>> essentially make yourself indispensable. >> there is another thing i looked out and business. there are three ways that there are two approach business. one is product immunization. and the next is something that you just have to have. and my dad did that from the automotive side. and you just ground this out and become a low-cost provider. and three is customer intimacy, where you become so ingrained and indispensable to the customer that it's hard for them to get rid of you. we're if they are handling your warranty of times

underproduction, that matters. and so i guess we try to bring out the inefficiencies and become indispensable for customers. >> you come onto this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> with a few weeks left in 2013, many publications are putting out their year end list of notable books. these titles were included in "the new york times" 100 notable books of 2013. in book of ages, the opinions of james franklin, staff writer joe lepore chronicles the life of benjamin franklin's youngest sister. and physician and pulitzer prize winner sheri fink investigates patient deaths at a new orleans hospital in the days following hurricane katrina in five days at memorial. in catastrophe of 1914, europe goes to war, military historian max hastings details the events that lead to the onset of world

war i. katie butler presents her thoughts on end-of-life care and knocking on heavens door. the path to a better way of death. and bush and cheney in the white house, days of fire. they correspond the correspondent for "the new york times" recalls the working relationship between president bush and vice president dick cheney. jessamine ward recounts the depths of five men in her life in a memoir called men that we reaped. for extended links to other publications visit booktv's website at booktv.org. >> now on booktv, william seale examines washington dc's landscape between the spanish-american war and world war i. this is 40 minutes.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thank you, emily. and good evening. it is a great pleasure to introduce william seale. i have known him for a very long time. because he married my good friend and college classmate. i married a brilliant historian, and so did she. william seale is a charming and witty texas gentleman. he has interest in history and he has built a long career in both. he's a native of beaumont, texas, he holds a ba from southwestern university and a m.a. and phd from duke. he came back to texas in 1969 and spent two years in columbia,

south carolina, restoring the home of wade hampton. he then came to washington in 1972 to write a history of the state capital was henry russell hitchcock. he and their two sons settled in native alexandria. at this point in his career, he focused upon two different things. restoration in writing. in his volume of the white house was discussed in 1986 and was a second edition in 1996. he's he is the editor of the association journal white house history. his other book includes an architectural history of the white house and history of the national trust houses and

temples of democracy and the state capital in the usa and american courthouses. he commissions book was published earlier this year. his restoration includes 11 state capitals and various houses, including general at marshall and wisconsin pretreat of the broadway actors and this included lynn fontaine. tonight he will speak about his new book a book about washington. it is called "the imperial season" and it is about america's capital at the time of the first ambassadors. not surprisingly, his studies led him here to the anderson house to cross paths with those

who readily joined the path of "the imperial season." here is william seale. [applause] [applause] >> well, hanna, thank you so much. it is great to see you all here. i don't know what hannah had to pay you to come. [laughter] she is very inventive. so it is wonderful to be here and to be in this house that is so much a part of the story. and certainly one of the most opulent of all of this period of history. "the imperial season" is about washington and a very particular time. it begins with president grover cleveland in his second term assigned to the united states

and it ends with a conclusion of world war i and it is a time and a story that suggests to itself and all the buildings and landscapes that survived comment today. and they have come down to us from that time. a small portion of the book takes here in anderson house and we can feast upon the setting tonight and imagine what it was like in 1907, filled with gas and diplomats and those in uniform and these include those who had been presented in court is in dealing with feathers and in the dining room, flowers and champagne and music and to give

some context, it is a 25 year period historically when america felt the thrill of international importance. isolated for so long, holding european content for so long. the promise of a world position open doors of monetary opportunity for some and intoxicated others with romantic appeal. and this includes a bridge across the atlantic at last. including the new american power in the capital. in america's strong voice was first heard in 1895. when grover cleveland if they did not settle their south american differences. they were both condemned to defiance of the doctrine.

and the most powerful event was the spanish-american war in 1898 and john hay called it a splendid little war and not sent america into possession of the philippines and other parts of the south pacific and into a land war with spain and cuba. when the smoke cleared, the united states at last called itself an international town in a world power even if the latter were not detected until the great war. president william mckinley in leading the nation into war had taken the power of the presidency to the high an independent level that it had not known since george washington held in office. chief executives, mckinley changed america and would have

crowned imperial season completely. but he did not finish his second term and he was assassinated in two years before his assassination in 1901 come he had supported a redesign of washington by the army corps of engineers. in this included a european sort of appearance. the remake was supposed to be characterized by the library of congress. they claimed out for its own and they completed this and dazzled everyone and was set to move to be doing the rest of the city. they wish to begin as soon as possible, but they were abruptly unseated by nongovernmental architects and members of the american institute of architects. james macmillan of michigan, whom they had consulted, he was

head of the dc committee and was working in private practice. in this includes what came to be known as the macmillan program. other changes have come and he was assassinated in buffalo, theodore roosevelt was then his very unlikely successor and it was roosevelt who toured this in 1901 and heard about how the plan of the architects was a revival of the original scheme, approved by george washington which improved further with inspiration from the chicago world's fair, held in 1893, years before. and roosevelt support was of course key. the architects would him further

with the white house interior, turning it into a great cause with chandeliers and the dining room at the opposite end of the hall imitated in english and georgian countryhouse. in this included the progressive administration that is yet to come and as curious as it may

seem, none of the buildings directed during the imperial season were actually part of the plan and every time it somehow appeared, they gave their ideas and this includes the classical motive. mckinley asked to consult him, by then a world-famous institution and ended up with a job at the beautiful campus that we see today.

in the baltimore and potomac road station struggle that capitol hill, resurrecting the mall and it was a monster. it is a place where the cat's cradle and railroad tracks ran through and elsewhere open sewers and more railroad tracks ran onto the mall and surrounded the other depots. he asked senator macmillan about moving even before the plan was made. ..

he made his who's designing of classical architecture on the pattern of the arch of constantine the last of the great buildings of the roman empire. he wanted white marble a bluish white and finally found the perfect corine in vermont however it was shut down he was told forever in memory of the owner son who died at an early age. no amount of convincing even the mighty burnham could convince the man that he wanted to open

until the man died and the heirs sold according to the project for the station pays the union station surfaced in that material. most everyone who entered washington pastor that he ate completed in 19 away. its façade involved in interior screens train yard of all the buildings built in spawned by the imperial season even though the lincoln memorial union station stands at the head of the class. the town became a public building activity mule john wagons hauling soil and bricks and concrete about the building sites. general grant planted 60,000 trays in 1963. the force was to free replace replaced by a grass covered sweep that ran from the capital to the river. meanwhile, elsewhere in town

notably on massachusetts avenue on the nearby streets of a regular boulevard in aven of paris was rising in big houses designed to serve the purposes of winter residence. such a residential building had been going on the capitals of europe since the congress of vienna in 1815 established a new order for peace among the kingdoms, no more napoleons. and they secured this through a network of ambassadors. they were never as many ambassadors. they were to be the eyes and ears of their countries and the foreign capitals. we never got that until much later as you know by the date. to these capitals as to washington new wealth migrated to set itself in palaces and eventually achieve titles. although washington would provide no titles there were plenty of diplomatic course and

the analogy with europe confirmed the international city the world capital. this was a mini-boulevard of paris is what they had in mind. most of the buildings are french flavor. most of you are likely to know those houses with its majestic façade and large public rooms such as this one tonight. lars anderson had ambitions to be an important diplomat preferably an ambassador. his interest went so far as to inspire him to create for himself the diplomatic uniform even knowing congress forbade diplomatic uniforms. congress for a century and more head stuck to the idea that an american diplomat should follow the style of humbly dressed dr. franklin in homespun and versailles. franklin were more than a uniform. a costume in that context. whether lars wore his uniform except to the photograph on display here is not known for certain.

anderson and isabel his wife were from very wealthy back rounds. he and cincinnatian xion boston. in fact the newspaper announcement of their marriage in boston couldn't say enough about money and finally they go into his borilla v.. and she was a girl who got a good barrel american boy. they were hot and cold about washington. they were tongue-in-cheek about the imperial city in the imperial season but considering his ambitions it was the place to be. the magnificence of this house which they pass on to the society of cincinnati in years to come did not lets let's all other houses on the avenues but most of them. it was assigned by the firm the venerable boston and salem architect arthur literal an old man by that time rather odd for him for he was most famous for the neal colonial beach houses and the houses and salem that he expanded and restored.

only one of the houses in this area have direct connection with europe. perry and jesse belmont were frequent visitors of ammo to go castle lane at her palais rose in paris in 1899. look it up on the web. you can even believe anyone lived in anything like this. it was huge. it was torn down in 1968 for an ugly apartment building. when jesse and perry married and wanted to build keeping for while in congress they asked their friends architect, the most famous residential architect in europe and that period to do the work. he did design the house for new hampshire avenue although the supervision went to an american warrant's trumpauer who was a architect for duke university and other places later on. the belmonts were really not to enjoy this exquisite house. when you go in the virtuoso and

the arches are straight out of sasson. this was very small from what he usually did. but they didn't use the house very much for all its glory for the scandal that had come to their marriage, her divorce and surrendered all rights to her children had been front page news not to mention the marriage three hours later after the divorce to perry belmont. washington was still privileged privileged -- prudish to produce to observe this so the belmonts resided mostly in paris. the other houses were designed by local architects who seem to have been very clear on what was wanted. an impressive house for entertaining. the mode was almost always french as are our pieces of the anniston house. the diplomats were entertained in these houses. anderson how so townsend house the waters where the house which is the salisbury club and all the others.

in fact not so circumspect. it was they who gave the society its glamour. the diplomats were strict about public decorum, not so much however in private. indeed it was the worst crime i think to misbehave at a dinner party than to sleep a someone's wife. mrs. roosevelt knew this and could not bear it. both roosevelts were very prudish. weekly the cabinet wives met with her to discuss various matters of concern in the administration. names came up. [laughter] if a man and a woman were misbehaving, the first lady sent an aide to call first on the man advising him that if the affair did not stop he and the woman would not be allowed at the white house. before diplomat rejection from the entertainment ceremonies, she seems to have had her way. except with one man.

charlie shonbron was about 30 and he was a direct descendent of lafayette. lafayette the diplomatic always had a lafayette in it and charlie was born here and from here and he was the legal adviser to the french embassy. he was in fact a cousin to lars anderson distantly. some of the family had married in cincinnati. blonde headed and youthful at 30 he was today what we describe as a womanizer. to say the least. he pursued women with no shame. poems flowers candy all were in his repertoire. even alice roosevelt was one time the object of his ardor and she confessed in her diary at last charlie says he no longer has lost for me. at last charlie ran away with the wife of another diplomat. he might be surprised that he

didn't meet ruin. he didn't at all. he was sent to russia, did exceptional work and he was -- he went up, up in diplomacy in france and became one of the most respected ambassadors in europe, diplomats in europe great he was in fact shot by a woman that he didn't have anything -- it didn't have anything to do with that. it was a fascist or hated him and she shot him on my beverages in paris and he lived. he lives today in peace the cemetery beside his wife princess and ancestors many of whom had died within a stones throw the guillotine and the french revolution. entertaining here and other houses was according to diplomatic dictates always. there were public perceptions in the private houses, very few among the embassies. more for lack of space i think than anything else. they were crammed in rented

houses, just townhouses. the people would come and the public would essentially run them through and run them out the back as they were so crowded the public reception was literally that often advertise by notice in the post or the evening star. hostesses announced weekly, announce themselves weekly during the social season. most hold only one public reception. some advertised the reception with the every tuesday for the season so it buried. secretaries, clerks school girls and boys visitors to town all assembled on the sidewalks to be admitted promptly at 2:00 p.m.. they were dressed to the nines and all women guess had to wear hats. they had one hour to enjoy themselves. anyone who stayed too long or longer than that was likely to be presented with this code by the butler. private receptions were by invitation card. these could be very large as

well. some households had an invitational reception each week when you are invited once you could attend all of them. both perceptions public and private there was good food plenty of reince -- wine scotch for most men in music. dinners rise private of course read sometimes these followed a reception involving a separate invitation a card inside the invitation. they were always seeded. one seating chart had to be in perfect order by rank. anyone has the tent called at the state department to see a very important figure in the state department. he's one of the main characters in the book. he was a deaf mute, a famous scholar and wrote horror stories. john hayes best friend and he had lived so much in europe and traveled every summer to europe that to the embassies and stayed in that company that he knew all about how things should be done.

he was the last word on all of that. it was who would work in the proper seating and what was the suitable food? the austrian ambassador was allergic to carrots and he knew that. perhaps to cut off this or that guest wine. dinner's involving diplomats were always registered in the calendar last to be a conflict. the details of what was right and what was wrong but they were the same practice generally in all the capitals of europe. such a rich flow of activity in washington characterized the imperial season. even the panic of 1907 was ravaged to rich people by cutting into their trust did not really slow things a lot. still hoping the ambassadors would accept the invitation and be there and to make the party just perfect that way. while the pressures internationally of the state department increase the entertaining continued right up

to the beginning of world war i in europe in 1914. after that it began to slow. it was against diplomatic code for one minister or ambassador to entertain or be entertained by an enemy diplomat. thus the invitation list was shattered. by the time we entered world war i in 1917 only marry barry townsend, mrs. townsend known and as many still welcomed the diplomats to her house as she wouldn't tell her death in 1931 long after the demise of the imperial season. these were the last year's also of what is to be called the old diplomacy. wilson's appearance at first sight the head of state in person instead of being represented by an professional diplomats was part of the beginning. e.'s of communication even before that had relaxed the tensions of the diplomatic networks. it was all to be a different place after world war i and the new diplomacy although the formalities of the diplomatic

life easier slowly. i think it's custom in conclusion for an author to read some of his texan i'm game if you are. in this book, i have a little vignette about lars and isabel anderson that i found amusing and would like to read to you. this is the end of the long description of it. the anderson's lives were otherwise very proud and public life. if lars may have had some trouble early on for staking vast bachelor privileges his journals make it clear that he and isabel worked to souls melded together by the deepest affection and compatibility. being without children seem to draw him all the closer to each other. away in the inner part of the house was a two-story room were they like to stay eating or dinner before the fire in sleeping in about than a loft

that extended over the room. it was a cozy and intimate and always available to them even when the rest of the house was closed and in dust covers and was down the room in anderson house at the blamed entirely for themselves. they were not stuffy at least after the parties were over. having attended a formal event elsewhere isabel like to cook and midnight wreck is for the interesting people she and lars had encountered and brought home from parties. the invitation was issued with a swiss in someone else's house of course carriages and out out of mobiles we'll been in part to the horseshoe driveway. guests follow their host along the dark paneled hall to a kitchen is large and nickel-plated as any found in a worse class hotel. isabel started the event by equipping the company with pots and pans ordering they began banging them together as loudly as they could and follow her in a march past greats just suits of armor and things that lay in

drawing rooms of the house. upstairs and downstairs and back to the kitchen. preliminaries being over lars mixed drinks while isabel coats. she was a good cook. lars praised her after-hours welsh rabbit. bottles of wine and sometimes the talking went on all night while on the top floor some 20 residents servants sought sleep. thank you. [applause] thank you very much. now i understand we have a q&a after these things and there is a microphone that i can hand to anyone who has a question about anything from the book or the houses or whatever might interest you.

>> i am wondering if there are any diaries or letters. what did the ambassadors talk about the segregated city and how they dealt with people of color and what interactions they had with them? >> very little that i found. there were african-american employees and some of the embassies, notably one who wrote a memoir from the british embassy but no, i found very little of that. the reporting back wasn't as juicy for this period as the early 19th century after the congress. there were endless letters. they had them in the 18th 18th century too. the famous line from the austrian ambassador back home about the luizza 15th dogs never cleaning up after them. that kind of thing, i didn't find that at all in the 90s. nothing like gossip.

there are not a lot of personal papers of ambassadors but there are memoirs, lots of those in the course now and then there were wonderful diaries of papers like john hayes papers in the adams's papers, lars anderson's papers are treasured. they seem so real in the daily diaries talking about their trips in the strange things they did that no one else did. people like many towns and. i did find and i hate it when people say the argus -- archivists found in erie pennsylvania where they were from a box full of glass plates uncatalogued. that kind of thing happens and it was nice but anything telling about city life. he loved washington, the first ambassador. he loved to ride the streetcar and be out in public here. he found it so much different than other countries but no, i didn't.

i will say in the big houses here it was interesting the servants in the records were german and english and after 1907 they were all local, mostly african-american here but the butlers were almost universally african-american. and they were much sought after. they would be hired out from under somebody and are cheap but in his memoir was roosevelt's aide killed on the titanic. he wrote letters which he left in endowment to the public. he said most of the dinner parties, smaller dinner parties were prepared by the the governess. they checked the list and they did everything and a host and hostess just came to the event.

>> if you adjust restate the question in the microphone when i ask it? >> the ambassador spoke of the segregated community here. it's a very good question because i mention the subject in the book because there was a great movement to clean up the alleys here and it had a humanitarian spark in it. that came late in the wilson administration and already there have been lost in the 90s about building anything new in the house. there was a whole culture of people who supplied those streets. i actually looked for that. i thought it would be interesting but no, i recall no mention of it. mrs. wilson was forced into it. the local people pushed her but

she had no interest at all. i'm sorry. i will repeat your question. >> i don't know if you can hear me. i have a wonderful picture and i didn't realize mrs. townsend, and i mentioned that townsend mansion and you, i don't know if you have been over there but there are really no substantial portraits of mrs. townsend. i wondered, i wondered what this particular particular, his is a portrait of her? >> the pictures, the question is on page 136, icu slipping out. page 136, a picture mrs. townsend. they don't have pictures of her

except as an older woman, a much older woman and these young pictures around the time the house was finished and they are the ones i was mentioning, the glass plates in answer to your question. the glass plates that are in erie erie pennsylvania better uncatalogued that they are safe. you say you found them. i thought archivists just had them lying on the floor and they didn't. that is where that came from and there are more. it's sort of a strange picture, don't you tank? its eerie county historical society which is quite an operation. some of these local historical societies, it's amazing. this is fair and they have the one child, matilda was her name until the house was done and she became a teal. many try to marry her off to

every title particularly a spanish title. she married eldridge gary and then divorced him when she mad sumner welles. they went to a dinner party and electric lightning sparked between them across the table. they were both divorced within a month and a half and married and very devoted to each other. as a matter of fact james turned up a catalog of the jewelry that was sold. when was it sold? about 20 years ago. they are beautiful. they are huge pieces, necklaces and a tiara. the rose has been sold lately. this was not in their strangely enough but there are really lots of chokers and everything else.

the other one is for sale i think. >> the business of washington, was there business as well in this period? in this time of the offense it took tremendous amounts of money to build the railroads and to finance the steamship companies and to build hydroelectric dams. [inaudible] >> yes, ambassadors very often brought people together. that was one of their jobs was to bring these people together. they would bring them to washington to entertain them. mrs. washington would bring people together that way and there were some noted businessman, westinghouse and many pastor in the house. they were very interested in apartment houses.

everybody was putting money into apartment houses. he was asking if there was business investment in europe being arranged here? cs and of course the diplomats traveled for that a lot. any other questions? >> i was just wondering about the -- [inaudible] c. i'm sorry? oh the lighters. i love colliders. mr. leiter, marshall fields partner and they had three beautiful daughters. he was a scholarly man and i learned about him through maple boardman's letters the famous red cross woman. i asked george