lincoln's second inaugural speech, considered one of the greatest speeches in american political history sunday, at 2 pm eastern on oral histories, virginia coleman describes her experiences as a chemist for the manhattan project, at oak ridge to build the atomic bomb and, monday, at 7:30 pm eastern on american artifacts, photographer and storyteller john -- on the 42 giant bust of american presidents, created by sculptor david attics. -- decaying on a private property in virginia. explore the american story, watch american history tv, this weekend on c-span 3. in 2017, the buffalo bills center of the west and county wyoming, mark the 100th anniversary of buffalo bills death during a symposium with western historian, politan. he spoke about how william cody became a symbol of the frontier, and influenced american

perception of western culture. this is just over an hour. >> welcome everyone, to the final event of what has been a terrific three days. you know, when you start to plan these things and you think we will have this person, that person will do all the stuff. there was this moment when we started with the program on paper, and went ... we have 36 different speakers on this thing. it became, exceeded our expectations. certainly, so thank you to everyone for all the terrific presentations. so, thanks very much. and, this won't be the last you will have heard from the gathered scholars. we are going to compile and edit a new volume, in our william f. cody series on the history and culture of the american west, with the university of oklahoma press. so, all of the presenters are invited, as they know, to submit their work for

consideration for this volume. and all the rest of you, are invited to purchase and read that volume when it comes out. so stay tuned. it is a great pleasure to introduce tonight's keynote speaker, paul andrew harden is an american cultural historian. he's an award winning author, his documentary writer, and television personality. he serves as a distinguished professor of history, at the university of new mexico. and as we all know he's published quite widely, and both scholarly, academic venues, and popular magazines. and, he's reached a very large audience through that kind of work. his work has been recognized far and wide, he's a six-time winner. of the western riders of americas spur award, and also six-time winner of the western heritage were ward for the national cowboy and western heritage museum.

for his work and both printed film. it's his book that jeremy mentioned the other day, feels shared in the army. see the billington prize from the organization of american historians, the evans biography award and spur award. he's also the editor of several books that we all have on our shows, western heritage, roundup, frontier in region, the customer reader and soldiers west. as well as a ten volume eyewitness to the civil war series that he did for benham. back in the nineties. he started in many ways, reaching and shaping western historical scholarship, when he was an associate editor at the historical quarterly. and then, editor of the new mexico historical review. now, he has written several short films. dozens of television documentaries, he's appeared to be believed over 300 television

programs on major networks, public television, and cable networks as well. you may have known or see the work that he did -- a historical consulted on ron howard's film, the missing also, worked on john fabrics aliens most recently, on kevin o'connor's jane got a gun. he has been very active, as a public historian making an imprint on programming at museums, by guess curating exhibits. on everything from the alamo, the kuster legend, david crosscut, and billy the kid. his latest book, the apache wars, was published by crown. in may, of 2016. and, it was recognized with a 2017 western writers of american, america spore award. for the best nonfiction. but, coming up, through western

history, my academic career came up during the time that we just saw reflected in the various toasts that we had. the heady era, of the new western history -- old western history range wars. and, you know, paul, paul had served at the executive director of western history association. from 1990, to 2006. so, you know, when we think of david croc it, we have a popular image in our mind, -- when we think of the lone ranger, it's going to be claim more. when you think of james bond, of course, it's got to be sean connery. right? i when you think of the western historian, you think of bolton. it's my great pleasure to introduce paul to speak to us tonight.

i know, it's so common to think of me and sean connery, and the same way. it's really my wife does. no. i want to thank the buffalo bills center of the west, i want to thank jeremy and his excellent staff, this really has been a marvelous three days. the only thing i've really learned as i've aged is how little i know. and, being around all these bright young scholars this week, has shown me just really how little i know about something i thought i knew everything about. it's wonderful newark, exciting newark. as a historian, one of the things that make you get up in the morning, after hearing that

introduction and all the stuff i've done ... i understand why i'm so tired. and so hard to get up. it's hard to get up in the morning. but, i certainly appreciate so much all that they are doing, to bring out new insights but also to discover new material. we were shown all kinds of new material about buffalo bill, and to show this week. that is just absolutely astonishing to me. so, thank you all for educating me this week i don't know if i'm gonna educate you very much tonight this room is full of course of experts on william f. cody. the story i'm going to tell is a familiar one. but, i sort of thought that, thematically, i might be able to pull together, the last speaker. some of the themes that we have been talking about this week. and, put buffalo bill in perspective. let me start doing that by

telling your personal story, because we have been getting -- this week as well. of course, you know, we are here because it's the centennial of buffalo bills death. william f. cody's death. and, that was in 1917, which was the year of my mother's birth. and then, in 1968, 51 years later, i first visited this wonderful institution, and company with two of my high school chums. steve horowitz, and on fort. and we had just graduated from shortage high school, in indianapolis. and, we had dons volkswagon bus, and we had simon and nangarhar phone calls america, ringing in our ears. and we went out. in search of america, i'm still looking. well, the boys were anxious to

get the climax of our trip, our final destination. really, golden dream at the end of the western rainbow. for all young men, las vegas nevada. but, i would not be a party to the trip, unless we visited first the black hills, then the little big horn battlefield. and then here. cody wyoming, to this museum. and they reluctantly agreed to that. and, they were perhaps not as delighted as i was by this institution in 1968. but, they pretended to be charmed. well, it's now than -- been 49 years. since i made that journey