continue to tell the story of american publishing and you can find all these books and many many more here today. we are a bookstore so the books are for sale but we also encourage housing and encourage people coming and discovering and just learning about the history of publishing, learning about the history of harrisburg and america. over the past centuries we very much see the future as bookstores as returning, we've moved particularly into a physical space because that's where people want to speak and talk about their books and even if you acquire them online you still want to have them with other people and that's the kind of thing that a bookstore coffeehouse, bookstore, cafc is able to bring to the public. >> c-span is visiting harrisburg pennsylvania.

we are on the bridge that current connects midtown area it up next, we learned about some of the historical events at stake in the city. >>. >> the name is paul's creation. he thought the city could be divided into two halves and the first half he called the city intended, second half the city is intended. the book comes from 120 newspaper columns that paul beers took over a year and it's clear to me that paul intended to be a bunker it would work as a book. he was a columnist for the harrisburg patriot and evening news over 25 years. so at about 3 million words he said when heretired . people read him voraciously. they were always quoting him. he was an outstanding storyteller and that's why this was a natural book area and we wanted to show off paul's, it was always controversial, harrisburg

being the state capital because some people thought the city didn't deserve it. it grew from very little to something noticeable. it was controversial at the outset because they built a wonderful state capital building here and finished in 1906, roosevelt came and said his greatest public building in america were greatest in the capital. but later the architects went through prison because there was corruption involved in the great building of the state capital. the placing of the state capital here after the older state capital had burned down was an engine for other development in the city and that was good for harrisburg. but you will notice if you are looking at the news in philadelphia you listen to the news in pittsburgh, they will say harrisburg is such and such, they don't mean the city. they mean the state

government. that's what it stands for in pennsylvania, this is the state government and the state government is never doing enough for us. you don't live in harrisburg. a fellow said one time about pennsylvania , it was james carville, political consultants. in pennsylvania it's pittsburgh on one end, philadelphia on the other and alabama in the middle. so harrisburg and harris, some of that controversy to that in the middle of the state it's very agricultural and rather conservative and republican and at both ends of the state, it's thoroughly democratic.so that makes harrisburg something of a controversy too. the major industry in harrisburg has always been government. if it weren't for the state capital being here, who knows what harrisburg would be? the river is not deep enough to use for transportation. it is however a transportation nexus for railroads and for highways. a lot of people going west

have to go through harrisburg one way or the other. the state capital being here, always brought people to the city, always gave the city something too, it's a blessing, it's a curse too. politicians will say today the half the property in harrisburg is nontaxable because it's state property. so that's in the harrisburg and at the same time there are a lot of people in the city only because it's the state capital. so it's both ways. after that, after the highways and government, there were factories here around the century. but those have gone away, we should say. there was a steel company a few miles away in steel town, that's just the channel of its former self. there were other factors and factories here that made cotton, nails and made steel. that made iron and those are gone nowadays.

that was harrisburg and it was a thriving industrial city. really from the 1860s and 70s , up until the 1940s and 50s. it was painful for the city to be both a beneficiary of progress and yet a victim of progress too, when they built an interstate highway system around the city, highway 76, 81 and 83, it made it possible to get the city but it also made it possible not to live in the city but to live out in the suburbs. so that both ways for harrisburg. harrisburg has been flooded a number of times. it never flooded the state capital building but it cost money to clean up after those floods, especially in 1936 and 1972 but before 1972

there were 40 something plugs in harrisburg. 1972 was the worst of all. the water was 8 to 10 feet deep in the neighborhood alongside the river. that was a disaster for harrisburg but at the same time, a real leg up for the neighborhood because that's where they redeveloped it. they remodeled and improved the older housing there and build some new housing, it was kind of the demonstration project to show what the city could do after the flood. there was also the cleanup, always the anxiety with another flood come? the history of the city, you can't tell it without telling the history of its love other problems for the harrisburg area in general , you'd have to say three mile island.

notice they don't call it the harrisburg accident and i think they are careful to make it as precise as possible and call at three mile island. called it middletown, there he was five. : harrisburg. that was a challenge, shall we say. although one could argue that it was very important politically and important in terms of public relations but it didn't really hurt the city per se, as a matter of fact middletown may have been more prosperous after the accident and before the cause of many people came into the town it was said to study the accident and spent their money there. prescription drugs, those were more often prescribed after gmi, people were nervous. and that area will always be famous for america's most serious nuclear event.

but it didn't take down the city and it didn't even take down three mile island. one of the reactors was shut down, i think the other one is going to be shut down eventually because it's license will expire. there's a lot of publicity associated with three mile island but when you're talking about the plant itself, it had an effect on the nuclear industry. america has built any nuclear plants in a long time and no doubt that's related to the publicity around tmi and the sense of danger about tmi. but if you are looking for the wasteland that follow the accident, there is no wasteland. some people have said it may be the face safest nuclear power plant in america today because they are watching it so closely. i remembered hearing about the accident while i was driving to school on philadelphia.

i keep driving now, do i go in there? i figured i might as well go because my students are still there, they're going to expect to show up. the school shut down temporarily very soon people were evacuated from the harrisburg area. governor thornburg was an attorney and former engineer and he was one who offered leadership to central pennsylvania at that time and was effective. and there were others who wound up with a good reputation after the event because they govern and advise us widely. i don't think there were any obvious villains after the event unless it was the island itself and the producers of power there. they had to live with that. but you can't talk about harrisburg without talking about the accident, the event, the incident and without talking about the floods. in this sense, harrisburg has

always been the object of certain historical trends. as much as has been the shaper of those historical trends. one complaint about harrisburg's self image is that it is not what it could be. as a matter of fact, after that pronouncement by donald trump that the city was like a warzone , one of the city developers at the present time said this city has too low an opinion of itself. it needs to have an upbeat, progressive attitude about itself. because the city will drive or not depending what is self image is, not just the image of people who live outside the city. anytime people say something about the city, the city listen very closely, i think. both as politicians and its residents. the cause it is controversial. it has changed a good deal

since the 1950s and 60s. there's always been the possibility for optimism and ambition, shall we say. and i think now it's pretty good. i think it was higher during the reagan administration because he was such a proponent of the city and knew the city very well. the current mayor who certainly has a sense of reform and an eager developer of the city, we will see with some of that. i think a lot of the future of the city will depend on how it handles race relations within the city. what all the races do in the city who work together to improve the school system, to improve the residential base of the city, to improve the economy of the city. there are some people who argued when the city was in dire straits that simply should declare bankruptcy.

but it didn't do that, it got some help and other health area it's still in trouble because there is debt there and the problem with the incinerator that's our viewers talk about very entertainingly in his book. there are challenges that have to do with harrisburg simply being harrisburg there's always been a sense of story about harrisburg. the newspaper had historical columnists for years before paul beard. he has been eager to read about himself. being a historian of harrisburg, it's not a weight of one time because there are people who always want to read more about the city, there are websites about harrisburg's history that are really outstanding websites from the old eighth floor, i'm a journalist of the sort, journalist peter kept a diary here