>> that is true. he was the godfather for a whole new generation of 12 lawyers. and also tony of course went on to defend them and other things, when they were subjected to one police raid after the next. >> [inaudible]

>> that's a good testament to tony's skills. and by the way, that's michael adjusted up, another great hero from seven cisco. a great photographer. michael s. bennett longtime photographer for the 49ers went back to the first days with joe walsh and montana. made we're beginning to see them again. so thank you, michael. [applause] >> i think we have time for a couple more. >> i just wanted to follow up on michel's story about, michel's companion and a group of lawyers. michel's companion -- terence

hallahan organized most of the freedom riders, and i would come home at night. i had never heard anything like that and that was the first time i got the idea of segregated health care, and we would go over to their office at -- and there was vincent. also willie brown. so one of the many positive things about your book is there was this group of lawyers that -- [inaudible] testified in court cases. tony would tell me stories. he was an incredibly storyteller. he was not good at finance. his idea was he would drive a car, get so many tickets and let the police take it away.

's. nobody knew about paying taxes. >> i just want to say when david called me up to be interviewed about the book, i said god, can we even remember that time period? and it was a really rare moment in the sun and hunter thompson was night manager at the theat theater. and it lived with artie mitchell and then jim mitchell. and david talbot came and asked if he could come and follow us, and i was actually going out -- >> [inaudible] >> i used to go down the street and hand out condoms to the prostitutes, and sit with them, and my pink little leather outfit. and when the prostitutes were arrested, then they would take them in. when they were released they would poke holes in all of the condoms. it was just a very, very fair

moment in the sun when we shared that. thanks for shedding light on that. >> yeah, thank you. >> [inaudible] can you talk a little bit about the trajectory? [inaudible] >> just briefly, you know, i think it all comes to ahead. i mean, the cops were sort of the bastion of the old irish catholic family, and they had all gone to same parochial schools together. it was an old boys network. you know, there was a lot of

great police work they did, particularly on some the cases, the zebra case which they finally cracked. the city was on the verge of civil war that case was cracked. but yeah, there's a lot that the snp has and support, too. to all these tensions come together, or boil, start to boil over rather during mayor moscone's tenure. when he tried to reform the police department. he brings an outsider after promising initially he will appoint one of their own as chief. he brings in the outside reformer, charlie. and then all hell breaks loose. people are sprawling death threats in the police athens. cops -- at one point margo st. james, another san francisco hero, the organizer of the prosecutors union, coyote, she had some good friends and clients among the san francisco

police force. one of the tips are off one night to the fact that charlie was going to be killed that night, bought a copy gives us the consumer and she warned him to get home as quickly as she could. as he could. so this was the kind of violent tensions that were bring within the city over reform, because what moscow and, of course, wanted to do was open up the police force to minority. it was a very white department in those days and they were fighting it tooth and nails. and the gays and women. and so we owe mayor moscone a great debt for standing his ground because of course he came out of that world and so. he was the son of catholic, had been a basketball star at saint ignatius, and he was seen as a traitor by many of the kids, the name he grew up with who later became part of the power structure in this town. [inaudible]

>> well, i'm glad you brought that up there i want to say one thing. it's illustrative with that chapter i read about the coming. because that gentleman, robert mccarthy, was a vietnam veteran. he came to the hate and was embraced by people who. when he was in pain, he was obvious on the brink of a nervous breakdown are was coming out of his experience in vietnam. he was not rejected. these lies spread and the, spread by hyper nationalistic patriotic type right wing. for the most part i think are completely groundless. and in this community come in the city veterans by and large

were warmly embraced. when he had drug problems, when they were in dire need and no one else was taking care of them, not their families, that the patriotic type, it was hippie san francisco it took them to the heart and took care of them. >> i really want to reinforce that, david. the plowshare started here. the haight-ashbury clinic was nonjudgmental approach, all of the veterans in the '70s came to our clinic for detox and medical problems. and the da decided that they needed to fund whatever the veterans when, and that was when the haight-ashbury clinic got its first government funding. i recall being over here on the block and government officials came across and wanted to give me money. and i said, last year you tried resting and now you want to give me money. there was a vietnam veteran in the air, very rich history, the

head of our rock medicine for a long time was glenn who came out of the vietnam veteran area, country joe and the fish. but it really caught the violence of that era over here on haight street, the pack squad came down. i can just see it right now. they have those big shields. they beat the crap out of all the hippies, about 1968. [inaudible] >> right, and i was standing up there. i came down because they were just beating the crap out of this kid. and i came down and then they started whacking me with the nightsticks. and i think the great thing about san francisco was the journalism. herb cain wrote in his column the next day about how smith got beat up, and they don't even beat up the red cross in the wartime. so you have this kind of liberal journalistic force of state that

change the establishment into backing out. and certainly you have chronicled without a very well. >> well, thank you everyone for coming tonight. books are for sale at the front counter, and david talbot will be signing at the front, so go ahead and continue the conversation at the signing table. >> and thanks to the booksmith. >> and keep it coming in. thank you. [applause] >> today, the new 113th congress gavels in for the first time and we will have live coverage on c-span networks. the house meets at noon eastern for a roll call, and election of house speaker. you can watch it on c-span. the senate also begins new session at noon with a possible debate on the filibuster rule. that is life here on c-span2.

>> you don't always find many newspaper editors in any era embracing investigative reporting. the point we've seen over the years, it's not just economics. it's the discomfort that investigative reporting often causes any newsroom. because it's trouble. it's about more than economics. if you going to the ruffle the feathers of someone powerful, that gets those people running in to complain to the publisher, and their stories are legion over the years about those kind things happening. we were very fortunate all the '70s and really on the follow-up career to work for people who were really strong in that area. and just let the chips fall where they were. >> the investigative team of donald barlett and james steele will take your calls, e-mails and tweets this weekend on "in depth." the pair to begin the collaborative work and the '70s are the co-authors of the books. their latest, "the betrayal of the american dream." watch live sunday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2.

>> paul jennings was a slave born in 1799 who served president james madison. he's the subject of "a slave in the white house" fight elizabeth dowling taylor, the former director of education at james madison's home of montpelier. she talked about her book at the library of congress. this is just under an hour. >> well, good afternoon. welcome to the library of congress. i'm john cole, i'm the director for the center of the book in the library congress. the center is the reading promotion arm of the library of congress. we were created in 1977 by librarian of congress daniel boorstin to help the library of congress stimulate public interest in books and reading and literacy. we operate primarily through a couple of national networks.

they are our senators for the book in most of the states. they work with us to promote books and reading in their respective states, and in particular to promote writers and writing. we also have national reading promotion partners, many nonprofit groups and government organizations that we also work with to promote books and reading. we are a major component and the national book festival. i hope many of you know about the national book festival, and have attended in the past. i can tell you that this year's festival will be on the national mall september 22-23rd. we are delighted to have been able to expand of the national book festival in the last year, and that's going to continue. there are some more seats up front, please, if you'd like to to. there's plenty of room. today, we are featuring another

way we promote books and reading. we love to give book talks at the library of congress to make a couple of points that a lot of the research at the library of congress and many other libraries result in a book in the printed word. we are pleased to feature offers and their books that have a special relationship with the library of congress. in this case as you will learn, much of the work for beth taylor's book was done here at the library. we also helped sponsor project a books come a books that come out of long-term library of congress efforts. so we are very pleased to have you here. there is really a listing of future talks. everyone of our talks is supported, almost all of our talks are also supported by one of the custodial divisions of the library of congress. and in this case we're grateful

to the manuscript division for being our cosponsor. today's noontime talk will be filmed both by c-span and by the library of congress. more than 200 of our talks are available on the library of congress website. so in a sense you can get a snapshot of current literature and writing in the united states, not only through the books and beyond talks on our website, but also through the national book festival programming. and since the book festival was created in 2001, we have accumulated more than 730 minutes or 45 met talks from different writers. and so i hope you take advantage of that. it's really a snapshot of the importance of american writing that's growing each year, and now we are, lo and behold we're going to go into our second decade of national book festival

and books beyond talks. because today's talk is being filled, i urge you to turn off all things electronic. we will have, once our speakers introduce, you will hear from her, and there are more seats up front, please come if you want to come on up. and then they will be a session, about a 20 minute session, questions and answers. and then there will be a book signing. so books are for sale at the special library of congress discount at the back of the room, and you also can pick up a schedule for future talks in, ahead. in the question and answer period, we will be filming not that part of it for c-span as well. and i'm going to ask people to come up to the microphone, but i also want to tell you by asking a question and participating, you are also giving the library of congress permission, and

c-span permission, to use your image and your wonderful question as part of our programming while you wait for the wonderful answers from our speaker. to introduce beth, i'm really pleased to introduce julie miller who, since june 2009, has been served as a specialist in american, early american history in the manuscript division. and also want to add that shortly after julie joined our staff, she spoke in our books and beyond series about her new book, abandoned, foundlings of 19th century new york city. so you can see that you have authors and readers coming at you from all angles when you come to a books and beyond talk to i'd like now to turn this over to julie miller, and let's give her a hand. julie. [applause] >> thank you. i paid him to say that. our speaker today, beth taylor,

has a doctorate from the university of california at berkeley. she's been the director of interpretation at monticello, thomas jefferson south, the director of education at montpelier, james madison says, and a fellow of the virginia foundation for the humanities. and now she's the author of this book, "a slave in the white house: paul jennings and the madisons." and i might add that she's also appeared on "the daily show," which some of you may be interested in seeing. i met beth which he came to do research in the manchester division in the library. beth on something or import virtualize the library's collection of papers of leading colonia national figures contained papers and information about people who were not those people but of the people, the people who surrounded them. and very often those people were slaves. that information takes the form of mentions and letters, journals and farm records but sometimes it's letters written by the slaves themselves there and this is the case of paul

jennings, the paul jennings letters that beth found in the dolly madison's papers. often it's interesting to us that the documents like these, really because they were swept up into the papers of prominent people, people who were recognized for being prominent. in some cases we can assume that these records are the only written records of these lives. they are really very valuable things that we more or less incidentally have in the manuscript division. [inaudible conversations] congressman in this book issues able to excavate the story of one of these lives, the story of paul jennings. and am very proud to introduce beth taylor. [applause] >> well, and i thank john and julie for having me today. i think all of you for turning out. "a slave in the white house:

paul jennings and the madisons" was a great labor of love the. i spent three years researching the book, and a year writing it. i have a fondness for good, narrative nonfiction, and a lot of times if i read journalistic pieces, i enjoy when they began with an extended anecdotal lead. so i adapted that approach in my book, and each chapter starts with what we might call a vignette. i really labored over the details. if i get the weather, it's a documented. if i say james madison's overcoat was olive, i have an eyewitness. and so on. so i thought what i might do today is interspersed my comments with reading excerpts from some of these vignettes. they all place jennings at or near a doorway, or some kind of opening it in one case it's a

hatchet of a ship it and in this first one, it's an open grave. >> on or about 28 february, 1801, montpelier, the madison plantation in orange county, virginia. the old master died in the dullness of february. on the way to the burial in the family graveyard, the house servants passed by the slave graveyard where most of them expected to be buried someday. it was cold and they walked on, passing between the tobacco fields to the east and the original homestead to the west. the madison family graveyard was located in the backyard of this first homesite. the main dwelling long burned to the ground and supplanted by the georgian mansion once they have started the third mile in formal procession. once the household was circled around the open grave, the house servants raised expectant eyes to the new master of my.

no, james madison, jr. standing next to his mother, nelly. there was this day at montpelier, another mother and son present, the mother's name is unknown. the name of a toddler at her skirt was paul jennings. she perhaps help the little boy's hand hoping that two transmitter inside of what might happen next. for the death of a master was always a time of tension for his enslaved people. they would have little control over decisions about their futures, including the faith of the nearest family members. well, james madison, jr. became the fourth president of the united states. paul jennings journey from slavery to freedom would play out in the highest circles of ideas and power. the white house. james madison's study, and in the freedom, he would offer as decreed by the white house historical association the first

white house memoir, and its full text is included as an appendix as a slave in the white house. it was my familiarity with this memoir that first drew me to jennings story. it is titled a colored man's reminiscences of james madison, and as that title implied, it is more about the so-called great man than it is about the author himself. but my interest was in jennings. so i set out to discover elements of his biography, uncover the circumstances behind the publication of the memoir in 1865, and track down and interview living direct descendents. paul was only 10 when he came to washington in 1809, the first year of the madison administration. he was chosen from among 100

montpelier slaves as just, oh, two or three to be part of the white house domestic staff. and he found washington to be dreary and, indeed, it was. not only because he was likely homesick, but because this was a planned city, and at that time existed very much more on paper than it did on the ground. but i think that soon enough paul realized that he was at the start of a great adventure. he would be a footman in the president's house for eight years. he would come of age in washington, and in the process he would be an important witness to history in the making.

31 may, 1809, the first of dolly madison's white house drawing room. it was a rainy wednesday. paul jennings in his footman delivered like a heavy initial duty of meeting guest at the north entrance with an umbrella. there was no kournikova and for protection from the element. tonight was the first of what would become all the madison's legendary drawing rooms, with the presidential mansion open for everyone who's properly introduced. more gentlemen and ladies attended this premiere night, as would be expected in a town with many government men and residents without their families. had moved ladies been present, dollywood still have stood apart. not because she was seated on a platform, as marcy had been at her corporate reception, but because of the charming intertwining of her personality and dress. jennings himself later describe some of her ensemble, fabrics of

purple velvet and white satin, always with firefighters and trim to match. president madison, happy to leave the limelight to his wife was attired in the old style. paul fontenot and knowing that he would one day serve as madison's valet and be responsible for his clothes and his issues. as the guests mingled among the ruins, servants threaded through them with trace of refreshments, wind, punch, coffee, ice cream, et cetera, were literally served, jennings recalled the acting on the steward command to replenish food from the panda our toe that up from the seller. it was both frightening and exhilarating experience. the carriage, music, mayors and chandeliers, the sophisticated and political conversation. paul, the observer, paul lister,

received an eyeful and then fearful this evening. as i began my research, i prepared a word document headed, what would paul jennings like? and i added to it as i went along. and two characteristics among others became clear. he was a good listener and he was a good networker, two traits that serve anyone well who is interested in getting ahead. i interpret jennings life as a deliberate, courageous, and successful pursuit of the right to rise, which really is the most american of promises, isn't it? jennings, after his eight years in washington, thought about running away.

instead of returning to the plantation with the madison's. the evidence for this is a letter in the madison papers written by jefferson's nephew, warning him that there was such a rumor. and i visualize the jennings whose last one of opportunity to act, and thinking not only about whether he had the nerve to chance an illegal run, and perhaps be caught and punished, but realizing also that that virginia plantation was his home, too. could he leave the theme of his boyhood, the home of his mother, never to return? it's not as if he said well, if i don't make it back this christmas, i'll be sure to do that next christmas. this would be for ever. and what we know is that in the event jennings indeed returned to virginia, and he was

promoted, if you will, to the position of james madison's personal attendant, or body servant. and as such, as a constant servant in madison's study, he was present as madison received a queue of notables in that room from thomas jefferson to andrew jackson, henry clay, the daniel webster. and very many young men of learning. the madison's niece wrote that jennings sighed for freedom was enamored with freedom. well, you bet. those young men of learning, they would rhapsodize about spending one evening listening to the father of the constitution old fart. jennings, like part of the wallpaper, was present for hundreds of such discourses.

and in the book id felt the thesis that jennings was able to absorb the theoretical underpinning that would support his inmate yearning for freedom and allow him to identify it as a natural right of man. late february 1837, jennings prepared the madison sitting house in washington for future use by the widow, dolley madison. paul jennings had returned to lafayette square for the first time in 20 years. james madison died the previous summer, and dolley decided she would make use of her sitting house in washington and sent jennings ahead to ready the dwelling. it was still february but in anticipation of the new administration, already the talent noise was gathering along

with the first frost. they ask for your -- 28 years earlier. jennings took stock of a much altered lafayette square, a block from the madison house, the restored white house now at both the north and south front. past the buildings charred and weakened exterior walls had been rebuilt, and the course of which the workmen dug up a partially preserved in are displayed that jennings had prepared the day the british torched the mansion in august 1814. the george washington portrait had long ago been retrieved from the maryland farmhouse what it had saved arrested after the fire and returned to the white house. ..

>> one could say that paine took advantage of his situation too, slowly draining his stepparents' finances and goodwill. well, as you know, every presidential family needs an embarrassing ne'er do well -- laugh and in this case it was dolly's son from her first manger, payne todd. and payne beautifully filled out role for me in the arc of my story as foil to paul jennings. here he had every advantage in life and squandered every one. jennings had no advantage in

life and yet even while still a slave managed to carve out a life of meaning for himself. now, when james madison died, jennings was disappointed to learn that he had not been freed as he had reason to expect. he was then given to understand that madison had made an agreement with his widow that she would free all the montpelier slaves, all the 100 slaves. well, that certainly wasn't going to happen. she and her son began selling slaves right away. although in her 1841 will she did have a term that would free jennings at her death, the only slave so treated. but he wasn't so sure about that as time went by. he got on her bad side. now, he's back in washington, but his wife and his children

are owned by another master in virginia, a neighbor of madison's. so not only had he not lived with them up until now, visited with them only on the slaves' one traditional day even week, sunday, but now he was altogether geographically separated from them. dolly at this time was hiring him out to president james polk. so jennings had a second white house exb appearance beginning -- experience beginning in 1845. and at this point the president and his mistress had given him permission to go pack virginia -- to back to virginia for a visit with his family. but he had stayed longer than dolly approved of, and she wrote to her son and said that he, paul will lose the best place, and his mistress' convenient

resources. well, i want to stop with that story for a second because i want to tell you about my research at the library of congress and how it was here that i got my first hints as to paul's family. and i think it's an interesting episode pause it -- because it illustrates undertaking historical research in this day and age and a likely path for it. often starts, as it did for this particular aspect, with google books. [laughter] and google books, you know, you never know what you're going to get because you put in different combinations of keywords, and you see what comes up. and at one point even though i thought, certainly, i had tried this many times before, i discovered that here in the manuscript division of the library of congress was a

29-page manuscript titled paul jennings and his times. well, i was just so excited, at in this point i was director of education at montpelier but thought, well, when saturday comes, i'll be going up to washington. let me call ahead and make sure they really to have this item and can share it with me on saturday. so i called up, and someone in the manuscript division -- and i must say everyone who works here has always assisted me with great thoroughness and kindness, and i really, really appreciate that. and such was the case with this gentleman on the phone who said, well, he looked it up, he went away, he came back, he said do you have a -- let me look a little bit more, do you have another minute to hang on the phone, and i said i will be happy to hang on the phone and have you read me all 29 pages -- [laughter] of this manuscript, so that's no problem. but anyway, so he said, yes,

indeed, we have it. and i went up then on saturday, and the fellow who was working that day in the manuscript division, i showed him the printout from google books, and he was surprised to see what had been digitized was the actual handbook of manuscripts in the library of congress. he had pulled out his copy, and it was like the bible, you know, from being underneath his desk. and he diddies gray a certain -- diddies play a certain aspect of claiming this as their special document, don't tell me anybody can get their hands on this from google books. but anyway, once he brought forth the manuscript, i was just beside myself because right in the first page i learned, like, five new facts about paul jennings' biography. this was where i first learned that he had a wife named fannie

gordon. and, you see, i also learned for the first time about daniel murray. daniel murray was the first african-american assistant librarian of congress. and he had been preparing a monumental but never-published biographical encyclopedia of the colored race, prominent african-americans up to his time. and he included paul jennings among them because he was familiar with his having authored a colored man's reminiscences of james madison. is and in 1901 he had interviewed paul jennings' only surviving child at that point, franklin jennings, and he had put together some notes. so i got to see both on microfilm some of the notes that murray had put together as well as this opening page of this manuscript.

paul jennings and his times. and what was interesting and what is kind of part and parcel of research so often is that according to murray, franklin had said that his mother was lady's maid to the sister of general, eventually-president zachary taylor. well, i knew that wasn't possible because i was familiar with the taylor family -- no relation -- of orange county, virginia, and i knew that zachary taylor was born in that area but that his immediate family had quickly moved on to kentucky. so that timing just wouldn't work out. but what it gave me was the hint that it was some mistress in the taylor family. and, indeed, it was. and later i was able to verify that, you know, through the

orange county courthouse records and through other records at the national archives and so on. but that was really, um, one among many exciting days that i spent at the library of congress. now, the rest of the story then. so paul jennings needs his freedom now. you see, what actually happened about this time is that his wife died. so now his children back in orange are motherless. the youngest just 2 years old. now, this is when he went to senator daniel webster for help. now, remember that i said he was a good networker, and you know that it helps to have acquaintances in high places, even as slave. and webster came to jennings' rescue, and he advanced his purchase price. he wasn't a rich man. he struck a deal whereby jennings would work in his household and pay that purchase price back at the rate of $8 a

month. so finally, at the anal of 48 -- at the age of 48, paul jennings became a free man. and here's one thing he got involved with that very first full year of freedom. night, saturday; 15, april, 1848. a landing near the 7th street wharf, washington city. it was a moonless night, and that was an advantage. for the activity at the wharf was highly illegal. paul jennings played a role in the operations that led to this action and is thought to have been the black man silently observing the scene in the shadows noticed by ship captain daniel drayington. he told him he knew what was going on, but the captain need have no apprehension on his account. 77 enslaved men, women and children would board a schooner

named pearl anchored at the edge of the potomac river and stow themselves under the hatch. they would be an their way to freedom and the north. among the individuals hidden in the hull was dolly madison's runaway slave, ellen stewart. jennings had likely escorted the 15-year-old to the dock and watched her board the 54-ton bay craft schooner. it may well have been ellen's desperate need for flight that precipitated jennings' own involvement in the venture. one day, approximately five months earlier, dolly had called ellen to the apartment nominally for an errand but really, quote, show her to a georgian as the colored people call the slave drivers. after ellen was dismissed, dolly arranged with the trader to pick up the girl at a pump in the public square where she would send her under the ruse of fetching water. but ellen dashed across

lafayette square and escaped into the bustle of the city. now, as i say, it impresses me that jennings would risk his hard-won status as a free man by helping others try to achieve that same condition. this was not to be. jennings was one of the black operatives who worked with white northern abolitionists to plot this escape attempt out. it was part of the underground railroad and turned out to be the largest attempted slave escape ever in american history. the pearl left the harbor but met with light winds on the potomac. that slowed it down, got to the chesapeake and then the winds were too heavy to enter the bay. still, they might have made it to freedom in the north but for a turncoat in the black community back in washington who informed on them.

that got the owners on their tail sooner instead of later. they caught up with them and hauled the pearl back to washington, and those slaves aboard faced the fate they most dreaded which was sale to the deep south and permanent separation from home and family. now, another thing that paul jennings did soon after he achieved his freedom was to march himself town to the photographer's studio and sit for his degaer owe type. here he is on the cover. and let me tell you how i discovered this image. it is the only known likeness of any montpelier slave. i worked to, um, seek out jennings' direct descendants. and i had tips to the living

direct descendants of two of jennings' chirp but none for -- children, but none for his son, franklin. when i finally cracked that line, it led me to sylvia jennings alexander. she was 93 years old when i had the privilege of meeting her x she was the keeper -- and she was the keeper of the jennings family oral traditions. and on her living room wall, was this likeness of paul jennings. mrs. alexander lived another year and a half after i met her, and though she had physical maladies when i first met her, her mind was sharp as a tack, and her memories that she learned from her, um, grandfather franklin -- franklin lived to be 90, and so she heard right from franklin many of the family stories that go back to slavery days. and she very much enriched my story and also my own personal experience. by the way, she shared many

family photographs with me, and a slave in the white house has over 20 photographs and maps and other graphics, but there were many more that couldn't go into the book, and i hope that you will check out the paul jennings web site where many of them have been posted. it's pauljennings.info. but back to this likeness, it didn't take me too long to compare it with the statute of james madison that is here in the madison building of the library of congress. and that, of course, is because madison even as you see jennings here holds a book in his right hand. finish so james madison was always the statesman with a book under one arm. and it's clear that jennings was proud of his literacy, that he is posing with the prop of his choice, a book. well, here's the last vignette excerpt that i'll read.

31, october, 854. el at 18th streets, northwest washington. paul and december demoan that jennings appreciated their new home. it was a small house on a small piece of ground but of great significance to them. carpenter john james had owned lot 23 in square 107 and having divided the land into three parcels, he built three wood frame houses facing l street. each parcel had about 13 feet, 4 inches fronting l street and ran from 84-115 feet back to a diagonal alley. jennings purchased the easternmost house for $1,000. he had saved $400 of the purchase price, a substantial down payment. earlier on this day a month after the sale, husband and wife had been at the washington clerk's office where each signed a document borrowing the $600 balance. that is, paul signed, deaths

demoan that -- that's jennings' second wife -- applied her mark, acknowledging the same as her husband, namely that if their payments were not made, the property would be forfeited. the arrangement specified quarterly installments of $100 plus interest. accumulating the down payment could not have been easy, and coming up with $100 every three months would not be either. washington was one of the most expensive cities in the world. pension office clerks earning $9-18 annually were hard pressed to support their families. jennings' salary was 400. the debt would be satisfied in may, 1856, and paul jennings -- a man legally held his property for 48 years -- would own his piece of land and modest house free and clear for himself and his heirs forever. there was just a scattering of houses in the area. the city's established finer residences ran from capitol hill to the white house in a small

section north and west from there. though it was only a few blocks further on, paul and d can esdemona's neighborhood was in the midst of countryside where rabbits could be shot and blackberries and huckleberries grew in season. well, i'm sure most of you know that spot, l and 18th streets northwest. and if you're book lovers, you will remember that's where until not too long ago there was a borders books. and i would go there and go sit in the calf today -- café and think, hmm, i could be sitting at paul jennings' kitchen table right now. [laughter] what's interesting, too, is that many of the places where jennings either lived and/or worked are still existing in washington. the winder building and the patent office building where he worked for the department of the interior, the dolly madison house, the octagon which was the first of the temporary white houses after the white house

burned, and, of course, the white house itself. well, before we get to questions and answers, i want to make a couple of comments on paul jennings' legacy. james madison wrote of liberty and learning, leaning on each other for their mutual and surest support. like madison, jennings applied his learning in the service of liberty. he secured his freedom and his family's future as an intrepid anti-slavery activist, he forged passes and free papers for slaves, was an operative in a major attempted slave escape, and he raised funds for slaves in peril. by helping -- thus helping to purchase them from their

masters. he's, his is a unique story, but it's also important to appreciate that at the same time he is representative of many, many african-americans of his time whose stories may never be known but who, like him, overcame a barrage of obstacles in pursuit of the right to rise. and i will close by referring back to the library of congress and the great good that they do here in preserving the written word. you know, when jennings authored that first white house memoir, it was a private printing. i don't believe that there were more than 150 to 200 copies. and so really it's quite remarkable that it survived at all and wasn't altogether just

obscured and lost over the years. and in part we do have daniel murray to thank for that, because that assistant librarian of congress helped put together an exposition in 1900 on the works of negro authors. and that included paul jennings. you know, this is in contrast to, let's say, solomon northups, twelve years of slave. there were 8,000 copies printed and sold in just the first month when it came out in 1853 and many thousands and thousands to follow. so i'm grateful to daniel murray and to the library of congress that jennings' memoir is still with us. and i thank you for your preserving our heritage of the word. and i thank all of you for your kind attention. [applause]

>> well, we are grateful to beth, of course, not only for the research that went into this story, but also to highlighting a little bit of the library of congress' own history and our own story as part of the american story. we're not done yet, we have a question and answer period to go. i did not mention deliberately that this discussion also can continue on facebook. the center for the book has a books and beyond facebook page where you can learn about past talks and contribute your own remarks to ongoing discussion that we're about to start now. i'd like to ask for those of you who have questions for beth to, please, come to the microphone in the middle and ask your question. i also will be able to assure

you that we have until 1:00 which is the time it starts, so let's start with one more round of applause to our excellent speaker today, beth. [applause] thank you. >> thank you, john. >> and will someone take the first step? [laughter] well, if not, i will ask the first question, and then i expect others to come up and follow. i have an easy question. what was it like to be on the jon stewart show? [laughter] what kind of preparation did you do mentally before you took that first step? thank you. >> well, you know, it's funny because, um, my -- the publicist at my publisher's landed this gig, and i didn't know it until one evening when i got back to my house in virginia having been up here in washington picking up my son who's a college student

at american university, bringing him back home for the christmas holidays. and when i got back, there were six telephone messages, 20 e-mails, where are you? you've been booked on thestewart show, we want to make your travel arrangements. and, you know, naturally, my son being 21 is a prime jon stewart fan, and i sat him down, and i said, i know you are not going to believe this, but i'm going to be a guest on the jon stewart show. and then since it was his christmas vacation, he, first of all, coached me, asking me questions and as if i was on the show for the, that period of two weeks, and i tried to get a grip on my nerves which i finally did just the afternoon of that, of the taping that evening. so that when i did go over to the studio, that meant that the experience could be fun for me as, indeed, it was. the entire thing was, um, just one of the most privileged and

enjoyable experiences i've ever had. and, of course, jon stewart is my new best friend -- [laughter] because i do feel like i have him to thank for the vigorous book sales. [laughter] >> with hello there. i was just wondering if you actually got a sense of his personality, paul jennings' personality, and, um, if it was what you expected when you set outen the journey of the book? >> can you repeat the concern. >> the question was what sense i got of paul jennings' personality. and, yes, i did get a good sense, i feel, as time went by. and i feel there were a couple of sides to him. he was a intelligent, courteous, well-bred -- these are all descriptions that would come up -- he played the violin, he liked to read, he was steady and precise, he was patriotic. he had another side where, that

he was especially able to express in freedom, and i feel like he was a man about town in washington. he married three times, the last time at age 70. sylvia jennings alexander, his greated from, said that her father, franklin, described him as a jim dandy. [laughter] in other words, he thought that he was hot stuff at times. [laughter] and he said that if he had any extra money, he'd be fine kid-skin shoes, for example. and i think about how he watched washington changed, coming here in 1809 first as a 10-year-old boy and then living and dying in northwest washington, dying at the age of 75. i mean, even just take one thing like the u.s. capitol and imagine how, um, he saw it evolve over the years, remodels, burned by the british and then

finally during the civil war coming to its prominence as it looks today. although he never did see the washington monument completed. that rose to one-third of its planned height and then for 25 years remained a stub. so he never saw that in its final form. >> well, you preempted me. i was about to ask how long it took him to save up for his freedom and how long did he get a chance to enjoy that freedom. >> well, let me, let me say a little bit more about his life in freedom. now, remember, daniel webster advanced his purchase price, and so it would have taken him close to a couple years to pay that back at the rate of $8 a month. and he continued to work for webster for about four years, but then he decided, apparently, that he wanted another kind of job. and, remember, i said that he was a good networker. and so what he, um, did was get a letterer of recommendation

from daniel webster. e found the original in the papers of alfred chapman. well, who's alfred chapman? he's from orange county where -- and he's a cousin, he was a cousin of madison's, but he was living in washington at this time working as a clerk in the department of interior. and next thing you know jennings gets a job in the department of interior. so it's easy for me to imagine him taking this letter of recommendation that webster wrote for him, and it's jennings' name, paul jennings on the envelope, but then handing it over to his contact working those connections, alfred chapman, who gets him a job in the same department. and he had a steady but low-level government job. this was about the most that -- these were coveted among free black men and about the highest that a black man at that time might hope to aspire to in terms of a livelihood. so he worked in the pension

office which was under the department of the interior for at least 15 years. >> hello. what a fascinating project. i was wondering what about it compelled you to want to tell the story and bring it forth? >> well, you know, i was director of -- well, first of all, i should say i worked at monticello and montpelier for a combination of 22 years, and i saw the opportunity to make a small contribution by telling a fuller story of the african-american heritage at these sites. wherever slavery existed, of course, it's important to tell the story. but at these two presidential plantations it's all the more poignant and important to do so. so i had that ongoing interest. and then paul jennings became the focus of my study because of this memoir. i thought, you know, my

question -- it's a precious document, and it's quite interesting. and yet when you finish it, you feel like saying but what about you, paul jennings? i wish you had included more about yourself. and the visitor who came to montpelier were interested too. originally, i just -- and, you know, the memoirs, you can find the text online. but they've never come out in a new edition since 1865. and at first i thought, well, i'll bring that out, the reminiscences themselves, and do a biographical essay with them perhaps. and then i just got more ambitious from there until it turned into a full-length book. >> you mentioned that he died at 75. where is he buried n washington? >> well, i'll tell you that story. he was buried in harmony cemetery which is southeast, and

that was okay except that as the years went by, that burial ground became very much overrun with weeds and then the metro itself encreped on it. and as some of you may know, the burials there were dug up and reinterred in maryland except -- i don't know if there were other cases, but paul jennings' remains never made the trip. mrs. 58 sander, sylvia jennings alexander, paul jennings' great granddaughter, remembered her cousin, pauline, crying they've lost grandpa paul, they've lost grandpa paul. and so although we know initially he was buried in harmony cemetery, just where his remains are at that moment are unknown.

[inaudible conversations] >> stay right here for a second. when i first met beth, she was still at monticello, and she recalled the story to me a little earlier, i haven't seen her for a number of years. knew she was working on this book, and she came wandering down the hall about an hour ago before this talk, and i knew it had to be beth because she was carrying kind of a decrepit but important bag to the center for the boog. it was the old center for the book bag that i had given her more than how many years ago? >> about 12 years ago. >> 12 years ago. and, a, i said that must be beth, but i better check it out -- [laughter] and then i saw the condition of the bag, and i said, well, that speaks well for the durability and the quality of our products here at the center for the book. so in addition to thanking her and telling you that we would like you now to line up over

here for the book signing and have a line come along that wall, i would like to present beth with -- [laughter] a brand new bag -- [laughter] that is in great shape, never been used. i will not take this one back though -- >> sentimental value. >> sent sentimental value. but join me one more time in thanking beth for a wonderful talk. >> thank you, john, i appreciate that. [applause] >> later, a review of the last few months in the british parliament from the bbc.

>> roger williams, while he was a member of the clergy, was also incredibly trained and learned in civil law and actually worked for sir cooke in the british parliament and in the star chamber. and we see a lot of his ideas of civil law and separation of church and state begin to be articulated in texts like this. and it is the famous bloody tent net of persecution. this is really where we see roger williams talking about the idea of liberty of conscious and the freedom of religion. he is very much showing at this point why he is different and why his thinking is different and why rhode island will be different from massachusetts, the plymouth bay colony and the other colonies to the north. he was creating a land where people could come, could worship as they chose and would always be protected by the civil law. and this did not, of course, sit

well with england or with massachusetts. by an act of british parliament, all of the copies of this book were set to be burned. luckily, not all of them were. this copy was not, and we're able to show that to people today. >> more from rhode island's state capitol as c-span's local content vehicles look behind the scenes at the history and hit area life of prove -- literary life of providence sunday at 5 on american history tv on c-span3. >> next, chandra manning, author of the book "what this cruel war was over." in it she uses the letters and diaries of civil war soldiers on both sides of the conflict to tell the story of that war. we talked to her about the book on the campus of georgetown university. >> host: on your screen is professor chandra manning who is the author of this book, "what

this cruel war was over: soldiers, slavery and the civil war." professor manning, what was your approach to this book? >> guest: the first thing to say about approach is that you give me way too much credit when you say approach. the book is not be at all the book i thought i was going to write when i started. i started with an interest in civil war soldiers and a desire to read their mail. but absolutely no intention at all of writing about soldiers and slavery. none. because i didn't think they would talk about it. i was interested in enlisted soldiers. i was enlisted in the regular farmers and the shopkeepers and the nonslave holders and the, you know, northern grain growers who i really didn't think were going to care about slavery very much at all. and i was interested in their war, and i was especially interested in how they differed from each other. not just north and south, but how is somebody from boston different from somebody from

ohio or how is somebody from the chesapeake different or similar to somebody from appalachia? so i was really interested in what people who lived in the 19th century thought about how where they lived connected to this thing called the nation. what did it mean to be an american if you were from different parts of the nation? so my plan was to do that, to look at how these guys talk about america, how do they talk about the united states, how do they talk about the union, how do they talk about the confederacy, how do they talk about the south? hoping that they would do it substantially different from each other and, voila, i would have something to say. so i headed off into the archives, 45 of them -- >> host: first of all, what arkansas kentuckys? >> guest: -- archives? >> guest: oh, i visited archives from every state that fought in the civil war. so there are 45 archives represented in this book. some of them that come to mind, the library of congress, or

carlisle barracks in pennsylvania which has an enormous army history collection. but also smaller libraries, state historical associations, the alabama department of archives and history, the vermont historical society. some jackson county historical society in independence, missouri. and again, the point was i really didn't want to read more about u.s. grant, i wanted to read about the little grunt at the back of his line. so that's what i looked for. and what i really wanted was for these soldiers to say i look at the flag, and i think of my farm, or i think of my wife or my mother. and they just, they wouldn't with cooperate. they wouldn't do what i wanted them to do. and i was really frustrated with them for that reason. >> host: what were you finding? were you finding a similar theme between both union and confederate soldiers? >> guest: i was less interested in those although i was interested in those, than east/west sort of.

i found very little of the east/west difference that i was looking for. easterners thought they had bad manners in the west, but you could predict that. if you ride the metro today, you can hear that kind of conversation. that was not that surprising. so that was one thing. they weren't with talking about what i wanted them to, but they wasn't stop talking about what they weren't supposed to talk about, and that was slavery. and that's what they were not supposed to care about. or at least it wasn't supposed to enter the center of their world in the way that it seemed to. so i spent a good, long time annoyed with them for not doing what i wanted them to do until finally, duh, i woke up and realized there's a story here. i didn't think these guys should be talking about slavery, and they are, so i need to understand why. why did they care? many what difference did it make to somebody from arkansas or alabama who had never owned a slave whether slavery survived? what difference did it make to somebody who grew wheat in

illinois or made shoes in massachusetts, why did he care whether the union survived? once i figured out that was my question, then that became my approach. but, again, approach sounds like i knew what i was doing from the outset, and i really didn't. it took me about two years, just days in the archives to figure that out. >> host: so, professor manning, as you went through these letters, let's start with the north. what were you finding northern soldiers saying about slavery? >> guest: at the beginning i was struck by the wide range of opinions on slavery. at the beginning the war really is about union for most northern soldiers, not all, but most. and what i mean by that is that most of them enter the war convinced that the united states has to survive. it has to survive to show to the world that representative government can work. these guys were kids in 848 --

1848, and a series of revolutions in europe as they see it failed. these were democratic revolutions, so as they see the united states, this is it. this is the world's last shot. self-government works here, or it will never be tried again. so if these states think that they can destroy the government -- which is how union soldiers see it -- because they didn't like who got elected, then we have just said self-government doesn't work. so we have to prove that in this thing can survive. and that's how we start. but you don't have to be in the south very long before they begin to think, hmm, why did we get into this fix to begin with? they talk to white southerners, they talk to slaves, and they're really struck by how we got into this problem to begin with because of this institution of slavery. if you want to solve a problem, the only way to do it is to root out the cause. so union soldiers made a shift much, much earlier than i had anticipated. the big shift begins in the summer of 1861 with soldiers

beginning to write home to their families but also to their elected officials to say that if we want to win this war and if we don't want to fight it again in ten years, we need to get rid of the problem. we need to get rid of slavery, or or it's going to be back -- we'll be right back at square one. so they at first take a vail practical -- take a really practical approach to the slavery problem. it's the way to solve the problem. get rid of the cause, problem goes away. but they stay in the south. this is their or sort of first reaction to what they view as the causes of the war. but then as they stay in the south, more and more they interact with real live slaves, real live people who run to the union army by the thousands. and suddenly it's harder to dismiss slaves as an abstraction or black people as a sort of undefined category, something you've never heard of before. it's harder to think of them that way when you have

individuals with names and with stories and with families in your camp. and they also do useful things for you like your laundry. and so the initial feelings about slavery are sort of quite instrumental. it's a problem, solve it. but extended experience in the south, i think, really humanizes african-american people for soldiers, and they begin to take a more reflective look at, you know, there's something wrong with this. it's not just inconvenient, there's something wrong. and it's gotta go, because you only win a war when god's on your side, and there's no way, no way god lets you win if you let something like slavery exist. so a sort of practical response in the early months is joined by a kind of moral and an even religious reckoning as the war proceeds. >> host: and you're finding that across the board among northern soldiers? >> guest: i really am. now there's differences of opinion about everything. you've got two million men in union blue. two million people -- any two million people are going to disagree about things with the one exception of the food is

bad. they all agree about that. other than that there's divisions of opinion about everything, but what's striking is, is how weighted the opinion is. again, not at the outset. there's a big range at the outset, but as the war proceeds. so there are a lot of guys who enter the war i want nothing to do with slavery. i can think of one in particular, chauncey. i call him mouth think chauncey. i think he's 18 or 19, he's from ohio, and he enlists, and he and his father and his uncle are quite close, and they're also very active or enthusiastic in the sort of far wing of the democratic party sometimes called the copperheads, the wing of the party that is most given sort of race baiting and most opposed to the notion of emancipation. well, that's how he enters, and e gets through -- i mean, he gets about midway through the war, even as late as 1863 with the emancipation proclamation,

he's still not sure it's a good idea, and it's not what he signed up for. east not going to leave, but he's not happy about it. but again, he stays in the south, he goes through experiences no one at home can even imagine, and he -- who is the most rabid anti-abolitionist i found in the early months, by the end of the war is writing home to his father and his uncle to sort of reeducate them. at one point he writes to his father, and he says, well, you think that i have, you know, turned against my country, well, i think you are mistaken considerable which is the voice -- that's why i call him mouth think chauncey, he sort of mouths off to his father. and he proceeds to explain exactly why the war has to take down slavery. and then at the very end of the war, when it ends, how he greets the ending is yes, we are free, free, free from the blighting phase of history. if you look in the union ranks,

of course you're going to find a range of opinions, but by the end of the war that range has considerably narrowed. and any time in the war it's, there are a lot of peopleler shifting. >> host: were northern soldiers' letters censored at all? >> guest: that's a good question, and the answer is no. that's really one of the charms. here are three million men who fought in the civil war, most of whom would never have left us their personal thoughts were it not for the war. why would you? because the people you loved you talked to as opposed to wrote to. for four years they're away from home, so they have to use writing as a way to talk about what they care about. that's actually what drew me to the project in the first place. it's very hard to get at what did ordinary people care about and think about? because they don't leave papers in the way that george washington does. so that was how i was drawn to civil war soldiers to begin with. these letters are completely

uncensored. thai expected to leave out -- they're expected to leave out sensitive military information, but they don't know any. officers have enough to do, they don't look at the men's mail. they also don't look at the soldiers' newspapers. and these were really interesting. so enlisted men -- there's no office of morale, welfare and recreation yet in the civil war, so these guys have got to amuse themselves. and one of the ways that they do it in many regiments is enlisted guys start newspapers. and sometimes they do it with a piece of paper and a pen, and they're handwritten. and sometimes they do it by occupying the printing press of the local southern newspaper, the berryville conservator in berryville, virginia, for example. the berryville conservator editor was carefully setting the type to his newspaper one day in, i think, early 1862.

in marchs the 1st minnesota, and they decide not to undo all his work, they'll just print the other three. so this one paper exists with one page of berryville news and three pages of minnesota news. and in other places men actually travel with portable printing presses. and these newspapers are exclusively, almost exclusively enlisted men's ideas and worlds and works. they write them for themselves, they circulate them among themselves, and those aren't censored either. they're not censored officially, they're also not self-censored in the fact that if you're writing a letter to your mom, you know, you guild the lily a little bit on some things. i wouldn't want to know that my son hadn't had a decent meal in two weeks, and his socks had holes kind of thing. ore soldiers know that stuff, so there's no reason to soften edges. so those newspapers are especially uncensored, so they really are almost the sort of

almost raw voice of enlisted soldiers, and it's hard to imagine anything like that today. it's not like stars and stripes in world war ii which goes through a formal censorship process. nothing like that. >> host: chandra manning, when did you get interested in the civil war, and what do you teach here at georgetown? >> guest: that's a good question. i can't remember not being interested in u.s. history in particular. i loved little house on the prairie, believe it or not, when i was a kid. i was also very, very close to my grandmother who as a woman had to be a saint, because she taught me to read when i was 2, and she was fascinated by the civil war. i can't really explain why. our family wasn't in the united states yet, so it wasn't a genealogical kind of connection exactly, but she was. and anything about her, well, i was going to be just like her. so i became very interested in the civil war pretty young. i was probably 8 or 9 when i read the life of billy yank by belle wile ri, and one was

written in 952. and they are very descriptive books about civil war soldiers. if you want to know what a soldier wore or what the buttons on his uniform looked like or what kinds of practical jokes he played on his friends, where he marched, if you want to know anything about his daily life, those are just -- they will never be sur passed. -- surpassed. and i read those quite young, and the bug bit then. so i've been interested for a very long time. here at georgetown i teach 19th century u.s. history generally, but i do teach a class on civil war and reconstruction, and i call it my total immersion experience class because we play civil war music every class, i have them eat hard tack at one point in the semester -- although my supplier went out of business, so i don't know what i'm going to do now. but i also teach classes on the history of baseball and other 19th century topics. >> host: chandra manning, what did you find in the southern soldiers' letters?

>> guest: they surprised me even more. i walked into this project convinced that they were not going to talk about slavery. why would they? i just couldn't see -- two out of three white families in the con fed rahs is si -- confederacy did not own slaves. i really thought there would be a, you know, what's in it for me attitude towards slavery. and so the war for them would have been fought for different reasons. and i kind of went into the project, you know, i've read the ordnances on secession and those kinds of things, they make pretty clear that secession happened to safeguard the institution of slavery. i knew that, but i didn't think that the regular guy really saw the war in those terms. so i expected the war to be for him a sort of process of disillusionment almost, that i entered for one reason, and i find it's about something else, and this isn't my war after all. and that's what i thought i was going to find, and i really,

really didn't. what i found were men who did care, as i suspected, first and foremost about their loved ones, their families, their homes. but what i was unprepared for was exactly how closely they'd linked those things to the institution of slavery. so you don't -- you live in north carolina or arkansas or virginia, and you don't own any slaves, but you're connected to the institution, and you know it. in a number of ways. there are a lot of structural ways. kinship, you know, your fam will hi doesn't own slaves, but great uncle hal does. the widespread process of slave hiring or slave renting. you don't, you can't own a slave, but you need some help this year, you can represent one from your slave-holding neighbor for far less than you could hire any other kind of labor, and that'll help you in the crunch times, harvest and planting. you, so you also are no fool. you know that the wealth of your region is highly dependent on this enormously, enormously

valuable source of property. so there are real structural ways in which regular white southerners are connected, and they're not dumb. they know it. but i think the real connections go almost down to a gut level. if you are a white southern man and you don't own slaves, you still enjoy a certain position in the society, and you live in a society that really values equality, really values the idea that you and i are just as good as one another. well, you also grew up in an age of growing inequality, in a age of very high mobility, people are on the move all the time. you grew up in a very insecure world. so what if i live in a shack and you live in a plantation, what makes us equal? well, neither of us can be slaves, and that is important. it's not the whole story, but that's important to who these men think they are. of they also think of themselves as husbands, as fathers, as brothers, as protectors. what do they see as the greatest danger, the greatest threat to the people they love?

they see emancipation as a terrible threat. theyly in a society -- they live in a society that is 40% black. what happens when 40% of the population who you know has pretty good reason to be a little upset with the other 60% is freed? they really believe that their loved ones are in danger if slavery goes away. so there's a safety, genuine gut-level safety issue as nonslave holders see it. and then the final -- maybe not final, the final one i talk about, the final sort of reason why slavery, i think, matters to these guys is religious. and that sounds funny, but slavery's in the bible. not even in the new testament does christ come out directly against the institution of slavery. who are these northerners who think they know better than god how to order society? that's heretical, that's dangerous.

and so if everything you know and love in the world seems to you to rest on this foundation o slavery and someone's talking about messing with that foundation, you just felt like your whole world got rattled. and so in that sense i found right from the outset, you know, white southerners who really don't see themselves having a direct economic interest but do see the very things they love the most as dependent upon the survival of slavery, and that keeps them in the field. >> host: how easy was it to find a trove of letters at all these archives? >> guest: easier than i thought it would be, actually. and i think, again, because i tended to go to sort of smaller ones. so the letters tended to be often somebody's attic got cleaned out, and no one knew what to do with these things, so they went to the state or the county. so there are hundreds of thousands, just an uncountable amount of these letters out

there, and that actually turned out -- i didn't have the problem i couldn't find enough sources. i did have to have a strategy for there are so many more source here than i can ever look at, how can i choose? so the way i did it was i stuck with enlisted. occasional are hi some of the guys i would look at would become junior officers, but i looked at men who enlisted as enlisted men, and i wanted just or the their people. so i wanted people you'd never heard of before, and i tried to keep the ratio of how many eastern e westerners, how many farmers and teachers. i tried to keep those ratios as close to possible. so i chose by sort of demographic, i depress, data as much as anything. and i tried really hard not to overrepresent any particular group in who i looked at. in one way, though, i did -- there is one, i should admit there is one, well, there are

two, there are two not quite right representations. one is, obviously, illiterate soldiers. now, there were fewer of those than we think because over 90% of the union army and over 80% of the confederate army could read and write. so literacy is not such a small thing as we might think, but there are illiterate soldiers in both, so they're harder to get at. now, there are people in regiments who write for illiterate soldiers, and i did read those kinds of letters. the group who's least likely to be illiterate are the black soldiers, so those are the voices that were hardest to get at, those were the ones that needed the most digging, and there were a couple of ways to get at those. one is the same way that somebody in the regiment could write and wrote for others. the other is that black soldiers who could write often wrote into northern black newspapers and so there are columns and columns of black soldiers' letters in

northern free black newspapers. and i got at them that way. sometimes black soldiers will hold public meetings, and together they will come up -- all soldiers do this -- they'll come up with a series of resolutions, things we believe together and we agree on, and somebody will write those down, and they'll record a vote or a reaction. and so it's not the same as writing to, you know, your sister. but it's their voice somehow. and so those are the soldiers that are there, purposely there because they're part of the army, but that i have to admit the sort of escaped slave who had never learned to read or write, his voice is the least likely to be captured. the other misrepresentation is probably not that meaningful, but i would get to an archives, and i would look through all the soldiers that today had, and i would make a list of everybody they looked at, and i would go through and right around thursday if i was there for a week, i'd realize, oh, no, i'm

only at m. so soldiers with early alphabet names are overrepresented as opposed to those with ss and ts. orrin that i really did -- orrin that i really did try very hard. >> host: what about women's voices? did you look at return letters? >> guest: i did some when i wanted to know what they were responding to. those do exist. far fewer of them, though, than the soldiers letters, and i think some of that has to do with practicality. if you write home to your family, they can put it in a drawer, and they're afraid something might happen to you, so they have a real incentive to keep it. so the soldiers' letters were more likely to survive than loved ones' letters to the front. if you're a soldier, you have a knapsack, and you don't have a drawer to put things in. and it gets wet, and it gets muddy, so source survival makes letters back, letters to soldiers from women harder to get at, but they do survive.

sometimes soldiers send back the letters specifically so they get saved. i did not make a systematic inquiry into those on this particular project, but there's one there to be had. there are a few people who are beginning to do that kind of work, and i think it'll be really interesting. >> host: we have within talking with chandra manning, professor at georgetown university and also co-director of the georgetown workshop in 19th century u.s. history. this is her book, "what this cruel war was over: soldiers, slavery and the civil war." professor manning, thank you for your time. >> guest: my pleasure. thank you very much. it was nice to talk to you. >> today the new 113th congress gavels in for the first time, t, and we'll have live coverage on the c-span networks. the house meets at noon eastern for a roll call of its members and election of the house speaker. you can watch it on c-span. and the senate also begins its new session at noon with a possible debate on the filibuster rule. that's live here on c-span2.

>> i like to watch c-span because i can get the news about the goings-on in congress, also the debates and election news coverage. i like c-span programming because it's clear, it's direct, and it doesn't seem to be colored by points of of view at all. if i want to get good, clean, unfiltered information about the nation, the world, tune in to c-span. >> david maxwell watches c-span on comcast. c-span, created by america's cable companies in 1979, brought to you as a public service by your it's provider. your television provider. >> in his book "freedom's forge," arthur herman writes about fdr enlisting private industry in the war production effort during world war ii. he talked about the book at the american enterprise institute in washington. this is just over an hour.

[inaudible conversations] >> good evening. i'm henry olsen, i'm vice president of the american enterprise institute and director of its national research initiative which is a foundation or an organization within aei -- entity, that's what i was looking for -- entity within aei that supports original domestic policy-related research and big think books of which our current speaker, arthur herman, is the author of the book that is the subject of today's discussions, "freedom's forge." the 2012 election is, in many ways, a debate over the 1932 election. should we continue or extend the legacy of franklin delano roosevelt in establishing the federal government as one of the preeminent directors, if not the preeminent director of american economic life, or should we embrace the creative animal

spirits of free enterprise capitalism and trust more to ourselves and more to the great men and women who fuel our nation's economy and whose ideas and innovations change our lives? when we look to the future of american public policy? economists and historians have debated whether or not roosevelt's move in his signature domestic accomplishment, the new deal, actually helped or hurt, whether or not it prolonged the great depression or helped to bring us out of it. but whatever side you take in that debate, there's virtually unanimous common wisdom, agreement that the stimulus provided by world war ii's rearmament and continued purchase of munitions and vehicles and orr things -- other things to fight the nazis and to fight the japanese ultimately pulled america out of the recession. and, of course, when we do that, the common wisdom focuses on the collective. they focus on the government. they focus on rationing, shared

sacrifice, rosy the riveter, government propaganda films. and the implication of that -- sometimes voiced by many people told who argue that president obama should move more strongly in embracing this legacy -- is that this is a time when the government finally got the private sector out of the way, they got to steer the main ship of state, they got it right. and that the problem is that we've abandoned that legacy. arthur herman's book "freedom's forge" shows that none of that common wisdom is true. that, ultimately, what saved america and saved the world was not the government finally getting it right, but private industry and all of the innovation and creative animal spirits that had been herded into the corner for the previous decade that came roaring out to save ourselves and save the world. without much further ado, let me introduce arthur herman who is a noted historian and book author. he's the author of "how the scots invented the modern

world," and "beganty and churchill, the epic rivalry" which was a prittser prize finalist. -- pulitzer prize finalist. arthur. [applause] b. >> thank you so much. how are all of you? [laughter] wet. thanks for coming out. the weather has been, shall we say, less than cooperative? but i'm glad to see so many faces, many of them familiar, many of them new to my audiences. i also want to thank our hosts, american enterprise institute, for all of their help not just with this event, but also with the work and research that i've done for this book, "freedom's forge," and for all of the help and support from colleagues and others who have been so

instrumental in helping me to not only shape the ideas that are contained in this book, but also to give me a sense about what the real value of intellectual collaboration and cooperation is really all about. and just as i discovered, capitalism can -- contrary to myth -- is not just about competition, it's also about cooperation. and it is, in many ways, a cooperative venture. and so, also, is intellectual endeavor. now, what i want to do here tonight is to tell you a story. and this is a story that usually is told backwards. if you go to the textbooks, you go to the movies, you go to the usual discussions of in this, vy often you will see an illustration something like this when talk talking about the thee

which is american wartime production in world war ii. scenes like this, b-29s being built at the fabled boeing facility in wichita, kansas. and it's the story as my introducer, henry olsen, has just told you; of collective effort, of government directing the resources of american economy towards a single collected end and achieve anything the process an outpouring of american wartime materiale of the like the world had never seen before. 70% of all of the war equipment used by the allies in world war ii came out of american factories. it's an incredible story. it's the industrial miracle of the 20th century, what occurred there. but what i'm going to tell you is a story that shows that the usual version has this

backwards, that where we usually start is where it should finish. and where it should start, actually, is not in factories like wichita's b-29 plant, but back in the spring of 1940. and i want to put you in the place of of the man who would, in fact, set this entire process rolling, family franklin roosevelt. as he gets news sitting in the oval office that a new kind of warfare, blitzkrieg warfare, mass mechanized warfare supported by mass air power is sweeping across western europe and overwhelming the democracies of europe; france and also threatening to do the same, to do the same to britain. and franklin roosevelt realizes sitting there that if france falls and britain falls or

remains isolated, war is coming to the united states. maybe not in a year, maybe a year and a half to two years, but war is coming. and roosevelt realizes that when he will be facing a situation which america must prepare to face an enemy whose military might looks like this when our military might looks like this. this is the belly flopper. it was an experimental vehicle tried out by the u.s. army in the mid '30s, later dropped. but it gives you an idea about what the contrast in military technologies the united states faced in the 1930s and in 1940. roosevelt realized, he's sitting there at his desk, he realizes that the united states has the 18th largest army in the world. holland has a bigger army than

the united states has. hungary has a bigger army. that it has a fleet, a battle fleet -- the united states navy -- which is built around world war i-era battleships which has no real means of projecting power across the seas, let alone transoceanicly to europe. or, even more farfetched, across the pacific. and then he has an army air corpses, not each an air force, an army air corps which consisted of about 1500 planes, most of them biplanes and obsolete trainers whereas modern air force like germany's and britain's, we're talking 5,000, 6,000 modern war planes. and he suddenly realizes he's got to get this country ready for war. he's got to get this country ready to build the kind of force that it's going to be necessary to win this war, but how are you going to do it? where do you start?

the navy and war departments have no clue. they went through the process in world war i, it had been a fiasco trying to take over factories and trying to place orders and decide what was going to be made. none of it arrived in time for our soldiers fighting overseas. he faces a congress which is deeply, deeply mired in isolationism which has no interest in spending any kind of rearmament of the united states. world war i, after all, was the war to end all wars. so authorizations, forget it, it's not going to come for any kind of massive military buildup. how. are you going to deal with this situation, where do you turn to transform both the american military, but also to get the u.s. economy after a decade of depression geared up for this kind of production record? well, the place that you turn is american business, and can that's what roosevelt did.

roosevelt hated business, despised businessmen. he had campaigned two presidential elections against business blaming them for the depression, blaming them for the prolonging of the depression. he saw them as his bitterest enemies. yet he had no choice. there was no one else to turn to. he's given the army, the war department's national mobilization plan to get the economy geared up if or war -- up for war across the country, and it comes to 18 typed pages, double-spaced. he's got nowhere else to turn. and so at the advice of his wall street fund raiser, he calls bill knudsen. bill knudsen, danish immigrant who had come to america, started work in a bronx shipyard with a riveting gang there, worked his way up -- got a job with a

company that was making spare parts for ford, works his way up from the shop floor to become henry ford's right-hand man and then moved to chevrolet and then, finally, to president of general motors. knudsen was a motor city legend. the man who even more than henry ford had really perfected the techniques of what he's called mass production and had turned that into the means by which the american automobile industry had become the single largest employ in the country, and it had also become the master industry of technological innovation and of, and of quantitative production. so he calls bill knudsen, and he says i need help. we face this dire situation, no one else knows what to do. how do we get this economy up and running and up and going? roosevelt passes the buck to bill knudsen.

and he says, oh, by the way, bill, in order to do this kind of job, you're going to have no kind of authority whatsoever. there's no statutory authority or for what is going to take place here. you are just going to have to sort of do this with your own powers of persuasion and through the business connections that you have in the automobile industry and all the industries that are connected and that support it tail. at the same time. and so this becomes bill knudsen's, shall we say, job offer? in may of 1940. and knudsen's response is dramatic. now, knudsen is a republican. roosevelt's a democrat. they have sparred, they have been at opposite ends of the political camp for more than a decade. but when he gets that call, the first thing he does is to quit as president of general motors, move to washington and begin the process of figuring out how he's going to get this country up and running. for wartime production. and he, of course, now also

realizes that obstacles that he faces in this process, that he's got, first of all, an american industry which has been, fallen into the hard times because of a decade of depression. the steel industry, for example, which is about one-half of the production capacity it had been in 1929. that he's also got the fact that many businessmen that he's dealing with, including his own boss. you see him, there's knudsen standing at the microphone, his own boss standing to knudsen's left, on your right, alfred sloan, tells him you're crazy! you're going to work for roosevelt? he's going to make a monkey out of you. this is not a project you want to get yourself involved in in any way. this is just going to be an attempt to expand and grow out the new deal. don't do anything along these kinds of lines, you're making a huge mistake. and knudsen says to his boss, alfred sloan, he said i'm an immigrant who came to these

shore shores. everything that i have i owe to america. my president calls, i'm going to answer and deal with that situation. the problem he's going to face then is not just opposition from many of his fellow businessmen who hate the new deal just as much as roosevelt hates them, and not just opposition from an isolationist congress, but also from the labor unions. and as i explain in this book here, one of the major obstacles that knudsen faced throughout his effort to try and get this economy going and geared up towards wartime production were the resistance of the unions. they feared that the shift to wartime production from civilian production would seriously damage the gains that today had made in terms of union -- that they had made in terms of union power, in terms of union membership all through the '30s during the new deal, and they resist the effort to wartime production to a degree that lasts not just in prewar period up til pearl harbor, that

goes on afterwards and extends out beyond that. it's one of the shocking stories, actually, of this whole thing, the degree to which the labor unions maintain a constant pattern of resistance and strikes to every effort to get the wartime economy geared up and straightened out. and knudsen knows this from the very beginning, this is going to be a challenge that he's going to have to face. in fact, in the end he calculates, he calculates that probably 25% of production was lost as a result of union resistance to changes in the workplace, changes in rules about union membership that flowed out of the ship. all the same, knudsen still believes that he can do the job that roosevelt has put in front of him. because knudsen understands that once you set american businesses off in a direction, give them a task to do, give them something that they need to produce here

that they will be able to deliver under those sorts of conditions. that business can go and produce any number of different kinds of things, even things that they've never made before. and, also, that american engineers love a challenge. and so the idea of not only producing new kinds of fabulous weapons, but designing them, designing weapons that have never been conceived of before would have tremendous appeal to them, and they'd take it on. this is the kind of job they've been waiting for since the depression began. and so he tells roosevelt i'll make you a bet. he says if you give me 18 month, that's 18 months to, basically, expand plant facilities, to retool in order to shift from making washing machines and tractors and civilian cars to making military trucks and machine guns and all the other material of war that you're going to need, you give me 18

months, and my colleagues and i will give you more war material than you ever dreamed possible. as he says to roosevelt, if war comes, this is going to be a war of mass production. it's going to be quantity, not necessarily quality that's going to determine who controls the skies, who rules the seas and who wins the victories on land. you give me 18 months, and we'll be able to deliver tools of victory that'll make it possible win this war and to confront this, confront the possible enemy that comes with it. and this is what knudsen does. as i explain in the book, step by step, he mobilizes. first with the telephone, calling up his colleaguing. chattanoogas in the automobiling industry -- colleagues in the automobile industry, colleagues who he knows do subcontracting for them. calls them up, this is bill knudsen, i need your help. this country has got to make itself ready for war, make it ready to defend this country.

i need your help in this country, and they say, you've got it, bill. we'll follow you wherever it is you want to lead. and in many cases the deals all had to be done with just a handshake because there was no money for contracts. but knudsen says to roosevelt, if you make certain small changes, roll back certain tax regulations, for example, change the amortization schedules, cut them in half -- right now it's 123 years, cut it -- 12 years, cut it in half to 6 or even 5 years, companies will have an incentive to invest in converting their factories over to making wartime production. ..

>> already by pearl harbor it's approaching the level of not determining. when war comes, the process is going to gear up even faster. but the basic structure of it, what knudsen saw is the key to developing, remains the same. and that is if you don't do it from the top down with washington trying to give orders, this was the demand all new dealers had, or production czar, someone who will have this kind of the almost like the wizard of oz, make the decisions and measure output and allocate resources from a centralized bureau. he said no. this will have to happen from the bottom up. you don't shut down something production right away, we add the military orders on.

you add the military orders on and the factories begin to convert. because they have to to meet the demands of the contracts. and pretty soon you will have a process in which the conversion to wartime production, trucks and guns, tanks and planes is going to be complete. the other key element that knudsen did is to make sure that the early contracts are going to go to the most productive and innovative sectors in the american economy. one of them was the automobile industry. biggest employer in the country, but also the one in which the largest engineering staff will be able to take any kind of challenge that was thrown at them and to make that kind of convergence was underway that they could carry out. not just in terms of switching from civilian vehicles and military vehicles and trucks. it was not as easy as it looked actually because even from the shift from a civilian truck to a military truck, a whole bunch of

different specifications, a whole range of capabilities. it's got to drive over logs, those kinds of things that no civilian truck manufacturer would be able to undertake. but also tanks. the military had never heard of such a thing. they thought things would go to locomotive company. so it's going to be -- call my friend at chrysler and say can you make a tank? and keller said actually i've never seen a tank but i would but i would say what, if you are taking off somewhere where i can see when an driver had been someone i think we'll be able to do that and that's exactly what happened. and the chrysler tank arsenal becomes the largest manufacture of tanks during the war. but also, too, aircraft engines, retooling in order to provide aircraft engines for companies like boeing and lockheed and curtis, and all the other

airplane manufacturers for military aircraft. and then finally placed them so. the most classic example of course being -- outside of detroit where ford takes on what seem like the impossible task of building be 24 liberator plane. hugely complex machinery. and yet managed to bring it off. likewise, gm itself, it's easter aircraft plant which takes plans provided by roy graham and company and makes grumman wildcat and also the of danger, torpedo bombers. george h. w. bush plane, the one he was shot down and, you of all seen that, that's a pbm avenger made by general motors. as were thousands of others in the course of the war. american automotive industry, one key aspect of that innovative college. also the aviation company says we have to remember these companies that were at this

time, there is no defense industry. these are commercial companies that do military orders, supply this, but his experience was building a whole range of aircraft for customers. and so they shifted into military aircraft becomes simply a process of retooling and redesigning in order to meet these kinds of demands. and also the engineers, tapping the skills of engineers had been involved in commercial planes for years, and asking them, turning to them to say can you design a bomber that will do this? can you design a fighter that will do that? as i discovered working on this book, every single plane that the united states flew, the warplanes the united states flew in the second world war, except one, was a product of prewar design. even the between a, even if he 51, these are all designed waiting in droves waiting to be turned loose.

all the needed were the orders to be turned loose. and knudsen sets them off and gets them started with a process, and resulted of thousands and thousands point. not just for the united states but also for our allies as well. these are piece 51 mustang, p. 51 mustangs with british markings, which are sold originally to the brits. the bricks came over the dutch, north american aviation headset can you make tea 40 curtis war hawk which was a standard warbling? and he said yeah, i know the war hawk. i can design a lot better plan than that. he said give me 100 days, and he did design the p-51 mustang. which was a very good plane. but then when the british got the idea of putting the rolls-royce engine on it, then you got a super point, the best in the second world war. those rolls-royce engines, where

with a being produced? a big plant at packard in detroit were built knudsen had approached the president of packard and said i need engines. first for the bridge spit fire but also for the p-51 mustang. all the planes, all the planes been prewar designs except one, and that's the one that came out of the grumman's plant up in bethpage new york. and affect the only reason i've been using images at all is because i want, so i'll have an excuse to show you this one. this is during the war. this is a failed carrier landing, as you can see that pilot is in a bit of trouble trying to land on this carrier, and there is one of his men getting out of the way as he comes in. this is a photograph by the way taken from the grumman aircraft

newsletter. they were particularly proud of this because that plan, no one got killed. the plane didn't crash. it just powered out, circled back again and then landed safely in the process. that's the hellcat. that's the one of the planes had come about, the one plane that was designed, put into production, less than two years. that's the when it comes to tell me the skies of the pacific. then the construction industry, and here the man he really sort of dominates the scene of being mobilized for this process is the other main character in the book who is henry kaiser. and kaiser, man who was involved first in road construction, one of the builders of hoover dam, and he and his colleagues, six companies, people like stephen beck do, bethel corporation, harry morris, maurice and knudsen, that's a different

knudsen, not mine, another guy. which is now still i think probably the largest construction firm in the world right now, morris and knudsen. and the other companies, stone and webster, tennessee eastman who became involved in wartime construction. all of these understand the process of the large-scale enterprise, which they used not just to construct a box to repair pearl harbor, for example, and to prepare -- repair military facility but also to build ships. kaisers liberty ship being the classic example of that. at the time in which it took to build, constantly shrank out constantly shrank out of fewer constantly shrank out a few a few days and do finally by 1942, they could launch a liberty ship every five days. if they had to. there's a great story about a lady who comes out to chris and one of the liberty ships at the portland yard, kaisers yard up in portland, oregon, and she comes out with a champagne bottle and the ship is already gone. it's already been launched and is already sailing merrily into the soh.