biography has received a fair share of positive published reviews. i'm sure none of them would please her as much as this unpublished and handwritten review which is also one of my favorites quote an excerpt. as daunting as the undertaking must have been, you have accomplished an important mission in bringing the working days of a working woman vividly to life. although bessie asked path in my never crossed i have heard much about her. thank you for enabling and legions of other lawyers to appreciate what a front-runner she is. it is signed ruth bader ginsburg. thank you for your attention. congratulating bessie on her supreme court argument and victory, frances perkins said that she was particularly pleased to learn how animated

the court was in that it asked her so many questions, because frances perkins understood that demonstrated the court's unusual interest and bessie margolin's intelligent presentation, thank you. >> you are watching american history tv, explore our nation's past, every saturday on frank micciche. ♪♪ ♪♪

>> more than 300 years ago, the first pioneers crossed the oceans to a new world, a promise of a land where man could build his own house, farm his own acres, raise his children in freedom. they called from the wilderness and empire of agriculture and industry. they set for themselves new and higher standards of living. and yet in one of the great river valleys of america, something went wrong. in the tennessee valley, three

centuries later the descendents of the pioneers were a neglected people living in a ruined land. for these children, the hope and promise were dead. the only future was drudgery, the struggle to scratch a bear living from the reluctant soil. even the older men have forgotten the valley was once bright with promise and hope. horace higgins was one of the many who had given up the fight.

what is the use, he said. we fill up those gullies, the first rain washes away. the same with all the land. it may have been good land once, but it is bad land now. bad land, hopeless land. henry clark wondered. erosion, the scientists call it, the eating away of the soil, destruction which began when the early settlers cut down the forests. when the farmers out of ignorance cloud straight for rose down the hillside. destruction from the sky.

♪♪ >> this is the way it was year after year. in a forgotten part of the united states. this was the havoc caused by greed and neglect, men working alone against the forces of nature.

farms, towns, industry smashed. hundreds ground, thousands made homeless. energies of the river running to waste, the energies of the people too. henry clark's trouble was the trouble of 3 million americans in the tennessee valley. it became the direct concern of 130 million americans in the 48 states, a challenge to democracy and its ability to care for its own. the valley of the tennessee river lies in the southeastern united states. it covers an area 40,000 mi. . nearly as large as england. it was a problem of reconstruction. reconstruction of land, reconstruction of people. found the men to supervise the job.

james polk, united states senator from the west. harcourt morgan, president of the university of tennessee. who had worked out an agricultural program for the whole area. david lilienthal, administrator and champion of legislation for cooperative electric power. george, the great american statesman who long had dreamed of regional land, setting up a national experiment in one region which could serve as a yardstick for every region. this was the plan. to chain the river through a series of giant dams checking the floods. to open it to navigation from its mouth to its head waters.

to give the farmers the benefit modern science and research, to help them control the water on their land and restore the fertility of the soil, to reforest millions of acres on the ravaged hillsides, to exploit the mineral resources of the area, to use the electric power generated by the dams to develop and rehabilitate industry in the city's. to electrify the farms through cooperatives. above to prove that human problems can be solved by reason, science, and education. the tennessee valley was to be pioneered again. this time to be developed, not plundered, this time not for the benefit of a field but for many who live there. these were the new pioneers. the architects, the research chemists, the agricultural

experts, the power men, the designers of hydroelectric dams. their method was to control nature. not as in the wasteful past, but by understanding and harnessing her in the service of humanity. in may 1933 a new chapter was written in american public policy and brought before representatives of the people in congress. an act was passed creating tba, the tennessee valley authority. president roosevelt told the nation the project would set an example of planning for this generation alone but for all generations to come, then things began to happen.

♪♪ >> many of valley people, the plan was an intrusion. years of isolation, ignorance and bigotry diehard. they said that the government men do things with the machines over the mountain. none of our business. but uses more inquisitive. the pioneer spirit was still alive. over the mountain was something

new, big, exciting. ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> the dam builders, 200,000 of

them in, 4000 on this one project. mountaineers and city workers. to them this was more than a job, they have a stake in what they are doing. for themselves and their children. the future of the valley. ♪♪ >> as the months passed, the farmers started coming to the dams to see for themselves. ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ ♪♪ >> they were impressed by the magnitude, like henry clark. just what it had to do with them. it was the business of john orden, the representative to answer that. it had everything to do with the farmers.

the fullest cooperation of the people in the land. small meetings up and down the valley. john borden told the farmers 10 inches of topsoil, supports all life on earth the. it carries a bit of this soil. every time it rains, the scars on your fields, deeper and wider. every year the precious topsoil goes faster. the under soil is hard and sterile. the water that should have soaked into your land runs off uselessly. your topsoil travels with it uselessly. down to the river. millions of tons of farming soil, lost forever.

going away with the wind. all this waste isn't necessary. it can be stopped, your land can be saved if we work together. you see the dams but they are only part of the plan. the rest of is up to you. if we are to succeed, all of us, you must learn to stop the erosion of your own land. to teach you new methods, to provide you with fertilizers to restore your soil. the land is yours, the dams are yours. the whole tva is yours. this is how you can become part of a plan. we need volunteers to try out the new methods, to prove they are the right ones, thousands of farmers have already volunteered. how about you?

it isn't easy for men bound by habit to change their way of thinking. john warden new the farmers of the isolated valleys, he knew they needed time. ♪♪

>> in signing with the tva henry clark became a test demonstration bomber. his farm and thousands of others were to serve as laboratories where the new methods could be testing and observed by all. using terrorist made available

by the tva, don morton showed henry principles of comp or farming. ♪♪ this was a radical departure from the old method of square farming. following by contour, henry learned to follow the curve of the land.

no longer could the water run down straight furlongs, the curves held on the land. then put life into the exhausted soil, henry used a new phosphate fertilizer. the first season henry's chief crop was clover, this was to provide the soil with nitrogen and revitalize land, but it wasn't a cash crop. henry had been warned, when he made up his account at the slagle of the year he couldn't help but feel he had set his heart on a new tractor.

this was the crucial period, the first season. he had known it would be. they were sure of their comment and methods, the human mind and emotions were another thing. it was a hard decision for henry clark whether he should go on. but he was a descendent of pioneers, men who had taken a chance and would know their salvation lay in cooperation. the old spirit of the pioneers was reawakened. the dam builders, the farmers, the machines, began to work as one. ♪♪

>> by the next year, there were results. henry clark, the best crop of tobacco ever grown in the county. ♪♪ substantial and plenty of food for thought. they came to see the new fertilizer, the new methods.

the student became a teacher. in the tennessee valley that, 30,000 other farmers became teachers too. the next year henry and his neighbors had a threshing machine designed by the experts for the valley. each group of farmers had a machine, each had an equal right to its use, no longer was that one man alone. for the first time they were acting together cooperatively for a common purpose. and even more important, a change was beginning to come into their thinking. for the first time they were thinking in terms of each other, what they could accomplish together by working together. with new machinery, new methods, a definite plan to follow, a plan that embraced

them all, the farmer's work and land responding. ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ when horace higgins saw henry riding his new tractor he began to understand the real meaning tva, that the individual through cooperation with his fellows, becomes more important individuals. as john warden says when you develop people you have something permanent. ♪♪

>> the development of people is the first concern of democracy. in school the children use the things that are built for them. they learn how the dams work. on tributary streams and backup reservoirs. releasing water when it needed when the rains come. on the tennessee river itself, wide dams control the water step-by-step, instead of ultimate floods and droughts water can be dispatched as trains are dispatched on a railroad system.

these are the symbols of the nation's constructive energy. douglas. guntersville. cherokee. wilson. pickwick landing. chickamauga. hiawatha. montana. hales bar. watts bar. fort lowery. wheeler. appalachia. noris. built for and owned by the people of the united states.

day and night, with dams work for the people, for the factories, for new industry, power to run a million machines, aircraft, tractors, textiles, engines, shoes, fertilizers, aluminum, cheap and abundant power light the cities and buildings, power for the farmers. power that can be converted to 100 home uses, power working tirelessly, endlessly, raising standards, reducing drudgery. power in the hands of the people. ♪♪

>> the children of the tennessee valley recaptured the hope of their grandfathers. they have learned the tva is indeed the yardstick. a measure of what men can build in peace. a measure of our stature of a new and better world. a world of dignity, work, and hope for all. a world a child can walk into.

>> you have been watching american history tv every saturday on c-span2, visit the people and places the tell the american story and watch thousands of historical stories online anytime, c-span.org/history. you can find us on twitter, facebook and youtube, c-span history. .. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> we are going to gohe