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The West: A Film by Stephen Ives and Presented by Ken Burns

Season 1
Packed with vivid imagery and personalities, The West reveals the triumph and tragedy of America's drive to become a continental nation.
IMDb 8.419969 episodesX-Ray13+
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Episodes

  1. S1 E1 - The People
    September 14, 1996
    1 h 22 min
    ALL
    The West begins as the whole world to the people who live there. It becomes a New World when Europeans arrive, a world shaken by incompatible visions. And almost three centuries later, when Lewis and Clark venture west to find a Northwest Passage, this world becomes the testing-ground for a young nation's continent-spanning dream.
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  2. S1 E2 - Empire Upon the Trails
    September 15, 1996
    1 h 24 min
    ALL
    Americans head west along many pathways -- following the fur trade into the mountains, fighting for self-determination in Texas, seeking religious freedom in Utah or a better life along the Oregon Trail. But whatever direction they travel, they move closer with every step to a “Manifest Destiny” that will make the West their own.
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  3. S1 E3 - The Speck of the Future
    September 16, 1996
    1 h 25 min
    ALL
    The Gold Rush brings the whole world to the West, as 49ers from Asia, South America and the eastern states scramble for “a share of the rocks,” littering the hills with mining towns and creating the West’s first metropolis. But in the push to strike it rich, many are violently pushed aside.
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  4. S1 E4 - Death Runs Riot
    September 17, 1996
    1 h 24 min
    ALL
    Civil war comes early to the West. In “Bleeding Kansas,” abolitionists battle for free soil. In Utah, federal troops march against Mormon polygamy. And along the Rio Grande, oppressed Mexican Americans rebel. The war between North and South unleashes brute savagery in the West, and leaves behind an army prepared for total war against the native peoples of the plains.
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  5. S1 E5 - The Grandest Enterprise Under God
    September 18, 1996
    1 h 24 min
    13+
    A triumph of the human spirit, the transcontinental railroad opens a new era in the West, carrying homesteaders onto the prairies, bringing cowboys up the cattle trail from Texas, helping give women the vote in Utah and sending buffalo hunters onto the plains, where they drive a symbol of the West -- and a way of life -- to the brink of extinction.
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  6. S1 E6 - Fight No More Forever
    September 19, 1996
    1 h 25 min
    13+
    The federal government tightens its grip on the West, but three bold spirits remain defiant -- Sitting Bull, who prophesies his people's greatest victory but cannot prevent their ultimate defeat; Brigham Young, who must sacrifice a spiritual son to save his church; and Chief Joseph, who triumphs in defeat as an indomitable voice of conscience for the West.
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  7. S1 E7 - The Geography of Hope
    September 20, 1996
    1 h 25 min
    13+
    Newcomers arrive by the millions, bringing a new spirit of conformity to the West. Indian children are taught to forsake their heritage, Mormons are told to abandon a tenet of their faith, and new laws deny Chinese and Mexican Americans a place in society. Yet the legend of the “Wild West” lives on, thanks to the greatest showman of the age.
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  8. S1 E8 - Ghost Dance
    September 21, 1996
    59min
    13+
    As settlers race to claim tribal lands, Native Americans take up the Ghost Dance, trusting in its power to restore a lost way of life until their hopes are crushed at Wounded Knee. The new century marks a new era in the West, an age of aqueducts and smelters. But the West remains what it has always been, a world waiting for a dream.
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  9. S1 E9 - One Sky Above Us
    September 21, 1996
    1 h 3 min
    13+
    As the 20th century neared, Americans celebrated with the World Columbian Exposition, where they were told that the frontier had closed – symbolized by one state proudly displaying an entire heard of buffalo – stuffed. But in the real West, for every frontier story that ended, another one began.
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Details

More info

Content advisory
Nudityviolencesmokingfoul languagesexual content
Subtitles
None available
Directors
Stephen Ives
Producers
Stephen IvesJody AbramsonKen BurnsDayton DuncanVictoria GohlMichael Kantor
Cast
Peter Coyote
Studio
PBS
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