spaceflight program and congress will allow. and i keep my interactions such as they are with members of congress, suggest to be they simply don't understand that putting people into space has nothing to do with exploring the universe or learning the laws of nature. >> steven weinberg, nobel prize winner, uta professor, author of several books, including this one, "lake views: the world and the universe." this picture on the front of the book is his view of lake austin on his boat dock. he joins us here at the university of texas. >> thank you. >> every weekend booktv offers 48 hours of programming, focus on nonfiction authors and books. watch it here on c-span2. >> next, booktv talk to

professor lewis gould about his book, "my dearest nellie." this interview is part of booktv's college of series. this month we visit the university of texas at austin. >> professor lewis gould on the cover of a book you edited this past year is a picture, who is in that picture of? >> the picture shows president william howard taft and his wife helen herron taft in a limousine. the task were one of the first presidential amnesty is the automobile. i was chosen to illustrate how close and loving this couple was and why president tapped wrote her one of 13 letters while he was in the white house. >> who is now a? >> nellie was her name, her affectionate name within her family and then by the president. he always addressed her as my dear nellie or my dearest nellie. that's how her intimate new

herb. >> where did they need and how did they meet? how long were they married, et cetera? >> they both grew up in cincinnati. and knew each other early on, but they didn't really start dating, they got to know each other in the 1880s after taft had come back from yale, was at the cincinnati law school and then he and nellie began keeping company and he proposed in 1884 and they were married june 1886. they had longer engages in those days, more than just a weekend. >> was she well known in cincinnati? did she come up from a family of renowned speakers yes, her family lived in a more affluent, better shape than the taft and pictures are interested in cultural musical matters. she was present at the cincinnati symphony went to start and carried her musical interest over to the white house. so she was a very cultural,

sophisticated one. somewhat underrated because of the tragic circumstances of her wife in the white house. >> what did she bring to that decision and what happened to her while she was first lady? >> mrs. taft had great ambition to washington the cultural center of the nation, and she came in as a very activist first lady in march 1989 but unfortunate on may 17, 1990, get a crippling stroke and it took away her speech for a good while. she had to relearn to talk, and there's and it goes with the present city with her saying, say that again darling. we can do that again. let's do it and trying to help her to recapture her speech. since she was such an interesting and intellectual woman in many ways, it was very sad that her speech was so impaired for so long. and that was the reason these letters exist, because in washington in the summer, if anyone has lived in washington

knows, british diplomats use it to get hardship pay to being station in washington. so she would flee to the shore of massachusetts and the cold waters off cape cod and elsewhere, and he would write her and they take to her long letters every day in which he described the affairs of the state imposed happening to him, his weight, people he was seeing, the automobile trips he took. and these were the records of the presidency and essentially there's no other one like it except harry truman the best room and. but these are virtually unknown. >> professor gould, how did you find these letters? >> i was working on a book called the modern american presidency, and i had photocopied some of the taft letters. as i read them again and again i thought, i wonder if there are more of these? if there are, maybe there's a book year. and so the taft papers have been

on microfilm for about four years with help of graduate students, my own research, i went over to the library here at the university of texas and there's several reels of past correspondence, but there was one real that had all the letters of the presidency. and with the magic of technology i got them, copied and brought them up and begin typing them into the computer and editing them. because i had to identify all the people the president was talking about. he met a lot of people, i can tell you. so i had to find out about famous and not so famous folks. >> what did you learn about william howard taft presidency from these letters? >> well, he wasn't really very happy with his presidency. i think he was not well-suited to. he of course want to be chief justice of the supreme court of the united states, if that wasn't possible. someone else was already holding the position he wasn't going to leave. so the presidency was sort of the next best thing that was available, and he did that.

but, of course, it problems with theodore roosevelt, and divided republican party. and his judicial temperament didn't really make him effective. so he poured out his troubles in these daily letters in the summer when he would write his wife about what was going on. and since congress met through this summer in 19 '09, 9011 to 1912, there were lots of letters. >> was nellie taft a popular person in the united states? what she well known? first ladies today are of course very well known but what was it like? >> she was somewhat obscure. there was as much focus on the first lady as now. they were emerging as celebrities but they hadn't reached the kind of superstardom that they have now. so people didn't know much about her, and, of course, the stroke make much more difficult for her to achieve all she wanted. but you can credit you heard the

cherry blossoms in washington that come out each spring. she arranged with the japanese government to have those sent. she brought a number of distinguished artist to the white house, for its chrysler, the violinist, various singers and other people came. heineken, other great popular, classical ones at the time. they had quite a so wrong in the taft years. they were very social, and when they left there was somewhat disappointed because, let's just say that presidency of woodrow wilson was not as glittery as the taft. >> did you find letters from mrs. taft to the president? >> there were some, but because of our difficulty, they tended to be i hope you're doing well, i'm rooting for you, so sorry things are not going well. they just didn't have much substance wanted to concentrate on the president which, after all, i think is what people are most interested in. >> did he confide in his wife

about issues facing the presidency, facing congress because very much so. he would go into great detail what the situation was in congress, where the votes were, who was doing what. he was also a gaza. he would talk about people for drinking problems. and to my surprise there was in 1912, you don't think of secretary of state as a man about town common but he had a flirtation with the wife of a general during the summer of 1912, and they said, he had kind of a curl, they travel to the republican convention on the same thing. so the idea of him out having sort of a gals in the sort of news to me. and me doing this very fun. >> lewis gould is professor emeritus here at the university of texas. as an emeritus does that mean you don't teach or udp to? >> that means i don't teach.

i'm retired. >> are you doing any research come in at the work at the university of? >> that of? >> that, i've been publishing books and i've been working on a couple projects at the moment spent what is the lewis gould collection of american history? >> well, it's a kind of hobby. i collected autographed letters of people i study, and over 25-30 year period i've collected a lot of stuff. some of it is supported by the professorship that i held by the university. so when i retired it seemed appropriate to donate it to the university so other people could use it. and so that's where that is. there's some wonderful tasha a sales pitch, there some wonderful letters of democratic candidates for president who are relatively obscure like parker lost to roosevelt in 1904, and there's some letters from friends of tammy j. tillman, and just, you know, i picked up a lot of good stuff. so that's h