betrayal. copper mice is the art of government. that has reached over into telecommunications. to the ftc.over it is why we are seeing this level of polarization and politicalization. >> watch the committee cagers on monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span two. >> each week, american history tv, american artifex takes you to museums and historic places to learn what artifacts reveal about american history. the mosys myers house was owned by the first jewish family in north virginia in the 19th century. they maintained a large shipping operation and the home was passed down through several generations. we tour the house to see many of the original furnishings and here for what life was like for the prominent merchant family.

welcome to the mosys myers house. mosys myers was born in new york aty and 1752 and he made fortune as a maritime merchant. he did serve as an american revolutionary war veteran and that's it direct result of his efforts to supply the american cause during the revolution, he .uffered his first bankruptcy that bankruptcy that caused him to move away from your city and resettle here in norfolk, virginia. we think he chose norfolk for three reasons. it was one of the most prominent colonial seaports. that was important to him. secondly, it had been burned to the ground during the american revolution and they were rebuilding and he was rebuilding of his life. it was a good match. thirdly and maybe most , he moved here in

1787, virginia had just passed a statute of religious freedom five years before the bill of rights. this would be important to him and his new wife because they were jewish. they moved to norfolk, virginia in 1787, becoming norfolk's first permanent jewish residents. they established their business and by 1791, they were doing want to purchase this land and begin construction on this beautiful mansion. by 1795.d in five generations of the family have lived in this house. they are the only family to ever live in the south. inil it became a museum 1931. one of the great things about withis they left the house content intact. the majority of the furnishings that we are going to see are not only antiques and they did to

the first generation of the myers family. us, one ofup above these examples of neoclassical pastor -- plaster work. the ceiling is in the robert adams style. clock. have a beautiful this is original to the house and the family. it predates the house as moses would have brought this with him from new york city. the first ring that many guests would have seen. they would be welcomed into this room while one of the enslaved servants would have brought him out to greet the most average guest. you only get to see the rest of the house if you are a friend of the family. you are front friend of the family so come in. friend of the family so come on in.

this is the myers family. above the store we have mosys myers himself and on our right hand side we have allies demised. -- eliza myers. by gilbertainted stuart. fireplace, we have this portrait. myers. samuel and here we have meyer myers, the third eldest son. they had 12 children. nine of whom lived to adulthood. of the nine that lived to adulthood, six were boys and three were girls. yourself, are these original colors on the walls, are these the original furnishings? on the first floor, this is more or less how it looked.

we know what was in each room in 1819 is, unfortunately, mosys myers suffered a second there had been a kind of a panic in that year and he had overextended himself by opening a business for his eldest son. when the panic hit, he had to stop payment and file bankruptcy. creditors came in and did inventory of the entire house which we have. you are able to use the inventory to place over 100 pieces in their original location. the colors that you see on the walls are the 1819 colors. in 2005, we had a paint analysis done. if you look at this picture here, he will see that it looked much different in the fireplace was completely planted over --

painted over. they did the patent analysis and dug underneath the layers of paint and struck gold. gold which was largely intact. today, it is considered one of the most elaborately tilted -- gilded fireplaces. here, i wouldr love to bring you over to the parlor. room would have served as the dining room to the family as noted by the food motif on the fireplace mount tilt -- mantle. andllowed them to paint formed this dining room into a parlor. this is a room where they would play games. they loved games of chance and guessing games. the greatest love was music. were -- all ofen

the children were trained musicians. the girls play the harp and the boys played the violin. all of the children sang. they had over 900 pieces of sheet music. one of the largest private collections that could be found anywhere in anti-bellum america. -- antebellum america. this is joseph marx. you may ask yourself, being of the jewish faith, how did they find people of the same faith to marry concerning the fact that there were the first to establish residence here? it was very difficult. son marry two of mr. marx daughter's. over the fireplace, you can see an original looking glass and to original oil lamps. two original oil lamps.

these may be the first oil lamps and virginia. come along with me and i will escort you to the dining room. we are standing in the granite dining room. this is a later addition to the house. this was added around 1810. many of the furnishings in this room are original. this is their original table. we had 12, beautiful chairs. two original side ports that were custom-built for this room. they are too exact measure that they are not interchangeable because one of these is one inch shorter than the other. as you see, the back legs are tucked into the baseboards. the side ports have been in this exact location for over 200 years.

mosys myers family was known as great entertainers and eliza was a gracious host. a lots of people ask us, did they have a kosher diet? the answer is no. they were not able to keep a kosher diet. we know that even though they celebrated passover and yom kippur, they also had occasion to eat oysters on christmas day. we do know that from one of their journals. they also would have had other types of entertainment like balls, weddings and funerals. we are entering the second level of the myers family house. into --out this window most of the other homes would have been one story, maybe two-story wooden structures.

this was the first break afternts of the norfolk the revolution. most other homes would have been single rooms, maybe the size of this, if you were lucky, the size of this landing and this room combined. 1819 inventory of the house, this room was used for storage. they had about 30 armchairs stacked up in this room. another sign of their wealth. they had space that they could store things. luxury that not many people could afford. , this is someere of the original myers family glass and a cup. this is a cup used in jewish ceremonies. from here, we will enter the myers master bedroom.

this is another room where the majority of the furniture that you are seeing is original to the family, not just antiques. this is the actual bed that mosys myers slept in and it is the bed he died in. it is a locally made piece of furniture that local craftsman james woodward. you can see the acorn above the headboard. that is a symbol of wealth. one of the things that this family had going for it. with formgreat place and function with furniture. it is still popular today, back then, it would have had 19 for summertime or heavy curtains in the winter. this chair could be pulled forward towards the fire and it acts as walls to circulate the heap. allow me to bring you behind the scenes and show what is in this

closet. here we have some of the clothing. in fact, that gold suit on your the suit thatbeen he was wearing in this 1785 miniature portrait. many guests point out that they would love to live in this time, but unfortunately, there were in theawbacks to living 1700s and 1800s. one of the unfortunate aspects was slavery. it would have been an enslaved servant's job everyday to come in and stoke the fire, add the chamber pot, fill up the picture and -- picture and use this object. this is a bed warmer. they would fill it with live coals and many other the

blankets under the bed. that in an the tasks enslaved servant was expected to do. we like to tell the story of all the people that lived in this house. if you would like to hear more about the enslaved children, follow me to the kitchen. we are now standing in the moses myers family kitchen. this kitchen was an addition to the house, probably built around 1797. towas very important to them have the kitchen separate from the house to reduce the risk of fire. this is one of the rooms where the furniture you are looking at is not original to the family. what is original is the flooring. stone.standing on you can see the break extends out. that is because brick is a

natural heat conductor and they can popov and pans to to keep them warm. this would have been one of the busiest rooms in the house. servants enslaved would be coming and going from this kitchen at all times and they would have taken all of their meals in this room. above this room, we have sleeping quarters for the enslaved servants. urban slavery was much different than plantation slavery. here in town, the enslaved servant had time to interact with other free blacks and they could earn a wage. work,es meister have any they could hire themselves out and earn a wage. one of the men who worked for mosys myers was a man named billy. he was a skilled tradesmen. .e was a cooper this would have been important

to moses and shipping. he built boxes. standing in the moses myers maritime merchant room. on this small, you can see a map of the atlantic. these are all the different seaports or moses myers ships went go. we illustrate the different types of cargo that he would have carried. cotton, rum, spices, molasses. suffer some ill side effects of their religion. the family sent a shipment of tobacco to norway. unfortunately, norway had recently passed some laws forbidding jews from profiting from trade. son toily sent their norway to recover payment on

that shipment of tobacco. he was born by his friend that the first thing they would ask for when he applied for a norwegian passport was what religion. because he was for one, he fainted illness and sent an enslaved servant to get the passport for him. luckily, the officials were so taken aback that they forgot to ask what religion and this way, he was able to obtain a passport that did not state his religion. unfortunately, the merchant who received the tobacco were still seeking to hide behind this law and turned him in for being jewish. he was brought before the magistrate and demanded that he provide certificate of that to some. my myers countered this by saying, who do you know who carries around a certificate of baptism? he said, any doctor and i will

get an examination and prove that i am not jewish. he did go to the doctor. not sure if maybe somebody -- some money exchanged hands but he was able to prove that he was not to. -- jewish. he spent five years trying to recover that shipment of tobacco. he never received the payment. artifactser maritime including this which belongs to the family's youngest son, henry myers. and if this over here. your old-fashioned gps. they could raise the arm and measure the angle of the sun above the horizon. and know their latitude. this belongs to the families youngest son he was a midshipman in the navy and died of yellow

fever in 1822. we are now standing in the myers room. househis wife who let the to become a museum. the age of 35, she had already founded to factories, the present of the chamber of congress was instrumental in getting many railroad lines here and had served as mayor of norfolk by the age of 35. one of the most important things that barton did was in 1907, he was on the board of directors for the jamestown exposition. the exposition was held here and celebrated the 300 anniversary of the founding of jamestown. barton myers owned the land

where the exposition was hell. he had it set up with plumbing and electricity. after the exhibition, he lobbied the u.s. government to bring the navy base here, which was already well known as a great port. they did bring the navy base here and not her fault naval air station, the world largest navy base is on the land that he owned and had set up with plumbing and electricity. when we have a navy base here if not for barton myers -- would we have a navy base here if not for barton myers? we would like to thank you for coming to the mosys myers house today and we hope you will come back to learn about the fascinating family and the effect that one family can have on the life of a small town like norfolk. allison, the lebron for

the chrysler museum. i have brought some materials today from the moses myers archive. had a lots of paper material, music and books. myers did a lots of shopping and grocery lists. kept but theen not myers family firm kept good records of everything and we have a lots of records as you can see. these are some examples of the things that she would buy in preparation for dinners for the family or larger dinners for guests. fish, potatoes, , beef,otatoes, 17 duck

cabbage, they seemed to have eaten a lots of melon. these data from around 1829 -- 1824-1829. liste taken out a freight for the ship. around 18:24 -- 1824. one of his ships. it leaves the detailed inventory of what is on the ship, the weight of it, the measurement and the totals. shippingave preprinted documents to stay to the ship owner was, where it was headed, the name of the vessel, what they were shipping, the date and

the description, length, depth of the ship and how many times it was able to carry. and is typical of 1800 1900. this is the moses myers family bible. at this point, it is a bit fragile and need some conservation. it has many other useful information like the states written in the margins of the bible. .t is a well used book here on the table, a small example of what we hold at the library. areave many letters that as a carbon copy so that when they send it out, maybe they would not get a letter back, a reply for a couple of weeks, they can refer back to the original letter they wrote to remember what it is

they were talking about. the letters and all the documents that we have help us learn more about the mosys myers family. we have a very intimate and personal look into letters from mosys myers to his children and letters from moses myers to his business partners and other people. this way we are able to piece together a well-rounded story along with having the historic very great asset to have. you can watch this and other american artifact programs by visiting our website at c-span.org/history. c-span, created by america's television company and brought here as a public service by your

cable or satellite provider. >> the national museum of african american history and culture open yesterday on them off. we talked with african-american members of congress about the newest museum. >> can you tell us about your jewelry? >> yes. this is a replica of slave ships. i treasure this so much because it focuses me on the path for moving forward. >> in that sense, can you tell us what you think the museum on the national mall means to the country? >> i think the museum on the mall means a lot not only to african-americans but people of all cultures in america.

so much of our history is rooted in the tragedy, the black holocaust of slavery that moves to all of the things that african-americans have contributed to our culture. everything from music, art, culture, blues, jazz, and actually even so much as building the white house. the capital. the masonry. architecture, engineering, math. a lot of the disrespect that african-americans experience was based on people pause difference of our history beyond slavery. >> do think the museum could have a role in the national conversation where having about race? i think of -- -- >> i think it will be contributing a great deal.

there's so much african-americans can glean from this experience. including ourselves the esteem so that we will insist on better policies toward african-americans. better educational opportunity. more equity. in addition to informing the larger american public about their obligation to integrate into the melting pot. >> the founding director has said it is the american story through the african-american lens. do you agree with that and how do you see it playing out? >> i agree. this is an experience for all americans through an american land so that we see america in a very special way.

indeed part of the american fabric. >> what sense to get from your congressional colleagues about the support in congress for this museum? >> we are so excited. this museum was authorized in 2003 and there was a long history and struggle about getting this is that list and the fact that we have got one of the precious treasured in on the mall is absolutely a coup. >> why is it so important? >> because people often don't travel to virginia or beyond that mall. people come to visit the mall. this is an experience that will be accessible to all americans, they do not have to go out of their way to have the encounter with the african-american community. >> last question, which is the museum into your part -- personally?

>> as i wear this jewelry, as i think about the shameful past of african americans, i am so proud of the future. >> thank you very much. >> interested in american history tv? visit our website, c-span.org/history. you can see our upcoming schedule or what the recent program. american artifacts, wrote to the white house rewind, lectures in history and more. c-span.org. our c-span campaign 2016 bus is in ohio this week. asking students and voters what questions you asked the candidates at the debate. >> i'm in dayton, ohio. the most important issue in the election are all of the higher education and other issues that

affect millennials. at the end of state elected official, i think our federal sureials need to make you're creating higher education that is affordable for students and making sure we do not leave my generation with 17 killing dollars in debt and a social security and medicare system that will not be there for us when we needed. issue ist in education, both k-12 and at a public university level. i believe that k-12 education is a more equitable and i believe it needs to benefit all students regardless of said code, chris or socioeconomic status. i think we need to make college more affordable. me, most important issue is health care and the direction. and i think one

of the most abundant issues and this years election is education. fostering it from a young age is something that is important and there are some discrepancies between the two candidates we need to expound upon. >> voices from the road on c-span. each week until the 2016 election, or to the white house rewind brings archival coverage of presidential races. campaign, john f. kennedy and incumbent vice president richard nixon square off in the first-ever televised presidential debate. after opening statements, the candidates took questions on their leadership experience, communism at home and abroad, medical care for seniors and the economy. defeated richard nixon in a close election with less than 1% of the popular vote separating the two. the hour-long