created by america's cable television companies. today we're brought to you by these television companies who provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. week nights this month we're arer featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span3. tonight american university professor daniel dreisbach the american constitutional and judicial system including due process and the separation of powers. the start is a talk of programs hosted by the museum of the bible in washington, d.c. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span3. up next on american history tv, a look at presidential retreats. we'll see abraham lincoln summer cottage, herbert hoover fishing

camp and hear stories of the kennedys, clintons and obamas in martha's vineyard. our first guest tonight is from lincoln's cottage where abraham lincoln resided for over a quarter of his presidency. situated on a hilltop in northwest washington, d.c., president lincoln made some of his most critical decisions at lincoln's cottage. while in residence there, lincoln visited with wounded soldiers, spent time with self emancipated men, women and children and drafted the emancipation proclamation. joan cummins is a public historian, artist and educator and program assistant at lincoln's cottage, she supports their public facing programming, particularly for students and teachers. she also works very closely with one of their programs called students opposing slavery for young abolitionists working to combat human trafficking and she

also is the co-host of a podcast which i think has a terrific name. welcome, joan, to history happy hour. >> thanks for having me, colleen. i'm excited to be here and share with you all about lincoln's experience during the summers of his presidency. he lived at president lincoln's cottage for three summers while he was president. let me get to three summers. the summer of 1862, '63 and '64. the family was planning to come out here again for the summer of 1865 when the president was killed. three main reasons the family moved out to the cottage at opposed to staying at the white house through the summer. first, as many of you know already summer in d.c. can be very sticky and humid and unpleasant. and the population of d.c. was rapidly increasing during the civil war, so the infrastructure of the city was having a little bit of trouble handling that. not to mention the white house at that point was open to the

public. so anyone who had a question or wanted a job from the president could come and line-up and ask and the lincolns were looking for some relief from the heat and the pressure of downtown. the other big reason they were looking to get away from the white house was because in february of 1862, their middle son, willie, died in the white house at the age of 12. and the fam ela was looking for a place that did not around every corner remind them once more of willie's loss. what mrs. lincoln said about it is, when we are in sorrow, quiet is very necessary to us. i want to show you all the picture of the cottage from her family photo album. this for me is a reminder that the cottage is one of the very few places we are sure the lincolns were happy to be during the civil war while they were here in washington, d.c.

the other big reason, oh, this is what the cottage looks like today. right there up against that historic photo. if y'all are curious about that. the last big reason the family was looking to come out to the cottage is because lincoln as i'm sure you know, was facing an extremely difficult and complicated presidency. he had a lot of challenges facing him and he was looking for a place to think about complicated things. i encourage you to think about whatever the place is in your life that works for you to think about complicated things, many people are looking for a place that is a little bit quiet, that perhaps has access to the outdoors that really gives you space to think and the cottage was that place for abraham lincoln. while he was out here, he and his family were living here during the summer, but very much not a vacation for him. lincoln was commuting to and from the white house every day to work. took him about a half hour to

ride the three miles from the cottage to the white house. on horseback and often going alone. and i can imagine it would be nice to have that half hour to yourself to ride to work through the woods in the morning because and the commute also gave lincoln an opportunity to talk to ordinary people that he met along the way, whether that was people who had escaped slavery and living on the outskirts of d.c. and wounded soldiers and ambulances on the road up to the hospital or the actively serving soldiers who were camped in his back yard on this nice green lawn in front of the southside of the cottage who had been detailed there to guard the site and the president. in addition, the campus then as now as a retirement home for veterans. so, lincoln had access to folks who had already served in the armed forces. while he was up here, lincoln was working on one of the pressing challenges of his presidency, what do we do about

slavery? he had been sure from the beginning of his presidency that he believed that slavery was wrong and the question was, what could he do about it. while he was here at the cottage, lincoln developed the emancipation proclamation. this is the room in which he did so. it's the biggest bedroom in the cottage. you can see it's sort of open and airy. those two windows there overlook the capitol. they look south over the city. we are the third highest elevation in the city of washington, d.c. so, there's lincoln would have had a big vista of the city in front of him. and that's a replica of his desk there in the center, as well. and the emancipation proclamation wove together several aspects of the problem. how to keep the country together, what was going on with the war, what lincoln personally believed was the right thing to do and the cottage gave him the space and time to come up with very carefully crafted,

carefully calibrated answer to that question. the proclamation was addressed as a bit of a challenge to the confederate states and said you have 100 days to peacefully come back and rejoin the country. if you come back, you can keep all the people you've insaved and everything will be the same as it was before. if you don't come back, the enslaved people will become free. nobody took lincoln up on that offer and the emancipation proclamation took effect in full on january 1st of 1863. it did only apply to people who were enslaved in confederate territory, though. so, while it is applied to over 4 million people who were enslaved, it did not free everyone who had been enslaved in the country at that point. and there's plenty more complications to the proclamation we could talk about. but for me, what matters about

the cottage is that it gave lincoln the space and the time that he needed to work on this idea, to figure out how it was going to work because the proclamation has been a foundation on which many, many other people had been able to build, including those people primarily those people whom it freed in the first place. and the other thing i think is, i value about this place is that it gave lincoln the chance to be a person as well as a president. it gave him a chance to sit on the carpet and play toy soldiers with his son to sit on the porch and read the newspaper. that's part of why our statue of lincoln that is at the cottage that you're looking at now is life size. it's 6'4". lincoln is still the tallest person ever to be the president of the united states. and part of what we hope for

when people come to the cottage is that they also have the chance and to get a taste of the experience that lincoln had. that they have a moment of peace and they have an opportunity to reflect on their principles and they have a chance to think deeply on what they want the future of america to look like so that this can continue to be a home for brave ideas. there's a couple ways to find out more about the cottage, if you would like to do so, we are open for outdoor tours at the moment. and in an effort to be as safe as humanly possible under these circumstances, and you can also listen to our podcasts that colleen mentioned which takes real visitor questions we have gotten on tours that we wish we could spend a half hour answering and take that time to dig in and answer them. it is more of me talking, so, if you're enjoying that, that's a great starting point. but for now i'm going to turn you back over to colleen so we can jump forward in time a

little bit. >> thank you so much, joan, for that presentation. yes, we are going to move forward in time. our next guest is from the summer retreat established by president herbert hoover during his administration. the camp is located within the boundaries of shenandoah national park and recently restored to its 1929 appearance and is an excellent reflection not only of his era, but also of president hoover himself. clare is a specialist at shenandoah national park and began leading tours in 1990 and has been involved in the restoration of the president's cabin and the development of an exhibit when the camp transitioned from a congressional retreat to a popular interpretive site. welcome, clare, to history happy hour. >> thank you so much, colleen. i'm really excited to be with you all and share a little bit.

when herbert hoover was elected president, he and mrs. hoover knew immediately they would need a place to renew their balance and strength and a place to rejuvenate. so, he assigned a task to find the perfect spot to one of his secretaries, lawrence richie, and lawrence richie delivered. he had three criteria to work with. one, they wanted a place close to washington, d.c. like maybe within 100 miles because they wanted to be able to go to the camp frequently. the second criteria was they wanted something in the mountains, something at a higher elevation because as joan mentioned, we know what washington, d.c., summers can be like and, of course, this is the days before air conditioning. and the third and most important criteria is it had to have trout. as i said, lawrence richie delivered. he delivered in a big way.

and today i'd like to take you to the hoover's home. here we are on the porch of the brown house. some people have told me that hoover was a dower man without a sense of humor. i think it is kind of fun he named this the brown house. get it, white house, brown house. this is where the hoovers were. they were in that they derived a lot of peace and rejuvenation from the outdoors. when mrs. hoover designed the camp which she was responsible for all kinds of details there, she wanted to look for ways to as much as possible bring the outdoors in and provide great outdoor spaces. so all the cabins had the huge, wonderful decks. i want to take you to a

particular feature of this deck and look at a couple of things right here. so, i want you to notice this panel right here and these hinges. we're going to talk about that some more in a few minutes. looks like there is a problem here. if you look down here, you see a hole in the deck. well, that was actually totally on purpose. the hoovers, of course, being huge lovers of nature, they didn't want to cut down the trees so they let the tree grow through the porch and into the roof. but it had to be, unfortunately, taken out in later years. let's take a look inside and see these relaxing, beautiful spaces that she created. the hoovers came often and one thing that kind of evolved about the camp is they started to use it as a working retreat as well as a recreational retreat. hoover would have themed weekends where he would invite people around a certain issue. he would like to isolate them so they could have intense

conversations and not be interrupted. for example, one weekend he invited charles lindbergh, the post master general and several other people and they discussed the possibility of air mail. so, that was kind of something that he did a lot. now, here's what i wanted to talk to you about that window. remember when we looked at that panel. this is the inside of that panel. and because you wanted to bring the outdoors in, she created these panels. and what the inspiration for that was tents. originally, she wanted tents. she wanted canvas. and so this is what they had at first. but there was this incessant flapping and it drove them nuts. plus, they wanted to be able to come more often in the chillier months so they actually enclosed with this siding. but because she loved the idea of tent flaps, she created these tent flaps and the wooden ones that went down and then as you can see over here the windows tilt out. again, she's bringing the outdoors in.

lots of details that she wanted to make sure that it was a relaxing, wonderful spot. none so much as her corner office. how about that. i would love to work there. i think i could get like nothing done. let's take a look at the bedrooms. originally, they were, they shared a bedroom. but as things got a little chaotic during his administration, they added a second bedroom. and if you do this tour on your own, which you can, i'm just hitting some high spots here. don't miss his shower. it was a tent shower which i bet was a little chilly in the morning. but the great thing about hoover's bedroom is this is what was right out his door. and this was, of course, part of his lure of the camp. because he loved to fish and he spent a lot of time at the camp when he wasn't in meetings and

working, he spent as much time as he could fishing. so you see his creel here and there are poles. i want to talk about his connection to the stream and to fishing. if you look in his own words, president hoover's personal secretary or personal physician said that hoover was, he never saw hoover happier than when he was at rampadan and he would jump out of the car without even changing clothes and head to the stream. in his own words, hoover said to go fishing is a sound, a valid and an accepted reason for an escape. it requires no explanation. and probably most poetic, i love this, he said, to go fishing is the chance to wash one's soul with pure air and the rush of the brook or with the shimmer of sun on blue water. it brings meekness and inspiration from the decency of nature.

charity towards tackle makers, patience towards fish and a mockery of prophets and egos. the quieting of hate and a rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darn thing until next week and it is discipline in the equality of men for all men are equal before fish. makes you kind of want to grab a fishing pole and head shenandoah. thanks for inviting me and i look forward to your questions. >> thanks so much, clare, for joining us. that was a fascinating explanation. also, very intrigued by president hoover and fishing. that's a new fact for me. our last guest is from martha vineyard's museum founded in 1922 as the duke's county historical society and changed its name in 2006 to better reflect its extensive holdings of objects, archival documents, historic books, photographs,

paintings and oral histories. bowdoin van riper came to martha's vineyard at the age of three months and returned for part of every summer until he moved there permanently in 2011. he finished his ph.d. in history from the university of wisconsin in madison and taught at university level for 21 years before joining the martha's vineyard museum as a reference librarian, journal editor and staff historian in 2014. welcome, bo, to history happy hour. >> thanks, colleen. and greetings, everybody, from the island of martha's vineyard. five miles off the coast of cape cod and southeastern massachusetts. where for the first, oh, 5,000 or 6,000 years of human habitation it was all about fishing and farming, farming and

fishing until when the years immediately following the civil war, a group of enterprising business men got the idea of buying up some unused farmland by the sea on the north corner of corner of the island, and establishing a summer resort they called oak bluffs. it turned out to be a favorite spot, and it became, within 15 years, a town in it's own right and set the island on the path to where it has been ever since world war ii. a place where people still fish and still farm, but where the economies mostly depend on summer and off season tourism. the very first of the nine or ten people who at one point their lives were president of the united states and also visited the vineyard was ulysses

s. grant who visited oak bluffs. grant didn't have what we think of today as a typical vacation. he stayed a tiny cottage owned by methodist bishop edward hayden. and gave what was the shortest political speech ever recorded. it was four lines and lasted less than 30 seconds. other presidents followed in grant's footsteps and they were put on the presidential vacation map in the early 1990s when president bill clinton came for the first seven presidential

vacations in 1993. the exception being 1996 when he was running for reelection. barack obama coming for the first time in 1999, excement for 2012 when he was running for reelection. hart of the appeal of the vineyard have indication is that the island, all 100 square miles is incredibly diverse. your vacation there can be whatever you want it to be. for both clinton and obama a big part of their time on the island was playing golf with their other well-known summer residents like vernon jordan, steph curry, and alonso morning,

and with other locals that were able to join the foursome. there was even an epic moment when bill clinton joined him and you can imagine what the press and the secret service entourage at the golf course was like that day. both the clintons and the obamas like to be seen visiting some of the local shops that they both frequented the islands two independent bookstores, they stopped for ice cream at mad marthas, and the obamas pperuse a store that had been in business since the 1860s. that said each of the two presidents that spent multiple summers or weeks from summers on the vineyard had their own

distinctive vacationing style. clinton would surprise nobody who followed his presidency loved to get out among the people of martha's vineyard at the golf course, at the airport, at the ice cream parlor, or what not. shake people's hands, chat people up. it is still talked about to this day how in the summer of 1993 at the first couple's visit to the bunch of grapes bookstore hillary clinton shook the hand and took the time to talk to every single employee of the store. giving them a once in a lifetime experience. the closest i have ever come to a martha's vineyard based brush with a president was my mom working as a volunteer at a charity golf tournament where

president clinton showed up to make some kind of a speech and wish people well. she got to shake his hand, and a lot of vineyarders felt like that. the clintons were more quiet and reserved and did more during the day. president obama liked his golf, but he also liked his basketball and the house that they stayed in on the north shore of the island featured a half court basketball court on which he and whoever was around to play with him could shoot a few hoops in between whatever else was going on. the obamas were famous for their many long bike rides along the islands network of bike paths.

and in one of his earlier vacations he excited a bit of a furry by being pictured not wearing a bicycle helmet as he rode along the shoreline. it excited some comment and lead to a press release to the effect that president obama supports the wearing of bicycle helmets, just not necessarily on the vineyard apparently. for us at the at the museum, the high water mark of the obama's multiple visits was twofold. one, they toured the gayhead lighthouse. one of our centerpiece exhibits that were kind enough to sign

the guest book which we promptly put on display. but also president obama's coming to the island was a huge moment for us at the museum and it gave us an opportunity to call attention to the century plus history of martha's vineyard in federal and particularly the town of oak bluffs as a popular vacation resort for african-americans. a place where they felt they could come, relax, feel welcome, and escape from the tensions and the pressures of the wider world. the fact that the family came to the island gave us an opportunity to tell that story in a new and fresh way.

and close the circle of a story that began in 1900 and continues to this day. >> thank you, i would like to invite joan and claire to answer some of the questions with have the viewers. first we have a question about lincoln cottage? wasn't lincoln shot at during one of his rides between the white house and his cottage at the soldiers home?

>> you're remembers correctly. we don't know anything about the shooter. i can't give you a motive or a confederate spies or anything like that, we just don't know if he was planning to kidnap lincoln. we know the route was relatively undefended it might be a moment where lincoln was available. that was on his list of options and they were offering the vote to african-american soldiers,

when that was an environment that booth was comfortable with, he did not end up using that route in the final act. >> did hoover ever visit the house after he left the presidency. were we not established until 1935 so he hopes that others would use it.

things kind of just sat unused for awhile. in 1948 they -- the park service leased the camp to the boyscout ps. hoover did come and visit with the boyscouts and he was a huge supporter of boys clubs of america and was a of the boyscouts. later after about ten years they decided to use the camp to renovate the camp and they took down 10 of the 15 buildings. >> the next question for beau, and i hope i get the pronunciation right. he asked if he could discuss

presidential visits where presidents enjoyed the fishing club. and both of the islands were places where wealthy collections of gentlemen from the late 19th century built fishing clubs. and you hung out thereto with your fellow rich guys and there was stands built out from the shore over the water, and you went out in the morning and sat in a chair at the end of the fear and cast your line into the

water assisted by a ser vant that you could hire at $6 per week to handle all of the messy stuff for you. no president that i'm aware of visited the past island club and i'm uncertain about whether or not any of them made it although it was certainly popular. we do know that president chester arthur hitched a ride on a the bath. and they came down in 1897 to visit a friend and try the pass fishing at a it was the south shore of the vineyard.

the locals got a good laugh out of it because president cleveland when he got his line in the water succumbed to the warm day and fell asleep and was woke up by cold water in his boots. >> great, we'll go back to joan for a question concerns the layout of mary from dc. was there a hospital for wounded soldiers, and did lincoln visit those veterans while he was staying there. >> if any of you are particular with dc and you heard of something called the old sold juries home, that is us, that

predates lincoln coming to visit the cottage. it was built for josh rigs that lived there for about ten years and owned more than 200 acres of land. and the government was looking to start a retirement home for the soldiers. it invited the lincolns to come and stay at the cottage. that retirement home had about 100 residents while they were staying at the cottage. there was several hospitals kind of near the cottage in northeast dc as well, but this institution on the grounds of which the cottages is not and has never been a hospital. this is a retirement home for

veterans. some of them have been discharged but it is not a hospital facility. i think at least one world war two veteran. >> we will go to clare for the next question. is it original and are the furnishings inside original? >> it is and it was used for many years as a recreate. so it was updated at that point. we started a restoration and pe took out the kitchen and trying to make it close to the same.

but because they chose those furnishings and bought them themselves many of them locally, they took them with them. so most of what is there is reproductions. if you look at the tour yourself you will see pictures of their time and see what we used as a guide to do that refurnishing. but the light fixtures are original and a couple pieces of furniture are orange as well. we have a question about the kennedys. a lot of people said they know they vacations on cape cod, but did they ever spend time on martha's vineyard? that was a great question. president kennedy as most of you possibly know is an avid sailer.

he came at least twice to sail in the annual rigata. once he was in office the first family did come aboard the yacht in one summer sunday in 1961. it was unannounced. the locals didn't know anything was up until boats loaded with coast guard crewmen and plain closed police officers started to swarm. and they were enjoying a swim off of the back of the boat and they have flagged down a passing motor boes and she asked if she could have a ride.

mrs. kennedy also brought property at the west end of the item after -- long after she left the white house and came there during the summer. it has since been since been so, but they do have a history as well. >> referee: can you talk about the security challenges that they have had at each of your respective presidential sites that they had to deal with? the question is about security? how presidents dealt with security when they were away from the white house and at their vacation sites.

claire or joan, do you want to start? >> when president hoover was in camp there was a near by marine camp conveniently located and they did a lot of maintenance and some of the furniture pieces that you saw were built by the marines and they also offered security, but i'm not so sure how secure they were because it didn't stop a young local mountain boy from bringing into -- coming into camp on hoover's birthday to present him with a opossum for his birthday dinner. >> link con had a security situation that is very different from how we might expect them to interact today. it predates the secret service.

so while they were there to guard their family, they were here to stop confederate soldiers, not members of the public getting access to the president, so we have many stories of visitors coming up quite late into the evening to say i'm here to see the president and insist on being seen. lincoln had an escort later on. he would be awake quite early, drink coffee, eat an egg, and leave without telling his escort that he was departing. so they not only thought their job was kind of boring, but also they were frustrated that lincoln was not clearly communicating with them if and i would match there would have to

be serious security concerns for more recent presidents including the obamas and the clintons. >> there were, and the vineyard was an interesting paradox. access to it is relatively easy to control, and both the clintons and the obamas stayed in parts of the island where they were in houses that were isolated on large areas of open land around them. and it was easy for the secret service to set up a perimeter and make sure 245i could control access. the flip side of that is that the three largest towns on the island oak bluffs, vineyard town, are incredibly geographically small and densely packed. so that when the clintons,

especially went downtown to go shopping the secret service were faced with trying to control an incredibly small space full of people and having to virtually shut down the -- not just a block or two, but the entire town in order to have have some hope of controlling access to the president and the first family. which in both of the cases of the clintons and the balms -- obamas, shutting down the town and inviensing the rest of us, which they do a serious of responses oh, right welcome line the tourists don't do that every

summer, at least we get to have the president and the family stay here so get over yourself, but it went off without a hitch and no one wound up with a hol in their hat that went there when he got up in the morning. absolutely, that cemetery is known as the first national cemetery and it is the easiest way to think about it is across the street from the cottage. it is about 200 yards north from the front door and during the civil war over 4,000 people were buried there. union soldiers, largely. it works out to about 30 soldiers per week. that means he was fashioned in an extremely direct way with the

consequences of his decision and the impact of the war on the real human beings around him. we know he would walk through the cemetery on a reck lar pay sis. that cemetery is still there. it filled up in the civil war. they ran out of space. >> we have time for one more question and that is for all of our panelists. what is one special aspect or characteristic of your presidential site that makes it a special presidential retreat. if you could say there was just one thing that made it a special retreat, what would you say. who wants to start us off?

claire is first. >> i think it is the connection to the outdoors and the environment. and a sense when you are there, i think, you know politics aside the thing that the respect the most about hoover is that he lived his convictions. he was a an of conviction, not necessarily of convenience. it is completely unpretentious, and unconnected to the water, the sounds of the water, the wind, the plants, the whole surrounding. so i would say his connection to the outdoors is the thing that you feel the most when you're in camp.

beau? i think it is something that i eluded to, it encompasses both absolutely trackless, peaceful, undeveloped wilderness and the most -- especially in the summer, the most incredibly vibrant bustling social life you can imagine. and at any given moment when you're on the island it can be whatever you need it had to be in that moment. if you want to be able to just be alone with your thoughts and be completely cut off -- if you want to be with people and feel that energy as president clinton so often did, you're an easy drive from town where you can be part of incredible excitement

and energy. it's all up to how you feel and how yes get up in the morning. >> i think that -- i also have something intangible. it is a strong sense of peace and rootedness, and the -- we call it the lincoln shiver. you can feel it when you're here. that he was here and that this is, that this place, was a powerful place for him. and i think one of the most striking indications of that is that when he came out here he was in his mid 50s. and yet within a couple of months he had an absolutely radical idea for how to move forward with what was facing the nation. i don't know what it is about being here, but it was being

here that helped make that happen. and we can, you know, we can make inferences about what it was. but part of it was being here. so while they were not carefree while they were here at the cottage, they found a place they could be themselves. >> you're watching american history tv every weekend here on c-span 3. created by america's cable television companies and we're brought to you by these television company that's provide american history tv to viewers as a public service. >> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what is available every weekend on c-span three.

tonight, daniel dreisbach talks about due process and the separation of powers. the talk is the start of a night-long slate of programs hosted by the museum of the bible in washington dc. watch tonight beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern and enjoy american history tv every weekend on c-span 3. >> i'm the curator here and it is a great pleasure to introduce you to this amazing man, this amazing exhibition, and the journey that we're going to take through early american art and history. he was a german naturalist who basically was one of the most