Celebrate Women Who Shaped History with Austin PBS

Celebrate Women’s History Month with Austin PBS as we feature powerful programs like Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter, Discovering Maggie Smith, Women of World War II: The Untold Stories, and more. Tune in or stream online.

Sunday, March 2nd

Women of World War II: The Untold Stories at 2:00 pm

Meet the American women who built the planes and flew them, fought on the warfront and the home front, cracked codes and broke barriers. The "secret weapon" that helped win the war, they forever changed the world in the process.

Tuesday, March 18th

Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter at 8:00 pm

Shaking It Up: The Life And Time of Liz Carpenter tells the inspirational story of an extraordinary woman who experienced and helped shape some of the most vivid moments and movements of the 20th century. Journalist, White House official, author, humorist, political activist, and feminist leader: over her 89 years of service,Liz Carpenter was often front and center where history was unfolding, leaving her own indelible mark on events and people. Hers is an inspiring story of blazing professional trails while pushing forward an agenda for women's rights, the environment, and political engagement that is highly relevant today. Her magnetic Texas-sized personality, political know-how, and legendary wit gave her an outsized impact on historical events, including the JFK assassination,the launch of Great Society programs, and more. Carpenter's high-profile leadership roles in the National Women's Political Caucus, at the historic National Women's Conference in 1977, and in the national campaign for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment cemented her spot in American history. The film educates and inspires viewers to continue to shake things up in the ongoing quest for equal rights and human progress.

American Experience Fly With Me at 9:00 pm

Fly With Me is a story about new frontiers for working women and the constraints of traditional notions of femininity. It's about both exploitation and activism, and pitched battles within the courtrooms of the United States. Maligned as feminist sellouts and sluts, stewardesses, as they were called, knew different: They were on the frontlines of a battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace. Fly With Me will rely on firsthand witness accounts, personal stories, and a rich and extensive archive to tell a lively, fun and important but neglected history of the women who, while flying the world, changed it.

Thursday, March 20th

The Philadelphia Eleven at 10:00 pm

The Philadelphia Eleven, a largely unknown women's rights story, introduces viewers to the trailblazers who challenged the very essence of patriarchy within Christendom and successfully created a blueprint for lasting institutional change. The film chronicles how a group of women in the Episcopal Church shared a call to become priests. After two legislative votes to make it possible for women to be ordained failed, they organized their own ordination as priests in defiance of church norms. The Church of the Advocate, a Black urban church in North Philadelphia, welcomed them. A huge congregation witnessed their ordination service on July 29, 1974.

Friday, March 21st

Hearts Above Clouds at 2:00 pm

Hearts Above Clouds takes viewers on an exciting and dynamic journey through 100 years of aviation history featuring pioneering women pilots. Beginning with the earliest air meets in Southern California, women aviators made an impact with their determination and perseverance. Amelia Earhart's first flights and initial training are revealed and detailed, along with subsequent national women's air derby races going into the Great Depression. Women's substantial contributions to aviation service during WWII are presented, along with some of the noteworthy female fliers in the postwar era. This enthralling documentary is informative as well as very poignant and powerful.

Monday, March 24th

Independent Lens: Home Court at 10:00 pm

Home Court is the coming-of-age story of Ashley Chea, a Cambodian American basketball prodigy in Southern California whose life intensifies as recruitment heats up. As she overcomes injury as well as racial and class differences between her home and private school worlds, in peer groups, and against rival schools, Ashley strives to become her own person and leave a legacy behind.

Tuesday, March 25th

Indigenize The Plate at 4:00 pm

Extraction, water displacement, and climate change have impacted food sustainability in Indigenous communities, and the combination of these challenges has also affected cultural sustainability. In Indigenize The Plate, a Dine woman travels from the Navajo Nation to a Quechuan community in Peru to see how they address these issues in their region. The program tells the stories of Indigenous people across the world and shows viewers how their communities are working together to address some of the many challenges that the world faces collectively.

Thursday, March 27th

Enemy of the Reich: The Noor Inayat Khan Story at 10:00 pm

In August of 1943, the last surviving clandestine radio operator in Paris desperately signaled London. Everything depended on her and the Gestapo was at the door. How did a Sorbonne educated musician and author of a book of fairy tales become a daring spy who died fighting the Nazis? With an American mother and Indian Muslim father, Noor Inayat Khan was an extremely unusual British agent, and her life spent growing up in a Sufi center of learning in Paris seemed an unlikely preparation for the dangerous work to come. Yet it was in this place of universal peace and contemplation that her remarkable courage was forged.

Friday, March 28th

Jacqueline Du Pre: Genius and Tragedy at 9:30 pm

Those who know, consider Jacqueline du Pre one of the greatest cellists of all time - certainly in the top three - despite a career that was cruelly curtailed by multiple sclerosis at just twenty-eight years old. The force of nature took away her prodigious gift and her joy of performing and she endured fourteen years of unremitting illness. However, during her short time on the international concert platform - about a decade - she had the musical world at her feet, with an expressive style that cast a spell on anyone who saw her perform.

Monday, March 31st

Jane Addams - Together We Rise: American Stories at 3:00 pm

Jane Addams, born into wealth and privilege, became intrigued by social reform after visiting a settlement house in London's impoverished East End. An inheritance made it possible for her to bring that concept to Chicago with the creation of Hull House in 1889.

Coronation Girls at 9:00 pm

In the summer of 1953, philanthropist Garfield Weston put together a sponsorship to send 50 girls from rural communities across Canada to visit London. A cross-country train collected each participant, beginning in the Yukon and gradually reaching the port of Montreal. There, they boarded The Empress of France and dodged icebergs across a stormy Atlantic before finally reaching Liverpool. They were soon standing in Oxford Street to witness the coronation procession of Queen Elizabeth. Witnessing a princess becoming the queen of England transformed them instantly and forever. The elements of character they saw in her, a young woman so close in age to themselves who took on the weight of the Crown, inspired them and shaped a way of being that has guided their lives.

Stream Online

Discovering Maggie Smith

Discovering Maggie Smith looks at the remarkable on-screen career of Dame Maggie Smith (1934-2024), one of Britain's most prolific actresses. Smith was a prominent figure in British culture for six decades. Her extraordinary film career took off with her role in Nowhere to Go (1958), for which she received her first BAFTA nomination. Two Academy Awards later, including Best Actress for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and Best Supporting Actress for California Suite (1978), Smith had reached the pinnacle of success. Smith's later hit roles included Dowager Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films.