Whether Great Mexican War posters could identify an eye-witness to the Mexican Revolution; the authenticity of an autograph book that may have belonged to Nora Holt; and the real story behind the Revolutionary War-era legend of the Muhlenberg Robe.

September 2008 (check local listings)

Great Mexican War Posters - While cleaning out the basement of an old home he'd recently purchased, a man from San Francisco discovered a stash of strange and colorful posters announcing the "Great Mexican War." They appear to be early 20th-century advertising for news film of the Mexican Revolution. The posters indicate that a man named Charles Pryor made the films. If the posters prove to be authentic, does it mean that this mystery cinematographer was an eyewitness to the Mexican Revolution? In Washington, DC, and El Paso, Texas, HISTORY DETECTIVES host Wes Cowan examines a turning point in filmmaking history - when producers aimed to satisfy the American audience's appetite for films of overseas events, at times walking a fine line between real-life and on-screen dramatic events.

Nora Holt Autograph Book - Mayme Agnew Clayton of Los Angeles, California, was an avid collector of African-American memorabilia. Upon her passing in 2006, she left a garage full of the material she had carefully assembled over a 40-year period, which has attracted a great deal of attention from scholars. Amid the collection is a curious small green leather autograph book that belonged to a woman named Nora Holt, a luminary of the Harlem Renaissance, and an associate of author Theodore Dreiser and photographer Carl Van Vechten, among others. Mysteriously, these artists' names appear in the book alongside the signatures of presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, neither of whom was involved in the Harlem Renaissance. The autographs take host Gwen Wright to Harlem and Westchester, New York, and to Westport, Connecticut, as HISTORY DETECTIVES follows the path of a liberated woman who participated in one of the most significant artistic flowerings of the 20th century.

Muhlenberg Robe - George Washington's cherry tree, Betsy Ross' flag, Paul Revere's ride ... now Muhlenberg's Robe may be added to the list of debatable Revolutionary War legends. The story goes that in January 1776, Lutheran minister Peter Muhlenberg turned his pulpit into a recruiting station for revolutionary fighters. During a fiery sermon, he tore his robe from his shoulders to reveal a uniform and at once rallied 300 able-bodied congregants to the patriotic cause. A woman in Philadelphia wants to know: Is the robe that's on display at the nearby Lutheran Theological Seminary the cloak that bore witness to this event? In Philadelphia and Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, HISTORY DETECTIVES host Elyse Luray delves into rare, period accounts from Muhlenberg's family, friends and contemporaries to find the truth behind the story of the reverend's famous robe.