alumni distinguished professor of history emeritus at the ufa he earned his phd at colorado and the story that we hear is that he went to colorado to study the history of the american southn but he was told they don't do that at the university of colorado. so he said okay and he went on to become one of the leading scholars of the american west. he's written nine scholarly books including the last indian war the story the essential

west. he's won numerous prizes for his research including the western historicalte association, the prize from then society of american historians and the billington prize from the organization of american historians. those of you that have the good fortune to have been in class with him know that he is an outstanding teacher. he's been recognized with the faculty achievement award arkansas professor of the year recognition from the carnegie foundation. he was also named a finalist for the award for the nation's best college teacher. we think that he is the best. college teacher for sure. his latest book b the subject of tonight's talk is continental reckoning the american west and age of expansion. i read it over the break this is a monumental synthesis, that is my take. it also says a lot about the

country as a whole. the elliott west that arrived in boulder colorado to study the american south has at last receivedat his wish, i guess. because this book aims to bring together the narrative threads of the westward expansion and the american civil war east and west to replace the american history. i hopee you will be inspired to pick up a copy after, and i will warn you i am a european specialist by training but if i read this book when i was a college student, i think i would be in a different field today. so please join me in welcoming professor elliott west. [applause]

if i take them off i will hear myself. [laughter] thank you very much for the wonderful introduction andul to the center for having us here for this talk. especially e to the kennedy foundation and for all those that haveal contributed to the kennedy lecture it is my privilegee and honor to take pt in this lecture. tom kennedy, there are very few people in our professional life that i've left more and who could make me laugh harder than tom kennedy. those that know him i think you can appreciate that. anyhow, thank you for coming out on this chilly evening.

i try to make it about something more and i want to take one particular theme to talk about that a little bit this evening. i fell in love i with of the history of the american west, but i particularly have been drawn to this period of the american west roughly a 30 year period when what we know of came to being.

what period are we talking about, about a 30 year period that begins with expansion from 1845 until 48. a little less than three years it comes out to about 28 months and 15 days. 1846 we go to war with mexico in the south and 1848 we sign a treaty with mexico and the southwest part of the great basin. that adds up to 1,200,000 square miles. that's right at three quarters of a billion acres in less than three years. that's a lot of land.

what ifth that were to happen today? say this expansion begins and it ends on july 1, 2025. what would the country look like? we can't go furtherur west but f we expand to the south, what would the united states look like? it would expand and reach across mexico down through all of central america and about half of columbia. so if you can imagine in three years this country added that much territory and its an area of enormous complexity but geographically in terms of resources, demographically in terms of its human makeup this is the map from 1844 of this expansion if youhi were to zoomn on that map you would see while

it's claimed it's a hodgepodge outside of parts of california withth overlapping authorities d cultures. thirty years later, basically one generation later all of that has kind of come to a coherence by 1848 is organized politically but it's also integrated into the united states, integrated politically and culturally, economically. it's become 1880 let's say what we call today the west. what we see in this roughly 30 year period is the emergence of this distinctive part of society

and american life and landscape, the birth of the west. that's what this book was contracted to be. tthat's what it was supposed to do. it's much more complex and interesting than the popular culture would tell us. but as i researcasingly convinced that it was more than that. it's a couple of stories. at the same 30 years 1845, 48 the same were also years when the trajectory of american history of the narrative shifts in an important way. it moves in a new direction and

it would carry us into what we call today modern america. but 1880 the latter part of the century in modern america is emerging. h century and 21st century. so 1852 the 1880sre were both the years of the birth of the american west and the years and which thena nation shifts in ths movement historical into modern america. and not only in time, but in fact birth of the west, the birth of modern america are hopelesslye intertwined and you cannot separate them. you cannot understand one without the other.

and that is the idea that i want to play with this evening. and of course in a way it flies in the face of the way that we have grown up thinking about the birth of the west about these events. i mentioned those before. when you look at these what do you think of, cowboys and indians. nothing you can think of in the popular perception. it's as if they are sort of floating out there. this other storyfr apart from te course of what's going on in the main narrative of the united states history. it's as if they were staged to entertain instead of to show us what's going on in this larger

course of change in this country. atthat's not true. those are interlocking. so howou do you get added to th? to suggest to imagine something, what do they call it, he thought thought experiment. make a little list of the most important traits of what we think of in modern america. those traces of america today the 20th and the 21st century that are fundamentally

different. what do we need in contrast to the earlier one. see if there are any connections between this particular trade that defines modern america and the changes that are going on between 1850 and around 1880. what i will suggest to you and make that point looking at three of those items on the list, if the stories we always make three points, number two, number four. here are three ways in which i think we can illustrate this. there's that change. first, i think we can say the united states is the wealthiest

and most powerful economy, the wealthiest people, the most powerful economy in the history of the world. we also have gone through the stages of the industrial growth and power to the postindustrial economy now and we did that more thoroughly, productively and generating more wealth than any other nation in the world at the time. to begin with what i call in the first chapter the great coincidence the treaty that ended this three stage expansion andof the suburb of mexico cityy nicholas trust, this guy on the

left, that wasas signed on february 2nd, 1848. on january 24, 1848, 9 days before he signed the treaty, this guy on the left, james marshall looked down and was overseeing the construction when the river in northern california he saw this shiny stuff he picked it up and said i think that's gold, and it was. it was worth about 50 cents. the discovery and this is roughly 200 hours, 200 hours before we acquired california set loose what was by far the greatest output of gold in human history until that time. more gold came out of california in one year, 1852, van had been

produced throughout the world, throughout the entire 18thtu century. if you add in australia they had others pretty soon after this one. if you add australia's to california, more gold was produced between those gold rushes in five years than was produced between 1492 and 1848. incredible. so virtually at the same moment we acquired california it began to be revealed california was one of the richest places on earth. there is an aphorism, god looks after dogs, drugs and the united states of america. [laughter] that was just the beginning. this had ago whole series across the united states and all to the

west that we had recently acquired. then ten years after marshall's discovery over the sierra nevada, silver was discovered. that proved to be one of the richest soldier restricts in history until that time and then there were others not just nevada but arizona, idaho, montana, colorado. so over this 30 years or so, one of the things was to generate an incredible amounts of wealth, the three definitions that were used to finance this basic retooling of the american economy to this modern status. that was just the beginning. mor

used for the wiringenormous, sty valuable. it turns out the american west had at that time the largest most productive concentration of copper on earth and history up until that time. up until that time, michigan accounted for the production of three fourths of all copper in the united states. 1885 the amount of copper produced in the united states increased nine times over. and two thirds of that was produced in montana and arizona. so the basic stuff to accomplish this transition as well as the money but to pay for it all.

we are moving intoth the age of metal but this was in some ways still the age of would. the american west specifically the northwest gives this unprecedented amount to build the infrastructure you would need for this new economy. the amount that was caught and put down deep into the earth to build and produce the silver thate came out was enough to build a modern house for a modern city of 50,000 people. that much went down into this one industry and all the other stuff we were building again for this retooling, this remaking. ..

yourself why, what? why did they do that and why did it happen? just it's like somebody flips a the bison,ng money for the guys shooting home. where ise the demand? in 1870 there was a global short an of leather.

not for boots, or hats, leather for factories. that was used before rubber.or synthetics. leather used for belts of the machines, used for gaskets in the industries. argentina was providing this. but with cattle. huge demand for industrial leather. 1871, two tanneries one in pennsylvania one in germany discovered they could turn bison hydes to industrial leather, 12 years they are basically gone. there is a nice parallel.

it looks like a factory, right? it is industrial slaughter on the great plains as part of the industrial revolution that is taking place in it country, so is there a connection? yeah, the west gave us money and resources we needed and leather forth the factories we were building. i got into it, i began to understand it was more than this. it was another change, a related change that is going on here. birth of the west took place almost coindent with the revolutionary technologies in movement. movement of people, of things and information. railroads took off, in 1855 aboutt 128 thousand miles of

rails in the united states init 1880. a lot of those miles were out west, for everyone of those lines they are feeder lines. we're less aware of. the same revolution in steam power is applied to marathon movement andnd commerce. the invention and development of the screw pro propeller that allows ships to go faster and farther with less fuel. u.s. ship, was propeller built in 1849. coincident withso the beginning of this. you can see here they are maritime routes of commerce

during those years with the new technologies. a lot of it centering on san francisco that is suddenly one of the busiest ports on earth because of gold rush and the telegraph. may 1844, year before this expansionar begins. theresi explodes first trans continental telegraph line in 1861. 1880, 3 million telegraphic messages are sent every year overs lines. and by 1880. helena montana is in telegraphic connection with tokyo, the world is shrinking, what does that mean? this allows us to acquire

the resources to get them to where we want them, connecting us to the basic resources. a also integrates the west into the national and international economy we have become one economic tissue by 1880s. this is took me a while to catch on to this, it allowed american west itself to go through this industrial revolution in ways that you wouldn't normall of. so far i have talked about, you are probably thinking, resources that go east to accomplish that economic, industrial transformation. because of this that, is happening in the west itself. as well. the west in many ways was industrializing faster earlier than the east.

in areas you might not think of. like agriculture. agriculture. farming in theri west, you think of homesteading, you should. that wasan not all that was going on. central valley of california, almost over a decade, 15 years, really, became one of the most productive grain producing areas in the world. by 1875 the value of grain exports not just produced but grain exported out of california of the greater than the value of gold and silver being produced in california, a major world provider, largest foreign market for grain coming out of california was liverpool. 17,000 nautical miles away.

they produce them with the industrial methods. it is industrial grain production. basically. these are mega-farms, 3 farms in the central valley of california together covered 76 thousand acres. one of those farms produced in one season enough grain to i fill 40 ships that were sent all around the pacific rim and over to england to feed the bellies there. so. here is another charge example. bonanza farms. the railroad, in and out the

new machinery developing during the years. gang labor, often imported from abroad. it is industry. basically industrial production. in addition to areas you expect like mining the west was industrialing in its farms, we're providing resources for it the west is leading the way in the process itself. this is the part of the birth of our america. point two, i was trying to figure out a way to illustrateto this. i got on-line there are three categories of nobel prizes. in the sciences, chemistry,

physics, and medicine. 2010 to 2021 nobel prizes were awarded to 54, scientists in u.s., the equal to number to the next 6 nations. after us. i think it is imperative to say if we're not the leader, we're really up there in terms of scientific muscle in the world today. what could that have do with birth -- what does city bull have to do with that? you can read a lot of western history on this period.th without getting slightest

in fact the west in 30 years was one of most productive scientific laboratories on earth during these years. field after field after field after field, pick one, geology, the prince of the science in those years, fundamental breakthroughs made in historical and structural gee -- geology, that is, history of the earth and mechanisms and formation of the party and topography. young areas and social science, like anthropology. meteorology. choose an ology . epidemiology, one of the

moment fundamental break throughs in our understanding of disease in particular how disease is transmitted connected to of all things cattle drives that came out of texas, driving longhorns north word, a problem that lead to theed aha moment of understanding how diseases are passed. to focus on this evening one of the most active and important of these years, paleontology, bone hunting. search for categorization of ancient fossils, fitting together to tell you know the oldest story in the world, the story of life. life on.

this it was a very hot topic spoke to most contentious idea of the day that is charles darwin's theory theories of evolution by naturalme selection. you could see the relationships. so the bone hunters went out. two most famous of them, these guys. ofeal marsh . and o, from yale, and a wealthy independent researcher, they were super stars. they were engaged in this

ferocious competition. with a bitter, bitter enemies that spurred them to keep trying to scoop the other one. this is front page news, you would read front page articles in "new york times" toto the rivalry between those two, a great story, great press. but the result was hundreds of new ancient species were unearthed by these guys and the people who were working with them, this is a popular topic at the time. the west was the center of the act,ce in particular the great plains and american southwest. what is interesting to me, is thatt these guys were super stars, some of the most interesting and vital work was being done by

westerners, the self trained paleontologists making fundamental discoveries, here is one, bill reed, he was a meat hunter, in construction of union pacific railroad, he would shootil bison and elk to feed the guys, he became interested in bone hunting and read up on it, became a pretty good seat of the pants pailionologist -- paleontologists, he caught marsh's eye, he said, i have these things, but i won't tell you where they are, i want b money, he hired them on. bill reed who found and oversaw the unearthing in the

reassembling of one of the most famous dinosaurs of time, it is in the carnegie museum today. people finding this, this was huge news, bill reed the hunter who found the damn thing and oversaw the excavation. charles stern burg, a teen in upstate new york he moved to kansas where his brother george, who became surgeon general of united states, he had a ranch, charles started working on the ranch, and coming across the fossils of ancient trees and caught the bug,

and worked with cope in montana. went on his home, became one of the leading paleontologists in united states and the world, his minds -- finds are in museums all over the world this triceratops at london museum. the big guys, you know are marsh and cope, and out of the work of marsh, two most important breakthroughs confirming darwin's ideas of thee period, came. marsh would go out of the plains every summer to lead the expeditions to hunt this stuff, these are yale grad students by the way.

trying really hard to look tough in western riding gear.. they became bank presidents and stuff after this, darwin argued that every species today, that ever existed is descendant from earlier ones and reached the current position, embodiment through a series of gradual changes that come about through we know as genetic drift, he said they linked together to produce current one that you see, critics said prove it so marsh did, with the study of horses. in particular horse feet. starting with horse toes, a three-toed animal could back

to 50 billion years. up to the modern horse, by fitting together horse feet, he shows this is how it works. you can see start here -- about the size of a collie, makes its way up, the toes, the feet to the modern horse, this was the first demonstrated evolutionary chain, first time that anyone had been able to show the evidence for what darwin predicted. also argued that if you take this branching, of a twig at the end of this great tree

of life, right? we take this trigging you trace it back it branches off something there is another twig in the or direction, you follow that common branch down that branches off with others. gradual branching out. this means if you follow this branching back you will find distant relationships between seemingly very different animals. right? they are related if you go back farar enough, we're all related on amoebas or something if you go back far enough,no critics said prove it. marsh said okay, so he did. he published this, you could buy this at safeway check out stand. this is a study of pulled out of

chalkth beds of kansas by the others working with marsh, he showed clearly here, i should say, darwin for example suggested that birds are connected to reptiles. you know. birds go back to dinosaurs. the final scene of jurassic park, they are flying off, they escaped the island. and they look out there are birds flying, you saying they are descendant from those things that were trying to eat us a few minutes ago, saying pigeons are distance cousins to crocodiles, people said, really? show us. okay. these goo back between 100

million and 60 million years ago. they are large birds, swam like penguins, snapping up fish. back in -- when kansas was a sea. you look at leg bones, he showed leg bones are related to c reptiles. he found connections between them, what was the stunner wase the super star, birds ancient birds about 6 feet long, with teeth. toothed birds. so he said, here you are. you can trace with leg bones

and other things you can trace is back to reptiles like crocodiles, this was the clincher, birds, oliver wendell holmes read there and wrote, i was astonisheded. i love about horse feet, is there anyt animal beside the bison we associate more with the west than the horse. royalt' bird of the west. this was convincing proof of two of the claims. made by -- darwin during this period.

marsh sent him a copy of the bird, d the next day darwin wrote marsh back and said this is the best evidence confirming my ideas in the last 20 years, this was pub published in 1880. origin of species in 1859, saying that this is best proof of my ideas found since i published this book. so, is there a connection between modern america and this case, scientific super star and birth of the west? yeah. i think there is. this is one scientific area in which we could show this. point three, a little more complex. modern america and question

of citizenship. united states of america from the beginning has been a society of remarkable rangema of races and origins, united states has extended citizenship and rights around citizenship to virtually all of these groups, across the board. diversity has been there from the beginning, mod, america has opened -- think of it this way from, start we have been diverse. but the beginning of second half of 19 century to 20th and t 21st. embrace of american citizenship has widened. in the literal meaning

comprehended, reached around, larger and larger part of our society to bring them into citizenship and its rights on paper. that is good news for most of us, i think, bad news that extension of citizenship and rights has always been limited, in fact, never been complete. and always been contested. in some cases violently, bloodily. this is much as scientific leadership, economic power, that is also part of the definition of modern america as in contrast to the america before. okay. associate that back with the birth of the west. i say to you during the 30-year period, american embarked on experience of which we embraced and bring

fary more people into america into the national embrace into american household, than before. i think probably first thing you would think of would be emancipation, you should, 1865, more than 4 million enslaved people are freed and invited and given the right to vote. given citizenship opaper, the rights of citizenship. we know that was compromised from the very beginning. it was increasingly compromise the. in fact, after reconstruction it turns very ugly with this imposition of a racial order, a white-dominated racial order on paper is a broad grant of citizenship and rights,

that is a central part of the birth of modern america, but in its -- this is critical to understanding, but it begins before that it begins with the west. in the west where this story begins. it begins with expansion. mexican session 100 thousand former mexican citizens are admitted at citizens their rights to property are guaranteed under the treaty of guadalupe hildalgo. but the promise is you will become american citizens.

you got to get -- be more likeke us. what is that government said we will make you a citizen, you will become one of us, but it will take time. you know, you have to be changed first. you have to become like the rest of american society before you can fit in, for your own good. that was done through reservations. reservations, main point was to make their -- take their landa, way and open it up. the reservations were seen as social cultural laboratory in which indian peoples would be transformed into main line americans. how to we do that? these are piece -- peace medals. presidents handed out medals to leaders of different

native groups, symbols of friendship of alliance, on onee side the current president. this goes back to jefferson, in this case was it lincoln, other side shows what that particular administration considers the ideal relationship betweens government and the indian peoples. what isin our vision for you. to jefferson, it has to with trade. come along way by 1862. this is the verseo. here is an indian with a head dress, plowing. so, number one, you have to be a farmer. understand that you are not farmers now, i don't understand you can't farm out d there in wyoming. nevertheless, you will

be farmers that is basic first step into american economic life. you will be christians. the church. christians con version. ander send your kids to school. agriculture, christianity, education for the children, those are three steps in which you will become american citizens. also a wonderful detail, you cans see this? baseball. during recess you can go out play baseball. 4ou things, agriculture, christianity, education and baseball to become a real american. what is interesting this is 1862, this is the same way supposedly freed people. that was brought into american society through freeman's bureau.

send youran kids to school. all these, oliver howard evangelical christians and 40 acres and a mule. we're doing here is, you know the prototype in west is expended to freed people in east with the emancipation, all part of thehe same process, this citizen offer. of course, the other side of that is darker side of it is, the imposition of a cultural order ofos a racial order in this process. grant you these things on paper, but that is not how it will work we'll have a racial system, white dominated that will run things, thisll is part of it, what are they saying here? you may think you have your own religion and think you

know how toyo treat the land, you may h think you are raising your children the right way, you are not, we'll tell youre how do, that we're imposing this idea of who you are supposed to be you about it gets uglier. in certain parts of the west, resistance to this, expansion. in some parts of west it is out right genocide, it say tricky term, i argue with my colleagues, you can apply it and not, this is california, no question, in california this is attempted genocide of native peoples. native population in california drops by more than half in 12 years, after

1848, 90% by 1900 within 52 yearsrs. it is out right killing sponsored by legislature that passes bills paying for militias to go out and slaughter indians, federal government passes provides money to reimburses california legislature for these slaughters, this is attempted genocide. other places not so out right,e but the point is, this is same time that we're expanding this offer of citizenship, others are resisting it, we're saying okay here is the offer but on these terms. how about the hispanics? in southern california. andhi southwest. there was this same thing is going on.

attempt, they are given citizenship, but at same time there is an out right concerned effort to marginalize hispanics from the main areas of economy life, if there is resistant, to kill them. through lynching, famous lynching of a woman, very rare. but, on larger scale, it goes beyond that, an interesting statistic based on research. we associate lynching with southeast, mississippi has highest rate of lynching during worst years 1880 to 30s. this is a rate of lynching not numbers, rate per 100 thousand. what is rate of lynching based on research in mississippi, o on less research on california and

southwest, what is a the rate? 53. what is rate 30 years before that? before 1880? in southern california, and southeast? for hispanics? 473. again, remember this has been studied far more thoroughly in the southeast than in the southwest. these guys, the people who did this were pretty thorough. at least the point here -- oh, the chinese. during these years the chinese. what about them? they are never offered citizenship, in 1882, the congress for only time in american history, and there is an chinese exclusion act,

only time in american history congress excludes or refuses immigration into this country, closes the door for a group based on their place of origin. only time it ever happened. point here is, a very muddy point, but modern america is we talk a great game, we offer citizenship and righties to people, at same time that always resisted a pull and tug over the question of how plurbus we

can be in the country. after world war ii, doors are opened up, done away work civil rights legislation, black power, red power then i think now the other ones pulling back. resist answer, the focus is out west, talking a wall this time not metaphor call but actual. oh, gosh, 7:00. the point to emphasize, first a couple things, story of the birth of the west by itself, is a great story. wonderful. but it a story that is also closely intertwined with the story with the birth of birth of modern america, the births of the west and birth of modern america are really

inseparable, american west one time born of modern america, and west at the same time helping to give birth to modern america. the wes' is the child and the mid wife of modern america that we know in 21st century. more broadly, the point to makeke about title of the book, continental reckoning, ifnt we understand american history, we have g to make more of afford to look at this history, continentally, bring west fully into the story and look at america from coast-to-coast, thank you very much. [applause] >> we have time for

questions? oh, come on. someone? >> i could listen to you talk all day. this is interesting. i wondered if you could elaborate more on third point, it is greatest interest to me in politics and government. why not also and perhaps you did in book talk about the west as a leader in expanding citizenship to women? >> west --? >> to women. >> to women, that is a great point. part of the expansion between genders with grants of vote to women. i do write about that in the west, it is interesting to speculatens. the west lead the way in the

nation in the abolishment of principle that a women gives up her legal identity in marriage,y and by far and away most generous access to divorce in the nation. the rate of divorce in the west was 7 times rate of south atlantic and 3 times rate of new england. women are given rights in legal systems across the west, they would not have for years, in the east. interesting to speculate why that is. i have some ideas, but that was the case. homesteadd act, is gender news neutral, anyone can take up 160 acres male or female, and 10% of homesteads in northern plains were taken by single

women or widowed women. more complicated. very complicated story. but, i think larger picture, in the west is one in which women's rights are expanded. interesting sort of other aspect to this. been really interesting work done on women in waiting. these i are gold rush widows, the thousands of men, many of them husbanding and fathers they go to gold fields and do other mining rushes in west, they leave their wives and mothers at home to take on men's work. run the business and run the farm. take on the responsibles s -- responsibilities done by the men, what you follow that story, a lot of cases, men come back and wives say, glad you are

back. others, they come back and say, time for me to take over, no, i don't think so. it is interesting, one more way where we see westward expansion in civil war interacting they are two events where thousands of men left their homes and left women behind to take on male roles. you can't tell me there was not some connection between that and fact that generation a few years ahead therene rise of modern feminism in united states that is a way in which they are connected. >> thank you. >> student back in 80s. there were very different questions about the west back then, frontier west, and west region and process, then, we went through western history, i notice in

your book, you refer to frontier and i was wondering if you could address that, that is intriguing, when we were grad students with newest ern history, many of us said we're, never using that word again. >> thank you. >> chris, our colleague. student about 200 years ago. he asked me why i use word frontier oncen' and italics, he knows well why i didn't use the traditional. not sos much, it ask a negative. pattie limerick, you associated wa new western history, referred to new frontier at the f word, not so obscene but get beyond

that, there are other things and other ways to look at this, we don't need to shoe horn everything in this famous area and consent of frontier. time to move on. we could use it occasionally in italics. >> thank you. i want to ask about that territory before 1840s. by this map would you define american west, geographically all territory west of theog mississippi river? secondly,. >> missouri river. the point is the same. >> that might could different, what is going on in louisiana territory? from 1803 to 1840s. >> that is a great question, you mean, louisiana purchase? right? >> territory we owned before

treaty of grad leupp. guadalupe. >> okay. well. with the missouri compromise we draw a line across that, and just north of us in billa vista. south of that open is slavery and north of, that a larger territory. aur crappy deal, why -- did we get small part. reason for that was, iowa, and minnesota, none was considered usable. because it was -- it didn't have enough rainfall. think of this, in 1845, time you are talking about, it was called indian country, left up to the tribes, do

what you want, in 1845, none of that had any government, it adds to a quarter of all american territory. 1845 one fourth of all of united states had no government, because it was considered irrelevant. at national irregularities. what? happens when gold, then gold is discovered. suddenly that country is important. not because what it can produce. but because now, it is right in the middle of the expanded country, we have to get across it. right? we have to start dealing with the indians. to get transit rights and then build a railroad across it and organize it.

you can't think this law will work without being organized to define the property. it is important, the expansion makes this area, which had been irrelevant, makes it very important. because it is in the middle of the country the history changes from that point on. very good question, thank you. >> anyone else? everyone wants a beer. >> yes. >> paleontology -- with contribution, was an anthropology expanded in the west. >> yeah. i was hoping no one would

ask, it is, it a roughly new fields, anthropology. i science of man. the effort were quite etra ordinary. the railroad surveys of 1850s, surveying ways to go out to the most usable routes for transcontinental railroad, they brought along scientists, and they would reconsidered -- record. publication of the scientific exploring as in 1850s was a quarter of the national budget.

publishing this stuff, including remarkable stuff, zoology and biology and it gave a great boost to the study of anthropology, it offered a huge number of strangedi peoples, you know to go out there and study. we did. but here is the other, this is also a period of race science. in which major figures. who believed in pollygenous. there is not one human race but human races, you could divide all of mom antiin different racial categories and their species.

they are also ranked in terms of ability, intelligence, cultural possibilities, goes who is onan top? you go down lower, guess who is a lower and lower, indians are close to the welcome except for -- bottom except for african-american, called american school of anthropology, it becomes a very well-known across the word for this racial theory rising. and looking ahead to joarm germany in 1930s, figures like german racial theorists look to the american school of anthropology as confirmation of what they believe, this is aw, very dark side. this has nothing to do with anthropology, it was very

active. also very influential in terms of the impact, this particular social science impact on the world. >> chipper note. anyone else? okay, thank you very much, thank you. it is an honor to be kennedy lecture here. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> it looks like this, americans can see democracy

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