american history tv at c-span.org/history. c-span, where history unfolds daily. c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies, and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. with settlement of the western united states picking up in the middle of the 19th century, the missouri river was an important artery for the transportation of goods. a trip up the river was not without hazards. right now, hear about the sinking of the steamboat arabia and the efforts to recover it 130 years after one down. in the earlyed days of the river that steam boating on this river was impossible. the missouri is a shallow river and very fast.

three to five years was the average life of the steamboat on the river. thet of boats like arabia saying here. it was buried for 132 years until we dug it up. was builtoat arabia in brownsville, pennsylvania in 1853. they traveled from the ohio to the mississippi. in 1855, he came up to the missouri river and traveled until it sank. the vote was built with white oak. the big structure behind you and myself is the very back, or the stern section. the rudder. the tiller arm for the look to the pilot house. the wheel pulled the arms and helped steer the boat. travelers traveled on the main deck. minutes.a sank within the passengers, 150 of them are

terrified. they were not great swimmers nor were they dressed. to swim they ran to the very top of the boat and then with a lifeboat, cargo more than anything, brought it into sure one little boat at arrived. no one died in the sinking, but they lost all their freight. the 1850's on the missouri river was called the golden age of steamboats. more boats on the river then before or since. imagine you're on a boat with your family in 1856. you are on your way west. the wooden deck was the size of the arabia. 171 feet long, 30 feet wide. it is a side wheeler. paddle wheels, 28 feet tall. standing on the deck looking across the missouri river, that is what the river traveler of 1856 would see of kansas city. main street. the warehouses.

along the riverfront. original wood. the pitman arm. internsl we rebuilt, just as you see. one of the left and one of the right. between 300 and 400 steamboats sank on this river. nobody really knows for sure how many. this map shows you st. louis to the far right and kansas city to the far left. the names of this river map are those of the steamboats that sank here over the many years of boats traveled. they havein 1820, been sinking ever since. we are now in one of the larger galleries of the artifact collection. we divide the collection into different groups. housewares, 10 where, fashion and so forth. you are seeing behind me all these dishes.

things could not be made yet in the states. a lot of this was imported. the dish is mostly came from england. the flat where, the dishes, the knives and forks and all that came from england. it has the name sheffield on it. things came west on steamboats. imagine yourself on the frontier having made all this and pager money and expecting the steamboat to arrive any day. all of this you discover has been lost and you're not going to get it. it will not be sold in your stores. your personal things are gone. i'm sure it was a really bad day for those people. it has allowed us to keep these collections and they were not used. these dishes have never had any food ever on them. there are no marks or scratches.

they are big platters. down to the smallest. it is remarkable to see. it is like stepping back in time to imagine that on the frontier. when i think of frontier, i don't think of you full, spectacular dishes. i'm thinking of cups and saucers made of tin. while we found some of that, most of what we found was like what you see here. we work the day seven days a week. it was winter, it was cold. that was ok. please wanted it to be that way. the walls for very steep to allow us to get down to the boat quickly, but it was all soft sand. it was not at all stable. the cold winter nights and the cold winter days, the water would freeze act to the wall and -- back to the wall and allowed it to be safe i enough for us

to be in the hole. we had to finish it before it started to get warm. the first of march this starts to thaw and the banks cave-in. we finished the third week of february. we were safe, but not many weeks later it would not have been a good place to be. while most of the artifacts coming back into the cold temperatures of the winter days and nights were better protected because of that, the dishes would not be. they would absorb enough moisture after being in the water so long that it exposed them to the cold temperatures with 11 to freeze and break. whenever you found dishes, he ran from the dig and brought them into a warm trailer to keep them protected. at night even transport them back and clean them at night. we dug during the daytime.

we arrived back at camp at 8:00. from 8:00 to midnight we washed in re-froze things. all the leather and wood was frozen in blocks of ice to keep the airway and keep them cold. the artifacts we have not yet cleaned or frozen are in a big freezer in the back of the museum. the shoes perhaps are one of the hardest things to do. particularly because that is so technical, but mostly because it is tedious. you take the shoes we found from the earth, and the cotton had dissolved. they are only held together because of the mud they are packed in. separate we washed and . reassembled it goes into a tank of chemicals.

it comes from there to the freeze dryer that take the water out. four months later the shoe is ready for display. four months per shoe, and we found about 4000 shoe. we are only half done. photography became a hobby. it has been a lifelong passion. one day we found a box. "it was filled with bottles. each had a different pie filling. it was so will preserve you could have made a pie. i took pictures of those. i got the pictures back and i look to the photograph. i bet that is the first color photograph any photographer has ever taken of pre-civil war fruit in color. another day, a big box larger than the rest. it was not a cargo box. it was the ice box for the cap the food cold for the passengers traveling.

we found a big copper tray. on the tray where the leftovers from the last dinner eaten on the boat the day it thinks. this was the dinner serving tray. we have the arabia's last supper on display. here, there isf a boat laying in the earth like the arabia called the malta. it's a 15 years before this one in september of 1841. the cargo is different. it was working for the american fur company out of st. louis. on this boat was indian trade goods going up the river to council bluffs, and an overlooked perhaps. some things were getting off in kansas city and going along the santa fe trail.

we get a core sample of the vote to confirm it was cargo -- boat to confirm it had cargo. you could feel the drill cut through the top of the boat. we captured whatever we would find. when it was brought to the surface we found 150 gold buttons, ceramics, chunks of lard. the boat is still full. we are pushing for a gig in the fall or sometime thereafter. it will be a remarkable collection. the arabia is a remarkable collection. it would be hard to imagine anything better than that. i would not say the next boat will be better. it will be different, from a different time period. it's cargo will be every bit as revealing and is awesome. -- as awesome.

>> our staff recently traveled to kansas city, missouri, to learn about its rich history. learn more about kansas city and other stops on our tour at r.span.org/citiestou you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> monday night on the communicators, matthew prince, ceo of the internet company clout flair, who successfully booted a neo-nazi group of the internet joins us to discuss those actions. hate speech and the first amendment. >> once you start down the path of saying this invisible infrastructure company r unning a network makes the decision, you might not likely to come out. if the phone company was listening in on the conversations you had and

decided they did not like your tone of voice or the language you're using or the topics you are discussing, if they just pulled the cord is shut down the phone line, that violates the social what i think that is happening is there are a number of companies that are the deep infrastructure that runs behind the scenes and makes the internetwork appeared the core the ones to are we make the decision of what content should and should not be allowed online. >> watch "the communicators" on c-span two. >> on lectures in history, university of kansas professor randall jokes teaches a class about the role of african-american ministers. ways they run the for office and organize your office