the benefit is that history moves one way, so you don't have to worry about the train coming backwards. you can remember the last station, but you are headed to the next station. >> an interesting and the lost cause as a public relations campaign. if we go back to general order number nine and the establishment of overwhelming power, that was the foundational document of the lost cause, one of those lost cause icons set get there first with the most men. which sounds an awful lot like you need a lot of power. it refutes what lee says in a way, so that selective choice of what you are choosing to remember and how really does shape the overall campaign. thank you so much for your insights today. [applause]

you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend. us on twitter for c-span history. and to keep up with the latest history news. c-span's touring cities across the country, exploring american history. a look at our recent visit to santa rosa california. -- you areking him watching american history tv all weekend every weekend. >> we looked in the north. it looked like smoke out of a train or something. we ran into the storm house because we thought it might be

storming. we had to tie wet rags over our mouths just to keep from smothering. the old-timers said they had never seen nothing like that. our house was sealed, but that dust came through somehow. even the stucco houses. you had to mount really good when it was over -- mop really good when it was over. lynn: today we will be looking at our dust bowl migration archives, which we have had since 1994 -- materials gathered beginning in 1974, primarily by journal -- gerald haslam. he received dozens of letters offering to provide him with material.

he also gathered material directly from people who worked in the camps. charles todd and robert sunken are probably the most infamous of the people that worked in the camps on a daily basis between 1940 and 1941. there goal was to gather stories and songs, either remembered by migrants from their previous times, or their relatives, or stories about their migration and experiences in the camps. so, a lot of those recordings are housed in the library's congress in a dust bowl oral history project. i think music has always served a purpose in people's lives, especially in troubled times. i think one of the values for the migrants in their songs with them was it was probably,

besides their belongings, the one thing that could bring with them -- stories and songs. i think as they were exposed to the difficulties of life in new environment in california, and exposed to the difficulties of earning money, and the difficulties of working for landlords who are not always kind and did not always give them living wages, they develop songs that reflected their new lives in the camp, and they included songs about wages and the difficulties of being a wage-earner and not making enough to live on. and the possibility of striking -- there were a lot of labor and strike songs that were gathered. i think all of those songs together represent people holding on to what will keep him home and keep them able to survive this difficult experience.

i am going to share with you some announced the notes that were written by charles todd and robert sonkin when they arrive in each of the camps. they began recording their experiences in type-written form. this is an example from 1940. "we arrived at the farmworkers community at 3:00 p.m. the clerk on duty in the office directed us to the camp store to find mr. do we rogers, assistant camp manager. the store is a new, very neat building. according to the wife of the store manager, the blueprints from the office were upside down. they indicated a sloped to the roof, which was obviously slanting in the wrong direction. -- direction.: they go on to the people they meet -- "dewey rogers, heavy set rapid speech, eager to help. he took us to the library where

we set up our machine. cotton davis, extroverted, full of gags and witty sayings." khan davis ended up giving sonkin and todd a lot of material for songs. anyone that comes now to research the time, and they do a wonderful job of introducing who these individual people were, so it is not just a mass of 350,000 okies. it is individual stories that have been a superb job of recording. that is why the library of congress has collected these materials. we have a number of photographs in our dust bowl migration archives. most of the photographs were

taken by a photographer in ventura. almost all of the photographs are officially farm security administration photographs of life in the migrant camps of california. a few examples that are quite telling include this sign from the u.s. department of agriculture farm security administration identifying the farmworkers community that exists that these children are posing in front of. charles todd and robert sonkin collected songs and stories, and this photograph showing them in front of a microphone, getting ready to sing their songs for the phonograph placed in front of them is, again, both an iconic photograph, and also one that is very, very specific to these two people and their experience in the camp.

again, mrs. pipkin holding a baby, sitting outside in the bright sun. a wonderful picture, speaking to the times. her face looks much older than i am sure she was. the photograph details the daily life in the cap and identifies many of these people, really helping to highlight family life -- what individual experiences were like. one of the collections, the sub-collection is a collection of camp newsletters. these are copies of original materials that were handed out to everyone in the speech of the camps, where they were written. the unique thing about them,

they were written by the migrant laborers themselves about life in the camp. i will review a few desserts from one of the news latest -- exits -- exerts dated october 28, 1939. the title of the newsletter is "the covered wagon." "comments from your cap manager -- i am very glad indeed to have this opportunity to work with you splendid folks. it is my desire to become better acquainted with all of you. folks, this is your home and mine. when our little boys and girls grow up, how will they go toward the homes we have made for them?" my sense from reading the camp newsletters is you had government workers mixed in with

migrants, and they all worked very hard to develop and maintain a government. they assigned committees that included not just picking up trash, but developing art, literature, having a game night, trying to build a sense of community, and they did not stop there. they developed workers rights alliances and groups and did not just talk amongst themselves. they organized and went on to larger conferences. i think it is an incredible example of what people in very difficult circumstances are able to do to be in community and to not feel alone and to have something to look forward to, to have something to share, to have hope for their children. i think each of these newsletters reflect that in one way or another. i think there are so many

individual stories from the dust will migration and any migration --dust bowl migration and any migration, especially migration that is forced. people do not want to leave their land and their property, but they had no choice. i think some of the history of in which people want theirassion stories to be told. >> find out where c-span city tour is going next online. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3.