wild ride. it is not just about partisanship. i think it transcends artist -- party. i described donald trump as proto-partisan. he's bigger than partisanship. dynamos this emotional that he spins within people. it intentionally. sometimes, he does not even know he is doing it. it happens. is influencing every aspect of american life. culture, economics, politics. .nd, in ways you have detected the way journalists and direct with this ongoing story. announcer: tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span's q and a. c-span is in like charles learning about city's history. up next, the mardi gras museum of imperial caucus you to learn more about the traditions here in lake charles.

♪ >> our museum houses the largest collection of micro costumes in the world. we keep on 280 customs of war. we even have, and stored, approximately 300 costumes. wonderful,as is a colorful, crazy time of the year where people get together to socialize. and, just, let their hair down. ♪ >> it is an original french tradition.

students from the states went to france to go to school, and they came back and put on a celebration that mimicked what they saw and france. mardi gras is actually a celebration that is the for the coming of lent. it starts on january 6 with just the up if any. this is the beginning of the corn of -- carnival season. every year, it changes. this is a lunar year. it calendar. the day before ash wednesday is always mardi gras day. the largest celebration day. all of our mardi gras crews, the old english spelling for crew, kr ewb, is a group of people that get together to socialize and entertain their guests. their friends. before the coming of went. lake charles is a small city. but, we have grown by leaps and

bounds through mardi gras. we went from two crews to 72 in a time of about 30 years. it is still growing. our mardi gras tradition, lake charles traditionally are around 200 people. everybody gets into action at some time during the year. mainly, during the carnival season from january 6 through mardi gras day. is mardi gras celebration seconds to new orleans. --, it is -- it has as much celebrating new orleans, just in a family-style. as far as decorating and costumes, we have a very elaborate costumes. as you will see in the treasures that we have taken out of closets to share with you today. and what we have here at the museum. will beirst room we viewing is our testing room. captains of each crew are

basically the organizers. the directors of each mardi gras crew. to become a captain for a mardi gras crew you are basically one of the first organizers of the crew. or the person that came up with a concept for the name of the crew. a lot of the time the captains are basically the main character of the theme for that year of the ball. and their costumes will go along with the theme. this one right here, there theme was egypt. action --an bird, the egyptian sphinx, the egyptian cobras. the captain is basically the one that keeps everybody on the same page. each is the one that is in contact with the lightning -- lighting. all of those, a lot of meetings with the costume designer. throughout our museum, we have quite a few large costumes. for example, this one here,

which is the chinese dragon. this would have been worn on his shoulder, the caller, a mental. this costume right here may look 1962, itane, but for was very elaborate. louisiana puts on a mardi gras ball for the president of the united it's every year in washington dc actualictures show the ball in washington dc. this picture is the couple, the king and queen in the mardi gras across -- mardi gras costumes. the next room we go into is our design room. this will give you an example of the schedules -- sketches on the walls. design basic sketch of a which turns into the captains costume. we do have the actual costume right here to your right. with the full puppet on each

side of the costume and the puppet master at the top. charles, we have a wide variety of styles and costuming. our costuming can range from the basic shredded fabric costumes to the elaborate sequence and rhyme stone cost and we are seeing here in the museum. some of our large costumes can weigh up to 45 pounds. some of those costumes can also be as small as 20 feet and as 80% of 12 feet here it these costumes your viewing here in the museum were made locally here in lake charles. the other 20% may have come out of baton rouge or new orleans. which is also still louisiana made. each crew puts on an elaborate expense forear, the that ball comes out of each individual's pocket. or the crew may have fundraisers during that year. this is one of my favorite sections of the museum. --y because there is so much

so many different styles and themes to look at. the theme for each ball is usually decided one month after mardi gras is over. what the next season. they need to start making the costumes approximately one to two months after mardi gras is over. in preparation for the next year. here is a few examples of themes for mardi gras balls. here we have an older movie representing rhett butler. some of the other themes can be locations such as rome, china, even africa. the costumes are basically born three times during the year. they will wear them for their mardi gras ball. the two events that we have that are open to the public for them to come and view costumes. the monday night before mardi gras, we have the royal gala, which is all the new customs of that year. they will put their costumes in storage for that year.

the tiffany, they will rather for the last time as a final walk as king or queen. the room you're walking through now is considered our royalty room. in the cases are some of the examples of gifts that a guest would receive for attending the mardi gras ball. range from a ceramic mask to small jewelry. paperweights. even mugs and cups with the crew crest written on it. one of our many crown jewels here in the museum is our oldest king from lake charles. his name was mr. rudolph. he was the king of the first crew, crew of contraband. we are excited to have this piece here in the museum. it is an example of all hands down costuming. a lot of costuming nowadays has hot glue. this one does not. our last room is considered our

parade room. it gives guests an opportunity to stand up on a mardi gras float and per -- throw needs down to their friends. our biggest parade is the crew of crews parade. which gives all 72 of our micro cruz together for one giant parade. that parade consists of up to 100 to 165 floats. our parade crew is done our main street. anyone can come along and parked the car early in the morning. have a picnic during the day, and wait for the big parade. would people come to the museum, they leave with a sense of what mardi gras really is all about. excitementriment and , and leave with a smile on their face that they have seen all these wonderful costumes and all the excitement of a true mardi gras. ♪ announcer: our cities tour staff

recently tried that traveled to louisiana to learn more about the history. learn more at c-span.org/cities tour. you are watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend. > next scott hartwig former supervisory historian at gettysburg national military park talks about the lead up to 1862 battle of preliminary emancipation proclamation after the battle. symposium by the the emerging civil war blog. what an introduction for an introduction. first i will say that i do serve executive director for civil war trails and it is an honor beca