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  • Smithsonian Channel

America in Color

  • 2017 – 2019
  • Returning Series
  • Documentary
  • ~48m / ep
  • 3 seasons
  • 7.8/10

From the 1920s through the 1960s, America transformed from a young country on the rise into a global superpower. Using digital colorization technology, we present these formative decades as few have seen them, revisiting 50 vibrant years of good times and great despair, technological triumphs and natural disasters, and global villains and national heroes.

Latest: Season 3 · 2019

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In the early years of TV, from its invention in the 1920s until the mid-'60s, most shows were broadcast in black and white before color TV gained in popularity and become economically viable for broadcasters. That means many historic pieces of video -- including rare home movies of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Nixon-Kennedy debate -- have all been relegated to being viewed in the colorless format. "America in Color" looks to change that by restoring and colorizing archival footage from the early 20th century through the '60s. Producers meticulously researched the original colors to make sure the tones are correct when they use revolutionary methods to add the proper hues to footage. Each episode of the hourlong series highlights newly restored footage from a specific decade in the history of the medium.

  1. E1. Coming to America

    Nov 17, 2019 · 48m

    From Einstein-mania to Sicilian pizza, see how immigrants changed America’s identity, culture, and tastes.

  2. E2. Disasters

    Nov 24, 2019 · 48m

    See how the worst American disasters of the 1900s led to new innovations and mitigations against future calamities.

  3. E3. Alaska

    Dec 2, 2019 · 48m

    At the dawn of the 20th century, most Americans think of Alaska as an icy unpopulated wilderness, but one event will change everything: the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896. Through remastered and colorized news footage and home movies, witness Alaska's evolution from a frozen wasteland at the edge of the world to the 49th state to join the Union. From boomtowns to volcanic blasts to Japanese invasions, this is the story of America's last frontier as you have never seen it before.

  4. E4. Made in the USA

    Dec 8, 2019 · 48m

  5. E5. Crimes of the Century

    Dec 9, 2019 · 48m

  6. E6. Small Town Life

    Dec 15, 2019 · 48m

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