the human service is very effective. we need to take it seriously. >> the cia for over 30 years. a copy of his new book. thank you so much. >> thank you, nice to be here. >> on "afterwards" university, she explores in america in her book, the cigarettes. she's interviewed by former fda commissioner, david. >> at the turn of the 20th century and the early 1900 what's considered something almost un-american. it was a right of the foreign born. the movement of the first two decades of the 20th century kind of road a wave of eight of his him and thinking about what

type of behavior is appropriate for nativeborn helping americans. >> watched "afterwards" tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern on book tv on c-span2. >> charles is a professor of history at san francisco state university. he is a scholar and elected to the society of american historians in 2018. his book, published in 2007, about the popular roles of the 1890s, frederick jackson turner award from american historians. his new book, equality and american dilemma, 1866 -- 1896 as about the powerful struggles for equality unleashed by the civil war. now, you did not need to take my word for how wonderful it is because crystal of yale

university had this to say. equality is deeply researched, beautifully written of the epic struggle to find the meaning of equality in post- civil war of america. this magnificent portrait, the women unit and it's filled with the social movement that took root during the reconstruction. confronting some of the most difficult questions of american history, new dimensions of our understanding of the racial, gender and equalities that continue to shape our political landscape. please join me in welcoming doctor charles. [applause] >> thank you, susan. thanks for people coming, this is wonderful. i think one of the reasons to

come to an event like this is you get to read meet the author but the purpose for me, it offers a chance to get an idea of where it was coming from. what's the.of the book? history books really aren't about the past and all, they are really about the present. the context in which the book was written, influences on the writer who put it together and make no secret of this, this book was written after the financial crisis of 2007, 2008. it was written in context of occupy wall street and the questions about the economic inequality in the u.s. it was written in the context of ferguson and black lives matter and russians operational justice and equality in america. towards the end of this book and

putting the book together, the women's movement happened. the role of president trump and the "me too" movement. i'm a historian of political ideas. i'm interested in social movements and ideas generated by social movements. i'm particularly interested in the intersects of how you think about the relationship for the struggle for economic equality and sexual equality and racial equality. how do those things fit together so that's where this book was written. it was my mental agenda that i went through this material. the really great thing about this, when i was starting the

social movements unleashed by the smashing of slavery and racial equality at the end of the civil war. this. unleashed a tidal wave of claims for equality and equal rights in the u.s. after americans are fighting to make freedom realized in equal status within the u.s., protection of loss, access to politics and the judicial system americans are setting up equal rights leads and setting up on that front. but in their struggle they push the question of equality into the center of american life. we have a 1868, the 14th amendment which is the first time in american history we have the constitution actually protecting equal rights in american society.

equal rights for men which is a problem but nonetheless, equal rights protection measure in the constitution. so this claim for equality or centered on the african-american struggle for freedom, many other constituencies and groups have their own things. the most important included the farmers movement. it was still largely agricultural society and world society. there's the women's movement, sexual equality. there's labor movement. they were soured to have equality between capital and labor. so please tidal waves of social movements and for me, for my purpose, this is a great laboratory for thinking about these relationships. between the different struggles for equality and how the fit together or maybe how they don't.

one way to think about this is perhaps people acquainted with stories of this is the time of individual struggle and individual success. this is the period of mark twain's gilded age. the rise of the corporation and the rise of that. normally don't think about the post civil war years, this was a moment in american history. he time when equality was taken very seriously. i think it's another way to think about it.

can i just stop for a moment and invite people to sit down? i would like it if people would sit down. we are confronted with one thi thing, what does equality mean? part of the problem is there's meanings of equality. i wanted to.out, at the end of the civil war, there's one concept of equality that was widespread. that's basically abraham think it's ideal of what lincoln described as equal privileges in the race of life. another way, equality of opportunity. that was a widespread ideal in the u.s. at that time.

what's interesting about the postwar decades is the extent to which americans viewed that principal and it's a sham if you don't also have measures to have equality of condition. unless you have measures and equality of circumstances, you cannot have equality of opportunity. that gives equality a very elastic rod form. people want substantial equality. not just words but actual practical equality into that meant egalitarian moments. there's another quality, to fight for these things americans were rightly aware you do that on your own. these are matters of combination it if you were going to have

equality, you have to have solidarity. you have this millions of americans join associations. they join clubs. they build cooperative societies. this is a period of combination and solidarity. there were three really big ones. national, cover the country and probably had the most power in a political sense and in terms of sheer influence in society. that's the subject in my book. the farmers range husbandry. the knights of labor. these are funny names. i accept that they are weird names for being important organizations. i would like to rename them as a general organization of farmers or the national organization of women general organization of

labor but i'm not going to use those names so that's essentially what they were in many ways. the power of these movements and similar movements, i think make this not only a egalitarian moment in history but a collectivist moment in american history. so there's a lot to be said in terms of positive. those are ideas of, we could use equality and solidarity right now in america. we could use a big dose of it. it should be pointed out though, in the beginning, much of this impulse and solidarity was fractured, sometimes you think it's aligned and sometimes they

didn't. sometimes they crashed. the results were disastrous. the results as part of how we can explain how this great collective moment resulting at the end of us. is the period of jim crow in america. chinese exclusion and other extraordinary measures of inequality against people of color in particular. let's start with the grange. it's an interesting creature. the grange was founded in a federal office building in washington d.c. in 1867. it was founded by six federal

employees, bureaucrats. clerks and administrators which is an interesting way to think about a national organization of farmers. it was formed as russian bureaucrats. we always think there's always this story of farmers against washington. that's not how the great reformed. if formed in a federal office building and the imagination and plan is that it would be part of the department of agriculture. headquartered in the department of agriculture in washington. that never happened but it does become the national organization of farmers. this formed in 1967 -- 18. it spread across the state in places like nebraska, a majority

of farmers were members of the grange. in places like mississippi or south carolina, a majority of white farmers remember the grange. in california valleys, farmers belong to the grange. it was both a meeting place, a social society and also a class organization to serve the interest of farmers. it had a egalitarian vision, a whole series of questions. the most striking laws called sexual equality. it advocated for the women's vote in women joined the grange in large numbers. there is no question and women's equality was important.

it's fighting for equality of farmers within economy. the grange was the dominant antimonopoly force in american society. it was a force fighting against wall street and corporate power and for egalitarian economy that no longer discriminates against the nation farmers. that's what it's known for, efforts were regulating railroads, controlling the economy in positive ways. structure for americans farmers. some of the story i knew before researching but the big story that i didn't know, it raises a core piece of this book, the role of the farmers range in a defeat of reconstruction at the end of the civil war. reconstruction.

roughly the end of the civil war when there was experience informing governments across the former confederacy in multi racial or by egalitarian government where african-americans had a right to vote, protection of the law and participate as full citizens. these reconstruction experiments were attacked ferociously by former slave owners, by white power. they unleashed the ku klux klan in massive rates of terror against reconstruction experiments. to keep them going, the federal government intervened.

they occupied the former confederacy and took measures to protect these experiments against terror. so this important thing is happening in the south, in the context is national debate about what would be african-americans place in american society. what happens as you would expect that across the midwest where there were many supporters of lincolns republican party for the many veterans in the civil war who fought against slavery abolitionist and strong in places like minnesota or michigan or other places or oh ohio, i figured there would be a strong legacy among farmers in the sense of support radical reconstructions. and there was but what happens is the grange was organized with

specific purpose of bringing the country back together again and healing the wounds of the civil war. that's what they said their first purpose was. the farmers across that line in a common struggle against corporate monopoly. that's what they said they were going to do. i was the purpose of the grange. the one who said shakespeare didn't actually write shakespeare. fantastic stories. he's quite a character. this book is full of characters in that way but he was the leader of the grange in minnesota. he articulated positions, he had been a radical republican, i radical meant you were for

racial equality. i was the definition in 1865 or 1867. someone who favored racial equality. he had been in congress and fought the good fight for racial equality and had been a radical republican. by 1871, he joined the grange and he decided that the real fight is no longer for black rights. that's been settled because you have the 13th amendment and 14th amendment guaranteeing equality before the law in the 15th amendment in 1870 which gives voting rights to black men. so he says the fight for racial equality is over. today's fight is against wall street and monopoly. the days of fighting for rights of black men are over.

now is the rights of the white man for slavery. he leads the grange into forming and defeating any politicians who favors reconstruction. the slogan is, we will defeat federal reconstruction and monopoly. pappy comes the grange. in places like ohio, which is a swing state, it's always been a swing state. the grange has 75000 numbers and forming a block that says look, if the government and any politician who supports reconstruction is over. so think this is an important thing to think about, that farmers democracy is the up

spelling from below. it's making it impossible for politicians to continue with the policy of radical reconstruction. what happens is people in the north and west, there's this block against in the name of fighting monopoly. the fight against corporate power. this is in california and the rangers would meet pigments in support of the struggle to overthrow the bifacial government in the south. in the name of equality of the farmers and equality of farmers.

>> for black people on farms not having any rights, not only did they not have rights but the kkk is wreaking havoc. they are making the 14th and 15th amendment questionable. so that's exactly the contents. however, this is explained how it works, it's one of the most interesting, it's sort of like revelations. no one has extorted before, there was this argument that farmers, it's only essentially white farmers. if they were being oppressed,

i'll give you an example. after the civil war, congress passed a tax. it was a tax to make the people who reached the civil war pay for any small degree so they had to pay something called a context. while it ended. in the 1870s, the grangers campaign for reparations, so the federal government would pay them back for that context. [inaudible]

>> you could put it that way. in essence, they are trying to unify the country on the basis of white solidarity. you're not going to say bad things about black people at all. it's not divisive language. that's not the language he uses. his language is, we need solidarity against corporate power. thus the language of it. it's mainly focusing on the railroads, telegraphs also whole marketing system in which they are working. we can go further on this but that is the gist of it.

i've said this, i don't think you hear donnelly using racially language in that way. he wasn't a demagogue, he wasn't talking about black people. most of the grangers i've read, that's not the language they are using. we are using the language of we need solidarity against corporate power. as the language they are using. that's in the north. as in california. in mississippi and south carolina, the grange is exactly what you are suggesting. grangers often were the supremacists. was even a group in some places where they were the ku klux klan. in this very bland language of monopoly, they are playing right into the hands in support of these people.

i want to turn to the women's movement. there's people who make me aware of this fact but the abolitionist movement was a biracial movement that was fighting for equality of black men or african americans and women. that was the platform of the abolitionist movement. after the civil war, set coalition splits and the division is basically the women's movement led by elizabeth and susan b anthony. split with this coalition on the grounds that the 14th and 15th amendment gave rights to black men but not white women. they formed a national women's association suffrage movement at 12 known and names probably well

known. elizabeth and susan b anthony infamously joined white supremacist campaigns to strip black people of the vote and other civil rights in the name, women don't have rights in the constitution so white women don't so black women shouldn't either. [inaudible] [inaudible question] >> i think that might be a good answer. [inaudible question] there's a basis for this. i do think it was -- they aligned with the most extreme racist campaigns against black rights.

there's a much bigger story here in terms of women's movement. a much bigger strike that i don't think is told. i don't think people may be acquainted with. the women's christian temperance union. it was normally a campaign to shut down alcohol, causa nature of its campaigns. it was a christian campaign, whinge women's christian temperature. but it was a much bigger movement than that. a much more expensive movement than that. a woman named francis who was probably the most influential women of the late 19th century. much more influential and susan

b anthony. her organization was ten times the size of the suffered organization. a much bigger phenomenon. francis was not just some narrow prism, she was an expensive egalitarian who believed in broad human equality. she had a policy called do everything, do everything policy of trances and under this, w ctu fought for divorce laws, child labor laws, age of consent laws, property rights, women's political rights in terms of voting rights and also was labor rights and made alliances with the labor movement and toward

the end of her career, francis was a soft described socialist and this was her vision. she had a vision of sexual and human equality and interestingly, the w ctu is quite different because it was also a place where african-american women entered the w ctu to fight for an intersectional equality of race and gender, the most famous women of this was francis harp harper. in abolitionist, she was very well known poet in the literature figure. african american women. she joins to rage the campaign for women's equality and sexual equality. very articulate ways, too. this is an important part of the

legacy of the wctu. at the same time, francis harp harper, african-american woman who fights for sexual and racist equality. in the head of the wctu, francis has big political ambitions. she's a charismatic, powerful and dynamic woman. she has ambitions of turning the wctu into a political party with political power. she recognizes the only way to do that is to make bridges with the white women of the formal confederacy. you have this dynamic on the one hand, profoundly social movement taking place and on the other hand, politically she's following the path of the range. the power is achieved to forming

alliances with the white folks of the formal confederacy. frances willard and renal davis was the wife of jefferson davis. the president of the former confederacy. the name of six sisterhood, equality of women requires the women of sisterhood and is a solidarity of women. without the solidarity with african-american women of the south in which they can place them, becomes subject to subordinate it to the political alliance. finally, one final movement. rights of river. worked in pennsylvania, he's probably the most egalitarian of any figures that i studied. he built up the knights of lab

labor, has an organization that transcended skill and native born and immigrant workers he demanded black and white workers have equal position within the heights of labor. describes the labor as the organization of the american working class as a whole because it embodies everybody. within that context, by opening the door to egalitarian membership, by the late 1880s, it was the organization of the black poor of the south. dishwashers, servants, writing labor in large numbers. call minders and the knights of labor.

that said, you have this phenomenon, its opposition to chinese labor. which is a very important thing. this was a fatal flaw that will seek, this was a disaster for them in many ways. but that is the way it worked. in the early 1890s, these social movement converged into what was known as a congress of industrial organizations. they formed a people's party which is what we call populism. populism really marks the high. >> , the cresting of this egalitarian wave after the civil war. the populist movement could not

escape these conflicting visions of equality and a centrally torn apart by that. frances willard and wctu was part of the founding of the people's party. the people's party said no, our demand has to be first against anti- monopoly and now limits right. the women pulled out of the people's party. similarly, the black workers were sacrificed in the interest of the white farmers and african-americans mainly stood apart from the people's party and populism. that's sort of where the story ends. this cresting of the wave but the problems of what equality means remain enforced.

three takeaways. the first one is, these i think may be helpful for thinking about the political moment. the first big take away his equality is real in america. we always hold that americans believe in individual is him, high quality. i don't buy it. i think it's something americans care deeply about and fought hard over and still care deeply about and fight for. that's the first thing. the second think, equality is obligated. look at the present dominating process that the democratic's party, all the candidates have ideas about equality. but they are actually different ideas and how they fit together i think is still complicated.

equality is complicated. my third point is a take away in terms of, i think it's sort of a hopeful takeaway, i think. the instigation of the knights of labor, something called fusion took place in north carolina in the 90s. infusion was a process where antimonopoly farmers, populist farmers might antimonopoly farmers, joined together with african-american republicans who are fighting for equal rights and equal status in north carolina. the drink together to fuse politically, to drive out what was called the conservative corporate corrupt regime in

north carolina. that fusion was successful. it brought about public schools and all kinds of things favorable to both white farmers and african-americans fighting for civil rights. fusion was real. the key thing to think about that is these white farmers and african-american activists did not necessarily agree on what equality meant. they agreed they needed to align to defeat the conservative corporate power. they were successful. temporarily successful. in 1898, the white conservatives could not defeat this coalition at the pulse so instead of dealing with the polls, they organized white mobs that descended north carolina, which is the center of the fusion

government and ransacked the city and drove out the fusion politicians. some say we don't know how many were killed but dozens and perhaps hundreds were killed in the white supremacy campaign and restored white conservative power. that doesn't mean fusion was hopeless. it did tell us something about how you might think about aligning different notions of equality. i will stop there, i hope you have questions. >> i think you are at heart, more than optimist than i am. it depresses me that so much of what they were trying to do 150 years ago, we are still trying

to even barely get right today. do you have anything we will one day get right? can you give me an example of a culture country that has succeeded in these efforts? >> that's heavy. really heavy. i can give you examples where i think things have been done. i think that fusion government north carolina, you may have heard of the monday movement. i think he's onto something. he says the point isn't that we agree, it's that we should combine. i like that. i think that is a hopeful moment. has there been.where we have done that? yes. how other people and societies succeeded? yes. do i hope hope it's going to happen soon?

i'm a historian. i'm bowing out. i don't know anything about the future. >> make it seemed like the corporation, everyone against them, what kind of control do they have on the everyday person's life? why do they even know about them? >> i think that's a good question in the sense that i don't think everyone was rebelling against monopolies. i don't think the w tcu was that interested in the monopolies in that way. i don't think equal rights was focused on monopolies in that way.

the antimonopoly think was very much a thing for farmers. in a sense for the labor movement. for the farmers, it was a question of the ability to get their crops to market, to be able to get there inputs to grow their crops. it was essential for livelihoo livelihoods, relationships with these big corporations. the great grain elevators were powerful corporations. you couldn't tell grain if you are a kansas farmer that doesn't go through those elevators. the granger laws aimed at regulating the elevators. so it was not a universal physical. it was a farmers principal. i think the labor movement takes up a -- a section picks up the labor issue and also for related reasons but they are also

fighting directly against corporations and it works in a direct campaign. >> there's no consensus in the late 19th century as to what equality meant, really. there's really no one now. if you were to kind of look at the difference between what we think of equality today versus a 19th century, i'm thinking about women and the idea in the 19th century was probably not, when they thought of equality of the sexes, they were not thinking of it the same as many of us think today. i don't think.

the women necessarily work thinking they were going to be on corporate boards or that sort of thing. >> wright, ms. equality, you have to dial back to how unequal the sexist work. women had no property rights or voting rights, they had restricted professions or extraordinary, no access to education in many cases. they have no rights to their sojourn in divorce. it was extraordinary in the inequalities. i think you're quite right, when they campaign for equality for women's rights, they tended to be, to overthrow this incredible injustice.

at the same time, there is literature within, which i think we would think is relatively -- where it touched on the issues you are talking about, there really is no distance between men and women. there was an important granger and she was a socialist. influential in these movements. she really did believe the division between men and women should be abolished through collective housework, we should have places where cafeterias were abolished.

everyone should have access to all types of employment and possibilities. she's an important granger from the get-go. she's one of the people pushing the grange to have an egalitarian position. she campaigns that the grange has to stop having coffee at the meetings because women and absorbing the coffee. i think that is a modern sensibility and she was there from the get-go. she's eating social literature about ms. equality in the 1860s. so it's complicated but you are right, their demands and slogans are very straightforward. dry divorce? >> you listed three different at

the time would you say there are three comparable groups now? >> i think if you flip to the last words of the book, i found many things comparable, just today reporting record levels of inequality, not registered. we have a severe crisis of sexual equality. the thing about the person sitting in the oval office i don't loan any other measures. i the many of these are comparable and functioning in ways. one of the things we don't have that i think if we don't have an

association where these things are worked out, i think that's the last sentence, we need to give attention, is there a collective way to thinking about resolving these problems? so that's a great question. it's one i wish i had an answer to. >> can you talk a little bit about the process of researching the project this extensive? where do you start and how do you do it? >> it takes a long time. while research is changing. the first big chunk of research came from visiting the archives.

the granger's archives are in the folds of libraries. traveling to cornell and camping out there and going in there every day and taking notes. that's where you find it. the same applied traveling to the iowa state historical society and other places, old-fashioned notetaking in the archives. but there's a problem going on for researchers today. that is a great day of documentation is digital now. my problem is literally data management because there are thousands and tens of thousands of documents relevant to my book that previously would have requited a trip to the archive and getting out your fellow pad and writing it out. right now, it's just there at

your fingertips. so processing that copies of documents from 1870 -- 1880s. the minutes of meetings of organizations, that has changed research. i don't think it makes it easi easier, it just makes it different. i did spend a lot of time with documents still in film. has anyone used microfilm? all the documents are still, almost all of them are still microfilm. so those are three sources. microfilm, archives and swamped with information that is now digitized. that's why i took nine years to do this.

>> this has to do with dilemma. >> i was surprised, too. bringing it to the present, we have these different movements like black lives matter. different movements and i know you don't want to be descriptive but the gentleman back here was getting to this question as we well, do you see -- i don't know how to put this. there's this tendency to get into binary -- antiwhite the premises him and quite national movement, that kind of thing.

then everything else. is there a way to find a thread for this commonality of people toward equality that you are talking about? >> you see in this literature, you see it in people like maria and the grange and frances willard in the wctu. this impulse toward a universal human equality. egalitarian dream. some of it, the most sophisticated is francis harper, african-american abolitionist.

she gives a really profound notion of human solidarity and equality. that's where my heart is, that's what i would like. the problem is that at this. >> , it is fracturing. it takes more subtle forms today than what i described but it's still there. so the only thing i can say is that in the meanwhile, what do you do. in the meanwhile, people who believe in the quality better get on the same page against forces of inequality. i think that's however you think about that, i think there's a story there.

>> i applaud your work. there's at least three different groups that do have a common purpose and they may not be able to see it. >> you seem to focus on these groups who ended up it seemed like a way from the original mission and going up the white power people so there must have been other groups who are not doing that. who -- african-americans didn't just go away after harriet tubman. there had to have been more movement going on that countered some of that, i would think. >> yes, you will see that in the story. she doesn't give up, the great

crusader against lynching, she doesn't give up but she said -- there's a story in the book, which some of you may be acquainted with, frances willard is a global sensation. she goes to england and people pour into her lectures and she's talking about women's equality and she's and adored figure in england. she's a black woman whose campaigning against lynching in the u.s. she's from the south, she's exiled from the south. she spending a lot of time in the england and people are listening to her. if it's such a big deal, why doesn't francis talk about it? she says that's because she is

an apologist. this causes a protocol. it's like a trans atlantic. when it reflects is the room for activism is narrowing. there's no place for someone like francis harper any longer. it's becoming a narrower white group. african-americans of course they find different ways and avenues but their possibilities are getting shot down. this is what historians refer to as american nations. it's after the 90s that african americans lose that. all of these groups no longer recruit men to vote against alcohol because they no longer vote. the same applies for the people's party, it is shutting

down. so this is a very tough time. it doesn't mean they stop but they are working in the very tough circumstances. my book ends before we get there. one more question. >> i'm thinking about the contemporary movement as well as what happening in other countries. i wonder to what extent, the very institution or machinery that's supposed to ensure equality, namely democracy itself is a factor or is causing equality. by asking back, i'm wondering if what extent the majorities in the 1880s and 90s, therefore easily fought back into a white

majority and white nationalism. >> that is part of the problem, constructing political majorities pushes you toward a white nationalism. a white majority that is a very distinct issue. i actually think just the arithmetic of how race worked toward white supremacy, throughout this period in terms of the present, i think it's very complicated because one party sees the avenue to power. if we collect enough white folks, we can win. the other party is a party that if we collect and us diverse boats, we can win. we've never had that before.

it explains why we have a white nationalist president right now. it also explains perhaps something hopeful. i'm not going to speculate on the future but it is the dynamic we are facing. thanks for raising that. >> [inaudible question] [applause] >> is a look at the event book tv will be covering this week. on tuesday at the new york historical society, william, will reflect on his career. also new york university that day for a talk with the solicitor of the u.s. what he thinks trump should be

impeached. wednesday will be back in manhattan where author and activist gloria will present a collection of quote. on saturday at the fdr presidential library in new york, who will recount the efforts. u.s. ambassador to japan prior to the american entry into world war ii, who attempted to piece of cord between the two countries. all of these funds are open to the public. if you are in attendance, take a picture and send it to us on twitter, facebook or instagram. now it's book tv in prime time. in just a moment, historian alvin, thomas jefferson's egalitarian work cbs sunday morning correspondent discusses his book of obituaries that features politicians, scientists and entertainers. followed by university of

virginia history professor who explores the political history of tobacco in america. in 10:00 p.m. eastern, in-depth interview with author and columnist, jason riley. for more information, check your program guide. ... thomas jefferson chair in american history at the university of virginia