the end for me it was his example of how he lived, what he believed. incredible. so thank you. [applause] >> thanks again very much, brad. and brad has graciously agreed even though he just has this tremendous long drive to sit for about an hour and sign books. so we have enough copies i think if you like to purchase copies and have it signed, encourage it to do that. so thank you all for coming and join the rest of your evening. [applause]

>> [inaudible conversations] >> you are watching booktv on c-span key with top nonfiction books and authors every weekendo of tv, television for serioustha readers.nation >> host: amy ellis nutt is our guest and here's the cover of her book, "becoming nicole." who is now call? >> guest: nicole was born and identical twin boys in 1997. board and given the name wyatt. this is a chart from the age of two, two-and-a-half, identified as they grow.if when i see identified as a girl, didn't say to her parents i think i'm a girl, said we'd like it to be a girl?

you know, we'd like it to look like a girl? believed she was a girl and twon middle-class ordinary parents living in the state of maine, need to figure out what that was about.t: how >> host: how do they figure it out, or did they? >> guest: they did. video of the book is really the mother. these twins were adopted atbirt birth. kelly knew there were two things that were most important to her as a mother.ha make sure that her children were safe and happy. she had to understand the happy part because she also knew that this child was unhappy when she didn't get to play with the toys that she wanted or a father who was, you know, conservative, republican, veteran, you know, was really unsure about who this child was and resisted it. but kelly was determined.

and so she did very early what a lot of us do, and she googled the words boys who like girls' toys. and that became the beginning of her odyssey to understanding. she had never heard the word transgender, and so it began -- she began to become a student of it and to understand it to try and bring her husband into it. it took her longer to do that. it took him longer. but he's probably the one who undergoes the most transformation in the book. he's now someone who goes out and gives talks to people about transgender kids, transgender children and being transgender and especially is helping to try to work with fathers to understand their children. >> host: what about the other twin boy? >> guest: jonas is a remarkable, remarkable kid. they are both now entering their sophomore year of college at two different branches of the university of maine. what was wonderful about jonas is that jonas really probably

knew before anyone, you know? kids would come up to him and sometimes say to him, you know, what is it like to have a transgender sister? and, you know, he didn't know. he just knew he had a twin that was really a girl, not a boyment boyment -- boy. and when jonas -- they were both very young, said to his father be, dad, face it, you have a son and a daughter. and it was kind of a wake-up call for wayne to realize, you know, out of the mouths of babes, here is my child telling me that his brother is really his sister. so jonas had to go on a journey too to helping other people understand, to be protective of his sister when she was discriminated against in the fifth grade and bullied and then told by staff at their middle school that she would have to use the teachers' restroom and not the girls' room. she'd already changed her name, dressing as a girl for all

intents and purposes was nicole. and it was tough on jonas. he had to be sort of big brother, and at the same time he said to me very profoundly, you know, i'm a kid, and i have a sixth grade vocabulary, so it's hard to talk to people to try and make 'em understand. -- make them understand. so he struggled with it too. but they're very close. they're both very different in a lot of ways. and they're each one another's best friends and protectors. >> host: what was the first step in "becoming nicole"? was it clothes? was it name? >> guest: you know, i think it really was -- i mean, the first evidence to the parents certainly were clothes. nicole, born wyatt, loved to, you know, she would pull her shirt over her head to make it look like it was long hair.

she wanted to wear her mother's jewelry. she wanted to pretend, you know, that things were dresses. these were obviously the first signs, you know? and a lot of kids go through these phases, but this was consistent, and this was constant. and then there were things saying, you know, she actually would say, daddy, when does my penis full off? -- fall off? so this was a child who wasn't saying i feel like i'm a girl, this was a child who knew she was a girl but couldn't understand, being a child, why people were treating her like a boy. >> host: when did surgery happen? >> guest: surgery happened last summer after she graduated high school. nicole was one of the first cases of an american child at the children's gender clinic in boston, the first one in this

country, established in 2007 under dr. norman spack, her daughter, was one of the first to have puberty repressed so she had time to go through the psychological tests, had time to dress and act and be a girl in order to know for certain this was who she was. and then when puberty was going to start for her, they could see in her twin brother when it was starting, that was when they started her on estrogen. and so she wasn't going to have the surgery until high school. she wanted to do it before college. this is a very, very important step. so many people go through puberty, and when they decide to make the transition, don't make it until they're adults, it's especially difficult for female transgender people because, you know, they've gone through male puberty. and surgically, a lot has to be done. she didn't have to face that problem. she went through female puberty at the right time.

so she's been able to have the right development and at the right time as other young women. and she's a beautiful young woman. and she's happy and thrilled and has a boyfriend and is about as normal a kid as you could come across. and it's the beauty of this family is because they're ordinary in so many ways, they're extraordinary in how they dealt with the situation. but they're ordinary in being, you know, an every man's family. they're your mother and father, they're your sister and your brother. it would be hard motto identify with this family -- not to identify with this family. and i think to the degree that that can normalize for people what it means to be transgender and what it means to have a transgender member in family, then i think it spreads the message and educates people just by their presence. >> host: amy ellis nutt, you're a science writer at "the washington post."

how did you find this story? >> guest: this story actually found me, honestly. it was first published in the newspaper, in the boston globe, page 1, in december of 2011. marty barron to, the executive editor of the washington post, was then the executive editor of "the boston globe," very far-seeing editor who promoted in this story. i read it, i was fascinated by it. and i was captain r contacted -- contacted, i didn't know that they were being represented at the time by someone i had known 30 years earlier in boston. and she reached out to me because the family was getting a lot of publicity requests. they were uncomfortable with doing anything more than that. they wanted to protect their kids and have them group, you know, have them a normal teenage. teenage life. but they knew that down the line after they graduated high school, they would want this story to be told. she contacted me because she knew i'd written a book, and so the story came to me. but i remember saying to my

agent, this is fascinating. and the fact that they were identical twins is an important aspect trying to explain the science and what we know about the brain and gender. i said, do you think anyone's going to want to read a book about a transgender kid? that was five years ago. and the world has changed dramatically since then. so, honestly, it's a serendipitous publication of this. >> host: what's the estimated population of transgender in the u.s.? >> guest: honestly, the best estimates are grossly inadequate. the ones that you read most frequently are between 7-800,000. those figures are based on 10-year-old surveys of three states. it's impossible to know. it really is. and i'm waiting for the, you know, for the next sort of stage when we can get a better estimate of that. but, of course, we face the same problems in people not identifying as transgender or not wanting to identify even --

so honestly, i think we really don't know. but what i learned from doing this book is i'd always thought the phrase gender spectrum was very nice, politically correct, lovely phrase. but it really is true that this is not exceedingly rare that 1 in 200 kids are born with atypical -- 1 in 200 are born with atypical genitalia. there are many, many different kinds of variations of chromosomal dna. people can be born xyy, xxy, insensitive to androgen, you know, to testosterone or not. so there is no average male or female. we really are a spectrum in many ways. and so i learned that as we are beginning to learn the science of this, your anatomy is set in utero at six weeks. scientists believe your gender

identity process in the brain does not occur until six months in utero. so you think of all the things that can happen between six weeks and six months that affect the brain, and this is why identical twins can have the exactsame -- exact same dna, but they get different chemical messages from the mother even where they're positioned in the womb. and the degree of variation because of things the mother takes in from the environment that affects the distribution of hormones, the variability in how our brains are set is nearly infinite. >> host: so what kind of testing did wyatt maines have to go through to become nicole maines? >> guest: yeah. >> host: before even surgery happened or anything like that. >> guest: you know, back then it was before really, honestly, genetic testing. so what she went through was

mostly psychological tests. and also physiological tests, you know, to understand, you know, her anatomy. but it was mostly a series of psychological tests, and this is one thing why they, you know, delay puberty and suppress puberty so that the child cannily as the gender -- can live as the gender that they believe they are for as long as possible to be fully confident that that's who they are. look, there are a lot of kids who, you know, test boundaries and, you know, boys that like to dress up as girls and girls that were tomboys, and these are temporary. these are things that are experimenting. not all children who do that are transgender. but a child who says at the age of 2 when do i get to be a girl and says it constantly and consistently, that's a transgender child. >> host: amy ellis nutt is the author of "becoming nicole: the

transformation of an american family." she's also the co-author of "the teenage brain." .. the accident happened so quickly that they didn't know what happened. the story was on the one hand a narrative about what happened to these men and their families buh also an investigation. i basically make the case, i think it's a strong case, that they were the victims of the high seas hit and run by a container ship, a german containership that didn't stop.

it's a mystery and it's anan investigation and it's a story about people. >> host: amy ellis nutt spent nine years as a fact checker at sports illustrate the a bit of her career. "becoming nicole" is the bookom we've been talking with her about. here it is. >> this is grandview drive and this is what teddy roosevelt called the world's most beautiful drive. >> in peoria i think our greatest connection to lincoln is 1854 speak. he's really the trade in peoria i think as a hero, and someone who stood his ground against the spread of slavery. >> account like this which has a great history, it's the largest city on the river. one time it was the second largest city in the state.

with the resource of the river a special at that time and the whiskey that was being made, and, of course, caterpillar is a big industry, it has a very rich history. >> welcome to peoria, illinois, on booktv. with help of our comcast partners over the next 90 minutes we will travel the city and talk with local authors about the history of the area. we start with a look at organized crime in peoria during the first half of the 20th century as we explore the life and times of the shelton brothers gang. >> a famous game were able to for about three from aunt in 1926 and was between the shelton brothers and the burger again. about 40 or 50 men were killed. the shelton's, this was a vicious gang war fought out. it concluded the first aerial bombing, the first and only one on american soil when the shelton's commandeered a world

war i jimmy biplane and for over an burger side of which was like a little state lodge called shady rest in deep southern illinois and they dropped them down over shady rest. this was the only airplane raid we were had in american history. i wrote the book because, first of all of that a lifetime interest and i've been around a lot of years, in the, start against a history of downstate illinois. i grew up in bellevue which is next east st. louis and across the mississippi were you've got st. louis. east st. louis figured heavily in the gangster history of downstate illinois. the shelton's basically the shelton did was run by three brothers. karel the leader, big girl, is right in line come and the youngest brother in the family, bernard who was known as burning.

they were three of the seven children who grew to adulthood in a family associate with old mall and paul shelton. in deep southern illinois, specifically in wayne county which is in the deep part of the state. they grew up very poor. they often had a tough time, even having food on the table. they lived in a very ramshackle little house about four miles east of fairfield illinois. one thing though they did learn as kids as teenagers were to shoot guns. and they learn real well. eventually when prohibition set in, they bought a tablet and east st. louis and soon were engaging obviously because of probation they were engaging in good lighting and started serving other taverns been the bootlegging sources of liquor

illegal liquor for all the other taverns in st. louis. they didn't really close during prohibition. the shells established themselves as the major bootleggers of southern illinois. that was the first real identity, and they were tough and mean and violent and smart, and they asserted themselves very quickly in the rapidly emerging world of organized crime that really was bond during prohibition. that's one thing prohibition did, it did spawn what is now modern organized crime in the united states. as for the shelton's, the three shells, three of the seven kids, there were five boys and two girls, free of the five boys were later. the leader was karel who was very handsome, very smooth, very soft-spoken. he was handsome. he was a ladies man and he was very much, very charismatic actually. his brother, a girl, was very --

big earl. none of the boys got out of grade school but big earl was kind lieutenant to his brother karl. then the third brother at the head of the gain was early, bernard, and he was the most violent of the three. bernie like to shoot first and talk later. bernie was the enforcer. as you know every criminal organization has one or more enforcers. bernie was the enforcer. they gained prominence in i was in 1922, 1923, early in the era of prohibition. they quickly established themselves as they go to guys in the bootlegging business for all of southern illinois. they had a lot of lieutenant and so on, some of them had their own little empire within the

vigor empire, and that's not unusual. they had everything going their way and deal, a lot of people, prohibition passed because there were people who want it enforced. it wasn't being enforced in most parts of downstate illinois. city officials look to the other way. police chiefs look the other way. sheriffs look the other way. so that gave rise to resurgence of the ku klux klan in the southern illinois. now, that claim was basically, it was like a vigilante organization. it was like a comic book story plant of later years, '50s and '60s and someone. years in which out the members of the local clan are fbi agents. but the klan was very serious about 23 year. and comprise a lot of leading citizens. they wore the white roads, pointed head coverings or whatever. but there were a lot of leading citizens in the klan because the one of prohibition enforced. when regular law enforcement

authorities were not enforcing prohibition, they took upon themselves in a vigilante sort of way to do it. it resulted in incredible violence and murders and disaster situations. and it led to an all-out war in southern illinois between the klan and between the bootleggers. the bootleggers led by karl shelton, like a bootlegging army. and incredible encounters occurred that come ideal -- i detail of course in the book, "brothers notorious." it made front-page headlines across the united states. from the "new york times" to the los angeles times. eventually the klan, the bootleggers defeated the klan. the klansmen back in the woodwork, okay? but then dissension erupted in

the ranks of the shelton empire, and one case in particular named charlie berger was old empire in southeastern italy within the bigger shelton empire, a gang war, a famous gang war erupt from three to four months in 1926. again it made headlines across the country and was between the shelton brothers and the burger king. about 40 or 50 men were killed. the shelton's reach their peak in 1930. that the world, the world by the tail in 1930. everything had worked at the poynter finally come to their benefit. their territory started south of peoria, a little south of peoria and what all the way down to the tip of the state at carol illinois down with the mississippi meets the ohio. their influence and operations went a little bit into southern indiana and a little bit into

southern missouri also as well as a little bit of western kentucky. their headquarters basically were in east st. louis, and the airy, they are linked together across the river from st. louis. that was the foundation for many years of the shelton's criminal enterprises, bootlegging, then labor racketeering and then until a faulty camera. peoria comes into play, it's the last big hurrah in the shelton soccer. world war ii is starting, it is interesting that peoria was wide open. everything and anything went in peoria. it had a national reputation for being a wide open city. and amazingly, the underworld activity in peoria had continued to be dominated and led by local

gangsters. this wasn't the case anywhere else in illinois. of peoria was all dominated by the al capone syndicate out of chicago, and starting south of peoria to the tip of the state it was all shelton being territory. peoria have remained kind of a neutral buffer zone between these two major criminal entities. peoria who was a haven of shady activities back then, but control those activities have remained in the hands of local gangsters. as world war ii is getting underway, the capone crowd out of chicago made a long anticipated move to come into peoria and just take over peoria because it was booming in terms of things that gangsters want to do to make no. the local gangsters made a calculation decision. they knew they could not resist capone, but what they did is if they're going to be under the

wing of a major criminal element a decided the shelves were preferable. and so the shelton boys, brothers, were invited to come to peoria, expand empire a little bit northcom go right into peoria and provide protection for the criminal network in peoria from capone. that's what happened to the shelves were invited in the they came in to provide protection. it didn't take very long if it was predictable. they not only provide protection for the rackets in peoria but they took over. during world war ii the shelves were very powerful in peoria. only two of the three brothers moved to peoria, karl and bernie. big earl, although he was involved in peoria, big earl never moved to peoria. qb named down in their stronghold down in southern illinois. but during world war ii, a

statewide shelton krill network was right out of you where you. it was in peoria that karl, karl considers himself a businessman, not against you. he considered himself supplying needs and wants of the public. the public wanted to drink. he supplied the liquor and beer. you know, the public wanted to gamble. it was illegal but then wanted to gamble. karl provide a casinos and small gambling parlors and so on. he considered himself a businessman. he considered himself economic activity, prosperity. they were not gangsters in his eyes. but anyway, in peoria they quickly established themselves as the bosses, and karl was literally along with the legendary mayor woodruff the time, they were running peoria during world war ii. they got along very well, very

well. may woodruff tolerated it as long as it provided revenue for the city coffers and for a number of citizens. and as long as violence was kept under control. the shelton's were very adept at meeting those requirements. they certainly paid a share of all the illegal stuff to the city, and they kept the violence under control. there was very little of it until near the end when the shelves were sort of, you know, getting a little that and looking to maybe, maybe karl the leader was looking to start to retire and go back to southern illinois when he was going to live under a country squire with all of this land and holdings and he was big in the oil industry. but he the shelton's really, peoria, there were politicians, you would say that your you was

the last go wrong for the shelves. the death of karl shelton who was one of the three biggest was of the year in 1947 in illinois. the other two big stories were the mine disaster which took over 100 lives, and jackie robinson. jackie robinson breaking the color barrier in major league baseball, was in 1947 when the brooklyn dodgers brought up jackie robinson to that with one of the three big stories of the year in downstate illinois the jackie robinson coming to the major leagues, a mine disaster, and the murder of karl shelton to it happened in 1947 on a beautiful october morning. karl was down in southern illinois ride in an open air jeep on a country lane near a lot of farmland he out and about with his ill-gotten gains, and

he was assassinated. they were four or five gunmen waiting in barrage near a bridge, and he was machine gunned to death. they were two bodyguards in a truck following them, but they were, they didn't function. and karl was murdered on the spot. he was hit by 14, 15, 16 bullets. machine-gunning and that, of course, was that, the beginning of the en end of the shelton kig because karl was the brains. he was the only one who knew all the pieces of the puzzle. he was the only one who knew who was getting paid off where, and after that it was difficult to keep the shelton getting together. bernie tried and bernie was of course a peer and bernie tried to continuing things. he had a tavern right on farmington road right a little bit down the hill from the edge of peoria, just what outside of the city line.

a year later the bernie himself was assassinated. shot on the parking lot of his tavern and died about a half hour later at a hospital in peoria. big earl survived three or four assassination attempts. he was hit by the survived. he eventually got the message and the shelton empire disintegrated. he went to florida where he lived the last half of his life. he engaged in business -- legitimate business enterprises. he became a wealthy man, involved a lot of the development. the thing said about big earl, if big earl flip a half dollar in the it flow down as a $5 bill. big earl live to be conflict until 1986 when he died of natural causes at the age of 96. and illinois had a terrific era when many people like it or not

of lawlessness, and it captured the front page headlines and the imagination of readers and people throughout the country. and i think if you're going to study the history of the state and you want to be serious, you cannot ignore the role of gangs like the shelves and so one. and what they represented. >> welcome to peoria to at the top of the illinois river valley one of the many places c-span will be visiting while in peoria. up next we speak with author ken zurski to about the stories of people and events that helped save the city in the region. >> i think when a realize is going to make a book of stories i start writing some short stories for an online magazine here in town, and i realize i didn't want to do just a peoria history book. i'm not from here.

i'm a transplant here and there's a lot of very good peoria historians you would've written good books do i want to find a different angle. so i was searching out a story just the kind of research, just to have some fun with, and i was reading a book about the eastland disaster which is a shipwreck in chicago, on the chicago river. someone who is from this area says there is a bad wreck on the river, and resist wooden steamboat in 1918 and this person was a charming people died. so that was the story i started researching. the boat was called the columbia. it was 87 people were killed, the worst boat wreck on the illinois river and some of the book the wreck of the columbia which came out in 2012. i just started doing the research and once i felt like i had more than one i had read before, though like i might have had a boat. the peoria stories book was basically because i started writing these short stories and

getting the idea that it wanted to do a story about these famous figures. what i did this when i first wrote a story for the online magazine, i wrote about the story of teddy roosevelt. is story time to peoria is that he went up the hilly and curvy road and called it the world's most beautiful drive. that statement, kind of iconic mountain town, it's the lasting tribute to the city. everybody knows teddy roosevelt said that about that road. i thought there's an interesting angle. here's a historical figure and is tied to the area and i started doing more research and start coming up with more historical figures. not necessary celebrities although obote found to have stories of celebrities and sports figures. i want to go back into x. presidents come real famous figures. and i found not only the roosevelt story, and went deep into that in defining what he

was there, what he said those words but also of course lincoln, you can always go with lincoln in illinois. almost every city in the state as a lincoln story. peoria is interesting because lincoln didn't visit that much in peoria. this was not in his eighth judicial circuit so it didn't come to peoria that often. but he is known for the one speech he did here in 1854 called a peoria speech where he basically said slavery was wrong on every level, and that speech has become synonymous with lincoln and peoria. they had a connection. so that was another connection. we went further into charles lindbergh, months before he became the most famous pilot in the world, he was lying airmail onto route from st. louis all the way to chicago. springfield and peoria were some of his stops, and yet some harrowing flights over peoria.

we get into that in the book. one story about alexander hamilton son, william hamilton, who was here as a surveyor and serve as peoria county's first lawyer, interesting story. so there's all these connections history which i love. i tell people that this book is not a book about, a history of peoria. it's a book about history in general with peoria in a. peoria is the focus but some stories we start here and go elsewhere, and in some stories we start elsewhere and come here or go back. we cover a lot of ground, but the core of it is peoria and central illinois. there's a story with kerry nation who was the anti-sin crusader who was just starting to get notoriety in the papers for her antics which if you know who she was, she was the hatchet

wielding grandma from kansas who thought that alcohol was the evil and she would bust into saloons with a hatchet in the hands answered lasting of mirrors and glasses. and she was just starting to get some press, because she was in kansas, she starting to go and do all these things. they were arresting her for it. in this time she came to peoria. she came to peoria because she was in jail and had decided that being in jail was making as much a statement as going out smashing solicitor even though they told her she was just being a public nuisance, that she could go, she decided to stay in jail. she got a letter from an editor from the peoria newspaper asked her to come to peoria for a day, and the newspapers be. he was a key color as well as we kind of supported, sort of what she was doing. of course peoria was the whiskey

capital of the world. the interesting the better star is something physical still exist her from her trip because when she got here, it was as wild and as flashy as she is. but she also had asked to see a painting. a painting that someone told her was hanging up in a bar in downtown the golden palace olympic the owner, she was a painting had several images of women undressed, which is also part of her, that whole anti-moral thing for her. associate asked to go to the bar and meet with the owner. and they told him that would probably be a bad idea. but she went and the stories in the book, the owner tried to be as nice as he could be two or. she said this is a murder house and you should take on this painting right away. among other things that she said. that painting is t still hanging

up in a bar in downtown peoria. it has lasted all these years. it's a copy of an original that is being in museums in new york but that painting itself is still there in peoria. this is grandview drive and this is what teddy roosevelt called the world's most beautiful drive. and it was in 1910 when teddy visited peoria. and he came as an invitation from a friend, the archbishop john spalding who was the leader of the catholic community here in peoria. they were good friends, and that he was invited. it wasn't on his schedule. he was the ex-president at the time and is going around speaking in larger cities like indianapolis and st. louis, and telling everyone how bad his predecessor, his hand-picked predecessor william howard taft was doing. obviously, he was disappointed with the way that was running things. his whole idea was to convince

everyone that that should not be reelected. so he is going around different midwestern cities and making speeches. he was a take down the jackpot is this what he called little people are basically becoming wealthy with power. at the expense of the people. he had a speech in st. louis which was an interesting day for you in st. louis because it was the first time he took a flight in want of the right inspired flyers in which a couple of the most exciting days of his life. interesting for a guy who was hunting elephants. so the archbishop asked in a between between st. louis and indianapolis if you would stop in peoria. that happened to be on columbus day. so it was october 1910. and so that he said absolutely. because they were great friends. so roosevelt came here and once the city found out he was coming, of course they are going to throw him a big celebration. aided by having a procession go

down athens street from downtown all the up to the be getting caching all the way to the beginning of grandview drive up the river's edge. they were schoolchildren lined up on the street. people just cheering ted as he went by. he had a toothy grin and is waiting. the flags are waving. the plan was to come up to the country club, which are still there on grandview drive anyone of launcher and speak at the hall in the evening. as the procession went down adam street and the people cheered, they were going to come of grandview drive up to the country club for lunch. that grandview drive had just been built seven years earlier. the city had gotten money from the state basically saying build more parks. they decided that since there was just a path going down from the top of the bluff to the river edge, that they would build a road.

at the time they probably didn't think it would be used much for vehicles as it would for people. they were building for people to walk, but they built a wide and they cleared it up and it took about a year or so to build. when they opened it to have a contest of what they should name it. they decided that it would think they could name it is what it represented, which was the grand view that you see. so they called it a grandview drive. when teddy came together to be the best way to get up to the country club and the easiest way to spot was taking grandview drive. so those who are in the motorcade knew what that he was in for because they know beautiful this was. the motorcade went up, as they're going up the grandview drive caddy told iver to stop. he got out. he didn't get out what he stood up because a of some open air, a collide automobile, car submitted in peoria. and he stood up in the vehicle and he said these words. he said great, that's fine.

now, he said those words first, those are the words that are recorded in the newspapers because i checked because i kept looking for those five famous words that we know now today, world's most beautiful drive it and the newspapers never said that he actually said those words, like he did say great, that's fine. he compared it to his home on tropez, new york. he compared the few to his home there. it was in october so the leaves were changing and the colors are spectacular. it's like a rite of fall care for people to walk this drive just to see the beautiful colors. he was here at the perfect time. you know, whether he said the words exactly are not, doesn't matter. world's most beautiful drive. a connection to alexander hamilton, which is interesting because alexander hamilton is kind of hot these days because of the broadway musical.

alexander hamilton's son, william, i think it was seven when his father died. of course, we all know the famous duel with aaron burr. so used as a young boy when his father passed with a by that i'm alexander hamilton had a legacy, and william was different than his other brothers, that he was in so, he didn't really want to go into law and go to school. he tried west point and left. he wanted to go exploring. he was an explorer. as we came down towards the mississippi river and yet enough law and also education that he became a surveyor along the mississippi river, missouri, that area. he came to peoria to do just that. he was going to survey some of the land for the newly plot of land here along the river. but at the time, it was the 1820s, peoria county government

have just established themselves, and they had just had their first what was going to be there first trial case. it ended up being a murder case involving an indian who would just come to town and he had reportedly stabbed a frenchman. they had the first trial case in peoria, and the first murder case. what they did have at the time with someone who could represent the accused. but there happened to be a survey in town was also a lawyer. so william hamilton became the lawyer for the accused indian in the first trial case in peoria county. it ended up being the first conviction, the first indictment and then the first conviction and ended up being the first appeal. ..

>> there is a hamilton boulevard on the north side of county courthouse today. towns can influence people and people can influence towns, and these historical figures came to peoria and made their mark and peoria embraces that. when you take a famous figture, specially charles lin burg, just a boy flying airmail. people knew him only because he

would stop and because of the weather he couldn't go up, if they lived near the airport in town, they would go and feed him lunch and a year later they're reading about how he landed in in pa race and he's the hero, charles lin burg and people can come and make their mark and have influence in the city and so i wanted people to read those storying and more than i thought . a town like this that has a great history, the largest city, it has with the resource of the river specially at that time and the whiskey, specially caterpillar, there's more of the ex-presidents that came to visit here but these are the stories

that struck me the most. >> book tv is visiting peoria with look her lincoln, inc. >> i found that we represent lincoln in our own image, we create lincoln in our own image so he reflects the concerns of the age in h those representations are created. he reflects the desires of the creators, preoccupations of creators, whether these are creditors of children's books, boofs, films, we see that hillary clintonon is reflecting what is going on in society at that moment.

>> how does a sociologist look at lincoln and why why does a sociologist looks at lincoln. >> i'm interested in all the stories that all nations tell themselves about who they think they are and who they wish they could be. >> we can talk about abraham hillary clintonon as -- lincoln as a brand. he symbolizes what many americans think is best about the nation. our determination, moral compass, these are all things that he has come to embody and

they are these qualities that we believe we have as a nation and we want to have as a nation. so one of the points i make in my work that abraham lincoln has become a rorschach test. we project onto lincoln all of our finest qualities. all of our fears and fascinations and desires and hopes and dreams. we put those onto abraham lincoln, he comes to symbolize what we want ourselves to believe. we can see that lincoln is used by very different social groups and movements, conservatives toned imagine and represent

lincoln as a kind of a war hog, whereas progressist tend to picture him as duffish, as a champion of social justice and civil rights, so very different visions of lincoln. we can see how it's been moved by the civil rights movement and the kkk. the american civil rights movement has been joined to lincoln's memory in many different ways. if you go to the memorial today and see educational gal ories, there's kind of a direct line on lincoln with dr. king and that lincoln was sort of the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. so we see the civil rights movement capitalizing on

lincoln's image in that way of proponent of social justice and racial equality. at the same time in his career and earlier in his career, lincoln was proponent of colonization schemes. even people who were born in america, returning them to africa. so he was a proponent of colonization. he was not a strong proponent of social and political equality between whites and blacks and pretty explicitly said i'm not proposing social equality for whites and blacks, and so the kkk has also used lincoln as a poster child. we don't belong together. these races should be separate. we can see, for instance, in

biographies of lincoln that same in 1866 and '67, those biographers were concerned, lincoln was not for equality for blacks and white and they were interested in doing because at that point in time abolition was seen qied radical and they we wanted to protect him, regular cri from that kind of taint of radicalism. they very very careful from dedivorce him from abolitionism. fast-forward to the year 2000, 20th century, 21st century.

and he was very radical and politics have changed racial views and our rechcións of him have changed quite radically. we are using lincoln for all kinds of purposes. we can see politicians calling lincoln to their sides using lincoln quotes, barack obama did this very effectively during his 2008 presidential campaign. republican politicians, george

w. bush was taking heat on war on terror but many bush's defenders jumped in and said, hey, abraham lincoln did the same thing. if hillary lincoln did it, it must be okay. for instance, in the battle over abortion, lincoln is used by those oppose abortion because fetuses are the new slave, the definition of any humans being less than -- than full human

beings, so people of african american decent less than fully human. lincoln comes into those very powerful ideological debates, but also in terms of being used for financial purposes, being used in advertisement from everything -- for everything from sleeping pills and soft drinks to waffles and burritos and car insurance. stephen colbert says it's the show that lincoln would have watched, all the different ways. does it constitute an abuse in the sense of the eye of the beholder. what we can say as we bend

lincoln reputation we do lose site of what he really did and what he really said and what he may still really have to teach us. there's a danger there of image beyond recognition. so in peoria, i think our greatest connection to lincoln is his 1854 speech in lincoln. we have a wonderful statute here of lincoln delivering that speech. we have some wonderful newspaper archival pieces that describe his dynamic at first trying to holt speech and later just becoming so dynamic that he was captivating that audience, so he's really portrayed in -- in

peoria, i think, as a hero, as someone who stood his ground against the spread of slavery. one of the things i found very interesting, both in biographies and museum exhibits and elsewhere is that we are very likely to see in those exhibits, in those biographies, the quotes and events that make lincoln look fabulous, that make him look like a saint but we are unlikely to see objectionable statements. a good example of this is actually in the lincoln memorial itself where in the educational gallaries of lincoln quote all around the wall and in one of these panels, very large panels, there's a quote from 1854peoria

speech that allow all of the governed to vote and that -- and only that is true democracy. it gives us the sense that even long before lincoln was elected to the white house, that he was proposing that all people presumably whites and blacks, men and women should be allowed to vote. that is the only kind of governance by the people, but what the panel left out is the very next line of that speech which was do not think that i'm -- that i am proposing equality between blacks and whites. i have already said to the contrary. so that panel gives us the impression as lincoln as the champion of civil rights and

very conveniently leaves out the next statement which is, hey, i'm not saying equality here. abraham lincoln is a construction. we can't know who he really was. we can only know our 21st century construction of who he was. and by in large, this is the case with all of our heros. we need to be aware, not to take away from their memories or take away from the great things that these people did, but i would want people to approach representations of abraham lincoln and our national heros more critically to ask how have these representations been structured, who has vested interest in representing this

hero this way, what do these representations tell us about ourselves, about our hopes and dreams for the nation, about who we think we are and who we wish we could be on october 1816 lincoln wrote a speech in peoria. 1854 kansas and nebraska act despite agreement. lincoln's peoria speech outlined arguments against slavery and helped lay ground work for political future.

[sirens] >> the title of the book officer down is exactly what an officer says when he's injured or when he -- of he can't, of course, if he's dead. it's not a biography but a profile and i do mention, of course, their name and where it happened and go into the actual shooting or the death of this officer and then, of course, the

coroner's inquest. it was black paper, hung on the city hall and the police department and they made a big deal and, of course, if they were buried here, we had a contingent of police officers and went through the honors for every one of the police officers, all of them. >> after the book was out and i had 18 in there, i began in 1828 in peoria, i began reading the entire history of peoria. it took me years and years and all of that i decided that i was going to be a true crime writer which this is one of them. within officer jim -- named joe syler. they called him officer joe and

had badge number 9. he was a rounder, they walked around. they patrolled a lot of times their neighborhoods and sometimes a joe would sit down the street at 3:00 in the morning, watch, listen and walk and that's what pretty much officers did up until they got mobile. they never had horses and basically they were fitted with horses and so forth. mainly they were picked so you know how political that was.

he got in a confrontation with the dad and guns were pulled out and joe was hit four times in the chest. the sad thing is when we tried the killer in peoria, illinois he was found not guilty. we were not a city until 1845 and we were one mile square. that's it. and the rest is this prairie and river and rough guys and tough guys and believe me, you had a weapon and let me tell you something about their early police officer. he knew every bad guy in town and when you came in town, he didn't ask you what -- you know, anything except what are you doing here, what are you doing in town and you better say, you know, i am this or i am that and then, of course, he had no way of checking, you know, he couldn't check on you, so he just watched behavior, generally

talked to the bar tenders, the bar tender, you see that guy over there, joe, that's exactly it. many of these early men were police officers killed in taking in someone. a lot of our taverns which we eventually had 242 of them, can you imagine? this was wide-open lusty town. we were the absolute capital of alcohol. the alcohol capital of the world which we loved and, of course, during the civil war we paid not -- when i sea we, i'm talking about peorians, they paid 35 million, abraham lincoln knew where we were, believe you me. we helped, they claim in the history books about 87% of the financing of that war came from

good-old booze. we were proud of it. we had steam boats, later the trains, everything you can imagine in the way of entertainment. this is a family show but you're catching on, i hope. and certainly gambling very early on and this brought certain types of police officers. they had to really be sophisticated enough to know what was really going on and he handled it. they did a good job. we had 15 of our 21 police officers that died in the line of duty, 15 of those were killed by gunfire and i wrote separately about them, but i put all of them in here.

the last person in our police department killed was a wonderful lady, i think she died in 2004. she was a trainer and died in a squad car, accident, but falconer, a police officer name, they called him jim faulkner. not only the person that shoot him and killed him but came back and shot him twice. in my lectures i get more graphic but in the book i tell you exactly what the -- what the medical examiner says. i never use my own words because i know there's family, they're looking and in my lectures i always hope they were never

there. i never did ask anyone, did you center an officer because i didn't want to talk to them. you know, it's sad enough and then to do it in public, i felt like i was violating them in some way. it meant a lot to me and i couldn't write it again. i will give it to somebody, give the rights to someone. this isn't my history. i put it in there but i would love to sigh -- see it done and have the city sponsor it that we don't come to these memorials, we come 36, 42, 54, i've spoken to all of them and i got them all in the monument, we had a

nice dedication and the peoria has not had a memorial over this monument since then and i'm telling you, that irritates me. for what reason could they possibly not want to honor their people that were killed. we had one that was constables. we elected constables in peoria. they are political, aren't they? what kind of a cop gets elected? think about that. well, dam good ones bazaar thursday smith was a wonderful police officer and the main thing that i found out about him that they are more courageous than the guy next door. really they are. now, don't forget, they're well-trained today. there was a time when they weren't in peoria because the mayor's friend's son wanted a

job and that went on for a long time even during the time of mayor woodruff was our mayor for 24 years, that's how you got support and then after he got in, then he said, thank you, johnny. and then you say, mayor, my son, he's a nice-looking boy, very nice boy, i wonder if you'd be interested in hiring him. every police officer in peoria that i knew, this was from probably '62 -- 62 to 95 and that would be my officers. they're no where near my age but i would say that the -- they were very, very aware of who they are, the job that they had and i can tell anyone whoever is approached by a police officer or all you have to do is just be

simply courteous. that is all and you demand that of him, all the trouble that you're seeing today -- now i'm not talking about the that's set out and wakes up in the morning and has a full plan to kill an officer. i have no answer for that one. that's -- we know who they are. we listen to them and we are worried and we are scared of terrorists. it's a whole brand-new world, but for you in peoria, that's my hometown, i'm giving you the only thing you need to know. i don't care what he says, what he said you did, shut up and just keep your hands on the wheel and then when he says to you, would you happened me your driver's license you are going to have to turn, that's a time when there's an element of danger, so you just said, i have it in my side of my drawer, they just are looking at you.

they don't know who you are and, of course, it scares them. and the minority people in our town will absolutely tell you this, i think we've had a pretty good relationship for all of these years that i know of. i think that they would learn about these officers is that these men when the time came to give their life, they did. i want you to look at these police officers as a man and a woman who quickly would give their life to protect you and your family and i think about the way the police officers being attacked today and it

really is sad as a nation and the people are doing this are really going to have to pay. they're not going to get away with it. there's so many real americans around who realize that thin blue line that we saw in the old movie, they are the ones and if he's gruff with you and somehow you don't like him, again, i blame him for that. he is in control. and if he sees that you're upset, right, and that's how the confrontation starts. so i want to people who read this book to know that there are people willing to do that for you and the least you can do is give them the respect that they deserve. >> welcome to peoria, illinois on book tv, next we speak with

author bret wall from his book. >> peoria was basically the king maker of the act that is would come through town and if you could make it there and appeal to peorians, then your chances of success nationally were enhanced. it department play in peoria, the first thing was -- i looked way back in history and found that peoria's first missed chance was probably -- occurred over 10,000 years ago when the future town of peoria was on the

western shore of the mississippi river. however the glaciers came through and pushed the abshient mississippi, the river bed a hundred miles west to present day location. one has to think that major cities on the mississippi like twin cities, minnesota, memphis, new orleans that peoria had been there too had the mississippi continued in its original position. the illinois river filled in the river bed in mississippi and that's where peoria is today. our first source was charles.

he's a historian from memphis, tennessee first and he had talked about all of the possibilities of, you know, the automotive industry here. airline industry. he had heard when linburg on sponsorship. peoria would have been a very good town for him to try -- a trial balloon and he had a strong in the 20's very strong flying community. he wouldn't have wasted a lot of

times and all the marvels in st. louis, all the contacts were there. if he didn't plan the pitch to st. louis -- because his best hopes were in st. louis, having an engineering mind that he had you would want to do a trial run. peoria would have been a good city to try. you can't blame peoria for not biting at the prospect because in six weeks before he went around for sponsorship or thought about it, he had bailed out of his plane twice on the way of peoria and chicago.

well, if you can't 150 miles between peoria and chicago, how are you going to make it over the atlantic, it could have been a matter of great idea but wrong guy. plus lindbergh had a name dare devil and you might be betting on a dead horse and obviously he went to st. louis and did flights over the atlantic. but given that st. louis profited with the airline industry and airline manufacturing, airplane manufacturing with the li in dbergh it's not inconceivable that peoria had said yes to sponsorship that peoria would

have been in a good situation to follow in -- in his super startom. there are dire predictions that there would be poony poo piling up and that's when the peoria charles and jake frank came into the picture and developed the first gas-powered car in america

. they first started experiment in peoria, however, neighbors and other peorians objected to the sounds of the car because it startled their horses and they also objected to the odor of gasoline to which years later when carlos wrote a letter to shanoot, the father of aviation and complained about -- that they had to change their location of experiments on the car to springfield, massachusetts because of the peorian objection to the odor of gasoline to which shanoot wrote

back that they couldn't belief they actually preferred the thing behind a horse, but the experiment started in peoria and certainly contributed to the final which was the first car. >> just to get a backed who were the dire brothers? >> who were they? they were two brothers born and raised just outside of peori and they both had an engineering mind. both -- specially charles, charles started in the bicycle business and had several patents for bicycles in the late 1800's and jay frank, his younger brother was a more of the -- could take the engineering

aspects and creativity of his brother and translate into a mechanical and so was national progression . henry ford himself thought that it was an engineering marvel, however, the brothers were not henry ford when it comes to car production and built very few cars, so had they been more like henry ford, peoria would have been in the driver seat in the car industry. and another opportunity in the educational realm for peoria in

late 1800's where washington, became a phonetic advocate for education and in the late 1800's he changed his will to endow a university that he wanted to call corrington university as long as there would be no football team. when he died in 1903 and his children discovered the contents of the will, they protested his will and saying that their father was addled when he made

the will and part of the addling that -- and so the court decided with the children and he lost another chance at a university. however, part of that will still exists today in that there's no college football in peoria. >> so what do these stories tell us about peoria? >> well, an appreciation that the town of peoria is not some kind of a bland backwater community and that this town is vibrant and has plenty of entertainment -- entertaining folks, plenty of innovation and just because they do not aspire

to be a metropolitan area like chicago or st. louis, doesn't mean that they cannot be proud of themselves. i think the book shows amply that some of the missed chances just were not of their doing, just it happened. and that the main thing is just to be proud of what you have and happy with what you have and i think the town has that. i think that they're not interested in being a new york and -- but the perception nationally is that the phrase meaning average american as if the average person isn't worth listening to. i think he is.

>> book tv is on the campus of bradley university to visit special collections to learn about abraham lincoln and the books he read. >> well, we are taping from the library room in the alumni campus in peoria, illinois, we have the collections of bradley universities, of course, we have collections of the year books, the school newspapers, catalogs and some of the personal items of the founder lydia moss bradley. collection that is we are talking about today came to us from many different donors, we are going to be concentrating on the lincoln collections today. the houser collection came to us from a local noted lincoln scholar, martin luther houser and started life out as a school teacher in a rural community but

his family ancestry had ties to abraham lincoln which spurred his lifelong interest and in 1950 he donated the lincoln connection to the library here on campus which had built the first edition to our present library building and it was housed in the special lincoln room on the upper floor of the library, so i thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the materials that he use today educate himself because he was primarily a self-educated man. of course, having the print image that was used in 1860 campaign presidency available, i thought that was a good visual to share with public. i brought some of the books that lincoln read that are part of the martin houser collection and

special collections here at bradley university to share with you. martin houser was an expert on researching the education of abraham lincoln. he was primarily a self-educated man and he collected the same addition of copies of books that lincoln would have had access to in his education and i brought examples today. the revised laws of indiana 1824. he was able to borrow this book. it was probably the first law book, statute book that lincoln was exposed to and as we all know he was a practicing attorney later and this this is adult life. the nicholas pike arithmetic, i will go ahead and open it, it's

pretty fragile. what was important is he had the same edition of the books that lincoln read. so this is a new and complete system of arithmetic. as you can see it's from 1809 so 19th century items and lincoln's father thomas always told lincoln to learn his ciphers. lincoln was also a surveyor and one of the early works that he came in contact with which helped him learn that trade was gibson surveying and i brought a copy of these same edition that lincoln would have had access to .

the practice of surveying by gibson 1811. this is a complicated book as far as mathematics goes. it contained a lot of mathematics table. this book is part of his education would have been very critical. these particular books are important because they are represented of the same editions that lincoln would have had access to. at one point mr. houser did have access to one of the books that lincoln read and those are quite rare and quite difficult to obtain and he settled for other copies of the same editions because he was very interested in how lincoln went from basically pioneer life to becoming president of the united states and he was very eloquent speaker in his life and how did this come about on a frontier

where he lived in a log cabin and didn't have access to formal education. there's some other examples here also. this is a copy of guide to english tongue. actually the very first spelling book that lincoln was exposed to and this one, i do believe dates back even a little bit further. we couldn't find the copyright here. 1791. later on he would have had a copy of the webster's dictionary on display back here. lincoln also served as a soldier of black hawk war in 1882 in

illinois and known to have read the biography of black hawk during his early education and there are other books also on display. the connection includes actually a musical book that's quite interesting. this is the missouri harmony of 1836 and it said thatlingon would gather with the other people at the tavern and they would sing songs. different notes were depicted in different shapes, squares, triangles or circles and it helped people to read the music without having access to musical instruments. sacred harp music.

if you see the movie called mountain, then you have seen examples of sacred harp singing. link open would gather at the people in new salem and use the missouri harmony book to sing in part cappella and lincoln was not a very good singer. a person from central illinois at the time period of lincoln was dr. robert and the objects that i gathered with me here today all relate to lincoln's relationship with dr. bowl. at the time he knew lincolned he lived in lake illinois.

he met abraham lincoln in 1842. some of the documents relates to correspondence that lincoln wrote back in dr. bowl in response to letters sent from dr. bowl to lincoln. we would look at a brief example here. this is the letter of september 14th, 1856 from linkon to bowl. he had been invited to speak at a rally and this is the response that he will be there if he can, in fact, he did come and represent the political party at the lake and passed through peoria on his way there. the second letter i brought an example of is a little bit longer in length.

bowl was the speaker of the house, representative and lincoln encouraged bowl to speak with chicago congressman issac what -- arnold and persuade that he could do more than in the speaker seat . ultimately neither dr. bowl nor arnold won the seat as it went to a democratic candidate. this is a notebook that lincoln came during the run for senate in 1955 and contains in lincoln's handwriting the names of all the legislators.

in 1860 when abraham lincoln became the republican party nominee for the presidency, it became necessary to clean up lincoln's image as a frontier frontiersman. photographer which had taken a portrait which you're probably familiar with. now with the political campaign eminent, it became necessary for a new image of abraham lincoln. lincoln was a busy man so hesler came to make new images of abraham lincoln. but hessler print which is reproduced here is one of those images, originally glass plates

were taken, unfortunately the two that still survived under the smithonian institute were chattered. prior to that time, he hessler had made images, two of which came to the historical society which placed them on deposit here at bradley university. as you can see in the portrait here lincoln has his hair combed and suit pressed and looks distinguished, although with a little bit roughens around the edges he did make a good image for political ribbons and campaign posters of the time to be distributed during 1860 campaign and this became a very famous image of mr. lincoln. image of lincoln proved successful in the use -- for the

use of campaign memorabilia. beardless clinton because he didn't grow his beard after he was in the white house. bradley university is proud to have items in our collection to preserve them for prosperity and make them available for both use locally and on a wider perspective for researchers and students interested in the legacy of abraham lincoln and how it relates to peoria history. >> when i tune it into the weekends it's authors sharing new releases. >> watching the nonfiction authors on book tv is the best television for serious readers. >> on c-span they can have a longer conversation and delve into the subject. book tv weekends, they bring you

author after author that spotlight the work of fascinating people. >> the federal government's war on crime had control, one that signals the americans and industries that support this regime of control are among the essential characteristics in the late 20th century, the decisions that policy makers and officials acting in close circles, made at the highst levels of government had a measurable consequences however, unintended some of the choices may have been a different times and in different political moments. ultimately, however, fixated on policing of urban space and

removing men of color to live inside of prisons. from fully realizing the promise of founding principles. until recently the war on outcrimes have gone unnotice. the united states had to move beyond race-base systems of exploitation. along side the tremendous growth of law enforcement over the last 50 years, a black middle class surfaced and african-americans assumed position of power to display of black wealth to presidency of barack obama. these achievements promoted cultures of pathology and even further making it seem as though the systematic incarceration of

entire groups of racially reflected. some black americans have amassed substantial wealth does not mean that historical racism and enyaulty has not ended and, of course, it's not new news for many of you today. african americans grew more affluent and the highers fifth of black american households were 7,004 forty-eight dollars. only 4 forty-eight dollars above that. and the black middle class has been tie today domestic spending . critical reforms have been

negated by national crime priorities remains unrecognized. for instance, nine years after the passage of voting rights act, the dawn of mass incarceration, unconstitutional to deny convicts to deny to wrote. today nearly 6 million americans, most who have served their sentences are deprived of the franchise. as a result of the racial disparities in american policing and criminal justice practices, estimating one out of 13 african americans will not vote in 2016 election due to a prior conviction. because of the set of policies behind it, a key civil rights gain of 1960's has come undone and we go on and on. make it questionable situation worse, the u.s. census counts people ens cars rated in state and federal pizes as residents

of the country where they are serving time and sentence count return representation. so although rural areas are home to minority population but the majority of prisons. in other words urban americans who favor democrats lost representation because of disenfranchisement and rural districts that tend to favor republicans, gained representation because of how the prison system works. meanwhile as mobility remains stagnant, public schools and urban areas are segregated today than civil rights movement. you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org.

>> she's interviewed by paula, former secretary of global affairs. >> mary, you've written a really terrific book and on the back joe says, mary thompson joans has used wikileaks cables and america's foreign policy disconnect, why did you write this book? >> thank you very much. i admired your career all of the time. i know firsthand what my colleagues do and the wikileaks releases which was not intentional as part of the government and something that nobody that had imagined, gave us a unique opportunity what