baker and this wonderful panel. what a special conversation. [applause] >> if you have not done so already, put on your calendar march 5. our next program, an insiders look at camp david, which launches our special exhibit open that same week in the museum away from the white house, a at presidential retreats. we will see you at the next event. [applause] american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend. all of our programs are archived on our website at the span.org/history. you can watch lectures in college classrooms, tours of historic sites, archival films, and see our schedule of upcoming programs.

today, we are at mail would. --mayowood we will learn about the three ayos who lived m here. mayowoodwe are at home was built in 1910 and 1911. they had three children. both of the boys were intrigued with medicine and watched her father do surgeries and things. they got involved in a very young age.

two of them lived in large victorian homes in rochester. they lived right next-door to each other. the story goes that they wanted to build a library across the back of the two homes and connect them together. said no.es you work all they together, you share a checkbook. you don't a delivery get a. 1906, the family was having a picnic under h3n2 tree and they decided this is where they would build the big house. they laid the house out and hired farm laborers to come build a home. there is no specific architectural style that it is. it is often referred to as dr. charlie architectural style. 1911.oved in in the doctor spoke died in 1939. in 1940, edith decided she would

move out of the house and the second-generation moved in. dr. chuck and alice moved in after that. there were many people who came here to visit famous and not famous. here tot roosevelt was visit. the king and queen of nepal came. helen keller, jack benny. many of these people were friends and had been to rochester as patients. there are also a lot of fun stories. there is a great story of a couple who showed up on the property. this couple showed up and they were from a little town 40 miles from here. they interacted with the family and it was time to go into

dinner so they invited them to come into dinner. they sat down and had dinner. when they finished, they got up to say thank you and they said do you always invite perfect strangers into your home? the family said we try to entertain anyone who is around. coupleid we have another who we think would enjoy meeting you. we are in the living room of the home. when the mayo family built the home, there is a wonderful staircase put on the front of the house. guests would be dropped off at the bottom of the staircase and they would make their way up. was theng room entertaining part. it was where they started off entertaining. they would stop in here to have orders and a drink. this is what that room was all about. behind me is a portrait of dr. charles mayo. were thes wife edith ones who have the home built. the two portraits on the side

are the daughters-in-law. alice in the green dress. she was married to dr. chuck. ruth in the red dress was married to their other son dr. joe. dr. charlie and edith had six children. there were other people who lived with them over the years. a family who had a need, oftentimes children would come live here in the house. this house has its of circuses that took place. they had producers come in and do theater with the kids. acres that make up mayowood originally. there were a total of eight farms that the family operated. of these laborers from around the area to work on these farms. it would have been the greatest place to grow up. the river is down the hill and there were hills going down to the stable. it was a great place to grow up.

we are leaving the living room and coming into the dining room now. originally, the wall that was right here separated the dining room from the front terrace. you are standing at the front terrace. the mayo family entertained a lot. it was not unusual to have large parties of 100 or more. the family would entertain a very formally. the decided to expand dining room into this other room as well. dr. charlie was notorious for bringing home special guests and people who were at mayo clinic who he did not expect to see but showed up. two extra places were always set at the dining room table for them. the children were expected to be knowledgeable of the times and what was going on in the country and the news from around the world. these were often the dinner topics. stories toldorite by one of dr. chuck's daughter's was of them getting up in the

middle of the night and going to the back of the house down to the stable and getting out the horses. then they rode off to the girl scout camp which was a mile and a half away. they went to the girl scout camp in the middle of the night and cut the ropes on all of the tents were the girls were sleeping. of course the girls were screaming and yelling. the children came back and brought the house it -- horses back. that sunday, at dinner because they always had egg sunday branches. table andwas at the he was asking the children if they knew anything about this. the children said no. he said it was in the newspaper. he said the interesting part of the footprints from the horses came back to our barns. found out who those children were, i would drag them

behind they horse. mayowoodhe feeling of is family oriented. have a good time don't take life too seriously. the other home is much more formal and it is reflective of the personalities of the two brothers. this room has changed a lot from when the family lived here. niche is were built into the walls. there are great mirrors throughout the house. originally3 of these the mayo's went to mexico on a buying trip and brought these back. they were shipped of the mississippi river and picked up 35 miles away and brought over to the home.

there were paintings lining the walls of the entire room. when chuck and alice lived here, their son was being married to rita and of the home was changed greatly because the big window was put in looking out to the courtyard. mid-50's.n the outside in the courtyard, you see the trees. the red oak tree that the home was built around. the home is like a squad he u. we are in the library of the home now. this room has a lot of interesting features. most notably, the double rocking chair. sat on dr. charlie's porch when the two brothers lived next door to each other. it has been brought here to mayowood. the two doctors would sit in the chair at the end of the day and discuss their cases they had

seen and who they had treated and the results of their work. this happened most every day between the two brothers. they were very close. both of the brothers read volumes and volumes and both of the homes have hundreds and hundreds of books in them. large libraries and both of them. thousandsess we have of books between the two homes. they had card catalogs and they were all listed. things we have to figure out how you're going to get a picture of is the family's growth chart. when you come in and you look at this wall, you can see all of the kids wrote on the wall and what year it was and how they were growing up. i don't have any idea how many male family names are here but there is the name of lily mayo

and we see her grow up along the wall. she is an employee at the mayo clinic today. heading up the stairs to the second floor, featured on the wall are the six portraits of chuck and alice's children. dr. charlie is the oldest who is still living and alex the youngest with the red hair. here on the second floor, we are currently in the master bedroom. itn dr. charlie and eat lived here, looking out the windows from this room, they basically owned every piece of property they can see from here with their 3000 acres. dr. charlie was very involved and when he left mayo clinic and came out here, he wanted to become a farmer. naturevery in touch with and what was going on in the environment. again is very involved in recycling. he tamed this area if you will

and channeled the water where he wanted it. there was a series of eight ponds on the ground. he had a trout pond and really made it all work for the family. in telling children their stories told us the fastest ways out of the house at night. as people toward male one, we hope they will see that the mayo family was a real family. trouble like all kids do. we hope people will remember that real families lived in this home. is one ofer minnesota many cities we have toward to explore the american story. go to c-span.org/cities tour.

next on history bookshelf, im rasenberger talks about the failed military invasion of cuba 961. recorded as books and books in coral gables, florida, 2011. it's about an hour. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp 2019] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] pleased to welcome rasenberger. he's written for the "new york fair, smithsonian and wilson quarterly among many publications. his most recent book