PBS Launches Companion Site For American Experience Reconstruction: The Second Civil War
 

On a misty April evening in 1865, a jubilant crowd packed the White House lawn to hear President Abraham Lincoln’s first speech since the end of the Civil War. They expected a stirring celebration of the Union victory—but instead got harsh reality. 

Even with the South defeated, Lincoln warned, the future would be “fraught with great difficulty.” He called the task ahead reconstruction—a word that has returned to American headlines nearly a century and a half later, in the aftermath of the war in Iraq.

On Monday and Tuesday, January 12 and 13, 2004, at 9pm on PBS, American Experience premieres Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, a two-part, three-hour series that examines one of the least understood periods in American history. Elizabeth Deane (The Kennedys, The Rockefellers, Ulysses S. Grant) is series producer; Llewellyn Smith (Africans in America, Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory, Race: The Power of an Illusion) is producer of Part I; Patricia Garcia-Rios (Chicago: City of the Century) is co-producer of Part II. Dion Graham narrates. 

A comprehensive Web site at pbs.org/amex/reconstruction features a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, a state-by-state exploration of Reconstruction events and laws, personal accounts from the era, bonus video material, and a teacher’s guide.

What you can do online: 

• Screen Reconstruction in its entirely. This is the first AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film freely available online, on-demand: pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/program/index.html
• Follow our film crew to eight shooting locations from Natchitoches, Louisiana, to Danvers, Massachusetts
• Explore the impact of the war state by state using Census data from 1860 and 1870
• Browse a gallery of Reconstruction-era churches, and learn how slavery split the religious community
• Tap into the rich resources available using a teacher's guide—in a classroom or on your own: pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/tguide/index.html
• Watch eight bonus mini-documentaries on plantations in ruins, black legislators, carpetbaggers, sharecroppers, the first public schools, the KKK, and more:

 
• The Union Army allots "40 acres and a mule" to freed slaves: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/40acres/index.html
• Southern owners return to ruined plantations: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/plantation/index.html
• America's first black legislators are elected: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/activism/index.html
• Northerners travel South to seek opportunities: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/carpetbagger/index.html
• The first public schools open in the South:
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/schools/index.html
• Former slaves and landowners make new labor arrangements: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/sharecrop/index.html
• Northerners debate what they've done for former slaves: 
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/nast/index.html
• Secret terror organizations like the KKK start in the South:
pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reconstruction/kkk/index.html

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE Online is produced by WGBH Interactive, Boston, which produces Web sites supporting WGBH national series such as NOVA, Antiques Roadshow and ARTHUR. The WGBH Educational Foundation is the single largest producer of primetime television programs and Web sites seen nationally on PBS and PBS.org.

PBS Online
PBS.org, PBS’s award-winning site on the World Wide Web, produces high-quality Web programming as it pioneers the convergence of television and the Internet. PBS.org features more than 150,000 pages of content as well as companion Web sites for more than 500 PBS programs and specials, and is the #1 “dot-org” Web site in the world. (Source: Nielsen NetRatings)

AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE, television’s most-watched history series, is a preeminent producer of historical documentaries, related web sites, and DVDs. The pioneer of quality historical programming for public television audiences, AMERICAN EXPERIENCE has won every prestigious broadcast award and enjoys consistent widespread support from television critics and viewers alike. Major funding for AMERICAN EXPERIENCE is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. National corporate funding is provided by Liberty Mutual and The Scotts Company. Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public television viewers.

PRESS CONTACTS 
Leslie Sepuka, WGBH Boston, Tel: 617.300.5329; Email: leslie_sepuka(--at--)wgbh.org
Daphne B. Noyes, WGBH Boston, Tel: 617.300.5344; Email: daphne_noyes(--atat--)wgbh.org