Florentine Films

This revealing and poignant film by Ken Burns portrays 200 years of Shaker life in America, guided by the recollections of the three surviving members of the faith, along with a wealth of archival material from over 40 collections. Explore every aspect of this strange and noble sect that produced some of the greatest architecture and furniture in American history.

The American Buffalo delves into over 10,000 years of North American history, exploring the evolution and significance of buffalo to Native American people on the Great Plains and highlighting the near-extinction of the American buffalo, driven by factors such as the buffalo robe trade, westward expansion, diseases, and drought. The second episode follows a diverse group, including Theodore Roosevelt and Charles Goodnight, in their efforts to rescue...

Presents the history of women's suffrage in the United States through the dramatic, often turbulent friendship of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony. Part 1 covers the years from their youth up to the establishment of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1868. Part 2 spans the period from 1868 to the passage in 1919 of the 19th amendment to the Constitution which gave women the vote.

Traces the history of the Medal of Honor from its inception during the Civil War through the Iraq War. Focuses on the stories of a valiant few: Sgt. Paul Smith who died protecting his company at the Baghdad Airport; a Holocaust survivor who single-handedly defends a hill during the Korean War; a Navy SEAL, a veteran of the Vietnam War, who swam for two hours in the ocean, carrying his wounded comrades to safety; a Marine at Iwo Jima who used a flamethrower...

At the end of the 19th century, some Americans begin to question the nation's headlong rush across the continent that has devastated forests and ravaged entire species of animals. Conservation's greatest champion is the new president, Theodore Roosevelt, who creates parks and wildlife refuges, and then audaciously uses the Antiquities Act to set aside 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon as a national monument. John Muir fights the battle of his life...

As the nation enters the 1920's, Stephen Mather and Horace Albright ally themselves with the automobile to "democratize" the national parks and attract more Americans to them. Nebraskans Margaret and Edward Gehrke begin collecting parks each summer, while Glenn and Bessie Hyde spend their honeymoon in a homemade boat on the raging Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Horace Kephart, a reclusive writer, and George Masa, a Japanese immigrant and...

After World War II, an increasingly mobile and affluent nation begins placing demands on the parks as never before, and the parks are in danger of being "loved to death," A park service biologist names Adolph Murie argues that ingrained practices such as killing predators runs counter to the purpose of national parks, while David Brower of the Sierra Club mobilizes public opinion to defeat congressional proposals for dams in pristine places. In the...

Ken Burns presents and follows the transformation of a single struggling, impoverished Atlanta neighborhood over several years as community members apply a radical holistic revitalization program to improve the lives of every resident.

Ken Burns's two-part, four-hour documentary explores Benjamin Franklin's revolutionary life as one of the 18th century's most complex and consequential figures, whose work and words unlocked the mystery of electricity and helped create the United States.

It is an epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs. It is a saga spanning the quest for racial justice, the clash of labor and management, the transformation of popular culture, and the unfolding of the national pastime. Here is the story of a nation at work and play.