what i like best about that is he puts honest first. thank you. [ applause ] >> again, thank you, and before we get into the question and answer, once again a round of applause for mr. mccollough. >> 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 our q and a two quick stories. one is to do research you go to battlefields, presidential

homes. and i discover the archivists and librarians there love to talk. as i was visiting a truman library there many years ago to work on a book, all the staff would come up to me unsolicited did you know that so-and-so was here and then listing all the nameious historians. but then they had to me you know who our favorite is, dafbl udmccollough. and david mccollough was here and he was the nicest and appreciative. and i'm enjoying all these stories. so what i did that night before i came in to finish my research, i went out to buy doughnuts for the whole staff because i figured they might say something about me. not in the same breadth as mccollough. but i think we would all agree it's without question david mccollough is one of the most

revered of all-time. he's a national treasure not only of the presidential medal of freedom, multiple pulletsers, but also the voice which was alluded to earlier. i always loved mr. mccollough's voice narrating the american experience, reading his books and other things. so on that note there's something i wanted to say to him but i thought i would say it to him publicly. when i grew up, jacque custow was my hero. i remember one of the lines that was said to jacque that i loved and wrote it down and used to have it on my office door at the university. that if the ocean could speak it would have a french accent.

so i always felt whenever i go to a battlefield when it talks to me, it sounds like david mccollough. history sounds like david mccollough. so let's start our question and answer. i want to discharge something joseph ellis who started the program and was our first speaker said to me you have to ask david this question. i said, of course. he would like to know if you mr. mccollough would like to tell the audience is there a secret affair with abigail? >> who has he been talking to? i feel very strongly that if i can -- if i were to bring to light, bring down stage, that

medal of recognition, people who deserve that now at the time who haven't gotten it, then i'm fulfilling a need that is important. it's one of the reasons i wanted to write about harry truman. it took a great deal of courage. i felt the same way about john adams. i felt the same way about emily robely, the wife of washington robely, the builder of the griffon bridge. and when he contracted the bridge and put out of commission fairly early in the project, she took over and never got sufficient credit for it. and 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 full innovation had it not been for her. and the same, of course, with enumerable quantities of evidence, abigail adams. it's the goal now to be recognizing women, and it's long overdue. [ applause ] >> the day of the women's march was to me one of the most up lifting events of the last 20 years. it wasn't just happening in washington or new york or los angeles, all over the world. high time. and years ago i read a book called the natural superiority of women, a marvelous book by an anthropologist at princeton

named ashley montague. >> did your wife recommend it to you? >> no, i forgot who recommended it. but ashley montague, as i said, was a professor at presenceten and was a graduate student. and he was working for another anthropologist and they just discovered a collection of bones, human bones. and his job was to sort the female bones from the male bones. and so he did this all day long and began to look at the bones and it appeared to him the female bones had been designed by a very skilled sculptor w, where the male bones looked like they'd been designed by a not so skilled sculptor trying to learn the trade. and he saw that women lived

longer, as we know. women are less susceptible to disease. they're stronger, if you don't use weight. and they can lift certain things in certain ways that men can't do very well. and his theory was this all had to do with survival as a race, as an animal creature, if you will. because the only thing the man had to do was go out and kill the bear or whatever and bring it back so they could have dinner. and he had to plant his seed, but the 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 earth and is ready to roll almost immediately. so women have to be around much longer for 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 give birth and raise children. but giving birth and raising children is not in itself a substandard role in life. but if you have a desire or there's a need or an obviousow for you to do something else, by all means do it. i've had a wonderful time

writing about people, 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, and it's dangerous because if they get to point where they don't appreciate all 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've sold this bill of goodies about the information age. yes, it's important, yes it can be valuable. yes, it's essential. but information isn't learning. i like to tell students that if information were learning, if you were to memorize the world almonic you'd be educated. if you were to memorize the world alman ac, you wouldn't be educated, you'd be weird. >> too many americans are illiterate. that's one of the themes our speakers touched on. you have the ability to write for not only scholars but a very broad audience who might be unfamiliar, uninitiated with the topic. is part of our answer improving our historical literacy focusing on the people rather than just

dates? >> i think so. one of the huge influences on me as a writer and writing history was barbara tuchman, whose works i read while quite long. and she said there's no trick to teaching history. tell a story. it's vital to passing vital information to succeeding generations when everybody was illiterate. so the art of the story is something that developed as a very important element in survival. and we love it. we need it. it's one of the reasons we'll tolerate all those ads on television. the people doing it, there's almost always a little story of some kind. and we hang on that.

and there's nothing wrong with it. in fact, there's something to be said for it. now if i tell you that the king die asked the queen died, that's a sequence of events where, not a story. if i tell you the king died and the queen died of grief, that's a story. so you have to get inside the emotional and human aspect of it. i have two confessions to make here in this wonderful gathering. first is that i don't consider myself in a story. i didn't major in history. i have no p.h d. i was an english major. i do all the required research and then some because i use all

the 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. that's landing on a continent i've never set foot on, and i'm setting foot to find out what i can. so it's all new to me, most all of it. and it's amazing how you have that point of view, you will find things that other people who rightfully claim to know all about it, won't find. i've never undertaken a book i knew much about, subject i knew much about. and i've never undertaken a book in which i didn't find something enmy research that nobody had found before. >> right. >> and that's very exciting. it happens. >> yeah, the process of

discovery, i agree. i often will come home just bouncing around and my wife will say what's going on? and i'll say i just found something -- >> yeah, that's right. >> the theme comes as you learn the history and you learn the personal nartive. >> it be something i just read, something that sparked my interest from reading a previous book. it was only the toward the end that i realized my theme. and my theme was never assume

that because people are in positions of responsibility they're therefore behaving responsibly. you can't assume that. the dam in the mountains that broke need not have broken. if people were carrying on their responsibility, it need not have happened. 2,500 died. that's as many in new york as 9/11. it was the worst disaster that ever hit the country. it need never have happened. right after my book was published, i was approached by two other publishers. one wanted me to do the san francisco earthquake and the other wanted me to do the chicago fire. 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 brookl brooklyn bridge. and the minute that subject was expressed, how they had no idea when they started, what terrible problems they were going to have to address, there it is. and they succeeded because they would not give up. >> you were going to write on the jefferson/adams relationship, which was fascinating. but you found out adams could be much more compelling but you often find yourself pursuing what you think will be a book in 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 about adams in particular is here was this mountain of

material that nobody -- only something like only a third of adam's correspondents had ever been looked at literally by anyone writing a book or essay anywhere. so that's exciting. >> i read the john and abigail correspondence. and what strikes me is not only does abigail emerge as, of course, a partner in his life but the intellectual abigail emerges. where they will discuss classic works of literature and plays. and they almost assume the reol of characters. abigail emerges as a -- >> oh, she's terrific. and i want to embark a little bit on another media film, tom hanks production of my book on

hbo, i thought linny's portrayal of bab gale was superb as was paul jemoni. absolutely marvelous. by the way, i never saw people work harder to get the story right as that crew. and tom hanks is a national treasure. he's just phenomenal. i met him and discussed whether i would agree whether he could do the book. and this was over lunch in ketchum, idaho. and he got to little coffee shop

before i did, and he's sitting there, had a baseball cap on and nobody seemed to know who he was. and he certainly wasn't trying to get people to notice he was there. i've had many producers approach me wanting to do my book, great book of mine, and i introduced myself, we shook hands and he said i love your book. and i said, oh, brother, because every producer, when we started talking i realized -- >> they'd never read it. >> and he said i have a few questions and he leaned down, i didn't see it. but it was a copy of my book. and it had ten times as many post-its in it as that. and he was like about this, about that, do we need to have this scene. so i was really impressed.

he'd really done his homework. i said there's two things i would really insist on. one, it isn't a costume pageant that you show people had bad teeth and suffered from bad limps and life was gritty and dirty, literally. and he said, all right, no problem. i said the other is that you stick to the english language of the 18th century and you don't have tossing off little cute phrases of our time. yeah, you be the bad cop, i be the good cop, stuff like that. he said, you can count on it. and we never had a complaint that i know of of people not being able to understand the 18th century english language. but we'd been working on the set down in virginia for about three or four days, and tom hanks is a

brilliant man. and he's not just a great actor. he's smart as hell, and a good man. so i went to lunch one day with -- and he said what do you think about tom, do you like working with him? and i said very much. i can't get over how normal he is. and he said, oh, he does normal very well. >> you were on set for some of the filming. and did they solicit your advice for -- i recall reading that. you were called for all the reading of the portrayals and -- >> well, one of them wasn't quite right, but that's all right. it was quite minor.

but the man who played jefferson, i didn't think he was right for the part. you would have been much better. >> i don't know. but i wouldn't wear the wig. 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 part of the appeal of your writing is you writing as if, wow, i just discovered this. and the readers also sharing that view. is there something about the john adams back that you really were shocked to find, a nugget in there where you said cystry really missed an aspect of john or abigail? >> i think what most historians or those who teach history about adams is how he risked his life. that was no easy thing. and of course he stood the

chance of being captured and hung. and there was nary a reason he need not have gone over to europe. it wouldn't have come out the way it did if he aren't. and not just the french came in but the dutch came in financially in a big way. and his insistence on learning and the constitution of the governor of massachusetts. he wrote a constitution almost ten years before our constitution that had everything in it that's in our kuconstitutn plus a bill of rights. and he deserves infinite credit for, which he never really got. there's something about presidents that are elected a second term that puts them on a different level of focus. and one-term presidents don't get the attention that they sometimes deserve. there's some mythology about the

presidency. the idea that great presidents are all presidents during time of war. not true. the of the greatest presidents we ever had, thedor roosevelt, there was no war during his time. none. he wished there had been, i think. >> yes. yes. >> but he was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. wood row wilson was a professor of history. john kennedy wrote history. i thinkizen hower's crusade in europe i think was one of the best books ever written about the second world war, and he wrote every word himself. iz izenhower is a -- for one thing

he didn't go into the vietnam war. adams as i mentioned earlier didn't go to war with france. and that's extremely important. eis eisenhower didn't go into vietnam. kenied, of course he wrote a very good book, wrote three good books about american history. and harry truman who never went to college, probably wrote more than any president we've ever had in the white house and he loved it. >> truman understood the lessons. >> that's right. and the other thing he said i think so important. he said i tried never forget who i was, 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 favoritest, most favorite scenes of all is when he was about to appoint john marshall, secretaryf state, one of his staff people, clark clifford, said mr. president you might want to think twice about that. and truman said why is that? and he said if you appoint him secretary of state about two or three months people will start saying general marshall will 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 people around me. he's not bedazzled by the fact or envious or jealous by the fact that eisenhower and marshal

and all these people are taller than he is. no, not at all. one of our luckiest breaks in our whole story is that gorge washington was there when he was there in the beginning. >> no doubt. >> and never forget george washington was the commander in chief not just for the eight years he was president. he was also incommander in chief for the eight years he was commander in chief of the army when we had no president. so he was our leader for 16 years, longer than anybody in our history. >> harry truman is my favorite figure from history, my favorite hero. what attracted you to writing the book about harry truman? is it the fact that he was under

appreciated in the ranking polls or he was -- >> i wish 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, there wasn't a good biography of -- also imagine maybe we would have to go to the south of france for a year. then i began to read into the life of paublo picasso, and i thought i don't want this guy as my roommate for the next eight

years. he did things to me that were just unconsciousenable. it wasn't just his lack of faith to women but beyond that. so i called my editor and my agent and said it's not going to work. i decided this after about two months. so we got together for lunch and michael cordo, wonderful writer and wonderful man said you realize theresent a good one volume biography of fdr? and i had just finished several years with thedore roosevelt. and i said i've been with the roos velts for about four years now and i think i'd really like a change of scene. i said if i were going to write about a book about a 20th

century president it wouldn't be franklin roosevelt was harry truman. and everyone around the table said yes, yes, what a great thing. and i thought why did i say that? i never gave three minutes thought about doing a book about harry truman. so ytsds, hold on, hold on, let me go to independence, go to the truman library see what there is to work with. let me talk to margaret, see if she'll cooperate and so on and so forth. and i did and came back very excited about it. so that's how i came to write -- and i remember him vividly because he was president when i was in high school and college. in fact one of my most vivid memories i was 15 and very interested in politics and i grew up in a very republican family. i tried to stay as long as i

could to hear the outcome of the election. and the final tally didn't come in until about 2 in the morning. and probably went to sleep about 11:00. and the next morning my dad was shaving, i said dad, dad who won and he said truman like it was the end of the world. well, 25, 30 years went by and i came home to visit with my father, and after dinner we were sitting and chatting. and he launched into how the world was going to hell and the conty was going to hell. and i heard this much of my life. and then he paused and said too bad old harry still isn't in the white house. and of course that's what happened to the country. that's what we all now realize. and his answer was you have to wait for the dust to settle. and it 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. and i think a very important point to keep in mind and i try to talk about this with students, and i do a lot of lecturing at colleges and universities. the exceptional presidents are the exception. they don't happen all the time, and 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 dwightiz eisenhower all in a row. >> yep. and for multiple terms. >> when kenied called for us to do something for our country, i took that entirely to heart. i had a great time in new york. i worked there for six years, liked the people.

and i had a family, and i couldn't afford it but i quit my job to go down and do something for my country. i didn't know anyone in the kenied crowd, anyone in the government, but i knew i had skills that could be of value. so i literally went door and door and ended up best of luck getting a job at the information agency. and then kenied appointed -- so, boy, was i in the big time right away and way over my head. and then after about six months i realized we all were every our heads. really, anyone was over their heads in those jobs. and it was then that i happened 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 in pittsburgh right

after johnston and had taken a whole hundreds of pictures on a big table, and we stopped to look at them. and i'd grown up hearing about -- but i didn't know what it was. and oh, my gosh, the devastation of those pictures. so i took a book out-of-the library, and it wasn't very good, about the flood. the author really didn't understand the geography of western pennsylvania. i at least understood that. so i took another one out, which was just absurd. and at yale when i was an under graduated i spent a lot of time with the great playwright 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 that i'd like to see performed on stage or read in a book, and i check

around that nobodies written it. i write it so i can see it performed on stage so i can read it in a book. and i thought why don't you try to write a book about the -- that you could read. so once i got started i decided that's something i want to do for the rest of my life. >> if i get there, i would pull them all both aside and say you need to -- today we love the two of you and you are revered but i suspect they would have seen their reputations have been restored. joel s said to me it's clear david fell for abigail, i said i think he fell for harry and

john, too. when you're writing do you feel you get to know these guys? you talk a little bit about that process. >> well, several things. i always have to go where events happened and soak it up, live with it. and i found particularly with truman, the things that he said, the things his manners, weren't just his. that's the way they did it. >> you walk around where he walked -- >> you don't get too big for your britches. you never forget a friend. that 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 coupe car came driving up, stopped and out got harry truman. and he came over and stood by the service. and after it was over the minister, a man that 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 truly ador is when truman came home from the white house, he hadn't had all the services the 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 neighbors house. it wasn't right around the corner. so in the grand tradition, bess said why don't you stop and ask for direction.

so he 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, can you tell me for the andersons live. and he said take the left and it's on the right. and he started walking down and the man said, hey, anybody ever tell you look like harry truman? and he said yeah, i get that. and he said it must make you mad as hell. and he's telling this story himself. and the federal government, it wasn't just the armed services, one stroke of the pen did it.

>> yeah, and he took a lot of heat for that. >> the most unpopular thing he ever did was to fire mcarthur. and now everybody realizes he couldn't have done anything less. >> right thing to do. >> he asked marshall to look into it, and marshall came back and said i don't know why you didn't fire him long before this. because he wasn't following orders. >> i wanted to talk about your new book on the northwest ordinance. what attracted you to this topic? >> a man named munessa cutler. and he was a minister in massachusetts. and he went to yale university. and after yale had finished a huge fund drive and it was

successful, the president of yale asked me if i would come and give a talk to the alumny and all the people that would make this big drive such a success. to give a talk that launches a campaign is very different than giving a talk after it succeeded. because if you're launching it, you're saying we're going to climb that mountain. what do you do after you climb that mountain? you say aren't we nifty, we've done this wonderful thing. yes, but that's not much of a subject. so i decided i would pick out three alumniwho would been distinctive in their time but largely forgotten and whose achievement had nothing to do with wealth. and one of them was this man, vanessa cutler, because he was the one that convinced the continental congress to go ahead

with the northwest ordinance and there would be complete freedom of religion, there would be government 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. once i got into this and found out what he'd done, i got into well, who are the people that actually got out and settled it? and then going back to my great hero, thornton wilder, i always thought wouldn't it be wonderful to write a book, it would be like our town, which is wilder's great masterpiece in which i'm writing about people you've never heard of. rather than having a historic celebrity get you into the tent. you'd never heard of these people, but i'm convinced if i could find such a story, i could

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 vanessa cutler by a collection in the town of ohio. i found letters, diaries, unpublished memories, and so i've got 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, the roadblocks, the things that most of us give up, but they didn't. they didn't give up. >> is it in part of a story of these revolutionary war stories that had not been paved -- >> they were all revolutionary war stories. and the idea is the government had no money, and any land given

by the government, that was bigger with infinite value. it was bigger than all the 13 original colonies, bigger than france. and there was nobody living there. no bridges, no roads. the only river was the ohio river. and the courage it took to go out there. and of course they're not only establishing a community that has freedom of religion and government support of education, these are veer empirical values and no slivery. but this is going to have an effect on everything that comes afterward. and they re-create the new england village. and they weren't pioneers in the sense of daniel boone or

explorers, no other responsibilities other than staying alive. they were coming with their families. it was a family venture. of course, in those days they had very large families. so many of them are going out with eight, ten, 12 children. and many of those children died en route of disease or something else. it was brave in the extreme and admirable in the extreme. and they lived up to their pledge of public education. ohio university in athens, ohio, the main building is cutler hall. and the people of ohio i'm very glad to say really know a lot about this history, if i were to name these people in ohio, they

would not be unfamiliar names. and when you think of who came out of that northwest territory of importance, it's amazing. it's interesting, for example, 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. >> and i don't think it's just coincidental. any ohioens here? yes. >> do you have a title for the book? >> the pioneers. >> time for one last question. i thought i'd end on a light note. it was alluded to earlier. if you didn't know the man sitting on stage is quite the painter, dancer, and singer. and i was asked by friends of

yours to comment on thetia ketoa banana story. so could you close us out with that story? >> well, i have many qualities. i'm not going to delve into all of them. but one of them is i know the lyrics to probably 500 songs or more and i've never memorized them. i can't quote shaksepear, can't quote poe or others. we don't have lyrics anymore. what they call lyric, they're not exactly lyrics. but i also know the words to the songs that would not rank high

among the great american poets. i was asked to give an example. i'm shuketoa banana and i'm here to say, bananas have to ripen in a certain way. bananas stay the best and they are the best for you. you can put them in a salad. you can put them in a pie. any way you want to eat them, it's impossible to beat them because bananas like the climate of a very, very tropical equator. so you should never 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 james. >> hey, good-looking, what you

got cooking? hey, sweet, baby, don't you say maybe. we can have us a brand new recipe. i got a hot rod ford and a $2 bill. i know a place right over the hill. the musesic swell and the dance is free, and if you want to have some fun come along with me. hey, good-looking. what you got cooking? had you seen about a cooking, how's about a cooking something up with me? >> so here we go. we've had the remarkable -- wave had these remarkable historians come here, but you never thought you'd hear the shuketoa banana song. thank you everyone.

>> interested in american history tv, visit our website, c-span.org/history. you can watch college lectures, archival films and more. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's public cable television companies is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. american history tv is on c-span 3 every weekend featuring museum tours, archival films on the civil war and more.

here's a clip from a recent program. >> why do we need to get these answers? because 2032 is 30 minutes away. it's going to happen very soon. and when it's going to happen, the world is going to turn to this place. you're going to have sorts of people out there. the birth of george washington, when you see it every day, when you write about it all the time, it becomes naturalized. it's my job, but that's not what it is when it comes to a national possession. the country is going to turn its way eyes to this celebration. there's going to be yachts coming down, the presidential helicopter is going to have to land somewhere, the gas stations are going to run out of gas. i mean that is all going to happen. >> you can watch this and other american history programs on our website where all our video is

archived. that's c-span.org/history. next on american history tv, author lynn cheney discusses president james madison's life and career. her book on it president first published in 2014 is "james madison, a life reconsidered." she also previews her up coming book about the four founding fathers from virginia. the society of the four carts in palm beach, florida hosted this event, which was part of the series on the founders. it's an hour and a half. >> i'll put it down for me, and then it has to come down a little bit more for dr. cheney.