The Environment

Since pre-colonial times, Americans' relationship to the natural world has shaped politics, policy, commerce, entertainment and culture. In this collection, delve into our complicated history with the environment through American Experience films exploring wide-ranging topics, from our struggles to exert dominion over nature to our attempts to understand and protect it.

Films

Film
The Sun Queen

Scientist Mária Telkes dedicated her career to harnessing the power of the sun. Though undercut and thwarted by her male colleagues, she persevered to design the first successfully solar-heated house in 1948 and held more than 20 patents.
Film
Flood in the Desert

Explore the 1928 dam collapse, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, who had ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing water to the city via aqueduct.
Film
Rachel Carson

An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking writings revolutionized our relationship to the natural world and launched the modern environmental movement.
Film
The Civilian Conservation Corps

One of the most popular New Deal programs, the Civilian Conservation Corps put three million young men to work in the nation's forests and parks at the height of the Great Depression.
Film
Earth Days

A meditation on man’s complex relationship with nature and an engaging history of the revolutionary achievements and missed opportunities of eco-activism.
Film
The Swamp

The Swamp, explores the repeated efforts to reclaim, control and transform what was seen as a vast wasteland into an agricultural and urban paradise, and, ultimately, the drive to preserve America’s greatest wetland.

Watch

Flood in the Desert | Clip
Water Wars

Environmental scientist Peter Gleick and CEO of the U.S. Water Alliance Mami Hara speak with historian Jessica Marie Johnson about access, availability and conflicts around clean water in the United States.
The Sun Queen | Digital Short
Off the Grid: New Mexico

Zani, Yaseen and Khari live on a 25-acre homestead in the New Mexico desert. Join us as we visit them to find out what modern off-grid living looks like.
Rachel Carson | Digital Short
Malaria and the Silent Spring

In this co-production with Retro Report, scientists and historians weigh in on Rachel Carson, and today’s battle against malaria.
The Swamp | Digital Short
The Price of Feathers

The surprisingly violent history of women's hats — and the women who set a new, humane trend in fashion.
Earth Days | Clip
The First Earth Day

The first national observation of Earth Day took place on April 22, 1970, when an estimated 20 million people across the country took to the streets in protest against environmental pollution.

Articles

The Sun Queen | Article
Capturing the Sun Queen

How Mária Telkes and her radical design modeled a new future.
The Sun Queen | Article
The Marvelously Inventive Life of Mária Telkes

A look at the scientist’s breakthrough innovations, from the world’s first solar-heated home to an electricity-free Easy Bake Oven.
Rachel Carson | Article
Telling the Big Story: Science Writer Elizabeth Kolbert

In 1962, The New Yorker published Rachel Carson’s articles on the side effects of pesticides. Today the magazine publishes science journalism by Elizabeth Kolbert, who reports on climate change.
The Swamp | Article
A Place to Remember

Indigenous stories from the Everglades.
Flood in the Desert | Article
Damming the American West

Do ideas from the past offer new ways of thinking about the environment?
The Big Burn | Article
Fighting Wildfires

Though the policies and attitudes towards managing wildfires have evolved over the last century, the destructive power of fire remains constant.
Surviving the Dust Bowl | Article
The Father of Soil Conservation

In 1933, Hugh Hammond Bennett was made director of the Soil Erosion Service, which worked to combat erosion caused by dust storms.
TR | Article
Theodore Roosevelt and the Environment

Inquisitive and single-minded, TR pursued his interest in nature relentlessly — it was a pursuit that would impact America's wild places for decades after his death.
The Alaska Pipeline | Article
The Environmental Movement and the Oil Industry

Different conservation groups had different objectives, but the 800-mile Trans-Alaska pipeline project rallied the environmental community in a way no other project had done before.

Explore

Earth Days | Timeline
The Modern Environmental Movement

Explore a timeline of the environmental movement from 1948 to 1990.
Earth Days | Image Gallery
Earth Day Across America

On April 22, 1970, more than 20 million Americans gathered on college campuses and in city squares to celebrate the first Earth Day.
The Civilian Conservation Corps | Image Gallery
Civilian Conservation Corps

President Roosevelt’s CCC put three million young men to work across America during the 1930s Great Depression.

The Environment

Films

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Articles

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Additional funding for the Environment collection provided by