brought to an end, and when we shall be what to devote the unlimited energies and dedication of the american people to the exciting challenges of peace. thank you. and good night. reporter: you can watch archival films on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly series, reel america saturday at 10:00 p.m. and sunday at 4:00 p.m. eastern you on american history tv. ♪ [church bells ringing] >> the c-span cities tour visitor palo alto, california to highlight its history. next, we hear about palo alto's real estate developer, joseph eichler. >> when world war ii ended and many of the soldiers and sailors

returning from their duty in the pacific came and arrived in california, they were enthralled with the weather and what this place was like. this was at a time in the 1950's when palo alto was starting to grow. the population of palo alto more than doubled during that decade. things like the stanford industrial park and the industrial center and the growth of stanford university all drew people to this area. tech people, teachers, so forth. many of them were attracted by the designs that joseph eichler was building in this subdivision, as well as others. joseph eichler came at the end of world war ii and decided to go into the business of developing and building homes back home. he was a man who was an admirer of frank lloyd wright and hired some young architects to design

modest-sized track comes in the style of dust track homes in the style of frank lloyd wright, and eventually built over 10,000 homes in california, including 2700, 2800 of them in palo alto. this was one of those tracks. the homes were developed to reflect the lifestyle of what california, and maybe much of the country, thought it would be like following world war ii. open style, plenty of glass, the backyards -- you can't see them here from the street -- the backyards have glass that open out into the garden, so the transition between inside and outside is sort of minimized. the 1950's were a tough time in the united states for minorities all over the country. in california, we equally experienced these problems. housing, quite often developers or real estate agents would shun or divert the attention of minority buyers away from their

homes. joseph eichler refused to play this game. he wanted and was willing to sell his homes to anybody who had the appropriate funds. so a lot of young employees at hewlett-packard and other companies in the stanford industrial park who were minorities, who were asian or had the resources, he was happy to sell his homes to them. the residents might complain about this influx of minorities, claim that the property values will go down. joseph eichler's line was, if your property values go down, i will buy them back from you. and of course, he never had to make good on his promise because the property values continued to rise. there is often a misconception

that he was one of the great architects of midcentury america. but of course, he was not an architect, he was a developer. he would hire young architects who admired frank lloyd wright's style of building. and he had a team of them. i mean, it wasn't just one or two, it was a group of them over 20 plus years that he was building houses that he hired. they all were admirers of frank lloyd wright, as was joseph eichler himself. california really began its growth post-world war ii, in the 1950's. there were subdivisions of all types of houses. some people built the houses that they had been building prior to the war. but then the midcentury modern houses, whether it is here in the bay area, southern california certainly had a lot of them palm springs, the whole , town was almost rebuilt in the 1950's and early 1960's. and fortunately for preservationists, the houses did not change.

the buildings were not torn down because the town sort of became economically stagnant. they weren't replaced with other things. so this is a style that was developed in the 1950's and early 1960's, and has got legs. it is still around. it is still very popular, especially with the younger homeowners. they are very interested in these houses because they appeal to their style of living much more than the houses that their grandparents were living in. announcer: our cities tour staff recently traveled to palo alto, california to learn about its rich history. to watch more video from palo alto and other stops on our tour, visit c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american history tv, every weekend on on c-span3. talk cohosted, a

by the harry s truman presidential library and museum dunnigan, theon first african-american female white house correspondent and senate and house representatives press gallery member. her granddaughter and others discuss her life and legacy as a trailblazing journalist. >> good evening come of it is an tournament. welcome to the truman presidential library and museum. m kurt graham, the museum director. i appreciate you being here to enter this program and to celebrate an important legacy with us. we are in the legacy business and when we celebrate harry truman's legacy we find that we end up celebrity a lot of legacies as well, and i think that speaks volumes about who harry truman was. i want to begin by thanking some folks tonight -- the truman library institute who sponsored so much of what we