Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 17: Robert Fulton
Kids • 15 min • 1 season, 32 episodes
Episode synopsis
This episode introduces children to Robert Fulton, the inventor best known for developing the first successful steamboat. Through simple narration and reenactments, the program follows Fulton’s early interest in mechanics, his experiments with new ideas, and the challenges he faced while trying to prove that steam power could transform travel. The episode highlights how his determination and creativity helped open new possibilities for transportation and commerce in America. Designed for classroom learning, it presents Fulton as an innovator whose work helped move the young nation forward.
About Stories of America
The interconnectedness of all things is a fundamental part of reading motivation projects. Although GPN's Reading Rainbow claims to have invented that idea, Stories of America with host Ann McGregor got there first. It was 1976, America's bicentennial year, and WVIZ-TV of Cleveland wanted something more out of a series aimed at delivering American history, They decided to combine history with reading. The result was Stories of America. Hosting was the familiar face of Ann McGregor, who had enlivened Picture Book Park and Tilson's Bookshop some two years earlier. Stories of America resembled more of a story reading than a history lesson, but it also introduced other elements that became standard Reading Rainbow procedure. There were occasional film sequences, dramatizations, and even an animation. All told, the 32-part Stories of America series ran some 14 years on WVIZ-TV. The station brought the shows back in 1998, and it would be the only WVIZ instructional telev