American Experience
Genre	Television documentary
Created by	Peter McGhee
Theme music composer	Charles Kuskin(1988–2000) Mark Adler(2000–2008) The Chambers Brothers(2009–2010) Joel Goodman(2011–present)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English (United States)
No. of seasons	36
No. of episodes	380(list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Judy Crichton(1987–1996) Margaret Drain(1997–2003) Mark Samels(2003–2020) Cameo George(2020–present)[1]
Running time	Between 55 minutes and two hours
Production company	WGBH-TV
Original release
Network	PBS[2]
Release	October 4, 1988 (1988-10-04) – present

American Experience is atelevision program airing on thePublic Broadcasting Service (PBS) in theUnited States that presentsdocumentaries about key events and people inU.S. history. The show has several awards, including 30Emmy Awards.^[3]

The series premiered on October 4, 1988 and was originally titledThe American Experience. The show has had a presence on the internet since 1995, and more than 100American Experience programs are accompanied by their own internet websites that provide background information on the subjects covered as well as teachers' guides and educational companion materials.^[4]American Experience is produced primarily byWGBH-TV inBoston, Massachusetts, though occasionally in the early seasons it was co-produced by other PBS stations such asWNET (Channel 13) inNew York City.

Some of theAmerican Experience programs were produced prior to the formal creation of the series.Vietnam: A Television History was one of them, airing originally in 1983 after six years in development.^[5] Also, in 2006,American Experience rebroadcastEyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, the first half of the 1986 documentary series about theCivil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

In July 2025, WGBH announced thatAmerican Experience would end new production and switch exclusively to rereleasing past episodes after airing an abbreviated37th season that fall and that the series' staff was being laid off.^[6] WGBH CEOSusan Goldberg attributed the decision to "severe cuts in federal funding for public media."^[7] Work had been halted in May on six films, and no new documentaries will be produced until further notice since this is the "most expensive show funded by PBS" on a per hour basis.^[8]

American Experience has received generally positive reviews from television critics and parents of young children. Glenn McNatt ofThe Baltimore Sun wrote that it is "TV's finest history series ever."^[9] Steve Johnson ofChicago Tribune wrote, "History comes alive in excellent docu-series."^[10]

A DVD boxset collecting episodes about United States presidents was released on August 26, 2008.^[11] A DVD boxset for the five-part documentaryWe Shall Remain was released on May 12, 2009.^[12] The collection was updated to include thedocumentary onBill Clinton's presidency on August 28, 2012,^[13] and thedocumentary onGeorge W. Bush's presidency^[14] on May 4, 2020.

• American Experience website
• American Experience atIMDb

• American Experience
• 1988 American television series debuts
• 1980s American documentary television series
• 1990s American documentary television series
• 2000s American documentary television series
• 2010s American documentary television series
• 2020s American documentary television series
• Peabody Award–winning television programs
• Television series about the history of the United States
• Television series by WGBH

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from May 2022