welcome. fayetteville, arkansas. we're at the clinton house museum just a little south of the edge of the university of arkansas campus.

this house was built in 1931 by a local man named scotty taylor. would have been on the outskirts of town at that time in the middle of the ozarks in the depression. so this would have seemed like pretty fancy house for that. the clintons actually bought this house in 1975 and did a little of remodeling, but for the most part, the house is entirely original to 1931. the house, a national historic register property. in 2010, and the street became clinton avenue. and in 2010 as well. this is the living room this is the famous room where bill clinton, hillary rodham, were married here in of this big window on october 11th, 1975. bill bought this house while hillary was out of town, actually, and surprised her with it. she came back from visiting friends family for six weeks and he said, i bought that house you thought was pretty and now you have to marry me. i can't live there alone.

and she said, yes on the third try, that was his third try that he did that the house again is original 1931. so the floors the windows all of those things while it is a big for a living room, it is a small place to get married and the clintons had only ten guests here for their wedding. it was the two of them, a couple of close friends and family and was it very modest? one of our visitors favorite things to see is the the wedding dress. this is a faithful replica of hillary's original wedding dress and it was designed made by connie fales, a little rock designer who was a longtime friend of the clintons. and hillary bought this the night before the wedding at her mother's insistence she was just going to pull something of the closet. and her mother. no, we've got to go to the store. you have to get a nice dress for a wedding. and so they pulled this jessica mclintock gurney's dress off the rack at dillard's night before

the wedding for $53. one of the interesting things to note is at the time of their marriage, hillary decided to keep her name and be called hillary rodham would have been pretty unusual for a 1975 in arkansas and really, really anywhere. and both of their mothers had hope she would change her name to clinton, but she stayed. rodham and bill bill was very happy about that. when bill and hillary to fayetteville, they had just graduated from yale law school and had done about a year's worth of other things before coming here. but they were just a young, like so many others. they didn't have any money. they didn't really any furniture. they were just getting in life and their lives were very busy. lots of political activity, lots of friends traveling and forth to little rock and doing kinds of campaign things. they also traveled a lot in those years and, so they didn't have a lot of money, but they spent a lot of time building networks and friendships.

the urge to participate in. public service began very early for both. and hillary. hillary was very active at wellesley in lots of political movements and campaigns and her graduation address actually at wellesley made quite a national splash. it was fairly radical for her time and she went on to yale school and that's where she met bill. of course. and bill had started and knew that he was going to be a political animal from his high school years. and he actually met president kennedy while he was at boys nation in 1963, just a few months before kennedy was assassinated, actually. and he was involved in lots of democratic initiatives all across the country, lots of campaigns, hard for mcgovern, for frank holt here in arkansas, for william fulbright. so he always knew that this was going to be the path he was going to take. and he gained a lot of experience before running for office himself, before the clintons were married. and bill was living east of

town. in an essay, jones house actually he decided he would run for congress and he talked it over with the with the dean the law school who who gave his blessing and promised his support and he had decided to run against john paul hammerschmidt. he had actually asked several other people run against hammerschmidt a, very popular republican in the third district. and nobody else wanted to do it. they wanted to run for other things. and he finally decided maybe it should be him. and everyone thought he was a losing battle. and probably he was. he knew it, but he he openly he didn't think it could hurt his his future chances at other offices. and he was absolutely correct that early campaign in 74 he lost to hammerschmidt by only about 6000 votes, which was pretty remarkable for a newcomer against a very broad republican district. he often says that losing that

congressional election enabled him to go to the white house if he had won the election for, he would have gone to washington and stayed there. but his decision to stay here in arkansas to be the governor, eventually led to his bid for the white house. one of the fun things about this room, the dining room, where most people would use as a dining room, the clintons used it. campaign headquarters bill had decided to run for attorney general two years after losing to john paul hammerschmidt. and he had primary contenders in the democrat primary cash and again and he won quite handily actually in the primary race. and he did have a contender in the general election. so he's running northwest arkansas, part of the attorney general's campaign from here in the dining room because he didn't have a general election opponent. he was able to work on behalf of jimmy carter in 76 and he was

carter's arkansas. and carter went on to win 65% of the arkansas vote that year during time that bill was running the arkansas carter campaign, hillary actually went to indiana and ran the campaign there and helped set up campaign offices and things like. so their lives were very much about political campaigns and working on behalf of democrats across the country. bill became the general rather easily in 76 and two years later would become the country's youngest governor in 1978, when bill and hillary were married, hillary kept her name, her maiden name, rodham, which have been unusual in 1975, and arkansas, of coue, but even across the country and really kept her look and she wore glasses and no makeup, natural hair, that kind of thing.

after bill lost his term as governor in 1980, the two of them really regrouped. and you see the beginning of the eighties. her transformation and and his transformation in politically thinking about what the people needed most and her transformation into what arkansas would have considered in. first lady. so she changed hair. she started wearing contacts, start wearing makeup. you see the, clothes change a lot. and that's very apparent in the early eighties and then in 82, clinton ran for again and he won that time. so he was able to go back to the governor's office. and i had this new first lady with him, the clinton house is really the great american story like so others. it's a great example of of the best of american people can start from nowhere and they can work hard and in public service

and they can do what it is. they set their mind to. and when you get a chance, spend time in the same place. the other have lived, you get absorb some of that and think about how people got started in their lives and where they would later end up and so our visitors really love that idea, like standing in this place where these two powerful people, these two really smart people, spent their early days and, were plotting out their life's course. a house we are very to have wits

today nelson lichtenstein presenting his book a fabulous failure the clinton presidency and the chance formation of american capitalism. professor