1904. over the next decade workers from around the world came to panama to build it. the canal was not only an engineering feat but a subject of face nation for americans who -- fascination of americans who followed the construction with clean interest. newspapers published regular updates. photographers took hundreds of pictures of the construction. and of the people who lived and worked in the canal zone. my name is juan manuel perez. this exhibit tries to be a window in the past and to give the people who see it a way to understand the magnitude of the enterprise. it took from 1904-1914 for the canal to be finished.

there were perhaps over 45,000 workers working at different times on the canal. in total there were about, oh workers from perhaps 40 different countries. it is said you can go into the top of the hill and you can see all the nations of the world represented. the u.s. was always interested in trying to find a short route to the west. and that became more apparent during the spanish-american war. one ship was asked to go to fight in cuba. so it left san francisco. on the west coast. and it took two months to reach cuba. by the time it reached cuba, the war was basically over. so that gave new impetus for the

idea of finding a way a short way to unite both coasts. because it became, you know, apparent and particularly now for the u.s. who had a two ocean navy. so it needed to have a route to cross from one ocean to the other. and so in 1903, when panama was fighting for its independence the u.s. supported the rebels. and it bought the construction rights from the french canal company for $40 million. and it began, it started

construction in 1904. but at the beginning, they just took baby steps. because even though the french had already started, everything was a shambles. because the first french company went bankrupt. it took a while to get it started. because there was no organization. and also, they had to deal with disease. malaria and yellow fever, which were the two main causes of the french failure. it is said maybe up to 20,000 or more people died of the disease. the first american engineer, chief engineer was appointed did

not last very long. but then john frank stevens was appointed chief engineer. in 1905. and he was chief engineer for two years until 1907. and he created the basic infrastructure and the bureaucracy for the really, the work to start. but this was very slow because he was much more interested at the beginning in creating the infrastructure. and also, dealing with the disease. both malaria and yellow fever. so he worked very closely with a doctor. a public works program was started. garbage was collected on a regular basis. sewage, running water. and other measures to eradicate

mosquitoes like spraying oil on standing water. so that the mosquito larvae would not be able to breed. and also he started building housing for the workers. so the first two years was basically public works and health. and i have to say that basically yellow fever and malaria were eradicated. and it made those efforts made panama city the healthiest city in latin america, you could say. the largest group of workers came from the west indies. about perhaps 25,000-35,000. the second largest group was comprised of spanish workers. and they were almost 12,000.

the workers when they got to panama they, it was not a factory like they were told. first they were housed -- they lived more or less okay, but the flyer that was distributed, the pictures that were shown was the picture of a hotel for american workers. so there was with a division. american workers were on one side. and everybody else was on the other. the spanish workers were housed in barracks-style buildings with i will say cots. those were the lucky ones. there were others that had to sleep in railroad cars. others that had to sleep in tents.

and the west indians suffered the most, because they were basically left to fend off by themselves. and they also kept nationalities apart. spanish on one side. italians on one side. there were 1,200 italians. they tried to keep nationalities apart so as to avoid, you know conflict. you cannot get an impression of what life was like for foreign workers. from the canal record. the "canal record" was a newspaper published by the canal commission. that was basically a newspaper for american workers. so you would get, you wouldn't be able to get aned -- an idea

of what life was like for american workers. for other workers it was difficult. there was a big division between the american worker and the ordinary worker. and that was also reflected in the pay scale. american workers was the gold roll. that was for the american workers. they were paid in gold. there was the silver roll for everybody else. they were paid ten cents an hour. but conditions were really, really very harsh. and there was a high turnover always. so the number of workers fluctuated say from 35 to 40 or even 50,000 from year to year. it year.

it varied because there was a lot a lot, a lot of turnover. they did try to bring families because as i said, there was a lot of turnover. there were reports from each of the divisions. how many workers from such and such a period. you not only get how many towns of this and that or whatever. but you get so-and-so visited the canal. the ymca is holding such-and-such date. the band is having a concert on saturday afternoon. you get a mix. it's more entertaining. of course you get the annual report. that would give you a more concrete and specific idea up to what was done here. in 1964 the canal society had a contest in which it asked people

who worked during the construction years to send their personal stories. we have about close to 130 letters. i mean these letters are unique, because you get the feeling of what it was like to be working in those conditions. the harsh working conditions, the climate, which was harsh of course. the illnesses. the disease. and it will give you an opportunity basically sort of like to feel what they felt. the historical society recognized they needed to have firsthand accounts before the

people who work in the canal -- they already there in 1965. it was a great idea. and they did a great service to history by asking, you know, the old-timers to write about their experiences. oh they would even say how they were recruited, how was the trip from the islands to panama. you get many different things in those letters. those letters are unique. they are really unique because you get the happy moments, if there were any, and you get the sad moments, which there were many. and you get an idea of how they

worked. what -- what their daily life was. one person was writing that they were working, it was mild temperature. it was a sunny day. and all of a sudden, it started to rain. he said that water got up to their waist but they had to continue working. they went back to where they were supposed to sleep. and they were all drenched in water. this is a very unique collection. we may have one of the richest collections about the panama canal anywhere in the world. which was enhanced when the

u.s. transferred the materials from the canal zone after the 1977 treaty. all the books, the manuscripts photographs. they were part of the canal museum they were transferred to the library. so that enhanced the already rich collection about panama that we have here. and so the display will show maps. every map of panama. the photographs will show you workers in their daily activities. and we have some unique photographs. most of them, but not all of them, most of them were taken by the official photographer, who took about maybe 10,000.

and it will show you buildings workers eating, or setting up sticks of dynamite. or working in the railroads. so, it's a way of imagining what it was like to work in the, i will say the greatest engineering feat of the 20th century. one day i was going through the photographs that we got here, and i was able to identify three very unique photographs. those photographs were gallego workers. that is a person from gallacia, spain, the part of spain i come from. so it got my attention, the

three photographs. and through those photographs, i wrote a book about the workers working on the panama canal. there were as i said, almost 12,000. i would say that maybe 12,000 spaniards. maybe 75% from gallecia, from my home region. in the u.s., i will say the panama canal was a fixation in the u.s. because when the panama canal was started, the american frontier was already conquered. so panama became the new frontier. the building of the panama became the new frontier. so in the u.s., there was a lot of fascination with the building of the canal and how the work was progressing at different

stages. so there was a tremendous, a tremendous pride. but this is part of the american consciousness. >> on the table we have a sample of our sheet music relating to the panama canal. all published around the time of the opening of the canal. what it represents is an american popular phenomenon, that when something happens that captured the public's imagination, either because it was wonderful and amazing or even horrifying, there were songs written about it. this was a period when sheet music was the principal means of distribution of popular music. the recording industry was in its infancy at this time.

this is how popular music was distributed. the items on table all but one are by people who are not famous at all. there is one "the pathfinder of panama" by john phillip sousa. but the rest are not well-known. in the 20th centuries, people would write songs and they could get them published because it's supposed that this is a hot topic and people will buy the sheet music. the items here represent a broad cross section of sophistication of cover art. some have fairly nice cover art. other of the pieces are fairly simple. the titles elaborately laid out. but that is about it. we have one here called "sailing through the panama canal" that depicts a clipper ship, which was only about a century off from the time of the opening of the canal. the sousa one has the best cover

art. no question. it does have a ship down there that looks like something that might have gone through the canal. as i say the music here is not great. but we don't have it because it's great music. we have it because of what it tells us about popular culture at this time. and the music publishing industry in the united states. on this side of the table we have five items that were actually published in d.c. these four here published by the long defunked marks goldsmith company. they have all the similar appearance. they have no images on their front. but they have fairly creative type font, we'll call it for laying out the titles. this other one. "honeymooning on the panama canal" published by the kirkas dougdale company. it says in small letters "the big music publisher of washington, d.c. " you can see the capitol down

there on it. a lot of this is about advertising. the period of popularity of sheet music surrounding any kind of topic like this is pretty short, actually. these pieces of sheet music that you see here were copyrighted during the latter part of 1913 and through 1914 and into 1915. but in general, that seems to be about the period of it. and that is what we see with popular sheet music of all forms in this period. it gets -- the pieces that were sold in many, many copies were sold quickly. and then they kind of lapse out of current popularity. >> i'm georgia hickley head of the newspaper section in the serial and government publications division. today from our division, we have 20 items.

18 of them are newspapers. and two comic books dealing with aspect of the panama canal and the development over the history our earliest item is from 1869 all the way to the transfer of the panama canal from the u.s. to panama in 1999. one of the things that is really striking to me about looking at the newspaper coverage of the panama canal is number one it's a very elongated history. it's very convoluted. it's not just a diplomatic complexity because it does involve numerous nations. but also within the united states itself, the whole legislative battle over where the best route was. it took a while to be determined. was it going to be mexico or nicaragua? or was it going to be panama? those trains are sort of shown in the newspapers that we have on display. i would say that a couple of

items that are my particular favorites, one is the front page image of teddy roosevelt because he is the first u.s. president to go on an official trip outside the united states. and he chose to go to panama, of course. and he has kind of become famous for his travels out to panama. and then, another interesting story that to me is kind of compelling is the fact that woodrow wilson from the white house sets off the last blast at the panama canal. so, you know, you have the panama canal, itself, i think is a celebration of american ingenuity and triumph of technology. it's almost icing on the cake that you have our sitting president pressing the button hundreds of miles away from the actual site. and successfully sets off the

blast. some of the consequences i think of the panama canal is reflected in one item that we selected, because the same article that is talking about woodrow wilson sending off the blast, the actual headline is talking about an engineer that had worked on the panama canal. and he is dying as a consequence of some of the work that he had done. so you know, you sort of get the idea of what the hardships was down there. this was an engineer and he was at a high level compared with some of the manual laborers. >> it's like opening a window into the past. you have to use your imagination a little bit, you know, to sort of imagine. but you will be able to get what

it was like to work and to live during those ten years that it took to build the canal. you can watch this and other american artifacts programs anytime by visiting our website at cspan.org/history. this weekend on the c-span networks -- >> tonight at 10:00 on book tv's aver wards, surgeon and author gawande on why he feels medical science should do more for the aging and dying. sunday after 7:00, syndicated columnnist naomi klein on free

market capitalism and the impact on climate change. tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3, the king george's war of the 1740's. how it helped the american columnist established regional identities and gained valuable fighting experience for their own revolution. sunday night on the presidency at 8:00 p.m., president ford's congressional testimony on the nixon pardon. find the television schedule on cspan.org. let us know what you think about the programs you're watching -- each week, american history tv's "reel america" brings you archival films to help tell the story of the 20th