Idea Book for Educators

Use this guide to create lesson plans when you watch with your students.

Activity Guide

America The Story of Us provides a fascinating look at the stories of the people, events, and innovations that forged our nation. This guide will provide you with opportunities to bring our nation’s history to life for your students.

Family Viewing Guide

Watching with your family? This guide will show you how to get the most of the experience fo you and your loved ones.

Episode 1: Rebels

This is the story of how, over seven generations, a group of European settlers survive against all odds, claw themselves up and then turn against their colonial masters. A diverse group of men, women and children are about to become truly American.

Episode 2: Revolution

July 9, 1776. The Declaration of Independence is read to crowds in New York. America’s 13 colonies have taken on the might of the world’s leading superpower, and by 1783, America is free.  As the British leave, a new nation, the United States of America, is born.

Episode 3: Westward

As the American nation is born, a vast continent lies to the west of the mountains, waiting to be explored and exploited. For the pioneers who set out to confront these lands, following trailblazers like Daniel Boone, the conquest of the West is a story of courage and hardship that forges the character of America. America now stretches from "sea to shining sea."

Episode 4: Division

America becomes a nation at the moment a revolution in commerce and industry sweeps across the western world. This vast new country, rich in resources, experiences a rapid change--in trade, transport and manufacturing--quickly turning America into one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Now two different Americas, united in prosperity, but divided by culture, face each other across a growing gulf. The issue is slavery.

Episode 5: Civil War

The Civil War rages. It is 20th century technology meeting 18th century tactics and the result is a death toll never before seen on American soil. After General William Sherman's March to the Sea, the South is definitively crushed, and the industrial might that allows the Union to prevail leaves America poised to explode into the 20th century as a global superpower.

Episode 6: Heartland

The Transcontinental Railroad doesn't just change the lives of Americans, it alters the entire ecology of the continent. It's the railroad that creates a new American icon--the cowboy--who drives cattle thousands of miles to meet the railheads and bring food to the East. In less than a quarter of a century, the heartland is transformed--not by the gun, but by railroad, fence and plough.

Episode 7: Cities

Between 1880 and 1930, nearly 24 million new immigrants arrive in America. Many go to work building a new frontier: the modern city, one of America's greatest inventions.  This new urban frontier draws rural migrants and newly arrived immigrant workers. Powered by steel and electricity, the city begins to be tamed and defined by mass transportation, stunning skylines, electric light...and the innovative, industrious American spirit.

Episode 8: Boom

In 1910 in California, a column of oil nearly 200 feet high explodes out of a derrick and sets off a chain of events that will turn America into a superpower. Mass production and job opportunities prompted by the First World War draw African Americans to northern cities like Chicago, but racial conflict follows. A popular campaign to ban alcohol succeeds, yet when it comes, Prohibition triggers a wave of organized crime.

Episode 9: Bust

In October 1929, the economic boom of the 1920s ends with a crash on Wall Street. The American Dream has become a nightmare. The stock market crash coincides with the start of the Great Depression. The New Deal and public works projects aim to save America from despair and destitution.  However, world conflict is brewing in Europe, and it is brought home to Americans by the symbolic boxing match between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling.

Episode 10: WWII

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brings America into another world war, changing the nation from an isolationist continent to a global player--and ensuring economic prosperity once more. America launches a war effort, and as always, bigger is better. The might of America's strategy and supplies turns the tide of war. A new world order has been created--and America has changed forever.

Episodes 11 & 12: Superpower/Millennium

The country becomes enmeshed in a second Civil War of sorts-until, at long last, the Civil Rights Movement brings the words of the Declaration of Independence home to all Americans. America is united once again, but a new threat is on the horizon: Communism. The conflicts of the late 1960s and 1970s remind America of the rifts that divided the nation before the Civil War, but the boom of the 1980s heralds better times. America's confidence is rocked by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, but the country remains the world's superpower. As the nation launches into the 21st century, what does the future hold?