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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C-SPAN’s Local Content Vehicles take American History TV on the road. Throughout the weekend of June 15-17 we feature the history of Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Author and professor Jonathan Gill talks about his book “Harlem: The Four Hundred Year History from Dutch Village to Capital of Black America.” To illustrate the scope of the Harlem Renaissance, Professor Gill discusses James Weldon Johnson -- a poet, songwriter, author, educator, diplomat and civil rights activist. This event was hosted by the New York City Bar Association.

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The Civil War Battle of Chancellorsville was fought April 30 to May 6, 1863, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Many historians consider the battle to be Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s greatest victory. Facing a Union Army more than twice the size of his own, Lee divided his forces, sending 27,000 men under “Stonewall” Jackson on a 12-mile march to deliver a flank attack. In this program, we follow two National Park Service historians on a tour as they walk the same ground exactly 150 years after Jackson launched his attack.

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Author Graham Hodges looks at New York City’s cartmen, who hauled goods on one-horse carts and dominated the streets of the city from 1667 to 1850. He talks about how the cartmen developed deep relationships with the merchants and residents of New York City and came to be a part of the civic culture. The cartmen also came to hold political power and can be considered the forerunners of modern labor unions. The Gotham Center for New York City History hosted this event.

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University of Kansas professor Shawn Leigh Alexander teaches a class on the period following the end of slavery to the beginning of segregation. Professor Alexander discusses the failed Civil Rights Act of 1875, the Supreme Court ‘s 1896 “separate but equal” ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson, and African American journalist Ida B. Wells work to expose the horrors of lynching in the United States. The University of Kansas is in Lawrence.
 

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