reagan encouraged him. reagan supported him. >> freedom of the press which we'll get to later i should just mention madison originally called it freedom of the use of the press and it is indeed freedom to print and publish things's. not a freedom what we refer to institutionally as the press. >> legends in history on american history tv on c-span3. lectures in history is also available at at podcast. find it where you listen to podcasts. the mayo clinic is consistently ranked at one of the top hospitals in america. brothers william and charlie mayo founded the clin beic in 1889. next, on american ak facrtifact visitchester for its role in the community today. >> mayo clinic is an american

institution. it's the heart of our country in many respects. it is the world's first and largest private, multispecialty group practice. it's a big, formal term. what it really means is specialists working together in a highly organized way defeating a whole range of unique, diverse talents for the sole purpose of serving the needs of each individual patient, and this is a model that the mayo family developed uniquely with the franciscan sisters here that has expanded and grown to other medical centers and welcomed patients from all over the world for more than 150 years. this is heritage hall, the museum of mayo clinic established with a generous gift from john and lillian matthews. mr. and mrs. matthews are loyal patients of mayo clinic and had a unique vision. they said, we want to add more voices to the choir, and so tell the great stories of mayo through contemporary museum exhibits, designs, films,

products like that. today we're going to explore the history but more importantly the living legacy of mayo clinic. now, if you think about it, every patient has a history. the first thing you do when you see your doctor is you give your history as a patient. what your illnesses are, health status, family background. that history informs the care you receive today with hope of a healthier future. just as you as a patient have a history, so, too, does an organization. mayo clinic has a history and our history here is a living dynamic part of who we are. it informs who we are today, and it sets the stage for where we're going in the future. you will see as you travel around mayo clinic here in heritage hall and our other historic displays that history is present with us and people talk about it in an immediate sense. i'll show you and my colleagues will show you really fun and interesting things that bring that to life. a lot of people wonder how a

very large prominent medical center ever got started in a small, remote town like rochester, minnesota. it's an amazing combination of factors. mayo is a family name. so we want to meet the mayo family now. dr. william laurel mayo was born near manchester england in 1819. he grew up in the industrial receive lucie revolution developed a strong social conscience giving back to others. saw a better life for hems he came to america in the 1840s. worked his way west. and married louise abigail wright. she had the head of business, he had the heart of medicine and a wonderful team came together to serve patients. malaria was common in indiana at that time and dr. mayo sought a healthier climate and came here as a patient seeking a healthier future. came to minnesota during territory days, worked a number of cities around the state, farms, different things, but in

1864, he opened a practice and moved his family here to rochester when the lincoln administration named him to be a union army examine being doctor during the american civil war. his role was to see which young men were fit for military duty. one of the newest states in the nation, a lot of young men heading off for the eastern theater for the fighting. his job, see who was fit for service. the family stayed here because mrs. mayo said we're not moving anymore. abraham lincoln brought us here, mrs. mayo kept us here and dr. mayo set up his practice. the two boys, sons will and charlie, grew up they grew up in medicine like far boys on a farm. would go out with their dad to serve his patients, deliver babies, society bone, absorbed his ideals and values and natural they would go to medicine school when their time came. now it's the summer of 1883. dr. mayo is senior physician in

town. his eldest son will just graduated medical school that spring. charlie still a high school pre preparatory student here at home. august, midwest. a terrible cyclone. humidity, storms, hail. a terrible, devastating storm struck the city causing death and destruction. dr. mayo and his sons were in charge of helping the survivors. they needed nurses. most women had their families to look after. so in seeking help, dr. mayo went down the street to the academy of our lady of lord founded by the franciscan sisters and mother al fred moez, the mother superior, sent her sisters to be his nurses. they worked in a dance hall, various makeshift fasts. not long after the disaster, what we see here in this tabloid is mother al fred came to dr. mayo with a true vision. she said, we the franciscans will build a hospital for this city if you and your sons will

staff it. dr. mayo resisted. hospitals are expensive. risky. he was elderly. small town. we can't do this. mother alfred persisted saying with our faith, hope and energy it will succeed. shook hands. no legal contract. a bond of trust. from that saint mary's hospital opened in 1889. think about it in this tableau. men and women did not work together as professional counterports at that time. dr. mayo was a man, a man of science. admired charles darwin. mother alfred a woman of faith named her order for the virgin mary. they found common ground in serving patients. get this at mayo clinic, you get all the rest because you have different people, different skills, different points of view, but they come together for that common purpose, and each one brought something very unique to the equation. dr. mayo and louise raise their

family right here in rochester in this house which stood literally across the street from where we are now. they made a momentous decision when the brothers were quite young. they decided they would mortgage this house and with the mortgage funding, purchase a microscope to help care for dr. mayo's patients. this is an example of a 19th century microscope at that time they would have used. the mayo boys were young. maybe 8, 9, 4, 5 years old, the two of them at the time and always remembered their parents' sacrifice and grew up knowing that medicine was a true calling. you enter medicine to serve other people. and to work together in a cooperative man beer. so fast-forward to when the mayos, here we see william and charles as adults, they were arguably the most successful doctors in america by the late 19-teens, early 1920s. remembering their parents' sacrifice andciscan sisters in

brothers and their wives donated all assets of mayo clinic. land, buildings equipment and majority of their life savings to transform mayo from a private partnership into a not for profit organization. that's a structure we have today. so mayo clinic is here today because of their sacrifice and their generosity. we've talked about the origins of mayo clinic here in heritage hall, but it's really worthwhile to visit the plumber building, third floor archive historical sweep for how the clinic grew and flourished. >> right now we're standing in the historical suite, located in the plumber building, and it is the twooet where the last offices are dr. will and dr. charlie mayo are located along with the board of governors room. this space today is used as a museum and our patients and visitors are able to learn more about our history. how the mayos practiced medicine

was much different than it is today. william the father, the physician who would go into the country, get on his buggy and horse, and visit the patients at the farms. surgeries performed on kitchen tables. not in hospital or operating room settings, and instruments and medicine were very crude and not as we know today. what you're looking at here are medicines carried in a physician's bag, and you'll see that there's not very many to select from, so you understand there wasn't a lot known about what would cure different ailments, but this is what they had and would prescribe to patients or administer one dose and hope that it would work. the mayos practiced out of their home and also visited the patients homes, but eventually they realized that they needed larger space. so they opted to rent some space in downtown rochester and here

are some of the different locations that they rented. the masonic temple was a newly built building and they rented space on the second floor for patients to be seen there. they worked in the masonic temple until 1914 and this building represents the very first mayo clinic that was built by the mayo family. and it housed an integrative group practice in medicine. the father, william wuerl, instilled in the boys that they needed to have others join the practice. he often quoted no one is big enough to be independent of others. so they realized early on that they needed to hire other individuals with other talents and interests to provide the best care for our patients. dr. will and dr. charlie were surgeons but knew they needed internists, people working in the laboratory, the x-ray department and all other aspects of medicine to provide the best care for our patients.

so here you'll see the first mayo clinic being built. it started in 1912 with the construction. and in 1914 it opened. it was five floors, and it housed almost the different specialties. we were anticipating about 14,000 patients to arrive in on an annual basis but 26,000 were coming to rochester for care so we quickly outgrew this space and ended up building the next building that we'll be talking about which is the plumber building currently, but it was the second mayo clinic. and this is 15 floors. and, again it encompassed all of the departments that the patients would need to be seen in, and it was, again, an integrative group practice. here is a model of an examining room that would have been in the 1914 mayo clinic building. it's very similar to our exam rooms today.

you'll see a couch where the patient or family members sit and an exam table. a physician's desk. a scale and a sink. so very simple, cork floors were also in both the 1914 mayo clinic building along with the mayo building, because cork was easier on the legs, and provided less stress. so you could stand for longer periods of time. also in the clinical practice they realized that the rooms, exam rooms and any of the instruments used needed to be cleaned, and the cover over the bedding and that type of thing needed to be changed frequently. the idea of aseptic and antiseptic techniques were developed over in england and they had seen it practiced over there in their travels, and they brought those practices back to mayo clinic. i'm standing in dr. will's last ochs. this would have been used during his administrative years after

he had retired from surgery. so 1928 is when he would have moved in to this area. and you'll see his desk. his motto, he loved the truth and sought to know it. dr. will is described as the businessman administrative type. he sometimes was known to be more stern, but had a great sense of humor. and he married his high school sweetheart. he photo is on the bookcase, and her name was hattie damon. she was the daughter of a local jeweler. they had five children, but only two lived past infancy. two daughters. carrie and phoebe. both of the daughters married prominent mayo surgeons. dr. donald belfour and dr. waltman walters. so medicine stayed in the family, even though the daughters did not go into medicine. in 1928, when dr. will moved into this office he was no longer practicing as a surgeon.

however, he was very involved in the mayo clinic yet in administratively and also sat on the board of governors until 1935, when he stepped down, and let the younger individuals take over running the clinic. and he still was intimately involved knowing that our patients were being taken care of. this is my favorite room we're standing in at the moment. it's the board of governors room. it was started because dr. will and dr. charlie in 1915 started the proceedings to set up mayo clinic as a nonprofit organization. that involved setting up a board and we're still run by a board today. so this is the board room. all the honors and awards on the wall are of dr. will and dr. charlie from all over the world. they traveled extensively to learn from others and bring back best practices here to rochester and mayo clinic, and then what

they would do is, they would go and travel for several months each spring and fall. one always stayed back at mayo to tend to business. and they would present and visit other hospitals and became very known and became very known to other physicians. dr. will really felt that jealousy among the medical profession would be a detriment and sharing of knowledge was critical for the profession. you can tell by the honors and awards that they were very well respected by their peers. dr. will was asked to give an address at rush medical college for the graduating class in 1910, and that is when he articulated that the needs of the patient come first, which is our primary value here at mayo clinic. all we do is for our patients. and they, mayo also realized that you needed education and research to provide that great care for our patients. we still practice with that in our forethought.

our education, we have five schools here at mayo climpg and we also have many research labs so we can advance science and medicine. the history of mayo clinic is integral to the history of rochester. the city has grown and expanded right along with mayo clinic to provide different services and amenities for our patients just as mayo clinic has. >> we're in a place of heritage hall called the treasures gallery. we have a number of cubbies that present different treasures of mayo's unique contributions to medicine and society. so over here is an iconic artifact.

it's a baseball signed by lou gehrig when he was a patient here in 1939. the black and white photo shows him as a patient and he gave back in many ways. he befriended local youth. he gave batting lessons and pitching clinics, worked out with bob's team down at soldiers field. bob asked mr. lou gehrig to sign his ball. and he did sign the ball on his birthday, we believe, the day he was diagnosed with lou gehrig's disease. the color photo shows bob still treasuring that baseball. at the end of his life, bob sold that ball to a local business executive here in rochester. andy is a local businessman here in chicago. and andy bought the ball for the soul purpose that he and his daughter, taylor, whom we see in the photo, would give to mayo clinic to display, to inspire our patients. so you have a generosity of many generations coming together with this one baseball signed by a great american athlete. other examples here would be a

replica of the nobel prize that mayo clinic received in 1950. two mayo staff members. dr. edward kendall, a laboratory scientist, and dr. philip hench, a rheumatologist, worked together on the invention and critical use of cortisone, a drug many of us know now. they receive this had nobel prize, a classic example of a bridge from discovering something in the lab to applying it to the care of patients. of course, the word came to mayo clinic via message, not a text message as you would receive it today but a western union telegram announcing that. they were team based in their philosophy that they used part of their prize money for the nobel award, and they gave it to their laboratory and clinical assistants. one of their assistants was a franciscan sister.

with her vow of poverty, she could not accept a financial recognition, so they found a way to deal with that. they said, sister, we will send you on a trip to europe and you can meet the pope. always found out ways to contribute and give back to others. other artifacts, an early telephone. we've always loved technology here at mayo clinic. dr. william mayo had the first telephone in this region. it connected his farmhouse with his office and so the idea of patient convenience, you could walk into the local area and call dr. mayo at his home. this was transformative, disruptive technology at that time. the local newspaper actually had to print an article how to place a telephone call. it was so new to people, they didn't know what to do. the paper assured them that your

voice and dr. mayo's voice will be as clear a mile apart as if you were in the same room. and they went on these long, elaborate directions. you would talk into this and listen for that and various things. but a new way of communicating for your medical care. 1919 when the mayo family, the brothers and their wives made the joint decision to donate the assets of the clinic and their life savings to our non-profit mission, here is the deed of gift, the legal document they signed, and the ink well they

used given to us by the mayo family. this deed of gift, it's a legal document but it's kind of a statement of their philosophy. and if you read through all of the legalese and terminology of the therefores and all of that, there's a couple of powerful sentences that stand out and one of them, the mayos wrote that the ultimate purpose of the clinic, past, present and future, must be measured by its contributions to the good of humanity. they didn't say cure this disease or open this lab or run this program. they said serve humanity. that will never go out of date. other examples here on the eve of world war ii, mayo began working in aviation. planes could fly higher but crews were crashing because they were blacking out at the high levels not having sufficient oxygen. the planes were crashing, crews were getting killed. mayo understands blood circulation. he began working in different ways, top secret, during those war years, but we developed the g suit to keep the blood pressure up allowing the pilot and crew to remain conscious. he developed an oxygen mask. this invention is still used in aviation today. it helped launch the jet age and the space travel all have roots

in mayo's aviation research. at that time we charged the government $1 a year for our wartime services. that whole philosophy of giving back. the knowledge of blood circulation opened up the era of open-heart surgery. here you're seeing a large photograph of the early heart/lung bypass machine. there was a doctor in philadelphia who developed a heart/lung bypass machine. the heart would stop beating during surgery. the machine would take over giving oxygen to keep the patient alive. the doctor had one patient survive and four passed away and he abandoned. he couldn't go on. but mayo thought there was merit in the doctor's technology. so we essentially re-engineered his machine. engineers, surgeons, nurses, technicians all working together to create what's now called the mayo/gibbon heart/lung bypass surgery. if you know anybody who has had open-heart surgery, it began with a machine like this.

our first patient at mayo clinic, right over here, linda stout. she was a 5-year-old girl from bismarck, north dakota. she was dying of a heart defect. she had a very short time to live. her parents brought her here with no other hope. her life was saved on a machine just like this. that's actually her 6th birthday party a few months after her operation. she's had a wonderful life, a lovely person. i've interviewed her a number of times. it's fun. linda came back to mayo clinic on the 50th anniversary of her heart surgery. she was our guest of honor at a surgical conference. and look what she gave us, she gave us her autograph book and her get well cards her mother had saved for her. we tell our new employees when they come here on their tour, behind every invention at mayo clinic, there's always a linda. and what's really sweet, typical -- my daughters have done this. she's got his world famous

typical surgeon's autograph, the cleaning lady's autograph, the land lady of her rooming house, the kid in the bed next to her. you see her here of her name. she tells a story, i remember she described this very vividly. she was young, 5 years old. night before surgery she -- what she remembers are these tall, young men in white jackets. they got on their knees to talk to her eye to eye. and they said, tomorrow, you're going to fall asleep. but when you wake up, you're going to feel a whole lot better. and she said, i had no idea how nervous they must have been because she was their first patient. you have this amazing trust that goes back and forth.

medicine is undergoing vast changes. even in my career here at mayo clinic, i've seen tremendous advances in medicine. the pace is only accelerating. and as we look at these exciting future, this dynamic potential of what medicine can do for a better health for people all over the world, we come back to the unchanging things. at mayo clinic there's this i didn't think ying and yang yif dynamic innovation, the values, the history of mayo, it's this firm foundation. it doesn't hold us back. it empowers us to go forward. but we have to understand that history and value it and interpret it for every

generation and that will keep us grounded. it will give us the propulsion to go forward and the future is very exciting. you're watching american history tv. every weekend on c-span 3 explore our nation's past. c-span 3, created by america's cable television companies as a public service and brought to you today by your television provider. weeknights this month we're if he the during american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on c-span 3. tonight, we explore the american story with a look at the national park service. we visit eight parks across the country, including mt. rushmore national memorial, selma to montgomery national historic trail, and gateway arch natural park, featurie ining na beauty and history. watch beginning at 8:00 eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span 3, go inside a different college classroom and hear about topics ranging from the american revolution, civil rights, and u.s. presidents to 9/11.

>> thanks for your patience and for logging into class. >> with most college cam yous closed due to the impact of the coronavirus watch professors transfer teaching to a virtual setting to engage with their students. >> gorbachev did most of the to work change the soviet union. but reagan met him halfway, reagan encouraged him, reagan supported him. >> freedom of the press, which we'll get to later, madison wrote about the use of the press and indeed freedom to print things and publish things, not freedom for what we now refer to institutionally as the press. >> lectures in history on american history tv on c-span 3.