we were here yesterday to do setup for this program. the staff here has been very accommodating. it just made possible to have a really truly meaningful event. and, ma'am, we want to hosting us. we'd like to thank you for hosting us and we have something for you. this is a gulf oil print of the korean war memorial and your wars are starting to fill up around here, but we hope you can find a place for this, ma'am. thank you very much. next i'd like to invite gone purser up. thanks for your inspirational remarks today and i'll see you back on the job. but i want to thank you, as well. we have a print for you. [ applause ]

>> and nancy cantrell, please, if you would join me. it's a tough job to run a panel and to keep things on task and she told us always about the history of the war. what i'd encourage you, hopefully in a spurred a little interest that you'll learn a little more about the war. it's important. we want you on each your children about it and their children, so that they understand the importance of it and what was sacrificed over there. so she turned the door open for you. now you have to step through the threshold. nachbts city, thank you on behalf of the committee, we would like to present you with a foil, as well. [ applause. >> [ and now we honor our female korean war veteran panel members with a special presentation. we're also honored to have sergeant myers here and we ask her to come forward at this

time. just a little background. megs mye miss myers came with her family today and they traveled nine hours on the road from massachusetts to be with us today. so we wanted to make sure that we presented a certificate to her, as well. thank you. >> in recognition of honorable service during the korean war in defense of democracy and

freedom, nthrough your shfless sacrifice, tide of communism was halted and liberty triumphed. the people of america and korea are forever grateful. first rlieutenant kathy drake. [ applause ]

first lieutenant eleanor porter, u.s. army. smch [ applause ] sergeant daisy lozak u.s. marine corps. [ applause ] lieutenant patricia johnson, united states naefr.

captain katherine taylor, united states air force. [ applause ]

how about a big round of applause for all our panelists. [ applause ] each of our ladies is married to veterans, as well, which is quite remarkable. kathy taylor met her husband who went to the air force shortly after the signing of the armistice. we're honored to have two of the husbands with us today. first lieutenant dr. dale drake and lieutenant thomas porter also korean war veterans. we would like to recognize three korean war husbands unable to join us, as well, today before stach sergeant lewis lozak, vice admiral john johnson and pfc robert f. myers.

it's been a remarkable program today and it's time to wrap it up, but i hope you've all benefited from the words that were spoken today. it was some 60 years ago on the korean peninsula and the future of cokorea was very much in dou. and despite the korea became in abject poverty, devastated by conflict with seemingly few prospects for suffering people. but in the space of a few decades, nothing short of a miracle took place. today the republican of korea is a force for good in northeast asia, a bastion of democracy, and a staunch ally of the united states with an economy that's the envy of the world. mun of this would have been

possible without your sacrifices and those of your fallen comrades. so on behalf of those in uniform serving today and an eternally grateful nation, thank you, we are standing on the shoulders of giants. thank you. [ applause ] >> ladies and gentlemen, this concludes came today's say money. we thank you all for attending and helping us honor those who sacrificed so much in the defense of republic of korea. please join us for refreshments. as cause in, we were playing an outstanding documentary. and if you did not get a chance to watch the real m.a.s.h., take a little time to view it. showing in the respgs area and all the displays. please join us. thank you.

between 1861 and 1868, clara barton known as the angel of the battlefield and founder of the american red cross lived if will washington, d.c. building. she employed 12 clerkses on the third floor in her missing soldiers office where they received over 60,000 letters from families searching for lost sons and husbands. in 1996, richard lyons, a carpenter for the general services administration, was rep to go prepare the building for demolition when he discovered this office sign in the attic. american history tv visited the building to learn about the missing soldier's office and to hear the story of richard lyons who worked alone for months to save the building from demolition. >> this is the original staircase that clara used that has never been renovated or changed much at all

, just a few repairs done to it. so when you walk up the staircase and put your hand on the banister, you're walking in clara barton's foot steps. she did this for about eight years it during the civil war era and just after when she operated a missing soldier's office in this space and eventually she ended up leaving because her health became so poor and she was so exhausted from the work she had done during the war that she couldn't find these three sets of stairs anymore. so she ended up moving out late in december of 1868. and that's pretty much when she closed down her operations here in washington. one of the neat things that we have, we found in this space that we had replicated is a roll of the missing men. clara had five of these produced during the war. sent out almost 100,000 copies. and we only know of a handful in

existence today. so one of the goals my museum is to feepd copies of each roll, one through five, so that we can show people exactly all the names and exactly what kind of work she was doing during that period of time. she started out in just one room and i've read an account from one of her family members who visited her here who said that she had one room, she divided that room in half because she started to collect supplies for soldiers and she needed so much space that she put this wall up you see in the background and that was her boarding room. half of it was used to store supplies, the other half was her living space which was really quite small for the time. the last time we know anyone inhabited this space on the third floor was if 1911. that's when the original lessee, head wa

edward shaw, moved out. he had gotten rather elderly and he left this building and moved in some smaller space. i'm not sure where yet. one of the very intriguing personalities that we're researching right in you it find out exact willy his hole was, his relationship with clara barton. >> i'm a carpenter and in 1996, they sent us out to the building that was acquired from pennsylvania avenue development corporation to clean them up, make sure mob was living in them. it was the day before thanks giving in '96. i got up here, nothing in here, no lights, no nothing. only a little light come in through the windows. i came over here and looked

around and nothing was here. so i happened to witness -- you don't usually witness one, but i wilted an accident out here. somebody ran a red light and bumped again ders and i'm st standing here watching. from out of nowhere, i don't know what it was, but it felt like somebody tapping me on the shoulder. i turned around and nobody there. when i turned around to look automatic the window, i turned around like this and the corner of my eye seen an envelope hanging between the ceiling and the wall. these boards here were laid out like a floor up there, all leveled off and everything. i pulled myself up through the little hole and on my hands and knee, i put myself on a piece of metal. i picked it up and moved it out of the way and when i turned it

over, it read missing soldier's officer. third story, room nine, dollar doll clara barton. hosted by our comcast of central arkansas cable partner, c-span's local content vehicle recently visited historic sites in little rock, the capital of arkansas. learn more all-weekend long on american history tv. the old statehouse museum in it little rock tells the story

of arkansas' history. we caught up with the curator for a preview on an upcoming exhibit on civil war battle flats. >> we're located at the collection management storage facility for the old statehouse museum in little rock, arkansas. >> what do we have behind you? >> this is what we call our mobile storage unit and we have stacks. we have everything from in our collection from an electric chair, two electric chairs, to johnny cash's guitar. so this is where kind of the heart of our collection at any given time, there's less than 2% of things on exhibit, so this is where we keep them, this is a controlled environment of the temperature and humidity and light levels are all controlled to make sure the artifacts are safe. >> and this is one of the electric chairs? >> these are two of the electric

claires. t chairs. the older one is what they called sparky 1 and 166 inmates were executed in that chair. and this one, only one was executed because lethal injection came in shortly after this one was constructed. so we have a large collection of our prison system and a few years ago, we had an exhibit and we featured a lot of things from the prison. very interesting, color ful history. >> that is. >> so we have our first families. the things that are not on exhibit, we have everything from chelsea's dress when she was young to current governor things that we rotate out. and we have our paintings and artwork, a lot of textiles, we

have our quilts. this is just the treasure trove of where things live. >> we're here today to take a look and talk about your new exhibit on civil war flattings. >> yes, we have a new exhibit that will open may the 4th. and it's called wall of fire. and what this exhibit will do is examine the civil war in arkansas. and so the ladders are in the way, but we'll scoot it by. an one of the main feature of the exhibit will be our civil war battle flag collection. they're kept safe in this flag cabinet specially designed for them where the air can rotate and it has a charcoal filtering system that keeps the air pure. and the reason why we keep them like this is the worst thing in the world for flags or any

textiles really is gravity. gravity, light and dirt. and that will destroy a textile over time. so what this cabinet does, it allows the flags to what we call rest, so they're laying flat in this safe system and then we can just bring them out so these are all go on exhibit. we'll bring all of our flags out and they will be up for 11 months. and we're having special cases built where they will slant. because if they hang flat on a wall, gravity will pull it down and that's very hard on the flags. so we're having special cases built. the flags haven't been on exhibit in about nine years. so this will be a great exhibit

and very popular. >> and what is there onehere? >> this particular sflflag is probably our most popular. in 1905, the united states government began to return flags captured in battle to southern states. this was kind of a goodwill gesture, in other words. and so as you can imagine, there were no computer databases to keep up with these flags, and so a lot of flags were mis-i.d.ed. they were given a war tent numb department number as you see up here, this was 227, but they were mis-i.d.ed. and this particular flag, this was an arkansas flag, but it was sent to alabama. so since 1905, it stayed in the archives at alabama of a could i have archives and history

museum. the curator contacted me and said i think we have finally i.d.ed through scholarly research this flag and it prongs in arkansas. and so they went before the board. showed all the work that they had done, the scholarly research, and very generously they decided to donate the flag to us. so in october of 2001, i went and picked up this flag and brought it back to arkansas. this is the third confederate. we immediately -- it had never been conserved, so we immediately began raising money to have the flag conserved. on average a flag of this size is probably going to cost around $12,000 to conserve. and in this economy and museums in particular, that's a difficult amount of money to raise. but people were very generous and we raised enough money to

have this conserved. and so this will be one of the center pieces for our upcoming exhibit. >> you mentioned the third confederate. a little background on that? >> there were two units from mississippi and eight units from arkansas that served under this flag. and if you'll see what they would typically do is they would put the battles that they fought in on the flags. so as you can see, this unit -- this regiment was very busy. they were at some very important, heavy, heavy battles. so this was actually captured in 1864. i believe it was an ohio unit that captured this particular flag. then it was turned over to the war department. >> what about this one over

here? >> this one is what's called a hearty pattern. but this is a typical hearty pattern. they were white and usually had a white border around it with a blue field. and then in the center, kind of a crescent moon or a moon shape was usually where the units -- they would designate the units in there. it too was in tennessee, but more importantly, it's at shilo. another flag that has an interesting history is this one. you can see it's a very, very large flag. it has some beautiful work on it. this flag was returned to missouri, but it was actually an arkansas flag.

it's in the first national pattern. it has the two cross cannons, which indicate artillery. but if you'll notice something very interesting about this flag. this is the back of the flag. that's the reason why people think why did you do the flag that way? this is all that's left of the flag. unfortunately just age and wear and tear, the front side of the flag did not survive. now in 2009 we came to an agreement with the state of missouri. we had one of their flags so we exchanged this flag for two arkansas flags. so in 2009 we brought home two flags of arkansas that hadn't been in the state since the war. this and then an arkansas sixth and seventh. it was very generous of missouri to go into this agreement with

us. and we needed to raise money for two flags. so people donated money, but we also applied for a grant from save america's treasures. and we were awarded a grant. so we were able to conserve these two flags. they just recently came back to the state from the conservation in west virginia. and so when this exhibit opens in may, this will be the first time that the public will be able to see these flags on exhibit since the war. this is interesting. >> one of the questions i have for you as you pull it out is why are flags so popular? it seems to be something a lot of people connect with. >> people are very connected to flags because when -- you have to stop and think. when these young men were out on the battlefield, this was honor. this was their badge of honor.

it was a great honor, actually, to be designated the flag carrier. you hear all of these stories about, you know, the flag carrier was shot and fell and someone scooped up the flag to keep it from hitting the ground and to carry on. and that actually did happen. it was a great honor to carry the flag. it was very personal. some of these flags were made by women in their hometowns. and so it was a very personal, personal thing. this flag, which is another first national pattern, is a great example of what was going on. they used whatever material they have. we don't have any documentation, but if you'll look at the pattern in this flag, one has to wonder, okay, did that come from a bode of fabric or was this a drapery? was this a table linen? what did these women take to

make this flag? it's a great source of pride. so today that source of pride carries on. i always tell people that i have the best job in the world because as curator, my duty, my job is to care for these artifacts to make sure that they are not only in the proper environment and maintained, but that we continue to do research to find out, give me a story with this flag. or give me a story that we can tell the public. we can't put the artifacts all out at any given time. so we have an online data base that we're real proud of that we continue to try to update where people -- we have people in ireland that love our battle flag collection. so they can go online and see

our flag collection. my job is the caretaker of this. it's the greatest job that anybody could want. i'm a history geek, and so it's wonderful. it it really is. it's a big responsibility to be the caretaker of all of these items, but i have a great staff, a great crew, and a director that really understands artifacts and collection. and he has been supportive for us from day one. and you know, if we need new equipment, if we need something conserved, he goes out there and tries to get the money for us to do it. so we're very fortunate with our director and deputy director and our entire staff. they get it. they get history. >> so what happens now between now and when the collection goes on display? >> what happens now between now and when it goes on is insanity

is basically what it is. my staff is busy because we have already decided what artifacts will go on exhibit. so they have to do paperwork. whenever you move an artifact from one place to another, we have to document it for insurance and just for our recordkeeping. so they are busy in the baa ta bases doing that. we have to take down an exhibit. we just had an exhibit on why commemorate the war. so that has to come down first, which we'll do in a couple weeks. put those artifacts back into their home and let them rest. and then our maintenance crew will go in and paint and get the galleries ready because it's five galleries. it's going to be a huge exhibit. and then about mid-april a company will come in that will help us install the flags. they have built special frames for them.

so we'll install the flags. and that's a big deal to move the flags because we can't just put them in a truck and do it. we have to do this proper and by museum standards and procedures and what's best for the flags. so we've hired someone to help us with that. then the final week, we'll install the other artifacts that will be on exhibit. and then we open. so there's a lot to do. we have text panels to proof and print. . we have labels for all the artifacts. people love to see tons of artifacts on exhibit, but we have to have labels made for all of those. so there's a lot that goes into exhibits. and i don't think people quite realize how much. >> well good luck. and thank you for taking us behind the scenes. >> absolutely. we encourage everyone