>> book tv's live all day come begins saturday at 10:00 a.m. with authors including pulitzer prize winning authors david mccullough and thomas friedman, former secretary of state condoleezza rice and best selling authors michael lewis and j.d. vance. the national book festival saturday starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv. >> next on lectures in history, virginia commonwealth university professor karen rader teaches a class on mid-20th century educational films to teach students about nuclear warfare and science. during the cold war policymakers feared the u.s. population was following behind the soviet union in science education. the class also includes a look at animated programs, created by noted hollywood director frank capra in the 1950s. this is about 45 minutes.

>> all right. so good afternoon and welcome. today we're going to talk about cold war era science education films, in particular ones that were made for tv and the classroom. now, we've been talking about classroom films before. really to do any kind of history of classroom films you need to understand the scholarship in a lot of fields. so i will be quoting and referencing and pulling together work that i've done and other historians of science, film studies people, communication studies scholars. even folklorists. so this will be particularly interesting. for reasons that should by now be obvious, the topic is interdisciplinarian. so in particular we're going to return to this question, right, what are the relationships between art, science, entertainment and culture. in cinema how did they reinforce one another in these particular contexts.

we're going to see the movement of people, the same people across institutions, right, across media forums and across science. so it is all going to be kind of blending together. also, science education. obviously in science education what students are taught depends on what the state of the knowledge is for that period. we have to consider what is the scientific and technical knowledge. really to understand this historically we have to understand how science education is both a product and a driver of culture. what i mean by that is that any form of science education is going to incorporate attitudes and approaches towards both education and science that are kind of predominant at the time. before we move way back to the 1950s -- not that long ago, but i wanted to kind of unpack some assumptions that you might have when i say science on tv. so some of you are probably old enough to remember either seeing the first time or watching in

rerun bill nye the science guy. right? he is kind of this generations predominant tv science educator. he wears a white coat -- in this case it is blue, so i'm already contradicting myself. he does interactive science experiments, very enthusiastic. he himself is a scientist. or you remember someone like sheldon from "the big bang," right? the science sitcom. that's another model. i didn't put this up here because i thought it would make me sound really old, things like "er" or "numbers." "er" the medical doctors, "numbers" the mathematician working with his brother. these are genres we have of what science on tv is. but really to understand what is going on in the 1950s you have to back up because tv was new media, particularly for education. so tv was to education then what something like the internet or

mooks or online education is to education now. it is this brave, new frontier. it is not so new. it really comes out of the use of 16 millimeter films in classrooms, which is something we have already talked a little bit about for the '20s and '30s, but moving the discussion forward what is going on in the '50s is a massive expansion of the use of 16 millimeter film in classrooms. that's driven in part by technology. so you see a picture there of the kodak pageant projector. it was one that kodak invented that was lighter, it was more easy to thread, the film didn't burn always good when a school system did invest in it, although the films sometimes burned, but it was advertised as not burning. this new, new version of classroom technology really sort of fostered the expansion of the educational film industry. so film historian jeff alexander

in his book "films you saw in school" estimates that there were approximately 100,000 or so give or take films that were made in this period, and they were made by -- largely by educational film companies. these are companies like cornet, archer. we're going to see archer today. when we watch "duck and cover." even encyclopedia britannica, again, to capture the new media idea that an encyclopedia producer would branch out into classroom film, kind of captures the enthusiasm and the expansion of this as a technology in the classroom. so any time that a new technology is introduced into the classroom, i mean maybe it didn't happen when teachers had their pointers, right, but any time a new technology is introduced, particularly in the post-war period, there's a little bit of hand wringing that goes on. so you see the appearance in the

1950s in the series of books. this one in particular tells us, it is written by dr. charles sickon, who was credentialed in education and the department of communication and he asks the question to which the obvious answer is yes, right, can it be that education in our time is suffering a sea change, but the use of the verb sea change is constructive, right. they're really not sure. his next question is, what is excellence in kind of classroom film and video instruction? just as importantly, how is it absorbed? they're focusing not just on the production of the knowledge but on the consumption, the learning, as we would call it. so some handwringing is to be expected, but there's also a lot of enthusiasm. so the fcc commissioner in 1951, freedy hammock, published a piece in "variety" which was a trade magazine for hollywood and performing arts in which she articulated her vision for television and education.

television, she said, is one of the greatest forces america has ever known for education. she then asked a heavy question. she says, are we going to let this genie serves a diet of horror stories and cowboy daring do, or can we somehow harness the genie to perform wonders of public enlightenment not scenes since days of the renaissance. so again you have to be picturing, this is what they're seeing, another renaissance, another enlightenment in television, which something that today is pretty much mundane, pretty much a part of our every day life. part of where the enthusiasm is coming from is the very successful use of film in war time context, particularly for propaganda and newsreals. # let me talk about newsreels first. they are shorts that were shown before movies. people liked them so much they

eventually dedicated newsreal theaters. you could go to a theater to watch one after another newsreel, in big cities like new york and l.a., and in 1948, newsreels became a television program. nbc launched a ten-minute, not a long one, a ten-minute program called camel news reel. something like cnn, not running every 24 hours but ten minutes every once in a while. so newsreels were popular. propaganda films like "why we fight" a film made during world war ii by frank capra who had some army experience, but joined back up after the bombings of pearl harbor and was immediately grabbed by his commanding officers because by that point he was a hollywood director. right.

he had some incentive to be used in this way rather than at the front. so his commanding officer recruited him to do what he calls, and i'm quoting now, "documented factual information films that will explain to the boys in the army the principles for which we are fighting." so kind of invoking the documentary ethos but clearly meant to persuade, right? that's what the line is between documentary and propaganda, and capra himself in reflections on this talked about how his approach to this was framed as an answer to the triumph of the will considered to be one of the best if not the best, best in quotes, propaganda films, right, of all time. so they've had a lot of success with the use of film for conveying information for persuading, for convincing. of course, they would think that it would have more applications in the classroom, but this became even more urgent in the

context of the dropping of atomic bombs on hiroshima and nagasaki in japan, and the real escalation of what several people have called the nuclear culture or the nuclear future, right. so this nuclear future on the one hand -- right, everyone knew about this. everyone knew that this ended the war, that it was a massive loss of life. it was a very grim, dark scene. so that's kind of the dark side of atomic culture. the thought was that in the post-war period really harnessing nuclear energy for positive uses. so eisenhower gave a speech in 1953 that became known in retrospect as the atoms. peaceful uses of atomic energy would include reactors for

generating energy, but also radio isotopes which would then become medical traces. that's why you have in the logo that's why you have in the logo that eventually gets made, right, is the medical icon. medical, science, engineering, agriculture, it all would be part of our future. just in case the speech didn't work, they also developed a series of traveling museum exhibits that would put -- that's the atomic energy commission sponsored exhibit atoms for peace that would travel around. it would be likely if you were an elementary or middle school student and you went to a natural science museum in the 1950s, you would see one of these. they would have things like radioactive frogs. frogs that had been injected with radioactive isotopes. and students could handle geiger

counters and put them over the frogs and it would start clicking. some of the first were undertaken in the concept of this atoms for peace exhibit. that's a good example of museums as a medium reinforcing other mediums, right? museums are trying to become new, just like film is trying to become new on television. so the goal of atoms for peace, we find out from looking at -- behind the scenes documents because it wouldn't be marketed this way in public, was a kind of emotional management of the tensions that are involved in the nuclear culture. so the tension being on the one hand escalating nuclear armament. thabd dies of the hallmark of the cold war period. but, on the other hand, home front uses of atomic energy that they want to kind of spin as particularly harmless, that they want to domesticate. educating civilians and in particular educating children

became a high priority. bo jacobs talks about how this generation was the first generation that learned to live in a nuclear war. you can see where it is a quote from one of the folks at the indian springss school in nevada which is next to an air force base. it is a two-room school, and they're not being taught to duck and cover but duck, and i guess, hold one another. this was on the cover of a "colliers" magazine and the person from the school was boasting that they learned how to spell atom and bomb before they learned how to spell mother. to kind of imagine that shift, right, in learning those words that had much bigger social and cultural meaning and were certainly more scary than the word mother. the federal government was interested in educating a lot of civilians, but in particular a lot of children in the procedures of civil defense, in what are the actual threats of an atomic attack, what would it look like.

they devised this film called "duck and cover." what we're going to do here is watch a small clip of the introduction to "duck and cover," featuring the theme song. ♪ and danger ♪ never got hurt ♪ he knew just what to do ♪ he ducked and covered ♪ duck and covered ♪ he did what we all must learn to do ♪ when dangers threatened him he never got hurt he knew just what to do ♪ ♪ he's duck and cover ♪ duck and cover ♪ duck and cover ♪ he did what we all must learn to do ♪ ♪ you and you and and you ♪ duck and cover >> be sure and remember what burt the turtle just did, friends, because every one of us must remember to do the same thing. that's what this film is all about, duck and cover. this is an official civil defense film produced in

cooperation with the federal civil defense administration in consultation with the safety commission of the national education association. produced by -- >> there we go again. if it goes again you're going to want to sing, right? all right. so what do you notice about that introduction? a couple of things. so i played through the song so that i could talk a little bit about the ways in which the production values of this -- both the content and the production values were framed by interactions between lots of different kinds of artists and those who were interested in conveying the actual information. so those who were interested in conveying the actual information like the federal civil defense association cited there, school safety organization from the national educational association, right. so government people

collaborating with school teachers, collaborating with fairly high-quality talent that was recruited by the producers at archer films. the film was written by ray meyer and direct by anthony rizzo and the jingle was written afterwards. it didn't initially start with a jingle. the jingle was written afterwards by the same team that advised usa in the chevrolet -- it wouldn't resonate with your generation, but if you watched "mad men" those who created these advertising slogans. and it became a hit for a pop singer named dinah shore. right? so there's crossover here. it is an upbeat and positive song. it is memorable. you have female and male voices. the goal of this film, bo jacobs talks about in his article atomic kids, it is to teach children how to survive an atomic attack by themselves also.

that's important. right? part of what is going on here -- there's two parts to what is going on here. on the one hand you have to inform children what it is they're actually seeing if they see a nuclear attack. so you see a kind of -- i'm going to talk about this as kind of domesticating, but bo jacobs says making the threat normative, right? something as scary as an atomic attack you cannot show film of to children, right? it is too horrifying. instead, using the medium of animation they portray the bright light, right? the light is described as a bright flash, brighter than the sun, right? and then it turns into the animation where clearly the atomic bomb is, and the narrator is saying in calm tones, smashing through buildings, right, causing winds, causing a burn worse than your worst sunburns, right? so these are all ways to kind of

take the knowledge and convey it but in a way that maybe children would understand and would be a part of their -- part of their world. now, the other side is not just conveying what it is that you're actually seeing, knowing that you're doing this, that you're being a part of this, but what to do. so it also takes a kind of domestication tone, right? it talks about responding to a bomb is not unlike responding to a fire, right? or an automobile accident, right? these are all things that could happen in your daily life. just add atomic bomb to the list, right? and come up with a brand for the song. this kind of domestication through both the use of animation as a technology and the narrative of the film is one of the hallmarks. the other thing that jacobs talks about is the way in which

this film acknowledges -- and now they're kind of transitioning to attitudes towards education, right? so the idea that you would have to respond as a child by yourself to an atomic bomb rather than through a teacher or some authority figure, right, is a real shift. it is a shift in traditional social roles that is really part and parcel of the new atomic world, right? so what the film does is they show children that grownups will be around, some quoting from the film now. older people will help us -- by the way, it is an adult narrator pretending to be a child. older people will help us like they always do, but there might not be any grownups around when the atomic bomb explodes, then you're on your own, right? so they can help you get across the street, they can help you find a shelter, but in that moment what are you going do to respond? and so really kind of trying to heighten the alert of the children. when you're on your own, be aware of when this is happening. so places like -- you can see the girl cowering against the school building yard. it can happen in the school yard.

it can happen when you're riding your bike in the neighborhood. it is timmy or tony, i can never remember his name. he drops his bike and covers. so jacobs talks about how in order to achieve these new social roles what the film has to do is make some traditionally idyllic childhood spaces kind of scary. if you are in the school yard or riding your bike, an atomic bomb could fall. so he says this is sort of the dark side of cold war science. education. this is a movie that tells a tale, i'm quoting now, of a dangerous present and a dismal future. it begs the question if you're around and the atomic bomb drops and you have done your duck and cover, when you come up maybe you're still alive, maybe this is the future in this decimated nuclear world. so "duck and cover" is a film

that educates about the actual phenomenon but tries to persuade children they can have a response, they have a social role on the home front to respond to this, that goes beyond what any role of the military would be to, say, to respond to an attack, that they have control. pretty heady stuff for elementary schools. the lighter side of science education in this period, kind of coming at it from the other angle, still children all the way through college students. but really focused on enhancing funding and investments by the government in science research and science education. this is not new to the 1950s. this is something that comes out of world war ii. so the presidential science adviser described here on the cover of "time" magazine, the fact that the presidential science adviceor is making the cover of "time" magazine should tell you something, the fact he is described as the general of physics to tell you that this is

the vision of support, that government will support research activities by public and private organizations and in particular science education, right. so the first thing to come out of this, vinnie bush, which is his name for the general of science, general of physics, he heads a national science board roll into what is now the national science foundation. so the national science foundation becomes the first very big government foundation. they were in health before that but this is a big, kind much pure research and education funder. as the '50s move on, sputnick, which you may or may not be familiar, it was a satellite fired into space, it was circling the u.s., spying on us, really escalating cold war tensions between the russians and us, and in particular around the issue of what they would call today the pipeline problem.

the pipeline problem is the idea that you need to have people at every level of science education staying in science education so we can build what they called scientific manpower, right? same language as the language of war, except with these scientific manpower and woman power people are going to do is work for research, to counter this soviet threat. so in addition to sputnick and these additional efforts of the government to fun science and push an agenda in education, there was a massive economic boom after the war and a large corporate windfall, particularly companies like at&t and bell who were particularly science companies, and the thought from the companies was some of this must be plowed into promoting science education. as presented in public, and you beginning of "the magnificent"

why are we doing this, brought to you by at&t, to promote man's efforts to understand nature's laws. well, yeah, that's all well and good, but the other push is coming from advertising agencies which, of course, have ties not just to advertising and communication media but to hollywood, right? so the crossover is there. so in particular marcell sole has done research and found that they were pushing bell to attract more family audiences. so hook them early on the brands and then you'll have more -- you have a bigger market as time went on. so this led to at&t bell labs investing in a series of science

films which are among the most popular and widely-held in classroom collections even to this day, they're still held though not known as much. you can see from the shape of the icons now they're on vhs and dvd. so these would be about various phenomena. strange case of mystic rays. these are ones that capra was involved in. i'll talk about that in a minute. unchanged goddess about the weather, right. ultimately it was eight one-hour programs and one half-hour program over roughly a seven or eight-year period through which -- and i'm drawing the analogy between "duck and cover" and this, a similar kind of recruitment of top-level artists took place to produce these films. so it's kind of -- it is less in congress i think the focus on frank capra as doing his duty for the government to make a propaganda film than it is to

imagine someone who has one three oscars deciding he is going to do science films. so what gives? what gives with frank capra and his directing and production of many of these films? first off, capra it was thought had the perfect background for this. he actually had some science training. he earned his undergraduate degree from cal tech in chemical engineering in 1918, and during world war i he taught math to artillery recruits at fort scott in san francisco. at the age of five his family immigrated to l.a. he work himself through college with odd jobs. one day when working as a math he went and basically husband hustled himself in the door, right. made them think he had more experience than he actually did with cameras and other things

because he was interested in that, and that got the ball rolling. he left -- although he had a great deal of success in hollywood in the '30s, as i mentioned, he left hollywood to enlist in world war ii and make these other films. he came back at a moment when his career was in a bit of a lull. again, it sounds kind of incongruence because many of us remember him for "it's a wonderful life" which was made in 1946, which was a christmas classic, a much-beloved film. at the time it got mixed reviews and he was in a lull, so that's part of the reason he wants to do these films. the other piece, however, had to do with the fact he was a deeply committed catholic. so we're going to see when we look at these films that influence. i will talk more about that after we watch the clips. so another thing to say about capra is later in his life he reflected back on what was it that made him a success. he subscribes very strongly to what film study scholars would

call that the director has the vision and the director is the one without any interference from producers or anyone recruits the writers, works in close contact with them. so it is that theory but it is kind of a team. the team is going to work together closely. he said this is the way that motion pictures can become more important, they have something to say to the picture-going public. so he did that when he was recruited to work for the bell laboratory series in several ways. the first was he picked well-known actors. the characters name even on the back of the dvd box and in the script is the fiction writer, played initially by a well-known tv character actor eddie albert. he became more known as his career went on. in some of the later bell science films played by richard carlson who would have been recognizes to viewers from "creature from the black lagoon," kind of a sci-fi context.

interestingly carlson, to kind of reinforce the idea of the team that capra had, carlson directed some of the later films when capra backed out. there really was this sense of collaboration. similarly, if you thought you heard daffy duck, you did. mel blank who was voices it, who later voices barny rubble on the flintstones, was one of the voicing on this. the animators was headed by a production company. and we had people traveling from film culture into tv as an influential new medium, as a place where they can sort of work with really other really interesting artists. so culhane had a television program, an animated television program he was making, "mr. magoo," but he participated in animating disney's "snow white." it is a long legacy being taken from film to science education for television. i want to transition to talk a bit about the plot structure and the characters. this should be most familiar to

you because we talked last time about frank enstein and jaws, who were the scientists, what did they represent. the plot is that the fiction writer -- all right, this guy. in this case it is carlson. the fiction writer creates cartoon figures and they're animals alongside a greek god figure they call their king, right? this is hemo. hemo the magnificent is king of nature, king of the animals, but really the personative personification of blood.

right? and hemo and his cast of animals get into a conversation with the fiction writer and the gentleman on your right, dr. research. yes, he's actually called dr. research. there was not a lot of creativity with names in this production. but all right. but so dr. research, it turns out, is actually a university of southern california research professor named frank baxter. frank baxter was, if you went to school in the '70s, '60s and '70s, you're guaranteed to have seen one of his films. not all about english subjects. right. he had a famous series about shakespeare that he did. he became the sort of personification of the scientist, even though he is a doctor, he's not a scientist right. they interact with the animal

through a magic screen, which is an interesting way to describe a screen in which animation is predicted. the writer is kind of the wise guy, joking in public, voicing the concern that the audience might have. he smoked cigarettes. he is a little twitchy. dr. research is very calm. he has a lot of the markers of a stereotypical nerdy scientist, thinking back to fred mcmurray in "the nutty professor," right. the glasses, the calm temperament. the bland gray plant suit, right. much of the first part of the film is a discussion between the animated characters and the human characters about blood mechanics. so it is a discussion that takes place partially in film and partially in animation, but about halfway through there's a sort of pivotal moment where hemo gets a little more confrontational. he says, stop, we've just been talking about plumbing. both the humans are sort of taken aback, right.

"what do you mean?" hemo says, we're not going to go any further unless you can tell me the two words that unites the study of blood mechanics and the study of art, poetry and nature. so mr. fiction writer gets a panicked look on his face and says, doc, let's not do it, it is a trap. that only becomes a cliche later. and he tries to get him to not do it, but dr. research is very calm. so let's watch the clip where this goes down. >> where does he do it? >> that's a good question. but before i can go into that i'll have to tell you something about blood itself. >> just a moment, brother scientist. so far your chatter on plumbing has been misery but harmless. now that you have come to me i refuse to listen further unless you first describe to me in just two words. >> i can. >> never mind. professor, mention the two key words and i'll know you understand the poetry, the mystery and the true meaning of

blood. otherwise, back to your plumbing. >> hey, doc, he's trapping us. do you know what the two words are? oh, you do? >> the two words that best describe you and connect you with the mystical origins and traditions of life are sea water. >> sea water? >> quiet. brother research, my apologies. >> you mean he's right? >> listen to this learned man and you will hear a real tale. >> sea water? >> doctor, please tell them who i am. >> thank you. it is only a theory of course. >> this i got to see. >> if you squeeze the human body as you would a sponge, you squeeze out 30% of the body

weight, that's about six gallon also of free water, which you could call body fluid. this squeezed out body fluid has a salt content of 1%. tropical sea animals might exist in this aquarium of body liquid. now, the salts in sea water are like the salts in body fluid, as you can see. although sea water today is two or three times saltier than body fluid, some biologists account for this difference by saying body fluids today represent the less salty composition of sea water as it was nearly 400 million years ago when life emerged from the sea and began to crawl on land. at any rate, a billion and a half to two billion years ago life is presumed to have originated in the warmth of tropical waters as a single cell organism. something akin to the single cell we know today as the amoeba.

this shapeless, jelly-like primeval cell absorbs oxygen directly from the sea and passed out carbon dioxide and other waste to the warm ocean. in the beginning, hemo was the sea. >> all right. so what we have there is on the one hand dr. research articulating what he says is just a theory about the oceanic origins of blood. but the linking of oceanic origin also of blood with hemo as the sea, is basically frank capra wading into the territory of evolution, right? evolutionary biology. for capra there's no divide between a scientific vision of evolution and a religious appreciation for science and its view of evolution. later on you can see joe q. public, mr. fiction writer gets impatient with that. he says to dr. research, are you saying i'm like all of those germs? i'm different.

he does say, you are different, you have the human spirit, you are capable of doing science, right? and science is what links, right, all of these things. so kind of not what you expected, right, something on evolution in a film about blood? similarly, at the end of the film capra once again invokes christian imagery in a -- what is supposed to be an inspiring final statement on the possibilities of science and art. let's watch that one, too. >> the challenge the spirit of man. now, the man of science will solve, brother hemo, some day. >> sure you will. what better way to love thy neighbor than to heal him? i've got my little set job and my animal friends have theirs, but we're limited. man is not limited.

your creation's stable. you can imagine. reason. dream. create. you know right from wrong. you see the divine gift is your job, all of nature is waiting the see how you handle it. you're right, brother righteous. researching could become rewarding and far reaching in all of the arts. one of your quite your greatest said over the temple of science should be written the words "he must have faith." your great apostle paul wrote to his church in thessalonians, hold fast that which is good, but science says have faith, but

says prove all faith. together they spell hope. >> faith. >> it is a lesson. >> all right. in case you weren't getting it before the hymn-like music started, right? what is capra doing here? he is really articulating what he sees as fluid connections between science, art and religion, right? so human exceptionalism, that's part of sort of the western kris tradition, but human exceptionalism is -- part of that is being given divine gift to reason, right, and that juxtaposition of max plunk saying, ye must have faith -- that is to say the religious thing -- against st. paul saying, prove all things, the scientific thing, is meant to be sort of a use of imagery that really blurs those boundaries. he doesn't see the blurring of

those boundaries as a negative things. he sees it as a hopeful thing, a thing that could drive things forward in an inspirational way. there's other imagery throughout this film and to other bell science films in which capra was involved. when we get to a discussion, we can talk more about how that shifted without his involvement. so i do want to hear more about what your reactionsters are future when we talk about these films. but, in the meantime, let's stay in the 1950s. what was the critical response to hemo the magnificent? the critical reviews were not great. from "time" magazine, hemo is a costly monument. to the low opinion some broadcasters hold to the viewer's intelligence. they thought that the film was condescending because it spoke to potentially grade school children. and really tried to interest them in silly ways, but then also the circulatory system

discussion is really boring. why is it boring? the "time" viewer thinks it is because he used more animation than film. this is a case where the viewer says by jazzing up the story of circulatory system you put a blight on scientific film that was as good as any of its kind ever televised. the effect was it was -- you never want to get this next sentence. not a fan. interestingly the animal works in "duck and cover" in a different way. there's probably ways that film could have been used but there also would have probably had to be film of animals. probably that would have been a whole other set of issues. in terms of doing it in good taste and censorship and animal rights activism, right.

kind of backfired in terms of the critical reviews. so in 1956, the very first one attracted 25 million viewers. that's not a lot by today's -- actually, it is a lot by today's standards. because now we have so many fragmented segments of the tv market. over the next ten years, it found new life in classroom viewing. this was a film that was exactly like the vision of the commissioner. from tv into the classroom. cap ra got letters. james gilbert, a historian of american religion, has a chapter in his book about this -- about these films. and he cites a letter from a viewer telling cap ra it was, quote, not only fine entertainment and education but it was a religious experience. to combine all three was genius indeed, right. what's interesting about that is

that i think people make assumptions about the relationship between science and religion after the scopes trial in america, right. because that was such a widely publicized media circuit and it was such a clash, right, between fundamentalists perspectives and scientific perspectives. but, in fact, what we get from watching this movie is a sense there may be a kind of diversity of popular ideas about evolution and the relationship with science. and with religion. so how did this film get made? it got made largely because of cap ra. but it was received the way that it was for several reasons. and so catherine pandora, who you read, talked about the way in which, again, you have to go back to television as a medium and development. the strap dards for different genres, science documentary, science inspiration were still being formed. so this is part of the fact these things are not settled

allows cap ra to come in and work with those, right. james gilbert has a different idea coming from the perspective of the history of religion. his idea is basically that there wasn't as big a cultural divide. that in very prominent cases like the scopes trial, that was exploited as a strategy to kind of sell the controversy by the media. but, in fact, as gilbert puts it, capra did not have to build bridges between science and religion because they were already there. all help had to do is walk his films across them. we have the perspective of a folk lorist. in the folklore department. basically says this film was able to be made because capra was a premier storyteller. really his focus was on storytelling and narrative. and he was exercising his artistic license to create a kind of new mythology, right, a quasireligious sense of cosmic unity, mystery and awe. so there are multiple theories for kind of not only why it got

made, but why it was received the way it was received and why it continued to have success over the years in classrooms. but, again, to conclude, by coming back to this larger lesson that catherine pandora articulates so eloquently, some of what we do in this class is very much science for the mass, right. science for a popular audience. you miss levels of complexity thinking. she never says the public because it's not a single entity, right? it's publics or popular culture it and using popular culture in a film like hemo to understand that this was present really not that long ago. we're talking about 1950s u.s. gives us an example for why you need to study science and popular culture moving forward.

popular culture's not irrelevant. science and popular culture interact. so with that, i'm going to leave you with some suggestions for further reading. if you want to follow up on science on television, marcell lafollete has written an amazing book. and katherine pandora on the study of science. thank you for being here. i will see you next week. >> c-span city's tour is in spokane, washington, with our comcast cable partners as we explore that city's rich history and literary scene. saturday at 7:30 p.m. eastern. book tv features the history and economic development of spokane with tony belmonte. author of "spo"spokecan, our ea history." >> they had the gold rush in 1883.

that led to a silver strike. it was one of the largest producing silver areas in the state of -- in the united states. and a lot of the mansions and big buildings are all build from the coeur d'alenes. >> and the father of the national park system. as local author james hunt talks about his book "restless fires, young john muir's thousand mile walk to the gulf." >> john muir was probably one of the most significant environmental thinkers, leaders. he is basically the protagonist for the national park system. >> on sunday at 2:00 p.m. eastern, american history tv features the story of expo '74. one of the first environmentally themed world fairs. >> spokane was at the time the smallest city in the world ever to host a world's fair. but it was the first environmental world fair. the first fair he used the environment as a theme. it followed close -- i believe

it's 1972 was earth day, the very first earth day. there's a great consciousness around the world about environmentalism. it became the theme and arguably the obsession of expo '74. >> also visit the childhood home of spokane native bing crosby. saturday at 7:30 p.m. eastern on c-span 2's book tv. and sunday at 2:00 p.m. on "american history tv" on c-span 3. the c-span cities tour. working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. c-span. where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. that is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider.