no matter where you are from, or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here, or here, or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span, powered by cable. >> pulitzer prize winning author and historian david mccullough passed away sunday at his home in massachusetts at the age of 89. mr. mccullough went pulitzer prizes for two residential biographies truman and john adams pretty received presidential medal of freedom from president george w. bush in 2006. in more than 50 honorary degrees for his last book, the pioneers was published in 2019. >> and now i'm book tv for highlighting programs from our archives with pulitzer prize-winning historian david

mccullough. over the past 20 years he has appeared on book tv more than 50 times. all of the programs are about to see can be viewed in their entirety by visiting our website booktv.org. you can use the search function at the top of the page. first , 92 on c-span book notes program, david mccullough discussed his biography of president harry truman. the book was awarded the pulitzer prize for biography and was instrumental in changing attitudes about the truman presidency. here's a portion of that interview. >> attempted assassination number of presidents have already been assassinated. why would the government at that time have protection for them? >> it wasn't done. why would the government have a pension? their pensions for army officers and pensions for everybody else but no pension for president. in fact to very little money. had to borrow some money quite secretly which dean atchison cosine, to pay for the move back

home. this is not well-known. it does not mean he did not have any money printed have money but he needed some cash to cover all the expenses of moving out of the white house. and when he got home, in order to provide himself some income he undertook the writing of his auto biography, his memoirs. no other president had ever done except for herbert herber prabhu assignment office was much briefer than truman's and truman's presidency covered for more tumultuous history. to undertake the two-volume memoir was a very major, ambitious task. and then he built his library. now, third minute previous presidential library, franklin roosevelt library that hyde park it was established after he died in office pretreatment was the first president to actually officiate over the establishment of his presidential library. and there again, he was

beginning something new. i think one of the things i have tried to imply or emphasize in the book, is that truman was part of a very creative public figure. he was a creative president. his was a creative presidency. he had been a builder all of his life pre-built roads, white house is coming out to washington and became president he built the famous truman balcony on the back of the white house which cause a great flurry of criticism. he entirely rebuilt the instructor the white house. though i guess we have today is the house that harry built. except for the outer shell which was maintained, the original outer shell for the entire interior is a reconstruction of the original house. he took part of every detail of that reconstruction, he loved it, he left the building, he loved creating things. and of course in a larger way,

his presidency is marked by such creative and innovative acts as the marshall plan and truman doctrine, nato, and so forth. so to again be a builder in this last chapter of his life, appealed to him tremendously. and building the library, having its office at the library, welcoming guests there, taking people around the lab he became his life except for his troubles when he went to europe. >> did you ever meet him? >> no, i saw him once. when i was just a youngster was my first job in new york. i was a great story it had gotten a job at a new magazine called sports illustrated. and i was coming home from work one night right we lived over in brooklyn. i came of the subway stop at the old st. george hotel. a big car pulled up there's a small crowd awaiting. i stood with the crowd a big car pulled up government stepped

out. i'd never seen a governor before. is quite excited about that then out stepped president truman former president truman. i was just astonished. and i remember thinking my god, he is in color. because we only had black and white television, black-and-white newspapers. and i think the fact he had very high color he radiated good health. it made him seem very vital, but a person. he certainly did not seemed like a little man to me. to me at that moment he was 6-foot eight. but i never spoke to him. i never met him. i have often thought, wouldn't it be interesting if you could go back in time and i would be able to reach out and touch him on the shoulder 1956? that fall night in saint mr. president, going to write your biography someday.

>> knowing what you know about him, what you think you think about this? >> guest: i'm sure they're some of it he would not like. this is after all an honest attempt to see the complete man with his flaws and faults two. but i would hope in some he would think i understood him better than other people have. he was a much, much more complicated, complex, keenly intelligent and thoughtful considerate man the stereotype harry truman portrait implies. he isn't james whitmore playing give them hell harry. he is just a salty down-home missouri will rogers. and all of the people i've interviewed who knew him, worked with him, and were in the white house with him, all say please

understand that this man was much more than met the eye. >> how many interviews did you do? >> about 126. that ranged across a broad spectrum. some people who hardly knew have met all but saw him come and go as neighbors or people and independence. and also some of whom were so important i interviewed them many times over during the ten years it took me too write the book. >> did you spend the most time with? >> i would guess in total perhaps either margaret truman, his daughter, or george elsie who was on the white house staff and clark clifford. in some of the secret service people who were invaluable because they were with him all of the time. many of whom had never been interviewed before about him. >> are secret service allowed to talk after the fact? >> apparently so.

no restrictions they were concerned? >> no. and they are wonderful. because they saw him offstage. they saw him under all conditions. and often under enormous pressure, tension. you mention the attempted assassination. two of the secret service men who are still here in washington, walked me through the whole event. both inside and outside blair housework took place. i spent the better part of one saturday doing that. i am sure that has never been done before. so my account of that is based on material that can only be had by reaching that time to living people. and their devotion to harry truman is a very compelling thing to listen too. and it is true of all of the people that worked for him at all levels. i did not find a single person who knew him well, worked with

him, who wanted to tell me what his terrible backstage temper was, or what an ungrateful or difficult boss he was to work with. and the closer people were to him, wasn't they just liked him, they were devoted to him. i kept hoping i would find some people who really didn't like him and had some skeletons to pull out of the closet. but that never happened. >> what did you start all this? >> ten years ago , 82. >> it was the reason? >> well, i was looking for a subject i started working on a book about picasso. i had to go around the barn with picasso to end up with harry truman. i quit that book, i stopped after a few months because i found i dislike him so. to me he was a repellent human being. and he did not really have a

story of a kind that interested me. he was instantly successful part he never really went very far or had any adventures so to speak. he was an immensely important painter, but i found the treatment of his family, his attitude toward women, he was not somebody i wanted to spend five years with as a roommate so to speak. and my editor at simon & schuster suggested i think about doing franklin roosevelt at that time there is not a good one volume biography of franklin roosevelt. i'm just on impulse, and that visceral way i said no 520 the century president it would be roosevelt it would be harry truman. he said why not harry truman? so i looked into it. i found there is not a good biography of harry truman. there is not a complete life and

times. this last chapter that you are talking about, that part of his life is never been written about before. it comprised 25 years of his life a very important part of his life. and beyond that, there is an immense collection of letters and diaries which he poured himself out on paper, all of his life. he left a written personal very revealing record unlike that of any president that i know of. and i'm sure we are good never going to have another president that leaves anything like that but we do not write letters much anymore. and we do not keep diaries much anymore. and he did both his whole life. long before he ever realize he was going to be a figure in history, and one month to give an example at one month in 1947 when he was president and his wife, bess was back in independence looking after her mother, harry truman, the

president of the united states wrote to her 37 times. and these were not just simple how are you and the weathers to turning cool or whatever these were real letters. >> a jibber find out how he wrote them with a longhand question. >> oh yes the actual letters he had wonderful, clear straightforward strong handwriting. just like he was. fortunately, very legible. there's never a problem reading his handwriting, there is very seldom ever a problem understanding what he talked about the. >> at the last chapter you pointed out some time in his wife, called their daughter margaret every night in new york? >> yes. they were very, very close. the same people were with him as secret service agents or is white house staff, domestic staff in the manchin, have said they are by far the closest family they have ever known in the white house.

though they do not want to be quoted by person, they all say truman was her favorite president was a first president ever to walk out to the kitchen, the first present in their memory to walk out to the kitchen to thank the chef or the cook for the dinner that night. they remember it calvin coming out once or twice. they thought that was perhaps to see if anybody was tilting food. truman knew everybody by name on the staff. he knew all about their families. this was not a politician's device. it's just the way he was. the whole give them hell harry, harry truman on the job at the office in the white house with his people the lowest level or the highest level never gave anyone help. he never raised his voice. anything he is remembered for how considerate he was.

and for small favors and courtesies he would do. >> a david mccullough has appeared on c-span more than 75 times including 50 appearances on book tv. up next, he discusses his biography and john adams for the 2001 book was the recipient of the pulitzer prize. >> now, john adams was born and 1735. he lived until 1826 to the age of nearly 91. he lived longer than any president in our history. he has been commonly thought of as a rich austin bluebird. he was none of those who is not that she was not bostonian and he was not a blue blood. he was a farmer's son who because of a scholarship to harvard discovered books and as he said, read forever. john adams it was the most deeply and broadly read american of his bookish time.

let's please today remember it was john adams the second president of the united states who signed legislation to create the library of congress. so, to be here to talk about john adams, to remember john adams is altogether particularly appropriate at this occasion. he was a man of genuine brilliance. he was also a man of great heart, great humor, devoted to his country. truthful, devoted to his wife, to his family, hard-working, god-fearing, and altogether one of the bravest patriots in our history. he was abrasive, sometimes temperamental, sometimes tactless. sometimes overly concerned with his own position or place in the estimate of his friends or

posterity. he was also a man to his credit but also to his disadvantage to as he said, never considered popularity his mistress. he never courted popularity. he was a man of principle. his courage was the courage of his conviction sprayed where the most vivid and important examples of his principal behavior and conduct in life is that he is the only founding father who never owned a slave as a matter of principle. now, we know it is important to judge those who did not own slaves in the context of their time. that is correct and fair and historically the sensible sound thing to do. let's not forget john and ava gelt evidence were of their time and they oppose slavery. abigail perhaps even more ardently than her husband. at one point she says i wonder if all of the travails and suffering were going through

god's punishment for the sin of slavery? this san andreas fault of slavery that runs through our country's story, begins well before the revolution. just as the revolution, is to me people seem to not understand began well before the declaration of independence for the declaration of independence is john dickinson who oppose the signing of the declaration of independence was in many ways, as dickinson said, watching into a storm in a skiff made of paper. what made it more than just a piece of paper was the fact that we succeeded in the revolution, and the war, we fought for, fought for and succeeded in gaining our independence. john himes would not have said free and independent he would've said independent and free.

you have to have independence and then comes freedom. of course new englanders by nature, by cultural tradition if you will, were fiercely independent people. independence was a way of life. so was religion. i think this of the utmost importance in understanding that time, that age, that moment in history in those protagonists. we believe in strongly the separation of church and state. into a large degree they all did too. but the separation of church and state in their time, in their minds and eyes and spirits did not mean the separation of church and statesman. and if we really want to understand that time and those people we have to understand the part religion played in their life in their whole outlook on what might happen next. they also had very long distance communication that took a lot of

time and a lot of travail and almost beyond our recognition to get a letter back and forth between philadelphia and boston where the adams lived took at least two weeks. communication across the ocean with abigail and john were separated for a cumulatively ten years. and that separation was created by the atlantic ocean comic to communicate across the atlantic ocean took upwards to three -- six months. and what did that mean? is not to say is just inconvenient. meant both in personal life, and an diplomatic or official life, one had to be more responsible than we understand today for one's own decisions. abigail adams at home running the family, running the farm trying to balance accounts,

trying to keep good people working with her to make the farm work because that was their only means of subsistence. trying to educate the children, making decisions about whether to get smallpox shots for example, had to make those decisions herself but she could not pick up the phone and asked her husband what should i do? and that was a part of life. the assumption of responsibility to oneself. when adams was serving in france in the netherlands, and in england as a diplomat, again and again he had to make momentous decisions on his own pre-decisions that would affect the course of events at the time in the fortunes perhaps of the united states and his country but also of course his own career. but he made them because that was necessary. nothing could be communicated any faster than something could be transported we think of communication and transportation is two different things. that time it was the same thing. no faster than a sailboat or

somebody on a horse. that is the difference. they weren't like we are because they lived in a different time. a very different time. in a very, very interesting time. i tried to read not only in writing the book i tried not only to read about what they wrote, it oh my did they write. neither john nor abigail adams was capable of writing a double sentence or a short letter. [laughter] and they wrote, just between the two of them they brought over 1000 letters to each other. they could have written more than only 1000 survive. all in the massachusetts society on rag paper on the consequence of those letters as good as the day there written. you can hold them in your own hand in your holding that letter about the same distance from your eyes as they did with two hands as they did.

and believe me, something tactile, something very, very important, this role happens when you're working with the real thing. it is not the same as seeing it on microfilm or reproduced in the book. the humanity, the mortality, the vulnerability of those people comes through. add the bravery. think of that woman, alone in her kitchen at 11:00 p.m. at night having been up since 5:00 a.m. doing all she did great sitting down and writing those letters. nearly always inserted into her letters some wonderful quote from one of her favorite poets or from shakespeare. i nearly always getting it a little bit wrong. [laughter] which shows she didn't look it up. she was not taking a book down off the shelf copping saying this will make me look good. [laughter] she knew it, it was part of her.

but there is equally important and equally rewarding experience and reading not just what they wrote but what they read. and i did a small piece in the "washington post" this summer about that. going back and reading all of this writers some many of us were required to read in english courses in high school or college, samuel johnson, pope, swift, defoe, samuel richardson, the novels of samuel richardson. and to be reminded about how terrific they were. what wonderful writers. we talk about progress and have a nosebleed live with the benefits of progress all the time, certainly when we go to the dentist. [laughter] >> and i think of poor john adams the end of his life not a tooth in his head, every one of

them had to have been pulp. long before novocain. but we have a certain vanity in a certain arrogance about progress. but when you read what they wrote in the 18th century, i don't think anybody does any better today or even as well. and i will tell you something else that make us all sit up and shape up, and that is the literacy rate in massachusetts is higher in their time than it is today. and what a disgrace that is. and what good work, what a lot of work still has to be done about that. the books that they read affected their lives as they do our lives in our time.

they affected their notion of truth, heroism, right, wrong, how you write a letter. john adams for example advise young john quincy don't try to write literature when you write a letter. don't strain your fancy effects. write the way you talk. it's to let it remember that, it is a letter, remember that. so when you lead to his letter very large city letters of john quincy your hearing him talk. one of things i have done in my books particularly in this book, one of the ways i approach biography simply my would not sing at the only way. is let them talk as much as possible. most of life is talk of you think about it. how they talk, the words they use, the figures of speech, the expression, the cadence all hit a record personality, of style.

abigail was hugely influenced by the writings of samuel richardson. particularly the great novel clarissa which is where the most popular novels of the 18th century. she wrote a very interesting letter to a niece and you ought to read clarissa. you ought to write your letter where they are in the novel. the whole novel as many of you know it's just letters people writing letters back and forth to each other. and they are written to the moment, to what is happening right now. that is the late abigail's letters are written. now, all of this letter she wrote her husband were written in large part because they are separated for soma years. the suffering they experienced because of their separation is to our advantage. we come as a consequence have the letters. but even when she was not separated from her husband, she would write to somebody else. she write to her sister, some the best letter she ever wrote. the point is she needed to

write. she needed to work her thoughts out on paper. was a very, very important point for all of this video had the experience you sit down and start to write something you find you have an insight or a thought that you never would have had if you had not required, force yourself or wanted to write. something about writing focuses the brain in a different way. quickly opened her archives look at author programs with historian david mccullough. in 2001 he appeared her monthly call in program and depth. to discuss his books and writing process. here he gives us a tour of his home and where he writes. >> got video of your home and you're writing shed, where is it? works first of all it's not a shed box that is our home that's on music street and massachusetts village in the center of the isle of martha's

vineyard. part of his 18th century part of it as 19th century part of his 20th century pre-that is the back porch looking out over the acre that we own where we have gardens and a nice reach back to the neighboring farm which is been in the same family since the island was first settled. this is in fact might walk to work. that measures 12 by 8 feet has windows on all four sides but absolutely love it. it has about 800 books in there. my faithful typewriter upon which i have work now since about 1965 every book i've ever written on that over a typewriter for there's nothing wrong with it as an example of a beautifully made american machine. it probably has a seven to 5000s perfectly. >> have you written every word in this room? >> yes part of his rate in

charlottesville only lived there for a year, the better part of a year when i was doing research at the library at the university of virginia. but essentially all of it was written here in that room for. >> i work all day every day. i'm not writing all day on reading, correcting whatever from the night before. going over notes there's no phone there's no telephone there for. >> there's no music no. so nice of you but i had my back to the view so i won't be tempted by it. it's far enough from the house to see general washington and some of his soldiers marching along pretty hope they show the end of it there's a guy at the end of that identify with he is the one that's always a little slow. here were going to see him. and i look at him he is my

example. there he is. that is the one. he's always a little behind. i might work out there because when the children were young i did note them to have to be walking around, that is a call to me too really look at what is in front of me as i work. that's one of the earliest, the earliest photograph of the capitol i love that photograph. i love old photos we can talk about this later. this is the great line from adams letter to abigail honest and wise men rule under this roof which is carved it is indicated there into the mantelpiece of the state dining room at the white house. this is a map of boston which

figures very importantly in the book i'm working on right now. and of course very importantly as a contemporary map in the john adams book. i take everything, there is a wonderful crown drawing by french artist of john adams. i think it's with the representative of him ever done. i just love drawing. i love painting. i paint and draw myself. and since the only way we can see those people is in paintings and drawings, i find the drawings and paintings of the utmost importance to try to reach the human being. those are all of the bounded letters of george washington which again is part of what i'm working on. those were dug up on the property but we are building the little building for a works for. >> how long have you lived in the house? >> have lived in the house about initially 1965 and paid less forth in your favor car today.

[laughter] it was the eyesore of the street there was slowly began to restore it and fix it up. williford turned a corner i was a writer and resident the university of new mexico for a while. we spent probably in the aggregate half a year at least at independence, missouri wise work on the truman book. this is the other work area. this is where all the paraphernalia of the communications is located. the fax machine, the copying machine, the computer, and so forth. this is no sign which i clipped from a hotel in london. having lunch, that is a photograph when i spoke at a joint session of congress but i really love it showed jim wright

falling asleep some grandchildren that is tom kain the previous picture from ireland the paint here there and around the house and give them to children. it's one for my hotel room and boston. that's the boston public garden pickwick telling to take you to paint? what do depend these are water closed on pretty quickly. this is at the reservation in montana. that's a little sketch of it -- of the farm where we lived a little pen and ink that i did. it is something i have always loved to do. and her daughter melissa and her granddaughter caitlyn that's the public library across the street where i've served as a trustee. so, you see our house how far

you had to go to get to the library. we go across the street in the library at night. that's the church were some of our children were married. that's right around the corner of where we live by. >> i have in my lap here one that you're talking about. it's got some creases in it, who is in this photo? >> at the picture of my mother. probably taken before i was born >> mother on the left? licked mother on the left and my aunt marty mccullough on the right. i love it such a wonderful. photograph. as a great old car in the background. cars always take photographs i always put a car in your photographs you'll know when it was taken. i appreciate that picture because my aunt marty who is in the picture, was the one you give me a copy of the stillness of appomattox when i graduated from yale. that started me reading shelby

wishart to meet reading barbara tuchman and a lot of other people. i didn't know it at the time but it really change my life. i began to sense what i wanted to do as a writer. >> david is the author of a dozen books into time what about the pulitzer prize and national book award. he put a book tv where than 50 times. i look at his programs from our archives continue with the talk hosted by the "washington post" in 2002. here he reflects on the research he conducted for his 1983 book about the brooklyn bridge. >> i had had a lunch with several friends in the restaurant on the lower east side of washington of new york. the two friends are both engineers and they both started talking about all of the builders the brooklyn bridge had not known when they set out to create this unprecedented

structure. well, my first book had been about johnstown flood which is really a study in human shortsightedness. human irresponsibility. if there is a theme to the johnstown book it is really that it is perilous certainly extremely dangerous always, to assume that because people are in position of responsibility they are therefore behaving responsibly. that is the mistake all were making and johnstown. at the cost of more than 2000 lives. it was not an act of god. it was the fault of human beings. and what happens in life, certainly happens in publishing usually very quickly typecast. after the book came out at two publishers approached me. one want to me too do a book about the chicago fire for the

other wanted me too do a book about the san francisco earthquake. [laughter] and at the age of about 35 i was being is bad news mccullough. [laughter] and i did not like that. in fact but i really wanted at that stage in my outlook on life in the human condition, was some symbol of affirmation. we are not always shortsighted but we do know how to solve problems and we do have the capacity to do greater things than we know. imperfect people working together can often achieve noble, creative works. and listening to these two men talk about the brooklyn bridge, at that lunch i thought suddenly thought that's it. that is a symbol of affirmation that i have been looking for.

and i came out of that restaurant i was working then as an editor in new york. i had somebody waiting for me back at the office to talk about something. and i just forgot completely about oh so excited about the idea and so motivated i went immediately to the 42nd street library in new york and i took those marble stairs up to the third floor where the card catalogs where i think four at a time i was propelled by this book that was already acquiring a structure and design in my head. all i wanted to know had someone already done it? i pulled out the drawer there over 100 cars and cards on the subject of brooklyn bridge. not one according to the descriptions on the cards was a book i had in mind to write. i had nothing about bridge engineering. nothing about physics or mathematics. one of the lessons i learned the process of writing the book us if you're motivated you can

learn anything. if you work it out yourself, if you struggle to understand it on your own you will know it and away that you will never lose it, it will never go away. very interested in how we learn things and how we teach people today and have traditionally. so much of it is just handed to the student. and we all know how we can study or have studied for an exam for days, and days and we go to take the exam we do fairly well or maybe even very well. and then two months, two years it is gone. i could go today, 38 years later and take a test on the building of the brooklyn bridge the details of the structure into extremely well because it is part of me now. it has always going to be part of me because i had to do it on my own struggling to work it out myself up or it's one of the reasons i think we need to bring much more of the lab technique to teaching of humanities then

we do presently. rosalie and i then drove up from her home then in white plains. it was a beautiful saturday afternoon in the fall, everything was in glorious color. we got to the campus at troy, new york there was almost no one there but it must've been a football weekend or something. we went to the library which was an old church that had been converted into a library. a very dark victorian church. i went to the desk i called in advance of said we are here to look at the collection. the woman said we are so shorthanded today i will just give you the key. if you go up to the top of the stairs, all the way to the attic the light switches on the way up the stairs but if you turn left there is a door to a closet right to the left of the top of the stairs. well, we went up the stairs turning on the light switches

which were like 40-watt bulbs. the stairs creaked it was like something out of steven king. we got to the top of the stairs, turned to the left, took the key, opened the door there was not a closet it was really a small room with shelves all around from floor to ceiling jammed with material. scrapbooks, old boxes of letters, photographs, all kinds of notes of some kind but you cannot tell what they were there tied up with old shoestrings. you could tell the shoestrings had never been untied. they formed that look that shoestrings get 30 years later that have never been untied. [laughter] there and it was a bust of the designer of the bridge, the doorknocker from their house on brooklyn heights. everything imaginable and it

looked just like something in somebody's closet up in an attic. but it was the volume of it rose looked at it and said oh my god. [laughter] there goes three years of our lives. [laughter] well it was the proverbial trunk in the attic compound that i don't know how many times. and it did take three years to go through the materials and to write the book. they were in many ways three years of the best time of my writing life. i was telling marie earlier before this event started, i have written a number of books and sometimes you write the book's subject of the book is done when you're finished you

feel that's it, i have said everything i want to say about this. and you really do not want to turn back to it again. but that has never been true for the subject of the brooklyn bridge produced infinitely interesting structure right infinitely interesting work of american art of the greatest importance. and it is a lesson of so many kinds that i hope in a brief way i can just talk about that. first of all, it is a great urban event. it is a great expression of the ideal of the city. i have a community committed to the ideal of the city. and it stands at the very gateway of our nation, of our country. in particular that day in the 19th century it was the gateway for millions of immigrants coming up the harbor to the new world. there was nothing like it in the

world. there is nothing like it in the country. those towers on the brooklyn bridge, when they were completed which don't seemed like very much today, where the tallest structures on the north american continent. taller even than the capitol dome here in washington. they were an expression of the beginning of high-rise or as kenneth clark said heroic new york. it was the first time it began to appear this city was not going to grow out it was going to grow up. now the concept of a vertical city was new. further mount it was hitherto impossible. it in the brooklyn bridge by the ingredients of high-rise comments great skyscraper urban america right there because it contains both heroic scale and steel. the first use of structural steel in a major way in any structure in new york. except for the bridge in

st. louis which still stands the first major use of structural steel anywhere. and of course steel is going to transform this country. now we talk about revolution, social revolution, economic revolution. the evolution paid by the advent of cheap steel too little has been written too little understood. the direction of the country. the bridge also contains in its design a concept where in a work of engineering you're performing a service to the quality of life in the city. if you have been to the brooklyn bridge, if you've walked across the brooklyn bridge you know exactly what i'm talking about. it is the boardwalk it's how you walk over the bridge. instead of putting pedestrian sidewalks or walks on the

outside of the bridge on the perimeter of the bridge, the designer put them inside the bridge, inside that net a vertical stays and cables. and above the traffic the vehicular traffic. when you walk across the brooklyn bridge you feel contained in the network of cables you are not on the edge of the bridge. an uneasiness that can go with that argon. furthermore, because you are above you can enjoy the view you can on no other bridge that i know. there'd never been a bridge or the pedestrian walkway was so designed and tragically there's never been one since. and as you know now the engineers who designed the bridges i think spent weeks, months, years studying how to put that railing at the exact point when you go across in a car you can't see anything.

back but the engineers wrote in the original prospectus the idea was people could on a sunday afternoon, on a weekend day you could go with your family, your boyfriend, your children, and walk up out of the city. up higher than you ever been in your life because there were many buildings more than about four or five stories. your 119 feet above the river. and it is not a river it is a title straight. it's saltwater it's four -- 6 feet. siegel's flight under the bridge. and the bridge is so high up because it was built in an age and they wanted the ships that were coming and going from the brooklyn navy yard upstream to do so without trimming their top-down spit on the very biggest ships of the day had to do that. it was also the beginnings of the advent of steam on the river

you could see all kinds of steamboats, sailboats, feel the fresh air. enjoy yourself and have the thrill of knowing you were in new york city. you were and brooklyn. you are in the greatest metropolis is felt to be the greatest country on earth. watching book tv on cspan2 look at author programs with award-winning david mccullough to discuss 1776. >> the revolutionary war era the 18th century more to who we are the way we are and what we hold to be our american secular faith. then most people realize. unfortunately it has portrayed

so often almost as though the people who were involved in particularly the protagonists were figures in a costume pageant. the clothing of the time, the renditions of jefferson, washington and others in the paintings and that this theatrical quality to them. we do not see them and photographs. we have the recordings of their voices. we cannot see film footage. those who fought in the war have no on the spot drawings by correspondence it's almost impossible to reach them but the

written diaries and letters and sometimes in orderly books records of one kind or another. and memoirs or autobiographies written after the fact. the newspaper coverage was nothing like we would expect sprayed there were no war correspondents covering the war. no coming back to be published in the papers in the country. by and large you'd have to conclude you do not know what they look like. but, we do know what they look like. in part because of deserter notices. when men deserted from the ranks, when they went home went over to the other side, notices would be published in the papers

or end up at country stores. they were very descriptive because they hope to find these people. and what comes through in those descriptions is a realization of how different from all of us they looked. very few who fought with washington, march with washington in 1776 wear uniforms. even the officers rarely had uniforms. at a magnificent uniform because he felt that was part of his role as a leader, to look like the leader. to look like the general. but the men in the ranks will bring everything imaginable. and they were not supplied with replacements for what they wore. so, as the year wore on their clothing became tattered, amended, dirty, eventually in rags or worse than rags.

the times themselves, the era they lived was so much harder than what we understand. life for some but in the 18th century, even in peace time very difficult by our standards. very uncomfortable, filled with danger, threats of disease. filled with the possible accidents and physical destruction that can come from work. people were beat up by life more than we are in our times. no orthodontist, no dentist, no cosmetic surgeons to say the least. somewhat the severe childhood injury would walk for the rest of his life with a limp coming from an accident in our time which should be readily

corrected. john trumbull, the great painter whose works hang in the capitol, the signing of the declaration of independence. the magnificent painting away the most important scenes in our history but washington returned has power to the congress. some think no conquering general had ever done after the end of the revolutionary war. john trumbull only had the use of one eye. again because of a childhood injury. ray knox said part of one hand blown off in a hunting accident as a young man. on and on, people were missing teeth. they had a cast and there i or they had a way of holding their head on their shoulder because something had happened to them. life was a dangerous, difficult, and people were resilience, tough and strong to a degree that is something we too seldom forget. we, and our time our softies by

contrast. it is hard for us to imagine what it is like to have sweeping epidemic dysentery, this smallpox, typhoid sweep through our town, our community, our city and take the lives of hundreds of people all around us, but it happened. and of course when the war came on the tragedy and the grief, the sorrow cannot be measured with any statistics. abigail adams said future generations will reap the blessings, will have little idea, can little imagine what we have suffered on their behalf and she was right. that war was the longest in our history except the vietnam war, eight and a half years. it was also very bloodied proportionate to the population.

25000 americans were killed. now, to us to we who have lived with the brutal statistics of the 20th and 21st centuries of war casualties and suffering worldwide, 25000 does not sound like a great deal. but 25000 was a 1% of the population of 2,500,000. and if we were to fight a revolutionary war today with our population that would mean over 3 million would be killed. so, in their time it was a horrible war. and it is extremely costly to the people who stayed home and had to make do without their husbands to work the farm or to be the breadwinner for a family. i would like to read you a little bit of some of these deserter notices. they are very colorful, they are very picturesque.

in a way, they are describing people who are immediately identifiable in a way we are not used to. very much like the characters and dickens. one georgia reynolds of rhode island was 5 feet nine and a half inches tall, age 17. and carried his head something on his right shoulder. thomas williams wasn't immigrant, an old countryman it says in the quote, that means he was from the old country he is not an old man from the country. he was probably from ireland, wales, or summer of that time. he spoke good english but had a film in his left eye. david ralph, a saucy fellow was wearing a white coat, jacket breaches and ruffled shirt when last seen. deserted from colonel brewster's regiment and captain harvey's company sent a notice in the essex connecticut gazette. one simeon smith of greenfield, a joiner by trade.

a thin fellow about 5 feet 4 inches high. i had on a blue coat and a black vest. a metal button on his hat. black long hair, black eyes his voice in the hermaphrodite fashion. the masculine rather predominant. likewise, matthias smith a small smart fellow, saddler by trade. gray-headed, has a younger look in his face, and his apt to say i swear, i swear britain between his words will spit smart. head on a green coat in an old red greatcoat. he is wearing to code to see, one is red, one is green. although he wear something of a sober look. likewise, a long hump shouldered fellow. a shoemaker by trade, draws his words for comfortable says comfortable. he had on green coat these men

are largely anonymous hard marching and fighting and fighting again, and again month after month and who made the words the noble ideals of the declaration of independence more than just a declaration. more than just words on paper. when we celebrate the fourth of july, we celebrate the great opening passages of the declaration of independence. we celebrate that all men are created equal, life, liberty the pursuit of happiness. none of that live have been possible don't picture them as all heroes. they weren't.

hundreds deserted, thousands deserted as time went on. thousands more went home and their enlistments were up. the only enlisted for a year. when the time came to go home, there is nothing to stop them and many of them just marched away for it when washington was an retreat across new jersey and his army was down to rags. many of the men were without shoes and winter was coming on. the british were coming on fast behind them. forced beyond anything washington could even imagine with soldiers who were well trained, well shod with good close, good equipment. when that was going on at one point, in december 2000 -- make the enlistments of 2000 men came up in 2000 men marched away, went home with no shame. washington's army was down to 3000 men, that's all that were

left. so in effect quite literally we owe what we have and what we are and all that we hold sacred to about 3000 men who would not quit. and that was because in part they were led by a man who would not quit. george washington was not a great intellectual like a jefferson, adams, or hamilton before he was not a brilliant speaker like his fellow virginian patrick henry. what george washington was, was a leader. he was a man of phenomenal courage physical and moral courage. he could spot great talented and other people give them a chance. to the bestie picked he picked within about two weeks after first meeting them. nathaniel green and henry knox. and he picked them despite the fact they were new englanders

any dislike new englanders ardently. he thought they were the bestie had and the heat they were the bestie had. those two men, green and knox with washington are the only general officers who stayed the entire length of the war. who did not leave, who would not quit. >> you are watching the tv.

and so, last summer when the comments being made by the republican candidate for the presidency were not only appalling but unimaginably out of place, i thought what can i do to provide some counter point of view to this and i started thinking about some of the speeches that i gave at national occasions such as the 200th anniversary, the anniversary of the white house, kennedy's memorial service in dallas which i was asked to be the speaker and commencement speeches and speeches that i had given at

particular occasions of importance to the history of other organizations and/or universities and found there were a great many that i was voicing what matters and why i think history is so fascinating and how essential i think it is as it means to the experience of being alive. why should we live our lives in this biological clock when we can have access to the whole realm of the human story and had the help of my daughter who

arranged all the talks i gave in who kept the records of what i said. >> when i read the book the first time, finished it and put it down i thought he's writing in the times or picking these speeches because they might be apropos to the current times and while i've produced historians basically don't really have a role in talking about current politics, but he is talking about current politics with the speeches. >> before current politics came on the scene none of the speeches were written. >> i went back and read them a second time thinking what's the sentence, what's the paragraph, what's the point he's trying to make that might be taken to heart by people in politics right now so i went back and read it a second time, and each time i was looking in the speech what is the one thing he's trying to make that might be taken to heart by somebody that might be elected president, i

don't know. they had the guts to rebuke joe mccarthy. she said i don't want to see the republican party and she was a republican right of the political victory fear, ignorance, bigotry and smear. smear is the interesting point. [laughter] if you only had a sense of humor. [laughter] could you imagine somebody reading that in the political

climate? >> wouldn't it be wonderful. she's a woman and in a rare case most people have no idea who margaret smith was. she was the bravest most admirable political figure that we've ever had and not many were standing up now. 1998 quoting benjamin rush not perhaps as well known but one of the original signers of the declaration speaking of good nature that mattered most in human relations he said and you quoted him in the book i include candor, gentleness and disposition to speak with civility and listen with attention to everybody and that you added in 1998 in the speech words to the y's and perhaps in our own day more than ever.

>> indeed. benjamin is one of my favorite characters from our past and absolutely remarkable man 18th century polymath somebody interested in almost everything. he was an accomplished physician, one of the first people to encourage fair and humane treatment of people with mental illness. he was courageous and his ability to go into places where the plague was rampant. he was one of the signers of the declaration of independence and when he signed the declaration, he was 30-years-old. we forget how young those people

were. jefferson when he wrote the declaration of independence was 33. imagine washington when he took command of the continental army was 44-years-old. we see them later on. i think that's the encouraging fact of that part of our story. i don't think we can ever know enough about the american revolution and by the way the new museum that's just opened is a must for all of us. it's marvelous particularly as a place to take your children and

grandchildren. it's organized, spectacular and as right in the center of where this neighborhood is it's a few steps down the street from independence hall. we lived in the area to take the reality of the miracle of that era as part of our environment, part of our world into that's good, that's great but i love kennedy's profiles of courage and read that when i was still young and not aware yet if what i wanted to do with my life. i love his regard for john quincy adams for example.

i liken that quote and i'm not here to comment but what i like so much on that quote is the word civility which is a lost art in the public discourse of america today and the sense of comity that existed among people who share a common goal and know that there needs to be a common and. it's gone and you write that in many instances we had a deep chasm's. the two sides seemed so opposed when politics trumps policy and in the sense of a national goal is gone and party goals matter

more. leaders had to stand up for their convictions which had the backbone to do what's right irrespective of what it means to their political future or their chance of being reelected. we talk about the segments of government and legislative judicial and executive but there's a fourth factor. when we stand up and say no more of this, we don't take this anymore. when we stand up and say there's a person right there saying and doing the right thing and we are going to get behind her or him and make sure that attitude becomes potent and maybe even

decisive, someone says that's what i'm going to do. somebody in the government it will happen out of the necessity to divide in order to expect that. we are a country where 30, 40, 50, 60% of the people are in the middle and want the government to get something done. it doesn't mean that we won't. we were very pessimistic in times and inappropriate behavior times to the point of leadership but we've come through them all

and very often when we do, through, these difficult times are not clouded sky times. when we do, through we are better off. people talk about that was a simpler time back then. no it wasn't. or things have never been so bad. yes they have. and if you don't understand that you don't understand the reality of the story. i like to point out that the influenza epidemic which my parents and your parents probably went through, 1918, 1,919,500,000 americans died from that disease. a disease they didn't know where it came from or if it would ever go away or how to cure it.

if that were to happen today given the size of the population, the 1,500,000 people would die in less than a year. imagine if that were on the nightly news every night we would be even more terrified. who would be next if our family had died. and just as the depression in the civil war, horrible, horrible times. but we came through because among other things we could and would and we understood nothing much of consequence is ever accomplished alone. it has to be a joint effort. that's what they have to come back to understand.

the big change, the big revelation that here was something was after i finished the wright brothers and got down to marianna because i heard that there was a collection of wonderful archival material and my assistant who is probably the greatest researcher in america today and i saw this breathtaking collection. i knew we had opened the tomb. it was very thrilling. let me just try to describe why. it isn't just that there is so much of it. there are literally thousands of letters, diaries, memoirs,

journals, maps, data of all kinds, drawing and magnificent oil paintings. but it's the quality of it all, the quality of the writing, the quality of the thinking, the quality of the honesty and expressing what they were brokenhearted about, but they were fearful of, how they were suffering and all the work they had to do and the onset of epidemic disease and the natural fiascoes of storms and earthquakes and all of it happening one after another. one year they almost starved to

death. compared to them, we are all a bunch of softies. truly. now, i can go on about the lessons in history and why history is so beneficial and important, so enlarging of life. but i think two of the most important lessons to be learned, passed on to our children and grandchildren first is empathy. being able to put yourself in the other persons place, to imagine what life might have been like then and what they might have went through. it's the same for people in our own times. you have to understand why other people feel as they do about things. put yourself in their place. empathy. and second, gratitude.

gratitude for all that other people do for our benefit or have done or did long ago. and we should never take that for granted. we should never say that's the way it is. one of the things we sometimes do take for granted is the public school system. another thing is that all men are created equal not just on paper, but in fact and that is part of our national life that began here. first public school system anywhere in the country here in ohio. why did it happen, because of one man primarily. the northwest ordinance, 1887, 1787 states very clearly there will be public education.

there will be complete freedom of religion. there will be an attitude towards an america that is fundamentally indecent and there will be no slavery. there were slaves and all of the original 13 colonies so it was just all men are created equal but we have 150 slaves living over here in the slave quarters. it's not going to be that way in ohio, they determined. and that was due primarily if not to say entirely who wrote the basic tenants of the northwest ordinance and to his

son. now somebody that knew a lot about everything that was interested in everything was a doctor of law and medicine and all three at once and practiced all three. he was probably i would say almost certainly the leading american botanist of his day. he was an astronomer, interested in language. he was interested in everything and he believed in the importance and the essential necessity in the good life to learning. and the love of learning like very few that i've ever come to know or read about. he never lived here. he came out to see how everything was going that he had too much going on back home in hamilton massachusetts, which is just north of boston in his

church is still there in very superb conditions. the place the first covered wagon left to come to ohio is still there. and his son came out here with his wife and four children. they've known how to dress themselves but nothing even the most difficult daily task of being a farmer in the rocky ground of new england was not going to be anything comparable to what they faced here. they came out and on their way coming down the ohio river, two of her children died of disease and had to be buried on the banks of the river where there were no settlements.

suffering from the disease itself when he arrived here. men, women, children. now cutler hadn't had the education his father had because he had been raised by his grandparents who were farmers. this is very important to keep in mind because of what he then did. i was asked in an interview just

the other day here in ohio of all the scenes in my book which do i wish i could have been there to watch and i knew right away there was a big movement that came after the election of thomas jefferson. the jeffersonians we will call it because they didn't have a party name yet but to decide that they would introduce slavery then two people in the legislature were leading the fight, leading the charge to stop that and keep it from turning into a slave state. one was general putnam who was the leader of the group that

came out. he gets quite ill and the capital was there. he could hardly get out of bed. there was question whether he would survive, live. of the day of the vote that was going to take place, he came into the room and putnam was old enough to have been his father. he came in and said you must get

well, be in your place or you will lose your favorite measure. according to one account, putnam and another man carried him to the convention on a stretcher but there is no reliable evidence of this. cutler himself wrote only i went to the convention and moved to strike out the obnoxious matter that made my objections as forcibly as i was able. it was an act of fortitude and the result was never to be forgotten here. it cost me every effort i was capable of making and passed by the majority of one vote only. because he had gone up from his suffering not just no slavery in

ohio but all of northwest territory which included indiana, illinois, michigan and wisconsin. now imagine if they had been admitted, what would have happened. there would have been no underground railroad or harriet beecher stowe, uncle tom's cabin the most influential powerfully influential novel letter written by any american. if this had been a slave there probably would have been no abraham lincoln or ulysses s grant. the whole picture would have been different. this one man there's no statue of him, he is not mentioned in the history books and he's been in effect totally forgotten. so imagine the excitement that

we felt that here were all his letters, all his private correspondence with his wife and others and the collection alone is well over a thousand pieces. >> and 100% unfiltered. >> the main thing is it will pass and my heart goes out to

those people the best of intentions are overzealous but as i'm sure you know if i could have spent a little more time being a politician and less time being president i would have kicked their butts out but i didn't know what i was doing.