>> boston college history professor heather cox richardson talked about how cowboys were viewed as the counterbalance of reconstruction and republican views. their symbol has far outweighed their numbers and it was not a viable job. this was hosted by the vermont humanities council. >> this afternoon i am supposed to be talking about why cowboys mattered in the post-war years. they mattered more than anything else. i want to show you some images

of reconstruction. i would suggest that probably very few of you could pick these rebels out of the group. william sylvan died young, so there could be a reason why you'd don't -- william sylvis died very young, said there could be a reason why you don't recognize them. red cloud yes, most of you recognize him. he won a war against the u.s. government, and he had largely been written out of american history. and you might have a shot of recognizing susan b anthony or elizabeth caddy stanton. these are not faces that you would know if you think about reconstruction or you think about the reconstruction days. these are people you read about in your textbooks that you don't

think about them in popular culture. let's try this. the marlboro man has been recognized in every single country in the world, and i will talk more about the marble man -- marlboro man in a moment. the image that everybody in america and most people in the world recognize is the american cowboy. the american cowboy operates from 1866-1886, and i won't talk much about the history, i will talk a little bit about it, but it is in norman's least significant that the cattle industry and the face of the cattle industry coincided with reconstruction after the civil war. that coincidence has been handed down to the present in our political channel and in the way that we understand american politics, and that is why the american cowboy remains such an incredibly potent image today in american society. but start with that.

we all know the civil war was about the north and south, right? wrong, it was not about this north and south sides, it was between the north and south but it was about the west. there was the issue of slavery for the dakota territory since the beginning of slavery. it was not a problem and tell the louisiana purchase in 1863. the question with what to do with those western lands, first the louisiana purchase, which were divided by the missouri compromise, but that comes a new question in 1850. but then an extraordinary expedition with the land between the treaty of waterloo bay in 1846 -- treaty of guadalupe in

1846. the question was whether it was going to be settled on the premise of free labor, which presupposes the government says that every man has a say in his government and every man has a shot at equality and opportunity . that is the central question that is going to lead to the civil war. and that is not a question that is an academic one. we tend not to think about the west many of the key battles of the civil war west were fought, and i'm not good to talk about that, that many of the things that we don't think about is the fact that both the north and the south try desperately to push west, the south does not do so successfully but the north does. before the civil war, this map is what america looks like, after the civil war, this is what america looks like. the north very aggressively during the civil war organized the entire territorial west into

patterns that look very much like they do today. the two things they don't do is organize at the wyoming territory until 1868 and then they don't to fight the territory of dakota into two pieces until 1869 -- don't divide the territory of dakota into two pieces until 1869. the idea was there would not be slavery in the western territories. this was part of ideological reasons and political reasons. we tend not to talk about the people needed money, but during the civil war, they pour west and lincoln desperately needed money to fight the war. this spread farmers west into the western planes because of the homestead act. this is the very aggressive part

of the lincoln administration's plan to not make sure that they win in the east but they get the west. so if that is what is going on in the middle of the 1860's, doesn't that seem cool? nobody ever told me this when i was in college. it is really interesting if you think about it. people don't stop moving west simply because they are fighting each other. but what happened when they started fighting in texas? excuse me, sorry. texas had a big problem during the civil war, in fact it had the comanche war for one thing that during the civil war, there had been a cattle industry that starts in texas in the 1830's primarily, but it is starting to take off by the 1840's. what happens down there is that the cattle industry starts to develop along the texas-mexican border, and the cattle from the

industry get moved out of texas into st. louis. st. louis they get distributed largely a long the mississippi river and largely through the south. what happened of course during the war is that texas gets cut off from the west -- from the rest of the south. the mississippi river isolate texas from the confederacy for the first time with sherman and have it isolated again during the second march to the sea. and there is no way to move cattle unless by railroad, but as you know, the confederate railroads degraded in enormous we quickly and you can't move cattle out of the confederacy by 1865. by 1855, there are eastern armies starving to death living on parched corn. there are people who are still trying to ranch and handle cattle in texas, they write to

jefferson davis, and they say please, take our cattle, we will give you our cattle because there are so many cattle in texas that we don't go quail hunting because we are going to get killed by these things, so please take them away and jefferson davis writes them back and says i can't, or is no way to get them. so there is so much beef in texas that they don't know what to do with it. this is not some little cow in a stable somewhere. these are longhorn cattle, no these are 20 century pictures, so this is how that we have brought them to be but these horns are significant horns the wingspan there is like eight feet, so you don't want to get close to these guys. this is not a cute little cow these are serious longhorn cattle.

and during and after the civil war, they breach the nueces valley, and there are so many of them that texans are afraid to go hunting by 1855, and they are essentially feral cattle. the weather down there is perfect for the development of these cattle, and by the end of the civil war, if you are even going to buy one of these things, because frankly many people are stealing them, you have the mexicans, the comanches, and the americans all fighting for them by 1865 and they are stealing them back and forth, if you are going to bother to buy one as opposed to stealing it, it is going to cost about four dollars -- four dollars. four dollars is not much money and if you can get it to chicago

, which has been growing exponentially since the civil war, you can sell it for $40. it does not take a rocket science -- rocket scientist to figure out that you can get those cattle to the railhead and you can then get them to an and norma city and whatever cattleman can do that are going to make bank. and this guy here, charles good night -- charles goodnight in 1865, he was a confederate and he got measles and so he could not even here anything, he could not hear a rattlesnake. people who worked with him hated to disturb him and come on him suddenly because they were always terrified that he was going to shoot them. charles goodnight decided that he was going to get his cattle to a railhead or two and army post so he could sell them to the u.s. government for distribution to the indians by a treaty. i 1865 he rounds up a crew to

take the cattle either to a railhead or an army post. if you are in texas in 1865, who are you going to look for? you're going to look for guys who can write a horse, right? and probably who have a gun, and can use them both, but have no money at all, because they have to be pretty desperate to get on a trail with a horse, a gun, almost no money, and head out following a bunch of really nasty cows. so he rounds of these guys and he rounds up the x confederates, and -- the ex-confederates, and who else does he round up? former slaves. so he gets men of color, and they rarely show up, but the reason i have this image appear

from "lonesome dove," and if you have nothing "lonesome dove," you should get up right now i walk out, and on watch it, larry mcmurtry patterned col on charles goodnight and charles do ball on oliver loving --robert duvall on oliver loving. so they try to hold thing in 1866, as he is trailing this herd of cattle out, he runs into a guy called oliver loving. they are both patterned in different ways, that on both charles goodnight and it is a

wonderful, wonderful account of trailing cattle out of texas into montana and if you are interested, you just have to read the book. goodnight and all of her loving head out on the good night -- goodnight-loving trail, that is how we did the name. they bring home at $12,000 in gold. $12,000 in gold in texas in 1865, there are -- 8056, sorry there are places in texas there that don't realize that the civil war is over yet. they have $12,000 in gold permit and here is one of the great lost moments of american history. they put the gold on the mule and somebody use -- somebody

loses the mule in the river. the mule is floating down the river with $12,000 on his back, and they get him, but can you imagine these guys saying holy expletive, get the expletive mule or else we are going to be in trouble! the mule just kept on going. [laughter] they get the mule back and the cattle rush goes on. i want to show this picture too. there were people of color in the cowboy story. this man actually worked for goodnight and loving, but he uses a very interesting commentary for his gravestone, but also icard is on the crew and he is the guy that carries a money on the crew, because

goodnight figures no one is going to jump a black man in texas for money. so the only other colored man on the crew was an ex-confederates who was dismissed for mental instability, so this guy is a whack job, that there was never any problem between i card -- between icard and this confederate soldier. what we get from that is that there are individual southerners who are willing to work hard, the average age of the cowboy is 24 years old, and they are willing to work hard and they just want a job, they just want something, and by 1867, you begin to have this image of the west as a place where individuals should go out there and work hard and they have a great time, and they put their

shoulder to the wheel, and this is the heart of a young, growing america. by 1867, we have the establishment of abilene kansas , which is a place where cowboys and the guys running the trails can -- running the credit -- the trail crews, and you get increasingly these western towns, and i put this in there and i always wondered what abilene was about, but abilene was important because it was the first physically constructed town at a railhead, it's a you could get your cattle shipped back to the city where you could sell them for a decent chunk of change. what is significant about this -- oh, by the way, do you know the name cattle punchers?

they punch the cattle in the cattle cars so they don't get crushed when they lie down. they ride in the cattle cars and they try to lie down because they are exhausted, they don't want them to die, so they have to punch them to get them to stand back up. i have lots of good stories. i know about whistling cowboys to. so southerners hate to things, they hate a lot of things, but the two things that i care that the heat today are when they sell, for example, to the federal agent to the indians, they are selling to federal agents who hate them too. they have been fighting a war over the past previous five years, and the confederate like charles goodnight are utterly convinced that federal agents are cheating them and giving them an advantage to people who are unionists during the civil

war, and unionists are universally loathed coming out of texas. they hate the government. they also -- sorry -- they are also not keen on the railroads worshiping other cattle, whom they think are cheating them. so they are disliking both the government and the railroads that they need to get to market. to you have the southerners making up the body of cowboys coming out of texas and moving up the great plains, which is not an accident if you think about today's political map, but that is a story i will get to in a minute. so there we go, cattle industry and we are on. but think about when this is. 1865. 1856. it is 57. -- 1866. 1867. 1868.

something else is happening during these years. reconstruction. in the south during 1865, the south is devastated. it is devastated. people say the north one and then they rebuilt, but there are literally animal carcasses all over the south. refugees who are trying to get home, and occasionally they will see an arm or a grave -- or a leg hanging out of a grave and streets are broken, and gangs roam the streets. there is a legend, anyway, in certain southern cities, you could hire somebody to kill somebody else for three dollars. when the confederacy collapsed so did the police force. there are extraordinary levels of crime and alcoholism. it is a devastated depressed

angry, traumatized region. and in that region were both white southerners and black southerners and they have lost people that they love, they were suffering from what is now called ptsd, they don't have limbs, they don't have eyes they don't have family members and you suddenly have the need to reconstruct a society and the government. and that is going to include for the first time in american history one of my favorite images of reconstruction african-americans, not the african-american men, but african-american women and children. these are the people that you would see along the street sides , because african-american women rarely make it into textbooks when they talk about this, but african-american women very quickly started engaging in street vending, or road vending or track vending, or path

vending, but out there were you could see them, where white people coming home from fighting in the battles were trying to find family members from whom they had been separated, and are seen african-americans taking over public spaces. you also see families, and african-americans who want to stay in the society that they helped to save, because after all, they were the one fighting on the women's side -- on the winning side, not the losing side. at the same time they are trying to re-create society, the north is doing extraordinarily well. everyone thought the civil war was going to destroy the economy in the south, but it booms manhattan takes off, industry takes off, andrew carnegie start to make over $100,000 per year, people who make uniforms and guns and agriculture all absolutely start taking off after the civil war, and the

north is extraordinarily for -- extraordinarily strong, and this is going to be a sore point for white southerners, especially when the american congress says to white southerners now you need to reconstruct your society in such a way that those african-americans who are were on our side shooting at you get to have a say in their society. what comes from that is, of course, furious anger on the part of white southerners, and this is stuff you all know, but i am trying to put it all together so you can see where it all goes. what happens is that by 1865, you get the idea among white southerners that what really went on during the civil war was not about, and they started

saying it was not about slavery so they changed dramatically in the summer of 1865-1866, they say they never cared about slavery, what they really cared about was states' rights, and this is where you start hearing about that, and white southerners say what is really going on is that congress, the republicans in congress, are creating an empire. they stacked the deck so that what they are going to do is tax us all because for the first time in our country's history, they have national taxing for the civil war, and they will we -- will redistribute wealth to the black people through contracts to rebuild hospitals and roads and all that kind of stuff. don't want to really rebuild a

country, all the want to do is stay in power, and what they are doing is constructing a world in which the government is set up so us poor white guys, our tax dollars are going to be sucked dry, and it is all going to go to this giant government that is not going to listen to us at all and it is just going to help black people and minorities. that is the way that southern white people construct, southern democrats, i should say, because there were a few southern white republicans, that is what was happening when the congress tried to put in place legislation that tries to rebuild that devastated south. and that comes up most dramatically in the summer of 1865-1866. and an organization was set up in march of 1860 five and three in 1866 to try and reach -- 1865 and rechartered in 1866 to try

and give african-americans a shot. in most states, they cannot fight in court or testify in court and they can't stand on juries and with the friedman -- freedman's bureau, all of the southern white democrats say, we told you, we told you all along. they are deliberately taking tax dollars from hard-working white people like us and they're using it to hire bureaucrats who are only going to be republicans because republican -- public office was only held by white people, there are going to take that text dollar and create this big government and put their own people in it, and they are basically going to create this party that is never going to go away.

they're going to suck it all out of us so they can keep themselves in power. are you good with that? do you see where i'm going with that? ok. so this is the set up in 1855-1856 -- 1865-1866. these people that are supposedly forcing tax dollars are the same kind of people talking about cowboys, the same newspapers are writing about those cowboys, the same guys that not anything from the government, they just want to go out and work hard, and in the books and the newspaper articles when they start to talk about cowboys, they don't talk about men of color, the only talk about white cowboys. so what happens is that this

really leads into american society with our friend and buddy andrew johnson who we talked about this morning who very deliberate retakes this argument nationally. he says, you know what? the real problem in america right now is not the white southerners, it is the northern republicans, because the republicans have created an empire and they call it an empire, they call it an oligarchy, we call it -- they call it, i can't think of the word, but the idea that they are creating an empire, the republicans are creating an empire that is destroying individualism in american society, individual is -- individuals no longer have a shot. now keep in mind that taxes are extraordinarily low, and the government does very little, that he creates this image that the real problem is that republicans have a stranglehold on power they are increasing the size of the government, they

are keeping the republicans in government, democrats will never get a shot, basically if you are a white democrat you are out of luck, you're not going to have a say in the society again. this happens again with the passage of the military reconstruction act and the 15th amendment passage when african-americans start to vote, and what white democrats say in the south but also in the north is that they created their own constituency, and these people are always going to vote for republicans because the republicans are going to give them stuff they are going to give them roads and courts and all of that, and the idea is not that they want to be fair to them, the republicans want to stay in power, so they created this special interest constituency so they can only get whatever they want to get out of the government. not because it is good for the country but because that is what

they want, it puts money in their pockets, it redistribute wealth to them. that should sound familiar. [laughter] because this is exactly where it comes from. that critical moment of reconstruction. while this is going on in 1867, 18 68, 18 69, we've got the cowboy -- 1867, 1868, 1869, we've got the cowboy. they are selling the cattle to the government, the army is the one who is protecting the cattle of the trail herds against the indians because we are at war at that point with three or four indian tribes including red cloud to which the army loses we are at war with the comanches and the apaches and the cheyenne

and the life of the cowboy is any great shape, it is terribly hard work, these guys die. the reason they saying is because they know were each other are, so if there is a stampede, they can turn the herd away from the other cowboys, because if they don't heard -- turn of the herds away they will travel these other cowboys until they are flat. that is white cowboys saying. it is not a great life at all -- that is why cowboys sing. it is not a great life at all. newspapers say it is wonderful and it is not a good life, but the way it is portrayed is this is the heart of what is best about america, hard-working guys working their way up, they are going places and they don't want

anything from the government. ok, there aren't that many cowboys, and this isn't not a long-lived industry at all, it is over by the winter of 18 66-1867, and that was the year of a terrible winter where trail riding came to an end and ranches became the thing that was the year that laura ingalls wilder described the terrible winter and it was a terrible winter, and there was a drought right before, so the cattle go into winter terribly weekend. it is clear that you can no longer trail cattle and the boom years have been way too big. so the actual cowboys only last for about 20 years, and he might have been a flash in the pan except for this. while reconstruction is going on but primarily in the east there is a problem here in missouri.

misery is one of those great states. there is misery, north carolina, texas, and maine. no matter what else is going on in the country, you can guarantee that missouri, north carolina, texas, and maine are doing something else. missouri is the linchpin of where everything is going to explode. missouri is, just for the record, i went to write a book on missouri, and my agent said yeah, you and three other people are going to read it, don't bother, but i really wish i could, because was her he is the one slave state north of the missouri compromise line. what happened to missouri during the civil war was that it got absolutely torn apart. the troops went through missouri

and knocked on people's doors and told people to get out of there, because they are trying to stop the guerrilla warfare. this showed up in "lonesome dove 2," by the way. this group of raiders were pro-southern confederates who would write into a village in missouri on horseback with a gun in each hand, and they would shoot from both sides, and then they would ride out of town before anyone could shoot act. the unionists in missouri hated these guys like poison, because it was not fair. if you are going to engage in war, engage in war, but don't come into town and shoot the place up kill whoever happens

to be on the street, and ride out again. that is just not fair. this is one of the reasons why the army in missouri cleans out a couple of places in missouri and they want to stop this. but the other thing that is interesting about missouri during the war is the air are's -- that there is such tension while it is considered a union state, it does end up on the confederate flag, but this war going on rewrites the constitution called the drake constitution. the drake constitution was known as the code in constitution by his opponent, and it was written by pro-unionist republicans, and it is so strong a document that under the drake constitution, is a clay anyone who has ever supported the confederacy in any

way, even down to delivering a letter to the confederacy or feeding a brother breakfast if he was a confederate soldier anyone in support of the confederacy in any way will no longer have a civic presence, cannot vote, cannot be a lawyer, cannot the a teacher -- cannot be a preacher, cannot be a teacher, and that indicates how strong that document is. republicans even thought that it might be a much. but the drake constitution does pass, but what happens is that if you live in missouri and you support the confederacy in any way, you know longer have a civic presence, and the government can do anything it wants to you. the drake machine which runs missouri operates strongly in the way that it stays in power with the help of african-american votes in missouri.

so misery begins to look like a microcosm of what exactly southern democrats are saying about the federal government at large. so why does this matter? it matters because in 1868, the congress passes the omnibus bill to return almost all southern states to fall representation in the u.s. government. so that means that people in mississippi, people in louisiana, people in atlanta people in south carolina, 10 now vote and have a say in their government again. people in missouri are living under the drake constitution and that is a union state, so that omnibus bill does not apply to missouri. so if you live in misery and you support the confederacy, you still have no rights. ministers who challenged this, and their testimony is very interesting, so google it if anyone is interested, but by

1860 eight, people in missouri are completely fed up with this. -- by 1868, people are completely fed up with this. drake wants to declare who can go into them as a receipt in congress. a bunch of republicans say no. we are done, we want that seat, we want to get rid of you because you are a jerk among other things, and he was, and we are going to change the way missouri does business. what they do is first of all they put into office this guy up here in the corner, he becomes senator in 1869. i showed this this morning, i just love these things. do think this guy likes that guy up there? do you think he combed his hair to liberally to look like him? the ideas that i am expounding now that he picks a everyone

should have a say in their government and the you are going to challenge the idea of one political party taking over, these are going to be disseminated throughout american history from now until 1868 through at least the end of the century. you can tell that joseph pulitzer liked him. he gets in to congress and one of the first things he does is challenge of the republican administration by saying, you guys are just creating a behemoth, you're creating an empire, you will let individuals, you are sucking tax dollars out of the people, and you are extremely powerful, and he does this for his own personal reasons, but that is an extremely powerful thing from a person from missouri to say. when he takes on the drake people, he actually manages to put his own guy over here to the governor's chair in missouri,

and you will never hear about this guy again, he is really not important at all, that i just want to show his picture because, is in his weird great -- beard great? [laughter] seriously, though they all is like the same guy? don't they all have the same beard, the same coat? look at his ears. by 1872, they intend to destroy grant, they are desperate to get grant out of office for their own personal reasons, that they argue exactly what the democrats have been arguing, that republicans are creating a monster. they're using tax dollars, they are letting african-americans vote, they're using people's tax

dollars to create legislation that is going to redistribute wealth to those of very same voters. this is not a good american system, there is no room for white men whose money is being sucked out of their pockets who can no longer rise because they are being enslaved to this huge government diffusing all of their money to help black people. this is not ok. and they take this campaign national in 1872. they begin to convince republicans as well as democrats that their real enemy was not the kkk that was all a rumor the real problem is this giant government that is sucking tax dollars and squishing the individual. and from that we get the national elevation of the image of the cowboy. that southerner out there in the great west, he does not want to

have anything, he just wants to work hard and not have anything taken by the government. and this is why jesse james was so important. he is from missouri, he is in fact in terrible trouble. his first major robbery was in 1869 and let me be clear, he is a robber, he is not just a burglar, he is a robber and a murderer. this is not challenged. this guy is a criminal. he is not some robin hood, he is a criminal. his first robbery was in 1869 and they can't get him, so the first governor of missouri sets a reward for jesse james, and the governor just set a price for a man's head. when that happened, and next confederate -- an ex-confederate

begins to say, wait a minute, james is not a criminal, james is in angel of light james is an individual being persecuted by this he meant government, who is not only going to take his tax dollars, it is going to take his life. and james started writing to the newspapers, but then his stories also get picked up in tennessee and by "the new york times," where he says he is not a criminal, he is a nice guy, but he says he cannot turn himself in because federal can be a lawyer, at can be a judge, no confederate can be the preacher, i'm being persecuted by this behemoth government here in missouri, i am a symbol i a government run amok. he increasingly ties his own story, and jesse james is a

nearly illiterate, but when he commits a robbery, he actually wears a akaka rope, which is a reflection of this reconstruction site, and when they attacked the railroads, which is a symbol of the republican government at that point, and the express services that carry money, with republicans institutions and run by republican owners. by 1974-1875, the pinkerton's go after him and bomb his home. so here is this poor guy where the government is going after him with the pinkertons, but with the pinkertons bomb his house, they kill his a little rather and blow off his

stepmom's arm, which really plays well into the stories, and when he is shot in the back by robert ford, that dirty little coward that shot him in the back, there was a little song written by him i bruce springsteen some years ago so he shoots him in the back, so when that happens it becomes at this great american symbol of an individual guy who is literally hunted down and killed by his government. because robert ford had a deal with the government of missouri at the time or he could just get rid of jesse james, he could get a pardon, and the that is what happened. that is why we care about jesse james. isn't that cool? so what happens? i just killed jesse james in 1882 but that is not the only

image that is going on at the time. you have jesse james who takes the cowboy off in a criminal direction, you also have the rise of buffalo bill cody, who is really becomes a public figure in late 19860's and late 1870's. he begins to play himself as a great western hero who is colorful and fighting hard for america, although he takes nothing from the government, of course that is not true, he was a government scout, i have a really interesting story that i don't have time for but i am going to tell you anyway. he gets awarded the medal of honor for work in his scout in 1870, and it was taken away from him, along with the only other

medal of honor given to a woman during the civil war, and it were stripped from them during the 1920's, and both of those were returned in the 1970's and the 1980's, so he actually gets a medal of honor or his work with indian scouts. but the point is, there is this image the traveled east, that goes into plays and books, and a playwright who drinks makes a fortune on buffalo bill and the drinks and away, and they create this image of the western hero who is out there doing his own thing. buffalo bill, as you know, bite 18 -- by 1883, turns of this into big money. he turned into u2 by the 1880's. he takes the buffalo bill's wild west show, and by the 1880's he

is fighting the indians as well as not only because of the red cloud fights but because of the 1886 battle of little bighorn and the battles that follow it including the battle of wounded knee, but that is a little bit out of my kin right now. what you have is this individual without the federal government, without stacking the government by catering to a special interest i minorities, who is not taking tax dollars. we have westerners working hard because that is what americans do. with his buffalo bill's wild west show, by the 1890's, buffalo bill had buffalo bill's wild west show and the rough riders of the world. that is not an accident. the congress of the rough riders of the world, the rough riders are hard-working individual manna from all nations and all

backgrounds, and buffalo bill's set up of it, and it is not how he played it out at all, but americans wanted to believe that this should have happened even when the government is working quite actively at this point by the 1890's for the very wealthy. this image of the congress of rough riders of people who want nothing but an evenhanded government is of course going to be huge in american history. i couldn't resist, who came but teddy roosevelt? he called his men in the spanish-american war the rough riders, and he called his men at the rough riders deliberately after the buffalo bill's congress of rough riders, and he says repeatedly, i am for any man who is going to work his way up without the help of the government, that is what america is all about. i am not about a government that redistributes wealth to

minorities, or the very wealthy, in teddy roosevelt's case. and i love this image of teddy roosevelt, because there is this wonderful image of him that i don't have permission to reproduce now, but teddy roosevelt is not a hugely good horseman, and he is not a good westerner in her. -- either. when he goes to his dakota ranch, the guys that he hires are from maine. there is this wonderful line where he hears them one day, and they are cutting down trees and one guy says i cut down 30, and one guy said he cut down 27 and one guy said, he beavered down a few.

this is the image of the rough riders at san juan when they stormed san juan hill and contribute to the fall of the spanish empire in the americas in the spanish-american war, but they did not have horses, that if you see images from the time, they took courses with them, but the horses were so weak, so when they push them off the boat when they got to the shore, they were so weak that they sank. so when you see images of the rough riders on horses, when they came back to america, teddy roosevelt made sure that they got horses and then they held rodeos so there were pictures of the rough riders on horseback, that in fact, they crawled through the grass in cuba. it did not matter to roosevelt. you know, he said, these were a splendid set of men, they were tall, they were sitting we -- s

inewey, they were men who were evenhanded. this is a scene at running from american history and going back through reconstruction. what is interesting in this is that teddy roosevelt had deliberate cultivation of the cowboy, and when william mckinley was assassinated in 1901 and mckinley was a real big business republican, and went roosevelt takes the helm, he said he told mckinley that it was a mistake to nominate that wild man in philadelphia, and no look, that wild cowboy is the president of the united states and teddy roosevelt buried a liberally took that image. in the early 20th century, the cabal of the images you have of the cowboys of the 20th century you don't have any, because the western image of the early 20th

century is of okies, it is of a terribly hard life people pour off the plane, the whole reason we have mount rushmore is because they are so desperate to get anybody to self the coda, the figure that maybe if they put up a statue on a mountain -- there are so desperate to get anybody out there, they figure that maybe if they put up a statue on a mountain, it will bring people. so here is this image in "life" magazine, and this man is clarence haley long and the interesting thing about this more liberal man -- this marlboro man is not that he just died of cancer, but he was originally on the goodnight

trail. why did they start this campaign? why did this happen in 1954? a little thing called brown v. board. this is the idea of using tax dollars. brown v. board was most are medically in those areas, but these are places that are deliberately spun in right wing media where tax dollars are being deliberately used and being taken away from hard-working white people to help a grasping minority. it is no accident, then, that the image of the american cowboy comes along again in the 1950's and absolutely takes off. this is when in the 1960's and the 1970's levi's take off.

they were on james dean, and then they were everywhere. the confederate flag comes out of the attic. people start wearing cowboy hats again. people start talking about their cowboy heritage. cowboy movies are all over, cowboy shows are all over, "bonanza," all of those tv shows from the 1960's and the 1970's. these western individuals taking on problems on their own that are often caused by government. you can see that, you can see how that comes nowadays with "interstellar," for example that you can see that impacting politics, especially after the 1980's, when this becomes extraordinarily effective when you put on a cowboy hat, especially if you are a good

horseman like ronald reagan, who actually rides in the british style, and his handlers say to ditch the british, and get a cowboy hat or george w. bush who is from connecticut and who went to yale, but when he went to do his presidential run that is when he bought the crawford ranch. so that image that somehow the heart of america is this individual from whom the government does nothing comes from this magical reconstruction moment when the cattle industry happened to coincide with the federal government trying to protect an ex-slave population. and we have live with that ever since. thank you very much. -- since.

thank you very much. [applause] and i very cleverly answered all of those questions. am i allowed to take a few? i can take two? cowboys are cool. [laughter] there is one back there, yes. >> i feel like you skipped over a. of popular cowboys -- skipped over a period of popular cowboys, but i thought that. at period was more anti-mormon then anti-liberal -- than

antiliberal. >> did you say anti-mormon in that? >> yes, i am thinking portrayals of womanhood and literature in the early 1900s. >> i will give you think gray over mormonism -- i will give you zane gray over mormonism. if you think about the plot of "the virginian," it is a northern woman and a southern man, he is a confederate whose nickname is jack -- jeff it is a nickname for jefferson davis because he isn't southern, and they make their way west where jeff, the virginian, works his way up to a position of extraordinary power through his own hard work. and he halves -- he has that

wonderful exchange with shorty who is that guy who is always looking for a handout, and he says you have to work your way up. and then he is killed. oh, nevermind. well, he is not an important character anyway. people think there is something else going on, and there is that mormon thing going on out there, and the other thing i wanted to talk about is where women fit in, and women tend to be good wives or prostitutes in the west, which is in itself very interesting, and i think the person that handles this best is louis l'amour in "flint." many people think it is very stupid but it is not, it is a very good book.

>> you have very well pointed out the importance of symbols and the cycle that you have talked about, both this morning and this afternoon. if you work, imagine yourself as a consultant to the democratic party going forward in the next two years. what symbol would you pick to lead the country, maybe in a different direction? >> so this is actually fun. and the most important word is, i guess middle-class. you know, you can't win elections without using the word class -- middle-class a lot, and hammering home the idea that the government should not privilege

anybody, the rich as well as the poor. interestingly enough, not a week ago, even, hillary did something very clever, and that is that they published a campaign document eisenhower's 1956 political platform, the hillary campaign did. and what they're doing is reclaiming the republican political language. god knows i wish i were doing it. i would talk about the middle class. the government should not privilege anybody. all of us hard-working people who need education health care good roads, schools, clean energy not the rich people who want a handout or poor people who are lazy.

every time it has been tried it is the winning formula. thank you very much. [applause] ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the civil war airs every saturday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. eastern time. visit our website cspan.org/history. >> each week american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. clara barton called the angel of the battlefield during the civil war founded the american red cross in 1881. she moved to the headquarters to a in glenoaks, maryland. -- to a house in glen at go, maryland -- glenn at go

maryland. we learn about the house from kevin patty. >> welcome to the historic site. we are going to see a big house of 38 rooms and 14,000 square feet. we will get to know the lady who lived here more than 100 years ago. this is her home for the last 15 years of her long life. she lived to be 90 years old. we will see that this was the first permanent home of the organization she founded. under one roof in this house they had the people ready to go. they had the supplies on hand. there is a walk in fault where they had $3000 ready.

they didn't have to wait for the bank. whatever it was they were going -- we were standing in the room at her office. on one side there is the stapler. next to it the fragment of the cannonball she is using as a paperweight. it is something she could have picked up on a civil war battlefield. red cross windows are here. people could see those windows. people would know what this house was about by those windows and the red cross flag that was normally flying. clara barton died in this house three days before the titanic sank, april 12, 1912. >> you can watch this and other american artifact programs a

time by visiting our website at c-span.org/history. >> neuroscientist dr. francis jensen on the recent discoveries of the teenage brain. >> they do not have their frontal lobes to actually reason. a cause and effect consequences of actions are not very clear to them because their frontal lobes are not at the ready. they are not as readily accessible. also don't forget a lot of the hormones are changing a lot in the body of young men and women. the brain hasn't seen these yet in life until they hit the teenage years. the brain is trying to learn how to respond to these new hormones that are locking onto receptors and synapses. it contributes to this set of a

very roller coaster kind of experience that we watch as parents. >> eight eastern on c-span q&a. >> join us for real america that take you on a journey through the 20th century. a challenge to democracy made in 1944. this document the living conditions of japanese americans in arkansas and wyoming interment camps during world war ii. that is tomorrow at 4 p.m. eastern. >> coming up next, a discussion with the first three asian-american judges in new york. it was part of a program on new york pioneer speed hosted by the historical society of new york courts. this is about 40 minutes.