Friday, April 13 & 20 at 9:00 p.m.
Mark Twain
It is a story of humble beginnings, a meteoric rise to fame and the burden and tragedy of personal hardships endured. Twain's story is really that of two men: Sam Clemens, a devoted family man who lost his brother, wife, son and two daughters to tragedies; the provider who had to tour the lecture circuit to make enough money to pull himself out of debt after bad investments left him virtually penniless. And Mark Twain, the astonishingly successful writer who became the enduring voice of a nation, stirring up controversies that exist to this day, and nearly single-handedly inventing American literature.
Friday, April 27 & May 4 at 9:00 p.m.
Prohibition
Set in the era of bathtub gin, bootleggers and speakeasies, the series tells the true story of the rise, rule and fall of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It was called the “Noble Experiment,” but it was in fact one of America’s most notorious civic failures, an object lesson in the challenge of legislating human behavior. After the 18th Amendment was passed in 1919, America would be split by a fierce cultural divide for several years between “wets” and “drys,” as Prohibition pit the city against the countryside, Protestants against Catholics and immigrants against native-born citizens. The film raises vital questions that are as relevant today as they were 100 years ago — about means and ends, individual rights and responsibilities and the proper role of government.
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