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The Roosevelts: A Conversation with Ken Burns
Grade Range: 9-12
Resource Type(s): Reference Materials, Interactives & Media
Duration: 62 minutes
Date Posted:
9/16/2014
This archived webcast features filmmaker Ken Burns discussing this documentary The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. The webcast included historian Clay Jenkinson, Smithsonian curator Harry Rubenstein, and Roosevelt biographer Geoffrey Ward. The conversation covered varied topics from how Theodore and Franklin rank among other American presidents and their possible responses to the contemporary political climate, to the way in which Eleanor Roosevelt shaped the role of the First Lady and Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency, to the roles of historians and how they do their work and present pictures of the past. Through a combination of film clips, exclusive interaction with the museum’s objects, and the panelists’ comments, viewers, and audience members not only learned about the Roosevelts, but experienced the excitement they continue to bring to the public decades later.
National Standards
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
2: How the New Deal addressed the Great Depression, transformed American federalism, and initiated the welfare state
3: The causes and course of World War II, the character of the war at home and abroad, and its reshaping of the U.S. role in world affairs