about this. >> the book is entitled after i ke. michael owen, thank you very much for joining us. >> my pleasure. you can watch archival founds on public affairs in their entirety on our weekly series, reel america. >> continuing our look at lansing, we visit the michigan history museum to learn about the origins of this estate, from its indigenous peoples to early manufacturing to becoming the car capital of the world. tobi: we are at the michigan history museum here in downtown lansing. we are part of state government, so our museum tells the story of michigan, all of michigan,

including lansing. today, we will walk through our galleries. it is literally a walk-through -- you come to the museum. it is at the end of the ice age. we talk about the first indigenous peoples lived here and go to the end of the 20th century. we are standing in our exhibit the first peoples. it talks about the indigenous people who lived in michigan for thousands of years before the arrival of europeans. it is one we just recently renovated. the focal point is this gigantic mural that is painted. it shows the story of the anishinaabek people through four seasons. one of the things it tells is the advanced society they had before europeans arrived. they had very sophisticated

social structures. it was just a little different than the western civilization. they chose to live off of the land and not try to control the land. they spent a lot of their time really working in harmony with the lands to meet all their basic needs. in this mural, things to point out is the structures. misconceptions that native americans all lived in teepees. in michigan, they lived in structures called wigwams. we have an illustration of one here. and we have a mock one here. they would use saplings of birch or maple to make this frame and then overlay it with strips of birch bark. sometimes woven reed mats. they would fill it with grasses for insulation. they would live in these year-round. the nice thing about them is they are pretty compact and mobile. they could take their birch bark off and move from place to place

as seasons changed. now we have moved into the gallery that talks about how michigan became a state. michigan was slow to settle due to swamplands and other things like that. the opening of the erie canal in 1825 helped spread migration from the eastern states. by 1835, the territory of michigan felt it had reached congress' requirements for becoming a state. we have the right population numbers, had a written constitution from 1835. our governor appealed to congress to become a state, and it was rejected. because there was some unsettled business between the state of michigan and the state of ohio, as in who would own toledo. both states saw it as a very valuable port on lake erie and the river that would help with transportation. it took about two years.

they called it the toledo war. michigan finally agreed that if the country would let it become a state, they would let toledo become part of ohio. as a consolation prize, michigan got the western half of the upper peninsula. ohioans and michiganans agree that michigan got the better deal, because that is where they found the iron ore in the rich deposits that helped michigan become the rich manufacturing state it did. the northern half of the lower peninsula was rich with native forests, largely pines. also explorer and surveyor douglas houghton went up and found natural iron ore and copper deposits.

so in the last half of the 19th century, most of the lumber in the lower part of the lower peninsula was cut down and harvested. full-scale mining efforts began in the upper peninsula for copper and iron ore. when you are extracting the copper and iron ore, it rarely comes out perfectly pure. this is copper ore that has other impurities in it that necessitated the building of some of michigan's first factories to process, smelting, forges, to take the raw materials and purify them to become the pure copper used in items such as ingots and pots and candlesticks and other things. all of this early manufacturing to process this raw ore set michigan up to be a major manufacturing center in the early 19th century. some of the earliest

manufacturing industries in michigan were related to transportation. we had carriage companies operating out of flint. railcar companies operating out of detroit. shipbuilding was a huge industry in bay city and detroit. one of the biggest early manufacturing centers in michigan's history was a fact that michigan, by 1900, had become the stove capital of the world. jeremiah and james dwyer had three of the four most successful stove companies in detroit history. here is an example of some of their work made out of iron that was mined in the upper peninsula. about 1900, she can really became known for the industry that it is still known for today, and that is the manufacture of automobiles. in order for that to happen, we needed the successes from the early industry. money and capital to invest in these new companies.

lumbering and mining. we also had the infrastructure and the factories that made the stoves, made the transportation vehicles. it could be repurposed for this new phenomenon of the gasoline engine. it is the last piece that helps michigan become the motor state, the ingenuity of some of the early founders of the automobile industry, from henry ford, whose assembly line is famous. this is a recreation of his highland park assembly line. and chrysler and durrant, founder of general motors. this big, exciting boom in manufacturing and the automobile industry was huge, particularly in southeastern michigan. at the same time, the northern part of michigan was still largely farming, but the advances in technology, particularly the gasoline engine, resulted in new technologies like the motorized tractor. other breakthroughs really

helped usher in a new era of farming in michigan, allowing family farms to grow into sustainable businesses. early in the 20th century, almost 25% of michigan farmers were dairy farmers. that was a huge industry for us. so while the factories are booming in southeast michigan, we have farming on a larger scale happening. so both worlds existing simultaneously. we have now moved into the part of the museum that talks about michigan during world war ii, particularly the war production that took place. in 1940, right before the u.s. entered world war ii, our president, franklin d. roosevelt, put a call out. >> we must be the great arsenal of democracy. michigan and detroit in particular were quick to answer the call.

they switched over to war manufacturing, including all of the automobile factories. one of the most successful factories that was built to make products for the war was ford motor company's will overrun the plant.- willow run this mural shows the innovation of making planes on an assembly line. the plant started construction in 1941. it was completed in 1942. 1940 3, 40 1000 people were working to build airplanes in this plant. by the end of the war, the factory had built just under 9000 b-24 bombers. at one point, they were rolling one off the line every 63 minutes. wartime work was very different.

most of the able-bodied men who have worked in factories went off to serve in the war. , there was mass migration of people coming up from the south. detroit was so overcrowded that they had to live in tents in vacant lots. the war gave opportunity to color,nd people of particularly african-americans, to get these factory jobs for the first time in history. the women who are working on that airplane worked as riveter's, assembling things. michigan made a lot of artillery shells. women would build the shells that would be used in cannons and guns and bullets. the impact of the war production on michigan really changed the

fabric of the workforce in the state. we will end our tour in our 1957 detroit auto show. this is very fitting because it shows how over the last century and a half, manufacturing in michigan made it a very prosperous state. it was the era of the classic money,. from indigenous people to lumber to minors to auto industry giants, these individuals have worked with and lived with and used michigan's natural resources in a way to benefit themselves and help our state grow. >> our city tour staff recently went to lansing, michigan, to learn about its rich history. to watch more video, visit our website.

you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span. tonight, on book tv, and their new book the education of brett kavanaugh, new york times reporters explore justice brett kavanaugh's recent confirmation process. >> at the time of the confirmation hearings, the me too movement had been underway for a while. there was a backlash brewing, that it was going to far. this notion of believe all women was oversimplified. you do have a president who does advocate taking tough stances talked about allegations of sexual misconduct as something where you need to deny, deny, deny. >> i think it was important for us to put ourselves in his shoes and imagine that someone is

being falsely accused. to explore that. at 10:00 a.m. eastern, live coverage of the 2019 brooklyn book festival, featuring an they a discussion on the trump administration. election with020 matt to eb -- taibbi. and a look at historical resistance. >> there is this recurring theme that they really do believe, on that radical far left side, they throw out these labels like fascists and all these really negative terms. is exactlythem doing

what they claim to the president was doing. in order to protect our freedom, they need to take it away. in order to make sure the first amendment is in place, they need to take away our rights under the first amendment. it is a recurring theme. malkinnalist michelle gives her thoughts on u.s. immigration policy. she is interviewed by texas republican congressman chip roy. they have donated to many of these deep-pocketed nonprofit organizations that are crusading for illegal alien right. you wonder how it is that they have instant representation in over every last trump initiative to enforce the law. big business in the u.s. chamber of commerce are huge reason for that. >> watch book tv every weekend on c-span2.

next, a historian discusses alexander hamilton's military career and his relationship with george washington. the site of washington's 1780 headquarters hosted this event. >> welcome. happy all of you are here and joining us today for this program. been heree not before, definitely after the lecture today, please stay and take a tour with our staff. before i introduce our guest speaker today, just a few rules or bits of information. we do have light refreshments for you in the kitchen. coffee, tea, cheese, crackers, cookies. please feel free tt