it is now the linear central open space of the campus. here, theycoming don't just enjoy a modern campus, they get a very authentic look at the narrative -- tacoma, to, our staff recent travel to tacoma, washington, to learn more about its rich history. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on cspan3. founded in 1846, the smithsonian institution was originally housed in a redstone building on the national mall known as the castle. up next, a behind the scenes

tour of castle spaces not open to the public with steve berry and curator richard stamm. much of mr. berry's latest work took place here. richard stamm is the author of "the castle." the illustrated history of the building. we met our tour guide in the crypt. this is about 40 minutes. >> i am steve berry. i am here with -- richard stamm: richard stamm. steve berry: he has a cool job, he looks after this stuff in the building. this is a really interesting place where it all started. the smithsonian was started by a man named james smithson. he was just a guy who had an interest in science at the time. but he died and he had $500,000

when he died and he left it to his nephew. if his nephew had been married and had kids, life would be great, he would have kept the money. but he died childless. the provision said the money would go to washington, d.c. to found at the smithsonian institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. that is what the language says. here is the really neat part. the secret part. smithson never set foot in america. why did he leave a half million dollars to place he never set a foot in? to this day, no one really knows why. >> the guess is he was somewhat bitter. he was the illegitimate son of the duke of northumberland. for the first 30 years of his life, he was known as james lewis macey. because he was illegitimate, he was never allowed to use

his father's name or fortunes or anything. there was a scrap of paper found in his personal effects, paraphrasing, it says the best blood of england flows through my veins but avails me not. their name will be extinct, but mine will be not. it did suggest he was a little bitter. other than that, we do not know. >> and he was right. all of this was created from that $500,000 investment. congress thought about it for a long time. they could not decide what to do. a lot of people were suspicious of creating something like this. southern senators thought it would be an anti-slavery institution. inntually, john quincy adams the house of representatives punched it through. in 1846, they created at the smithsonian institution. it was completed in 1855.

this is smithson's tomb brought here in the earlier part of the 20th century. he is not in here. he is actually down here. there he is. just his bones are in there. >> when he was brought over, the regents were notified that the cemetery he was buried in set on top of a stone quarry. they needed to extend the seawall. they notified the board of regents. wasur board at the time alexander graham bell who took it upon himself to convince his fellow board members that we needed to bring james smithson's bones here, even though he had never visited this country in his lifetime, had no close friends we know of or acquaintances. docked at the navy yard

in southwest d.c. and had a long procession with his british flag draped coffin. they brought him here to the building and in the middle of the great hall, they had a great ceremony and they changed the flags to half american, half british. they took him upstairs to the regents room and draped the coffin in the american flag. >> these are the ideas of what they were going to do. they wanted to build a proper memorial. they are both huge and would have dwarfed the lincoln memorial. as it became apparent, there was less money for the project, the designs want smaller to a garden bench and her gallant. pergola.--

and finally when the regents were informed by congress that there was no money for this, he ended up in this room right here. which in the 1880's was the janitor's closet. it was tastefully redesigned. >> this was closed. you could not come in here. it was locked up. they opened it in the 1970's when they opened it up when people could start walking in. we have a few of his personal effects but most of these things were destroyed in the fire. we will tell you more about that upstairs. his book survived and we have them over in a refrigerated vault in the natural history museum. there are a few little personal effects that survived. insideovel taking place the smithsonian, this is all in tombook, and we reopen the as they did in 1973. they popped this panel off and i go back in and use it.

it fascinated me, why did they go in his tomb in 1973? nobody really knows. there was no scientific value. they decided to go in and inventory it. and walkedt apart the conference across to the natural history museum and study -- studied him for a day or so. got into a lot of trouble, did they? >> they did. the district office got wind of it and they contacted our lawyers to say, you have not got the proper permit. that is why we have lawyers. >> i am a lawyer so i can talk about the lawyers. they eventually put all of the bones in and it was put back down. i could not resist. i have something hidden there during that time. it is the perfect place. nobody would go in there. it is all in the novel.

the reader will learn about all of that. i try to keep my books 90% to reality. 90% to history. i keep them as close as reality so you canep them learn something along the way while you are experiencing the fund. i serve on the smithsonian libraries advisory board and we oversee the 22 libraries. i have a great interest in the smithsonian. i wanted to draw attention to the smithsonian and the smithsonian libraries. he is my hero. he has been in 12 books. he is a recurring character and a retired justice department agent and lives in copenhagen. he gets in trouble a lot. i pick stuff from history. things in the footnote of history. and here, i deal with something called the knights of the golden circle, the largest, most dangerous, clandestine group and i weave them in the tale.

>> we will go downstairs to something really cool in the basement and see something very few people get to see. >> this is the great hall where we are now. >> now, we are going to the basement that is a little tight. a lot of pipes and wires. we will follow rick around. it pays to be short here. it helps. when you see books and television and movies, they always talk about the mysteries under the smithsonian. now, you are under it. there is not a lot of mystery. it is a workable work area. there is an interesting something that is kind of fascinating and i put it in the book. we have a drawing to show you.

we are right here. this is the smithsonian castle and we're right here. underneath the national mall, all the way across, 700 30 feet, there is a tunnel that goes over to the national history museum and up. it goes straight under. they did not actually tunnel, they dug a big trench built in a causeway and filled it over. it became a tunnel all the way through. you will see that in a second. what it was designed to do is bring heating from over here to the castle. they brought the heating ducts across. still does to this day but it is very tight, a narrow thing and i put it in the novel. i was down here one day and rick showed me and i said it has to be in there. it is too cool. in the winter time, this area is warmer where the tunnel is and you can see the line. >> that is a cool picture.

you should get a picture of that the next time it snows. >> this ground gets a little warmer so you can see the line as it goes across. the tunnel is right here. >> do you want to set the alarm off again? >> i think we have it covered. >> let's go down. you can see several hundred feet too.in theire, rick walked it last week with the lights off and a flashlight. i guess you cannot see your hand in front of your face. in the novel, rick actually is in the tunnel with the character and allows access into this building from the natural history across. he is actually in the book. i had to have somebody in the book who could do a lot of stuff. i was going to make somebody up

and said why make up somebody? ,use him. he said he had to be handsome and exciting and i had to paint them, i had a lot of conditions he put on it. he gets shot at. he does get shot at. you save stephanie. you save her life. you did a good job. this tunnel figures into the book. like i said, there are secrets in the smithsonian and here is one of them. one of the real cool secrets. >> it has been there since 1910. people still have to walk through therefore maintenance? >> occasionally. we had asbestos abatement last year so they were in there for a good three months taking out .sbestos during >> he said it was not the funnest experience in the world. >> it is only about five feet area i was trying to film it with my cell phone. i had a flashlight above and was

continuously hitting my head against the pipes. >> it is a straight line and in the book, i put a couple of curves in it because i needed the characters to disappear. otherwise, it is faithfully represented. what we will do now is see something i think is the coolest thing in the whole building. it is his office. he has the office that you would think of when you think of the smithsonian. and we will show it to you right now. rick wrote a book on the castle, it is kind of like the definitive book on the smithsonian castle. i studied that book. >> the curator's office. this place is decorated with of objectsd prints from the smithsonian. don't hit your head.

>> that is nice. look at all the cool stuff. over here, here is a shelf and old books. just what you would think of when you think of a sony and curator. in a little cubbyhole where nobody can get to you. we will show you something really neat discovered here about 20 years ago? rediscovered? >> yeah, i think we have always known it was there but sealed off. never used. >> pretty interesting. >> a tour of your office. what does the curator of the castle do? >> i am the curator of the furniture to decorate the secretary and undersecretary. and all the public spaces. it was set up in 1964 by general ripley who was secretary at the time. he felt the inside of the building should better reflect what the outside is. and that is a historic structure. at the time, it was green

linoleum and egg crate fixtures and government issue furniture and all of that. for the next, since 1965, we have been collecting antique furniture that fits with the building and the time period, roughly 1840 to 1900. the first initial years of the smithsonian. and then, we actually, people actually sit at the desk's and is the tables and the building is furnished that way throughout . and that is the collection i manage. this little staircase is in one of the tiny towers on the corner of the main building. it was put in 1881 for the scientists who had laboratory space on a balcony in the great hall. one of them was mary jane rathbun, she was the sister of one of the young assistant

secretaries. she worked in the marine collection. the wet storage was down here. they put in the staircase as a shortcut. she would have to go to the middle of the great hall down a flight of stairs and where the elevator was, was a flight of stairs and all the way to this end of the building, the west end. pick up these huge jars filled with marine invertebrates and retrace her stuff and go back up. they put in this little staircase for shortcut for those scientists. she said before she would open , the door and come out into the storage space, she would stop her feet three times to scare away the rats. >> that is the book that is out. we put this medallion on the cover. we had a cover artist draw it. he created it. that is the actual book itself.

the staircase is in the book. it is used as a secret way to get in and out. you can't not put it in the book. it was sealed for many years and they unsealed it and started using it again. we will go from the very bottom to therds the top rotunda. some really cool things many people never get to see. >> this is the regents room where the regents of the smithsonian meet. a lot of people do not understand how the smithsonian is governed. it is governed by a 17 member council. the vice president of the united states serves on the board as do three members of the house, three members of the senate, and

nine citizen members of the 17 of members. this is where they meet. this room is also cool because as we saw downstairs, when they brought his body appear first, it laid in this room. that was in the early part of the century. in 1865, january, this is where they kept smithson's personal effects. when the fire happened, this room was destroyed and most of his personal effects. the only thing that survived were his books that are in a refrigerated vault in the national history museum and a few of his personal items. >> a small painting and some arrowheads. just his calling cards and really very minor things. >> what people do not realize is there is something called smithsonite. what is it? >> a mineral he discovered. it was named for him posthumously.

it is fairly useless as a mineral good very expensive on the open market. it comes in many different colors. colors areught-after sort of a turquoise color and it is found in mexico. i have always wondered about this extremely expensive mineral that has very little if no uses whatsoever. i keep a chunk of it on my desk. we are not sure why it is so expensive. i have a chunk of it on my desk where i write. this is the regents' room. that would be a cool job to help. this is where a lot of it happens. they meet a couple of times a year, sometimes more. as i understand it, the current chief justice takes an active role, very interested in it. >> what kind of things do they decide in here? >> everything. the fate of the institution.

when a new museum is proposed, they work it out. >> they are the governing board. >> they are our governing board. i like to say every smithsonian museum and research center has been created in this building, if not because the collections because there, but regents created it in this room. >> they are a fiduciary board. the secretary works for them and is like the chief executive order. they set all of the policy and make all of the major decisions. are 18 is why there chairs, 17 regents who report to him. >> a previous secretary preferred round tables. he had a point. at a long table, we had a 16-foot antique table here. and if you were sitting at this end, you could not to make eye contact or talk to the person on

the same side as you. we had in this custom-made to accommodate 18 chairs. this way, everyone can make eye contact and -- >> no one chair is more important than the other except the chief justice sits over there. that is his preferred or chair. >> we will go out to the rotunda now. we will show you something pretty cool. >> this is almost like the heart of the building. >> center of the center section of the building. >> prior to 1865, we were standing in the middle of an auditorium is where we would be. it would be a gigantic gallery, a couple thousand people. here it is. you can see it. were,is where we

standing in the middle of this. the smithsonian would present talks and lectures and speeches. a big controversy at the time because joseph henry refused to allow an abolitionist speak. he did not want to get in the middle of that. the smithsonian did a risky juggling act during the civil war. on the one hand, henry served as lincoln's science advisor and helped with innovations for the war. on the other hand he was very , sympathetic to the south in some ways and had a lot of connections. he tried to balance it. you are in washington, d.c., it is union territory. it is a little bit of a problem. he managed to do it and survive except in january of 1865, there was a horrendous fire. i want to show you this first. this case is interesting. when i was writing the novel, rick was refurbishing this case.

i included it in the novel and i unfortunately destroy it in the book a little bit. it was fiction. it cannot really happen in real life. this key is really interesting. i do not know why i found it fascinating. it is fairly innocuous. it was found in the attic in the 1950's and no one knows what it opens. it is does going to lock. >> it does go into a lock but will not turn. there is one original door left but it will not turn. >> it fascinated me. this key is given to the incoming secretary each time, like a badge of the office but , they do not give him the original. they have copies. rick has like five copies in his office. i tried to get one. he will not let me get it. about five of them. they get a copy. this is the original. the novel revolved around this key. this one little thing put it all

together. in the novel, i figure out what it does open and had some fun with that. that is where my 10% is where i trip it up a little bit. the key itself, this is the badge that was created back in the 1960's by dillon ripley. he wanted to give more ceremony to being a secretary. tell us about this. that is pretty cool. >> the symbol of knowledge. that into theted badge of office. you can see it in the photograph. dillon ripley with queen elizabeth. he loved regalia. >> he brought a little majesty to the job. he also left a huge imprint. most of what you see today in with sony and came from him. he had huge building projects, all sorts of things he credited. the libraries themselves came from him. he was quite a visionary. >> he was what and when was he here? >> he was the eighth secretary. he started in 1964 and retired

in 1984. he was a long serving secretary and made a lot of changes. and also created this maze, ce, another symbol of the institution. symbolism from james smithson, this is from the smithson coat of arms on the silver down here. the medallions around the top symbolize the cities associated with james smithson, bath, england, where we think he was conceived. paris, where he was born. pembroke where he went to college. and washington, d.c. >> the symbolism i almost incorporated in the novel but it was a little too recent.

it was created for that very purpose. it fascinated me, all of the symbolism. >> they even incorporated a piece of smithsonite. that gets carried in academic possessions and when we induct the secretary. the honor guard carries it. it is supposed to preside over the regents meeting. they never do that. that's why i decided to relocate it in proximity to the regents' room. in a sense, it is presiding. >> there is another case that was not as attractive trade a much different case as that makes it look so much better. >> glitzier. >> much nicer. >> the case dates around 1920. >> a lot of the novel takes place in the rotunda. i wanted the reader to get in here and be part of what is in here. this is where the public never comes. you are not allowed.

the secretary's office is this way. the other offices are down here. we will see something with regard to the fire and we will show you where the fire started. what was this room called back then? the picture gallery and then what? >> it was 50 feet by 200 feet. >> in january 1865, we would be standing in the picture gallery . and there were portraits all over the world, some of the greatest portraits of the time, particularly of the american indians. they have a whole collection on the wall. and right up here, there was a flue, cold, cold. they had a stove and connected it to the flue. veey burned a fire in the stor to warm themselves. what they did not realize was it was not a flue. it was venting into the wall. over a few days, the hot injuries built up and eventually

they exploded. when that exploded, they set of the whole thing on fire. all of this burned. it was a horrendous fire and destroyed so much in the picture gallery and the auditorium, the apparatus room next door. joseph henry's office was in the north tower and it was all gone. the regents room, gone. the henry family lived at the far end of the building. it was not harmed. it was so cold that day that the buckets of water all over the building for fires froze. it was ice. they could not put it out. when they came with the pumper trucks to try to pump water, they couldn't. everything was frozen. they just had to watch it burn. it burned. it was horrendous. what it did was fundamentally alter the smithsonian after that. it went into a different direction. joseph was not crazy about the auditorium. he wanted more collections and

spend more money on science and he was able to go in that direction and got his wish after that. he also got rid of the library. the commons area which is downstairs was the library. he said we do not need looks here. them out. give them to the library of congress. it was not a great idea because it was full of scientists and they needed books. they kept accumulating all of these books for decades. they were piled up everywhere. finally in 1968, dillon ripley said let's create the smithsonian libraries. they created 22 libraries. the books were put into these libraries. every museum on the mall has a library in it, some more than they are the heart of the one. building where all of the information is in the library. that is where you go to find out whatever you need and that is why the libraries were created in and they have been there ever 1968 since. it all started with the fire. everything emanated.

the smithsonian altered itself in fundamental ways. it took about six years to rebuild the building and it went off from there. >> you mentioned henry. >> he was the first and the longest serving from 1846 until 1878. he actually died in this building. he and his family lived in the east wing from 1855 until 1878. >> he left a mark here. he created what eventually became what we have and it moved on from there. the smithsonian was suspicious to a lot of people. that is why it took almost 11 or 12 years. >> a lot congressmen and senators were against accepting the money from a foreigner, especially an englishman because of the war of 1812 was fresh in everyone's mind. it was the only time washington had been invaded and burned and the white house and the capital.

that debate first started with , are we going to accept the money? when they decided to accept it what does it mean for the , increase and diffusion of knowledge among men? it took another eight years of debate and finally one congressman put everything together, all of the discussion. it was going to be a library, lecture hall, art gallery. science. put it all together and this what the smithsonian is and that is the legislation that passed. >> joseph henry hated this building. hated it. hated it with a passion. he thought it was a complete waste of money to have this building. he wanted more scientific research and endeavors. >> on the first board of regents was a man named robert dale owen. he saw this style of architecture as becoming an

american-style even though it was based on european models and it is romanesque revival and gothic and a little bit of everything. it could never really be called american style of architecture, its roots are more in the romantic revival of the mid-19th century. he pushed really hard for it. they had a competition of 13 architects submitted plans but only one was allowed to submit 2 -- two plans and that was james renwick jr. all of the other architects submitted plans in the high gothic style with the high arches. renwick was privy to the fact they really wanted the romanesque arch style. he designed this building with a lot of input from robert dale owen. >> they did it on purpose to get

away from the greek style of the other buildings being built. >> it was the first non-ecclesiastical but also national building in this style of architecture. there were a lot of churches in gothic revival, universities had many buildings, yale and harvard. but this was the first. we are not a government building but it is on that level, the federal level. >> what did the public think of the building? >> it was mixed. dorothea dix who saw the building being built, she wrote a letter to the president and said that in a near proximity to the white house stands the smithsonian edifice, massive deficient edifices. she went on for a long couple of paragraphs and hated it. other people loved it.

the sculptor horacio hated it. he said it stamped itself on the beautiful dome of congress as ink upon paper. it was a blot. >> brutal, weren't they? >> they were. it is a really impractical building just because of all of the little nooks and crannies and towers that are pretty much useless. the spaces were hard to manage and use for museums. once science started developing more, the functions that they required, this building could not sustain. an interesting story, when they erected the statue of joseph henry which is now out front in the middle of the building, it faced the building. the irony was he hated the building. dillon ripley had him turned

around in 1960 so he would not have to look at it. he put it in nicer terms. he said it was so henry could look out over the museums that had evolved. the thing is henry did not like , museums either. [laughter] >> he wanted it to be more scientific and research. they used to have interns live in the towers. they had owls in the towers which was cool. tell them about the owls. .hat is really neat trad initially, they lived there because they liked towers. in 1976, no, 1975, dillon ripley decided to introduce a pair of into one of the towers. they got a pair of barn owls and he named them increase and diffusion they put them in the tower and nailed the windows shut so they could not go out.

that meant they had to be fed. my coworker and friend for 40 years now, one of her other duties as assigned was every other day, a bag full of dead rats would appear at her door freshly electrocuted from the zoo and she would don on a jumpsuit and a hardhat and climb a ladder of 90 feet and seated -- feed the owls. give them water, sweep up the previous day's remains. that went on for a few weeks. hatched, theets parents started getting protective and swooping down. she decide to wear a football helmet. they flew the coop when they opened the windows to let them forage on their own and they never came back. >> is some of the secrets and cool stuff of the smithsonian.

in school, history is not the favorite subject. i have teenagers and kids. but history is a story is what it is. it is stories. if you tell history in a story form, people get interested in it. they can get invested if you tell it in that way. in my novels, that is what i do. i take that thing you know very little about and i try to weave a modern-day thriller around that negative history. and i keep it as close i came to reality because unfortunately, most people are getting their history from books like mine which is not a good thing because i'm not a historian. i am a novelist. i take it seriously. they are getting history from me. i put a writer's note in the back that tells you what is true and what is not so there's no misunderstanding. as i said 90% of what i keep in , a novel i keep as close to reality as i can.

historical preservation is very dear to me. my wife and i created something called history matters about eight years ago. we raise money for historic preservation. we have done around 80 to 90 projects. we have raised a little over $1 million for various history local projects. no one is going to take care of your stuff for you. you have to take care of your stuff. and we try to take that message to people. you have to take care of your stuff yourself. we bring awareness to the problem and help raise money. we raised money for this building and will with our fundraiser we will have. we have done the lincoln log cabin and cemeteries and rare book rooms and the documents. we did the pt barnum museum with old posters that were deteriorating and needed to be saved. we have done all kinds of different projects to raise the money because history matters. it matters a lot. once it is gone, it is gone. we cannot let it be gone.

we have to know where we came from. it is very important where we came from. because where we came from is where we are going. it is linked. they are linked together. we take that very seriously. in my novels, i'm trying to bring awareness to those things. i've done a wide right of historical stuff and the smithsonian is just the latest example. >> monday night. >> hackers hack humans. >> we are at the conference in las vegas talking about cyber security and cyber threats. >> it is not easy to keep patching a large organization month after month. today, we have to think of proactive defense. we cannot keep reacting to attacks anymore. we have turned the whole concept around.

we set booby-traps. we have to create customized environments. we have to engage in threat hunting. >> watch monday night at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> american history tv is on cspan3 every weekend, featuring museum tours, archival films, and programs on the presidency, the civil war, and more. here is a clip from the recent program. >> the first section is entertainer's. can anybody identify who is in the photo resize president truman? this is president truman and jack benny. jack benny filmed one of his

shows at the truman library in 1959. clipping newspaper from the 1948 election somebody added comments to. these are part of the collection at the truman library. many of the letters in our expresses, truman interest in their families. the people writing back to him wish his family well. this is a letter that talks about the clipping he is referring to saying it brought back fond memories of the press club engagement. of course, he had to add a corny joke. wishes and congratulations to your family from mrs. benny and me.

if you ever need someone in washington for entertainment, let me know. president truman did not seek out entertainers or well-known people but he cultivated relationships. this is at the truman library. they are at the library again. this is a clip. [scratchy violin music] [laughter] [applause] [laughter] >> you can watch this and other

american history programs on our website where all of our video is archived. that is c-span.org/history. roadspan has been on the meeting with the winners of this year's video documentary competition. wyoming, she gathered with family and school officials to accept her first place prize on wyoming's defendants on fossil -- dependence on fossil fuels. he accepted the second place prize of $1500 for his documentary on cyber security. also in denver, the third-place award went to the 10th-graders for their documentary about digital theft and hacking. dakota, city, south

for theirhe prize documentary on racial inequality in america. in sioux falls, south dakota, the seventh graders received a third-place prize of $750 for his documentary on the national debt. won honorable mention any prize of $250 for his documentary on marijuana. nearby, a number of students won honorable mention in $250 per group. sarah won for her documentary on the national debt. others won for their documentary on terrorists. others received honorable mention for their documentary on global warming. of the students who took part in our 2017 studentcam documentary

competition. , goatch any of the videos to studentcam.org. for 2018, we are asking students to choose any provision of the constitution and create a video illustrating why the provision is important. >> up next on american history tv, the u.s. commission on civil rights commemorates the 27th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act with a report on the ada's history and the work that remains. this hour and 15 minute hearing took place at the commission's washington, d.c., office. >> welcome back. we will turn to our schedule for today, reflecting on 27 years of the ada. past, present, and future. president george h w bush signed the americans with disabilities act into law on july 26, 1990.