weekend on c-span 3. to join the conversation like us on facebook at c-span history. all weekend long american history tv is joining our comcast cable partners to showcase the history of provo, utah. to learn more about the cities on our current tour visit c-span.org/citiestour. we continue with our look at the history of provo. >> read smoot was an early mormon apostle and u.s. senator. being an apostle of the church running for national office did not sit well with some. there was a long series of hearings, testimony called to

occur for elder smoot before he would be allowed to sit in the senate. they called on the testimony of leaders of the church and others jobs receive smith. he was called out to testify and when they would ask him a series of questions mostly about the practice of polygamy. at the time president smith was a practicing polygamist. there's some good political cartoons related to this time period and in looking through the papers, unfortunately, i did not see any that reed smoot kept or not part of his original papers. here's a few that relate to this time period, some of these might

be related to the fears that were going on. some of these relate to the testimony of president smith. there are some things that were said that kind of put the church in a bad light or put him in a bad light that maybe weren't the most helpful to reed smoot, to senator smoot at the time. this one showing how smoot may have felt after hearing president smith's testimony. but they were all over. there were many political cartoons at that time. i know there were books published about that. while this was going on and the polygamy being sort of the main, originally the main focus of these hearings that were going on, what was interesting about that is the fact he was not a practicing polygamist. his father was.

it was in his family. there were, of course, the president of the church and others that were pragmatcticing that. he was not. he only had one wife at that time. after his first term as a senator reed smoot served for four more terms. so five total for a combined 30 years in the senate. and during that time he was actually involved in several very important pieces of legislation that i'll focus on just a couple here. ride reed smoot was a proponent of the national forest service which had been around for a while but friendly towards the idea of government being able to manage the land, the public land of the nation. so he was trying to pass several bills over a series of years,

basically establishing a national park service but, unfortunately, they failed for one reason or another. so when it came into 1916 ther was the senator william kent of california that was trying to draft legislation basically establishing the national park service that reed smoot jumped on board to try to help him and do what he could to push that legislation forward and -- and eventually they were able to be successful and so it was -- to him it was a great -- it was a great day because he finally was able to see this come to be. and so in reed smoot's personal diaries, july 12th, 1916, where he writes: i attended a meeting of public lands -- of the public lands committee and reported

from the committee to the senate the bill to establish a national parks service, a measure i have been interested in for many years past. a few years after the establishment of the national park service senator smoot also used his influence to establish one of the first national parks in utah which is zion national park in southern utah. here is a photograph that was taken from a visit that he went on with -- in the 1920s with president warren g. harding. the second most -- probably most prominent piece of legislation that -- that senator smoot was involved in was what eventually became known as the smoot holly tariff act, also known as the tariff act of 1930.

they felt the need to pass this legislation and at the time they did in 1930 because this was in the first stages of great depression in 1929, the main goal that the u.s. was really going for was to protect american jobs as well as farmers from foreign competition. this act was really the -- at least in the minds of these senators a way to combat that. however, as people got into it and kind of saw the meat of it, raising these tariffs to these record levels was seen by a lot of economists at the time and even some major business leaders as somewhat -- well, actually, quite controversial and many of them protested it. but at the time of course senator smoot was extremely -- he felt like this was a positive thing, he felt like this would

boost the economy of america, would help protect their jobs and their interests. so in his entry on friday, june 13th, 1930, he talks about the fact that he was crowded with callers until it says 10:00. he talks about giving several speeches about the tariff act. and then at the very end he says the house will agree to it and it will be sent to the president for his approval. i noel do so. unfortunately this was one of his last acts as a senator and has kind of gone down as one of his unfortunate legacies, not the most positive way to end his time as a senator. senator smoot in his 30 years in washington actually became pretty good friends with many of the presidents that were there and many of them respected him highly. within his papers there are a few letters that we have from

some of the presidents that he served under. a couple i wanted to just point out, one here -- there's a couple here actually from theodore roosevelt, this one here is an original copy of one from president roosevelt that just says basically -- it says 1904: dear senator, he talks about a report apparently that senator smoot had sent him. he tells him i had not seen that report but if i had i should have known that it was false. thank you for writing me. this is just a year or so after the hearings had started and this is just another -- sort of a piece of evidence or if you want to call it that showing that senator smoot even during this time of all these hearings going on was still doing his job as a senator, was interacting with the president, was able to

kind of function as a senator at that time. we have a copy of a letter that is actually in the possession of the family, the smoot family, at this time, but i wanted to bring it out just because of some of the things that -- it kind of gets into the how president smoot felt about -- sorry, how president roosevelt felt about senator smoot. he says: i have your letter of the 20th. you are a staunch friend of the forest service. in fact, so far as i have seen you have been sound for the nation and the people on all questions that have come up. so what you say carries great weight with me. and so even as a young senator this very influential president he's able to leave a very positive impression. another thing i was very impressed with as i read through some of these letters to presidents or from presidents in

the smoot papers was how personal of a relationship that he had often with these presidents. this letter here is from president woodrow wilson dated august 14th, 1914. this was just a few months after president wilson had lost his wife, his first wife, to illness. of course, this is also during the beginnings of world war i. so a lot must have been on his mind. a very difficult time for him. elder -- or senator smoot had written president wilson, just giving his condolences for the loss of his wife and so president wilson writes back: i am sincerely grateful to you for your thought of me in my loss and disstress. sympathy does strengthen and sustain and i want to say that your kind message was a welcome message of your kindness and

thoughtfulness. being from differing parties as well i think that says a lot, you know. that relationship he was able to have and kind of bridge those gaps as a senator. our cities tour staff recently traveled to pro voe, utah, to learn about its rich history. learn more about pro voe and the other stops on our tour at cspan.org/cities tour. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. monday, july 4th, on american history tv. supreme court justices ruth bader begins ger sotomayor join historians to share stories about the supreme court's food traditions. here is a preview. >> there's evidence that the marshall court justices like to share regional food products with each other, they were very

proud of the foods from their home towns, for example, john marshall sent virginia hams up to joseph story in boston and story reciprocated by sending down salted cod along with a recipe for how to cook salted cod because it's not easy, you have to soak it and he wasn't auto sure that the virginiaians would know what to do with it. my question is for most justices starting with justice ginsberg. are there modern examples of justices today on the court bringing food from their home towns or back from their travels? >> there are hunting trips, we had an intrepid hunter who would bring everything back from fish to fowl to bambi to wild boar and he was very generous in sharing. >> justice breyer not so long ago decided that he needed to

introduce his grandchildren to pheasant caught by our colleague and presented the pheasant, cooked it and presented it at home to his grandchildren but explained that they had to be careful because there might be pellets in the game. >> yum. >> and they refused to eat it. so he ate it alone. >> another favorite was -- it's called beef jerky, it was made by sandra day o'connor's brother on the lazy b ranch, the family ranch, and a couple of times she would bring a large supply of beef jerky and distribute it. >> did you try it it's apparently quite spicy. >> it is very spicy. >> i would have loved it. >> and i understand that justice

breyer and justice kennedy have brought wine for the court to share. is that -- >> only on very special occasions. but it was the traditional dinner before the state of the union message and one year justice kennedy came with a couple of bottles of opu schs-1m california. >> he has also brought duck from california. >> that was the first time i fell asleep during the state of the union. watch the entire program on the supreme court's food traditions, monday, july 4th at 6:50 p.m. eastern here on c-span 3's american history tv. you're looking at a time lapse video recorded by the library of the congress showing the process of constructing the

exhibition jacob riis revealing how the other half lives. next on american history tvs american artifacts we visit the exhibit in the library's thomas jefferson building to learn about the life of the danish born journalist, social reformer and photographer. >> my name is bonnie and i wrote the complete collection catalog of riis's photographers that was published on the occasion of this exhibition and my engagement with the collection started in the 1980s when i was curator of princeton photographs at the museum of the city of new york which owns riis' new york photographs. there is a great paradox to riis' photographs which was that he was a journalist and he was a celebrity and he saved all of the documentation of his career. he wanted to be remembered for posterity, he created scrap books, he saved his manuscripts,

every scrap of paper, and he abandoned his photographs because he didn't even think they were of any value apart from his words, apart from his arguments and his articles and his publications. the way they were discovered is a really fascinating story. there was a photographer -- riis died in 1914. in 1940s a photographer named alexander land noticed in riis' book how the other half lives that on the title page it says, with illustrations after photographs by the author. so he said to himself, well, where are these photographs? after several years of searching he tracked down riis' son and with much coercing got riis' son to try to find the pictures which turned out to be in the attic of the family's home in

queens, new york, that was about to be torn down. so his son discovered a box filled with 400 odd negatives, 300 odd lantern slides and almost 200 paper prints and delivered them to alexander land, the photographer, who, again, taking a couple of years created an exhibition from the negatives, making beautiful prints, modern prints from the negatives, and working with the curator of the museum of the city of new york to put on an exhibition called battle with islam, named for one of riis' books in which these beautiful large pictures along with excerpts from riis' writings established riis as an important photographer and that's how he entered the history of photography. again, the paradox about riis is that he himself said that he was a photographer after a fashion, in other words, that he wasn't a real photographer.

he used the camera for very few years, less than ten years, and he only took about 300 pictures, about a third of which were family snapshots and other things that are not what we -- not of historic importance. the most -- his most famous picture today is bandits roost which shows a couple of tufts, italian tufts bearing bolo hats. in fact, that picture was copied by martin scorsese in the movie "the gangs of new york" so it's a kind of iconic image. when he first had the idea to use photographs to illustrate the slums and that was in 1887, he reached out to a friend who was a photographer and he found two photographers who wanted to -- who were interested in flash, flash photography was the reason he had the idea to even

use photographers at all. he was a writer, he was a journalist, he was writing in the daily newspaper about the conditions in the slum. he read in the newspaper in 1887 that there was this new invention of flash powder that could illuminate the darkness and he said, ah-ha. so he worked with these two other photographers who were serious amateurs who were interested in flash. they were interested in the technology, and among their photographs is bandits roost which was actually taken with a stereo graphic, stereo skop pick camera which has two lenses so there's two images which have the two tufts and the bolos. that's the famous image. >> the exhibition jacob riis can be viewed online at the library of congress website, loc.gov.