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 was a steel

reenforced concrete tunnel. it would percent him to get from one wing to the other. it was accessible from the house above. this is what it looks like to stand inside of it. that concrete is two feet thick. before i move on here, i want to make one point very clear. the bomb shelter was obsolete almost from the time it was built. as soon as the soviets tested a hydrogen bomb in 1953 moving from the kiloton to the megaton range, the idea of a president shelters in place became completely to postrows. the bombs too powerful. the other thing is truman never had intention of using his shelter, and he said so. he had told one of security men, and i'm quoting here, go ahead with all this planning and arrangements, but one thing, if a situation ever develops, i

don't intend to leave the white house. i'm going to be right here. as it turns out, in my book, i relate this story, there, indeed, was a false alarm, and truman stayed upstairs and did not go to the shelter. he believed if americans didn't have a shelter, he shouldn't have one. i submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, we do not have presidents of that milk anymore. [applause] okay. so back upstairs. since mid-1950, this job started running seriously behind. i had mentioned the korean war. why is that a problem? well, it choked off the supply of labor and increased the cost of materials. this is the plan, and it's complicated, but this is the

main floor, two points. the layout of the walls were considered is a cro sapght. it was so once you stepped into the white house, if you were jefferson, by some miracle, it looked familiar to you. he didn't want to move it around too much. he took a freer hand downstairs and upstairs. here on the second floor, movedded walls around a bit to give all the bedrooms their own bathroom and something the white house never had before this time, which was closets. as a manhattan regulated renter, i appreciate that. i don't have any. okay. for the first time in a long time, the house lookedded like a house again. this is the shortage of time and money and problems it would cause, and i want to explain that. i want to start with money. and more money given later, but

we'll stay with that figure. the structure steel, all that, cost 1.it # billion, and after that, they had to pay an avalanche of bills. the roofing, masonry, painting, elevators, insurance, draftsmen, all of that. thin came the electrical and mechanical systems. that was another 1.3 million dollars. so when it came time to actually finish the interior of the house so it looked like an executive house, these bills were very problematic. par cay floors and mar bell and stone for 247,000, plaster 275,000, wood work 417,000. these are 1951 dollars. that wood work costs closer to $4 million today. why hit you with figures? well, at some appointment, they had to bring in a decorator, a guy to do the wallpaper, up

policy try, and by the time that man entered the picture, and that's him, charles height, the deck rater for b. altman and company, the building is still down on 34th street if you know what i'm talking about, and he said, we'll do the decorating for free, all the labor's free. weal charge for cost of materials, which was a good deal; right? they saw marketing tie-in pretty well back then too, and when charles who assumed he would be begin a generous budget for the decorating met with the commission, he was in for a cold water chat. he was told we have $2 10,000 left. that comes down to 1590 per room. that's for everything, furniture, rugs, draperies, wall paper, lamps, everything. he said, quote, i can send your

$210,000, the best spent at altman will not may recollect a penny that it is not enough. and it was not. winslow, remember,mentedded the house restoredded to the early 1800s, and the press office released this horrid release that declared that the white house would be the recreation -- said -- sorry, an american interpretation of the george, truth was that most of the furniture were colonial reproduction pieces from heritage, basically what you find in a traveling salesman's hotel. i don't think you need to be ab expert in the federal period to realize that's not something thomas jefferson would have done in his own hand; although, some pieces were nice and the mantelpiece is nice. she said, mr. truman showed me around the white house that looked like a hotel.

kennedy, later said, famously, that the true interior design of the white house was early statler. the handful of pieces restored and put back, leaving the state floor looking respectable. they did their best. overall, the interior decoration was a disappointment, not remedied until kennedy redecorated in 1963, a separate story. i also mentioned that shortage of time, and that leaves us to the last portion here, and harry trymanmented to come back and live in the restored white house for a year. by the summer of 1951, he was realizing that was not terribly likely, and so he said to jb, the assistant usher, quote, i've been using a curry comb on the contractors to speed up reconstruction. he leaned on them saying, hurry

it up. well, you'd expect the president to say that. unfortunately, that pressure and some other forces, but that pressure strurmt tally would exact a serious toll. remember i mentioned all of those beautiful interior finishings, the panels, doors, moving them to the warehouse where they waited. well, as it turned out, the woodworkers discovered making reproduction pieces was faster and cheaper, and that's what they started to do. a lot of the historic pieces would be marooned in the warehouse and not put back in the white house. i want to be clear that some of the interiors were put back, and i say "interiors," more like 190 it it # roosevelt interiors. this is the dining room with the original paneling back and same happened with the red, the green, and the blue rooms, but that was only four rooms out of

48 # that were dismantled. what happened to all the other historic stuff? where did it go? it was given away, and in some cases, it was thrown away. this is the penitentiary in virginia. it's know closed. this prison received the white house's ornamental ventlation grills, the fire backed, three crates of door frames, 12 crates of window trim, and 22 it crates of hardwood panel doors. prisoners are nicer looking rooms than the president did. unfortunately, it gets worse. much of what was leftover was buried. it was buried in the forty mire military base just across the river. you can visit these days, i don't recommend visiting with a shovel. the pr guy says don't dig, everything is now under 30 feet of topsoil.

for the record, if you drive in here, park, walk, and you stand between the child development cementer and softball field, you'll stand where much of the white house was buried. mingled with the debris of the pentagon and dumped in a hole and covered up. now, i don't want to end on a downer. the fact is, december piet the reproduction purposeture, lost of artifacts, the house was saved, and much of the work that was done was truly first rate, and, i mean, the beautiful brocade wall covering there on the left, caldwell and company in business and restored their chandeliers. truman returned to the house in 1952, and while his private feelings about the job were mixed, he said he, himself, could have done it faster and for less money, just one of the things i love about harry

truman, but he was also a constant politician. his public persona was, yeah, renovation, and he was in a position thanks to the new envenges called television to be the first president who could give a televised tour. yes, he did it before jackie did it. he took americans on a tour of the white house that they had paid to restore with their tax dollars. this is him talking to frank of cbs. at this point in the tour, they wondered into the blue room, fitting, because that's where the trouble started, and what truman is looking up at at this point is the shaped -- chandelier, where also a lot of the trouble started. it's a pity that the people at home couldn't see how beautiful the blue room was on their black and white television.

it looked like this. you might also notice they cropped out the chandelier, and i doubt that was an accident, the one they put in was much smaller and lighter. i want to leave you with a closing thought, not an opening thought. 5.4 million dollars in 1949, the currency converter converts to over $51 million today. 51 million dollars today is roughly the cost of a single c-27j cargo plane for our government. given the history of government spending that we have in the country, i would argue that we actually get a good deal. i got a good deal because you guys have been extremely party with me, and i thank you all for

coming. i'll take questions. if you have to go, fine, but thank you, all, for coming. [applause] >> you mentioned trumanmented to keep a scrt and instructed the commission or the first two members -- >> yes. >> why was that, why keep it a secret? >> he had a good reason. the question is, why did truman keep the disaster yows results uncovered by the architects and engineers uncovered by the public, which is something i should have explained. he was running for re-election at the tierm that these terrible problems were coming to light, and the fear was that if the public found out the state the

white house was in, they would blame it on harry truman, and it's important to understand the context. harry truman, his own mother-in-law referred to him as a dirt farmer, and this was while he was president. he was from missouri. the east coast establishment, many of them, turned their noses up at him, and so did many people in the country. margaret later wrote in her books, she's written, confronting this several time, said, if the public found out about the condition that the white house was in, it would have become a metaphor for the truman administration itself, rotten @ core. they all kept the secret. the wonder is, in some ways, they kept the secret at their own physical expense, at their own peril because there were so many scaffoldings e legislated in the house at that time and the place was in such dire

shape, that, really, the family should have been moved out sooner. the fact it was concealed from the public was a political decision. nip else? >> what happened to the chandelier? >> i asked. i've been looking for it to pop up on ebay, but it never -- [laughter] i wrote to the white house cure rater and -- curator and asked him, and i just thank the white house curator for his paishesz if he sees this. apparently, the chandelier was never put back in the house, even though they have plenty they circulate as needed because every time there's a new first family, they rekick rate as they wish. they had -- it's like a museum where you see part of the collection on the wall at any given time and most is in storage. same thing with the white house.

the chandelier was put into storage after the rep vaition and never brought back out. i'm assured that it's been kept safe and it's still in find shape and has its crystals, but it's never been rehung inside the house. >> [inaudible] >> no, it wouldn't. this would be the time to put it back. you know, given the thickness of the beams you saw, they could put more than one up there now. you know, that chandelier, remember, was from the 190 # renovations, which is significant because mckim doing the decorating at the time, you know, he had a neoclassical as thetic when just so happened to agree with what winslow had in mind in 1948-49 because the federal of it, the american georgian period, if you will, also has a strong affinity for neoclassicism, but that

might have translated to afluted column. that chandelier was way over the top, and, i mean, i wish i had found that as a quote. they said this is way over the top, can't put it in, but issue obviously, that's what they thought. it was too much. sir? >> in your research, did you have need to access the white house today or at least ask for permission to access the white house? >> that's a great question. if you want to tour the white house these days, you can pay a lot of money to go on a tour or write to your congressperson, and i wrote to my congressperson, but i couldn't arrange a time that was actually convenient and reasonable because i have a job. then i realized that in some ways, it really was not all that important for me to go. i say that for two reasons, actually, three. one, my folks took me when i was

little. i remember it. two, they only take you to the old ground floor, and then they take you to the state floor, and naturally, as i say to everybody, the two most interesting spaces in any house in the basement and attic, two places where they were not going to take me, and so i thought, well, i'm not going to see the thing i'm curious, and i will not get to see the shelter, i thought, well, you know, maybe i don't need to, and, finally, it's important to remember that with every first family in there, even though they tend to leave the state floors relatively alone compared to the family quarters upstairs, but the state floor has changed very much since this time, and so i was afraid of seeing how the house would have looked like as the obamas have done it and having that as a mental picture because i really needed to discipline myself and not go past 1950.

in some ways, it was important for me to the to see the white house. anyone else? yes, in the back. >> how was the support in congress for the funding? >> by today's standards, bipartisan, yes, but what's interesting is that it was very difficult to get the funding out of congress is the short answer, as you can imagine. congress first funded initial round of inspection $50,000; right? this was the congress who did not like harry truman much for a variety of reasons there's no time to get into. they were not friendly to him or eager to fork over the money, but they did fork over $50,000 to the initial inspection, and truman deliberately seventh an inspector up to capital hill to testify on what they had found, and i forget the gentleman's

name, but i have the transcript, and he testified that the white house is staying up through force of habit alone. he basically scared the hell out of them and scared the funding out of them. if only it were that schism today, but, yeah, so they were rather antagonistic about it, and so there are instances of congressman who toured the house, winslow brought tours through the house and showed them, look at the cracks, the wall, and even then, there were congressmen who did not want to spend a dime on this house, which is -- gives pause. sir, did you have a question? >> yes -- [inaudible] >> yeah, i think fdr treated the knowledge of the white house more or less the way he treated the knowledge of his own health which was basically what he

didn't want to know. i found a report that had come to fdr that warned him that the house was a fire trap, and he had done nothing about it. they were aware of it, though, we know this, because there's also, and i threw this in the book because i just couldn't leave it out. when the trumans were at blare house preparing to move into the white house in 1945, and eel nor was packing up and moving out and fdr already died a week earlier, all the moving vans were loaded and elenor went across the street to blare house to pay a visit to truman to say, hey, have a good time over there, and, by the way, the place is infested with rats. figured i'd tell you, and she left. [laughter] she didn't mean that metaphorically. there's app entire rat history with the white house. rats are in force.

i don't mean a random rat, but i mean, like, union rat, you know? go all the way back, at least to the harrison administration, and there were reports of roosevelt, who would be in the family dining room with sons having din eric and they would put forks and knives down to chase rats out of the room, so the problems with the house were understood. the other answer to the question is fdr really loved old houses, and truman did too. he grew up on the farm. wood frame houses that creeked, probable they thought, oh, you know, not a big deal; right? you go up the stairs, and it creeks a little. the answer to the question is, yes, the roosevelts did know to a degree, but they certainly did not know that it was just this bad. sir? >> i remember when kennedy moved into the white house and she was horrified by the furnishings.

>> mortified. >> the eisenhowers got things from sears, whatever, and -- >> thize p hours made it worse than the trumans, which i don't want to make personal judgments here, but -- >> went back again. does each president sort of like in the residential room just, like, -- >> do what they want? yes. -under-parly what you see, or what i saw is i don't know how they do it today. i assume it's an analogous arrangement, but the first lady is redecorating. what that means is that they hire a decorator who comes in with drawings, swatches, and says pick what you'd like. they try to harmonize it and make it fit, and the first lady gets the credit. that happened with beth truman; although, one interesting thing, they had live in the apartment

building on connecticut avenue, the trumans, at the time that harry was vice president fowppedz passengers on the inside of the apartment, and they had these curtains, big flowers, and then i saw a picture of the curtains in the white house, and they were, like, the same flowers. obviously, that was beth's touch. they are given a considerable degree of latitude, but the important thing to give mrs. kennedy her due, first of all, you know, truman was -- her family had money, but she came from a relatively upper middle class background, merchant class background, and ios p hour was a military wife. these women would not have come off park avenue in new york into the white house, and so they had the taste, they had it with them, but kennedy was fancy, and

she did something that -- and it baffled me why the commission did not do this, but they had almost no money for decorating, and welty, culture people wrote in saying we will give you things. would you like this high boy, the secretary, the chest of drawers? with only a few exceptions, the commission said to. i've not been able to answer that question to my stax. they didn't want things accumulating, and yetings you know, they fitted the entire second floor out to look like the park hyatt, and they could have done better, and that's really what mrs. kennedy did. her genius was deploying the private sector to give what i presume gifts tax deductible to the white house and view them with a wonderful sense of

patriotism and furnish the big house, the things that belonged there. in some cases, bringing back pieces that were there before. we owe a lot to her. as far as what we owe the trumans, we owe it to them that the place did not fall down. the decorating? not so much. [laughter] >> before they were rebuilding, how serious was the idea they should knock it down and build another? >> that's a good question. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. the question was, how serious were they about tearing the house down? on paper, entirely serious. they debated this. there was a transscript that said they tossed the idea of moving the white house out to the suburbs. i don't know if they would have put them in a split level split

house, i hope not. key question was this, clarence can notary public wanted the house demolished, but not many believed the house should be raised. there were some, because his point was, well, look, if it's in this bad a shape, truman was the victim of his own good arguments, you know, he made the case, hey, look, the place will fall down. there were some politicians, who said, well, don't let it fall on anybody, knock it down. the real question was not so much whether they should raise the place as it was whether they should keep the house as a museum and have the president live elsewhere or go for the big fix, and, ultimately, when the commission voted, there was only

one member that voted not to go with the renovation plan. i tried to deal with this in the book. it was kind of a foregone conclusion because truman, remember, also had an enormous amount of weight he carried with the commission. there were six people on it, a lot of consult at that particular times, and he had a hands in everything. he had very heavy influence, and he wanted the place renovated. more than likely it would have been in any case, but what i found really disturbing was not withstanding the fact that the probability was low that they would rip the place down, i was detoured by the fact it was even a consideration. i think it's important to remember that this was 1948. we lost penn station in this city in 1963. it took us a really long time to

learn that we needed to take care of what we had, and, of course, to this day, that's questions about, well, you know, i get asked this, could they have dope this in a way that would have been more sensitive to the integrity of what was in the house? those are very difficult questions to answer. the british burned the house down, and as i write in the book, some of that burned timber was put right back in when they rebuilt it. the heat from the fire weakened the bricks so badly that the bureau of standards determined they had only about 40% of the strength left, i believe that was the figure. they couldn't really leave those walls in place, and they certainly couldn't leave the floors in place, and so this is the slippery slope of restoration. you know, as was written, far more eloquently than i can put

it, you don't really restore anything. you replace it. you know, when they say, well, this wallpaper is of the period, well, it is of the period, but it's new wall paper. what are you going to do? you can't have the president living in a ruin for the sake of keeping it. it's one thing to keep the acrop liz as a ruin, but nobody lives there. so, you know, they were very difficult questions they were gram ling with in a time when the understanding of what preservation meant was in the em bree yonic stage, and at that time, preservation met keep the outside of the building, and you're good. today, if you're familiar with our land marking process here in new york, you know that some buildings are landmarked on the outside and some have interior landmark, and some have, like, only the lobby is landmarked. you know, like, say, the osborn apartment up on 57th street.

that amazing mosaic lobby is part of the landmark as is the exterior, but if you are fortunate enough to have an apartment there, they don't tell you you can't replace your kitchen sink. of course you can. where does restoration enand renovation begin? they are difficult questions. remember, they were rushing. truman was living across the street, and he was cranky. i remember, you know, john mcshain's daughter, a catholic nun, she told me, she said, truman was very hard on daddy. he was a difficult man. if the president says, finish my house, you finish the house. sir? >> what did it take to have a project like this? >> i'm crazy. i -- the first book -- first

book i committed, and the train book, and because, and it overlapped with the truman administration, i had an opportunity to start -- i had to do truman research; right? truman was on board, fdr's future rail, i partnered with him, and i don't remember where i saw it, if it was a library or a book or kind of blurry to me now, but i remember coming across a photo of the inside of the gutted house, just those beams, and that bulldozer inside, and i didn't give it thought. i first thought it was a parking garage or a warehouse or something. i went back, and i read the caption that said white house, 1-9d 50. i thought, what? no, you know, i hadn't heard about that. i am fairly well read, and then

i started a little trial balloon conversation. i found out nobody else knew about this either, and i figured, well, somebody wrote a book about this, but nobody had. i did it. >> even if i learned about some of his strong arm tactics, some things about him that i did not necessarily like very much on a personal level, i actually came away republicking the man more, and i'll tell you why because this man was not just groomed for the presidency at all, but he met with fdr, something like,

i don't know, six or eight times, and these were just inform mall meetings. fdr shared nothing with truman. he was a running mate because he was a consensus candidate, got ratify at the convention, and they figure, well, truman's popular in the senate, and when i was to ratify the peace treaty to end it, truman does it for me. guess what, harry, you're on the ticket. that was it. he did not let truman into the tent on anything. you have a man who had to crash learn the most difficult office in the world in two weeks, which he did, and then amid that, he's president at the birth of the cold war at the claches of europe as they grabbed all the eastern states and took them over to installing puppet governments and all that, and despite the enormous pressure, the man, roughly as old as fdr,

put in 18-hour days, and when he got home, he cared about what was going on with the white house. he was interest the. he wanted to see the report,mented to pick out the paint color. they painted the state dining room this green, you know, a moss green. they took the paint off. there was a huge, you know, process, with guys running across pennsylvania avenue with paint samples, and i thought, well, what keep of guy has time for that. truman had time for it, cared without it, and so he might have been ham handed in term the of what we got, but, you know, perhaps somebody from a slightly more -- i don't want to say cultured background, he was extraordinarily well-read, but, you know, we might have got a more refined house, but i don't know if we would have got a

better one, and structurally, i think he's the reason why we have not had to worry about the place since then, and we haven't. ..

>> two tist sisters i think i know less about and i argue that even though they didn't marry presidents, they are equally important and remarkable women.

>> higherarchy was important and the older sister was very important. and especially after her brother was disinherited by their father, she was really the one who inherited the first son's role because there was no brother. and when she grew up she proved herself to be a wonderful administrator. even though she was a woman and don't be elected to any position, she was the de facto mayor of quincy. and her husband would be appointed to positions but really everyone would know mary would take care of everything. and then there is elizabeth peabody who was the youngest sister and thought neither of the older sisters gave her

attention and she was clamoring listen to me and she was the most literate and best educated. the working tighting was three fold corded. it speaks to the interwoven of the three sisters and the

intensity of their bond. a three-fold cord is a reference to the bible and speaks of a cord that is wound over three times and it is hard to break a cord that is wound over three times. they referred to the three fold cord throughout their life. abigail wrote something to her son john quincy. he said never was there a stronger connection than that which binds in a three fold cord your mama and her two sisters. and as i was writing the book i wanted the idea of sisterhood to resinate. i wanted the reader to know that while i am speaking very specifically about three biological sisters living 250 years ago, that what is true for them, can be true for women

today who are not biologically related but perhaps best friends. so, i thought before i went into more detail i would say a little about how i came to write this book in the first place. i just finished a book on the great radical feminist mary stone craft. i loved the 18th century with the drama and the guillotines and the revolution and particularly i loved the ideas. i loved what was so had to say and i loved it that the character i was writing about read all of these people.

so i thought let me find another man or woman and follow them through the same period. and i am a french fan and i thought if i could find a french person i could do paris and the french revolution all over again. but i was having a hard time finding a french person that fit into my category. and a colleague once said what did you against americans? and i said i don't have anything against them. i am an american. when i was in the shower i remembered a voice i reviewed called the "adams women" and it was mostly about abigail and her daughter in law who was married

to john quincy. but there were sessions about abigail's sister. and as i was standing in the shower with soap coming down my back i had an image flash before me of one of the last line's in the epilogue and it said some day somebody will write a b biography of the three sisters and i thought that is me. after that though, there was a lot of work to do. that a-ha moment is great. but then afterwards the grown. the oh-no. the do i have the material to write the book. i knew i had the massachusetts historical society. i knew i had this wonderful adam site and i knew they would have a lot on abigail.

but what about mary and elizabeth? are their l-- there -- letter from them? what did they say to them? to abigail? and to each other. at first i heard there is a nice collection of the younger sister's correspondence at the library of congress. i went down to the library of congress and i was delighted. i found letters from the time he was a teenager and writing her cousin isiac who was at harvard. he would give opinions of the books and she would write him back about the book and she was very defiant and opposite of anything he said.

and you could see how he was baiting her. and at one point he writes about madam dissevenay and he wrote you must love her because she doesn't like marriage and neither do you. and not only did she like marriage but she wanted to mary him. and i went through the tragedies of abigail. and then there was mary, the eldest, and i thought what else is there about her? and did she have any ideas? i went to the al babany institu

of art and one of the letters was to abigail and she said don't you think it is funny that men think it is silly we don't have the same intellect. today it is obvious, but at the time, everyone presumed that a woman was given it two things -- an intellect and a uterus. if she used her mind no wonder she could not have children. and if she bore children she could only think about shopping because she used her one instrument. so her talking about ungendered

mind meant a lot to me. and i learned a lot more about her thoughts, and abigail's and elizabeth's on the rights of women. the intellectual way were there. they tutored their daughters in the same way they did their son. i had a lot of material and i was going to pick and chose because i libraries had so much information i was going to have to decide what to write about. but i hope i did manage to do that. after i came out with these three characters and i thought okay, i have enough research

material. then i had the problem of how i was going to structure the book. i have written two other biographies with one character and it was easy. the structure that is. not the writing of the biography. but the structure was because i wrote from one person's point of view. now all of a sudden, i had three people. so i had to see the world through three different perspectives. i thought i would read you a little bit from the first chapter to give you an idea of how i approached the sisters and who these sisters were also. it would have been obvious to anyone who met them that abigail, mary, and bet temperature were sisters. mary was darker and taller, and betsy was the most slender.

they had narrow decisive mouths, clear skin and shining brown hair. they had a marked intelligence and shared their mother's passion for doing good but were surprising delicate. they were the first to catch colds and the last to recover. abigail was paralyzed for two weeks and her child birth was more treacherous. it was a battle with death to produce a child. betsy was so weak after one i ' ill'ness she was ordered not to read, write or even think. it attacked her body more than her mood luckily or she would be impossible to live with abigail observed. mary, with her pleasing ways,

seemed more like more mother. though, see seethed at the neglect of her mind. method was wanted in our studies and we had no one to point us to it. she reminded people our parents kept the obligation of leaving us blind and left the rest to nature. you will make a very bad or good woman a family friend told them. in her teens, abigail committed the sacrilege of opposing her mother's authority, or as she thought, made clear how she was angry at her mother for denying her request. abigail was sent off to her

grandmother for long visits who she thought she loved more because she didn't compare her to mary or rebuke her for a crime. and then betsy who was just as high spirited as abigail and less free to express herself. she could not run off to her grandma because she was the youngest and always had duties to perform. she grasps everybody moment to read with a cultivated taste that would have range wider she was sure if one duty or another wasn't always calling her from her father's books. that is my approach to the three sisters. i know it is just giving you a little taste. and i hope you have a feeling of who they are and views of each

other. these are my main characters. but they are not my only characters. and is i started writing the book, i realized there are two other important characters in the book. and one of them is the one i was most determined to keep out of the book: john adams. i felt so much has been said. the most wonderful book about john adams has been written and who needs be to add anything. well, i realized i needed him because so many of the great events that happened, not only in abigail's life, but the other sisters, were involving john adams. so i said i am going to take him on and i hope he hasn't overwhelmed the book. i don't think he has.

but i feel like he is an important part of it. and i hope i added something fresh to what we know about john adams already. we know what a wonderful husband he was, how devoted he was to his children. but i hope i am giving you a feeling for what he was like as a brother-in-law particularly to mary's husband richard cranch who was a close friend to him. and also as an uncle. and john adams is frequently known as someone who would not do favors. his best friends would say can you get me some kind of little job in government. no. even his son-in-law he said i am not going to help until the end. but for some reason, he felt warmly toward his nephews so that when one of them, and this

one is the one mary said he has so many oddities that he will never do anything in public life. but john adams said no. he got him a job as a secretary and he performed so well in that job he went on to have a fru fruitful life. and his other nephew was mary cranch's son. my book starts in 1765 when britain imposes the first of the punishing acts on the caocollon

networ es. the stamp act. the times are my fifth character because they are important to all of the sisters. of course to abigail who is frequently in the lime light with john. but really no less during the revolution to mary and elizabeth. they were equally excited, terrified by the battle of boston. and they were equally astonished and overjoyed when the french nav nav nav navvy arrived at york town and american had won the revolution at last. these times are very important to the book. they are the times they lived through. and also, what was important for me was that they lived through

the times, through the ideas of the times, and because of what was happening, because in america, we were getting the opportunities to start a nation anew, they had opinions on what it was like to live under a monarch and they had ideas on what the ideal nation state should be. and i so found there were two very large impacts on their visions. on all of their visions. and one, was the enlightment. they had all read that. and it had a very big impact. and they felt strongly about equality between the races.

abigail at one point said to john i don't understand how someone in virginia can have the same passion we have for the revolution for the rights of man and women because they keep slaves. so this was -- they had very strong ideas about equality. on the other hand, they were puritans and for puritans the most important thing in the world was order. and order for government was particularly necessary. in order for there to be order they believed there had to be higherarchy and that is why the oldest child was most important and one man had to bow to another man and one family had a better pugh in church than

another. so they were competing with each other in the views of what the ideal nation state should be. i had my characters now and i want to be an equal opportunities biographer. i wanted to give each their space, and if anything push abigail to the side and say you had your turn, let hear about the others. i want today divide each chapter in three doing one third an abigail, elizabeth and mary. i tried that for four chapters and it was a 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 delivering this from the airport if we had done this last week. i want to begin the story a little after the civil war on june 13th, 1905. it was less than three weeks before this death that john hay awoke on a boat ship as it

steamed from liverpool back to new york. he was a noted poet, historian, former newspaper editor and railroad executive. and he was the secretary of state under two presidents. at this point, he was well into his 60s and one of the most powerful men in the world but his bright spirit was alive. his last entry said i dreamed i was at the whitehouse and went to report a problem but the president was lincoln. he gave me two orders to obey.

i wasn't surprised by lincoln in the whitehouse but the dream was melancholy. the book i just published through viking is the story of two prairie boys who met in 1851 and forged a friendship. springfield, illinois in 1860 is where they were found. it offered a front row seat to one of the most biggest upheavals in history. as private secretary they became closer to anyone in the lincoln

family. they performed the roles and functions of a modern chief of staff, pres secretary, political direct and presidential body man. today you would have to spend 20 years moving up the ladder and they did all of them in one. above all, they did what one report called guarding the last door that opens to the commander and chief. that was noah brooks, one of the many washington insiders who covted their jobs and resented their influence and thought they were too big for their breeches. a fault that seems to be blamed on nature or pillars. it is little wonder historians consult their writings frequently because they were

sparkling letter writers and provide an eye-witness account of the presidency. we rely on them to help us document that period. it is their life work after lincoln that is the unwritten story. and the lincoln family cholosedo papers to the family and opened them on the 27th anniversary of ted lincoln's death. they undertook a mission to create an enduring reputation for their slain leader. and an extensive biography in

the century magazine which at the time was the leading circulation in america. that effort was one of the single successful exercises of historical revisionism in history. writing against southern currents of the time, they created the northern interpretation of the war but it was their portrayal of lincoln which every writer had to stake out a position. they invented the lincoln we know today. the sage farmer, the military j jen genius, a master of a cabinet, the lincoln memorial lincoln. these are in every sense the intention or the imagination

that was left by these two. lincoln was all of these things. in some measure there can be no doubt. but it is easy to forget and we do how successful they were in elevating his place in the national memory. while lincoln prided himself on the deep connection to the people, which was a phrase he used often, he never succeeded in translating that popularity with the public in a similar sense of regard among the nation's political scheme. the motion bond that lincoln served with soldiers and his family and his stunning elections never inspired an

equivalent level of esteem among the many that guarded the history. to many of the men he remained in death as described in life. good and decent but ill fitted to the responsibilities of a war-time presidency. leading into the election cycle, many leaders would have agreed with a senator who said this administration has been a disgrace from the beginning with anyone who brought it into power. lincoln was blamed for four years of military stalemate and set backs and the political blunders that cost the republican party in the 1862 off elections. those were his friends. democrats regarded him as a tyrant. a man who introduced the draft

and taxes to fight the war. 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