American History Tellers

American History Tellers

Release Date

All Episodes

Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Edgar Allan Poe: Master of Macabre | 1

In February 1826, 17-year-old Edgar Allan Poe was a promising student at the University of Virginia. But within a few months, gambling debts forced him to abandon his studies. It was just one of many setbacks Poe endured in a life marked by financial struggle, alcoholism, and per ...  Show more

Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Louisa May Alcott: The Breadwinner | 2

In 1840, eight-year-old Louisa May Alcott moved to the small town of Concord, Massachusetts with her family. There, she spent her days wandering through the woods, putting on plays with her sisters, and learning from famed writers and philosophers such as Henry David Thoreau and ...  Show more

Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | Mark Twain: Voice of a Nation | 3

In the late 1850s, a young man named Samuel Clemens started out piloting steamboats on the Mississippi River. Within a few years, he embarked on a writing career, adopting the pen name that became famous: Mark Twain. Armed with a wry sense of humor and a natural flair for storyte ...  Show more

Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | John Steinbeck: The Observer | 4

Growing up in the Salinas Valley of Northern California, John Steinbeck dreamed of becoming a professional writer. In his youth he took on odd jobs and worked amongst ranch hands and migrant workers, who would inspire some of his greatest work, including The Grapes of Wrath. Publ ...  Show more

Fan Favorite: Great American Authors | James Baldwin: The Exile | 5

Born into poverty in Harlem in 1924, James Baldwin rose to become a celebrated novelist, essayist, playwright, and poet, and a leading voice in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. In his debut novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, and in his essay collections, Notes of a Native ...  Show more