American Experience: Alexander Hamilton
Monday, May 14 at 8PM
Tuesday, May 15 at 8PM
(View all airtimes, includes digital)

He is America's most controversial Founding Father, and perhaps the most significant person in American history who never served as president.

The brilliant, complex Alexander Hamilton is the subject of a fascinating American Experience episode. The national PBS special is a production of tpt in association with Middlemarch Films, the same team that created the Emmy and Peabody award-winning series Benjamin Franklin and Liberty! The American Revolution. Alexander Hamilton is an intimate portrait of the man and his immense contributions to the nation.

Before he died a notorious death--in a duel with Aaron Burr--Hamilton had been the most powerful man in America next to George Washington. He was a Revolutionary War hero and, after the war, a leading force behind the Constitution. As the nation's first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton built the American economy from the ground up, saving the nation's credit, creating the first national bank and laying the groundwork for Wall Street. More than any other founder, he championed the idea of a strong, centralized government. Under his watch, the newborn country quickly developed into one of the strongest economies in the world.

In many ways, Hamilton was the embodiment and prototype of the American dream. Born illegitimate on the Caribbean island of Nevis and orphaned when young, Hamilton was an immigrant and self-made man. Unlike his rival, Thomas Jefferson, he was an abolitionist, and he championed the idea that anyone should be able to rise on the basis of their talent, regardless of their birth.

"It's nearly impossible to overestimate the importance of Alexander Hamilton," says Alexander Hamilton's producer, Muffie Meyer. "Today we live in the political, social, and economic world that he created. But Hamilton's weaknesses prevented him from fully getting recognition for his achievements."

"Hamilton was filled with contradictions--he was both a political genius and a political disaster," says tpt executive producer Catherine Allan. On the one hand, Hamilton was a tireless champion of America's welfare, scrupulously honest and capable of great charm and persuasiveness. But he could also be vain, arrogant and uncompromising with his enemies. These qualities, in addition to a scandalous and well-publicized extramarital affair, dashed his hopes of ever leading the nation.

To bring Alexander Hamilton's story to public television, tpt and Middlemarch Films taped in the Caribbean as well as historic locations in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York. Portraying Hamilton is Tony Award-winning actor Brian F. O'Byrne (Doubt, Coast of Utopia). The documentary also features leading Hamilton scholars and biographer Ron Chernow. "Alexander Hamilton's life is a story that the most gifted novelist could not have invented," says Chernow. "It's just better than any novel."