-- his niece becomes first lady but is dismissed, and when martin van buren becomes president, his daughter-in-law becomes the white house hostess. rachel jackson, emily donaldson, and first lady van buren. on "first ladies: influence an image." examining the private lives of first ladies and their influence on the presidency, from martha washington to michelle obama. on c-span3. is a consummate to the series, c-span's new book is available "first ladies," providing lively stories of these fascinating women, creating an illuminating entertaining, and inspiring read. it is available as a hardcover or as an ebook.

>> each week, we take you to museums and historic places. open in 1829 philadelphia's eastern state penitentiary operated as a prison until 1971. we learn about the history of the institution that coined the word penitentiary and stride to do something revolutionary: reform criminals. >> this is the heart of the prison. this is one of the reasons that the place became so world-famous. this circle on the floor here is the exact center of 10.5 acres, it is in the very middle of the center rotunda, officers named this spot center, and just from this one spot, just by turning around, you could see the entire prison. this is seven cellblocks, and all of them a link up to this one, central hub.

this was not the first centrally planned prison, but the architect had a real contribution of keeping it empty. other architects would have the kitchen here, and he said, no, take it away, you would get central ventilation and watching. watching you get right away, it is convenient to get to anywhere quickly. you can feel the cross breeze and here, it is amazing to feel the ventilation. glitches look at the building itself. -- this is amazing, just look at the building itself. this is why architects came to the american continent early on. charles dickens wanted to see two things in the new world the falls of niagara and eastern

state penitentiary. our mission is to preserve this building just so we can ask the questions that they had here so many -- 200 plus years ago -- almost. what is a prison for? what is the best way at it? how do we make that as a social institution? >> this weekend, the c-span's city tours has paired with

comcast to learn about the city life in fort lauderdale, florida. >> this is central to two or is him, so when they sent up their villages along the way sometimes they were only lien twos the buses would stop, because here is a tourist attraction: seminole's camping by the road -- seminoles camping by the road. they would get a weekly allotment, sometimes food, or sewing machines, and they would let the people use them as they lived in this tourist attraction. sometimes they would make fabric because it approved the tourist attraction people to supply them with fabric, so they would sit there and sell them and make things for the craft market. this is a little boy's belted shirt in the 1920's, this is an experimental time for patchwork, and you can see that at the bottom, this is not a design let's say, that has made it down today.

this is an experiment will design the designs were bigger in the 1920's, and they were not used anywhere else during that particular decade. >> the thing about devil's triangle and the primitive triangle, things always happened. there was a training mission and they would take off from the base and flight 19 would go east out towards the bahamas, just north of bermuda. they would drop bombs in his area and then they would continue on another 70 miles or so and then supposed to make a turn north and go 100 something miles and then make a turn back west towards fort lauderdale. they never came back. later at night when they were sure they had been out of fuel they sent one of these they get rescue planes out looking for them, with 13 men on board, and one of them disappeared. they never found anything. >> watch all of our events from

fort lauderdale, today at 5:30 eastern, and sunday afternoon at 2:00 on c-span3. >> american history tv is featuring c-span's original series "first ladies: influence an image," throughout the rest of the year. c-span produced the series in cooperation with the white house historical association. we tell the stories of america's 45 first ladies. next, elizabeth monroe and louisa catherine adams. this is about 90 minutes. ♪ elizabeth monroe was a true partner in her husband's career and it was a good sounding board for many policies and decisions that he had to evolve.