Ken Burns directed the PBS documentary series “The Civil War.” The nine-part miniseries premiered in September 1990 and examines the American Civil War through photographs, paintings, letters, diaries, maps, narration, and historians’ commentary.
Burns built the series around roughly 16,000 historical images, many of them photographs made during the war. The production’s slow pans and zooms across still pictures became so closely associated with Burns that the technique is now commonly called the “Ken Burns effect.” Narrator David McCullough provided the series’ voice, while actors read quotations from figures including Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Frederick Douglass, and Robert E. Lee.
The Civil War was broadcast on PBS over five consecutive nights and became one of the network’s most-watched programs, reaching more than 39 million viewers. It helped establish Burns as one of America’s leading documentary filmmakers. A common mix-up is confusing Ken Burns with his brother Ric Burns, who also became a prominent documentary filmmaker and collaborated on some historical projects.