i have my characters nowing and i wanted to be an equal opportunity biographer. i wanted to give each of them equal space, and if anything, push abigail to the side and say, okay, you had a turn. let's hear about the others. what i wanted to do within each chapter, i wanted to divide it in three and do one-third on abigail, one-third on elizabeth, one-third on mary. well, i tried that for four chapters, and it was a fiasco. ..fiasco. i said there is no way. we are getting no narrative from this and this isn't working. what i decided to do was let the story pull me along. you will find in one chapter it is abigail and she is going off to paris and london and i am

trusting that everyone will realize, particularly because of the letters she wrote home to her sisters, that they were enbroiled in this and they were. when abigail wrote a letter it was known it was actually written for the whole neighborhood. and mary would get the pleasure of having everyone important in the neighborhood come over and she would read allowed abigail's letter. and then there were chapters when mary is trying find a minister for the first church of quincy and she is the most important person. and even john adams think she is the most important person in quincy. and one day, abigail catches him opening a letter that mary has written to him. and she is furious.

she said how can you open a letter and he said it isn't just any letter it is from mary and there is no one that knows more than mary that i am interested in. and then there is a lot on elizabeth. she is the sister who endures the most. she is the prettiest and i say the most beautiful. there is a wonderful picture i have of her in my book. she was always a magnificent looking woman. she was very much in love when she got married and things happen so i spend quite a bit of time with her. i turn out not to be an equal opportunity biographer. i would like to read with you and i share abigail's view, but about how she felt on equality.

and this is in a chapter that is right after john adams has been elected vice president and abigail has left mary in quincy and gone off to new york. two weeks letter, mary acknowledged the gap between her lot in life and her sisters. you are amid the busy world and she wrote abigail who arrived in new york and finding john far heathier. john was always telling abigail he was dying so she would come join him. but he was fine. and she was swept up in the social whirl. the contrast had not escaped abigail who after a few weeks away from home included a

statement to the people she loved. i have a favor to request to watch over my conduct if they perceive any altration in me with respect to them arising as they may suppose from my situation in live. i would ask they would make me aware of this. i don't feel any higher but i know mankind were prone to deceive themselves. no struck of luck she felt could separate sisters. their souls were intertwined from brother so she found it natch natural to use her daughter and send mary all of the pocket money she could spare from her budget.

anticipating her sisters anguish she said reverse the matter and ask yourself if you would not do as much for me or for elizabeth. fate in abigail's few wasn't a democratic process nor did she think much of equality on earth. higherarchy guaranteed order but family ran on a lofty system of government. she and her sisters only differed on birth order where mary was supreme. otherwises they were always and will always be equal. i would like to hear any questions you may have for me. yes?

i thought i made it clear. the character was at the times. >> you mentioned a school? what school? >> the atkins academic which was in atkins, new hampshire. the first was exiter and this was the second. the sisters sent their children to elizabeth's first had been initially. and then their children sent their children to her second husband's school. but they would write each other and say this isn't because of the husbands this is because our sister is so literate and she is

sure to instill the love of reading in them. it was a bording school -- boarding -- school and it was very nice. >> how did you get insight into personality? >> it was millions of letters. there were so many. they loved each other so much. it was a good thing i had elizabeth being competitive at some point or i would have had a dull story of these women who couldn't do enough for each other. and mary -- they said we feel each other's pain. and mary said we are better wives than anyone will ever know. they saw themselves as equals

and mary was happy to do everything to abigail when abigail was away being the wife of the first ambassador to england and then ultimately the second president of the united states because she felt, yes, she is off there having such a hard time i have to help her out. on the other hand, abigail felt i have to send silks home and anything i can because i am having this opportunity. so they felt so connected. >> phobe? >> she was a slave for her father. and she gave her the choice about freeing her or keeping her as slave and they freed her.

abigail had phobe and her husband living in her house when she was in europe and she handled the house for her. >> under mary's supervision? >> absolutely. they were all just these master administrateers.

i

>> richard is had one that everybody gives credit to for

educating and getting them to read and it was curious they were in the library but had no one to guide them. he came back and tutored them and that said why elizabeth is the best educated because she had the most time with him. >> any information prom the quincy first library? >> i probably did. i got a lot from the former minister of the church. i am not sure you much i got

from the quincy library. i am sure i got some things. yes, i definitely did. and so much was in the massachusetts historical society. sometimes there was a d duplication. >> did they ever have major arguments? >> the major was when they were young and it was with elizabeth. mary and abigail were joined at the hip. but elizabeth was six years younger than abigail. so they felt like abigail in particular felt she should listen to us. and so they had very strong ideas. not mary so much. mary, i think, kind of stayed out of it. but abigail had ideas on who she

should and shouldn't mary. she urged elizabeth, you know, this is a great time to come to boston, i'm here and so and so. and elizabeth fell in love with the man she married and for some reason and the only thing i could find in the letters was he was a calvinist and they were an anti-calvinist. she hated john shaw. but her husband didn't. she said i would not say congrats in a million years and she didn't. she went to the wedding. but she never wrote elizabeth when she first moved which is where she lived with her husband. mary wrote how is everything like the little mother hen. but not abigail.

silence. but then john was sent off to europe and abigail was devastated. and elizabeth really -- she could read people well. and she wrote to abigail not saying why haven't you written me or care if i like married life. she said for some people this would be a wonderful thing to get rid of their husband but for you who were joined at birth this is a tragedy and i want to send my sympathy, because she lived with the two of them, and she said this is awful. i want you to know that i feel it for you. and at that point, abigail got off her high horse and she said how are you? how is your husband, mr. shaw? i am thinking of you as well.

so it was resolved. but i think because abigail wasn't married, she was the middle sister, she wanted to be older than someone. and at one point when she was in europe she heard from mary that elizabeth was sick. elizabeth was trying to get up and take care of the borders and the students and she wrote her a letter that was irate. you cannot do this. you must stay in bed. i am going to write your husband, too. this is ridiculous. and then she thought about it. and her children were boarding with elizabeth at the time and thought maybe i am being hard. so she wrote and said i am sorry about the tone i took. i know you a grown woman. i just care about you.

and elizabeth wrote back because she was like no bless. she wrote back i never mistook anything you said even when we were younger. so to be, you know, calling on our eldership, i knew it was because you loved me so much. so there continued to be a little rivalry but very little as they got older. yes? >> it sounds like abigail had help growing up. how did she adjust to that when she was it adams with no help around the house? did she like it? >> they had some help. initially, i know their father and even their father came to

their houses to help them. and then their daughters were raised to work in the house with them. they were tutored. so their minds were taken care of. but they also helped in the house. there was wash day. and i explore that with the daughter of mary cranch. in europe, abigail brought to servants to europe. they did use servants from time-to-time. but abigail thought this was fine. this is a woman and a man that i really trust and they can take care of everything. then she arrived in paris and found out you have to have someone to do each little thing. someone does your hair. someone puts your dress on. somebody does one room.

somebody cleans another room. almost literally. she was very resentful and said this is ridiculous. she had to pay them from the money from john made as well. >> how did she handle the alcoholic behavior? >> two things you didn't talk about. one was alcoholism. the brother died from alcoholism and when her son became ill they said he was a problem. it became clear he was dying and dealt with it. much better than john. john said i will have nothing to do with him. but i found a wonderful letter from john to their youngest son after charles had died saying my

loosing the presidency is nothing. i would never have been president or anything and i would have given my life itself for charles to live. so you know how deep the efection but it was a horrible thing that you didn't mention. and the other thing you didn't mention was if anyone coughed. you might find out someone has a ferve and and way down the road they would have to be about dead to find out that is consumption. >> you mentioned her briefly. a little while ago.

do you write about in your book abigail's grandmother and her relationship with her and how probably it was her grandmother that gave her her independent spirit. did her two sisters have the same relationship with the grandmother? >> no, abigail had a special relationship because abigail was the bad child and her mother had to send her away. it is easier to have respect and as a grandmother to be more f forgiving than a mother. mary was always at home helping her mother. and when mary got married, elizabeth -- for a while, when the parents were all right, elizabeth left and lived with john and abigail. but when the parents got sick,

which was quite soon, she had to be home taking care of them and the grandmother was gone by then. >> when did you believe is the best to set a new example? or for the youth to follow? >> oh, what time in life. >> when do you think is the best time to make a decision in life. >> you mean what time in childhood? i would say childhood. um, i think all the different stages matter. from my knowledge of children, you make one impact before they are six or ten or whatever and then when they are adolescent

they seem to forget everything. and later on, you are surprised as they seem to remember some. but i think they did the best they could as parents. i think they were strong parents. some of them turned out and some didn't. so much had to do with luck and the era. [ applause ]boys.

this is an hour. [ applause ] >> thank you for braving his weather. but as i understand it, last week might have been worse so i probably picked the right week to be here. i might have been deling >> think you for brave being says whether. i picked the right week toegi be here or we may have done this from the airport last

week. so after the civil war 1905t less than three weeks before his death that jon awoke in his cabin room as a great ocean liner from liverpool back to york. this point john hay was a noted poet and historian former editor and railroadroad executives served as u.s. ambassador to the united kingdom and since 8898 theder secretary of state under mckinley then under president theodore roosevelt. but one of the insiders at

coveted hay and nicolay jobs they resented the influence in thought they were tot se break for their britches of

faults that could be blamed alan nature but it is little wonder that they would consult the hay and nicolay ratings record may because they were letter writers and provide the eyewitness account of the lincoln white house. in and we rely on them to document that period. it is there life's work after lincoln died that is the unwritten story. it is the official biographers that they were close through the 1947 that is the 21st anniversary after it linked -- robert todd its cohorts in debt and after hay and nicolay passed

away its second quarter century mission to build the reputation of their leader in that culmination the extensive 10 volume biography which wasn serialized often in theas century magazine which at that time was america's leading mass circulation magazine. it constituted one of the singularly successful exercise is of historical revisionism of all americanther history writing against rising currents of a the southern of us northern interpretation of the civil war but it was there portrayal of lincoln that was the standard of which every writer has had to stake a position. hay and nicolay helped totoda invent the lincoln rigo today. the military genius, the

brilliant political tactician., of the challengers for the throne. of the lincoln memorial the imagination that is left to us by hay and nicolay. in some measure there can be no doubt but it is easy to forget how widely underrated they were at the time of his death in house successful they were to elevate his place of the national memory.on wellington prided himself on the connection to the people which is a phrase used often he never succeeded to translate that immense popularity in to a similar sense of regard to the intellectuals who continue to regard him poorly.

the profound the emotional bond that lincoln shared with soldiers and families in his electoral successes in two presidential elections never fully inspired. with the influential men that guarded the official history you to mini he is in but death of life the real splitter, a country lawyeribil lawyer, a good and decent but ill fitted to the immense responsibility. e beating the 1864 election there would have agreed with that this administration has been a disgrace anyone who broug but that was partly and taxes to.

man who freed the slaves and wanted to fight a war to free the slaves. even after his martyrdom people turn up the nose still. a family of the famous massachusetts family who served in the lincoln administration as well and a republican congressman, in 1872 adams delivered a memorial death after the death of william steward who served under lincoln. he portrayed him as the glue

that kept the government together. reflecting common wisdom among the classes of the day he said i must afirm without hestation that in the history of the government nothing nothing has been made similar to appointing someone so inappropriate for the task as lincoln. and he said only by good grace and luck did lincoln process the wisdom to appoint the quote unquote mastermind of the government and master of the uni union. naturally this engaged lincoln's family and those who served with him and he issued a stinging rebutte. charles adams was hardly alone.

the newspaper editor horrice greerly said he was a leader who tried to end the war early on the battlefield or through negotiation. lincoln loyalist rolled their eyes but the problem was horrice wrote a lot of books and sold a lot of opinions. the two first met in 1851 in a school in pittsfield, illinois. hay was a physician son and nickoli was dirt poor. he was an orphaned by the age of 16. like lincoln, he was an auto

dictat that could count his months of formal schooling on two hands. he rose up from being a printers d d devil meaning he did all of office work to becoming a newspaper man and a year or two after that he bought the paper and became the editor in his early 20's. the whole country was afire with the debate over slavery and it's prospective spread in the western territory. he became an increasingly anti-slavery writer. he was appointed in the illinois legislator after the new republican party won control of both houses. he sold the newspaper.

... and i think that there goal would be familiar to any parent of any generation. there was a family council that was called. his older brothers and sisters. basically had to figure out how to get john hay and job and move out of the house. again, some things change and some things don't. they struck a compromise with their budding poet son to

continue his literary interest in enterprises but would have to study for the law with his uncle milton back in the day. study their clerk under an existing law firm. the deal was that he would move to springfield and study at his uncle's law firm which happens to be held in the same building and in an adjacent sweet to the law firm of abraham lincoln. it's in this way that he came to know abraham lincoln and reacquainted and self with his old friend john nikolai around 1859. does not to say that he immediately got interested in politics. predictably the long-held little allure for him. he rejected blackstone's commentaries and spent the first couple of weeks it was supposed to be studying the law researching and writing a history of the jazz would order. they were not impressed. in the wake of his lecture close

friends suggested that he might make a career of the pulpit trying to figure out a way to justify the fact that he had not progressed and is legal study. i don't think i would do for methodist preacher. i would not sue for the baptist because i dislike water and would fail as an episcopalian. his uncle was not particularly in new -- and used until the big go back to his legal studies. john wrote to his college girlfriend, they would spoil first class pre just make a third class lawyer of me. i alternate between weeks of sickness and months of my normal condition of chronic worthlessness. how hot it will end does not seem difficult to say. the only question is one of time i'll read the law and john doe and richard row as choir showplace the area forms that i have built upon my dreams. not the first person to have to get a law degree you had no interest in practicing law. while he spent this time not reading a lot lincoln technical

ion as his campaign a shortly after winning the republican nomination is in chicago. during the post-election interlude he appointed nikolai to become as private secretary when he indicated that he would take him to washington to become his press secretary, and it was during this time he became somewhat influential. scores, if not hundreds of politicians from around the country came to confer and also labored alone answering upwards of 100 to 150 letters a day that were coming into the president-elect, many with sensitive political content. you became the gatekeeper. when the male and visitors became unmanageable he began assisting his old friend. there are all working out. they were working out of the governor's office that the state house in springfield, the governor of illinois graciously

offered the president-elect use of his offices in time left for washington. it was at this point that he officially offered the post of secretary the princely sum of $200 a year, almost three times what he had been earning. not long after this was struck feed said that he thought it might be good to bring him to washington to which she replied, we cannot take all of illinois down with us to washington. now, his demeanor and temperament, they could not have been more different. two young men in their early 20's. he could have written it is said dennison, -- said come. once for three days. there were completely unknown to people in political circles, although in illinois there were very well known. there were suddenly taking up residence in the second floor of the white house, control all

access, and affect his chiefs of staff. generals and the army, u.s. senators have to clear it with them and they're able to dictate orders, effectively cosigner sign for him feel commissions, send them off. in time they became known as, you know, the people who understood what his will was. there were young. and so they were, of course, aware of power and influence. there were different in terms of demeanor. nikolai was short tempered and a little caustic. he cut a brooding figure to people who saw that as -- sought the president's time. another assistant secretary, a way to remark that he was decidedly sherman in his manner of telling people what he thought of them. people who don't like him because they cannot use insidious hour and crusty but it's a grand good thing that he is. i just imagined that he is from

emanuel. on the other hand, a cultivated a softer image. he was commander words of his contemporaries, a young man with a peach blossom face yet deep enough, bubbling over with brilliant speech. he was a would-be poet and he was even well into his tenure as white house staffer, skeptical of politics and politicians and took the job because he was happy to do anything but steady law with his uncle. he told his college girlfriend sometime shortly before lincoln was nominated that insanity has not yet changed its format for me from run the politics. i will occupy myself very pleasantly into early hating both sides and abusing the particular company of the company and happen to be an. when the company is divided i will say with murky she'll a plague on both your houses. this position of dignified neutrality i expect to hold for quite some time unless lincoln

is nominated in chicago. that said, pay like his new status did pretty much from the day he arrived there who. anybody who has never met a young house-senate our white house staffer would recognize a certain quality. days after he moved into the white house when he dashed a letter of to his old college girlfriend and providence. he did so on executive mansions stationery and said, if you do choose to write me back will get your letter addressed hobson care of the president washington d.c. so at willard's hotel where he and nikolai would take their data every evening for the most part this unless they dined with the president they enjoyed the knowing glances and stairs of the of the speakers, wire pullers, artists, poets, clerks, the publicist, mail contractors, railway directors, and all of the politicians said.

he was there in 1859. basically all of the folks who admired hawthorne, but he enjoyed being the object of their blairs. one of his classmates happened across the john hay at the willard hotel where he was leaning casually against the cigar stand taking in the scene. when he was asked how to enjoy himself in congratulating him on his appointment he replied with a knowing smile, yes. since that was john a. john george nikolai was only slightly less insufferable. around the same time he informed his fiancee that in my position i necessarily hear something new almost every day that would certainly be of infinite interest to someone and sometimes to another. but it's my duty to say nothing, so i won't. if you have to impress your

fiancee with your job at the white house then i think you're probably still a little green. to one supplicant who saw just a few minutes of lincoln's time, nikolai replied, the president's task here is not child's play. it's not hard to understand why many people view them as being a little too big for the bridges, but as the war progressed the secretary has lost something of their youth and grew to become trusted and close aides to the president. midway through the war he was commissioned with an official detailed. at the same time nicolai effectively became lincoln's defacto political director and chief of staff. he used them in different ways at different times. the usually, i would say for the most part, about a third of the year there were in washington together. at other times one are the other was a way.

lincoln center a on various missions, florida to try to reconstruct the state unsuccessfully, sentence in niagara falls auto oversee the ill-fated negotiations. you get a sense of how important it became. nikolai was really his political handler. the sentence to be his eyes and ears to make sure he was renominated and actually as well to oversee that messy business of replacing hannibal hamlin with andrew johnson's. he also counted on nikolai to become -- to go to new york and sort out a mass of patronage appointments, the political boss of new york, the key to reelection because new york would not have gone for lincoln without him. he trusted neck latigo handle this. the relationship between the

boys and lincoln was pretty incident. frequently sent out for weeks at a time on these kinds of sensitive political and military missions but careful to make sure that one was always at the white house, they kept in close contact with each other and exchanged frequent humorous observations about the first couple, the cabinet, leading military figures. in private they referred to lincoln as the tycoon or the ancient. their relationship with mary todd lincoln was a little less affectionate. they dubbed her the hellcat. by their own estimation hay and nikolai were the daily and nightly witnesses of the incidents, anxieties, fears, and hopes which pervaded the executive mansion and the national capital. the president gave his secretaries the utmost confidence. when so far as to claim that lincoln's son as affectionately as he did his own sons. so that is the relationship

these two men enjoyed. i would add -- it needs no adding, but he was at his bedside when he died. when informed of the assassination attempt that so close their work to him. and so moving back to where we began by the 1870's with his father's reputation increasingly in shambles robert todd lincoln knew repair his father's legacy. there were particularly troubled by the nhl is taking hold. it was not just that they were bothered, they were concerned that in popular literature and journalism the war was being recast as a brother's squabble over abstract political principles to rather than a moral struggle over slavery and freedom which is very much what they viewed the war as.

having come out of the republican party having, of age during the era of the republican party, kansas, john brown, the civil war, they could not help but to the slavery at the center of the conflict. they saw magazines and newspapers taking to a celebration a military valor arguing in effect that bravery rather than morality was the chief quality to be commemorated this bothered him very much. the authors pointedly emphasized that there were silly and moral and political issues that divided the nation before and in many respects after the war, and they viewed that conflict as having been caused by what they said was the uprising of national conscience against the secular wrong that could never be blotted out. of course that was slavery. though they made very little effort to mask their bias, they did set out when robert todd lincoln empowered them to do it to write a history of lincoln was grounded in evidence. it was roughly around 1875 the

robber told them he would give them exclusive access and then began actually working on this project. by then nikolai had been appointed grand marshal of the u.s. supreme court and lived in washington and work of the capital. hey have served a term as assistant secretary of state which was the number two position at the state department and was -- no, he was about to do that but was finishing up his tenure as a top editor at the new york tribune, ironically under orsk really. he made little effort to mask their bias when they began writing but did set out to write this history in a professional way grounded in evidence. in the early days of the project nikolai spent several months interviewing dozens of individuals who had known lincoln in illinois and washington. the transcripts of these discussions are still in the library of congress and are fascinating to read and certainly informed they came to cast a skeptical eye on these reported memories of old men and

women who were remembering things after the fact and in many times doing so inaccurately . if an anecdote could not be confirmed from contextual evidence ultimately decided there would discarded which is a methodology that historians today who look at presidents don't apply. we rely a lot on the kind of post facto memories of people. they did not think that it was particularly useful to do so or did not think that it was reliable. for instance, when chapters of their work were serialized charles, newspaperman who served as assistant secretary of war publicly challenged their assertion that john hay had accompanied the president to the war department telegraph office that evening to receive the 1864 presidential election return. janis said flatly that they were lying. says he kept a pretty good diary during the civil war years and said that dana is insisting now was not there in the face of my

diary the set i was. he said, you see this sort of the headed contradictions. writing to the former vice president he observed that people grew self aggrandizing overtime as their memories increasingly betrayed them. you know, it's impossible for any old illinois and to talk for five minutes without letting you understand that he made lincoln already was. ultimately the secretaries stop conducting interviews altogether because it places us in the dilemma of either being compelled to report a lot of worthless fiction or giving great offense to our friends but declining to do so, and it's worth contextualizing this. in the 1860's and '70's some of the most popular biographical information about lincoln was emanating from former friends of his hair had been law partners

and a trusted aide in the white house and sometimes, you know, a lawyer on the circuit with him. herndon had -- herndon was offended by the kind of apotheosis that lincoln underwent after his death and one to remind people that lincoln was a human being, man. so he spent three or four years scourings kentucky, indiana, southern illinois for people who had known lincoln in his youth and as a young man. all of this was great, and most of what we know about his life before he got to springfield or certainly before you became a state legislator we know from his interviews. unfortunately he used a lot of this in ways that baffled the lincoln family and irritated them stop. the lectures and the articles and all to lay the biography that he with some others including on published clams that lincoln -- it's impossible to list all the claims.

he was not the son of thomas lincoln but the son of another man, that he was, you know, a so-called illegitimate child and his mother had also been born illegitimately. he claimed that lincoln had never loved mary todd lincoln. the love of his life had been a young woman named ann rutledge to die when lincoln was off in springfield or actually the old state capital for his first term in the legislature and that he never got over the loss. he claimed that lincoln had syphilis. it was not clear why this was helpful or helping to set, you know -- he tried to make him a very earthy figure. the family was absolutely furious. they elected these interviews and thought, there is no possible way that people could remember with any precision somebody whom they had no expectation whatever rise that far. one of his informants said something really telling.

look, you know, i'm sorry. i wish i could remember more. when i knew him it was just for a year in her early 20's, and i had no idea you would be president, so i did not think term member. so they relied instead on a vast body of lincoln's papers and any kind of primary sources they could get there hands on. they scoured the country by posting advertisements, looking at, you know, circulars in used bookstores, talking to old friends, increasingly people were finding as their parents died diaries, letters, manuscripts and attics, boxes under beds, and they collected all of this and added to the lincoln archive. the oversized study soon came to accommodate one of the largest private collections of civil war documentation and scholarship in the country. later when he lived in washington between 1879 and 81 when he served as assistant secretary of state and again

after 1885 onward he and nikolai would walk between each other's houses and homes to swap materials. at this point he had married a wealthy woman and built a mansion, he and his good friend henry adams built side-by-side mansions in washington. if you know the hotel, that's on the site where the two mansion's actually stood, but it is not the actual mansion. by 1885 they had written some 500,000 words of their biography but were scarcely through the first year of the civil war. he grew increasingly concerned by the scope of the undertaking and fell what he needed was to bring the prospects to a close. roswell smith and gilder, publisher and editor of the nation's most prominent and widest circulation magazine at that point provided that motivation. we want your life of lincoln. we must have it. if you say so we will give you

all the profit. since i have a contract. there were offered unprecedented terms, $50,000 for the serial rights as well as royalties on sales of the fulton volume set to be issued following the magazine run. you have to imagine as well in $1,885. the long awaited serialization began in 1886 command almost from the start it was extremely controversial. by virtue of their exhaustive treatment of lincoln's political career they managed to steer into the national consciousness episodes that have largely been unknown to the public and themes and arguments that would influence lincoln scholars and civil war historians for generations. among the many contributions they made were revolutions that william seward have drafted a closing lines of lincoln's first inaugural but that the president-elect had edited those lines and turn them into the work of genius that we know and gas. they explained to us or were the

first to report george mcclellan's assurance that he would do it all when lincoln gave him command of the union army as well as the army of the potomac. the first to reveal the against great distress early in the war when washington d.c. was cut off from the north and the president was keeping an anxious vigil for the troops and said, why don't they come. the biographers also offered unprecedented light into lincoln's decision making on emancipation and the list and a black soldiers and get an insider's view of this interaction with the union army high command. above all what they did was create a master narrative that continues to command serious scrutiny more than a century after its introduction. populating his cabinet with former opponents for the republican presidential nomination lincoln demonstrated his discernment and magnanimity in choosing men who he did not know. you recognize them as governors, senators, and statesman while they get looked upon him as a simple frontier lawyer and rival

to whom chance had transformed the honor that they felt do to themselves. effectively, the priest is a popular argument that lincoln formed the so-called team of rivals and insisted that the strong personalities and talents who constituted his inner circle did not always appreciate what they called the stronger well and more delicate tax that inspired and guided the mall. i should add that when you think about the argument historians are always rediscovering things that people wrote. there is nothing wrong with that. if you want a terrific iteration of that argument you will find her book far more engaging and entertaining. it was hay in the collider developed this thesis first. they gave prominent place to the elephant in the room as well which was slavery. few white americans were interested in discussing that topic by 1885. in his discussion section of politics, he stated that it is

now universally understood if not conceded that the rebellion of 1861 was begun for the sole purpose of defending and preserving the seceding states institution of african slavery and making them the nucleus in a gray slave empire. this is common sense to us now, but in the context of the 1880's it was a somewhat controversial assertion. breaking their own rule against believing the memories of old man a gave credence to the claims of lincoln's cousin who recalled a journey that they had taken when hired to escort a barge of goods down the mississippi river in 1831 and it was then that is many years claim that lincoln first saw african slaves chained, maltreated, with disgorged. in his heart he bled, said nothing much. i can say knowing that that was on this trip he first formed his opinion of slavery. that story largely comes from nikolai. now, as an antebellum politician lincoln was not an abolitionist or radical, but he did only a

firm that african-americans are human beings and entitled to all the natural rights of human beings. the secretary fall of that moral and intellectual even entering the war they had actually not been as liberal. that was something he gave to them posthumously and something that they came to believe in pretty strongly. one of the things you gain a sense of when you read there diaries and letters against their history was that they often missed the significance of events that they had witnessed and participated in in real time they were actors in stirring times, though i hardly realized. in november 1863 the secretaries that the company's lincoln to gettysburg, pennsylvania, where he delivered the memorial address dedicating a soldier cemetery, they did not remember much of it because they had been out drinking and were severely hung over the next morning. they had done so partly because this was a political event and

it was their job to go out drinking with the many governors, politicians, congressman, newspaper editors who had converged their commander goal was to work the crowd and work the political crowd in advance of the following years presidential nomination. nevertheless the did not remember much because they have been severely hanover. in their book they dedicated 13 pages. clearly they had come after the facts to understand that had been a tremendously important moment. although in their diaries it is pretty clear that they did not recognize the significance. part of the project year was also to take down lincoln's biggest detractors, the biggest of them would have been george mcclellan. of course he cast himself as the year of the war. at lincoln licenced have the war would have been over sooner. by contrast their broken up as an inept general.

and man who rarely estimated the force immediately opposed him as less than doubled. they disclose the famous story about lincoln's call. they refuse to come downstairs and see the president. and it is close to the public that on the eve of the battle a union private had discovered general these battle plans and had given them to mcclellan. and mcclellan not only knew of the division of his enemies army buddy knew where its trains, rearguard, and cavalry were and where their detached commands would join the main body. nevertheless he failed to use this intelligence. the lincoln had been introduced to the nation was a deft political operator exerting control daily and hourly over the vast machinery and command. he effectively cut the sense

that they introduced to the country the abraham lincoln who we all know today. a story individual. numbered over ten, and they basically sought to establish clinton's ever lasting greatness . yet they would continue to the and to insist on is fundamental humanity. in lincoln's case as in that of all heroic personages to occupy a great place in history a certain element of the legend- with regis fan. but lincoln was a man and not a god. in the decades after the death they left behind at the system remain embedded in historical consciousness. they're rendering of lincoln is basically null lincoln memorial lincoln, a man end up with on common humanity but was fundamentally flesh and blood. they could barely have claimed to know him better than any other man of their time, so it's little wonder then left to rendering.

it would not be until 1947 that any others dollar was able to touch, look at, or consult the papers. and so essentially because of robert todd lincoln screed they enjoyed the playing field long after they died. as to what happened, nikolai gave the better part of this latter life to lincoln, first as a close adviser and then as keeper of the fine. shortly before he died he wrote to a former staff member and said, i don't let any unsatisfied ambitions or any. he died that year shortly after president mckinley was assassinated in september. they lived until 1905 and went on to achieve considerable wealth and success. the morning after he dreamed of abraham lincoln on that ship back from liverpool shortly before his death he wrote another diary entry in what she said, i say to myself that i should not rebel at the thought of my life ending at this time.

i have lived to be old, something never expected. as head many blessings, success beyond all the dreams of my boyhood. i know that death is the common law and what is universal ought not to begin the misfortune. yet instead of confronting it with dignity and philosophy i clang instinctively to life and the things of life as eagerly as if i had not had my chance at happiness and gained nearly all the great prizes. these were to really extraordinary figures. in many ways when we think about the business of presidential legacy making, president obama just recently appointed a small committee of staff members to begin building a presidential library and research center. president bush just opened his. the live only miles from one of the great presidential research centers reaffirming and shoring up his legacy.

we have always -- presidents have always managed there histories and legacies, and those who died early, then relied on their families and aides to do so. when i think of hay and nikolai and their relationship, i think of their relationship and the partnership between jacqueline kennedy onassis and arthur schlesinger and theodore sorensen and teddy wait for eleanor roosevelt relationships with the number of people who helped to define franklin roosevelt's legacy. my hope for this book will help us to remember as we remember him today and a very real efforts that went into that and a price. thank you. i would love to take some questions if there are any. [applause]

>> what is your opinion of daniel epstein's book the lankans man which covers some of the same material that you have talked about? secondly, what do you think about the recent biography? >> i like them both very much. epstein is really a literary man , a poet, scholar of literature. i think he was trying to do a different project. it draws and other characters. we're looking at different questions using the same people, but it's a beautiful read. the biography is magnificent. if you are interested in how comprehensive -- i should not say this. if you're interested in a comprehensive biography don't buy my book, but you want to read both. john did a number of other things that i don't cover. not only was he a presidential aide and later a great diplomat

which is something nile the cover and pass into the lens of his relationship to lincoln and civil war, he was on noted poet. he finally did become a poet. he stopped writing this wretched victorian verse and actually became famous for writing in the vernacular of his native illinois. he actually pioneered the practice of writing prose and poetry in that kind of native, southern illinois, missouri vernacular. mark twain later credited john hayes pike county ballots for having been the inspiration for the voice of some of his characters, for instance huckleberry finn. so he has this marvelous, you know, relationships with henry adams and as part of the circle of washington and literary insiders. so he has a tremendous life outside of lincoln mendes covered beautifully. so i really do admire his book.

so yes? >> you said that they had determined that this would be fact based, not just anecdotal. still what extent is there writing used at that time and still used today for research? six. >> extensively. he was a beautiful rider, but mostly a kind of short story writer and essayist. i would not say that their prose style was particularly gripping. in large sections they basically just "letters. if you look at the ten volumes, i would estimate offhand that three or four volumes is just direct quotation. they had notes on the side of the book the sort of side of the stores instead of foot notes. there was listed.

that was basically until 1947 how most people were able to access. they had to do it through them. in the 1890's it published a collective work of lincoln. they basically put out what they claim more of his personal writings which did not include the vast collection of incoming mail and memoranda that went to lincoln went to work enormously valuable. no one got to see those until 1947. because they carry the collected works and because they decided which pieces of his riding or in part by including them in that book they effectively became the curators of what other historians would consult. so in the decades after their wrote this people who look to lankan tended to look at his early life because that's where you could scour up additional resources. ida tarbell in the early 1900's working with the magazine went

on a hunt for early lincoln memorial. they thought this was hilarious. there editor said, look at this. a female editors got to try and research lincoln as if she could possibly do this. she turned up all kinds of written materials to marley speeches, letters, things that had been long lost to history. this is where scholars up until the 1940's were able to break new ground. the documents for all shut off other than what they had written and copy in their book or their collective volumes serve. >> going through the volumes, and experience. very tedious. were there any pieces that you could identify?

>> that's a good question. i enjoyed their letters and diaries far more than the actual biographies. but i will say that where they broke their own rule and relied on their memory it got exciting. the chapters that deal with the nominating convention in 1860 are tremendously exciting because nikolai was in the room. all of the descriptions of this moment when the second ballot ticker's and lincoln suddenly pulls ahead and in the third ballot when he surges ahead and win this and everything goes quiet and he describes the silence that befalls the wigwam in chicago. you could hear the reporters pencils scratching on the paper and describes what it was like. he does it from the third person . he describes how you could hear the telegraph off raiders -- operators cooking and results. that is tremendously exciting. you can feel the moment and

erotically is when they break with their own convention when he describes personal recollections are when they use his personal recollections of conversations he had. those are really fascinating, and if you match up his diary against the when eroded his diary is written pretty free form. it's all a lot of -- it was basically just rough notes. the kind of violated there rule, but that's where it gets exciting. they could not really help themselves. >> the special feel the order initiated, what is their achievements of that and the volumes that they had? and what is your field of lincoln's position? and were he not assassinated what is your assumption that from that the trail because as you say his legacy was not seen

as a great humanitarian or savior of blacks at that time, but he has become that. what is your feel? >> they frame that in the larger context of lincoln's war policies. they followed the logic through and through. because they had to describe -- they took care to follow the logic to say that although his growing concern about slavery resulted in his advocacy of the 13th amendment, has war policy had been to use emancipation and in the tools of emancipation and all the subsequent implications in order to bring the south to its knees. and so these orders were perfectly constitutional, that he had the right as it is field generals text appropriate

property, to liberate slaves were they saw them and where they actually took land. they framed it in a very constitutional fashion. the same time other pieces of the book -- but even 30 years later there were aware that people still, one of the raps against lincoln was he was a simple country lawyer who had vastly overplayed war powers that did not exist because he did not understand them. there were careful to make sure to explain that he was a master liar, a politician, military leader understood the expense of war powers. for what -- you're basically asking when his reconstruction policy would have been had he lived which is the big if. i think it is purely speculation it is fair to say that it would not have looked like what andrew johnson policies look like. we laugh, but at one point that was the old historiography, assuming that somehow andrew

johnson was carrying out what abraham lincoln would have done and the radical republicans to the republicans got in the way of that. i think it would be fair to say that lincoln extemporized, he sort of made stuff up on the fly as he had to do under the circumstances and is clear that is gross was decelerating in the days before he died. he had a conversation about allowing some african-americans to vote, once or educated in landowning choice. it's pretty easy to imagine that he would have evolved in a way that would have fallen somewhere between the radical and moderate factions. >> there were very safe in their homes. it was a terrible thing. they swapped them off. when nikolai was working as the grand marshal of the supreme

court he had an office in the capital. so they decided that there would keep the bulk of them there. the theory was that houses burned down frequently, but they figure the capitol was made out of marble. they had a close scare with that. before they came into possession of robert todd lincoln captain and has offices in chicago. that did not work out so well during the great chicago fire when the only barely got them out before his office in the entire block burn down. after nikolai died haig took possession of all the papers. and after he got his family turned them over robert todd lincoln. for about ten years the lincoln family was desperately trying to find one of the last to -- the new there were five copies of the gettysburg address. there were missing one and could not find it and had no idea where was. his daughter helped the family

tried to look for them. sometime around 1914 his daughter alice sheepishly told robert the she had found it because apparently her father had kept this a morales. i think she probably intended to return at some point but could not bear to put it with the rest of the collection which is sort of funny in the context and you remember that he did not remember when it was a liver. [inaudible question] what makes you focus on the secretaries of lincoln? >> people have written a great but some white house staff. a fine book called camelot scored which looks at the kennedy staff. i think this is at a time that always fascinated me, but the last in the world needs is another book on lincoln. i felt that this was a piece that would allow me a look at the development of lincoln's

historical legacy but at the same time be attentive to the important role that staff members play in politics. was more interested in that legacy. having also worked in politics i found these to to be recognizable and attractive. in all of their importance, arrogance, impetuousness kamal of it. totally recognizable. it was fun to live through their eyes and sort of see it through their eyes. also, they were very, very witty the fun to read. you really do get a picture of the lincoln winehouse. there the only people who can give you that portrait, and they wrote about it in real time.

she did not like the fact of their lives in the white house. that having been said they fiercely protective gear after the fact and particularly against all the attacks and innuendo. they were very conscious and their responsibility to try the help fix that even as he had a difficult relationship.

>> the day ever address the idea of a lost cause, the legitimacy -- >> this is about the time that it comes in the being. the way in which the war was be remembered. it was one piece of it, but they were equally offended for battlefield relations. this was about the time you start to get the blue and gray reunions, the century magazine also did a very popular series called batters and leaders. and when that famous oliver wendell holmes ," they thought this was ridiculous.

he was an abolitionist he had almost got and killed while trying to escort -- i don't know whether it was when bill phillips world lloyd garrison. they thought that the way in which is the 80 logical elements of the war were being stripped away and the service of national union was a bad thing. they were accused by their editors a practicing aggressive modernism. a was sort of say, we have to watch it and tone it down, but then his own chapters would be ludicrously in northern in their perspective. i think that is what they were concerned with, and it's fair to say that while they were successful in rewriting the way we imagine lincoln, the recasting of the civil war against that revisionism did not hold up for long. it would not actually become -- their interpretation would not come back until the modern civil-rights era fists.

we probably have time for one more. [inaudible question] >> they actually had not intended to stay. there were burnt out, exhausted. and so lincoln shortly before he died appointed them to be diplomatic posts. he appointed nikolai to be the consul general in paris and appointed eight to another diplomatic post also in paris. and they readily jumped at the chance. they were exhausted, did not want to do another term. the time they could not have foreseen what evidence would occur. they also wanted to go see something of the world. nikolai had a long-suffering fiancee whom he wrote faithfully every day and to was still back in illinois.

she visited him, he visited her. through his letter stir will largely have his recollections, but there was an exchange shortly after the reelection but before the inauguration in which most of her letters disappeared. we only have a one-sided dialogue, but he was not very good at this relationship thing. a very clear. he spends three pages going into great detail about the election return and then says, by the way, what you mean when you said we were going apart. they're is a leather chair shortly before the inauguration which says, you know, i think not going to take that diplomatic post. and that he goes to sear. by the time he comes back his riding in telling him here is where the wedding will be. so very clearly the only way he could have got married was to get out of the white house

because the secretaries were expected to live there and he couldn't. they went on to diplomatic posts nikolai stay there until 6869 and then came back. hey did a turn in paris and then came home. he kind of mark about at his parents' house and went to see william seward who got him a diplomatic post in vienna. he went back to madrid and did a year there and came home. also by this point he had done three diplomatic posts in new everybody. he came back and became the foreign affairs correspondent for the new york tribune making a lot of money living in new york. then he married a very wealthy woman from cleveland which is now the hay adams mansions got built. it was not with money from writing class. thank you so much, view, for coming out.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] york r

association this is just over an hour. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you for inviting me. thank you all for turning down. it's nice to be here. this is, as you can surmise, something that is taken up the last three years of my life. in researching and writing this book which by the way encompasses a years, is no small chance to figure out how to present this to you all and

still having you be conscious and unfinished. in a year story, i would have to cover roughly one day per second. if i were to do that i would already be terribly behind. so what i thought we would do instead is lot to think of this in terms of addressing two central questions. the first is how is it that the most important house in the united states of america, the symbol of the executive branch is allowed to deteriorate to the point where it nearly collapsed and killed the president which is a big question. in the second thing is -- the second thing i would like to address is how we got the white house we have today. when you look at the house you're seeing a house, but if

you are to be fortunate enough to be invited and cytosine is to step through the front door you are not in a historical building anymore a standing is something that was built in 1950. that's quite a bit of engineering, and i want to try to cover the more interesting parts. so to kick this off every story in my experience needs a villain and like to introduce you to one of the balance. this is a 1902 factory photograph of a chandelier bill by calling company around 1901. it is number 11836, but they had a name for it. it was three and a half feet across and nearly 6 feet tall. my estimates are given all the bohemian crystal on that thing it probably wait around a thousand pounds.

on a winter afternoon and early 1948 it was hanging here in the blue room of the white house. i would like to use your imagination and try to imagine about 100 women in this room sipping tea, 1948. and first lady standing directly beneath this chandelier making small talk and suddenly amid all the pleasant chatter she hears the sound and looks up and sees that chandelier start to sway. at first she tries to ignore it, but the sound got louder and she can't. she looks up again and now is truly moving. so she summons the assistant ussher over and, please go upstairs and find out what's going on.

he raced up the stairs to the room directly above this one and finds nothing in this except for one thing. in the adjoining room which happens to be the president's back from harry s. truman is sloshing around in the bathtub. and i don't believe he was a particularly vigorous bay there, but apparently it was enough to get the been shaking and enough to shake this chandelier. so the guests go home, the daughters of the american revolution, no one is armed. bess truman comes upstairs to confront her husband and said to my was afraid that chandelier was going to come down on top of all of those people. and at that president truman burst out laughing. he thought that was fantastic. he thought it would be wonderful if it slid through the floor with him in it wearing nothing of it in his reading glasses and he could come down right in the middle of the daughters of the

american revolution as one of his architects later put it delicately in a report to descend in the tub among police. but truman was a practical man. he said to the usher, you had better get some engineers in here to take a look around. so that is how my book starts. that's how i've just target. obviously i'm going to move a little bit faster now. truman had harbored suspicions about the white house is integrity almost to the point to $0.5 the point that the move again. he would work in his oval study lated night and was troubled by the sounds a kept hearing. there were creaking noises. the curtains would sway on their own even of the windows were closed. at one point in june of 45 he wrote to his wife, i sit here in this old house and work on foreign affairs, reed reports,

and work on speeches all the while listening to the ghosts walk up and down the hallway. the floors pop in the drapes move back and forth. this was the hallway. i have looked. over time german had heard so many sounds coming from the gasol way that he stopped thinking that goes might be the reason for the. at one. the chandeliers shaking and trembling started to get to be a regular thing which was very troublesome and at one time sherman also barred his doctors stethoscope and walked over a one of the walls and press the diaphragm against the plaster and could hear the house creaking slowly back and forth. this was a three story house, not a skyscraper, should not be making that noise. finally one morning truman wrote in his diary, the big fat butler

brought me my breakfast and the force lagan moved like a ship see. that was a very serious warning sign. the floor was not just shimmying. it was truly moving.

>> if there was evidence the white house needed it was falling apart, it came when my piano fell through. well, no kidding. president truman had not sat idle while the spooky things were going on. in february of 1947, he sent out confidential letters to douglas other of the more than institute of architects. that's him right there in the glasses, and he sent another letter to richard, head of the american society of civil engineers. that's him right there. he asked the two to come to the white house and kick around and please keep it a secret. they did. in fact, these gentleman and more and more engineers and architects from the billing administration visited the white house from 1947 into 48 and

inspected, and word did not get out the public what they were finding. the truth came out only after truman was reelect the in 1948, but the moment that he was, literally, the moment, within a few hours, he was evacuated from the house as well as the family. the house was condemned. they were afraid if there were a minor tremor in washington, the entire house would come in. why would they evacuate the president of the united states? what on earth had they found? by this time, the gentleman, by the way, i should mention, formed into an official body known as the commission own renovation of the executive mansion, the body to oversee the work. what did they find? well, they found this. when they chipped away the plaster covering the interior brick walls, there were cracks, not in the plaster, but the bricks. some of the cracks were two

stories tall. it was obvious what was happening to the engineers. the interior brick walls were actually pulling away from the outer stone walls of the white house. in some cases, they pulled away so far there was gaps big enough to get your arms through. the walls were, in fact, sinking into the ground. pulling everything down around them as they went, and it created absolute mayhem, including an incident one afternoon when the ceiling of the east room dropped six inches in about an hour. it became common practice for the carpenters to rush in and build scaffolding like this, and, soon, scaffolding like this was all over the house. they were desperate simply to keep the plaices standing. the wonder of this is how long the trumans lived with this scaffolding and the public did not know about it. what else did they find?

cracks in the beams of the floors. dried out, rotten, never sealed, i don't mean little cracks like what happens in old wood. if you look at this brace here, you can make out a crack. if you can't, we'll go closer. maybe you see it now. this is the beam preserved in the library. truman had this cut out and set aside, possibly because he was worried people might not believe howry kick louse this was. that is a big crack. the engineers found not only this, but others massive notches cut into the beam, literally hacked into the beam. in some cases, there was only two inches of wood left that supporting tons of waste. the wonder is that the house did not fall in at all.

by early 19 # 49, truman is safely reelected, they made the announcement that a complete gutting and rebuilding was what was necessary, literally, to save the house. let's consider what we have. we have a president that's been hastily moved across the street to the blare house, and that's him there on the front steps. we have the single most important piece of the united states' architecture heritage about to collapse, and, perhaps, you're thinking, what everybody in the united states was thinking at that moment. who was to blame? who was to blame? well, since we're talking about washington, d.c., i thought we'd adhere to local custom and blame some people. i'll start with names of men you probably already know. we'll start by blaming president jackson apologize pierson harris, arthur harrison, and

taft. why? these gentleman brought in, what at the time, they called improvements to the house. every time science advanced and something new to make something easy y, well, of course, the president had to have it. is started with jackson who brought in water pipes and hallowed out logs. bringing in gaslights, pipes in hot water, johnson brought in the telegraph, heys the tornado watch, taft, the lower right here, a one ton bathtub. and that was the weight without mr. taft. [laughter] now, this seems reasonable, right? should be living comfort baling. bring running water into the white house. why not. well, there was a problem, actually. every time they brought in a system like this, they had to drill a hole through a beam, through a wall stud, and they

were told to hurry up, the workman, come in, you're inconveniencing the president, hurry up. ripped down what they had to, hacked through, and then cover it up. that's what constituted the damage in the beams i referenced earlier. the other thing is the additions were heavy. they were cast iron. in a house that would be built today, bringing in a lot of steel pipes would not necessarily be a problem, but it was a problem in the white house, and i want to explain why. the white house had a very unusual system -- well, not for the time, but distinct system for drilling the weight load. the outer walls of the house, which i have here, looking down at the house here, they are in black. those were four feet thick. they were stone. they -- the foundations went five feet below the ground, and they capped off with pudding.

think of decent anchoring for the time. the big problem was that the interior walls, which are red here, those were walls of brick, and they basically had no foundation at all. you don't need an engineering degree to know that's a problem. no foundation, seriously? seriously. i had a hard time believing this and the engineers were discover because by 1948, almost none of the white house's original drawings survived. they were thrown away or lost in the fire. i found this photo from 190 # it # in a congressional report, and it was picturing the installation of a new boiler for teddy roosevelt in 1902, and it's not easy to see, but narrow in as best you can, it's instructive. this is the brick pier on the

ground floor level of the white house. that's a pier helping to support all of the house above it. what you see broken up here would be the very bottom of the house, and what you see here would be what they excavated. take note of the man there for scale. look at this. what is that? that's called rubble work. it's a very crude foundation. basically, they found stones that they dug, and they threw them down there, maybe with mortar, maybe not, and they built a brick pier on top of it. if you used the man's legs for scale, oh what do we have there? three feet or so? okay. you think, well, three feet of stone is not a bad foundation. maybe not. consider that on this pier and on every other pier in the basement, the white house was pressing down at 20 tons per linier foot, and the ground beneath the white house was

sand. that's another problem. so back to the blame game not to kick mud on people. isn't the real culprit the one who design the white house in 17922? no, it's not. the study of mechanics did not exist yet, and he was only building the building that george washington asked him to, which was a country gentleman's house. it was perfectly suitable for the time. it was not suitable for 1950 as one of truman's assistants put it, the white house was, quote, designed as a comfortable late 18th century home, but it's become the nerve center of the world. okay. let's continue on with the damage. the culprit list, i add roosevelt on the left, who decided in 1902 #, she needed a bigger dining room. she had 50 feet, she wanted 107. the only way to give that to her was to take this wall and this

staircase and rip it out. that is what poor charles mckim here, who also built outpatient here in new york, had to do, and so what did they do to replace the wall? well, mckim built a hanging truss in the floor above it to carry the weight instead of supporting it from below, hang it from above. it was perfectly fine until 1913 when they destroyed it by modifying the third floor and adding bathtubs, living quarter, and more tons of piping and iron. along came coolidge in 1927 who rebuilt the third floor and roof, and it needed to be done, but he rebuilt it out of cement. by the time this was done, the two upper floors of the white house rose to 180 tons, and then finally, i'm afraid i have to blame harry truman, much as i

like the man, for adding a balcony to the south port koa here, even though he knew the house was in trouble. it was made of steel beams and concrete 18 inches thick. i calculated that's another 6 it 2 tons -- 62 tons or so. okay. do we understand why there's cracks in the wall? why the walls are sinking? these problems fell to these men. this is the commission who you saw assembled on the front lawn before. this is their meeting room in the east wing. they were trusted solving with a big problem, which is, what on earth will they do about this house? not only did they have to decide what to do about the house, but they also had to face off with those who at the time, you know, if the white house is in this bad a shape, let's rip it down. maybe we can -- who on earth? this man said something like that. this is congressman clarence

cannon, chair of appropriations committee and believed 5.4 million dollars, the price tag to do the renovation work, was too high, and cannon argued, too, harry truman in a letter say, quote, the people want a new building. if you think that's a fringe opinion, consider that congressman cannon actually got the "washington post" editorial page to agree with him. fortunately the commission favored the plans drawn up by lorenzo, the architect that truman kept on, and on august 2, 1949, the commission voted they were going to preserve the house, and i want to explain what "preserve" means because preserve then means something what we understand it to mean today. what they were able to save was only the facade of the house. as far as those inadequate

foundations, even on the outside walls, those were the original footings down five feet. they determined they have to bring them down another 2 it # feet before they hit a solid layer of gravel that the white house could sit on. they had to build these walls down by excavating literal columns and pouring cement into them, and then they had to dig out out of the earth inside, and then inside the house, they would erect a steel skeleton, not unlike what you see in a skyscraper. that's a big job. meanwhile, the white house purposeture sent over to the national gallery, took it out of the white house, this is the white house furniture and storage at the national gallery and looks like the national gallery, this was an up finished gallery that the security guards converted into a basketball court. i should mention that most of the personture was not worth very much.

president's routinely redecoratedded. we are not looking at old chip and dales here. one in 1882, dropped 24wagon loads of white house furniture off to the auction house, and many presidents did this, and grace coolidge lamented when she was first lady that she had looked around for original pieces of furniture and just found a single chair that belonged to lincoln. there was not much to save. there were a few pieces, and they took out what they could and moved it to the national gallery. this is the state dining room before the renovation began, and i'd like you to imagine it without its furniture, without the locke portrait or lighting fixtures. anything else in this picture that looks possibly worth preserving if it were up to you? well, maybe all that nice carved oak paneling, perhaps, maybe that really nifty stone

fireplace? the commission did not care about those things. they were ready just to demolish. luckily, for us, one man did care about this, and that was lorenzo, the white house architect. he took all of the beautiful carved fittings off the wall, had them all numbered, and he had them all shipped down to the warehouse on the right side down on b street. he had planned, once the renovation was finished, he thought, we'll have steel in place, and we'll just take these beautiful wooden interior panels and door frames, and windows and everything, and put it back to where it was. that was the plan. i'd like you to remember that because we'll come back to that. so the bids were opened, and the philadelphia based construction

firm broke ground on the job two weeks before christmas. he's the man in the right in the photo with his hands folded in front of him right there. let me give you a better picture of him. there he is. john mcshane was a legend in washington known as the man who built washington. by this time, he built bureau of engraving and p printing, memorial, and pentagon which he put up in 14 months. he was a man who got things done, but with the white house job, most of the bids for the job, this was a cost-plus fixed fee contract. that probably means a lot to some of you. i had to look it up. he was bidding on his feet what would be the profit on the job. most of the contractors put in bids of half a million, three quarters a million dollars. mcshane bid $1 00,000. it was impossible for him to

make a profit on the bid that loy. he did not care. he had already made his fortune, and his daughter, who is still with us, told us in an interview, basically, there was no way that daddy was not going to get that job. now things move quickly because john mcshane and the men have 6 # 60 days to gut the house, dig the new foundation, and raise the steel skeleton inside. here we have the second floor corridor a few days into the start of the demolition, and just to appreciate what men can accomplish with sledge hammers when they are paid and told to enjoy themselves, i thought we could do before and during photographs. this is the entrance hall before. with sledge hammers. this is what they did to the blue room. this is what they did to the east room. they were good, weren't they? mcshain lit rally mauled the

house down to the outer walls. two months into the job, the white house looks like this, ground floor looking up what used to be the first floor in the east room. five months into the job, the house looked like this. truman wrote to his cousin back in missouri around this time, and he said, this is the summer of 1950, he says, the old building is nothing but a shell. there is not a thing in it from cellar to garret, and he was right. this is another question i get asked a lot. the white house had 1.3 million cubic feet of interior space, 66 rooms worth of glass, plaster, and brick. nobody counts the beams and wall studs, but they estimated there's something like a million bricks that came out of the house. where did they all go? what happened to it? well, believe it or not, the common debris, the bricks, the nails, all that, wound up in a steel warehouse in fortfire in

virginia, there on the left in the big pile. it was chopped up and fed into the strangest government program in history. there's a lot of strange government programs in our history. this was the official white house souvenir program, and you could write in, and they would send you a catalog, and you can choose whatever souvenir you wanted. it was all free, just paid for postage. if you wanted a brick, it was a dollar. if you wanted bookends made of the actual stone from the house, well, that was only $2 #. if you were willing to pay the shipping for a hundred bucks, you got enough wood to -- stone to build a fireplace. quite a few people ordered it. how many of these are floating around right in my apartment. on the left, there's a paper that went for 50 cents and you got a nail and piece of foundation and white stone and

authentication plate in case friends didn't believe you. on the right side, here's one of the book ends. that was only $2. how about the rest of it? some of the brick went to mount vernon, george washington's home to patch things up, and camp david received a plumbing and radiators which may still be there to this day. some of the stone wound up in georgetown to patch walls in the chez peek and ohio canals, and they had so much stone left over, some was just left on the ground. figuring maybe we'll need it later. i got permission to show you this photo in exchange for not telling you where it is located. back at the house, june of 1950, the job is finishing up, the bricks over here, bringing the

foundation down 22 feet until they hit gravel level. see that, the stone face way to smooth cement. that is the foundation going down. once they got it, they had -- see the bulldozer there. they had to scoop out all of that earth, 22 p 0,000 cubic feet of earth. taken out. because the decision was made to keep the third floor, they had to build these temporary columns to hold the roof up. once you add those, they brought in lateral support beams that literally kept the his historic walls from caving in. once they got done with that, it was time for the structural steel to go in. i'm not spending time on that, but i wanted to show you the picture because i want you to look at the thickness of the this steel beam and consider this was going in to a three-story building.

okay? if you've seen the times photograph of the construction of the empire state building, you see beams this thick; right? what on earth were they thinking? well, harry truman said this was going to be the last time the white house was ever going to be rebuilt. he was right. there were other things going on in the global stage that led to the decisions. it just so happened to be around this time. two events on the global stage that were important, and august of 1949, the soviets exploded their first atomic bomb. we did not know yet there was a mole. we called this joe one, a cute name, but nobody was laughing. this took us by surprise.

in june of 1950, they cross the parol leal and invade the south korea using soviet tanks, making it clear that truman, the soviet union was willing to engage us. so the commission and truman's security men took a second look at the two new subbasement levels of the house once they were going to be used only for storage. this memo shows up. that is -- i'm not reading the whole thing, scan it if you'd like, but there's two yiewf mitches here. one is this is from admiral dennison informing the commission that part of the basement is going to now pass out of their control in order to create, quote, certain protective measures and, quote, protective characteristics. what does that mean?

what you think it means. it means the bomb shelter. now, this gets tricky because the bomb shelter is still sensitive installation, and we don't know much about it, and we shouldn't. what i know is historical, which i'll share with you. we know from lorenzo's notes that in august of 1950, he was designing a shelter under the east terrace. that's what we're looking here. the east terrace a the narrow corridor connecting the mansion to the east wing. this happened to be the location of a bomb shelter that fdr constructed in the second world war, and it's logical extension to believe they appropriated that and expanded it. one thing is clear, they're building something here. now, if truman is in the oval office in the west wing and the bomb shelter's in the east wing, what do you do? well, this is the new two-level subbasement we see, and what they built for him