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tv   Book TV  CSPAN  May 29, 2011 9:30am-10:45am EDT

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ready to serve in in a way that gives the personal service we are known for and makes them want to come back. and we do that. >> yvonne thornton, the author of the "the ditchdigger's daughters" which recalls her parents effort upper riding their sick stuff with african to become successful women presents her fall of may memoir that focuses on her professional life as a double board-certified specialist in gynecology, obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine. dr. thornton reports that at the time she began her studies back in 1970, 5% of the specialist in her field where women. today, 70% are women. >> thank you for a lovely
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introduction. victor hugo once said there's nothing like a dream to create the future. now, as i stand here today i am the daughter of a ditch digger. my father was born in new jersey, and basically he was one of 10 kids. now, before i go into what my father did as being a ditch digger is that many in the audience may not know what obstetrics is or what maternal-fetal medicine is on what gynecology is. obstetrics is a field in medicine in which you deliver babies. and i delivered 5542 babies to date, and i've overseen about 12,000 delivers. thank you very much. [applause] >> now, what i do in obstetrics is that it's a very special type of obstetrics but i've done extra training that they call people like me maternal-fetal medicine specialists, or -- what
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are we? were those obstetricians who deal with patients who may die or the babies may die during pregnancy. those women who have diabetes, lupus, epilepsy, thyroid function, kidney failure, those may have triplets or quadruplets or quintuplets. those pregnancies are very, very coveted and the average obstetrician may not be able to handle or feel comfortable handling it. so with respect to the obstetricians obstetrician. so again, anybody can deliver a baby they say. using taxicab drivers deliver babies, police officer deliver babies and there's an echelon with delivering babies. all the way from basically a police officer and then have midwives who delivers babies their people like me, i'm not the only one who can deliver a baby. you have midwives better trained and our nurses. and next up is general practitioners who deliver babies. but as far as babies delivering them are concerned, i'm at the top of this chain being a high
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risk of a obstetrician. before i was especially i said i was the daughter of a ditch digger. my father who was a child into great depression. those those of you in the great depression, just from historical perspective that comment the great depression, when 25% of the country was out of work, my father was from a family of tainted by the age of 15 he dropped out of high school. he dropped out of high school and continued city to meet my mom. now, they met and they married at age 18. and basically they found a little tenement house up the street. we are at 103rd street. when i was born my mom and dad lived at 75 east 119th street. so yes, i'm a kid of the, yes. the fact of the matter is they had two children, and three children being me. so at 18 years of age having been a high school dropout, world war ii was waging.
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my father was drafted into the need. he became a seaman second class and deny states navy. and before he left my mom, he kissed her goodbye and said okay, that's the end of that. but when he came back from the navy he had one child. he had donned. don is my oldest sit. my fathers name was donald, and in those days you need to have a son to carry on the name. having a girl was like a consolation prize. the first born was gone. my father said that's great but let's keep trying to get that boy. let's keep trying to get that boy. in those days the same and the movie stars were tyrone power and clark gable. let's get a clark gable. let's get a tyrone. let's try a second time. second daughter came out, jeanette. jeanette was named after jeanette macdonald and nelson eddie. we were named after movie stars, okay? go back, got to get that boy, got to get that son. the third one, me, the von.
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i was named after one of the diane quintuplets. the first quintuplets sisters in the world. they were from canada. and the likelihood of having spontaneous quintuplets is one in 65 million. and so that was the odds that we had, my family had come of having dollars. but i was named after yvonne come and my father said if this is another grow, the third one, i'm going to drown it. and that's when i learned how to swim last night but other than that my father said we've got to try another one. we've got to get backlog, get that tyrone. fourth child comes, rita. [laughter] okay? rita hayworth. and if this one is linda. linda darnell. so by the time my father was 27 years of age he had five kids. all girls, and no boys. and my mother said, i'm trying, i'm trying and i'm tired of all the. five kids?
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she said the only son you will see is the one rising up in the morning. i've had it. my father and mother, they were wonderful people, a young lady was melissa outside the tenement. we moved onto another housing project in long branch new jersey. in that neighborhood 50% of all the girls of color, the black crowes were pregnant by the time they were 16 or 17 years of age. it on public assistance and they were unwed. that was just the facts. that which is the sister six of our neighborhood. we have to go back 50 years ago, over 50 years ago before affirmative action, title ix, and basically if you were not a boy you would get me. and my father was ridiculed. he was ostracized. he was basically taunted for not having a son. and the whole neighborhood kind of laughed at him. what good are you? but my father would say that's okay, my kids are going to be doctors. and he planned to defend it.
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and the more they cheered him, the more they -- he said my kids are going to be doctors. they laughed even more because it was preposterous that five little dark skinned girls could ever be anything that what our poverty would allow us to be. my sisters and i did not look like vanessa williams. we didn't look like mariah carey or any of these fair skinned movie idols that you see today. my sisters and i look more like the sisters of buckwheat, okay? we didn't have any role models when i was growing up. we didn't have any role models other than a black woman called ethel waters with a big bag of laundry. we have basically people on one knee in blackface, yes, in blackface singing mammy. and then we had butterfly mcqueen thing i don't know nothing about birthing no babies from gone with the wind. that was our role model. there were no other role models for women.
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there were distinct gender roles when i was going a. you never saw a man pushing a baby carriage. you just didn't see it. it was -- women stayed at home and in which quote unquote bring home the bacon. women were expected to be cheerleaders, not business leaders. if they were allowed out of the house they're expected to be secretaries in the office and not secretaries of state. and women were expected to marry a doctor, not be a doctor. so all this in the 1950s is preposterous that my father was a ditch digger, who was a janitor, and said my five girls, my little dark skinned girls are going to be doctors. well, my dad of course without education had to do menial work. any work in the slaughterhouses of new york. he pumped home heating oil. he was a janitor. he laid the bricks. and that was my day. now, my mom, she was from west virginia, from the small town. and a coal mining town. when she came to in your to find a better way and she met my dad.
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she had three years of college, three years of college but she couldn't afford the last year because you have to pay the tuition if you are a senior. she didn't have the money and she had to leave college with a straight eight average, can you imagine that? because she didn't have the money. recently what happens, my mother wanted education for us. so my mom and dad having lived in the projects with the kids said no, our kids are not going to grow up and be unwed mothers. so they built a house on the other side of town. they built the house brick by brick. it took them four years to build that house. they built the house for better education, better teachers, and it was from that time on where teachers expected us to do well. my dad would always say okay, i want straight a's. i want pointy letters, pointy lives but the only point is that integrating system is in a. he said i don't want any curved
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letters coming back and i do we need these, i don't want any seize your so it was pointy letters, all a's. that was my mom and dad. they said you have to strive to do your best. in long branch, new jersey, we had wonderful, wonderful, and attitude of great committee. but basically sometimes my relatives pretend that we didn't exist. all of us, can you imagine, six girls and a people coming over just to say hello to one of our relatives? they pretended they weren't home. the shades would come down as we drove up. my father would say don't worry, growth. one day when you're a doctor and have those hanging around your neck, they want you and they'll say come on in. but you see, being a woman and being a black woman, my father knew that we are born to be hurt. what you do about that? education is the only thing that will allow you to rise and stand on equal terms with anybody.
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be they white, black, male, female, rich or poor. that's what my parents wanted for us to be. well educated women. now, that was the dream. the dream hardened into a determination. ironclad determination that fueled our lives for many, many years to come. but running on a parallel track was music. now, my sister, donna, said she found a little red saxophone in a box of cracker jacks. i'm sure everybody rumors are cracker jacks. when i was going up they had great prices. they had whistles and great things. and a box of cracker jacks my sister found this little plastic red saxophone and she said daddy, what is this? he said it's a saxophone, donna. she said can i have a real one? my father is building a house, trying to pay the march, trying to put food on the table, but close on the back. and my sister wanted to have a saxophone. you know how much that cost?
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i can honestly tell you having five girls, and eventually raising $6. my parents raise a foster child that became our sister. so he raised six girls in our family. that he would say if it's good for you, if it's going to help you learn, expand your horizons i will find a way to get it and he found a way. he went to one of his old military buddies and said can i have that saxophone? i know you have in the attic. i need for a month or so. but i will have it to you back to unite kids are. they are interested for a few weeks and after a while they will lose interest and i can give you the saxophone back after a few weeks. but to my sister's credit she played that saxophone all without lessons. screeching and screaming that came out of that saxophone is unbelievable. but she slept and ate what that saxophone. went to school with a saxophone but the suns were horrible. my parents and we need to find somebody to teach a child. so in middle school there was an elementary school teacher, and he said sure, i would teach your
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daughter. donna was on the alto saxophone and my mother went with her and sat in the back of the lesson and did her crochet. those of you in the 12th grade probably, the tale of two cities, do you remember that? she kept in her knitting. she was listening. and my mother was listening in the back. and it was very good because when my sister was told something by the teacher, when she got home my mother would say didn't he say to go through those elevations, go through that scale? and consequently my sister learned very well and very rapidly with regard to the saxophone. a few years went by and music was in our household. now, we are baby boomers. my sisters and i were born one or two years apart. my sister said if i'm going saxophone, and assist with planning guitar, i said, let me play something. and my sister wanted to of a
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larger saxophone, a tenor saxophone. so my father said great, i can on the alto saxophone site and get enough money for the tenor saxophone. but i said no, i want to get involved. i said i can do it, daddy. i can play the alto saxophone. and my father benedetto said cookie, which is my family nickname, he said could be, you cannot breathe let alone play the saxophone. he praised the saxophone on a chair and i approached the saxophone with scientific purpose. i blew all the air out of my body into that saxophone. the next thing you know they were picking off the floor. everything, i just think that my mother said, darling, a she wants to play saxophone that much, then why don't you let her have the saxophone? so now there were three of us play. and alto, tenor and a guitar. what to do with three girls trying to play instruments? luckily my father worked as a janitor and likely there were
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389 united states army band was stationed there. many of their members were trained at juilliard, some the best musical schools in the country. he asked them to come by and to teach us. so we were taught by some of the greatest musicians there were. there's to saxophone and guitar. one of the teacher said mr. thorne, it would be nice if you had some rhythm, you know, if somebody could play the drums. my father looked around the house and said it linda, she likes to be on things. so linda started playing the drums. we are called the transit. we play that social events in town called the transit. my father said great, i want to be with my daughters. so he to play the upgrade base. he went to lessons that he had an instructor and my mother just like us went and sat very quietly in the back and did her crochet, and my father was trying to learn the upright bass to the teacher said mr. thorne,
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you've got to practice. you just can't come in here and try to learn a so big you have to practice. the next thing you know, mom is on base and daddy is out. so we had to change your name to the thorton sisters because the thornettes was like a baby name. so we named ourselves the thorton sisters. i know a lot of you know american idol, before that with star search. all these are amateur shows that basically gave the amateur a chance to star in be a star. back in the 1950s it was a same sort of amateur show called ted mack and the original amateur hour. by then we are playing jazz and my father said we should apply for the. we should audition. go up there until we can do. we said okay, and daddy. so believe it or not we are on. so what i want to show this wonderful audience is that you have to go back now, this is
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historical. you have to go back over 50 years ago. this is 1959. now, what the thornton sisters look like and sounded like back in 1959. if i do this right, chile, i will be okay and not be in trouble. ♪ ♪ >> oh, yeah. geritol.
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[inaudible] >> that's my mother. [inaudible] ♪ ♪
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>> this is donna, she is 14 on the tenor sax. i'm the one clapping my hands, stage presence. here i am at 11 years of age on alto. this is jeanette, guitar, she's 13 years old on the guitar. and the next person you're going to see and hear is linda. she's nine years old on the drums.
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♪ ♪ [applause] >> thank you. thank you. well, after basically ted mack and the original amateur hour my father said you kids are pretty good so let's try the next that. the next step was the apollo theater. some of you are too young, showtime at the apollo is famous, and -- but in those days of apollo was sebastian for black entertainment. anybody who is famous have to go through the apollo theater. on wednesday nights they had the amateur night. if you want for weeks in a row at the amateur night you could win a week with the star trek operative word is paid. we went through for weeks at the
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apollo and won the first week and a secondly, the third way. and a fourth week the manager said the rules have been change. you are going to have to in six weeks. my father got a little upset and he said, my kids, have been for weeks. he said no, six weeks. the thornton sisters a little older than this 16 consecutive weeks at the apollo theater in harlem. we said daddy, forget about the doctor dream. we are stars. he said goes again big you are young. people are fickle. they will love you today but will let someone else tomorrow but you have to eat every day they were here for a reason, not a season. the fact of the matter is that if you are educated and have those traps around your neck you can do something rest of your life. but if you are a musician, you are out. if you an athlete and you get injured you're out there but if you're a doc, if you are educated, they will come to you. that's what your mother and i
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want for you. so we went back to study. several years later the thornton sisters were accounting records. we said this is aside our names were on the marquee. i said daddy, forget the doctor stuff, we are famous. and he goes, amos girls can what did i tell you before? again, two years had lapsed and we were 18, 16 years of age. he said, girls, sit down. this is my dad again. he said you have nice figure, everybody loves you. you're 15, 16 years of age but you got to look down the road, down the road when you're 50, 60 years of age, gray-haired, wrinkled, arthritis, tried to play the saxophone. but if you have those straps around your neck and they call your doctor thorne, that's what your mother and i want for you. okay, we went back to study. but in the audience when we are at the brooklyn fox, a gem from princeton university, a social chairman, and he said mr.
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thornton, we would love to have your daughters play at the cap and gown club. so from 1963-1976, 13 years, my sisters and i and my mom were in a little than like the chocolate partridge family up and an east coast performing at every college at research in order to generate money to pay for tuition to go to college. that's 13 years every friday night, every saturday afternoon, every saturday night, every sunday afternoon we were on the road. we have the money now but you still have to be smart. so on the weekends when we are performed on weekdays we would be studying chemistry, and that's the way it was for 13 years. i perform with my family and tell i was a resident in ob/gyn. now, we all went to monmouth college in new jersey. why? because mom is cost was five minutes away from long branch new jersey.
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mamas college and long bridge, we lived in longer-range. life i was a that's as far as i want my daughters to go. we plan to go to howard. know, that's too far. you can do well, but the dream still had to be realized. i went to monmouth, very, very small teachers college, but my professors at monmouth university were dedicated. at the monmouth university, i went to columbia college of physicians and surgeons which is basically a quantum leap from a small teachers college to an ivy league university that was the first medicals school to award the m.d. degree. so here i am a physician. and that brings me to a point of why i wrote the second book, something to prove. i want to read some excerpts out of the second book, something to prove because you think you got the brass ring. you're a doctor. i'm a doctor ivan indie from columbia. so what do you do? again, i just wanted to read to you what doctors do. this is from the first chapter,
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first page of "something to prove." chapter one. new york hospital cornell medical center, early 1980s. quote, i knew in medicine you at all you at all is the respect. when a man is sick he doesn't look to see what color you are. he wants to be made well. unquote, donald thornton. come to the hospital if your water breaks or anything else goes wrong. i always told my patients. we will take good care of you. even if you're not in labor. not all of them listened. gary paulsen had not listened. mary, pregnant with her first child was in her early '30s, full of life and strong-willed. her water had broken two days earlier but she had no contractions, and so i against doctor's orders, mine, she just stayed home. it wasn't until she felt
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feverish that she decided to come to cornell medical center in manhattan where i was the director of clinical services for the hospital. i could see right away she had an infection in her uterus, a potentially dangerous situation for both mother and baby. i started her on antibiotics. then i induced labor. everything went smoothly at first. she was two-centimeter dilated, four centimeters dilated. fully dilated. we moved into the delivery room. the anesthesiologist administered the epidural, an anesthetic, and then soon after mary delivered her baby. it's a boy. i asked if she wanted to put it to her breast. mary said she was to turn. we were done except for delivering the placenta, or so i thought. usually the placenta falls the baby right out, but it can take up to 30 minutes. the clock ticked. 25 minutes, 30 minutes.
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nothing happened. the placenta is just being a little bit stubborn, i joke. but in the back of my mind i was thinking, please, god, don't let this be placenta accreted. that is a relatively rare but potentially fatal complication. it happens when the placenta attaches itself to deeply into the wall of the uterus and it can cause complications. giving for i.v. fluids i said, and called for a total come and intervene as medicine that causes the uterus to contract. i also told the nurse to get mee and i will link side to go in and remove the placenta manually if necessary. but a moment later the placenta came out, but mary was still bleeding. it's noble to see a little blood after the placenta is delivered, but nothing like this. this was the red sea. something was very, very wrong. what could be causing mary's
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bleeding? i want to a checklist in my mind. a part of the placenta still be lodged inside? get me a correct, i called the nurse, and use the surgical it should to scrape the wall of the uterine lining. everything was clean, and mary was still bleeding. was it because of the infection had caused a reaction or because something else was in play? mother nature had thrown us a curveball. mary complained of feeling lightheaded. purples raised to 120 beats per minute. she was going into shock. we were losing her. we went into the operating room. only once had one of my maternal patients died. it had been a time before when i was chief resident at roosevelt hospital, but i could still picture every awful minute in my mind. it was july 19, 1976, and her name was jasmine.
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she had been only 19 years old. something that no one could have foreseen interfered with the blood clotting after she delivered. i got a call at 3:14 a.m. i have been at home across the street in our 24 floor apartment. but i slept in my white coat just in case there was an emergency. so when they called and told me that jasmine was hemorrhaging, i was ready to go. i didn't even wait for the elevator. i flew down those point for flights of stairs and got to the hospital in less than five minutes. it didn't matter. we tried everything. and we couldn't stop the bleeding. i watched her die on the table. nothing at that time could have saved jazzman. i knew that. and yet, i swore to myself never again. yet here i was close to losing mary. the whole journey was filled with blood and i have the nurse called into the blood bank for a four-point. mary was in shock and not fully
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conscious i heard her mumble my name so i explained that i had to go in, not knowing how much of what i said she could hear, much less comprehend. there was no time for niceties and the prep was taking too long. giving a scalpel i snap. and made an incision. in the delivery room i try to massage the uterus externally to encourage it to contract. .. >> this is a young woman. she just had given birth to her first child.
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if i performed an emergency hysterectomy. there would be no second child. if i didn't, she might have only minutes to live. before i took that irreversible step, i wanted to make one more attempt to stop the hemorrhage. it would involve a more difficult procedure, one i'd performed only twice before, tying off an artery deep into the pelvis and surrounded by all sorts of vital organs. time was running out. i moved the bowel and carefully made my way around the yourer the. there it was, pushing red. i tied off the artery, the bleeding reduced almost immediately to a trickle. that was it. i realized i was soaked to the skin with perspiration. even in the chill of the operating room. there were no high-fives, no shouts of success, just an exhausted team silently feeling relief of having saved a life. and, for me at least, a quick, silent prayer of thanks because no matter how well trained or
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experienced i was, i knew that i had a little extra help in the operating room that day. and that ends part of the first chapter. and so i'm a doctor. and that's what stet ricks is. -- obstetrics is. many, many hours of boredom, you sit around, you hang around, and the word obstetrics means to stand by. so many hours you're standing by waiting for a patient to deliver, and it's five or ten minutes of total chaos. so i became the doctor my father and mother wanted me to be. as i said before, i am dr. thornton, but the title of this new book, "something to prove," is another reason why even though i thought the playing field was level, i looked after i got the brass ring and found that there was another rock wall that i had to climb, and that rock wall consisted of racism, sexism and male choaf niche. you can whine, or you are do
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what you're trained to do. when i was working at a hospital in new jersey, i was minding my own business, walking through labor and delivery. a nurse came out screaming, dr. thornton, you need to come in! now, it's not my patient, i didn't know what was going on. there was another obstetrician, he was in trouble. now, the baby's head was down, but it wasn't coming out, and the baby's heart rate was going down. so the obstetrician said get minute, get anybody, i need help. so the nurse came out, dragged me in, and i came in to the delivery room, and the obstetrician looked at me and said, what is she gonna do? all she saw or he saw was a black woman. he did not know that i was a double board certified internal medicine specialist. i asked the nurse may i have a forceps with an action traction handle. i asked him, excuse me, may i sit down? i applied the forcepses, we delivered the baby with good
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apgars. my job was done, i got up, i left the delivery room, and the only person running after me to thank me was the husband of the wife. not the doctor, not the obstetrician, but the husband. so that's what i'm saying. you don't expect to be loved, you don't expect to be part of the in crowd, and, yes, i'm a woman of color, and something to prove is always something to prove. now, again, life is life. me? i happen to be black. but you could be from the wrong country, you can be from the wrong school, you can be short, fat, greek, it doesn't make any difference. if you're not welcomed, what are you going to do about it? you'll always have something to prove. now, again, i'm a woman, i'm a mother, and i'm a wife. so with me there's another layer of responsibility. we have powerful women today. we have a surgeon general, that's a woman. we have supreme court justices that are women. condoleezza rice, secretary of
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state. but many my situation there was another level of obligation and responsibility, and that is having kids. now, what do you do? again, at that same hospital i delivered about 5:30 in the often, and i'm ripping off my clothes, oh, my god, i have to get back home. what am i going to have for dinner? and a male colleague, he was in the doctors' lounge just relaxing. i said, peter, it's 5:30, you know, aren't you going to get home? no, i'll let peggy feed the kid, put 'em down, and i'll come home around 8:00 and say good night to them. i said, i am racing down route 80 trying to get home, what's for dinner, did i get the sneakers for my son? that's the difference for being a woman professional. yeah, our society expects us to be moms, but i loved and wanted to be an obstetrician. my mother would always say no amount of success in your profession can ever make up for being a failure at home. and many of my colleagues who
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are wealthy, they may have children that are lost to drugs, suicide, emotional disturbances, but i knee whatever i had to do had to incorporate my children. now, the next excerpt from the book is about my children. what are these little kids going to do? just like you, i have a son and a daughter. my son is 32 years of ainge now, my daughter is 30. but he was young once, just like you. and this excerpt is about my son. we'd given in to woody's pleas for a min ten doe game. it seemed at first like just another toy. my husband, sherwood, usually picked up the kids at school or took over for our nanny, pam. between my academic responsibilityses and being on call, my schedule was more jam packed than my orthopedic surgeon husband's and also less predictable. babies come when they want to
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come, but hip replacements can get scheduled weeks or months in advance. arriving home tired from the hospital one day, i popped in on woody downstairs. hi, kids, what are you doing? nothing. no hello, no nod, no reaction whatsoever. they sat there like little zombies, mesmerized by their nintendo. all they could see was the monitor and the electronic image of a red racing car pinging around an animated blue track. i wasn't thrilled to be treated by my own children as if i didn't exist, so i stepped in front of the monitor. move, mom, came their urgent plea, get out of the way! i did as he asked, but as i made my u-turn behind them and saw how entranced woody and kimmy were, i wondered how such a game
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could possibly be good for them. i didn't want nintendo to turn our children's mind into mush. he smiled and told me to relax. it's just a game, and kids need to play games. he had a point. it's a game, kids need to play games, but did they have to play that game? just as i'd done in my studies and my career, i'd fallen back on my parents' wisdom when raising my children. they always thought years ahead to how their daughter's childhood activities could help or hinder as adult. so i tried to think ahead too. one day they'd be applying for college. no matter how adept they'd become at it, nintendo wouldn't impress anyone in the admissions committee. what would help my children do well and have fun? they had started piano lessons as toddlers and loved it. what sort of game would make all of us happy? i finally came up with just the
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thing: chess. [laughter] kimmy was still too young for it, but chess would challenge woody and stimulate his intellect. there was just one problem, i didn't know how to play chess. neither did sherwood. so i put an ad in our community paper. chess teacher wanted to teach 7-year-old. the following sunday, a few days before christmas, the doorbell rang. i opened it and found a shy young man on the doorstep carrying a composition book. he said his name was avive friedman. he'd just come to this country from israel, and he lived on the next block, about five houses away. i'm an israeli chess champion, he told me. my sister saw this ad in the paper. i told him to come right on in. then i took him downstairs to the family room where i had a large black coffee table specially made with an inlaid chess board. i introduced him to woody, showed him the chess pieces and
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left them alone. as i walked up the stairs i could hear mr. friedman telling woody that the piece in his pawn, and it was worth one point. at the end of an hour, i checked on them, and i could swear that woody seems as engrossed in those little chess pieces as he had been in the dizzy pinging, flash, zooming of his nintendo. as i paid mr. friedman and arranged for him to come the following week, he said, you know? your son has a spark. even better, woody was looking forward to his next lesson. hearing that was like getting an early christmas present. now, moving forward, woody was doing well with his chess lessons, and soon mr. friedman said if he kept at it, he would be ready to compete in chess tournaments. i even got woody an electronic chess game that he played between his lessons with mr. friedman.
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it had this annoying mechanical voice that would announce at the end of the game: i win, you lose. [laughter] how woody hated to hear that announcement. he would play against that machine for hours only to hear, "i win, you lose." [laughter] it frustrated him to no end. then one day woody beat the computer. at the end of the game, the annoying computer-generated voice had a different message, "i lose, you win. ". [laughter] woody was so pleased with himself, he left the game on for hours after that. anyone going down to the family room would hear the game's mechanized concession of defeat in broken record mode, "i lose, you win." "i lose, you win." and that's the end of that chapter. now, what happened to woody? and woody is my first born, and woody went to public school. we believe in public school.
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and woody went on to harvard. he graduated cum laudety at harvard, he went on to columbia university colleges of physicians and surgeons, my son is a physician, and he is studying neurosurgery. i say that -- i'm smiling because when they're little kids in preschool, i said maybe your grandfather was a janitor and a ditch digger, but your dad and i, you know, we're stable, we're physicians, and we can support you. you can be anything you want to be, cardiologist, radiologist, ob/gyn, as long as there's an m.d. behind that name. woody said, no problem, mom. straight on. he's the parent pleaser. woody, in his chess before he went to harvard, became the united states junior open chess champion. he was the national high school chess champion, national junior high school chess champion, national everything state champion, new jersey state champion because he loved chess,
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and chess was just the one thing to position himself so that he applied at many of the ivy league schools, and he was accepted at many -- at all of the ivy league schools that he applied. now, that's the first one. you say, oh, wonderful, my second's going to be the same way. no. my second born is kimberly, the rebel. she says there's too many doctors in this house anyway. you know the mantra, everybody's supposed to be a doctor. no, mommy, i want to be in music. she's a classically-trains pianist, and she went from high school to stanford. she got her degree in studio art. so i said, okay, what are we going to do with that? but i just wanted to read a little thing about my rebellious daughter, kimberly. kimberly is the second born, and i find that the second borns are always somewhat rebellious. now, in this part of the book pretty soon kimmy began going to tournaments with her brother and
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dad, and mr. freed match said kimmy was unusually talented too. not obsessed as her brother. for her it was still just a game, not a calling. anytime she got cornered in a difficult match, instead of trying to figure a way out, she would say i'm tired now, you can win. it was getting close to halloween, again, and kimberly wanted to wear a tina turner cos to school -- costume to school. when i heard that, i put my foot down. oh, no, you're not going to be that woman with the earrings and the short, short miniskirt. absolutely not! she begged and pleaded, but i would not permit my child to strut around in a skimpy outfit. she could be a princess, i said, and that was the end of that. a couple days later they had a chess tournament at manhattan chess club, and sherwood took the husband, and i stayed home,
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bushehrwood called me with a progress report. each game get progressively more difficult. woody was doing quite well, but kimberly had lost her first two games. i knew she could have won at least one of them, but she wasn't even trying. put her on the phone, i said, remembering how daddy would give me and my sisters incentives to do our best when we were little. you want to be tina turner, i asked, when she came on the phone? you win the next three games, and you can be tina turner. now, i admit i knew full well that she didn't have a prayer. if you couldn't win the first two easy games at the tournament, she wasn't going to win all three of the remaining ones, but i wanted her to at least try. when sherwood got back on the line, i explained this all to him. sherwood agreed that it was smart to at least give her something to strive for. i didn't give it another thought
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until a few hours later when sherwood called me back. kimmy won! he told me. he had difficulty believing it himself, but he saw it with his own eyes. not only had she aced the three games, she beat a child who was so many points above her, she might as well have played bobby fischer. i got the costume for her. two short leather miniskirts, matching leather jacket, spiky blond wig. et wasn't bad enough that she wore that costume to school, but that day kimmy's class went to holy natal hospital to show off their costumes to the little sick kids. i can only hope that none of the doctors realize that that child dressed up as a wild woman was the daughter of dr. thornton and dr. mcclelland.
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so that's my daughter, kimmy. now, she went and got her degree in studio art, and i said, honey, what are you going to do with that? she says, i'm going to be a curator at a museum. i said, it's few and far between, it's not a steady expectation. she dose be -- she goes, i'm a stanford graduate. that's the way it is. after a while she made her way back to columbia, to new york city, and she was accepted. she took a gre, she was accepted and got her master's degree in public health. i said, honey, that's great. that's fabulous. she goes, mom, i know what you really want. i said, that's me. whatever you want to do just fine, but mommy's happy. she says, no, you're not. my daughter kimberly is now a first year medical student in medical school, she wallets to be a period -- wants to use her artistic wants and needs and talent so that she can help many
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children with cleft lip and cleft palate. so, yes, my sister's and i were donald's folly, you know, we were a joke in my community. but my two children are donald's legacy. and that's what comes when you just keep going and keep trying. now, the last excerpt from this book i wanted to read to you is about my dad. and it starts many years after my mother had died. we took daddy out for his birthday at shadow brook restaurant, one of those hoytty to itty restaurants that we couldn't afford when we were kids. it was all very elegant with waiters and tuxedos and drink served in crystal. it had some of the best prime rib in new jersey. daddy is always a meat and potatoes kind of guy. my sister, linda -- the youngest -- had come to town. she was an oral surgeon. she was in the dental corps and
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an army major. my sister jeanette had just finished medical school after originally getting her degree in psychology, and daddy had always expected her to be the first dr. thornton. but she rebelled and had gone her own way, so she must have been thrilled when she finally got her medical degree, even if it came later than he had hoped. it had been a while, but we were all there. just him and his girls again. the way daddy liked it. no kids, no husbands. the waiters were already brought the salad, and i had arranged a little surprise before the main course. the maitre d' came to the table and announced, there's a call for dr. thornton. some curious diners turned to see, who was dr. thornton? ye net, linda and -- jeanette, linda and i rose from our chairs, and as we stood up u the look on my father's face could have lit up the entire eastern
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seaboard. there wasn't really any call. i had taken the maitre d' and asked him to page dr. thornton during dinner because i wanted to see the wonderment on my father's face when all three of us stood up. we were the living proof that daddy had dope what -- done what he had set out to do. tadty marveled that he actually managed to achieve this impossible dream. all his work, all his sacrifice had paid off. he was too tough to cry, especially in front of us girls. but if there were ever a time when he came close, that was it. and i knew it was the best birthday present you could have given him. and that ends chapter two. now what -- [applause] oh, thank you. thank you. >> now, what happens to all
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these people? well, first, let me tell you about my mom. my mom passed away at 61. she was the impetus to have me right the first book, "the ditch digger's daughter." i'm not an author, i deliver babies. but she had called me one day and said, oh, honey, it would be nice to have a book in the library. she didn't say barnes & noble, she said library. just think, here you are doctors. you know, if it's a book in the library, it would tell people with a little faith and hope and determination you can be anything you want. and i said, mommy, i'm too busy. i'm delivering patients, i'm on call, i don't have time to write a book. she says, that's all i wanted was a book in the library. [laughter] so i said, yes, mommy. and i was very respectful, but i was too busy. i don't want to be melodramatic, but my mother died six months
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later. she died january 8, 977, and from that time on, from 1977 until the first time the book was published, it took me 18 years. but i got it published. and when the american library association named it as one of the best for young adults, i said, mommy, this book's for you. let your aims be high even though fulfillment may seem impossible. so we tried, we fulfilled, and what happened to my mother, what happened to a dream deferred? while working with the west virginia higher education commission and with, basically, beckley. and i worked with beckley and bluefield state teachers' college of she had to leave because she couldn't afford the last year. and in 2005 my mother is in the class of 2005 having been given a doctorate in humanities
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posthumously, and that's my mom. my dad died too early, also, he died at 57 years of age. he was too young to die, but he worked so hard. three jobs sometimes. he would go pumping oil, and he would be digging ditches, and he'd be a janitor. many people would say, donald, you're going to kill yourself. he'd say i'd rather work hard than not and have my kids go through what i went through. don't let anybody define who you are. if front door is closed, go around to the back to get in. if back door's locked, go around to the side, maybe you can get in that way. tonight give up. never, never, never give up. and that was my father. and he was our moral compass. he had six girls. he raised six girls. and today when children don't
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even know up from down, you know, when a hero is just a sandwich and when g. o.d. stands for guaranteed overnight delivery. we have problems in our society. but my parents knew exactly how to guide us and tell us where to go. and that was my dad. now, the tenor sax phone player, donna, when she was 14 years of age, she unfortunately passed away of lupus complications at the age of 48. she went to monomouth college, she married, she has a daughter, heather. heathers has her master's in social work. went to university of virginia and also university of pennsylvania, and she lives with her husband in california. betty is a geriatric nurse ready to retire, and she lives in long branch in the same house that my mother and father built in long branch, new jersey. jeanette, the troublemaker, the second born, she said, okay,
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daddy, i'm a doctor. now, she got her e.d.d. in counseling psychology, and my father was not a sophisticated man. he says what's an e.d.d., jeanette? she says, doctor in psychology. can you heal with somebody like that? >> no, daddy, that's a clinical psychology. when my mom was sick in the hospital, one of the politicians came -- physicians came out and said i know one of her daughters is a doctor, and my older sister, jeanette, said i'm dr. thornton, and he was talking about the type of drugs he was going to be using, and my sister had this look on her face, and the doctor said, what kind of doctor are you? she goes, clinical psychology. he goes, oh, the real doctor. my sister, jeanette, at 32 years
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of age applied, was accepted and entered boston university school of medicine and got her md at the age of 36. so she's an md. she has a double doctorate now and she lives in albany. now, what happened to me? i married my best friend. we met in medical school. now, i am mrs. mc"closing bell"land, but i am dr. thornton in honor of my father who didn't have a son to carry on the name, i'm dr. thornton. my husband and i have been married for almost 37 years. thank you. [applause] thank you. and he is my rock. and at age 47, at age 47 that's what education has been, has done for our family. we've always strived for education. at 47 years of age, my husband and i went back to school, went
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back to columbia to get our masters'. but what am i doing? i am here today to speak before you to say what have i done? i, hopefully, have changed stumbling blocks into steppingstones in order to achieve and to arrive at whatever you want to be. i have two children, they're wonderful kids, and i'm very happy that i have two children because that is really the best, the best publishment that i've -- accomplishment that i've ever done. now, let's talk about linda, the drummer. you saw the drummer who was nine years of age. linda is my idol. linda had three strikes against her. linda was black, female and weighed 300 pounds. and she would come home and say, daddy, they're calling me fat, they're calling me baby huey, and my father would bend down and say, linda, your brain's not fat, go back and study.
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so linda graduated new york school of dentistry. she is one of only three board certified black female oral surgeons in the country. if you go on youtube and type in thornton sisters, you'll hear us in 1965, and the lead vocalist is linda. linda volunteers for the united states army, she recently retired as a lieutenant colonel, and now she's an associate professor at temple university. she also got her masters in health policy and management from texas. and that's linda. my kid sister, she was, basically, the kid sister. and when the first book was written, she was a science teacher. and after our parents passed away, we said, you know, they want more from you, rita. she said, leave me alone, education is important. but secretly my sister rita went back and she applied and was
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accepted to seton hall university of law. but she didn't like law, so she was the first black woman at the new jersey institute of technology to get her ph.d. in environmental science. so, therefore, all of us are not physicians, not medical doctors, but the surviving daughters of donald thornton are all dr.s thornton. and we made that one gigantic leap in one generation. many generations you'll go, you'll drop out of high school, the next generation will go have some college, the next generation will complete college, the next generation will go on to graduate school. but in one generation? it's almost unheard of that a janitor and a garbage man and a woman who cleans people's houses who had six daughters would rise so that we are successful, independent and accomplished women? and that can be done because we realized the power of a dream.
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thank you. [applause] >> now, there's some questions and answers from the audience. i know you must have some questions. there's a microphone for you to speak into. on both sides. don't be shy. you mean to tell me not one question? well, come. come to the microphone. >> hello. >> hello. >> my name is kristin gordon. i'm a ninth grader at the
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leadership school, and, oh, yeah. my question was, like, so you feel really proud that you, like, completed your father's dream. would he be proud that you delivered all those 5,000, a lot of children? did he really want children that bad -- well, obviously, he really wanted a boy. so would he like -- >> you said he really wanted a boy? >> yeah. so how would he feel that you deliver all those children every day? >> well, that's what i do, i deliver lot of babies. but as far as my father was concerned, after all he didn't care when he had boys or girls. he just wanted us, his daughters, to rise above and be educated. and that would be the only way to get us out of the ghetto and into the mainstream. i've always wanted to deliver baby since i was 8 years of age. [applause]
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just come to the microphone, folks. i'm not going the bite you. just come to the microphone. just come to the microphone. [laughter] >> okay. [laughter] okay. okay. do you think you are ditch digger to your son? >> yes. do i think i'm a ditch digger to my son? i didn't understand that? [laughter] i'm sorry. i can't hear you. with regard to the inspiration of guiding my son to where he is today? yes, i believe so. i think as a parent you have an obligation to make sure your children rise as high as their little brains can take them. so, yes, i do.
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[applause] you're welcome. >> hi. >> hi. >> my question is why did you choose that specialty of being a doctor? like, why did you choose -- >> why did i choose obstetrics? well, in the first book it tells you. i was 8 years of age in an elevator with my aunt in the hospital. and a young lady came in, and she delivered right there in the elevator. she squatted and, boom. she delivered too fast for her to get to the maternity ward. and i witnessed the delivery of that baby, and i said, wow, this is cool. i can be around when one person becomes two people? this is cool. [laughter] so that's what i wanted to be ever since i was 8 years of age. [applause] you're welcome.
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>> hello. >> hello. >> i'm an 11th grader. >> 11th grader? is. >> yes. >> good. >> so i wanted to know if you had advice for my of our -- any of our young women here who are going to college and want to see what our life path is going to be? >> >> well, for my family it was medicine. and people say, well, everybody can't be a doctor. i'm saying look to what you love to do, what you get up in the morning and think about doing, and that's what you should strive for. and when you go off to college and special liberal arts colleges, there's so many things and options. but if you focus on what you really like to do and stick with it, you'll do well versus over here and another semester over there, and you lose time. because time is very valuable. you can't get time back. so choose something, stick with it, and you'll do just fine.
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you're welcome. [applause] >> hi. hi. >> hi. >> my question was, do you believe that your grandkids or your nieces and nephews will carry on the legacy of your father and what you wanted you guys to pursue? >> i only hope so. because i believe -- this is me, in my opinion, i think medicine is the most noble of all endeavors from one human being to another. if you can, again, heal somebody, safe somebody's -- save somebody's life, t very, very noble. so i hope that my grandchildren will go into medicine also or some area that they will be able to help people. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. [applause] >> um, hi. >> hi. >> my name is camilla. i know that you're really successful now, but what do you think is your best achievement so far? >> the best achievement is having my two kids, actually. being the mother of two wonderful children. thank you. thank you.
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[applause] but also being a double board certified internal -- >> my name is samantha, and i wanted to know who else supported you? >> who supported me, like my role models other than my mother? no one. it was just my mom and dad. we were insulated from the community that were may sayers that said you can't do it, never heard of a black doctor, a female doctor, never heard of anything. so why would you want your daughters to become doctors? i never heard of 'emsome and we were isolated from that community. my father said don't let anybody define who you are. and that's what we did. we just put the blinders on and ear plugs in our ears and just kept going forward to what we wanted to do. [applause] thank you.
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>> um, my name is ashley. >> hi. >> and i was wondering, like, when you stayed in college for a long time, did you ever start to drift off, even if you were doing what you love? >> some people do that. i didn't. and people say, well, being a doctor, that's so many years, it's so many years, but we're only going to have live those many years anyway. when i went to university, there was a prescribed course that you had to take and a curriculum that you had to follow. and so i followed that curriculum. however, some of my colleagues who are physicians now, they took two years, and they went to chinese literature or art, and they came back to premed, and they just department go to medical school right -- didn't go to medical school right away. but in my situation i went straight from undergrad to medical school without any sort of deviations. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. [applause] okay. we have the last two questions.
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>> um, did you ever feel obligated to be a doctor because your father was, like, telling you to do it? did you ever, like, try to do something else or, like, look into another field this. >> well, that's a good question. not me, but my other sister, jeanette. my father feldt -- felt like being a physician you're financially secure and you're safe. i've always wanted to be an obstetrician, so there was a confluence of what by father wanted and what i personally wanted. so a doctor who delivers babies was an obstetrician, so i was the first one in my family to become a doctor. i inspired my younger sisters, i motivated my older sisters so that we all could go forward and do the best that we could do. [applause] >> thank you. oh, and there's one more. >> hi. my question wuss out of the --
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was out of the 5,000 children that you delivered, is there, like, a specific memory that stand out the most? >> that is an excellent question, and we'll end on that. why? i didn't know how to answer that question a few weeks ago, but i have an answer now. of the 5,542 babies i delivered, i was asked to attend the wedding of one of the babies that i delivered 25 years ago. and i was there at the end of february, and her mom was in a wheelchair. her mom was a paraplegic, and that's why she came to me, it was a complicated pregnancy. i delivered her mother, no other obstetrician around would want to touch her mom, but i said if you can get pregnant, you know, with the help of god, we'll take you through, and we did. and she delivered a lovely daughter. so i was asked to be a guest at her daughter's wedding. when i stood up and saw her, the baby that i delivered walk down the aisle and her mother in the
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motorized wheelchair right next to her, it was such an overwhelming, emotional time for me to say if i weren't trained that well, that young lady wouldn't be there. so for me it was a wonderful time to see that i do touch people, i do make a difference. and as an obstetrician who touches the child before the mother touches it is that you do touch and have a feeling of immorality. and thank you very much for asking that question. [applause] >> to find out more, visit the author's web site, dr. thornton.com. >> here's a short video from c-span's recent trip to florida where our local content vehicles partnered with brighthouse networks in tampa/at that time petersburg to give you a closer look at the literary scene. >> tell me about teddy road svelte as a third party -- raz svelte as a -- roose svelte as a
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third party candidate. >> she was born in new york city in 1859. his father was a wealthy businessman in the roose svelte fall -- roosevelt family. he's also a philanthropist. he's interested in helping the poor, he's a big contributor to causes for the poor. his mother, interestingly, is a southern belle from the plantation aristocracy from georgia. there's a big plantation called bullock hall, and that's where they were married. she, supposedly, is the model for scarlet o hard ray -- o'hara in gone with the wind. martha, her name was. now, back in those days upper class people did not get into politics. it was considered kind of dirty and disreputable. but teddy roosevelt develops an
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interest in the political system. he runs, he becomes a state legislator in new york state. he goes to washington, he becomes assistant secretary of the navy. during the spanish-american war in 1898 he organizes a regiment, and he becomes a national hero for his charge up san juan hill. he comes back, and he's approached by boss platte of new york state to run for governor. they figure they've got hot candidate here. they want him to tow the line. these people are in bed with the corporations, and they want teddy roosevelt to tow the -- to do what they want. he lets them think he is going to do what they want because he wants the nomination. he's politically ambitious. but once he gets an office, he does what he wants which is infuriating the corporate powers in new york state, and they threaten to cut off
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contributions to the politicians. so platte wants to get rid of teddy roosevelt. so the election of 1900 is around the corner, and he approaches mckinley who's running on the republican ticket and wants him to take teddy roosevelt on the ticket, take him off his hands. now, mckinley is wary, but he realizes that there's a progressive movement that is coming up, and many republicans are progressive. he's more of a conservative. but he feels with teddy roosevelt on the ticket as a progressive that it would give good balance to the ticket. so he accepts roads svelte onto -- roosevelt onto the ticket. and then in 1901 at an education position in buffalo, mckinley is shot. and teddy roosevelt becomes president of the united states. now, he finishes up the first term, the mckinley term we'll call it, and he decides to run on his own in 1904. and he makes the promise that he
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will not run again, he'd just be a two-term president. and this was in keeping with the traditions set by george washington. for a president -- no president up until then had run for more than two terms. so almost immediately when he makes that commitment, he's kind of sorry. but he finishes out his term in 1908, and he hand picks william howard taft to be his successor. um, but he and taft are different personalities. taft is a conservative, roosevelt's a progressive. their temperaments are different. taft really didn't want to be president, but his wife pushed him. he would rather be a judge. he goes on to the supreme court later. teddy roosevelt loves the political life. he loves the leadership, the bully pulpit. so roosevelt and taft have a falling out during taft's

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