Open Vault
The GBH Archives website Open Vault provides online access to unique and historic content produced by WGBH, the largest producer of content for public television. Open Vault contains video, audio, images, and searchable transcripts from the GBH/WGBH Archives dating back to 1947. Helpful links on the site include a comprehensive list of all GBH Series and Programs, and curated Special Collections including the Boston Local TV News and Scholar Exhibits.
GBH Series
GBH’s acclaimed national PBS series include NOVA, Frontline, American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, Arthur, and Masterpiece. GBH has also produced many limited documentary series over the years, including the recent The Future of Work, RARE: Creatures of the Photo Ark, and earlier series The Presidents, Sacred Journeys with Bruce Feiler, Evolution, Rock and Roll, Africans in America, Race to Save the Planet, War and Peace in the Nuclear Age, and Vietnam: A Television History. Our local programs include Greater Boston, GBH News, Basic Black, and earlier productions such as Zoom, Say Brother, The Ten O’Clock News, how-to programs, and many more.
American Archive of Public Broadcasting
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting is a collaboration between the Library of Congress and GBH to preserve the cultural heritage of public television and to make this invaluable resource available to the public. GBH has the largest collection of content in the AAPB, where you can view all GBH content that has been digitized to date. New GBH content is constantly being added to the collection. The AAPB collection contains over 120,000 digitized television and radio programs dating from the 1950s to the 21st century with contributions from more than 100 Public Broadcasting stations.
New Jersey Network Archive
The New Jersey Network (NJN) Archive Collection is one of the largest collections in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, with approximately 25,000 segments and programs slated to be included. The collection contains forty years of programming from New Jersey Public Television from 1971-2011. Series include State of the Arts, Images/Imagenes, Due Process, Public Affairs, On the Record, Around and About in New Jersey, Made in New Jersey, New Jersey Outdoors, and New Jersey Tonight. Additionally, there is B-roll footage and many more programs on New Jersey public, governmental, cultural, and historical affairs.
The New Jersey Nightly News ran from 1972-2001 on the New Jersey public television network and makes up a large portion of the New Jersey Network Archive.
The Vulcan Collection
The GBH/Vulcan collection consists of 25 hours of documentary series and programs on environmental and social issues, most co-produced by WGBH and Vulcan Productions. These mini-series included This Emotional Life, Rx for Survival: A Global Health Challenge, Evolution, and the NOVA episodes Cracking the Code of Life, and Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial. Also included are two series produced solely by Vulcan: Inspirations contains interviews with artists such as David Bowie, Dale Chihuly, and Roy Lichtenstein about how they get their ideas; Nature of Genius explores scientific and artistic brilliance. Vulcan was founded in 1997 by Microsoft’s Paul Allen and his sister Jody and closed its doors in 2020.
Julia Child
The doyenne of French cooking, the incomparable Julia Child got her start in television at WGBH Boston in 1963 with Season One of The French Chef. The French Chef series ran until 1973 and included over 300 episodes. Other Julia Child series produced by WGBH included Julia Child and Company (1978), Julia Child and More Company (1979), and Dinner at Julia’s (1983-84). WGBH licenses footage from these programs with permission from the Julia Child Foundation.
Featured Clips
Explore our content! In addition to wonderful science, history, and public affairs footage we also have unique primary source interviews, historic re-creations, music performances, James Brown at the Boston Garden, Prospects of Mankind with Eleanor Roosevelt, and over 60 years of extraordinary material.