_37-08hdrb0b/track?search_id=191701

1980

Debates with Six Republican Presidencial Candidates from Iowa Public Television

This presidential debate recorded by Iowa Public Television included panelists Rep. Phil Crane Of Illinois, Senate Minority Leader Howard Baker Of Tenn., John Connally Of Texas, Sen. Robert Dole Of Kansas, George H.W. Bush Of Texas, and Rep. John Anderson of Illinois.

Part 1 direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_37-83kwhj7b

Part 2 direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_37-569325t0

1984

Debate between Vice President George Bush and Geraldine Ferraro produced by The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, contributed by Iowa Public Television

 

This debate focused on Vice President Bush and vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro on foreign and domestic affairs.

Part 1 direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_37-72b8h3np

Part 2 direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_37-19f4qw2s

1988

– The Bush Record from The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

In the latter half of this episode, The MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour covered the political record of the new republican presidential nominee, George H.W. Bush.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-862b85443p

 

– A Firing Line Debate: Resolved: That George Bush and the Republican Party Are Better Able to Run the Country for the Next Four Years Than Michael Dukakis and the Democratic Party from Firing Line with William F. Buckley

The television series Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr. was a venue for debate and discussion on political, social, and philosophical issues with experts of the day. In this episode, Buckley hosted a panel to discuss Bush’s impact as president, over that of his opponent’s, Michael Dukakis.

Direct Link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_514-4f1mg7gh5j

– Andrew Young and NAACP members criticize Bush from 10 O’Clock News

In this episode of WGBH’s 10 O’Clock News, Deborah Wang noted that many members of the Legal Defense Fund were skeptical of President George Bush’s commitment to civil rights; she added that civil rights advocates were worried about Bush making conservative appointments to the judiciary. Wang reported that there would be several openings in lower courts and a possible opening on the Supreme Court during Bush’s term in office.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_15-9ks6j45g

1989 – Inauguration Year

– The Week of the the 41st Presidencial Inauguration from NewsHour Productions

In this episode, essayist Roger Rosenblatt discussed George H.W. Bush’s inauguration and his role in Civil Rights.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_507-j678s4kf08

*Start at timecode 49:20

– What the Presidency Means for Business from Maryland Public Television

From the Wall Street Week series, this episode compared the monetary impact of Ronald Reagan’s presidency verses Bush’s. Guests included Reagan’s budget chief, a top Wall Street money man, and a leading invester of Europe.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_394-7957421w

1992

Speaking for Bush from Maryland Public Television

From this episode of Wall Street Week, Lynn M. Martin, United States Secretary of Labor under President George H.W. Bush, spoke on President Bush’s economic policies.

Direct link: http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_394-28nck2pq

 

Written by Ryn Marchese, AAPB Engagement and Use Manager