again, thank you and before we get into the question and answer, once again, a round of applause for mr. mccullough. >> thank you. >> you know, i'm going to have to get a plastic surgeon to wipe the smile off my face. in order to do this. before we get into the q&a, two quick stories. one is that to do research, you go to historic sites, presidential libraries, battlefields, presidential homes and the archivists and librarians there love to talk. as i was visiting the truman

library many years ago to work on the book, a staff come up to me and say to me, unsolicited, do you know that so and so was here, so and so and listing all the famous historians but then they said to me, you know who our favorite is? david mccullough! he was here and he was the nicest and said to this me. he was appreciative. i'm enjoying the stories. so what i did was that night before i came in the next day to finish my research, i went out and bought doughnuts for the staff figuring they might say something about me. not in the same breath as david mccullough but in that respect. one other thing, i think we would all agree and it's without question that david mccullough is the most celebrated, revered historian of our times. he's a national treasure. [ applause ] he's a national treasure not

only the presidential medal of freedom and multiple pulitzers, national book aday and as gay said, too many awards to announce. but also, the voice which was alluded to earlier. i have always loved mr. mccullough's voice, narrating the american experience, ken burns' wonderful documentary on the civil war, reading when iz books and other things. so on that note, there's something i wanted to say to him but i thought i would share it publicly. when i grew up, jacque cue stow was my hero. i remember a line said to jacque cue stow. loved and used to have it on the office door at the university. if the ocean could speak i would have a french accent is what they said to him. so i've always felt that whenever i go to a battlefield or presidential home or a historic site when it talks to me it sounds like david

mccullough. >> thank you. >> history sounds like david mccullough. so let's start our question and answer. i want to discharge something. joseph ellis, who helped to organize the program and it was our first speaker, he pulled me aside and said you have to ask david mccullough the following question. i said, of course. here's his question. he would like to know if you would like to tell the audience, is there a secret love affair of abigail adams you're willing to admit to? >> who has he been talking to? [ laughter ] i am -- i feel very strongly that if i can -- with my work bring to light, bring down stage to full theatrical recognition people who deserve that now but didn't get it at the time or haven't gotten it, that i'm

fulfilling a need that is important. it's one of the reasons i wanted to write about harry truman. i thought he was vastly underrated and didn't get enough credit for what he did that took a great deal of courage. i felt the same way about john adams. i felt the same way about emily robling, the wife of washington robeling, the builder of the brooklyn bridge and when he contracted the bends and put out of commission, apparently early in the project, she took over. and never got sufficient credit for it. >> right, right. >> she was a brilliant, brave and impressive person. i felt the same way about catherine wright, the sister of the wright brothers. i don't think they would have succeeded with their bold innovation had it not been for her. and the same, of course, with

innumerable qualities of evidence, abigail adams. it's the vogue now to be recognizing women. and it's long overdue. and i thought one of the most -- [ applause ] the day of the women's march was to me one of the most uplifting events of the last 20 years or so. >> agreed that. >> that it wasn't just happening in washington or new york or los angeles. all over the world. high time. and i don't -- years ago i read a book called "the natural superiority of women." marvelous book by anthropologist at princeton of ashley montague. >> did your wife recommend it to you? >> no. i forgotten who recommended it but ashley montague, as i said,

was a professor at princeton. he was a graduate student and working for another anthropologist and just discovered a huge collection of bones. human bones. and this boy, this young man's assignment down the basement of one of the princeton academic buildings was to sort the female bones from the male bones. and so he did this all day long and he began to look at the bones. he realized that as it appeared to him the women's bones designed by a brilliant sculptor and the male designed not by a very good student of sculpture trying to learn the trade and he thought are there other indications of women being better designed, better equipped to survive? and he saw that women live longer, as we know. women are less susceptible to disease. they're stronger.

on -- if you don't use weight. >> right. >> they can lift certain things in certain ways that men can't do very well. his theory was that this all had to do with survival as a race. as an animal thee chcreature, i will. only thing the men had to do is kill the bear or whatever and bring it back to have dinner. where -- he had to plant his seed but the women, women had to survive much longer because we are the only species that we have to wait for the brain to mature. and every other animal comes on the earth and is ready to roll almost immediately. >> right. >> whereas we can't. women have to be around much longer in order for the species to continue. and then i began studying my own dear wife's memory and her

ability with words. and i thought, whoa. we're missing something important here. in our whole way of life. that maybe, maybe they are superior. so let's put them in charge of everything we can. and let them also have the freedom to do what they are biologically designed to do, which is to give birth and raise children. that giving birth and raising children is not in itself a sub standard role in life. but if you have a desire or if there's a need or if there's an obvious opening for you to do something else, by all means, do it. i've had wonderful time writing about people like willie kather and mary ka sat and wonderful americans of considerable

importance and whose path through life is a lesson we need to learn more about. we're raising these kids who are by and large historically illiterate. it's a form of creeping amnesia. it's dangerous because if they get to the point where they don't appreciate all that we have, as a people and as a country, and by tradition, they'll be careless about it. they won't guard it. they won't stand up for it. they won't defend it when it's under attack. and in the world we're living in, where danger is so much more prevalent and immediate, education about all of this is of the utmost, not just history, but all of it. and keep in mind, information isn't learning. we sold this bill of goods about the information age and

everything. yes, it's important and valuable. yes, it is essential. but information srnt learning. i like to tell students that if information were learning, if you were to memorize the world almanac, you would be educated. if you memorize you wouldn't be educated. you would be weird. >> right, yeah. right. on that topic of historical illiteracy, too many americans are historical illiterate and a theme previous speakers spoke on and a point of the series that gay was keen on and others. you have the ability to write for not only scholars but a very broad audience who might be unfamiliar on the topic s. part of the answer improving the historical literacy, the narrative and focusing on the people than just dates. >> i think so. one of the huge influences on me as a writer and as writing history was barbara tuckman.

>> yes. >> whose works i read when i was quite wrong. >> march of follies. a classic. >> she said there's no trick. tell stories. a story, stories are one of the reasons we have survived as a species. because it's been our way of passing vital necessary information on to succeeding generations. when everybody was illiterate. and so the art of the story is something that developed as a very important element in survival. and we love it. we need it. one of thens we'll tolerate the ads on television. the people who are doing them. almost always a little story, a little mini story of some kind. and we hang on that. and there's nothing wrong with that. in fact, there's everything to be said for it. now, there's a great analysis of the difference between information and a story. if i tell you that the king died and the queen died, that's a

sequence of events. it's not a story. if i tell the king died and the queen died of grief that's a story. >> yeah. >> you have to get inside the emotional and human aspect of it. i have -- two confessions to make sheer in this wonderful -- with this wonderful gathering. >> okay. >> first is that i don't consider myself a historian. i didn't major in history. i was an english major. >> yes. >> who wandered into writing history. and that's a whole other story. but i consider myself a writer who wants to write about real people and what really happened. and i do all the required research and then some because i use a lot of research resources that most academics that i know don't use at all.

and secondly, i've never undertaken a subject that i knew much about. because if i knew all about it, i wouldn't want to write the book. for me, finding out about the subject is the adventure. i'm landing on a continent i have never set foot on it an i'm setting foot to find out what i can. so it's all new to me. >> right. >> all most all of it. and it's amazing how if you have that point of view you will find things that other people who rightfully claim to know all about it won't find because they're not seeing wit a fresh eye. i've never undertaken a book i knew much about, a subject i knew much about and never undertaken a book in which i didn't find something in my research that nobody had found before. >> right. on that note -- >> that's very exciting when it happens. >> process of discovery. i agree. i often come home just bouncing around and my wife says, when's going on? i said i found a letter today.

>> exactly right. >> on that note, how do you pick your topics, the topics come to you? i loved your point earlier of scholars ask you what's your theme? the theme comes as you learn the historier and personal narrative. how do you pick your topics? >> well, sometimes i think they pick me. >> okay. >> but that sounds a little phony so i won't stick with that. >> i liked it. >> it's different each time. it can be something somebody says at lunch. something i have just read. it can be something that sparked my interest writing a previous book. when i finished my first book on the johnstown flood, the johnstown flood was a horrific, awful event that need never have happened. and i was questioned often what's your theme? i had no idea. it was only toward the end that i realized my theme and my theme was never assume it can be mistaken and perilous that because people are in positions

of responsibility they're therefore behaving responsibly. can't assume that. [ applause ] the dam in the mountain that is broke need never have broken. if people had been carrying on their responsibility, none of it would have happened. 2,500 people died. that's as many as in new york at 9/11. >> 9/11. >> it was a worst disaster that ever hit the country. it need never to have happened. right after my book was published i was approached by two different publishers. one wanted know do the san francisco earthquake and the other wanted me to do the chicago fire. i was only 32 and i was already being typecast as bad news mccullough and i didn't like that. so i thought, why don't you try to find a subject that's a symbol of affirmation? and that's when i came up with the idea because of something

someone said at lunch about the brooklyn bridge and the minute that subject was expressed as it was, how they had no idea when they started what terrible problems they would have to address. >> right. >> i thought, there it is because they succeeded. again, because they would not give up. >> do you often find yourself as you alluded to earlier, going to write on jefferson/adams relationship and find compelling and easier to know and jefferson is guarded? do you find yourself in that case where you shifted and focused on adams, do you find yourself pursuing what you think is a book on this direction but you find information that moves you in that direction? has that happened for you? >> not often but it has happened. i think what appealed to me in adams in particular, here's this mountain of marvelous material that nobody'd worked with. >> right. >> only something like a third of the correspondence, adams

correspondence had ever been looked at, literally. by anyone writing a book or essay or whatever. so that's exciting. >> right. >> that's pioneering and i like that. >> i've read the john and abigail correspondence and what strikes me is not only does abigail emerge as, of course, a partner in his life and someone -- but the intellectual abigail emerges where they will discuss classic works of literature or plays and almost assume the roles of characters. she offers her advice. he so lit lis sits and -- >> she's terrific. and i want to embark a little bit on another medium, film. the tom hanks production of my adams book on hbo. >> right. >> i thought laurie linney's portrayal was superb. >> good. >> as was --

>> paul ji mattie. >> absolutely marvelous. and by the way, i've never seen people work harder to get the story right than that crew. and down to the props, the costumes, the sets, everything was historically accurate as best as they could possibly do. and tom hanks is a national treasure. he's just phenomenal. i had met him and discussed whether i would agree that he could do the book. and this was over lunch in catcham, idaho. he got to the little coffee shop before i did and he's sitting there in the corner with a baseball cap on. nobody seemed to know who he was. and he certainly wasn't trying to get people to notice that he

was there. and i'd had many producers approach me wanting to do my book. or a book of mine. i introduced myself. he got up. as we sat down, he said, well, i loved your book. and i thought, oh brother. because every producer i'd ever -- >> starts with that line. >> then we started talking and i realized they'd never read it. >> they've never read it. >> he said but i have a few questions and leans down and i didn't see it and on the floor was a copy of my book and he picked it up and this is -- ten times as many post-its in it as that. he said about this. do we have to have this scene? >> wow. >> so i was really impressed. he'd done his homework. so then i said, there are two things that i would really insist on. >> okay. >> i said, one is that you -- it

isn't a costume pageant. that you show that people had bad teeth and suffered from bad limps or -- >> yeah. >> and that life was gritty and dirty and literally. and he said, fine. no problem. i said, the other is that you stick to the english language of the 18th century and you don't have them tossing off little cute phrases of our time. you be the bad cop. you be the good cop. stuff like that. he said, you can count it. the fact that they're both classically trained actors, never had a complaint i know of of people not being able to understand the 18th century english language. well, we have been working on the set down in virginia for about three or four days and i -- tom hanks is a brilliant man and not just a great actor. he's smart as hell. and a good man.

so i went to lunch one day with craig sa dusky, his number two man. he said, what do you think about tom? do you like working with tom? i said, very much. he said, anything surprise you? i said, yes. i can't get over how normal he is. >> oh. >> and he said, oh, he does normal very well. [ laughter ] >> you were on set for some of the filming? >> oh yeah. >> did they solicit your advice for it? i recall reading this. >> yeah. >> you were pleased overall with all the por trals? >> absolutely. a little -- well, i don't want to go into that, no. one of them i thought wasn't quite right but that's all right. that was minor. and the -- >> yeah. tell us. >> well, it was the man who played jefferson. >> oh, okay. >> i didn't think he was right for the part. >> yeah. >> you would have been much better. >> but i don't know. we'll get the -- i wouldn't wear

the wig so -- back to your selecting of your topics. has there been anything in your books you said the process of discovery is what drives you and i suspect that part of your -- the appeal of your writing is you're writing it as if you, wow i just discovered this. is there something about the john adams book you were really shocked to find a nugget in there that you said the history is completely missed this aspect of john or abigail? >> i think that what most historians and people who teach history have neglected about adams is how he risked his life. >> oh. when he was away? >> yeah. and that was no easy thing. and, of course, he stood the chance of being captured. >> yep. >> and hung. >> yeah. >> and there was every reason why he need not have gone at all over to europe. it wouldn't have come out the

way he did if he hadn't. and not just the french came in but the dutch came in. >> the dutch, why. >> financially in a big way. and his insistence on learning and the constitution of the commonwealth of massachusetts. >> yeah. >> he wrote a constitution almost ten years before our constitution that had everything in it that's in our constitution plus a bill of rights. and he deserves infinite credit for that which he never really got. there's something about president who is are elected to a second term that puts them on a different level of focus. and one-term presidents don't get the attention they sometimes deserve. there's some mythology about the presidency. the idea, the great presidents are only -- all presidents during time of war. not true.

one of the greatest presidents we ever had, theodore roosevelt. no war during his time. none. he wished there had been i think. >> yes, yes. >> but he was phenomenal. >> yep. >> absolutely phenomenal. and historian. our best presidents have all been students of history and about half of them were authors of history. woodrow wilson was a professor. john kennedy wrote history. i think dwight eisenhower's crew kraed in europe is one of the west written and wrote every word of himself. no ghost writer at all. >> great. grant's memoir. >>izen hower is a miss -- he's not gotten sufficient credit but one thing he did not go into vietnam. >> right. >> you have to judge presidents by what they do and what they don't do. and that's extremely important.

adams as i mentioned it earlier didn't go to war with france and that's extremely important. eisenhower didn't go into vietnam. kennedy's sense of history was very profound. of course, he wrote a very good book or three good books. american history. and harry truman who never went to college probably read as much history as anybody we have ever had in the white house. he loved it. >> truman always had a great line the only thing new in this world is history you haven't read yet. >> that's right. >> he understood the lessons. >> that's right. the other thing he said that's so important, i tried never to forget who i was. >> yep. >> where i came from and where i would go back to. in other words, he never wanted it to go to his head. and that's an important quality. one of my favorite, most favorite scenes of all is when he was about to appoint george

marshall secretary of state, one of his young white house staff people, clark clifford said, mr. president you might want to think twice about that, pointing to general marshall. truman said, why is that? he said, if you appoint him secretary of state, in about two or three months, people will start saying that general marshall would make a better president than you are. and he said, general marshall would make a better president than i am. but i'm the president and i want the best possible people around me. now, that's somebody who knows who he is. he's not -- he's not in -- bedazzled by the fact or envious or jealous by the fact that eisenhower and marshall and all these other people are taller than he is and handsomer. no, not at all. he had one of the best cabinets we have ever had. >> easily. >> as did washington. >> yep.

>> one of the luckiest breaks in our whole story is george washington was there when he was there at the beginning. >> no doubt. [ applause ] >> never forget, please, george washington stepped down after two terms because he didn't believe someone should stay beyond that but he was commander in chief not just for the eight years he was president. he was also the commander in chief for the eight years he was commander in chief of the army when he had no president so he was our commander, leader for 16 years, longer than anybody in our history. >> harry truman's my favorite figure from history. my favorite president and my hero. what attracted you to writing the book about harry truman? was it the fact truman underappreciated and i think underrated in the presidential ranking polls? or was it because he was such a common person who -- >> i wish, robert, that i had some very profound answer to that story. showing how the reach of my

historical imagination -- my publisher and editor got in their minds knowing my interest in art and painting that i should -- there wasn't a good biography of pablo picasso and i should write one. and they were dangling a large advance in front of my eyes and with a large family to feed, this was not unimportant. i also imagined that maybe we would have to go to the south of france for a year or so. and then i began to read into the life of pablo picasso and i thought, i don't want this guy from my roommate for a next eight years. because he really wasn't -- no. he did things that were just to me unconscionable. wasn't just his lack of

faithfulness to women but it was beyond that. so i called my editor and my agent and i said, it's not going to work. i decided this after about two months. so we got together for lunch at simon and shuster and michael kor da, then my editor, wonderful writer, wonderful, wonderful man, said do you realize there isn't a good one volume biography of fdr? and i had just finished several years with theodore roosevelt. excuse me. so i said, i've been with a roosevelts for about now years now and i think i'd like a little change of scene. and i said, if i were to going to write a book about 20th century president, it would be harry truman. everybody around the table right away, yes. yes, what a great thing. and i thought, why the hell did i say that?

[ laughter ] and i to this day no idea why i said it. i never gave three minute's talk to doing a book about harry truman. so, i said, hold on. hold on. let me go out to independence, go to the truman library. see what there is there to work with. talk to margaret and interview him and so forth. i did all that. i came back very excited about it so that's how i came to write -- and, and i remembered him vividly because he was president when i was in high school and college. in fact, one of my most vivid memories is night of the 'viii election i was 15 and i was very interested in politics and e grew up in a very republican family and i tried to stay awake as long as i could to hear the outcome of the election. final tally didn't come in until about 2:00 in the morning. i probably went to sleep about

11:00 so the next morning my father was in shaving i went, dad, dad, who won? and he went, truman, like it was the end of the world. >> right? >> well, 25, 30 years went by and i came home to visit with my father and after dinner we were sitting chatting. and he launched into how the world was going to hell and the country was going to hell and i'd heard this much of my life. but he went on and finally paused and he said, too bad old harry isn't still in the white house. [ laughter ] of course, that's what happened to the country. >> yep. >> that's why we all now realize. >> yep. >> his answer was that you have to wait for the dust to settle. >> that's right. >> takes at least 50 years and that's true. presidents don't look the same after 50 years goes by because we see what follows. >> yeah. >> i think another very important point to keep in mind always and i try to talk about this with students when i do a

lot of lecturing at colleges and universities. the exceptional presidents are the exception. >> yeah. >> they don't happen all the time. we shouldn't expect it all the time. we should expect wanting to do your best and be responsible and so forth. but you can't count on it. but think of this. we had franklin roosevelt, harry truman and dwight eisenhower all in a row. >> i know. >> that didn't happen very often. >> yeah, yeah. and for multiple terms. on top of it. >> yep. when kennedy called for us to do something for our country, i took that entirely to heart. i had a very good job at time and life in new york. i had been working there for six years. i liked the people. i liked everything about it. and i had a family to account for. but i quit my job to go down and do something for my country. i didn't know anyone in the

kennedy crowd. i didn't know anyone in the government. but i knew that i'd certain skills and experience that could be of value so i valley went door to door and wound up best of luck getting a job at the u.s. information agency and then kennedy appointed edward r. murrow as the head so, boy -- >> wow. >> was i in the big time right away. and way over my head. and then after about six months i realized we all were over our heads. really. anyone who's over their heads in those jobs. and it was then that i happen to be doing some research on a project for a magazine i was editing up at the library of congress and came across these photographs taken by a photographer from pittsburgh who got into johnstown right after the disaster and had taken a whole hundreds of pictures and they were spread out on a big table. and we stopped to look at them.

rosily was with me. it was a saturday. i had grown up hearing about the johnstown flood but i department know what it was. the devastation of those pictures. >> right. >> so i took a book out of the library and it wasn't very good. about the flood. the author didn't really understand the geography of western pennsylvania. i at least knew that. i took another one out which was a pot boiler written at the time. which was just absurd. and at yale when i was an undergraduate i'd spent a lot of time with thornton wilder, the great playwright and novelist. and we asked him at one point how he got the ideas for his plays and his novels. and he said, i imagine a story i'd like to see performed on stage or read in it a book. and i check around and if nobody's written it, i write it so i can see it performed on stage and then so i can read it in a book.

and i thought, why don't you try to write the book about the johnstown flood you wish you could read? >> there you go. >> once i got started, i knew that was what i wanted to do for the rest of my life. >> there you are. you know, i've often said that, you know, if there's heaven and harry and john adams are all up there, when -- if i get there, i would pull them both aside and say, you both need to sit down because you're not going to believe this because they were often times unpopular and criticized in the time. today we love the two of you and you are revered. >> yeah. >> but i suspect that they would have seen that their reputations would be restored and on that line, with your writing on john adams and harry truman, when joaella said it's clear he fell for abigail, i said i think he fell for harry and john, too. you bring out the individual. do you feel when you're writing that you're trying to get to know these guys? do you feel like you're across a dinner table with them? >> absolutely, absolutely. >> can you talk about that

process? >> well, several things. i always have to go where events happened. and soak it up. live with it. and you find -- i found particularly with truman that things that he said, things that he -- were his mannerisms weren't just his. that's the way they did it in -- >> walk around independence where he walked. >> you don't get too big for your brichs. you -- what was the one he had on his desk? >> buck stops here. >> the buck stops here. absolutely. you don't -- well, you never forget a friend. >> yep. >> wonderful scene, there was a man who died in independence and the minister was there for the burial service and the people from the funeral house and nobody else. and all of a sudden this little coup car came driving up, stopped and out got harry

truman. and he came over and stood by for the service. and after it was over, the minister who is a man i interviewed, asked him, mr. president, how is it that you come here? he said, a man never forgets a friend. >> that's right. >> the other story i dearly adore is when truman came home from the white house, he hadn't driven a car for eight years and he hadn't had anything but all the services that presidents get. and he and bess were invited to have dinner with some friends in the neighborhood. and they got in the car and they couldn't find the neighbor's house. it was not right around the corner. so in the grand tradition, bess said to harry, why don't you stop and ask for directions? [ laughter ] so he got out of the -- parked the car, got out of the car, walked up, went up the front walk of a house, knocked on the

door and a man came to the door and he said, excuse me but can you tell me where the andersons live? he said, oh yes, easily. take the second left and third house on the right. and truman thanked him very much and started back down the walk and the man called after him. he said, say, anyone ever you look like a lot like harry truman? [ laughter ] truman called back, he said, yes, i hear that quite often. the man said, must make you mad as hell. [ laughter ] >> right. >> yeah. now, of course, there's only one person who could have told that story and that's marry truman. he is telling it part on himself and that's part of why he was so human. i think the greatest thing was to desegregate the armed services and the federal government. not just the armed services. one stroke of the pen. did it. >> executive order 9981. >> all fought about it after it was done. >> took heat for this. >> did he ever.

>> '48 is an election. >> most unpopular thing he did is fire mcarthur. >> yeah. >> by far most unpopular. he couldn't have done anything less. he asked marshall to look into it and came back and said i don't know why you didn't fire him long before this. because he was disobeying orders. >> sure, sure. almost out of time but i wanted to talk about your new book, we talked about it on the phone. on the northwest ordinance. >> yes. >> what attracted you to this topic? >> a man named manessa cutler. cutler was a minister with a church in ipswitch, massachusetts. and he went to yale university and after yale had finished a huge zillion dollar fund drive and it was successful rick eleven, the president of yale, asked me if i'd come and give a talk to the alumni and all the people who'd made this big drive such a success.

and i'd given -- asked me to give the talk that launched the campaign. but to give a talk that launches a campaign is very different than giving a talk after it's succeeded because you're launching it, you're saying, we are going to climb that mountain. what do you do after you've climbed the mountain? aren't we nifty? that we have done this wonderful thing. yes, but that's not much of a subject. so i decided i would pick out three alumni who had been distinctive in their time but who have been largely neglected, forgotten. and whose achievement had nothing to do with wealth. and one of them was this man manessa cutler because he was the one that convinced the continental congress to go ahead with the northwest ordinance and that there would be complete freedom of religion. there would be government public

support of education and there would be no slavery. and i thought, whoa. and i had never heard of him. which made me even more interested. >> yeah. >> now, what happened -- once i got into this and found out what he had done, then i found into who are the people who settled it. and again, going back to my great hero thornton wilder, i'd always thought, wouldn't it be wonderful to write a book that would be like "our town" which is wilder's great masterpiece. >> sure. >> in which i'm writing people you have never heard of. >> right. >> rather than having a historic celebrity get you in the tent. you've never heard of these people but i'm convinced if i find such a story i can make it work. but of course, to make it work you have to find the material and i stumbled in part because i got interested in manessa cutler

on a collection that marietta college in ohio, the town of marietta, the first settlement in all of the northwest territory. i found letters, diaries, unpublished memoirs, such as you dream of finding. and so i have at least five or six characters for whom i have enough material i could write a biography of each one of them and what they did out there and the adversities that were in -- roadblocks, the things that like most of us give up but they didn't. they didn't give up. >> is it in part a story of these revolutionary war soldiers not adequately paid? >> yes. they were all revolutionary war stories and what the idea was, the government had no money but if the government had been given all this land as it had by britain, that was land of infinite value. imagine, it was bigger than all of the -- all of the 13

colonies. it was bigger than all of france. and -- and there was nobody except for the indians, nobody living there. none. there are no bridges, no roads. only road was the ohio river. and the courage it took to do that, to go out there. and of course, they're not only establishing a community that has freedom of religion and government support for education, these are very puritan values and no slavery, but this is going to an affect on everything that comes afterward. and -- and they recreate the new england village. if you spent much time in ohio, you can drive in little towns today, could be in massachusetts, connecticut, rhode island, just as easily as where they are. and they weren't pioneers in the sense of daniel boon or explorers with no responsibilities other than staying alive. they were coming with their

families. it was a family adventure and of course in those days, they had very large families so that many of them going out with eight, ten, 12 children. and many of those children died enroute of disease or something else. it was -- it was brave in the extreme. and admirable in the extreme. and they lived up to their pledge of public education. 0 ohio university in athens, ohio, the main building is cutler hall named for manessa cutler. as the oldest university or college building west of the alleghenies. and the people in ohio i'm very glad to say really know a lot about this history. if i were to name these people, in ohio, it would not be unfamiliar names. and when you think of who came out of that northwest territory and the way of americans of

importance, it's amazing. isn't it interesting, for example, that the first human being ever to take flight in a flying machine and the first human being ever to set foot on the moon both came from the same section of ohio? >> right. right. >> i don't think it's just coincidental. any ohioans here? >> there we go. >> yes! >> do you have a title for the book yet? >> "the pioneers." that he weren't just pioneers literally. they were pioneers in education and many fields, aviation and so forth eventually. >> time for one last question and i thought i'd end on a light note. it was alluded to earlier. i was going to say, if you didn't know the man sitting on stage quite the painter, dancer and singer and i was asked by friends of yours to comment on the chiquita bah nana story.

>> i have many odd qualities. i'm not going to delve into all of them but one of them is that i have -- know the all of them. i know the lyrics to probably 500 songs or more. i never memorized them. i can't quote shakespeare. i know the lyrics to wonderful songs. there's a professor at yale who is teaching american poetry. and i'm all for that. because -- we don't have lyrics anymore. what they call lyrics are not exactly lyrics. i also know the words to songs that would not rank high among the great american poets. i was asked to give an example.

♪ i'm here to say, bananas have to ripe in a certain way ♪ ♪ bananas taste the best and are the best for you ♪ ♪ you put them in a salad ♪ put them in a pie ♪ anyway you want to eat them it's impossible to beat them ♪ ♪ they like the climate of the tropical banana. so you never should put bananas in the refrigerator ♪ ♪ no no no no [ applause ] can i do one more? >> yes, please. >> i want to do one more. >> encore. >> this is dedicated to gay gooi gaines. ♪ they good looking what you got cooking ♪ ♪ how's about cooking something up with me ♪ ♪ hey sweet baby don't think

maybe we can have us a brand-new recipe ♪ ♪ i know a place right over the hill ♪ ♪ the music's swell and the dancing dancing's free ♪ ♪ hey good looking, what's you got cooking ♪ ♪ how's about cooking something up with me ♪ . . >> so here we go. we've had these -- the remarkable historic -- >> thank you all very much. >> i bet you never thought you'd hear the khaquita banana song. david mekahccullough. tonight at 8:00 p.m.

historian david mccullough talks about how the founders, particularly john adams viewed slavery and persevered in the face of hardship and how the ideals shaped american society. >> he grew up on a farm where they had no money. his mother was illiterate. his father we know could sign his name. maybe could read. because there was a bible in the house and that was the only book. and they worked hard every day. from childhood on. but because he got a scholarship to this little college in cambridge called harvard and as he said discovered books and read forever he became the john adams who helped change the world. >> for our complete american history tv schedule, go to cspan.org. cspan where history unfolds

daily. in 1979, cspan was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. today at 7:00 p.m. eastern, join american history tv for a live tour of the museum of the american revolution in philadelphia. the museum's president and ceo michael quinn and collections and exhibitions vice president scott stevenson will introduce artifacts and exhibits throughout the museum, including george washington's war tent and a piece of the old north bridge. hear stories about the american revolution and you can participate in the live program with your phone calls and tweets. watch american history tv, live from the museum of the american revolution today, starting at

7:00 p.m. eastern on cspan 3. authors discuss france and spain's involvement in the american revolution. arguing that colonial forces could not withstand the british army without french and spanish weaponry and soldiers. it contributed to the french revolution and later factored into the sale of french louisiana to the u.s. the national archives in washington, d.c. hosted this event. it's about an hour 20 minutes. americans advocating separation from great britain knew they had to have the backing of a major european power. and not just moral support but material in the form of money supplies and men. england's ancient rivals france and spain were the logical places to turn. from the earliest days of the war, benjamin franklin