period. >> the problem with things like that we are at the mercy of the text. fatally their market the record but yes, we can otherwise you're literally at the mercy of the written evidence. sometimes we can figure that out sometimes we can somebody once said love does not leave of mark of the record but politics might do the same. otherwise that can be tough. always. you never know what will happen tomorrow. that is the duty of archaeology. >> thank you very much.

[applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

>> good afternoon. i and the deputy director here at the fdr presidential library it is my honor to welcome you to the 11th annual festival. let me go over a couple of things would everyone please take out your electronic devices and tear them off so we don't have interruptions today. the next is if you have not had an opportunity to see the exhibit installed last year at this time we will be happy to give you one of these buttons to get you into the galleries for free today. and a? thanks to our friends from c-span they are great supporters of all the

programs and they are back today. to talk about how the session will go, amity shales will speak roughly 30 minutes she likes to do something very interactively she will talk about the process and how we came to fruition but then she is very open to questions from audiences to the above to take as many as possible. come up to the microphone so c-span can catch your voice and face then was that is over we will go out to the new deal bookstore she will sign all the copies that you want to buy. she also wants to let you know, that "the forgotten man" is now three weeks at the top of the amazon list for graphic books.

amity shales share of the calvin coolidge royal foundation she is author of the new book "the forgotten man" graphic addition but "the forgotten man" inconel several years ago. she is also the author of two alleged did you get number three on "the new york times" best-seller lists and eastern school of business and has served as a columnist of the financial times and also a fellow at the presidential center down in dallas. please welcome amity shales. [applause] >> can you hear me? if you cannot hear me stop

me i am so happy to be here today ungrateful to mr. clark working on various projects and in this library is also. every one of us has the same job to share information about presidents and history and no one has been more pleasant to work with them this one over time. i am here to tell you a story basically describing a work project i am the contractor or architect but i am also eager to hear how you build your house is and how you tell your stories. i know some people in the we are rotors as well.

some if you are educators we fail if we fail to produce work that educators can use. we let you dow's you cannot do your work so these are the things i like to talk to about today. i put this picture appeared because it is fun here we are at the franklin roosevelt library before launching into how i throat a graphic novel i that i would give you president roosevelt to ask how many of you think this to mean is it a bad character? raise your hand if using key is to mean. nobody? anybody thinking is to rise? does anybody have an objection to the cigarette?

[laughter] >> did we get it wrong? some people said we drew the wrong kind. when we first drew the picture he had no pupils in his eyes so it was more blank. you could not see anything behind the glasses. the artist, who is a genius we would talk back-and-forth and i had the impression to make camp have no eyes was to make him to creepy and i did not like it. my name with this book is to convey knowledge not just the opinion idle think roosevelt was a creep. but when you have a creepy looking president that would attract some readers like

violence and sex and villains and heroes. it is harder with those characters in between it is a trade-off. now we thought of a book of cannibalism but that appeals to raise certain parts of the brave. [laughter] with those early american settlements and paul who knows his market those do sell better. i show you the picture because we settled on this i would describe to give the adjective as mischievous which i am at peace with because they do think he was mischievous. but these were a hard call. i am not an artist but a bookworm and i've learned a

lot from the artist and the process in history and so on. now i go back to the beginning. we are trying to reach more people and that doesn't satisfy s? maybe we like picture books so this began here at this library may be the fourth reading festival? something like that for this book which is my history of the great depression and it was a long book full of intellectual arguments i air free market when i discovered it when i went back that they be the new deal did not help the economy enough to go through

the interventionist that was mostly economic that was executed in the book and it did find. of authors' work together so they did find that it was translated into a few languages i am lucky about that. but i am interested in it younker people we fail if we all the right to old print books that they don't read. i could see millions of young people would not read this book. i see that from of my experience at the stern school of business mbas were said die laughing looking at this one because it is so primitive. but they can do calculus in their sleep but they're not

at big readers with their more analytic and interactive so there are smart people of a like to get to with the knowledge i have acquired and i am feeling to do so. i will try to make a book a cartoon book i don't have slides but you may know a cartoon book called mouse does anybody know the book? let's talk about that briefly my husband was the editor of long ago and there was a cartoon there was an editor there and seth said if my editor likes cartoons said neither were interested

correct me if i am wrong they had worked on this cartoon story where the jews were vice in the polls are p.i.g.s. and the germans were cats in my first reaction was offensive. speaking of someone who is all of those we are not animals. that was mouse and in it that jews are rise. what i saw is you could tell the story of the holocaust through cartoons with very serious material that can be conveyed through cartoons. but i think carr to bdm may be better for a topic as difficult.

there is not a lot of graphics murder there are terrible takings' but it was more by dilution it i began to noticed cartoons had harder it topics with you to receive persepolis in khartoum. -- cartoon there is some tortured most alluded to in the book. millions of people bought that and kids knew about and i thought it is an interesting medium but not for fun or basic material but tough material like economics. slide began to look around for the artist i did talk to one man i did not work with but he said this is known to

us he goes up to white river junction cartoons are they gateway drug to content. [laughter] i love that. said gateway drug to content. we get that. and that is true right wing or left wing and the former education secretary said first by a red cartoons than of bridge in english i never got to the greek but a lot of us learn that way. first that then the big grammar.

i went on the hunt for an artist to give a lot of seconds of time to draw my complicated book he lives in in canada and already won a canadian price is you can see the influence of mouse because they are men marching i like phil way they did march we did it with the men but i probably would not have thought about it if i did not see the posters. it is no accident paul is european his family came from russia. this kind of colorful cartoon book is much more

except did overseas. -- accepted overseas. they don't think it is the dumbing down but here for smart people especially that you stop reading cartoons when you are in fourth grade. and they never look back like a stroller or a walker. but if you're up they don't think that way and i was convinced light asians and so we went along i will show you what we drew.

and to it takes a thousand pitcher is to convey a concept. sometimes you cannot have this is but that concept but he knew better because he made his career in international trade. he lived in asia to increase in prosperity. he did not want to be overrated with smoot-hawley and it contributed to the factor to make the great depression great it is is

that in so we said how can we show of all people who should have hesitated more? in the played with the medicine balls he found a medicine ball that was of little bits funny acting all macho so we played on that. this is too small to see in the you can see in the bottom row of the frame the

he is knocked over by it. this is the way to capture the goofiest. one of many bad decisions. but john maynard keynes he wrote to roosevelt and a number of times we're not the cartoon that we contend. and john maynard keynes of frequent the father of all modern stimulus.

but in fact, he was very subtle and in this particular letter to roosevelt he said that business would be too tired. and with that oriented prosecution we had us superhero in this book. he says to roosevelt that i paraphrase that you long to sink their evil villains but businessmen are domestic animals. they are not your enemy. but we've looked up china and england at that time. these words were mostly written in a letter and

printed in the times he can see the work he put into it to have jokes about drips of money. puns are an acquired taste for some of us but people respond. sometimes it is so laden joke. and the iconic image is. did you probably had to have a show about this. this was a great

photographer and what i discovered in the research at this library is a had not realized she worked for the magazine that she worked for the government and had a rather specific assignment to capture poverty in photographs. she worked for a man named a striker who would do a great cartoon book and setup the photographers to look for images of poverty to make the case that government spending was necessary. was it real? totally. where is their propaganda? yes. that is why capture in it "the forgotten man" the book so we try to you draw that in the cartoon that -- book

he has a great ability as a mother was not having a of a good day. but also a drew the pages before and after. and then it in economics for economics in pictures. we have the cast of characters. i a truly hope you don't do a cast of characters and then please give me your advice.

mrs. for me though whole concept of the forgotten man we think of roosevelt so often and the man at the bottom of the economic pyramid even the audio they be in the library exhibits. there was another forgotten man it known to them but the forgotten man described by a professor at yale in they spoke of the different forgotten man that jay wants to help blacks, -- x but then tried to coerce c id to the party.

but it a is the forgotten man that what i have figured is that they have debated whose "the forgotten man" is it? the taxpayer? your forgotten man hurts mine. we did not get that with education. this is the soviet union to have a look there were not mostly traders. but definitely influenced by russia that seems promising at the time. one of the fastest and most lovable and most radical we view him getting excited a

lot of fuss like the sound it makes them dizzy with happiness but that same phenomenon going on in russia. in part because he is parturition. we paraphrase trotsky i hope it is accurate and that'' at the end is the american is disgusted because they chew gum. he actually did say that. not in this meeting but he wrote in his diary his time in america. somewhere above 963.

this was a real meeting that took place. he was disgusted with them. sometimes we did not know exactly what they said. the adviser to the president says that job sharing is not always economic. and when you as an expert know that the president operates in politics i am getting two's serious but the job there does not increase productivity. but we love to give people jobs. as you know, eventually he left the administration.

when they punched the carpenters' union right after the bow wagner act that tebet seen we wanted so to look very tall because he was so big and interested. this is a simple page with that idea of foods of forgotten man is. the question of how to convey a of a narrative? i have those all over the place but what i have learned to is you have to tell the story is one at a time. there is a case called sector. there were little chicken

butchers. >> [inaudible] >> right to. do you know, them? >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> they broke the rules of the national recovery and they were prosecuted a and targeted like al capone and to demonstrate the constitutionality of that ray and they went after them. i tried to draw the story this is a joke the artist came up with the health of the poultry and it is sick and the what we are trying to do get as is here is a

health inspector who has no eyes and had no hesitation in to make him look like a villain because he is a minor character. and they were scared likely you are investigated by a regulator. with someone checking your license is of creepy feeling. telling the regulator to be nice? and one of the things that happen to the government worked very hard to intimidate. so this sexual why is his the testimony. hired you know, your rights? the sectors were scared. said they were friends there

were probably 60 fry it - - 60 frames just of this sector. the supreme court sided in the justices' began to use bad puns that the nra must fall they use a chip kidd metaphor and roosevelt got a little angry. so i will stop there to talk about what you tell me you want to talk about. thank you for your time and for this experiment that harpercollins a and i did together. [applause]

>> how long did this take from the beginning? >> it took many years. i would say the four years if i had known how to do and i would say going fast it would take 80 months but it takes two days to draw one of these pages but you also have to right the book and as far as i can tell the process is unforgiving with revision. we did a storyboard like a movie or screenplay. but the pictures were not drawn-out. that was hard. optimally one time for the artist touche draw every picture so you can think about that.

so two years? we had some tough decisions to make with the initial goal around dixie eroded to in that fashion and then the depression came and then this happened. i did not like that. bba the book more clear but we went in another direction. and one of the characters the superhero utilities executive required a lot. he has to say i remember when but i don't have that in the transcripts. but i do know he went from sinking one thing to

another. i was comfortable doing it the from most standard adaptations like the "wizard of oz" that same type of question. >> you shows a one page with the schemes of fdr but those lower to payables i noticed in the book there is a lot of the fdr instead this silhouette are not shown completely. is that this throwback to win in that time period in the movie would never see the president fully? or a commentary on fdr being

why there is up papier-mache sphinx to portray him over that museum? >> the q. that is david. he is just finishing a book about 1933. the talks about what is happening in germany and here at the same time. i seeing about fdr has the following i know what him to be in my book too much because it makes the most since is us bureaucracy and people played a role if i made fdr a character would have taken away from that story in there are so many books roosevelt is the whole story. does it work?

so i tried to minimize roosevelt without deleting them. he is dark and not because they darted him but any president would hear from an economist and ignore it because he needs votes. their realistic people we do job sharing it is not perfect economics that could be either party so we try to minimize the issue of disability decided not to ignore it but not play it up as a distracts from the story so we tried to do do that successfully without losing our focus.

>> [inaudible] of course, i can get an idea was like. if we read that non graphic versus the graphic version with the situation do you have a preference? >> that is a great question. what style does mom like better? [laughter] >> i like them both. there is more material if you go farther so how does she deal with it?

what is her position and? that is why people want to read books. that is how they learned and think but it has more material. so how do i fledged that? you can see better imprint but honestly the older i got, the more clear by a pitted got about economics and i wanted to share that. so i think when you think back the contract of "the forgotten man" signed 2011 rice started to write a book that was the decade and a half. there were people i did not want to to offend so i went on this trip of