Stories of America was produced by WVIZ in Cleveland. They gave the distribution rights to AIT.
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 television production ever to return to Cleveland airwaves.
Various images from the show:
EPISODE GUIDE:
1. Our Country's Birthday
2. Discover America
3. America is Named
4. Pocahantas
5. Chldren of the Mayflower
6. John Billington and Squanto
7. New Amsterdam
8. Ben Franklin
9. George Washington
10. Daniel Boone
11. The Start of a War
12. Needles and Bread
13. Indian Summer
14. The Growers
15. Lewis and Clark
16. Davy Crockett
17. Robert Fulton
18. The Oregon Trail
19. Gretchen Goes West
20. The California Gold Rush
21. The Pony Express
22. Runaway Slave
23. The Underground Railroad
24. Martin and Abraham Lincoln
25. Clara Barton
26. The Transcontinental Railroad
27. Pecos Bill
28. Tom Edison
29. Annie Oakley
30. The First Cars
31. Little Yellow Fur
32. Father is President