AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, THE: NEW YORK: A DOCUMENTARY FILM: COSMOPOLIS {EPISODE FIVE} {TAPE 1 OF 2} (TV)
Summary
Tape one of two. One in this documentary series. Part five in a seven-episode Ric Burns documentary that chronicles the history of New York from its inception as a Dutch Colony to its aggressive and destructive urban renewal campaigns of the 1950s. Utilizing archival photographs, film footage, news clippings, and interviews with scholars and writers, this episode focuses on the Roaring Twenties. Historian John Kuo Wei Tchen opens by explaining that New York is "marked by an exchange process" -- an exchange of material goods, ideas, people, things, and desires. The narrator describes the return of troops from World War I in the spring and summer of 1919. He calls the war a watershed for Europe, the U.S., and New York. Historian Mike Wallace notes that after the war New York rivaled London as "the center of the world." Historians describe the change and growth for New York during the decade that followed -- and less attractive features of American life like the red scare. Writer Margo Jefferson talks about F. Scott Fitzgerald's move to New York City and his career there, including his creation of the novel "This Side of Paradise." Wallace talks about Prohibition and the great boom of the 1920s, which revolved around the production, marketing, and consumption of goods. Historian Daniel Czitrom describes this boom in more detail, quoting Samuel Strauss about the production of consumers as well as goods. The first radio advertisement is described, and Czitrom calls it the beginning of the American system of broadcasting. A number of experts elaborate on the development of advertising and consumerism. Historians then describe the growth of jazz in New York City. They also discuss the community African Americans created in Harlem, as well as the growth of art and culture throughout the city. The new Broadway musicals are described, as well as the meaning New York took on for the rest of country as place in which media, commerce, and art melded together. Wallace describes the growing "sense of helplessness that many people felt" confronted with escalating novelty in goods and mores. Finally, the program describes Fitzgerald's critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful novel "The Great Gatsby" and the novelist's decline. Continues with T:66509.
Details
- NETWORK: PBS
- DATE: November 18, 1999 Thursday 9:00 PM
- RUNNING TIME: 0:47:22
- COLOR/B&W: Color
- CATALOG ID: T:66508
- GENRE: Public affairs/Documentaries
- SUBJECT HEADING: Advertising; Consumers; New York (N.Y.) - History; New York City; Novelists; Prohibition; Radio - History; World War I
- SERIES RUN: PBS - TV, 1999
- COMMERCIALS: N/A
CREDITS
- Margaret Drain … Executive Producer
- Judy Crichton … Executive Producer
- Ric Burns … Executive Producer, Director, Writer
- Kerry Herman … Coordinating Producer
- Kate Roth Knull … Supervising Producer
- Lisa Ades … Producer
- Steve Rivo … Co-Producer
- Ray Segal … Co-Producer
- Meghan Horvath … Researcher
- Anya Sirota … Researcher
- James Sanders … Writer
- Ronald Blumer … Writer
- Brian Keane … Music by
- David Ogden Stiers … Narrator
- Daniel Czitrom
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Margo Jefferson
- Samuel Strauss
- Tchen, John Kuo Wei
- Mike Wallace