but a lot of people skim the top and there is a lot there. it seemed like a fruitful area of study for me. steve: we appreciate you sharing your expertise. eberle teaches at oklahoma state. joining us from san antonio, thank you for being with us. weekend american history tv brings you 48 hours of unique programming. exploring our nation's past. to view our schedule and an archive, visit c-span.org/ history. the raiders stopped here at historic south park in the early morning hours of august 21, 1863. they gathered here and traveled in the town and proceeded to destroy lawrence. up next, we will take you to one of the very few homes in town

that was able to survive the raid. in fact, it was a stop on the underground railroad. >> people stop by this house all the time and they come to the front door and ask if the museum is open. it is not a museum, we live here. pull into thely driveway. if they stop and get out i will go out and greet them and tell them the story. one of the most powerful experiences i have had, several times, was to have a car come in and see a black family get out of the car. i will rush out and tell them who i am, tell them the story. start to talk about why they are here. they come because they know this is an underground railroad site. one of the most moving experiences i have had was to see a dad or mom tried to

explain to their bank little or 10 yearseight old what the underground railroad means. tears in their eyes, trying to describe what a place like this could mean to their family. even though they do not have any personal connection to us, they still have that connection to the underground railroad. it is one of the most powerful moments i have had in my experience being on this property. this house tells two stories. one is quantrill coming through here on his way to ray lawrence. the other is a much quieter, more subtle story of the house and the property being used to slaves on a their way up north. we purchased the house in 1983.

i was very interested in history and preservation. we slowly learned about the history in the very beginning. we decided this is the place we would like to live. we found ourselves to be the third name on the deed. the millers had owned the home for 100 years. roberts, then william, then william's son. another family lived here for 25 years and we have lived here since 1983. he was an early settler, coming here in 1858. was from south carolina, a successful farmer that moved here at the urging of in 1854.who came here startingt this house in april of 1858 and occupied it

in december. they said about the business of farming. miller family belongs to the church called the associated presbyterian church in south carolina. one of the stipulations for membership in that church was that you could not hold slaves. that was fine early but as 1860 approached it became very scary. their son moved here and he was concerned. over a period of 2-3 years they moved here in 1858. mostly to be safe and i think to start over. lawrence was four years old in 1858. it was two blocks downtown at the most. probably under 1000 people. not a tree in sight. all the trees you see here are not -- were not here.

it was one big or he. i think robert miller's involvement in the underground railroad started after he got .ere like almost all underground they aresites, extraordinarily difficult to document. he has obviously anti-slavery sympathies. what is also true is that was never broadcast in the area. miles that way was a community called franklin which was proslavery. two miles that way was lawrence which was abolitionist and anti-slavery. he lived right in between. , you woulddiscovered find your barn burned down or your cattle shot. a natural byway for traffic. people would go up at night usually by wagon. they would get below that he'll

where there was a few trees and they would hide there. they would slowly come up to the property and the millers would shelter them in what was called a smokehouse. i have a photograph of an old smokehouse they were held in. it's seldom for more than a few days. in other conductor would pick them up and take them off to topeka or into canada. the smokehouse sat approximately right in here. thespect that was gone by 1880's. eltered.lso sh term.round is exactly the it was a very quiet enterprise. the millers, but

discovery would be harmful to slaves coming up. if they were caught they would often be sent back to where they came. length of time the underground railroad operated in lawrence is a little bit they. 1857 is a good starting day for the millers. i would guess they were no longer involved past 1861. the or gone trail i was talking about earlier. it at aboutd up 8:30 in the morning. road up here with all of his men . every time i think about that i get a cold chill. about 400 men on horseback here in the front yard. .hey knocked on the door margaret, one of the older daughters greeted them. and onegnized quantrill of his men. there was evidence that there

had been scouts in town a few weeks before. one of them was put up in this house, ate a meal here, slept overnight and was recognized. they spent 10-15 minutes. toy all wrote that way reverence schneider's house and shot him dead. they moved into town and killed 250 men. they did not kill women, they killed men. any man would be in danger. theink this house, speculation of why this house survived, lawrence was completely burned down. why did this house survived? the best way of telling that story is probably is a hadination of -- quantrill been here 2-3 years earlier as a schoolteacher and a scoundrel. i suspect the millers may have met him or knew him.

one of the scouts in fact stayed here and sleeps here which is a little spooky also. that combination of things saved his house from being burned down. i think pretty much after the raid, the miller family returned to the business at hand. the had a farm to run. their role in lawrence was significant that both robert and his son purchased numerous and build in lawrence homes and that sort of thing. they were involved in the commerce of the community. robert was involved in farming and selling produce. they continued their involvement and commitment to lawrence. it played an incredible role som 1854 two maybe 1863 or -- this community was in the national media. all the national newspapers, every day. battleground for the

extension of slavery. what began was the process of deciding. shall kansas be a free state or a slave state? focal point for the whole business of the extension of slavery. 's raid on lawrence become pieces of that story. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to lawrence kansas to learn about its rich history. learn more about lawrence and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. c-span, where history unfolds

daily. as a79, c-span was created public service by america's cable television companies. today, we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend featuring museum tors, archival films and films on the presidency, the civil war, and more. here is a clip from a recent program. the period of most intense nativism in american history was actually from world war i until the late 1930's. leads to another question

of are we getting back to that mode of intense nativism? i'm going to give you is no and yes. the primary reason i will say no is one really big thing has changed. intermarriage. foruld put up a slide virtually every group. i will use american jews as an e xample. if you look at the history of intermarriage, you will notice that in say 1900, virtually 98% or 99% of american jews were ma rrying other jews. same thing with italian catholics. the vast majority were marrying other italian catholics. people stuck to their ungroup. overstarted to change

time. time is the magic ingredient. situationyou get a where goes up to 10% and by the end of the 20th century, nearly were marryingws people who were not jewish. to the but was causing great anxiety within the american jewish community. there was concerned that there was too much assimilation and it could be a threat to our religious and ethnic identity. looked at another way, it is evidence that the melting pot is really melting. can watch this and other american history programs on our that is c-span.org/history. years ago on december 21,

1968, jim lovell and bill anders blasted off from the kennedy space center in florida on the first manned mission to orbit the moon. bill anders sent the iconic photograph on christmas eve. railamerica, debrief, apollo 8, narrated by burgess meredith. this film documents the mission which ended december 27 as the space crash -- space craft splashed into this pacific ocean. >> [indiscernible] >> apollo eight. >> [indiscernible] a deep faith is to gather useful information after an event that might have gone unreported during the event itself.