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tv   [untitled]    June 23, 2012 10:30pm-11:00pm EDT

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elections of 1864. prompting lincoln's pessimistic blind memorandum in august that predicted defeat. jeff wert mentioned that earlier. happily for lincoln and his party and all who hoped to make emancipation a sin quinn nothing of any peace settlement, sherman and sheridan delivered victories atlanta and in the shenandoah valley that completely reversed the tide of public opinion about prospects for union vick -- i pre mean, completely reversed them. those two events did. similarly r.e. lee's triumph in july 1862 reversed a downward spiral of confederate morale that gained momentum following a series of terrible defeats in the western theater and mcclellan's near approach to richmond between march and late may with the most important army of the united states. lee's ascension to command of the army in northern virginia during that campaign must be reckoned one of the great turning points of the war, one of the great moments of decision
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of the war, not only for the revolution that lee would bring in confederate expectations of victory but also because his skill and his skill alone probably lengthened the conflict by more than two years which in turn made possible the addition of emancipation to union as a condition for eventual peace. my second example concerns the process of emancipation. this topic has provoked considerable debate among historians who assessed the roles of abraham lincoln, the united states congress and african-americans who sees seized freedom by running away from farms and plantations to areas under union control. the concept of self emancipation has been at the center of much of this debate. its advocates saying that lincoln, the great emancipator has been given far too much credit in the past, that most of the credit should go to the slaves themselves for having the key role of killing the
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institution, by their action of going to union armies, argue those who take this position, they forced a reluctant president and congress to take up the issue. lincoln supporters concede for too many decades black people hadn't been part of the story. but they insist that lincoln's actions still should remain central to any understanding of how the emancipation agenda was advanced. what gets lost in most of these discussions is the absolutely decisive role of military events in the process of emancipation. only when united states armies drew near did slaves have the option of making a dash for freedom. self emancipation without the military component would have been unthinkable. similarly lincoln's emancipation proclamation would have remained an empty threat to confederate slave holders in the absence of operations that brought ever greater swaths of the confederacy under united states military control. the u.s. army functioned as a
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revolutionary agent for freedom. even ironically even conservative officers such as william tecumseh sherman who cared almost nothing about eager black people or emancipation and yet made possible the liberation of scores of thousands of slaves during his campaigns in georgia and the carolinas. robert gould shaw who would command the 54th massachusetts infantry, but was then a captain in the second massachusetts got to the heart of the matter in a letter to his mother in 1862. the proclamation of emancipation has come at last. or rather, its forerunner, he observed, three days after lincoln issued his preliminary proclamation. i suppose you're all very much excited about it. for my part i can't see what practical good it can do now, he underlined practical. wherever our army has been, there remain no slaves, and the proclamation will not set them free where we don't go.
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he is absolutely right in that statement, absolutely right. the geography of emancipation confirms the correctness of shaw's observations. union armies arrive soonest and stayed longest in parts of northern virginia and the virginia peninsula. the lower mississippi river valley, parts of tennessee and areas along the south atlantic coast. those are the regions of the confederacy where slavery was most disrupted, where the largest number of contrabands, as slaves who made it to union lines were called, made it to freedom. and where united states colored troops were most heavily recruited. where the union army didn't go, texas, the interior of alabama, parts of south carolina to name three places, slavery remained largely intact, even though the slaves who lived there certainly wanted to be free as much as those who lived anywhere else. we need to remember, only about one in seven slaves were freed
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in the course of the war. probably 3 million still in bondage at the end of the war, maybe half a million -- wherever those half a million, they were where the united states army had been most evident. most white united states soldiers and loyal civilians eventually embraced emancipation, not as a grand moral crusade but as a necessary military tool to defeat the confederacy, to restore the union, to punish slave holders they blamed for bringing on the war and to remove a possible source of future internal threat to the solvency of the republic. abraham lincoln recognized this and always sought to emphasize union as the great goal of the war. and emancipation as one of the tools, the military tools that would help achieve union. through this line of argument he could keep the largest segment of the white population on board with the stupendous national effort that exacted a terrible human and material toll.
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we always need to remember 45% of the people living in the united states are democrats. democrats don't care about emancipation. they could not care less. they will not rally to a war that they believe is primarily about emancipation. they will rally only to a war they believe is about union. lincoln's statements make that clear. in his last annual message to congress dated december 6th, 1864, lincoln put it very bluntly. in a great national crisis like ours, unanimity of action among those seeking a common end is very desirable, almost indispensable. in this case the common end is the maintenance of the union. the emancipation of slaves, he added, stands, quote, among the means to secure that end. this is after he's been re-elected in 1864, that he's still highlighting union rather than emancipation. the military story also tells us
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the confederate armies could take away what the union arms had brought. slaves who had been freed by the presence of united states armies could lose that freedom of confederate areas came into the area, during the 1862 campaign we know stonewall jackson captured harper's ferry, where hundreds of contrabands gathered after escaping their owners. many noted jackson's force recovered escaped slaves as well as capturing more united states soldiers, then surrendered again until the fall of the philippines in world war ii. a diarist quoted quite a victory at harper's ferry, several thousand taken prisoner and several hundred contrabands. another woman in fairfax county which had been occupied by union soldiers for much of the war derived special comfort from jackson's seizure of large numbers of slaves.
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we just heard of the recapture of the confederates of harper's ferry, she wrote on september 17, 162, with 12,000 yankees and immense quantities of ordnance, some sayer stores and a large number of contrabands which in yankee's parlance means negro. she's paying attention to that as well. i started with lincoln and i'll come back to him, someone who wrote his own speeches, and wrote short speeches, speeches it doesn't hurt your brain to listen to. which hasn't been my experience in listening to presidents over the last i won't tell you how many years. many years. on november 19th, 1863, lincoln stood on a hill that still bore the marks of raging combat. he looked out over a fresh burying ground and prophecies that the war would never forget what united states soldiers had accomplished at gettysburg. that prediction proved true as we all know.
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those soldiers should not be remembered only because they fought in the bloodiest and most famous battle of the war. they should be remembered as representative of all the citizen soldiers who functioned at the absolute center point of the conflict. men whose actions and example take us a long way toward grasping the origins, the various episodes and the meaning of the war. all else did depend on the progress of union and confederate arms. we should use military history in a way that enables us, for example, to comprehend not only why mcclellan retreated from richmond during the first week of july, 1862, but also how that retreat shaped the political and social dimensions of life in two nations at war. any study of the civil war that slights the importance of military affairs can yield only the most flawed understanding of
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our greatest national trauma. thank you. the civil war airs here every saturday at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. and sundays at 11:00 a.m. eastern. you're watching "american history tv" all weekend every weekend on c-span3. this year c-span's local content vehicles are traveling the country exploring american history. next, a look at our recent visit to wichita, kansas. you're watching "american history tv" all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> you're looking at a small building in north riverside park in wichita. the building is most well-known to wichitans as the girl scout
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little house, because for abobo 75 years, the girl scout council used it as a troop meeting house and council activity place and also as a summer day campsite. it has an interesting origin and hence the historic name is now the wichita fresh air baby camp. in the early part of the 20th century, physicians, scientists were beginning to be aware of how illness was spread and the importance of sanitation and in 1906 congress created the pure food and drug act, and in 1912 the president created the children's bureau. this brought government possibilities for raising awareness for sanitation, particularly aimed at children. so new kind of programs were instituted, and among them were education programs for mothers
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and also health care programs for children at risk. and in wichita this building was built to become a summer hospital unit for desperately ill and very poor infants. about a mile east of here is a residential area that also contained wichita's two earliest hospitals. there was a pediatrician, dr. howard norton at the wesley hospital who was beginning to be interested in this idea of infant care. they actually put up a tent in the back yard of the hospital building, it was a platform tent with screen sides and a canvas roof and they moved very ill infants for the summer out into that little tent building, and they were taken care of by nurses and student nurses. the idea was to get those infants out of the confines of the stuffy hospital, remembering that this was in an age before air conditioning and
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understanding how germs were spread where other ill people were being taken care of. that first summer was so successful that they then moved to a more natural setting here in the park and their second summer was held in those two tent buildings. in the third year the tents burned completely to the ground just before the season opened in june and the women who had created the board of directors immediately began to rally the community to raise funds to build a new fireproof building, and that's the building that you see with us here today. the building -- its architectural style is craftsman. this was built in 1920. this park and the building and its setting is in the middle of a large bungalow neighborhood build in the 1920s. the architecture of the building fits right into the residential area. the architect designed this
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building with very special windows which are now boarded up because we've repaired a lot of them and we want to protect them from vandalism until the building is put back in use. these are triple-hung windows meaning they have three sashes, top, middle and bottom. the function is to be able to open two sashes and create a draft through the building. of course, they have screens on them, also so that flies and other insects would be kept out of the infant's hospital room. there are windows on all four sides of the building to be able to create good cross ventilation. the building is about 2,500 square feet. it's not large. it has one main room that was the crib room. it's been reconfigured somewhat on the inside with removable partitions. originally they had a crib room. they had a small isolation room. they had a small bedroom for the
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overnight nurses because they served the patients 24 hours a day. this building is not the first one to be built in the united states by any means. kansas followed a national initiative. one of the first was located in new york city on land that was contributed by the rockefeller family. that was a very large camp with platform tents, screened canvas. they had many different programs, not just infant care, but they had mother's education programs and summer programs for older children, also. part of the background of the creation of a program here in wichita was the fact that in kansas our secretary of the department of health whose name was dr. samuel crumbine initiated quite a statewide campaign to promote the idea of sanitation as well as child welfare. he had some pretty interesting campaigns. one was called swat the fly because people needed to be
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aware of how germs were carried. and how important it was to put screens on your buildings and your houses. and he had another one called don't spit on the sidewalk. in many cities, they actually imprinted that slogan on various paving bricks and put them on the sidewalks to remind people. i found news articles here in wichita about campaigns on our streetcars that conductors were to watch for people spitting in the streetcars. this was -- it sounds kind of silly to us now, but it was a very serious campaign to educate people. the fresh air baby camp was in operation from 1920 in this building until 1926. at that time, wesley hospital had built a brand new modern facility further away in the city.
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so they were able to create an infant ward. and the board of directors for the baby camp solicited the hospital and were able to move the camp program into the hospital in a special ward where they could operate it year round. and so they no longer needed this building. so they turned the lease over to the wichita girl scout counsel at that time. it's due for rehabilitation. to begin that process we listed it on the national register of historic places in 2007. that doesn't guarantee funding or anything. the national register status is mainly an honor. it honors the significance of the building as far as the social history goes. it also honors the architecture. the first phase is to repair the roof because obviously if the roof falls in, the building will be totally lost. second phase, which we kind of
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already started, would be to repair the structure of the building including these important windows. we removed 14 windows from this building. took them to a warehouse setting where we could lay them out on work tables. we stripped the paint. we took out the caulking. we reglazed the glass and reinstalled the windows. we also painted them. so they are all now in working order. they are boarded up because we want to protect them from vandalism and weather until we can get the whole building back in working order. in the end, the significance of this building is the fact that it's a physical reminder of a time when wichitans all over the community, not only the wealthy, but those who could afford any kind of contribution all came together to help solve a social problem and help those who were in need.
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>> we johnsons welcome you to the missouri governor's mansion! >> the first governor was becigarettes brown, and here we have a photograph of he and his wife. what is interesting is the fact that his granddaughter, margaret weise brown, wrote the book "good night moon" not only here in missouri but all over the united states. >> book tv and american history tv explore the heritage and literary culture of missouri's state capital, jefferson stitt with local content vehicles and american history tv inside the governor's mansion. >> he said he rode his horse into the dining room and proceededed to feed his horse oats out of this plate warmer as part of the side board.
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now, the comment was that he probably should not be feeding his horse in the governor's mansion, and his comment to them was, i have had to feed more people in this home with probably less in this home with probably less manners than my horse has. >> watch for booktv and american history tv in jefferson city, missouri, july 7th and 8th on cspan-2 and 3. >> next on american history tv, author andrew nagorski discusses his book, "hitlerland." it's seen through the eyes of diplomats, athletes and military personnel. this event in new york city was cohosted by the leo beck institute and the american council on germany. it's about 1:10.
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>> thank you. i'm going to be brief. you didn't come to hear me. i do want to say a wrord about the topic and myself and then a little bit more about our speaker. i am a refugee myself. i came to this country at the age of 2. my father is a very eminent figure. he was probably the leading jewish leader for many years. and he was fortunately out of germany with his dying father in palestine when hitler came to power or heaven knows what would have become of him had we came here as refugees. i'm very fascinated with german history. i was taught entirely by these extraordinary refugees. stanley hofman, not a refugee in
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the same way as the others, but came anyway during the war to canada. so hitlerland is something that interests me greatly. and being asked to give an introduction of andrew nagorski was something that i was very happy to do. and then i realized i needed help on his bio. i want to read you rather than do it extemporaneously so i don't make a series of mistakes on this. i always knew him in terms of his eminent father, who played a major role at the council of former relations and then in his association with newsweek which ran for many years. i don't think i'm going to elaborate on all the things that he did. that's not why you came. he did all kinds of substantial ly innovative things, especially
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in coordinating and developing the network of newsweeks throughout the world and in poland, russia, argentina. and was himself a very respected voice of wisdom and insighted. he served in berlin for a number of years. i think bill told me they actually shared an office at one point in berlin. his wife is polish and charming. his birthplace was scotland. he's very international, am i right? he's very international. maybe i shouldn't beat all of this. maybe i should let you have him here on the stage rather than have me read the bio. this is one of many books that he's written. many of them quite fascinating
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about his experience in russia where because of his skill as a reporter in the soviet union he was expelled. and others, all of them of substantial weight inside. we'd like to have you here. this book just appeared. we thank the leo beck institute on behalf of the american council of germany for hosting this and presenting it. we want to welcome the council general, germany and ask them to come to speak to you. we're going to hear his remarks and then he's going to take some questions and then a little reception after. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> thank you so much, guido. for that introduction.
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and thank you carol for hosting this. it's wonderful to have the american council on germany which i've been in one way or another i felt involved with and certainly tied to through so many friends at both institutions as a delight to be here. and just to say that bill was the president on the american council in germany i saw just walk in here as guido mentioned we were colleagues in two postings in germany. and he reminded me recently that he and other colleagues would always make fun of me in berlin because they would come to my house and see all of these stacks of nazi literature and bieg ra fis of hitler and that one day we were riding the sbon together and i was carrying the first volume of his biography.
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and we were getting these very strange looks. so yes, i will plead guilty to the fact that i am somewhat obsessed with this period and the different perspectives on it. but i will say in my defense that hitlerland is very subtle about introducing hiterer. we don't see him from the front. and we look over his shoulder. but the serious side is that i think this design, which is to the credit of the designer of simon and schuster suggests what i was trying to do is present a different perspective on a very familiar era. and even the name "hitlerland" is not a product of my imagination. it's something that i discovered for the first time in researching this book is that american correspondents, among themselves, were talking
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informally about this country as hitler land. so this was not -- this was long before disney land. so because there have been so many wonderful books about this period, great historians from sheimer to kershaw and so many in between, i would never have attempted to write a straight history of this period. i think they would be going over well troded ground. and it would be hard to match. but one of the -- but the reason i undertook this was twofold. first of all, there have been -- they're starting to be more and more books about americans in paris and london and, of course, we all know movies like midnight in paris and all of that about the '20s which always cast a popular imagination and i find those really fun, too. but the more i thought about it and -- or the more christine, my
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wife, prochted me to think about it, i realized that nobody had really looked in any detail about the stories in the americans. there have been lots of individual memoirs, biographies that touched on the lives of americans that describe some of them, but not the whole experience. and so i began to think is there -- is there a story to be told here about these americans? and viewing events not with the benefit of hindsighte but how they saw them then. when we look at historical events in hindsight, we tend to think oh, everything was so obvious. and particularly when you talk about the rise of the nazis, the
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rise of hitler, it must have been evident to everyone on the scene. and if they could nt figure that one out, what one can we figure out? finding these memoirs publishened and unpublished, by the way, some of them in various archives in the leo beck institute, some at the hoover institution, by way of congress, some in some of these unpublished memoirs, diaries, correspondents in family collections and, in a few cases, from actually -- with actual interviews of people who were still alive. but, mostly, from what they left behind. i found such extraordinary documents, literally, often in family attics that i was reng

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