Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 23: The Underground Railroad
Kids • 15 min • 1 season, 32 episodes
Episode synopsis
This episode introduces children to the secret network known as the Underground Railroad, which helped enslaved people escape to freedom before the Civil War. Through simple narration and reenactments, the program explains how conductors, safe houses, and coded signals worked together to guide freedom seekers on their dangerous journeys north. The episode highlights the bravery of those who fled, as well as the compassion and courage of the individuals who risked their own safety to help them. Designed for classroom learning, it offers an age‑appropriate look at a powerful movement for justice and human dignity.
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