so the ripple effect was everybody threw open the doors. it was extremely wet. [laughter] >> a lot of drinking going on. a lot of arrests on knew -- new years eve. happy days were here in sacramento. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2 and this weekend we are visiting sacramento, california to talk with local authors and tour literary sites with partner comcast.

>> this is our twice-a-year book fair where we have 60 dealers from all over the west coast to come to exhibit. we use sort of to differentiate ourselves from what might be like a book fair at a school, because if we just say book fair, people don't necessarily what it is. but what we sell here isn't necessarily old, a better definition might be old and collectible but there are many relatively modern books here for sale. some of the specialties that dealers have, children's books are very popular, cook books,

cowboys, indians, gold mine, world travel, specially china and japan but all over world travels, anything with maps, say like captain cook. anything done by him is very popular. it depends really on the dealer. we're all individual businesses so we all represent what we like or what we think is interesting or valuable. ..

this is a fun, small row book fair to do. the camaraderie of getting to see old friends out a semi regular basis. being a bookseller, we are all recluses back home and this is the time of year when we get out on the book fair root. it's when they get to see each other. and, of course, buy and sell from one another. >> the internet answered knocked

the wind out of the sails of the tradeshows because they used to be people would line up and pay lots of money to run into the fair and to look for stuff. now the internet has made things seem less rare, so to speak. it's harder to run a quality book fair because there's not as much urgency in the customer when they think well, i can look the book up on the internet. i don't need to go out there and look around. but we still have enough interesting material and dealers that we get a good crowd to keep the show going. but shows have gone out of business in many, many cities because i can't get enough deals because there are not enough customers coming out. so the dealers are not willing to pay exhibit. >> it's changed a lot. the internet has changed the way people sell books. it's made a lot more books available. it resulted in the closing of a

lot of bookstores. so whereas in the past when you were a book dealer dealing in rare or used books you could have a shop and after customers come to you. now often we have to come to our customers. people put on book fairs where 30, 40, 50, 100 booksellers gathered together al all the different inventories and people can come and it can be a one day event for a two-day event where you go to the bookstore and see 60 different dealers. i'm here trying to sell books, meet customers, meet my colleagues, looking for things to buy as well as to sell. >> many repeat customers. many, many customers that come to every show. some look for children's book. some look for california history. some are only looking for old photographs or photo albums or postcards. the people that are very narrow collecting entries will come it

because they know the dealer that's from some other town or state is going to be here, abducted soldier them things in the past. >> i have a first edition book signed, unseen many years ago. if you're into sports or boxing, talking 25 years old. i have some books that deal with indian etymology, specific subjects, quite expensive. and ibooks like the da vinci for $10. -- i have a books. speed and there are also very many people who come to buy a high-end material. roughly thousand dollars and up. 10, 15,000-dollar books can sell here, but it's not typical. it also you to go to most booths

and you wouldn't find a $10,000 book in many of them. the higher in the dealers, they may still only one book but it will be $15,000. so their show will be good and some else may sell 100 books for $10 not make as much money. so the customers are as varied as the dealers really, from all levels, sell things from $2, $5, 40, 50. probably the average sale i would say maybe in the 40-$60 range if you average everything out. some people, i sold postcards today, 20 postcards for $20, a dollar a piece. people have sold books, one book from 1000 today. >> you were asking about a cat in the hat which is a universal book that all of us know, and the question i've been asked over and over again today, what

is that book $2000? will, because it's the first printing of the first edition of the book. and it has all of the points, it's has -- it has its dust jacket on and any book in the 20th century issued with a dust jacket, taken a children's book publishers were destroyed by young children reading the books. that don't have their dust jackets anymore. so that's why that copy is $2000. and one from your child it is probably worth five bucks. >> this is a printed book printed in selma, alabama, in 1858 and it is by a fellow named john reid who was from alabama. and in the late 1850s decide what a few of his friends took over cross-country again in search of a better life. this was because the tragic had

just bought a strip of land in southern arizona and has been open to settlement. they wanted to see if they could find land. so they went over. they went through texas, new mexico, arizona. they went into mexico. he wrote of all those experiences, and then they came to california, san diego, san francisco. this is one of the most important narratives of overland travel at the time. and it's also a scarce book, a pretty rare book actually to go sprinted in selma, alabama, in 1858. a few years after the printed the civil war began and is believed a lot of copies of this book were destroyed during the civil war. books are meant to last but they don't always. sometimes calamities happen like the civil war and paper burns easily. if you wipe out a city, often paper goes with it.

this is a really nice copy of the book. usually you find it in pretty poor shape. this is also the something that's pretty special. >> this book is $21,500. >> what will someone see here that they won't find elsewhere? often, and again at this ties into the internet, dealers and find something that's rare and may not be listed on the internet, or even something that made it is worth 50 or $100 but it's not available on the internet. they will not listen on the internet because they know, i've will bring it to a tradeshow, a book fair guess i've got the only one for sale and the customers will have to come here. so it's a thing i practice a lot. if i find a little pamphlets or photographs that are unique, a photograph would be relatively unique. there may have been more than one made, but i will not advertise on the internet. i will bring a tear so the

customers know if they come here and look around they will see things that really are not available anywhere else. whereas many books, a $10 a children book written 10 years ago will be readily available on the internet, but a strange pamphlet written by somebody about a small town in northern california that the just published in their garage, you can't buy it on the internet. but a dealer with enough knowledge to know this is a very interesting little thing, i'm going to bring it to the bookshelf. to all of us are really come as dealers, looking for the things that nobody else has. my whole goal is to fill my booth up with as many items, photographs, books, pamphlets that nobody else has because that makes them easier to sell because nobody else has them. >> i belong to the category to booksellers association of america. many of us, dealers, exhibiting here today. we have really some of the

biggest book fairs in the world in new york, san francisco, boston and los angeles. and they are very, very high-powered, very expensive people from around the world. by contrast this is a folksy, regional show. so he did a lot of the new be kind of dealers and collectors. that's what i've been asked about the cat and have because people are just dumbfounded by a $2000 price on the book. by contrast over here, this is in 1849 california gold rush a journal, a ship's log, a company from rhode island sailed from boston around a decade to the gold fields in san francisco in 1849. the asking price for this document is $15,000. >> the cost for sellers roughly $300 a booth, depending on

display cases and things like that. patrons come if they walk in, could pay $5 but i give all of the exhibitors unlimited free passes so they can get a free pass to 100 or 500 people if they want to. free passes are also available in antique stores, bookstores leading up to the show. i also put free passes in the local newspaper. so if someone wants to get in for free, it's not too hard to. if you don't mind in -- mind watching and paying $5, people do that as well. believe it or not there are a few dealers who get free passes but they choose to pay $5 just because they appreciate we still have sort of this cultural event that is doing well and they want to support the show. so they refuse to use their free passes even though i will see them at seca winning. they said no, i want to pay.

we get those every once in a while. >> we continue our visit to sacramento, california, with cheryl anne stapp whose book "disaster and triumph" highlights the women who shaped the history of the capital city after the california gold rush. >> women in that era were, in fact, legally second class citizens. if there was -- at the husband wanted to move, can you imagine traveling 2000 miles in a really small wagon, being told by four-legged animals who have to be fed, sometimes their oxen died and put them at a disadvantage. sometimes they had to lift the wagons with ropes up and down certain glyphs in certain areas. there were elements along the trail. children got sick, and so on and

so forth. things they suffered along the trail where the stuff that makes the pioneer women a legend in california once they got here, women were very scarce in the gold rush period. they were 8% of the entire california population in 1850. as a result of the scarcity, the relative scarcity, they were more valued. and because they were more valued, men listened more, try to understand what they wanted and needed, plus the fact that some of these women who were in the gold rush surprise themselves and then into, i suppose, by becoming breadwinners and decision-makers to a lady was married to a gold miner, that's no sure income. meanwhile, the children were hungry so that the women would

open border houses are made pies or talk in laundry. and they were successful, much more successful some of them at earning income than the husband were at old money. i'd like him to get a sense of sacrament is very, very rich history. and what i have done with this is i tried to present from the women's point of view what they experienced, what they witnessed. so there's that aspect of it and also an appreciation of what these women were like. each of the women, each of the women in your lead a different kind of life. she came from a different place. they have different goals. of course, they have the same goals, they want a safe place for the children to be raised. they wanted school, they want hospitals. they wanted civilization when they came here.

some of these women have never been written about at all. some of them are really very interesting ladies. the woman who was with james marshall when gold was discovered, for example, or full story has not been told before. i also wrote about the wife of our fourth governor. her story has not been told before. and also a lady, mrs. franklin was an overland, came by covered wagon, it's a piece of her store or other but not her fault why fix what chose these six women. some of them have been mentioned in other people's books but do the research to expand the like to talk about their experiences here in sacramento. perhaps the most interesting though is ms. waterhouse. in that day and age it wasn't social acceptable for married women to work. however, she became and woodworker her husband died after they came your.

they came in here by covered by contract her husband died a couple years of later energetic couple young children to support. so she was and what she did for a living is she was a midwife and also a water chore practitioner, which was what we call hydrotherapy. very, very popular. so she became really very wealthy. but she was a very outspoken woman, not at all what we would think is the average kind of woman from the pig she wrote letters to the editor complaining about for expressing her views i should say on a variety of things. and she was heavily involved in the suffrage movement. she was, in fact, president of the sacramento women's association in the 1870s.

jenny weaver came to california in 1846, two years before the gold discovery, and she happened to be hired by john sutter to be the camp cook and laundress. when the crew went up to the sawmill, so she was there that day when marshall discovered gold and as the laundress, she was making a pot of soup. frontier soap was boiled with wry. and concoction was, she put a couple of pieces -- he wasn't sure, he wasn't sure it was really cold or something else and that was one of the test. she told and if it came out bright and shiny, for sure is going to be cold, and it did. one of the other ladies in, mrs. johnson who was married to california for the governor and she had a very influential,

politically influential father, a father who, in fact, wrote sacramento's first city charter. that the father and her husband got into a clash of wills, you may call it, when the vigilance committee reformed again in 1856. so there was a lot of animosity and it's all in the paper. the argument was in the paper so i had not known that angela started researching. she must have been pulled apart emotionally between her father she loved and a husband shall. mrs. parker came to california as a bride. her husband's brothers were already here. so she came by ship, actually not overland, about 40% by ship. she landed almost just in time

to experience the first great fire. there were a lot of disasters, is why the title says disaster as well. major fires and several small ones. there was a disastrous flood, a cholera epidemic, a riot downtown. all of these things, not all these women were here for the same thing at the same time, but mrs. crocker came in time for that first fired. obviously, lived through that. and had her children here, built a home here with she and her husband of course. the chronicles were very involved with -- crocker's -- very involved in starting agriculture in this area.

they were also involved in arts. with other people. they were instrumental in starting a library and starting an orchestra. so these endeavors, and then he died when her children were, let's say, her youngest child was almost in her teens when this happened, idea become a very wealthy because he was the legal counsel to the central pacific railroad. so by the time he passed away, they were quite wealthy. they both had been very pleasant visit to the city. and then she became one in her own right. after he died. why did i choose the six women? janie come as we talk about, had read a few lines about her in other places. so that was one lady i knew i was interested in pursuing. the others i had to almost find, except the last lady i wrote

about, mrs. crocker, the crocker name, family, serving margaret was a beloved and respected woman of her time. people who live in sacramento, you don't know about the history of mrs. crocker or they know she gave her family's art collection to the city as a gift. so she was already in my mind. but the others i had to come take a look for. and the problem is that there will women coming and going of course in a city office time, the newspaper really didn't publish the remaining women's names. that was there style. and so i had to find ladies who had enough information about them already in order to justify doing a chapter. there's a lot more interesting women in this period that i

couldn't find more information about, other than a line or two, me and so undercover a separate chapter and i included these ladies. >> while in sacramento, california, we talked about the history of u.s. border control with patrick ettinger, author of "imaginary lines." >> the more i looked into the start of border crossings more realize the story was not about the 1920s and '30s and '40s like a fight is going to be come it's about the 1880s. it was not the 1890s. thithis would became a different want to get to me not only thing as going to start by talking about the mexican border. i quickly discovered i had to talk about the canadian border. the canadian border go back to the 1880s itself within a site of all kinds of what we call undocumented immigration. immigrants come to the united

states are coming for opportunities to sometimes family reunion but most economic opportunity. if you're looking, let's say around the turn of last century, about 1890, what are discovering government about the united states whether they're from italy, poland, japan, mexico, they're also learning that recent years the country has put in place some restrictions that might affect them. and they are realizing now that it's not like in the past in a for sale got in but now that you could expect when you arrived by boat like most people did by ship, the sum is going to ask you some questions about her physical health, about your status, the eligibility. during these times most people were able to get him. they were chinese or japanese exclusively, but there was a chance maybe because of health

reasons, maybe you had an eye infection or you were very poor and you would mean that in a way to demonstrate you're likely to get in, they were beginning to her that you can sell all the way to the united states and possibly get rejected and have to sail all the way back. that was a bit of a risk something i would rather not take that risk. you begin to report years after the past immigration restriction of people in seattle saying, a lot of chinese are starting to land here and go across the land border. in upstate nuclear reports of irish poppers come into buffalo, through upstate new york and working their way in. peoples whose job it was to enforce immigration restrictions and the politicians who couldn't begin to say wow come if we could restrict immigration, people being people wanting to get around will find ways to do so, edited. in the beginning of the 1880s he began to see seattle at

upstate new york office pressure, a few stale into san francisco or into new york, you will get inspected and may be rejected if you plant in canada there's nobody on the border the only people on the board at the time customs officials tracking commerce and had no interest in immigration reform, our immigration control. so the 1880s he began to see all this undocumented immigration coming from canada and at the same time or about a decade later he began to see it coming up from mexico. working hand-in-hand at the same time is good steamships. imagine the steamships, instead of sending out of the mediterranean, france or out of the north atlantic, they are selling tickets to the united states. and they also steamship lines that are going to canada and going to veracruz mexico. many other ages begin to approach immigrants sang, you can buy your tickets to new york

and how my workout, but there's a chance that you or your elderly grandmother or whoever is coming with you might get rejected. if you still to veracruz or halifax, bought a ticket for me, it's a safer, more a short run. many people, the grace, lebanese begin to take those routes. in some cases to be frank, they did need to get they probably would've been perfect admissible at ellis island but they lead to believe that this was a better path that you begin to have a network develop more people are realizing there were other ways to get into the united states. perfectly rational choice. if your goal is to just go and get in the united states anyone it to be a sure thing. let them make a distinction. some groups knew there was no point in sending to the main port of entry. chinese laborers were banned. they couldn't disguise the fact they were chinese laborers sent to san francisco so they were absolute going to go to either

baja or seattle. that was a number. others, europeans, were sometimes making i guess you could say ill-informed choice that they should take their way around rather than the direct route into one in it for officials whose job was to me at a bridge in el paso or manifestation in upstate new york was that they were encountering not just canadians and mexicans come is there encountering people from all over the globe coming in and there was nothing illicit or wrong about trying to come across the land. even if they stopped you. they didn't stop and enjoy. that's interesting, if you read the administrators working in canada and in mexico in the 1890s, they knew what was going on and they understood perfectly that when they rejected somebody for admission, it was a farce, that the person was of course going to come and. sometimes, particularly the chinese they would say, we have

seen this guy three or four times. deathe only power we have is to send him back, and he will come through again. so my interest in people moving was also one of the ways in which nations come in this case the united states, try to control the flow of people, try and exercise some sort of control over human migration. what i basically discovered, the. i was looking at, is that borders are always very difficult to enforce, always have been and very likely always will be. ..

people quickly realized that you can go around to border, and so for those politicians and others that wanted to see, they sort of felt like enforcing the borders is imperative. it's silly to have laws if people can get around them. but people, in this case japanese, chinese were excluded for racial reasons or poverty tennessees were clever and discovered ways to get around the law. it's one of the things where -- and you saw in debate in congress, why do we even have these laws if you get around them, the people whose job it is to enforce the borders, i focus a lot of them in book imaginary

lines. they had to go to dc and say, we understand you're worried about people coming through canada, but we only have, you know, eight inspectors and 12 officers on horse back and the border is 5,000 miles long. a lot of the people that i flesh out in the book have some of the bureaucrats whose job it is to make the border real. one of them robert was sent to the canadian border around 1900's to investigate the smuggling that was going on there and he went up and down. >> along i sauld say the canadian through main and michigan, there were smuggling networks that people were coming in without getting checked by customs. there's really no inspection.

he gets busy. he's a man of the age, you know, puts systems in place, this can be solved. he goes through all the stations and was going to train immigration officers there to do their jobs better and ask congress for more money to make that happen. and his vision is that the border can really be controlled. nobody put an effort to it in the past. he was coming up with a blueprint with how to do that, more officers and more patrols, it involves just a bigger presence in the borderland, and he issues this report about 1902 and it's used as a basis for an immigration law in 1903, the immigration law in 1903 was going to raise the head tax to

get into the country. significantly raise it to raise revenue to pay for a much more elaborate system. when they are having debate, the immigration service is going to give them money to finally carry out mandate. he shows up there in uniform and reports to congress about the progress that has been made and his vision of how just with enough money they could get things done. and it's interesting because congressmen who was interested -- this was a period of time, this bill was not only going to fund the border, it was adding restrictions and categories from being added to the list of people that couldn't come in. that was moist -- most congressmen were interested in. how many people do you really need to really seal the border?

i think he knew sealing the border was not going to happen. he was also bureaucrat that wanted to see the service get, 800 officers and i'm pretty sure we will be able to take care of this, you know. and congress passes that law in 1903, the origin of focus funding for border enforcement both on canada and mexican border and you can see that he understands you cannot have a border, it makes the laws, you've already seen that. you can build some kind of a border, enough boots on the ground, to get it done. even though after they passed this law, immigrant continued to get across the border and across

the mexican border and you continue to see this. every time there's a congressional debate over the border, it is the same story over and over again. you have congressmen most who have never been on the mexican border or southwest or the canadian border asking just tell me exactly men do you need to seal the border. officials sort of saying, well, we need more men, some horses would be nice. helicopters would be nice. they always want more people and more technology but by 1920, about 20 years after, nobody is going to go to congress and promise that they can seal the mexican border. they're just -- it's deterrent. he thought they could get very close to sealing the border and it was really conundrom.

if you felt they were important, you were foolish to not enforce the borders. the strongest line of defense is your weakest point and the weakest point was some where along the border. if you found the weakest point, el paso, arizona, they're going to go to la -- laredo. smugglers and immigrant will look for the weakest point. if you have a vision that you can build a wall and seal off the country, that steps that would be necessary to do that which would be military, you would really have to be almost like eastern europe was during the cold war in berlin, people will always find a way around.

>> book tv recently visited sacramento, california with the help of our local cable partner comcast. while in sacramento we spoke with chris enss about the live of elizabeth custer. >> folks it's quiet here now. peaceful, trang -- tranquility but 137 years ago on the back of that ridge it was far from quiet. gunfire, yelling, screaming, cursing, more amo, more amo. warriors getting closer and closer desperately trying to

destroy the soldier command. custer's final battle. >> elizabeth had a premonition that something was not going to be right and i believe that because elizabeth was a soldier's wife and had been on the plains with george for a number of years, she would have an idea of what was impending doom and what was not. the day george left to go, that was something inside her felt as though this wasn't going to go well. now, certainly george had been involved in other scrimmages and word had gotten back to her that he had been killed. he had expressed to elizabeth a number of times until you get a

definitive word, don't believe it. the other men scouts come to let elizabeth know what happened, they would say to her, none wounded, none missing, all dead, so there can be no question that there isn't anybody alive. george is gone. i was fascinated with elizabeth custer's devotion to george. many history books make it seem that george had nothing likable about him, that he was too arrogant for anybody to be in love with him. elizabeth, her relationship with him fascinated me and i wanted to know more. he was in his latter teens and he was in early 20's. i say that because no one is

ever really 100% sure when this event actually happened. i know they got married in '64. they were both very young. they had never been in a romance before. this was the first for both of them. elizabeth would not bare to not be away for a length of time. it was much more easy to be with you and have to endure all that you have to on the plains and wherever we are going to be than to bare a life without you. and so she raved all of the frontier to be close to him. and they traveled quite extensively. they were in washington, they were in virginia, they traveled all over the southeast, they were in texas. they were away -- they were away from each other when he was at a

post in nebraska and she was left behind in kansas. but for the most part, they were always together. she didn't necessarily enjoyed being out in the middle of the weather in kansas, let's say, but she enjoyed being with her husband. they were just like any other couple who had ups and downs. they traveled around the country and she lived intense because she wanted to stay with george all of the time and he was quite jealous of the men that were attentive to her as she was jealous of women that were attentive to him. i thought that was very interesting. i mean, you would know that george is quite flam --

flamboyant and the ladies man and i didn't know how elizabeth was and how many men found her appealing. there were a couple of times that george was so upset that other men found her attractive that he would post letters in newspapers saying, that's it you're out of here, she is not -- she is no longer a part of my life, he would be furious with her actions, which was pretty much nothing except just being elizabeth. when ever he would go about what elizabeth might be doing with someone else or the fact that other people found her just as charming as he did, there was a part of her that felt, wow, this is a little flattering. she liked to provoke that kind of response in her husband. she was feeling that way many times over because george after

the civil war everyone thought george was wonderful and he would ride into different posts and he had this incredible hair a lot of the times that was long, often times when he would go to battle, he would cut it short. he had long hair and would take pieces of the hair out and hand it to women. that was just the kind of flamboyance that george implored. she kind of liked the spark that it gave their relationship. custer was very close at this time with a gentleman by the name of captain thomas weer, he was very close with elizabeth as well. also george's best friend was probably his brother who served along side him.

so really it was a handful of the officers that spent a lot of time with george and thomas and captain weer and they were a tight higher ranking officers. certainly i would say that his best friends were weird and his brother thomas. i believe that captain weer had feelings for elizabeth. elizabeth was so talented and so incredibly charming. i think that a lot of men couldn't help but have feelings for her. she was a gifted artist, she could write, she was good at writing, she showed her being able to be out in the middle of the plains with all the other soldiers and so they grew accustom to her and captain weer was struck by her, i don't

believe there was anything physical that went on between the two of them but it wasn't beyond elizabeth to create in george's mind that there was more that was happening because she liked george being a little jealous of her. a lot of the individuals who served with george and came up through the ranks with george were very upset that he achieved a higher rank than they did and that he was younger. frederick was one of the -- one of the men who was under george with the seventh caliber and then he was very recentful of george and the fact that he was 23 year's old and telling him what to do. he and george always clashed. he was jealous, envious of

george. they would play cards. george like today bet on horses. he liked to gamble. he wasn't very good at it. he lost a lot of money. once in a while he would win hands and then lord it over. so there was always this rivalry between the two of them and it created for quite a bit of friction and certainly i believe lead to what eventually happened in the battle of big horn. if you would have people like bentine that was highly insulted that custer would be telling him what to do would be making sure that he gave him orders. there were quite a few men in the service who resented that. they felt as though they were

even though they weren't the highest ranking officer, they felt they should be and would be able to tell the younger snapper instead of it being reversed. it certainly was not the intent of george or his other officers that they were going to be in any big scrimmage and they were told, they believed that they were just going to have to get these indians that were living off the reservation, get them settled down and bring them back on the reservation, make get them back on the reservation, when george and the others in seventh started out the morning of 25th of june in 1876, that's

not what they are thinking that they are going to be in a battle. it's only when the seventh cab comes over. more than 3,000 indians had band together to fight against being put on a reservation. george being the west point cadet and soldier who was trained to divide groups in thirds, that's exactly what he is trained to do, he divides his group into third, so marcos rino who is one of his commanders takes off with one of the divisions. george goes right up the middle, right to the high ground. it certainly wasn't a battle that went to the high ground. if you ever been to the battle of big horn site, it goes on for

miles and you can see them retreating, fighting and retreating. they get to the high ground because that's what they had trained to do, to always get to the high ground. of course, there was lots of little bluffs and dentures in the earth that the indian were able to get behind and they knew that terrain and so i think that they were completely, they were completely caught unaware. but when they did -- when george realized he was going to need help he did send for rino and bentine who could see what was going on and because of animosity towards george they decided to be slow to act. thomas who was very close with george he wanted to go in quickly but they wouldn't allow him to do that. so they just watched these men

at the -- at the site of little big horn being killed one right after another. nothing that they could do. they felt there was nothing they could do and certainly that particular time there was nothing that they could do. i think that elizabeth had a premonition about this not just for george, although she does talk quite a bit about that. i think that what we fail to acknowledge a lot of times in history that george was serving along side his brother, brother-in-law, nephew, so elizabeth's fear or hesitance about what was going to happen was something she felt for her entire family. they were her family as well. elizabeth has been made aware what happened in big horn very early in the morning and it really isn't her responsibility to go and tell all the other wives but she assumes that responsibility along with the other officers and she goes from

house to house to inform them that the seventh cavalry has been killed. she holds off on the grieving until everyone is notified as to what's happening and then she has her brokedown. i think that was quite of her and what you would expect to the wife of custer. elizabeth is a widow who is not getting big deal of attention. a lot of people believe that george came from a very wealthy background, george's family was a teacher and helped support his family. so he doesn't make a whole lot of money. is killed at the battle of

little big horn. so elizabeth has relatively nothing. he does take herself back to new york and ends up working in a library and as time goes on, i mean, certainly right after the battle, everybody is asking what's going on, what's going on and bentine and rino are quick to put the blame on george and say he was brashed, he was arrogant, which i wouldn't deny but i believe in this particular instance he did do what he was always trained to do which was divide his troops. elizabeth was the first to come to george's defense, no, that is not what happened. i know my george, i know the character of my george, he wouldn't have done that.

and she stood up for him and championed his actions and really challenged bentine and rino on everything that they said. she challenged bentine consistently because she knew that there was no love loss. it was elizabeth's voice that rose to the top of this, not only because she was a woman and people were paying attention because she was george's life, but because outlived all of them. elizabeth doesn't die till 1933 and she is there for the 50th anniversary of the battle of little big horn. she is there for all of history, so she can help shape what is being said about her husband. so it doesn't go so far to the other end. people were always blaming him, although we still have that we

appreciate about elizabeth that she stays true to him. she gets to a point where she doesn't really know the man from the myth. she never remarries. she spends -- she writes letters back to people, she gets 300 letters a year and people asking what happened at the little big horn. your husband was not -- were was not a very dedicated man. he was too arrogant to be involved in anything, they should have must -- mustered him out of the service. elizabeth would hand-write the letters back to the people and made sure that his point was made. i do think elizabeth was quite successful.

here it is centuries later and we are talking about elizabeth custer and george dividing his -- his troops into thirds and not just sitting here discussing how wrong he was at every turn on what he did. >> for more information on book tv's recent to sacramento and the many other destinations on city's tour, go to c-span.org/ citiestour. >> you have a woman who disappeared from public view when he was 23 year's old. where does a biography begin and maybe why? >> those are two good questions, why is easier to answer. it was like a three-photograph

obituary and for some reason it just hit me. i had been vaguely aware of rosemary and of course, i was aware of the kennedy family growing up in new england. as a woman historian, my antenna went right away, why don't we know more about her. i tucked it in the back of my mind, i was working on another book project but i had a sense to investigate her life and that might be my next life. when i started researching her life thinking i'd be able to unearth all the information and there won't be any problem and i can write about this beautiful young woman and you know, about what happened to her. the process took a lot longer than i thought because the record was, you know, a little bit spotty, but over the years more and more papers became

available so it made it easier, it's challenging to write about somebody who disappears but it is possible. >> tell us what you think about the rosemary's life before 1941, was she a happy child, was she integrated into the life of that family? >> rosemary was an adorable child, happy, but also she struggled and suffered in trying to compete with her much more capable sibling. she was integrated into the family when she was home and her siblings did a great job trying to accommodate her disabilities. they would play sports with her, they would go sailing with her and they would take and all

sports activity, she knew that sports was an important aspect for every human being. so she was happy on the one hand, on the other hand, she was very unhappy because of the struggles that she faced and her parents also centered off to many different schools of a period of ten years and that was very hard on a young child teenager, young adult woman who was separated from her family who she loved very, very much and wanted to be with. so her life had bright moments but also allot of struggles. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> journalist sean naylor is

next. >> welcome, sean. >> guest: great to be here. >> host: this is an amazing book. history of the secret organization and it's so thick. i wanted to start with this. if you're a normal reader that because it was so thick it was easy to get information and yet you say, i want to just quote you here because it's pretty susinct. it was going to be a challenged and so it proved. several people who figured in the events described in the book declineq