yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the opening of the panama canal. as part of booktv's college series we visited the university of maryland where professor julie greene talk to us about the workers from around the world who built the canal from her book "the canal builders." the interview was about half an hour. >> the canal builders is the name of the book. the author is university of maryland professor julie greene. professor green wended the idea of building a canal come about? >> guest: well the idea was an old one in american history, at least in the u.s., at least from the mid-19th century on but it's been before that. europeans have drunk of it for centuries. >> host: and always through panama? >> guest: no there was a lot of talk of going through nicaragua or even mexico but for a lot of reasons, the french

seized on the idea of panama and then the united states debated long and hard about possibly going to nicaragua. some earthquakes in the fact that the french had done construction work in, ma made that a better approach. >> host: when did the french get started and how far did they get and proffered -- far did they complete a? >> guest: they french construction project was very dramatic. they faced a lot of problems. they began in the early 1880s and went through much of that decade. they faced a lot of problems that the united states, just because the united states project started a few decades later the united states was able to overcome some of the problems that the french had faced. >> host: such as? >> guest: the french didn't have as good as technological developments at the u.s. had. they faced much more trouble in

terms of disease. by the time the united states project began in the early 20th century, discoveries have been made about what caused malaria and yellow fever and the united states was able to take action to eradicate those diseases. also the united states made the decision, the crucial decision to build a lock canal rather than a sealevel canal. >> host: why was that crucial? >> guest: a sealevel canal was just much more difficult to accomplish. much more radical, digging and structural re-creation of the area had to be done for sealevel so the lock canal was a brilliant decision. >> host: how long is the panama canal? >> guest: it's about 40 miles. >> host: and how long would it take to traverse it? >> guest: i took a ship through the canal several years

ago and it's an all-day trip pretty much. >> host: because of the lock's? >> guest: volokhs slow you down. you wait in line and there are often many ships in than going through the locks takes a little bit of time but also the ship goes slowly through the vast a tune lake that dominates the canal. it's a beautiful journey. it was fun to do it on a ship with lots of people pointing out gold hill or other landmarks that by the end of the day you are tired and you have seen so much, you are ready for some dinner. >> host: professor green a lot of the focus when we talk about panama canal is on president theodore roosevelt and in your book "the canal builders" you have a picture of president roosevelt but he's not the focus of your book. >> guest: that's right. he dominates our memory of the canal and for good reason. he more than any other single person played a huge role in

committing the united states to building the canal but my book doesn't focus on him because i'm interested in looking at the working men and women who built the canal. part of what inspired the book was thinking that the united states was brilliant at creating the idea that the canal was a triumphant achievement of technology, the fearless leadership of theodore roosevelt, the selflessness of the united states and while i certainly agree that the canal was a superb achievement, what i felt had gotten erased was the labor that was actually required to build the canal. george washington go bulls who was the chief engineer for most of the construction in 1907 intel was completed in 1914 once

wrote years after the canal had been completed, he said everyone talks about it as this incredible technological achievement or a breakthrough in medicine, sanitation. he said none of that actually was new about the canal. what was new about the canal was that we discovered new ways of ruling over men and women and preserving order. >> host: ruling? what did he mean by that? >> guest: he meant that the canal some, as the united states built the canal, it was a little country of about 65,000 people. >> host: the canal sans? >> guest: yeah the canal zone. people came from all over the world to build the canal, maybe as many as 100 countries and to keep order over those people, to actually make the world of the

canal zone from so that the canal could be built to a lot of governmental innovations and that was what he was most proud of. he was proud of engineering in the technology but it was at creating a stable society that seems the most important to him and to do that he had to develop a lot of key strategies, some of which by today's standards were a bit problematic or really unsavory. the united states relied on for example widespread racial segregation. it relied on labor spies, a fast police force. i should say something about the racial segregation was really interesting because the workers, coming from so many different

countries, from thousands from the u.s. who made up most of the skilled labor force, many more thousands from the west indies, people of african descent from jamaica and from barbados, a few thousand from spain, a few thousand from northern europe. it was a very diverse group and yet the united states structured the labor force using a kind of bi-racial, a bi-racial sort of approach similar to jim crow in the united states. there's a photo of the west indian workforce in the canal song. this bi-racial approach put white workers, u.s. workers on the so-called gold role paid them and the black workers from the west indies were on the silver rowland paid in silver. life was very different for

those two groups but a lot of what's fascinating about the canal zone is that so many workers didn't quite fit into that black versus white structure. for example the spaniards, a fascinating group. the u.s. imported about 6000 spaniards to work on the canal thinking they would prod the black workers to work harder. in fact, they did have a lot of energy but in ways that complicated life for goethals and the other officials. they were classified as nonwhites were sometimes called, referred to as or semi-white workers. they were excluded from the white hotels and cafeterias, excluded from white dormitories and the spaniards were very angry about that. they mobilized and engaged in anarchist movement.

as a labor as to when i'm in the archives i'm interested in moments of tension between the workers and the officials so you are looking in the archives for evidence of any strikes or anything like that. for a long time i saw nothing about that until finally one day i came upon a big box titled labor disturbances. excitedly i opened the box and the box is filled with spanish disturbances, strikes, walkouts, riots, all sorts of things. >> host: were their unions for the workers? >> guest: that's a good question. not really. unions were allowed to exist, but they were not allowed to strike. early in the years there was a strike of steam shovel man. i should add the unions were

adjusted for the white workers. there was no union representation for the 35,000 or so black west indian. early in the construction period period the steam shovel man went on strike and the chief engineers took a very hard stance against them. they saved basically you are fired. there will be no strikes in the canal zone. and so the unions represented some of the skilled workers and they worked hard to represent them but they focus more on lobbying in washington d.c. and trying to make sure that congress passed measures that would support their work. >> host: julie greene 35,000 or so west indian african descent workers. how many white americans worked on the canal? >> guest: there were five or

6000 white americans. >> host: they were the so-called skilled laborers? >> guest: they were working as railroad engineers, conductors, firemen, machinists, carpenters, that sort of thing. >> host: and go back to the gold and silver paid. just the white workers would get paid in gold and the other workers would get paid in silver? >> guest: yes. >> host: what did that create? >> guest: that created really a caste system in the canal zo zone. it meant that the white skilled workers on the gold role were very much privileged workers. they received much higher pay than other workers. they received -- they had, series builds. they received weeks of vacation leave every year and a free steamship ticket home to the united states. the silver workers on the other

hand lived in shacks, were fed and cafeterias out of big troughs. one guy who procured the food for the workers said we feed the silver workers just like i feed my hogs in omaha. we feed them out of the big troughs. it had no seating and they would have to sit under a porch in the rain. so those radically different conditions than you saw evidence of the segregation system throughout the song. the u.s. built large commissaries, shops where crews could buy what they needed and very reminiscent of jim crow in the u.s. where big signs on the two entrances, gold versus silver. so in that way that sense of segregation and really a caste privilege dominated the canal zone.

>> host: how many workers died building the canal? >> guest: well you know the statistics on that are tough to come up with. i think during the u.s. period the statistics are about 2000 workers. historians though who have studied the subject believe that the mortality rate is quite a bit higher and of course the mortality rate and injury rate was also very specific. the injuries in the deaths were much more likely to be among the west indian groups. there was a sound that if you were a west indian worker and you finished your time on the construction without having a major injury or a major illness you are a very lucky man indeed. one of the things i found in the

legal records of the canal zone was stories of injured west indians who went to the courts to try and get payment for their injury. there was one sad story of a man who lost an eye. his name was isaac mackenzie from grenada, a 24-year-old guy who went to the canal zone to work on the canal. he got a job working on the gigantic, amazing lock gates. he was hired to go down inside the lock gates and help direct the big bolts that the white skilled workers would hammer in from the outside. he wasn't sure he wanted the job because there were no lights down there and his sad story was

revealed to me through these legal records. one day he went down in there and the skilled worker on the outside hammered the screw in and it didn't go in straight and they told him to go down there and help direct it. he gets down close to it and the white worker shouts watch out than and as he is taking his arm back to pound the hammer and andy both goes to isaac mackenzie's eyes. such a horrible tragedy. what's interesting about isaac mackenzie bell is he went to court to demand payment for this accident and he demanded i think $10,000. the court said yes. the company was responsible for this injury but the court said well you only lost one eye so your life will be okay.

they only awarded him $500. isaac mackenzie got a lawyer and take it all the way to the supreme court of the canal zone which did not give him 10,000 that gave him a pretty hefty award for a john west indian man, finding that the company was responsible for the damages and so a story like that about isaac mackenzie gave me a way to understand the experiences of the west indian workers. they tended to be such a tough group to trace because they didn't, they weren't top officials. they weren't writing reports. they were often the most erased and the most silence but cases like that helped me see that west indians did strategize. they did find ways to mobilize and use whatever resources they could to achieve their ends. >> host: julie greene who ran

the canal zone? who was the authority? >> guest: the united states government. >> host: was there an autonomous canal zone authority? to talk about the supreme court of the canals. >> guest: there was a separate judicial system but it was just part of the appellate courts of the united states government. the chief engineer of the kells -- canal zone did have remarkable autonomy though he reported to the secretary of war who was william howard taft. >> host: so george washington goethals essentially was the present of the canal zone in a sense or administrator of? >> guest: yeah, yet tremendous authority. he said about himself that he was a benevolent dictator. it was a very paternalistic system. he was admired by many in the canal zone because he did run things very efficiently.

it was a very orderly zone. he got the canal built faster than many thought it could be done. he prided himself on being sort of a fatherly figure to the zone workers. he would meet sunday mornings with anyone who wished to meet with them from the lowliest washerwoman to elite supervisors and foreman. but his authority, as fatherly as he might be, his authority was complete. one observer said, we all like chief engineer goethals but we know not to disagree with him or criticize him. if we do disagree with him we get deported real fast. >> host: what would you say was the level of labor unrest in the building of the canal? and i guess i'm thinking about

the auto strikes of the 30s and the founding of the uaw uaw. with or anything about level? >> guest: no, not really. it was an orderly zone. goethals was very strategic and very effective at using things like deportations and arrests and imprisonment to enhance productivity. an executive order was passed by president roosevelt, which gave goethals complete authority to deport anyone not contributing productively to the construction project, so generally speaking workers found other ways besides strikes, except for those pesky spaniards. they struck and they rioted. they were causing trouble

throughout the construction era, but that was the key exception. >> host: where they needed? >> guest: the spaniards? >> host: right. >> guest: the more they rioted and protested the less the government felt they were needed and by 1911, 1912, the u.s. government stopped bringing in spaniards and gradually let them go because they were finding that the spaniards were more trouble than they were worth. >> host: julie greene we are talking with professor julie greene at the university of maryland about her book "the canal builders" making america's empire. at the panama canal. you talked about the archives. where were the archives you found on the panama canal? >> guest: that was such a fun part of the project, discovering archival sources. the biggest single source for information on the building of a canal was in college park,

maryland, the national archives. >> host: right here in the neighborhood. >> guest: yeah, right here. a tremendous amount of information there. i should say the national archives in college park and also they national archives in downtown d.c. where these legal records of the canal zone were. i was the first historian to look at some of these sources like the legal records. it was amazing to look at those because they shined a bright light into a range of activities that sometimes alleged illegal activities and sometimes civil disputes, divorce cases between husbands and wives. everything from god to robbery and murder. sometimes when i was looking in the legal records opening envelopes that had been returned

to sender so envelopes that it literally never been opened, i was looking at probate records where they assess the belongings of someone who was maybe killed in the construction project and some working man's personal set of keys would fall into my lap. i find myself wondering what doors those keys had once unlocked. that was an amazing find for me. also did research in panama itself looking especially at records related to riots that broke out between u.s. canal employees and panamanian police in the red light district of panama city. >> host: that was where i wanted to go next. what was the relationship between the canal zone in the country of panama? >> guest: well that was a complicated relationship.

the republic of panama in many ways, the building of the canal was a tremendous boost of course and the united states government in order to build the canal conducted a lot of sanitation, elimination of disease throughout panama city, build sewers. the u.s. did a lot of things that were beneficial to panama. at the same time panama bridled a bit bid at the degree of u.s. control and intervention. the united states got quite involved and panamanian elections whenever there were disturbances would send u.s. military there. one of the important roles that panama played a especially in panama city and in cologne was the u.s. tolerated the creation of red light districts. bars, saloons, gambling,

prostitution because officials like goethals knew that his workers would need a kind of a chance for escape for letting off steam, sort of as a safety valve. those red light districts became a very important part, sort of the disorderly counterpart to the orderly world of the canal zone. as employees and military personnel from the u.s. dominated canal zone would go to let off steam in panama city or cologne, a lot of times there would be trouble. the u.s. folks were known for causing trouble for getting drunk sometimes and as a result sometimes fighting in the riots would out between the two groups. >> host: julie greene tell us about the city of balboa. >> guest: the city of balboa was the city created by the u.s.

to house the administration. >> host: the way workers? >> guest: yeah and it was a very, a lovely town. it's the images that are remember from it depicts very much a town that represents the u.s. empire really, shows off the pride of the u.s. and having created the canal and created the sense of the u.s. as a sort of peerless leader of world civilization. >> host: large differences in the living conditions between the skilled white workers and the other's? >> guest: quite large, yes. the u.s. was very proud of its work in creating a sense of civilization and respectability for the white workers and for

their wives. many thousands of working man's wives traveled to the zones to keep house for their husbands. the u.s. encourage that because it felt the presence of housewives would make the zone feel not like a labor camp or transient but respectable and civilized. the u.s. encouraged wife to go and want to encourage wives to go it needed to be sure that the conditions were decent enough for those wives. >> host: in the conditions for the west african's? >> guest: for west indian workers it was very different, very much. more like shacks, very often windows without screens on them and in environments where mosquitoes could spread malaria. not to have screens on the window would be a very remarkable thing.

one of the photos in my book shows stagnant water which again is going to breed mosquitoes carrying diseases so yes the conditions for west indian workers was very different for the white skilled workers and yet the thing is too the west indian workers found their lives improved by the work that they did in the canal sun. if you compare their living standards, they are paid to the white workers, it was pretty bad but if you compare it to what they faced back in barbados or jamaica, this was not just an adventure for them but a chance to improve their lives. many of them were able to save money or send money home and studies have shown that many of these workers as a result of their labor for the u.s. were able to buy some land and become

self-sufficient back in their home islands. >> host: julie greene what kind of medical care to the workers get? >> guest: well they were fast hospitals. it was very advanced medical care for their time. and necessary because disease continued throughout the u.s. period. it was a big danger to the construction project. even though malaria and yellow fever were under control, malaria continued and pneumonia continued. ammonia pneumonia was a huge problem. it was said that pretty much every west indian at some point fell ill with pneumonia or malaria and had to spend some time in the hospital. ..

but it wasn't always that way. earlier on what was happening to to the canals crew. a lot of graft and corruption.

hand the state was imported prostitutes to service the skilled man in particular. and this raised alarms, partly because the french construction projects had been infamous for scandal and corruption. so there was suddenly the sense that and in the canals around scandal and corruption was taking over. theodore roosevelt to decided that he needed to and get the canal done. so it was actually the first time in the state's history that this sitting president had left the territory of the united states, got on the ship with his wife, went to the canal zone to toward everything, sat in the steam shovel, a famous

presidential photograph. all about the canal clearing march with an army of journalists. and that really was the beginning of the posters and transferred to russian and napa to across the joyous entry. but the. >> the construction, where they pretty, to agree carefully. congress did play an important role. the government and the canal zone was quite autonomous and had a great deal of power. congress was watching it. there was a lot at stake. and congress would carry out regular investigations into conditions, had power to oversee

and pass perret's is for the skilled workers, that sort of thing. >> host: how much did it cost in the end? >> guest: gosh, i am not exactly sure of the figures. i am thinking 100 million maybe. >> host: back in the day, do you know what that translates into? >> guest: no. >> host: finally, what is the picture on the front of your book? >> guest: the picture shows the spectacular. [inaudible] during the construction. i love the image because invoked a single man standing at the top, it invokes the sort of triumph for a notion of a canal, the idea that it is about the, the peerless individual struggle of a few great man. the fact you see a larger work force there at the bottom suggests that the sort of a vast

number of man whose labor was really important to the project. >> host: and we have been talking with university of maryland professor judy greene about her book the canal builders, making america's empire and the panama canal published by penguin. professor green is a professor of history at the university of maryland. >> guest: thank you very much. >> book tv is on twitter. follow us to get publishing news, scheduling updates, author information, and to talk directly with authors during our live program. twitter.com/booktv. >> host: and as book tv continues, we are now joined by isaac. what do you do here? >> guest: curator of the collection of english american literature.