News, History & Ephemera · NBC / CBC
Democracy in America
January 17, 1962 – April 18, 1962 · 16 broadcasts
An educational dramatization of Alexis de Tocqueville's *Democracy in America*, first heard in 1962. Across fourteen half-hour programs it follows the young French magistrate and his companion Gustave de Beaumont from their arrival in New York in May 1831 through a nine-month journey across the new republic, turning Tocqueville's great study of American life into drama rather than lecture -- each week "a study in" one facet of the country: its equality, its religion, its press, its law, its restless reforming energy, and the majority rule Tocqueville both admired and feared. Barry Morse played Tocqueville and Alan King his companion Beaumont, in a production mounted by New York University's Division of General Education with the Fund for Adult Education and recorded, improbably for so American a subject, in the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation under producer Andrew Allan and director George Probst. Two preview panels hosted by broadcaster Dorothy Gordon opened the run.
Collection status:
16 of 16 held (100% complete)
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Episode Spine
1962
January 10, 1962
Preview Show 1
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(MP3)
A preview panel discussion of Tocqueville's book, setting the stage a week before the drama series began.
January 16, 1962
Preview Show 2
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(MP3)
A second preview panel on Democracy in America, previewing the fourteen-part dramatization to come.
January 17, 1962
Where Could I Be Better Off
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(MP3)
The series opens as Tocqueville and Beaumont step ashore into Jacksonian America in 1831 to begin their tour.
January 24, 1962
The Governor in the Boarding House
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(MP3)
A look at how thoroughly equality had leveled American life -- even a governor might be found lodging in a common boarding house.
January 31, 1962
The 4th of July in Albany 1831
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(MP3)
The travelers witness an Independence Day in Albany, and with it the young nation's fierce sense of its own liberty.
February 7, 1962
The Arc of Civilization
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(MP3)
An exploration of the American character the two Frenchmen tried to take the measure of as they went.
February 14, 1962
Any Woman Is a Lady
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(MP3)
American manners under the microscope -- and the surprising social standing the new country granted its women.
February 21, 1962
The Cement of Democracy
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(MP3)
How religion, in Tocqueville's reading, bound Americans together and steadied their democracy.
February 28, 1962
The Cold Water Army
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(MP3)
The temperance crusade -- the marching "cold water army" -- as a window on America's restless appetite for progress.
March 7, 1962
The Heavenly Prison
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(MP3)
American reform seen through the penitentiary, the very subject that had brought Tocqueville and Beaumont to inspect the United States.
March 14, 1962
The Tyranny of the Majority
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(MP3)
Tocqueville's most famous warning dramatized: that in a democracy the will of the majority can itself become a kind of tyranny.
March 21, 1962
Common Sense and Moonshine
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(MP3)
A study of how Americans educated themselves -- their plain common sense mixed with no small amount of moonshine.
March 28, 1962
The Chief Instrument of Freedom
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(MP3)
The American press, which Tocqueville judged the chief instrument by which a free people governs itself.
April 4, 1962
The Aristocrats of Freedom
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(MP3)
Lawyers and the bench as America's true aristocracy -- the closest thing, Tocqueville argued, the republic had to a ruling class.
April 11, 1962
The Happy Republic
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(MP3)
A study of the values holding the republic together; it shares its title with director George Probst's own 1962 Tocqueville reader.
April 18, 1962
These Precious Premises
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(MP3)
The final program takes stock with cautious optimism, looking back on the journey from a vantage some twenty years on.
The Story
An educational dramatization of Alexis de Tocqueville's *Democracy in America*, first heard in 1962. Across fourteen half-hour programs it follows the young French magistrate and his companion Gustave de Beaumont from their arrival in New York in May 1831 through a nine-month journey across the new republic, turning Tocqueville's great study of American life into drama rather than lecture -- each week "a study in" one facet of the country: its equality, its religion, its press, its law, its restless reforming energy, and the majority rule Tocqueville both admired and feared. Barry Morse played Tocqueville and Alan King his companion Beaumont, in a production mounted by New York University's Division of General Education with the Fund for Adult Education and recorded, improbably for so American a subject, in the studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation under producer Andrew Allan and director George Probst. Two preview panels hosted by broadcaster Dorothy Gordon opened the run.
Full story — coming soon while it's being curated.
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