Using works of art, mechanical inventions, and scientific discoveries, “The Great American Hall of Wonders” exhibit examines innovation in 19th Century America. American History TV attended a press preview and toured the Smithsonian American Art Museum show with guest curator Claire Perry.

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Eighty-three year-old Ray Loomis has worked in the printing industry since he was 15 years old. American History TV visited the Baltimore Museum of Industry where's he's a volunteer to see a demonstration of historic printing methods and machines, including the revolutionary Linotype, which was invented in Baltimore by German immigrant Ottmar Mergenthaler.

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In this second of a two-part look at U.S. Government funded color photographs from the Library of Congress, we feature images created for the Office of War Information in the 1940’s. Photographers were assigned to travel the United States and document war production efforts.  Our guide is Curator of Photography Beverly Brannan.

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During the Great Depression & World War II, photographers working for the Farm Security Administration and later the Office of War Information created about 1,600 color photographs documenting agricultural life & war production in the United States. American History TV visited the Library of Congress to learn about the collection from curator Beverly Brannan. 

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The first Inaugural Ball held in the National Building Museum was Grover Cleveland’s in 1885, when it was known as the Pension Building and was still under construction.  Composed of over 15 million red bricks, the Pension Building contains a Great Hall that is 316 feet long and 159 feet high. American History TV visited to learn about the 19th century Inaugural tradition that continues in the 21st century, including President Obama's Commander-in-Chief Ball held there in January of 2009.

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In this program from our 1999 "American Presidents: Life Portraits" series we focused on James Garfield's life and career. Historians discussed Garfield's military service, his election as president and assassination shortly after his inauguration. Suzanne Miller, the site manager at Garfield's home in Mentor, Ohio, talked about several of the artifacts and documents that Garfield left behind. 

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C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles take American History TV on the road. Throughout the weekend of May 18-20 we feature the history of Columbia, South Carolina.

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Thousands of colonists rejected the War for American Independence and many fled to the British stronghold of New York City. San Jose State University History Professor Ruma Chopra discusses the situation in the city and the perspective of those who looked upon the British as natural allies in religion, language and blood and thought the violence of rebellion was unnecessary and unlawful.

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American History TV visited San Francisco’s Chinatown to follow historian Charlie Chin as he tells the story of the Chinese in America to a group of college students. This is part one of a three-part series on San Francisco’s Chinatown. This portion of the series was recorded in the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum.
 

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Metropolitan State University professor Douglas Rossinow teaches a class on the Iran-Contra affair, which took place in the mid-1980s during the Reagan Administration. The Iran-Contra affair stems from Reagan administration officials funding the Contras - who were fighting against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua - with money from the sale of arms to Iran. The arms were being sold to Iran in the hope of gaining the release of American hostages held in Lebanon - hence the reason the affair is sometimes called as the “arm-for-hostages” scandal. Metropolitan State University is in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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