Series Plot: TV. Radio. Phones. Airplanes. Motorcycles. Tractors. Home Appliances. Power Tools. These are The Machines That Built America. This docuseries reveals the surprising stories and rivalries behind the ground-breaking innovations that turned America into a superpower. Blending dramatic reenactments and archival footage with interviews from experts, biographers, and others, The Machines That Built America brings to life some of America's most storied inventors: Nikola Tesla, William Harley, Alexander Graham Bell, Duncan Black, Alonzo Decker, and many more. In eight episodes, viewers will meet these larger-than-life characters, inhabit their rivalries, and ride the rollercoaster of triumph and failure as they search for a breakthrough that will change humanity.
Episode plot: In 1910, airplanes are a novelty, fragile wooden concoctions that float in the air--and crash. But that doesn't stop two young dreamers with a passion for this newfangled machine from imagining a very different future: one in which planes carry millions of passengers across the country, even across the seas. To realize that vision and create a lucrative new market, William Boeing and Donald Douglas take on automobile titan Henry Ford, infamous Dutch aviation giant Anthony Fokker--and each other. It's a high stakes battle involving courage, risk taking, bold innovation, even industrial espionage... and not every business will last. But for the surprising survivors, the prize is worth it: the joy of flight and astonishing profit.