well, with the five civilized tribes, there are so many members of the tribes generally t land is divided, the indian people get their individual lands, by 1906, the process was completed and by 1907, oklahoma becomes a state. this is a land of contrast, diversity and for a historian like me and i have been studying oklahoma history now for 30 years, 14 books. i never cease to be amazed at the ways that oklahoma is unlike any other state in the union. find out where cspan's local content vehicles are going next, you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan 3.

the organization of american historians and the national council on public history recently held their annual meeting in milwaukee, wisconsin, american history tv spoke with several of this year's aden dees. discuss the panic of 1837 and other kmirk crises and explain how they relate to the 2008 financial crisis. this is about a half hour. >> american history tv is at the annual meeting of the organization of american historians in milwaukee and we are joined by two historians who will be speaking about economic crises in american history, jessica letler teaches history at the university of new hampshire and alice o'connor, a historian at the university of history santa barbara, thank you for being was. >> thank you.

>> let's start early in the history, with the pak panic of 1837, pwhat was the panic of 1837. >> that phrase refers to a rather long period of time it referred to seven years of boston a financial crisis and really hard times that followed it well into the 18 40sz. but my focus has been on the experience of panic which happened between march and may of 1837 and was rather remarkably similar to our own crisis in several ways, it was a secret crisis built out of speculation and consumption of goods and sort of very similar experience to what a lot of people have just experienced. >> so it was an inherited crisis for martin van buren. >> andrew jackson was president, and martin van buren took office

in 1837 which was the same day that in london and -- an inherited crisis, but it was a crisis inherited within an administration. he wasn't exactly ignorant of the situation that was going on. >> with what would the economy have been like in 1839, what was the driving engine of the u.s. economy? >> between the mid 1820s and the mid 1830s, it was an enormous period of growth. the backbone was cotton, the slave plantations of the south expanded west at a remarkable rate from land that had been confiscated from native americans and that market extended to the textiles in england. evening land actually supported the american economy in the

1820s and 1830s as financial backers. certainly improvements, building of canals and railroads of the south and the cotton markets of the south drove the american economy. >> when students try to draw parallels between the crisis of 1837 and the 2008 crisis, where do you see the best merging of the past? where are the two similar? >> they are similar in a bunch of ways. in some ways i think it's more interesting to think of how they're different. because they're remarkably similar, there were credit crises built on property. and new forms of credit instrumentation. they're very different in that the slave economy is behind the 1830s version. the language that people used to describe the crisis that they were living through is in some ways remarkably similar to our own. when we were living through the 2007, 2008 sort of early periods of our own hard times, i kept

seeing references to meteorological crises and medical crises, and this is the same sort of language that 19th century americans used but 19th century americans didn't yet have a sense of the economy or a gdp or anything that we use as markers to figure out how our own economic system works so it was sort of similar people grappling with the problems of losing their fortunes overnight and incredibly different. >> the focus on economic crisis in american history, what do you plan to make this your main focus? >> what do you bring to the discussion? >> in my particular contribution, the panel itself is talking about why it is, not only that economic crises matter in history, but what they are and how they relate to one another. but why is it that narratives of economic crisis matter and some

of the things jessica was just saying i resonate with and are part of the rationale for this panel partly because it's our way, i think of acknowledge iin that historians have a something unique to bring to economic cries. no only to the degree that historians can step back and get a fully historians, narrative is our tool for making sense of the past. so we have particular understanding of why it is that narratives matter in helping people to make sense of in all sorts of different ways the very bewildering events that happen all around them. in helping people to in that way

try to rest some control, whether they really can or not, over again these bewildering events that are disrupting their lives possibly. but also for bringing understanding to how narratives are being used for political purposes. not just electoral purposes, although they are absolutely used in electoral purposes. who's crisis is this? suddenly the crisis has become obama obama's crisis. sudden liz it became martin van buren's crisis. >> it seems to be t s -- ban b

not only have the banks been at the core of these crises, but at many moments of crisis and panic in particular. economic crises that begin with moments of financial panic or financialized panic, have banks at their core and have different aspects of the whole banging system and the whole system of global finance at their core. in fact one of the tihemes that kind of draws all this together is the global origins of these crises. it came from evening land, it came from banks like the roth

childs and the barrons, these big bans of england and the bank of england kind of controlled the credit markets. but banks are the interesting part of the 1837 crisis, because for a long time historians have focused on the end of the -- that was the end of when people were panicked. the bank rush is the end of a long period of people being really nervous. >> which really don't have

any -- i was struck by in 1837 that there was certainly a call for the government to accept in, is that a common theme throughout the financial crises in history? >> it's often thought that there were bank runs, the banks shut themselves down in terms of trading paper money for cold coins. so there weren't that many bankrupts at that point either. but it was a politicized argument in the 1830s. those who wanted government intervention were those who disagreed with martin van buren and andrew jackson's policies. to try to bring back a more gold and silver currency. so i do think calls for government intervention in one way or another are sort of

trance historical. political parties are new, so the idea that the federal government had any role in this banking system is relatively new. even financial christs ises is being? transform america on the scale was really different. >> going back to 2008, this narrative that you talked about in terms of history, focused specifically on the bank's role in 2008 and how that fits into the narrative of past economic crises. >> in fact, interestingly, holding the banks accountable and essentially framing this as a crisis that began as a financial crisis and that remain in some ways as a financial crisis that can be resolved through fixing the financial system through bailing out the banks or stabilizing the banks or somehow stabilizing our

system of finance and reforming it is in itself a whsomewhatary- but what that doesn't pay attention to is what is ita caused this financial instability in the first place? absolutely that is connected to the banks and the larger process of economic reform and financial deregulation in the course of several years and the destructuring of capitalism that we have been seeing over the course of decades now. but it's absolutely deeply rooted in these problems of inequalitya essentially put people in a position of being so vulnerable to themselves of this whole process of subprime lending, this whole process of essentially debt financed ways of getting by. not getting ahead, but simply

ways of getting by, that remains really unaddressed, if you simply refer to it as a secret crunch that simply has to be fixed through government intervention. >> this idea of people not being able to sort of deal with the crisis, that's what's happening, is something that in 1837 was really remarkable. because it shaped the way people thought about economics in the next century and a half. they started the crisis with these strong arguments that individuals were responsible for their economic lives. the self-made man was -- played really just big role in getting people to invest in the economy. but during the crisis, they start to argue that they are not responsible. that self made failure is sort of divorced from self-made

success. so it's in some ways the reverse argument happening in the 18 tos. which during the crisis they started to look for bigger forces, and that process kind of leads to changes in economic thought. >> there was sort of an idea that came out of the depression, because we all had parents or grandparents who went through the depression, although those memories are fading off as our parents and grandparents die off. i'm not talking about the economic question. the idea of frugality, and building savings. are there certainly lessons that we're learning from the 2008 crisis for example? >> i think that is another story in many ways it's historical revision ichl. we are still fignding out what the lessons are --

>> of the great depression. >> what what the great depression was. so you see this happening before our very eyes. one lesson in the great depression. versus a -- says, no actually, it starrted as kind of a contrat crunch, the great contraction as milton freedman put it, and then through a variety of the stakings, on the one hand on the part of the federal reserve and then so-called government interference which prolonged the crisis is that's what caused the great depression. so that version of the great depression is being replayed right now in arguments that say,

well, what happened was government stepped in and bailed things out. and then the obama administration made things worse by this economic stimulus package, by not allowing the free market to reign and therefor the market becomes -- lessons of the great depression in the way we're managing the crisis now. i point to one other thing i think that's very, very important. you might recall that at the very beginning of the great recession and what to do about the great recession -- >> 2008. >> yeah, in -- really, actually, there's a big question of when all this started, but yet, we say early on in the obama administration, there's a lot of talk about 1937 and the great lesson of 1937, supposedly the consensus lesson in 1937 is that what you do not do in times of

great economic recession, is to not go to the great policies of augs terity. and for a while, for quite a while early on, that seemed to be the prevailing consensus. that has clearly disappeared as we have returned to the politics of austerity, as the politics of austerity have become dominant in our own political discussion and absolutely in the broad global discussions. as the -- especially economic crises extend. >> or months in my case. like as the panic of the 1837 intensifies because there was no communication and in those months, narratives of even the same author changed from hanna

farmam -- living within the means, living up to the means -- it come outs in december of 1836 and it's a run away best seller in the spring of 1837 and at the etched of the crisis in may, she comes one another book and the lesson of the second book isn't about how your individual choices can prevent your family's downfall, it's about how year' trapped in a net, a big spider's net, is what she called it that you can try to -- even in just a few months t same author could change her mind. >> has the way we measure economic success both individually -- mainly let's focus as a nation, has changed

over the course of 1895 years? >> of course it has been. it's hard for me to talk in terms of a course of a nation, because in the 1830s, they didn't necessarily think in those therms, but political economic has a field hadn't really developed into economics yet, and they didn't measure economic growth as a component of what they were supposed to be studying as what counted in a successful -- they were still thinking in general terms. domestic economies, about how all jenners of measurement genre's -- when historians apply the models of today on the 1830s to try to figure out whether the economy was successful, it's sort of a fiction, there was no way for us to know, they didn't collect the data that would be

closing -- >> also recession, literally the definition of recession in terms of the length of time one is peh and you know, and there are debates among, remain debates among economists about how you should measure -- how you should date recessions when they begin/end. also how they should be measured as well. >> if i could jump in, i think one of the most interesting things i read recently, stature as a measure of economic success. >> social stature? >> people stature. literally height. >> really? >> in the, people born in the 1830s and 1840s were shorter than people who had come before them and people who had come later. hard times took a physical toll, we think on people's bodies. >> one of the measures is unemployment. you wrote an article recently about the myth of mancession,

women and the recession. this has come up as an issue. what do you mean by the term "mancession." >> going back to the idea of individuals, structural, political level, have economic crises. fairly early on in great recession there was a lot of talk about this being unique and being, a so-called mancession. the idea was that, well generally speaking in economic downturns, you do see a period in which men are, are the first to lose their jobs in part because, you know, it,er that ones who hold the jobs. especially if it is an industrial downturn. but again, the argument is that in the past, men also are early, the first to recover. and, the argument was that what makes this great recession unique is that men, not only are

they suffering more, but their economic hardship is more prolonged and more severe than the economic hardship being suffered by women. this is how the argument went. this is how this whole notion that this is unique in being a mancession as opposed to a womancession. a bizarre term. and a way of playing politics. it is furthering other agendas. in many hands, the mancession was a way of addressing the economy and politics had become femme niinized and special inte women in particular, were making a special claim on the administration to need, supposedly to need special assistance in great recession. none of which was particularly true. i think the whole mancession idea is night helpful way of

thinking about the economy. but what it does draw our attention to is something that we frequently see in the experience of severe economic downturn, in the long-term economic hardship, that is that they has the tremendous, it i is,is is disruptive of family life, individual lives, wait they think about their place in the world and wait they think where they should be and bread winning and their sense of responsibility, their own sense of manliness and their sense of womanhood as well at this point because of course, so many women are bread winners in their own, family. so i argued in the piece and think this is the case that a lot of cultural anxieties about changing gender roles want economy are being played out in the way we are framing the current recession, just as they have been played out over and over again in the way people

make sense of these big economic crises. i know jessica -- has seen this in her work as well. >> in the 1830s. same situation. crises cause incredible disruption in people's lives. and they struggle to try to figure out how to make sense of them. gender is one way in which these jer gender roles change as a course of financial crisis. in the immediate, immediately preceding the panic of 1837, a bunch of new york working men, had a big flower riot. they literally threw flour out of the windows of warehouses. and as my friend josh greenburg argues it's because their sense of masculinity was threatened they couldn't provide. >> was it wage -- they were arguing over wages? >> they were arguing over the price of flour. they were being paid less and less proportionally. flour price was going up and up.

people ate mostly bread. poor people couldn't afford very much to eat. this was an era before people expected to have square meals, you know, balanced diets. and an era before any sort of social safety net. so if a working man didn't make a wage that could buy barrels of flour to feed their family, there was no food. and people just starved. that was part of life in the free market world of the early 19th century. >> another 24 years before the civil war, panic of 1837, how long did effects of that crisis impact american life? >> well, you know there is some argument among economists over exactly when it ends. some people say it ends in 1843 or so. some people say it ends with the mexican war, little later on. big expantionisionist boom brin land and spending in the economy. it hurt people for a long time. not just in america. it was a global economic sort of

turning. and in england, the 1840s were known as the hungry 40s. by the end of the, the 19th century. early 20th century. such a period of starvation. >> in looking at that lesson. from 1837, where are we now, taking it up to the 2008 crisis. >> in fact, again, yet another theme. we keep drawing attention to continuities. we all want to caution this is not the same thing happening. but again, very, very important theme, are the long term impacts, especially of these extended periods of crisis. in fact there is a lot of research being done now, about the, the effects, especially for young people who are about to enter or who have recently entered the labor market who have lost their jobs, who have had to take, downsize early on in their career. there is a lot of research done about how the impact of that is not just -- felt for a couple

years. it's literally follows you throughout your career. especially, especially the experience of long term unemployment. but i would argue you absolutely see it at the end of life, at the end of the working years as well. people who are close to retirement age, who have had to, kind of throw that out the window, whose economic security has been completely undermined, and who find themselves i mean really on the brink of experiencing hunger, rates of hunger have gone up tremendously over the past, over the past few years. as has reliance on, what used to be called food stamps. but rates, measured and measurable rates of hunger have actually gone up. which again, has long term impacts. especially in terms of child nutrition, so, there are many -- things that we can glean from the past. but, now, we're ig paying closer attention to the long term impact.

>> we have a couple minutes left the i will ask you both more broadly. if you want to add on, that's fine. we touched on this a little bit. we're here with historians at the annual meeting. when people ask why should we study history? why is it important? >> why should we study history. history gives us a way of understanding the world the a way of paying close attention to the sources of the fast and trying to figure out how people in the past framed their own lives. i think that is really important. to think through for ourselves. and to see that we actually have power over the way we think through our lives, not just how we live our lives, and in some watz t ways the structures that frame our lives, the cultural implications of what we think about what we do every day. i think it matters quite a lot. and i really think it is very important that i teach my students to see similarities and differences. when they study the past. this issue of -- college kids

leaving school without employment which comes up unmy classroom, i would say at least, every other day, in the semester. you know, especially because i am teaching a course on the long 19th century economic history of the semester. it is a major issue unthese sin students' lives. trying to get them to see the similarity of the people we are studying and sources we are probing for information and at the say time to recognize the past is actually rather different. their own lives can take different forms. that they should be slightly empowered by this thing. not every financial crisis is a golden opportunity. but there are moments when, when we actually have some control over how we shape the future. that i think that they ought to seize those reins of power for themselves if they can. >> why study history? >> so many reasons. but, just to really add on to that. i think what history does, it is not uniquely necessarily, but history is in a very good position t