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. >> diane m. with tattered cover and we are exceeded -- excited to welcome nancy cohen author of american eclipses this is an interesting book where the of wild west meets the stars and i was reading about it out interesting 100 years ago was the last time of a total eclipse coast-to-coast ride over colorado but 100 years ago that was a different place. it was the wild west with mitres and cowboys will they wanted to come the issue

tuesday in non the mountains all of a sudden it took on a new place in science it was the beginning of tourism so with all started when we first began to record them i was reading king henry died right after and i thought it was then and now a -- we have another. so it is so exciting if you buy a book tonight you get your very own american eclipse glasses you can safely view the eclipse. it is not right over colorado this time but august 21st.

the best place to see that will be taxable wyoming -- jackson hole wyoming. but as an award winning journalist. david baron. [applause] >> thanks for coming out on this rainy night. i am thrilled i lived in boulder so this is a real gem as the tattered cover bookstore. i would be talking about the eclipse in history in case assume there is one coming up very near future for the first time in 99ers it will cross the country

coast-to-coast it is a big deal. we'll flee by the end you all have plans for the eclipse. how many of you have been planning for least a month? a year? a decade? commandeers?. >> six years. >> not that this is a competition by negative planning 19 years. i had been planning this book 19 years. son wanted to start off. so i did 19 years ago but the start -- the story goes

back further than the average of as i was a science correspondent for npr and a partial solar eclipse was set and how oh the viewers that we emphasize that but a taller solar eclipse is totally different the it a completely obscure the face of the sun creating the most lot inspiring spectacle of all of nature so this astronomer said to me before you die you owe it to yourself to experience a

total solar eclipse. that is shocking but he got my attention so i did some research. if you wait for someone to come she will be waiting a long time. about once every 400 years. and i found out a few years later a total eclipse would cross the caribbean. this is visible in the narrow path of 100 miles wide in february 1988 the path of totality would cross so i thought aruba and figure sounds like a good

trip so i head south to see what would happen. the date of the eclipse of was behind a the hyatt regency on the beach in we were wearing eclipse glasses with a really dark glances so that begins as a partial eclipse so first a look like it had notches and it grew larger and larger than as a crescent but i wouldn't say that it was spectacular. but otherwise it would not have noticed anything unusual. but then before the total eclipse weird being started to happen.

i was of a tropical beach then the wind picks up the colors become lodged in the shadows are strange like somebody turned up the contrast. clearly it is getting dark so it was obvious but then the lights went out. so then they cheer erupted and it took off my glasses now i'm in the total phase it is safe to look with the naked eye. i looked up toward -- supported was dumbfounded. i have lived on earth long enough to know what this guy

looks like. to increase guys danced our skies here was when i had never seen. above a deep purple gray like "twilight." there was 360 degrees is the "twilight" of jupiter in mercury and venus and they were all in a wind -- a space - - hit a line was this thing that looked like a wreath hanging out there and go that is the sun's

outer atmosphere. ditchers do not do that justice. . .

and so that is how i became an eclipse chaser and so this is now how i spend my time getting hard earned money. this would be the book of 2017 because this is when americans actually care about eclipses. so i put the project on hold, went back to radio, wrote another book that does appear

to. i wanted a good eclipse story, something worthy of the book that was entertaining and enlightening and what provided the narrative for me to talk about eclipses and what makes them so interesting and why i am so excited about them and why everyone should go see the one this summer. six years ago i started a look around and it became clear very early on but the best eclipse stories are not from modern times that from the 19th century. because back in the 19th century, total eclipses are not just interesting spectacles. they were important to science.

it was the golden age of expeditions. this was the time when scientists were just starting to unravel the mysteries of the sun. what is this great ball of fire in the sky and inserting studies they could do all of these during the certain total eclip eclipse. it is inconvenient to get to like the antarctica or the middle of the pacific and lost all of three minutes but the nations of europe and the u.s. have put together the expeditions to where they plotted the faith of totality to set up their equipment. they crossed over india and the

eclipse of 1870 went over the mediterranean and each of these has its own cast of characters and interesting science that was being done and the interesting setting. then i came to the eclipse so july, 1878, the path of totality went right down the american frontier across the wild west montana territory to texas. i started looking at what was going on and the first thing i found out which if you look at it you will probably find out the eclipse of 1878 the most notable person that came out was thomas edison was in wyoming on july 29, 1878 to see the total solar eclipse. this was a 31-year-old thomas edison and right after he got

home from wyoming he started work on a new project so between the photograph and delightful he has a trip out west. and of course there is a lot faithere but then i started thinking there were dozens. i started to take a look at what was important for them to and they would say that it is a fascinating time in their life because young thomas edison didn't just see himself as an inventor but a scientist as well and it's different to read about in the biographies because later in life he was not a scientist

they didn't get their hands dirty. but they wanted to respect and wanted to do some basic scientific research so they invented a device that was going to be bigger than the photograph and brought it up to wyoming as a heat detector he was going to use but no one understood what it was to see if it gave off heat rather than white. he was coming out west to show that it was going to be this important new device. another site i came upon that needed to be one of my main characters is a gentleman that back in the era was an

astronomer at the university of michigan known as a planet hunter. there were not that many that had been found. the planet both in order to disarm between mercury and the sons of an effect.

the reason that they thought it existed as because. it was protruding the planet between mercury and the sun because it has to be a hard place near the sun and no one could ever reliably see it but that wasn't a surprise and you can't see it in the daytime because it is lost in the suns player. when you might see it is when it covers up the bright sun and that is during a total solar eclipse.

those are the three main characters against the harvard weekly and august of 1860 showing the eclipse of the rocky mountains and i have to say this is my favorite hearne name is maria mitchell. she had reason to see that in 1847. by 1878 she was a professor of astronomy at the college which was a relatively new college of new york.

it was the kind of treatment the unequal treatment. the astronomer and the other universities were honored to be the author of housing for the scores of accommodation. she slipped on a sofa in the corner of the space that alternately served as the lecturer. when they marked the occasion and the tongue-in-cheek verse they tended to the stores that

had fled but in this sweet chamber ms. mitchell sleeps in a bad. despite her classes at the college administration, mitchell loved her girls and in turn, they adored her. it's from then she took up arms for the women's higher education, a campaign she reached even as the historical opposition to load. in 1873 they were grappling with financial panic. at the pusthe push for the femas and college vocation. especially the reproductive organ to ashraf he.

when the rest of the developmental reproductive system is nearly quite completed produces a change in a woman's character, he wrote, and this included a dropping out of maternal instincts as it appeared from amazonian force. [laughter] such persons are analogous to the sexless class of termites. clark would account for case studies for other schools that became invalid. since he diagnosed the new term they entered the 19th century lexicon. the proponents of the women's education published a barrage of rebuttals in higher learning.

they found a receptive audience that america unfettered by shifting. the civil war had a tragically have a million man but many women unmarried forcing them to enter the workforce. meanwhile, the abolished slavery inspired the women to seek the citizenship including the right to vote and the fury to free the black man. the society was changing so irrevocably that it seeme but tn danger of no longer being women and men would soon be emasculated and ceased to be men. the book foretold this for future. so the society didn't even thi

think. then there were these groups of men out west thomas edison and there were a bunch of u.s. governments put together out west against the female expedition and came to denver. so of course this was a scientific expedition but it was more than that. it was to show the american public that they could be scientists and smart and educated. they could be healthy and i just love this image.

as thomas edison and maria mitchell each of whom were fascinating characters and had e a lot on the line during the eclipse. they have something to prove with secondary characters they came out west for the eclipse as well. the eclipse of 1878 they had a lot on the lines. the world looked down and

determined that the intellectual inability in higuera plus the center of the culture of europe is where most of the literature and art and music and science came from but then there was the small group that were determined to show we could compete on the global stage. total eclipses do not occur all that often and hear a total eclipse so important to science was going to cross our own backyard so they wanted to show the world that we were to be taken seriously and it rallied america around science. i was reading newspaper articles from that time and it's fascinating how they hadn't cared much about science and suddenly the american public wanted them to show the world that we were just as good as those folks in europe.

of course i am fanatical myself about eclipses but there is this built-in drama because the expedition this is something that took years. people were looking forward to it for years and spent months. so at the time of totality the time kind violates and have three full chapters that are just about 1878.

they are the onset of the total solar eclipse. so again a reminder that if you are going to see the eclipse this year during the total eclipse you can and should look if you are not in the path of totality and even if you are in the path of to cover the son is visible from have to use eclipse glasses and even then people used them. they were not up to the modern standards but people took pieces of class and smoked then over flames to make them really dark so folks were watching the partial eclipse through smoked glass. with just a minute to go there is a bizarre phenomenon that

became visible to some. from the viewpoint of edward with the central city colorado across the roof they closed after each other very rapidly seeing about 3 feet the dark van being 6 inches wide and bright. it was reported to be so striking the children ran after it and try to catch up with their hands. it's the same that makes stars twinkle. as it passes through the atmosphere they had been called poetically visible when.

the suns crescent had grown a slender and continued to shrink at the end before vanishing however it produced a final brilliant display and shattered the. there is this a disoriented rapidity that you can lose your eyesight and perhaps sanity. it swallows you, the very ground seems to give away. in the midafternoon july 291878 as the people of southern wyoming claimed the shadow they

withdrew glass from there eyes like none they had ever seen before. [applause] >> i'm happy to take questions about the clips or anything el else. before you ask your questions though the folks at c-span would like to bring a microphone over to you. my question is your background is in journalism. how hard was it to go completely in historian mode and what were the challenges? >> i looked as a journalist for many years. i didn't know what i was doing at first when i discovered a lot of the documentation is held at the national archives.

do i need to show i have a phd in history before the end? of course not. sign up for a researcher card and they like you and. i was holding the papers of alexander grant in my hand at one point but it was a lot of work to figure out where the various archives were and going through boxes of handwritten letters at first it seemed daunting independent became tremendous fun because it was a treasure hunt.

wait for the microphone in the back if you would. >> my grandmother was the class of 1914 so she would have loved it. he crossed the atlantic and the ocean 100 times. what i love about eclipses.

it's the same experience today. there were studies that they wanted but they were just genuinely excited. i would thank you for your -- >> the newspaper thought it was newsworthy to say about the incredible dedication.

where are you going to see this coming up? spinet august 2017 i will be in jackson and i'm glad i did. it's beautiful up teatime but i made my reservations now i'm happy to be in jackson.

expect this traffic. wyoming i'm sure would it be worse than it ever had and it's going to be crazy. i called them about three years ago and said i'm getting ready for the eclipse and they said what eclipse so i've been on the committee ever since working with them and preparing everything and like you said the state patrol is concerned because are estimating half a million people coming into

nebraska to try to get into that 70 miles so it is going to be quite a circus but it's wonderful that so many people are wanting to share this special time in science. >> i think we just have to accept that august 21, no one is going to get anything done and it is going to be insanity and a lot of places there will be terrible traffic so first of all anyone going to see the eclipse should be as self-sufficient as possible. make sure the car has as much gas as you can put in the tank, have water and food and be prepared the cell phone towers may be overwhelmed and you may find you can't make calls from many paths of totality.

i just have to speculate they were going to study the spectrum raised and things like that there's going to be some change. during the total solar eclipse back then it enables you to determine the chemical elements in the sun and that is how helium was found in the sun and hydrogen and solar atmosphere

but i don't think that ought to be affected. if it's over a million degrees is accelerated into space where all of that comes from. there are basic questions people are trying to answer.

they submit the drawings to washington because it wasn't that good at the time. now with smart phones. now they can behind it. it is into a continuous movie of what it looked like over the entire hour and a half to move from oregon to south carolina. it's how to predict eclipses so

it's after the period of 18 years. it will repeat itself in the planet so in effect the eclipse that is coming up in august so i thought the same eclipse in munich in 1999 it's part of a same. it is the same shape but you'll see across the united states. so ancient cultures figured out this cycle. so they knew that if you solve the eclipse sometimes the weather anyouwouldn't because ie

wrong side of the planet but they figured out the patterns. they were able to map the path of totality. it would probably come at a certain date to map this specific requires a detailed understanding so that didn't come along until centuries ago. i was happy as we corresponded you mentioned they were coming out to the expedition that was there in front of the hospital. we couldn't find a whole lot of information about them unfortunately, that i was happy to see that.

>> they were helped in st. joseph's home. >> and they are still here today. >> the sisters of charity of leavenworth used to say they were in touch and writing my speed to a plan on serving tea [inaudible] you focus on these three groups.

how do you throw out what you found intriguing. i never even mentioned that the guys book. he went to see the eclipse in texas. he went on to become a professor at amherst college in massachusetts and later on would go to see many total eclipses around the world. he was madly in love with mabel loomis and they were writing these love letters back and forth. he couldn't bear to be away from

her in texas just because he loved her so much he needed to go there. she soon became mabel loomis todd and she is best known today as he person that edited and published the poetry of emily dickinson and later wrote total eclipses of the sun and is well known for touring with the older brother and so there's all this great gossip but in the end david todd is an interesting guy but the most important to me is my main characters had the eclipse of 1878 and in the end really didn't.

yes, one more question. you have a couple of mentioning this but i wonder did he get interested i know there is a quote about i came in with haley's comet. can you tell us about that? he was prominent second 1878 and unfortunately he wasn't in america at the time of the eclipse. i had hoped he had seen or commented on it but he came out with a connecticut yankee in king arthur's court. and i don't know whether it

inspired him at all i think the story that he tells is where the character is trying to escape by predicting the sun is going to go away but he knew that because he had an almanac that told him that it was going to happen. columbus had an almanac that told him a solar eclipse was going to happen. he said if you don't help me with what i need to do, i am going to turn them in to blood red and sure enough it did turn to blood red. but they have been inspired by the eclipse even though he didn't see it.

thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

i have a couple books on my list. one was the nightingale about women resisting the nazi rule during world war ii and some of their efforts to try to help the resistance. the book i'm in the middle of now is option b. how to build resiliency and deal with loss and find joys in life by sheryl sandberg who lost her husband a little of her year ago.

that has been a very eye opening book. one of the books i'm currently reading with my 8-year-old son are the graphic models by john lewis that talk about the civil rights movement and my son is transfixed by the stories in the book talking about how people fought for civil rights and equal would be in this country. one of my favorite authors i'm looking forward to reading this book. it is the fight for freedom so i will be reading