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tv   Clinton House Museum  CSPAN  August 19, 2018 9:49pm-10:01pm EDT

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are blocking the amazing stuff. so we need to come up with better mechanisms. a lot of my book is devoted to those things that regulators can unleash even more and come in without the micromanagement of a federal commission commission. announcer: watch the communicators, monday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. anduncer: in 1975, bill hillary clinton were married inside of their home in fayetteville, arkansas. next, we visit the site in the ozarks to learn how the house kick started the political career of the 42nd president. angie: welcome to fayetteville, arkansas we're at the clinton . house museum near the edge of the campus. this house was built in 1931 by a local man. his name was scotty taylor.
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it would have been on the outskirts of town at that time. this would have seen my gave fancy house -- this would have seemed like a fancy house for that era. the clintons bought this house in and did a little bit of 1975 remodeling but for the most part the house was entirely original to 1931. the house became a national historic registered property in 2010 and the street became clinton avenue in 2010 as well. this is the living room, the famous a room where they were married in front of this big window on october 11, 1975. bill bought this house when hillary was out of town and surprised her with it. she came back from visiting friends and family for six weeks and he said, i bought that house you said it was pretty and now you have to marry me. and she said yes.
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that was his third try. the house was original to 1931, so the floors the windows, all , of those things, while it is a big room for a living room, it is a small place to get married and the clintons had only 10 guests for their wedding. it was the two of them, a couple of close friends and family. and that was it very modest. favoriteour visitors' things to see is that wedding dress. this is a faithful replica of hillary's wedding dress. it was designed and made by a little rock designer who was a longtime friend of the clintons. hillary bought this dress at her mother's insistence. she was just going to pull something out of the closet and her mother said no, we have to go to the store. you have to get a nice dress. so they pulled this jessica gunne sax dress off
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the rack. hillary decided to keep her own name and be called hillary rodham, which was unusual for anywhere atnsas, or that time. both mothers hoped she would change her name but she stayed "rodham" and bill was very happy about that. they had just graduated from law school and had done other things before coming here, but they were just a young couple like so many others. they did not have any money, did not have any furniture, were just getting started. and their lives were very busy with a lot of political activity friends, traveling back and , forth to little rock, doing other kinds of campaign things. they also traveled a lot in those years. so they didn't have a lot of money, but they spent a lot of time building networks and friendships. the urge to participate in public service began very early
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for both. hillary was very active in a lot of political movements and campaigns. her graduation address at wellesley made a national splash. it was fairly radical for that time. she went on to yale law school and that is where she met bill. and bill had started and he knew he would be a political animal from his high school years. he actually met president just a few1963 , months before he was assassinated. he worked on a lot of campaigns, govern, andfrom the arkansas andn , james fulbright. he knew this was going to be the path he would take and he gained a lot of experience before running for office himself. before the clintons were married and bill was living east of town , he decided he would run for
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congress. he talked it over with the dean of the law school, who gave him his blessing, promised his support. he had decided to run against john paul hammerschmidt and he had asked several other people to run against hammerschmidt and nobody else wanted to do it. they wanted to run for other things. he finally decided maybe it should be him. and everybody thought that he was fighting a losing battle. and probably he was, and he knew it, but he openly said he did not think it could hurt his future chances at other offices and he was correct. that early campaign in 1974 he lost to hammerschmidt, but only about by 6000 votes, which was pretty remarkable for a newcomer against a very broad republican district. and he often says that losing that congressional election enabled him to go to the white house. if he had won the election for congress, he would've gone to
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washington and estate there -- stayed there. but his decision to stay in arkansas and be the governor even led to his bid for the -- eventually led to his bid for the white house. one of the fun things about this room, the dining room, or most people would use it as a dining room the clintons used as , campaign headquarters. bill had decided to run for attorney general two years after losing to john paul hammerschmidt and he had two primary contenders. he won quite handily, actually in the statewide primary race and he did not have a contender in the general election. so he was running his northwest arkansas part of the attorney general's campaign from here in the dining room. because he did not have a general election opponent, he was able to work on behalf of jimmy carter in 1976, and he was carter's arkansas at chair. carter went on to win 65% of the
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arkansas vote that year. during the time that bill was running the arkansas carter campaign, hillary went to indiana and ran the carter campaign there and helped set up campaign offices and things like that. their lives were very much about political campaigns and working on behalf of democrats across the country. bill became the attorney general rather easily in 1976, and two years later would become the country's youngest governor in 1978. when bill and hillary were married, hillary kept her maiden name, which would've been unusual in 1975 and arkansas of course, but even across the country. she really kept her look and she wore glasses and no makeup and natural hair, that kind of thing. after bill lost his second term as governor in 1980, the two of
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them really regrouped. and you see at the beginning of the 1980's her transformation and his transformation politically, thinking about what the people needed most and her transformation into what arkansas would've considered in an appropriate first lady. she changed her hair, started wearing contact lenses, started wearing makeup, you see her clothes change a lot. in 1982, clinton ran for governor again and won. so he was able to go back to the governor's office and had this new first lady with him. the clinton house museum is really the great american story, like so many others it is a great example of the best of american ideals. people can start from nowhere and they can work hard and engage in public service and they can do what it is they set their mind to.
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and when you get a chance to spend time in another place where people have lived, you get to absorb some of that energy and think of how people got started in their lives and where we they would later and up. -- end up. our visitors love that idea, they like standing in this place where these two really powerful, smart people spent their early days plotting out their lives course in a house like this. announcer: you can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country on c-span.org cities tour. american history tv , only on c-span3. >> the c-span bus has arrived in hawaii for the 39th stop of our capitals tour. we are on the island of wahoo, visiting honolulu, with the help of our spectrum cable partners. >> we are excited to be in
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with thespecially here spirit that we can share with the history and culture. this is a great opportunity for showcasing hawaii across the nation. welcome and a low half. >> i want to make a warm welcome to the cable satellite network, c-span, and the impressive bus going all over our nation. in hawaii come i know that c-span will enjoy the beauty and sunshine, and of course the aloha of the 50th state. and i am sure that c-span will witness and feel the spirit as it embarks on the discovery of hawaii as part of its 50 . therefore -- its 50 capitals tour. therefore , i proclaim august 15-22 of 2018 as c-span week in hawaii. congratulations. announcer: what more of our
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visit to hawaii, october 6-7, on c-span, c-span.org or listen on the free radio app. week, american artifacts takes you to historic places to learn about american history. the road to tokyo exhibit with rob said tina. -- satino. it exposed the pacific theater, including the major battles, significant figures, and conclusion of the war with the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki. thi is abouts 30 minutes -- this is about 30 minutes. welcome to the national world war ii museum. we are in downtown new orleans. here is the museum.

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