, here are your winners. enough is enough, dealing with pharmaceutical pricing, and the high school less category -- west category, fossil fuels to renewable, the challenges of transitioning. congratulations to all our winners and thanks for making this year's competition a success. airtop winning entries will on c-span in april and you can watch all the winning documentaries online at studentcam.org. >> each week, american history tv's american artifacts visits museums and historic places. up next, we visit philadelphia to learn the history of carpenters' hall where the first

continental congress met in 1774. mr. moss: i'm standing in the midst of independence national historical park, surrounded by buildings that are famous throughout the world. on one side of me is the first bank of the united states, across the street is the new museum of the american revolution. a few yards on this side is independence hall, which everyone knows. between these historic buildings is as carpenters' hall, which is less well-known but also a structure of significance to all americans because it was here that the continental congress met for the first time and made the decision that led to the open revolution and the declaration of independence. we're on the first floor of carpenters' hall.

you'll remember from your perhaps gradeschool history lessons that in 1773, a group of supposedly indians, at least they were dressed up that way, threw a lot of chests of tea into boston harbor, in the protest of taxes levied by the crown of parliament on british imports to america. the british had a strange idea that maybe the colonists ought to pay for some of the defenses they were providing against the french and other people who have interests in north america. at any rate, the crown was furious. and as a result, they passed, the parliament passed, a number of coercive acts to force the americans to get in line and quit protesting. as a result of that, the colonists decided that maybe

they should have a congress and talk about what action they should take to these coercive acts. so the 13 colonies appointed, well, 12 of the 13 colonies, appointed representatives to meet in the largest and most sophisticated city in north america, philadelphia. and they, the various colonies sent a few men to meet together, most of whom had never met each other. and, of course, in the 18th century, each colony was really a separate organization with its allegiance to the crown. so, there was not any sort of national unity to speak of. and when the delegates came, everyone said, we'll meet at the pennsylvania state house, i.e.,

independence hall. not known by that, of course. however, it was associated with the proprietor, a supporter of the british crown. so they thought, where can we meet? well, it happened that joseph fox, master of the company, was sitting in the pennsylvania legislature, and one of the delegates appointed by pennsylvania to the continental congress who was a member of the company, and they said, gentlemen we have a nice new , building just a few yards away. and we'd be pleased if you would meet there. so, the group trouped over here and looked around and said this is a lovely place for us to meet, and we are in the very spot where they met in 1774.

and out of that came the first cooperative movements of the 12 colonies that met, georgia did not send a representative. it was important that they were meeting each other, because firebrands that would be leaders in the revolution, such as adamses from massachusetts, the virginians, like patrick henry and thomas jefferson, and the pennsylvania people like benjamin franklin. these people may have known each other from their writing, but most of them had never actually been in the same room with each other. and perhaps one of the most remarkable moments in that convention came from patrick henry. now, you all remember patrick

henry for his "give me liberty or give me death." but even more significant was his remark made here in the earlier days when he looked around the room and he said, "gentlemen, we are no longer for -- from massachusetts, we are no longer from pennsylvania, we no longer are from virginia. we are all americans." and that has the ability to raise goosebumps on anybody, and it did have that impact among these men who were seeing each other and sharing their thoughts on what we should do and what they decided was we'll protest. not as a single colony, but as americans.

when the congress that met, the continental congress met in this room, they used the furniture that the carpenters' company had ordered the year before, windsor chairs, much like this one, which is a high chair. and this is reproduction of the originals. i would not be able to be doing this if this were a real chair. it was used by the leaders of the group who were elected at the continental congress. and, indeed, the originals are still here, but people occasionally want to try to sit in one of them, and that makes everybody nervous, so they had reproductions made. the continental congress met in this space in september and october of 1774, and pretty much the movement for separation grew

from that meeting. and, of course, after the declare -- after it was clear that we were at war, and that we were going to declare our independence, the second continental congress moved to what we now know as independence hall, the pennsylvania state house, because the proprietary government which supported the crown was out. now i've mentioned the , carpenters' company, which carpenters' hall is representative of. carpenters' company is a group of now builders, architects, contractors, structural engineers. there are no carpenters in the carpenters' company. but the history of the company

goes back to the 15th century. it began when the english crown licensed a group of house carpenters to have their own guild. and that was called the worshipful company of carpenters. and they controlled the entire building history of the, of london from the 15th century up through to today, they still exist. but in the 17th century when some of those english carpenters came to philadelphia, they eventually decided to organize and to become a company of carpenters here. now, the whole purpose of that, or that kind of an organization, was that they could make the whole structure of their craft better organized, how you would get apprentices, how long the

apprentices had to serve you, and keeping the standards high in terms of building so there would be consistency in the building in the town. less well-known then but very important, they also controlled the prices that could be charged for carpentry work. and because they were relatively wealthy people in the total scheme of the 17th and 18th century philadelphia, they were related both by marriage and association with the leading families of philadelphia. and as a consequence, some of their members were appointed to various, very lucrative city contracts. and one of those contracts was the regulator of party walls. and that person was the one who

enforced philadelphia laws on what materials could be used for construction in philadelphia. of course, if you were a person about to build a new building, who would you go to to do the work? you would go to one of the master carpenters of the carpenters' company because he, or one of his associates, was probably going to say whether or not your building was sound or whether it had been built with the proper materials. -- so,dually built up gradually, they built up this tradition of having a lot of control. in addition, they issued a book of prices. now, this was the way you calculated what a house was going to cost. and if you think about that, the only people who had those books to determine the price of construction were members of the carpenters' company. and, as a consequence, they were able to set the prices that everyone had to pay in order to build, because the way you determined the price for

construction in the 18th center was by measuring the building, literally how many feet of this kind of board, and how much plaster and how much bricks. they really did control construction in the 18th century in philadelphia. by the 19th century, they still were very important contractors, but they became more businessmen contractors rather than actual hand-in-tool builders. and that continued on for, to today, because the company today, the members of the company are architects, contractors, engineers, and not a one of them served in an apprenticeship as a carpenter. so that organization today is something that has evolved, and

there have only been about 900 members in the nearly 300 year history of the company. so, they appear in virtually every major event in the history of philadelphia, right from the earliest founding through to the revolution, where almost to a man, and they were all men then, served in the american army building defenses. they were very good at artillery, and many of them became officers and the -- in the artillery regiments. so, the whole history of the company is very rich. and not generally well known. carpenters' hall is important architecturally as well as politically and socially. it was built, designed in 1770 by robert smith. now, robert smith was perhaps

the first proto architect in america. he was raised in scotland, may have apprenticed under the adams brothers. he came to philadelphia in the 1760's and immediately was "the" man for a major building. he designed this building, of course, which he was a member of the company, and he was their choice to design the building. but he also designed the great philadelphia prison and numerous buildings. steeple of christchurch, st. peter's church, almost all the large-scale structures seen, probably consulted on pennsylvania hospital and so on. smith was an interesting character.

as i say, he was a hammer and saw type carpenter but he also was a designer. and this building, which is unusual there is not another one , just like it in philadelphia, with the four equal facades, is built of what's called flemish bond which is the combination of the stretcher part of the brick and the narrow part of the brick alternated. in this case, they were left in the kiln until they became a ceramic like service. so it provides a pattern of the , bricks. the white part and the narrow part of the brick alternating but with the additional color on the little ends of the brick. using non-technical terminology. it when you look

closely at the building. it also has a typical roofline for a georgian building. as i said, he designed it in 1770. it was under construction by the company, they were doing it for themselves. for four years. and by 1774, the building was beginning to be occupied. they built it as a place they said for meeting with customers, clients, if you will, and also as a space which could be rented to other organizations. and over the course of the history of the company, that use of the building as a rental income property became very important. the first bank of the united states was there for a while. dozens of other organizations, the library company founded by franklin was in the building at one time. and as a consequence, the company was not using it for its own purposes, because they liked

the income. so, they built another building next door which they could have their meetings in. and keep their library, and eventually, where they -- they added another floor onto the building and began the first school of architecture in the united states. we've come inside to look at the model of carpenters' hall being constructed. and here we can see the brick pattern, the regular equal facades. the cupola being installed over the roof and various crafts working. and one of the things people often wonder about is if the master builder became a sort of proto-architect, a carpenter, transferring to using the title

master builder. why didn't it happen that the brick layers were the master builders? and the problem with that was that going back into even medieval england, the master carpenter, the master builder, was the person who works with the client to come up with the design. in effect, doing what a modern architect would do, but in a somewhat more primitive way. and what the master builder would do is provide a design for the owner and then the owner would say to the master builder, i approve this design. go to it. and i own the land, and this is where i want that building. what the master builder would do would be bring in the other crafts, as they were needed. for instance, the laborers would

dig the foundations and then they would raise the building if it was a brick building and bring in the brick layers. and then the various other carpentry jobs would be done and they would bring in the plasterers. so each craft was supervised, if the master by carpenter who was the master builder. and it used to be that when they talked about who built colonial buildings in america, they talk about people like thomas jefferson who, indeed, loved being an architect, but those people were rare. in fact, we know from the lists of who was buying books of architectural design that they overwhelmingly were not gentle men country house owners but they were the builders themselves.

and they even called them master builders in the 18th century. the first book of architecture published in philadelphia, a reprint of an english book by abraham swan, the list of the purchasers, the people who encouraged the project by paying advance, were overwhelmingly probably 90% master builder carpenters. i mentioned outside that the carpenters' company had only had about 900 members in its 300 year history. the importance of that is it shows it was a fairly exclusive group, a fairly wealthy group . but the company turned out in large numbers to serve in the continental army. they were firmly convinced, as

pro-separation, pro-independence, from very early on. and in fact, the man who designed carpenters' hall, robert smith, was designing defenses for philadelphia against the british army and the british fleet. and in fact, he died of pneumonia in 1777 from having stood in chest deep ice water in the delaware river building obstructions to keep the british fleet from attacking philadelphia. and that's a familiar story in the history of the company that several of the members did give their lives for independence. and, even during the seige of philadelphia, this very spot was used as a hospital for the wounded americans.

under the articles of confederation, which was the first government that was established after the revolution, the delegates throughout the colonies realized that it wasn't working. it was not a functional government because it did not have the powers to enforce its laws or to require that various states pay parts of their debt and so on. so, the delegates all returned to philadelphia from the, now the states to independence hall, where they drafted the federal constitution. well, drafting a constitution is one thing. getting it adopted is another. and once again, the carpenters' company members became advocates, strong advocates, for

the new constitution. they felt that it had to be passed. and they lobbied throughout philadelphia. the merchants with whom they were related, and the apprentices and others who would be voters, and when the constitution was finally adopted, philadelphia decided to have a grand federal procession to celebrate. and they built a float in the form of a domed building. it was designed by a member of the carpenters' company. the dome was supported by nine columns and three that were not quite holding up their end. and when the organizers of the

grand federal procession decided who would lead the procession, it was the float of the grand federal edifice, each of the columns named for the states, including the three that had not yet ratified it. and all of the carpenters, the master builders, marched first in the parade. and that is the banner they carried here, under glass, in carpenters' hall. and it is another one of those things which the modern members of the company are so proud of, because they not only fought hard for the revolution, but they became major supporters of the federal constitution. so, again, the company had a national role. it's little-known until you come to carpenters' hall and see it for yourself.

carpenters' hall deserves to be better known, particularly for its role in the revolution. i could go on for a half-hour listing the various organizations that have met here, virtually the first being the continental congress. stories of benjamin franklin meeting with french spies on the second floor to encourage the french government to come to the aid of the struggling colonies who were trying to separate themselves from the british crown. there are so many stories like that that are deeply, deeply embedded in the history of this country. but of course, just as the pennsylvania state house -- built, by the way, by one of the early members of the carpenter'' company -- became independence hall because that is where the declaration of independence was signed.

by the same token, carpenters' hall deserves to be visited and to have our visitors, especially our countrymen, know that that first continental congress set the stage for the second continental congress and the declaration. so, it is part of the story. and when you come to philadelphia, of course, you have to go to independence hall, see the liberty bell, but you should also, if you're going to be in chronological order, you should go to carpenters' hall first. independence hall second, and the new museum of the american revolution third. then you have the constitution center. and so, step-by-step, visitors to philadelphia can get the history of their earliest founding. this is the only building within the park, independence national historical park, which is not

federally owned. carpenters' hall belongs to the carpenters' company, has always belonged to the carpenters' company. the federal government has tried to buy it or take it off our hands. several times. and the company has, from the earliest days, said absolutely not. it's our home. it's our contribution, if you will, to telling the story of america. and they restored the building. i put quotes around the restoration, in the 1850's, and opened it to the public free. second only to mount vernon in terms of a privately owned structure, rather than a government owned structure, being opened to the public as, if you will, a shrine. their idea of restoration in the 1850's was a little different than ours today. and subsequently, in the 1950's

and 1960's, working with the park service, as the park began to emerge, the company, at its own expense, renovated the roofs, put in structural seal so the building could safely be used by groups of people coming through. so, that relationship is one of mutual respect. we take advantage of their steam loop to keep the building heated and cooled. and we are part of their security net, but the building is the property of the carpenters' company exclusively.

the presidentt, and c.e.o. of the television and internet association talks about major issues facing the industry and what we might see from the new administrator. >> can you speak more specifically about those opportunities and what this change in leadership from democrats to republicans, what does that mean for you and your industry? >> he is visionary. i think he is very focused on the concept we have heard from many years about light touch, the understanding this market moves at breakneck speed. huge amount of futility in some regulatory proceedings. by the time they are open, the market has shifted radically. thenesses do not have luxury of sitting on decisions for six month and a year before .hey have to make decisions

i think the new commission is committed to that kind of speed of action. communicators" monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> next on american history tv, a panel of political science and government professors explore the history and effectiveness of executive orders. they discuss the major orders presidents have created in the last 80 years and explain how presidential directives and other actions also guide the executive branch's policies, especially with regard to civil rights and national security. the panelists also discussed president obama and president trump's recent executive orders. this 70-minute event is hosted by the national history center in washington, d.c.