he speaks at a book store live at 7:00 p.m. eastern. prime time schedule, starting at 8:30 p.m. eastern on c-span ben bernanke and former treasury secretary, tim geithner and paulsen talk about the 2008 economic crisis. >> c-span's "washington journal" live every day with news and policy issues that impath you. saturday morning, a look at the

local, state and federal disaster response director of the center of health and homeland security at the university of maryland and in our spotlight on magazine segment, adam harris reviews his article on the free college movement. and "washington post" health reporter will discuss the u.s. senate's bipartisan opioid legislation. watch "washington journal" live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. and bob woodward is joining us on monday at 7:00 a.m. and ken star will be with us to discuss his book "contempt". >> c-span "cities tour" explores the american story. this weekend, we take you to selected presidential homes to see how these chief executives lived before, during and after

their time in office. our two-office begins at the home of our third president, thomas jefferson. >> if you had visited month cello 20 years ago, you would ave seen jefferson and that lines the

plantation streets as well as rooms attached to the house just behind us. so all of this is part of an effort to shift the focus away from jefferson and talk about the dozens of other people who made his life possible. right now, we are actually just near jefferson's main house, the mansion that he built throughout his life and this is the main plantation street. 1,300 feet through archeology and documentary research we know these work shops lined streets. and severalervants,

work shops were supervised by jefferson and members of his family. this is the hub of industry of monticello wasn't just this mountaintop but 5,000 acre plantation and that is about eight square miles. this plantation is enormous. the center of activity is really here. you would have seen carriages coming up and down this road. you would have heard chickens, dogs. you would have smelled smoke in the air. you would have heard hammers and saws. there were dozens of people here white and plaque, free and enslaved all working for jefferson's plantation. jefferson's recordkeeping he owned 607 human beings in his lifetime. but 130 to 10 slaves would have been working at monticello and

not just at the mountaintop but the surrounding farms as well. ut this is a dynamic and fluid space where enslaved people were coming and going and living in different areas. and jefferson interacted with them in different ways. but it wasn't like he was isolated here on his mountaintop. rides not take daily only to remind people that he was the owner but also he had the knowledge of what was going on across these eight square miles. this was an experiment for jefferson. this plantation street was very unique in the larger context of virginia plan takes. he wanted it to be an experiment as a way to reform slavery and he wanted to do that by imparting trade to enslave people. rather than just being field

labororers, they could come up here and learn a skill, blacksmithing, carpentry, house joining. these are a few of the many skills. and jefferson considered this an improvement over being out in the fields with wheat or tobacco or the other crops. if you come here and you know that jefferson is the author of the declaration, the words, all men created equal, he owned 600 slaves, he looks pretty bad. but in jefferson's mind, he wasn't a hypocrite because he believed he was making changes to the institution of slavery that would pave the way to and litigation. he is trying to reform it and alleviate material conditions and he's changing housing and he that this is a gradual will result in emancipation.

we know more about monticello than any other plantation. we know about the enslaved here than anywhere else. and we have been able to put together the most comprehensive portrait of life for enslaved people during jefferson's time but beyond it as well. and that lends a unique and human portrait to what slavery was here both as horrific and could rose i have institution but as a way of emphasizing humanity of enslaved people and were able to preserve themselves and their families even within the bounds of enslavement. is is part of a very large family at monticello. 80 people. nd she was the daughter of

elizabeth hemmings and years after his wife's death, jefferson fathered six children sali hemmings was part of an inheritance. slaves were property and could be inherited through marriage as well as being bought and sold. when jefferson married his wife martha in 1772 she was the daughter of a wealthy slave trader. d through john wales that he inherited 135 slaves and sali was inherited. she was born on the eastern shore and arrived here in about 1773 or 1774. sali was a person who is shrouded in mystery because we

know so little about her. there are only four references to her, the descriptions of her that exist in the last 200 years. jefferson himself never wrote about her explicitly. so she remains a mysterious figure. but what is important to emphasize, she was related to jefferson's wife. and she was martha wails half sister and may have resembled jefferson's wife. in 1784, jefferson took up a post in paris as a trade ambassador. he was trying to forge treaties with the french ap other countries so the u.s. could survive in the wake of the american revolution. he wanted to have his daughters with him. and he wanted to have martha and his youngest daughter. an he also wanted someone --

enslaved woman or girl to accompany on the long passage across the atlantic and the young sali hemmings accompanied them to paris. sali came and lived with jefferson and his two daughters in paris. and that may have been the beginning of their relationship or however you want to describe it was in paris. and according to sali's son madison, she became pregnant by jefferson in paris and it was there that she extracted a very important promise from him and that was if she returned to virginia with him and bore the child that in the future, all of her children would be freed. this is a huge decision for her, because when she was on french soil, she was considered free.

if she remained in paris, she could have been a free woman. but because of what we think transpired, in other words this promise she extracted from jefferson, she came back here and when jefferson died, all of his children were freed. sali and thomas jefferson controversy has been won that has been going on for over 200 years, but i think one thing that we really want to do now in the current initiative that we are embarking here on the mountaintop is to focus on sali herself and divide her from thomas jefferson and that controversy and focus on her as a person because i think in the 200-year debate, she has been there for jefferson and never been seen in her own light. and we want to restore her humanity. we are standing inside what

are sali's quarters either this space or the other one to the west. perhaps she is doing meppeding of her clothes or cooking the last meal of the day or sitting around and sharing stories of their day and their past. typical family activities that would have gone on in this space. >> behind me what you see is the restoration of monticello's south wing. 1802 and was built in held slave quarters and domestic servants. after jefferson died and monticello was sold, it was actually rebuilt a couple times by a family in the 19th century. 1940's, the thomas jefferson foundation restored the south wing and what they thought was

expansive appearance, they cook's the kitchen, house and put in closed quarters. as much as this material we have been removing over the past couple of months and we are restoring the spaces, this is a more accurate representation. and we know that because there are physical and documentary evidence that tells us very specifically what jefferson wanted and even draws a plan to scale. so it is tremendous evidence that shows how big the rooms were and what the rooms were used for. we know what were the dairy and the slave quarters and the smoke house. what was exciting, we removed that 1940's material and found physical traces of where these walls would have been placed and we can put them back. on the chimney stack we have remains of the plaster that we know was there in jefferson's

time because he asked his workmen to plaster this space. his is perhaps the jefferson where enslaved families would have cooked a quick evening meal. and also wonderful evidence of what the floors looked like. small detail, but we are dedicated to getting as much of this. this is are the 1802 bricks and they are laid on edge which is a little particular and able to restore the floor very, very accurately. we have bricks the same size and lay them the exact same way. there is evidence of where the partitions were that divided the two spaces and carp enters have put it back, but they have aligned the steel plates of what e call -- here is where a stud

would have sat upon the stonewall in jefferson's time and the when the stud goes away, what is left is this gap in the finishes that tells us where the stud would have been. so able to put it back. and see we have this on the other side of the fireplace that shows where the wall would have sat against the fireplace. we are -- even though typical carpenter would like to have a straight wall, we are putting it back out of square because that's the way evidence is telling us. what is going on right now, craftsmen from a local restoration company are putting up the timber frame. we know the size of timber frame from jefferson documents tells us how big the studies should be 4 by 3 inches.

they have prepared the framing sitehe site and brought on and split up. what is going on right now, they are fighting it into it and securing everything and putting up bricks for the slave quarters and siding like you see behind me in the kitchen for the dairy.

tch is one -- i call it gray silt and it has a lot of art facts mixed in. all of that trash they are bringing in with the dirt, they are pulling in that are contains what archeologyists have been able to find. pins and thembles, tuth brush heads. a lot of great art facts that will will give us a sense of how people lived on the mountaintop. in addition, what they also found was evidence of the first kitchen and it changed over time. they have come down upon the original fireplace where jefferson's early meals, where they lived in the room above for several years until the house

was ready to move in. that fireplace was uncovered. nd a very high style kitchen appliance that would let jefferson's cut, high style rench cuisine. we suspected he had a sous stove. he draws it on a document in the 17 70's, but we don't know if it was built. but tremendous evidence survived f this stove, four-burner sous stove and this structure down below. the archeologyists have removed as much as the material they are going to and they are cleaning up the site for final photos and documentation so you can see them cleaning behind the bricks and they have measured everything in.

it is intensive process but allows us to gather and record as much information on the site as possible that can be analyzed in the future. we expect to complete the exterior perhaps by later this spring and the interior, we are working on the plans and should be open to the public by october of 2018. we have finished the restoration of the south wing. visitors can experience more at monticello to understand how it functioned in the plantation context. but we are very, very excited hemmings' k sali uarters. it's important to remember that

monticello isn't a home on a mountain but a plantation. eight square miles and the majority of the people lived here were african-americans. important to remember as you look at this home, most of the labor that went into the building of this home was done by enslaved african-americans. jefferson did hire several white workman. he was assisted by several craftsmen. monticello was his home for his entire life. he was born on this plantation in 1743, just three miles away from where he built this home. he inherited this plantation from his father. he was inherted this land as well as the slaves his father owned and jefferson is going to decide to build on this mountaintop at a very young age.

this was his home the entire life and trying to use that plantation to make money like most of the virginia plantation owners. he has crash crops and tobacco and wheat. he had mixed success in turning a profit off of this plantation. but this is the center of his home life as well. throughout his retirement years once the house was complete, this home is filled with his family members, his daughter and her husband move into this home. this was a home filled with family members as well as guests. throughout his retirement years as a very public official and as somebody who gained fame for not only being president in the united states but wrote the declaration of independence, he would have hosted perpetual rounds of company. guests would have come into this room where we are right now, the

hall. they may have had to wait in this hall. we have a lot of accounts from those guests of their visit to monticello for them this would have been something new that they didn't expect. one guest referred to the strange furniture. another guest called this room cluttered. jefferson sets this up as a museum or a cabinet of curiosities and filled this room with things that he thinks are interesting that interest him, but also influential people and ideas in the creation of this country. jefferson had maps of all the known nents. he had natural history specimens of animals in north america, fossilized bones and american indian artifacts that had been t back to him from lewis and

clarke, diplomatic gifts they exchanged to the pacific ocean and back. e had busts of influential thirst. of ven had hamilton, a bust hamilton here in this hall which he sat on the opposite side of the room as a bust of himself. they would be opposed in death as in life. we don't know the real answer. perhaps it was a political hunting trophy, jefferson won in the political battle versus hamilton by becoming president of the united states. the dining room is one of the brighter things of monticello because of the paint on the walls. would have been located on the north side of the house which would have been the coldest and

darkest. breakfast would be served each more than morning and dinner at 4:00 in the afternoon. that wasn't very famous for his political use of food. when he was president, he would multiple times a week invite politicians to dine in small dinner parties at his home both democratic and republicans, his party, but also his adversaries, federalists, they would come on separate nights. but jefferson used the conversation to talk about politics but also other things of the day, philosophy, religion. he preferred kind of private intimate affairs where conversation could really come to life. and monticello dining room, there are a number of conveniences that would limit the number of places that people would be required for the dinners. the food would come in through a

side door with revolving shelves so the enslaved waiters bringing the food from the kitchen underneath the house wouldn't be coming in or exiting. they could put the food outside the room and the butler could turn the door and bring the food into the room. the wine cellar was loathed beneath the dining room. and jefferson had built into the mantle wine dumbwaiters and the wine could be delivered straight up the side of the fireplace. using these contraptions to limit the coming and going of enslaved servants but behind the work to make the dinner possible. the south side of the house is really devoted to private family spaces and private spaces for

jefferson. and he had kind of his own private apartment on the south side of the house and consisted of three separate rooms, his cabinet, what we would call an officer study, his library and his bed chamber. and the bed chamber would be of those three spaces, the most private space. that is where jefferson would wake in the morning with the sun and he would begin his day each day with a cold foot bath and begin to read and respond to letters before breakfast and the space where he would return in the evening for a few hours of reading before bed as well. the other thing about jefferson's bed chamber, it's where he passed away at the age of 83, which is one of the more remarkable stories. jefferson died on july 4, 1826, which was the 50th anniversary

of the adoption of the declaration of independence that he was the primary author of. jefferson's death is a very sad time at monticello for many different reasons. jefferson struggled with debt his whole life. he died about $107,000 in debt, which is many millions of dollars in today's money. and the family was unable to keep monticello and had to sell the land, many of the furnishings in the home and they . d to sell about 130 enslaved one of the slaves on the plantation recalled that jefferson's death was a time of great uncertainty among the enslaved community and you can imagine the people here would be worried at the death of thomas jefferson meant that their families would be split apart.

which happened in many cases. the property in the 1830's would be bought by a man named levy who was one of the first noble officers of jewish faith. his family began the process of tracking down some of the in inal objects of the home 1923, it was his nephew who sold this property to the thomas jefferson foundation, which continues to own monticello as a nonprofit museum and has since 1923. one of the things that we are striving to bring back here to the guest experience at monticello is a sense that it is more than just this house on the hill. the house is incredibly well preserved and we want people to walk in jefferson's footsteps and want them to understand that

monticello had 200 people living here during jefferson's time and most of them were enslaved. during the past several years we are restoring the landscape. if you look down on mulberry row and there was life there and if you tour the south wing and the north wing, you will see that this was a home for the people that jefferson enslaved here as well and that it was their work made monticello what it was and made jefferson who he was. when people leave monticello, i hope they get a sense of the complexity of jefferson and how relevant his story is to the nation that we became. created an all men are equal.

he's a man who truly believed that government should be representative of the people. en though he was very much a and he had tocrat an optimistic view of our nation and that we could govern ourselves. i hope understand that while monticello was jefferson's life work and always trying to perfect it he viewed the united states as something that never would be perfected and would be a continuing work in progress.

>> look at the little house and say it doesn't look like the wing of a president's house. it has formal similarities to other dependency buildings to other plantations and the questions were lingering and when i got here, there were answers to questions that i asked that i didn't quite fully understand and maybe it's a lillingness to say, i don't understand that. i just don't understand it. but saying i don't understand it. let's look further. we are standing now in the center of the spot where the

original main house stood and it is a preserved foundation. and covered back up while we are not ex casting and that's how we preserve a site. and laid these papers on the ground to give you a sense of the footprint of the house. it laid specifically right over the places where we have ex casted, where they identified the walls and what is in between those spots. this is the 1799 monroe house. see some of the walls that we indicated are marked by these flag stones so you can get a sense of the relationship of this house to this smaller 1818 guest house. there are a couple of dozen

squares. e dug around here last fall. and eventually our research will cover this area and also the able to use we will be tell a lot of the activities and get the house orientation and we don't know whether the main entrance was on this space or the southern space. but we will be able to determine that. the smaller wings to the west that probably is more service oriented, it held a kitchen cellar, we think and the cellar itself, we have not ex casted. we are eager to open it up and have great discoveries there and good evidence of burning. we think the house was destroyed by fire between mid-1830's and

rly 1850's and haven't found newspaper accounts of that destruction which is somewhat surprising and i know someone will come up to me with the missing newspaper account. so i think that will happen, i'm sure. we found a chimney base and burn points and small finds are numerous. ts of nails that have come from monticello and good documentary evidence. lots of wine bottles which are he container of the day. before plastic bottles, glass-wine type bottles were used for all kinds of liquid, storage and transport. lots of those. some ceramics that will tell you

what the monroes were eating off f and the dishes they were eating off. the house continues behind me here and probably goes under the 8 70's house that belongs to the matthew family and continues 20 feet or so underneath that house. that was severely impacted by construction in the 18 70's. but otherwise, part of the house that is not covered by that is well preserved and it is a treasure that i'm eager to get into. james monroe is an interesting character. i is maybe the most popular president of his time and one that is least known today. we have a great challenge and great opportunity here to share

his story. james monroe 1793. and when he was away, he was minister to france during the 1790's and his good friend, thomas jefferson and other good friend james madison set up the plantation prior to him moving here in 1799. monroe and his wife moved here in 1799. james monroe did not grow up in this area. monroe is from westmoreland county and born in 1758 and moved here from fredericksburg where he traveled with his young wife. first they lived that is now on the grounds of the university of virginia and called monroe hill. and this property became available and he saw it as being

closer to jefferson being a larger tract of land and hopefully more productive. he purchased the property in 93 and moved here in 19 -- 1799. he had this property oak hill in loudoun county and he went there more frequently. during monroe's presidency when he came here, he very likely traveled with his wife, sometimes his elder daughter accompanied them and her husband was an important person being a secretary sometimes. and so his family would come. there were general slaved people during his lifetime. he claimed ownership of about 250. not at one time. and the general slaved work force varied in number based on

what was happening. i think that is important to recognize is that monroe's legacy is physically -- i mentioned the two houses and this is the one that is open to the public and he spent time in fredericksburg and time in new york city. he was born in the eastern part of the state. during the main portion of his was his reer, highland home. this represents his ministries abroad where he was minister to france and england and to spain and represents his time as secretary of state and he was a fourth term governor back when that was allowed. he was elected to four individual one-year terms. and he was secretary of state and eventually a wildly popular two-term president.

monroe seemed to be an easy man. hey say he was able to put women at ease in social situations and was kind. people said he had a great sense of humor. we see that in people's accounts of monroe. james monroe went to an academy county and nd prepared men for a professional life. john marshal was one of his classmates there. and after both his parents died, by the time he was 16, his maternal uncle, his first real mentor and role model sent monroe to william and mary where he studied for about two years. and i like the story about

monroe's start where he should have been well prepared really good and well regarded school, but he got there and found he was deficient in one or more of his subjects and wasn't quite ready and disappointed. and he wrote about this later and he went home and studied pretty hard over the summer and worked hard to get where he thought he should be. and when he came back, his professors were impressed and he made the cut and was where he should have been. that is understanding monroe. here at highland, we understood that this house is not the entire monroe main house. we thought it was a part of the main house and thought it was a remnant wing of two reck standing will structure and we

know from documentary sources. and three of them show sketches of two wings put together. and this is one wing. when i started here in 2012, i eally sought to understand the history of the property itself. the wing that is no longer here, we should be able to find traces of it underground and i wasn't satisfied with the sense that we haven't found it. keep looking. and we ex castedal around the main house and it was in the front of that 18 70's house that tall victorian building that we found a big deposit of archeological debris and we opened up larger excavations and found the building that contributed to that debris and find e found to

archeological structures there. but the structures on the property today comes from the different phases of occupation. the monroe period buildings are behind me. the presidential guest house, the building that monroe had built for him when he was president. in 1818 and he was coming here as president, he needed more space. i think when you travel as president, you have more people visiting you. you need more accommodations for people to come with you or come to you. 1818 guest house is one part. and then has a small one room over one room white piece added to the eastern part. and then that connects to this large building this taller yellow building that was from the 18 70's. and the little white piece is from the 1850's.

circular saw marks all around the framing and that is orroborated. . we have an overseers' house and a smoke house. otherwise we have both later monroe buildings and recent construction of buildings. the names and other occupations of about 250 people that were slaved as part of monroe's lifetime owning. and there was a variety of course. one of the things that we really appreciate is getting to know people's names and their specific occupations. for example, in september 6, 1818 letter that james monroe wrote, he talks about building this house, building a presidential guest house and he

mentioned one by name and the other byccupation. . d he speaks of a carpenter and n is peter mallory mentions a man named george who may have been a carpenter or craftsman but knowing these two were in charge of building the house that we still have standing really brings the richness to our understanding of the property and its history. so you see people and the roles they play. we see the connections or not with the monroe family who ultimately may have in certain instances with enslaved people and people with whom they shared space. it is a complex story.

we are still looking. the discoveries we made at highland is not an opportunity re-examine this site but to re-examine. but we are excited to really look back of what we understood on monroe. our research is ongoing and we continue to read and do archeology. two projects which are neither in the field at this moment are the ladgest landscape including the space quarters that we may have discovered there in the field and what we want to do now is really raise the funds for the big phase, the excavation that will take place over the course of a year or years and have it open for a month or two at a time so we can look in and see the whole house open and really get into those cellars

because those are crucial to open those up and see what was in the cellar when the house was destroyed. we think the house was destroyed after the president left and it would have been between 1830's and 1850's. monroe was gone by then and was deceased. we want to open that up and the cellars will tell us when the house was destroyed. we will be tell the finishes of the house, the plaster, the type of wood work and the hardware, the nails. so we have a long season of archeological expedition ahead of us that we are in the development phase to continue the resources to be able to keep it open for a good period of time. we have a lot of work ahead of us and look forward to the time

when archeology is a daily ccurance here. [indiscernible] >> next we travel to concord new hampshire to visit the home of america's 14th president. it is the only home that he ever wned and lived in. >> franklin pierce is the 14th president of the united states and only president from new hampshire. he was a lawyer. and very great politician and lived in the house here from 1842 to 1848 with his wife jean,

two sons. he had resigned his senate seat to come back to concord and be with his family and work on his law practice. he was born in hillsborough on november 23, 1804 in a log cabin. before he was a-year-old, his father moved him into the big mansion in hillsborough. so pierce grew up in very social circumstances with lots of people coming and going and lots of political discussions. he was educated at some of these academies around hillsborough. when he was 16, his father took him up to brunswick maine to go to boudoin college. e made good friends like nathaniel haw thorn and graduated third in his class.

his interest in politics came about when he was very young. his father had a tavern and lots of political discussions on. his father was involved in politics. he was -- represented hillsborough in the state legislature and sheriff in county and ran to be governor twice of new hampshire. and so when he was 23, pierce ran for the legislature, was elected and then when he was 26, he was the youngest speaker of the house that we have ever had in new hampshire. at that time there were 200 members in our house of representatives. today there are 435. so it's a pretty large legislative body. he went on to run for congress. franklin pierce was in the house rom 1833 to 1837 and then went on to run for the senate. and resigned his senate seat.

he served in that maybe four to five years. his wife did not like washington, did not like politics. she was a very shy retiring person. she preferred to be with her family. he was just the opposite. and so i think he decided to give up his senate seat to come back and be with his young family here in concord. and then he was going to work on his law practice to support his family. this house is known as a greek revival house. it was built in 1838 and you see them all throughout concord. quite a common architectural style for this area. we are here in the par lore. and behind me is one of three tenney in 1852 when he was running for

president. he is quite a handsome gentleman and he was known by handsome frank and other one was young hickory of the granite hills since he had the same politics as apped drew jackson. over here on the wall is a copy of a letter that is owned by the college and this is franklin and writing to a friend in the let are arer, they are trying to find a job for nathaniel haw thorn. he was an author and liked to write books and had to support a family. this is an ongoing theme. they were always try to find work for nathaniel so he could support his family. over here on the wall is an order of cincinnati certificate

and franklin pierce is one of three presidents that belongs to this organization. this is the first veterans' organization in our country and it was formed by the officers of the line under george washington, the organization is heard tear and pierce is one of three presidents that belong to the order of cincinnati. george washington, monroe and pierce are the three presidents. there are several pieces of furniture in the house that franklin and jane took to the white house to furnish the eight rooms to be used for their personal life. one is the sofa over here under the portrait. the table in the center of the room was known as the white house table. evidently they were borrowing furniture from friends and relatives to help furnish these eight rooms.

over against the wall is a writing desk and chair that belonged to franklin pierce and he would be up until 3:00 in the morning sometimes answering correspondence and writing speeches sitting in the little chair here. and this room, this is the dining room and in this room, we have the secretary from pierce's law office. when he was through with it, he when he was through with it, he gave it to his law partner and it was in their house when the seum opened, so they gave it to the foundation. he would sit and write at the desk here and have his law books. the books in this case are owned by either jane pierce or franklin pierce and have inscriptions in the front of them.

it has two bedrooms upstairs, there's a back part of the house that had smaller rooms in it that probably were used for the irish girls and the children when they lived here. one of the bedrooms would have been used as a guest room when the guests came, they would stay for extended periods of time. they lived in the house from 1842 to 1848. when pierce came back from the mexican war, the house was sold. during the time they lived here, frankie, the 4-year-old, died of typhus in the bedroom upstairs. and that was a very sad time for the family. when pierce went off to the mexican war, in 1847, he raised 1,000 troops. they made him a brigadier general. they all went down to new port, rhode island, and boarded sailing vessels to go around to mexico.

they spent about a month out on the ocean. the winds died down and they were becalmed. they finally made toyota vera cruise where he fought in a cup veracruz where he fought in a couple of battles. when pierce came back, they sold the house and never owned anything after that. they either rented property or stayed in boarding houses from that point on. in 1852, the democrats were meeting down in baltimore. there were three men that were viing for the nomination and they couldn't seem to make a decision. virginia, on the 35th ballot, nominated franklin pierce and then on the 49th ballot they actually selected him to be the nominee for the democratic party. jane and franklin pierce were riding in a carriage south of boston when the messenger caught

up with them to give them the knews and jane promptly fainted. that was the last thing she wanted. she was very upset to think that they might need to go back down to washington. she was happy just in her life as it was and didn't really want to change. but she realized that pierce would always answer the call if the country asked and so she agreed that he should go ahead and run as the democratic candidate. pierce went home, it was ungentlemanly for the candidate to campaign at that time, and his vice president, william rufus devane king went out and campaigned along with a lot of his friends. they won the election in 1852. and king was ill so he went off to cuba and when it came time for the inauguration, congress had to pass an act for him to take the oath of office on

foreign soil. which he did. he returned to washington two months later and died two or three days after that. so pierce never had a vice president. and there was nothing in place to put someone into that office at that time. so that was kind of a lenly time for him. ierce himself had a tragedy in 1853, in january, they were returning from a funeral down in andover, massachusetts, and the car they were riding in turned around on the track, an axle broke, and it tumbled down the embankment. bennie was the only fatality, he was killed in front of both his parents, right before they were due to go down to washington. so this was devastating to both of them, particularly to jane. she never really recovered from

that. so pierce was left with trying to handle his own grief and to try to shore his wife up and then faced with going down to washington to run the country. so it was a very stressful and difficult time in their lives. pierce's presidency did have quite a few successes. he reduced the national debt by something like 60%. he had trade agreements with canada on fishing treaties and things like that. he actually -- the trade with japan opened up, admiral perry came back and so we began our trade agreements with the ja -- with japan at that point. the southern board over the united states was defined by the gadsden purchase that happened during pierce's time. the army and the navy was

modernized. under the secretary of war jefferson davis who of course went on to be the president of the confederacy during the civil war. pierce was a lawyer and he felt that slavery should be handled with an act of congress, there should be legislation that would prohibit it he wasn't in favor of it. but he was very afraid that the country would split over that. and so his whole focus when he was president was just to try to keep the country together he understood what the hardships of the men fighting in the revolution were to create the country and so he was trying very hard to keep the country together and of course it did split after lincoln was elected. franklin pierce had one term in office and the democratic party did not want him to run again. he had quite a few good

accomplishments, we don't hear too much about those because the kansas-nebraska act which occurred at the end of his presidency, was turned into bloody kansas and was a disaster as far as twrying to achieve what it had -- as trying to achieve what it had hoped to achieve. so they nominated buchanan to be the candidate in the next election cycle. franklin pierce left the presidency, they came back tup new hampshire for a short time -- up to -- back up to new hampshire for a short time, jane was not very healthy, she was still suffering over the death of bennie, and she probably suffered from depression anyway. jane passed away in 1863. and then pierce passed away in 1869. franklin pierce, unfortunately, was not well liked in new hampshire after he left the presidency.

over the kansas-nebraska act. and it took the state a long time before they finally erected a statue on the state house grounds, it was in the early 1900's, that they finally did put up a statue to franklin pierce. so his mark, i don't think, is that much in the state actually. because of the way his presidency ended. we hope that people when they visit the house will have a better understanding of franklin pierce. we'd like them to learn some of the accomplishments of pierce's administration. -- pierce's administration in washington and to understand what he was like as a person and i think deserves a lot of credit for the things he did accomplish hile he was president. >> springwood estate in hyde park, new york, is both the birth place and final resting

place of president franklin roosevelt. located on the hudson river north of new york city, f.d.r. visits springwood numerous times during his presidency. coming up, we'll tour this unique home, hearing the private stories of a very public man. >> this was home. this was where his heart always was he once said to his friends and neighbors , my heart has always been here, it always will be and it was. this is where he always drew strength and happiness throughout his entire life. franklin delano roosevelt, 32nd president of the united states, was born and raised in this house. and he was buried here on the estate as well. roosevelt originally had a different estate, a little bit down the road from this property. and the house burned to the ground in 1865. and then f.d.r.'s father, mr.

james roosevelt, purchased this property to be their new home in the hudson valley. f.d.r.'s parents were james and sara delano roosevelt and mr. james roosevelt had a wife before sara, her name was rebecca howland. she passed away in 1876 and four years later, in 1880, mr. james married sara delano. mr. james roosevelt, when he married sara, was 52 years old and she was 26, she was half his age. and james and sara only had the one child, franklin delano roosevelt. when mr. james roosevelt, f.d.r.'s father, bought this property in 1867, it was a 17-room farm house, about 110 acres of land, with outbuildings, for which he paid

$146,000, which today is the price of a nice car but then it was a large amount of money. the house was enlarged by f.d.r. in 1915 because he had a growing family and he had decided as early as 1907, 25 years before he achieved it, he would become the president of the united states one day he wanted a grander home for a future president. once f.d.r. became active in politics, quite often events one held here like when he announced his intention to run for vice president of the united states. it was that big announcement was held right here. quite often he would bring, once he was president, visiting foreign dignitaries to this house, especially during the war year he felt it was a place where they could get away from the pressure the wartime in europe. so he loved doing that. he was very proud of this house once he had enlarged it in 1915 and many times his political

associates would come here and they'd talk about political strategy and so frt. so it was many times the center of his political life. so let's get to show you the beautiful library-living room, the heart of the house that f.d.r. added when the house was enlarged. this was set up so that there's a glass floor here so people can see the actual ramp f.d.r. himself used to go down the steps. this is the original ramp he would use every time he was here to be able to get into one of his favorite rooms in the house. the library living room was a room that f.d.r. dreamed about adding on to this home when he enlarged it in 1915. as a young man he'd gone on a trip to europe, nb a house like this in england, and had seen a room like this, which he admired

greatly and decided that one day if he did change the house here, that he would have a room like the one he admired so much. well this room was used for entertaining. so when the king and queen of great britain were to come here in june of 1939, f.d.r. wanted to serve before dinner drinks in this room and his mother said that was ok except she didn't think before dinner cocktails really appropriate drink to serve the king and queen. she said tea was the proper british drink, of course they'd want a nice hot cup of tea. when they got here, f.d.r. said to the king , my mother said the proper british drink for me to serve you would be tea but we also have cocktails available. the king said, my mother would have said the exact same thing but i think i will have a cocktail, so that's what he had. you'll see a couple of governors' chairs, f.d.r. was

governor of new york state from 1928-1930, and 1930 to 193 2. heas left the governorship, these two chairs were given to him as gifts. according to his wife eleanor when they visited here he would sit on the chair on the left, his mother used the one on the right and she sat wherever. because this was, as i mentioned earlier, sara roosevelt's home, very much so. over the mantle is a portrait of f.d.r.'s great great grandfather isaac roosevelt who was the man who started the family fortune in the sugar refinery business in new york city. but he was also a member of the provincial congress that ratified the constitution of the united states. so very early on in this nation's history there was a roosevelt in public service and of course it was very inspiring to f.d.r. growing up. you'll notice f.d.r.'s wheelchair here as well. the wheelchair was something he designed himself. kitchen chair, legs cut off,

wheels put on it he loved this wheelchair because when he sat in it, put a blanket over his legs, you could barely tell it was a wheelchair he never used to sit in the wheelchair for any long period of time. it was used to get from room to room. when he would come into this room, he would get off that chair and onto that chair right next to the desk and that's where he would spend his time. f.d.r. contracted polio at the age of 39 in the year 1921. they think he picked up the polio virus at a boy scout camp he was speaking at that summer at bear mountain state park, which is just south of us here. they think that because several children who had attended that boy scut camp also came down with polio. so speaking to the boys there, he spent a little time at the mp and then he went to campabello island, the roosevelt's summer home off the

coast of maine and a few days after arriving at campabello, he didn't feel well he thought he was come do you think with a minor bug he decided to go to bed early, he walked up the steps to the second floor, that was the last time he would ever walk unaided again. when he swoke up the next morning he could barely stand, within a couple of day he is couldn't stand at all. you can imagine how devastating that must have been for him he didn't know what he had, didn't know if it was a permanent condition. for the first time in his life, f.d.r. knew what fear and despair were, he knew what loss was. he had lost the use of his legs. up until that time, f.d.r. really had the charmed life. he had a wonderful home, wonderful family, he had a comfortable lifestyle. but after that, he would understand what people during the great depression were feeling when they had lost everything, they homes, they jobs, their life savings.

he would understand those feelings of loss and despair. in fact, eleanor roosevelt, his wife, was once asked, did the polio affect your husband mentally? and she said, yes, it did. because it's only when someone who has gone through the kind of suffering that my husband has that they can understand and relate to the problems of mankind, and after the polio f.d.r. certainly could understand that. he came back here to his home after spending a lot of time in the hospital in the city, hoping that if he did enough physical therapy here, he perhaps could get back the use of his legs. one of the ways he tried to exercise his legs if he possibly could was to walk using the braces on his leg which weighed about seven pounds each, and crutches, from here down to the entrance road right down to route 9 which was quite a walk. he never made it all the way down. he would collapse about three quart orse they have way down because it was quite an effort.

with dragging that 14 pounds of steel on him as he was trying to go down the roadway. in later years, he found a place in warm springs, georgia, someone told him about the mineral waters in warm springs that perhaps would help him with his legs. and so he tried that treatment. and for a number of years he used to go regularly to warm springs, would spend quite a bit of time there. and he always hoped that that would perhaps eventually help him. but he was never able to walk again after the polio. however, he was always trying to find a cure for polio and it was f.d.r.'s -- f.d.r. as president of the united states at the time when the march of dimes started where money was raised to try to get research going for polio and that is actually why today you have the f.d.r.'s face on the

dime because that was the way they were trying to raise funds to try to find the cure to end this horrible illness. down the hallway, leading into the north wing of the house, just off that hallway, is the study that f.d.r. used in this house. and this is a really interesting room. there's a lot of history here because this is where f.d.r. would meet with heads of state that came to visit here. and it's really, i would say the most historic room in the house. because this is where f.d.r. and prime minister winston churchill initialed a document called the hyde park aide memoir. this is the document that talked about the atomic bomb, future uses of the atomic bomb, possible use against the

japanese, and also keeping the development of the atomic bomb secret from the russians. but it was also a fun room because this is where f.d.r. loved to have cocktails, normally, before dinner. he loved to call the cocktail hour the children's hour. based on the henry wadsworth longfellow poem, called it the children's hour, where he could bring people together to relax, have fun, and talk about his different little stories that he enjoyed telling, his little tales. and where he would pix mix the cocktails himself. another thing he could do independently, which he loved, and it was a time where he could just relax. and be f.d.r., the person, not necessarily the president of the united states. so after the polio, certainly this house posed a bit of a challenge for franklin roosevelt

because there were a lot of steps here. we talked about the ramp going down into the library-living room, but there's a big set of stairs here. and to get up these stairs would have been difficult unless he was crawling up the steps on a regular basis. but there was actually a lift here. and it had been put in prior to f.d.r.'s contracting polio. it was a trunk elevator that was used for steamer trunks because the roosevelts, as people in their social class normally would do, they'd go on trips to europe and had big, huge steamer trunks filled with clothes. so it was difficult to move them up and down. that's why they installed this lift. and it was actually a hand operated lift, kind of like a dumbwaiter type thing. and so when f.d.r. contracted polio it would have been a great way for him to get from floor to floor.

now, the suggestion was that perhaps he should have it motorized rather than use it as it was. but f.d.r. did not want to have it motorized because the man who said there's nothing to fear but fear itself had a real fear of fire. and he was worried that if there was ever motorized lift put in here and there was a fire in the house, he could -- he could die trying to escape. so he felt that this would be a much safer way to operate and he loved it. because it gave him a real feeling of independence. f.d.r.'s fear of fire came early on in his life because when he was a little by, he was 2 1/2 years old , he and his mother had gone to the delano family estate, his mother's family estate in newberg, new york, for a party. and while they were there, his aunt laura was getting ready for the party and she was using a

curling iron that was heated over an alcohol lamp. she knocked it over, the flames caught her clothes on fire she ran screaming out of the house, and she died as a result of the fire on her clothes and so he remembered that growing up. and also as a little boy at one point there was a small fire here in this house, which he and his dad put out, around the dining room area. so it was something that remained with him throughout his life. this fear that there was going to be an awful fire in here. he and his mother were very close. actually, he was very close to his dad as well but his father died when franklin was only 18 years old. so his mother became the main person in his life. eleanor and sara roosevelt had an interesting relationship over time. i mean when she and f.d.r. were first married, eleanor roosevelt looked upon sara as the mother

she really never had. and so they were i would say pretty close in the beginning. and sara kind of helped helped eleanor with the running of the household basel nor roosevelt had no idea how to run a household or raise children and sara was very good at that. so she kind of took over and then when eleanor roosevelt became more independent, she kind of wanted to take over the running of her own household and so there were two strong women here trying to kind of take control, so it led to some -- glitches in their relationship. and you have to remember, eleanor roosevelt was pretty much living in her mother-in-law's home. it was not her home. eleanor roosevelt had a very loving relationship with her father, elliot roosevelt, who was theodore roosevelt's younger brother.

but she didn't have such a good relationship with her mother. her mother was a very beautiful woman, felt that eleanor roosevelt wasn't pretty enough as a little girl. she made fun of her. so eleanor roosevelt was pretty much alienated from her mother. both of her parents died by the time eleanor roosevelt was 10 years old. she really didn't have a good example of being a good mom. so that's why when she had her own children, it was a little bit difficult for her to adjust to motherhood. they had actually six children. many times it's only mentioned that they had five because one child died as an infant of about 8 months of age. all the rest grew to adults. but eleanor roosevelt lost a child and it was devastating for her. we're on the second floor of the roosevelt home and on the right hand side are pretty much guest rooms and on the left hand side

are family rooms. and when this house was enlarged, they had to put in an extra long hallway here because they added this wing, which is over the library-living room of the house, and this wing that we'll be looking at momentarily was meant to be a suite of rooms for franklin and eleanor roosevelt to use but at one point his mother sara moved into that section with them. we are in the bedroom of franklin and eleanor roosevelt. once f.d.r. contracted polio, according to eleanor roosevelt, she moved into the room next door which was originally kind of like a dressing room, sitting room for this section of the house for her. and she did this because once he had polio he really needed a manservant to get him out of bed, dressed, undressed and so forth. so for her, for privacy reason

she said she needed to move next door. historians speculate that eleanor roosevelt moved into the next room after she discovered that f.d.r. had a relationship with her social secretary, lucy mercer. and she felt that she didn't want to be in the same room with him so she moved next door. you'll notice that next to the bed, there are a couple of phones. there's one on the little table next to the bed and then there's the one on the wall. the one on the wall is really an important phone because that was the direct line to the white house. so f.d.r. could pick up that phone and he would get the white house telephone operator, louise hackmeister, or hackie, as they called her so it was right within reach for him, which was great. in this room there was a little chair that his little famous

scottie dog used to sleep on. that was his special little spot n this big room. it was a a room where f.d.r. in the mornings would meet with staff he used to spend time in bed looking at the papers first and then have a quick meeting with any member os of his cabinet or staff that he needed to, so it was convenient for him. that's why there are chairs in here, so they could sit and talk to the president here. this room has a wonderful view of the hudson river and that was important to f.d.r. he loved the hudson river. it was one of the best things about the hudson valley for him this beautiful river that ran behind his house where he learned to sail a boat as a little boy. by the time he was 8 years old, he could sail a boat on the hudson river. so any time spent on boats or ships was wonderful to him. and in fact he used to say that

his favorite job next to being the president of the united states was when he was assistant secretary of the navy under president woodrow wilson because it gave him a lot of opportunity to spend time on ships. in fact, even in this room, he has something that is naval related because up above the doorway here is the commission that made him assistant secretary of the navy, signed by resident woodrow wilson. below the commission, there's a doorway that led to eleanor roosevelt's bedroom. we have moved into eleanor's room, it's small, there's not much in here. eleanor roosevelt eventually had her own little rere-treat at valkyll, as she called it, on the eastern end of the roosevelt estate. it was a place that f.d.r. built for her on land he owned. and after that point in her life

which happened around 1926, she began to use that more and more often. whenever she came to hyde park without f.d.r., she'd spend days and nights there. if she came to hyde park with f.d.r. she'd spend days there, nights might be spent back here. but to her that was finally her own home in hyde park. she really never felt at home in this house. this was her mother-in-law's house. and she used to say for 40 years she was just a visitor here. so she loved that little stone cottage at valkyll which she basically shared with a couple of her political mentors, nancy cook and marion dickerman and later on she had a building that she originally had built as a furniture factory converted into a retreat for herself. so that was really the place that she loved to be more than any other place here in hyde park.

so at the end of this holloway is a cute little painting of f.d.r. as a little boy. he had long hair until he was about 5 years old. and his mother loved his long hair on him and they say she cried when they cut his hair short. but it's just -- just the cutest little thing that a lot of visitors see and they are wondering who that little girl is, well, it's not a little girl, it was f.d.r. as a little boy. in this wing of the house there's franklin roosevelt's bedroom, eleanor roosevelt's bedroom and sara roosevelt's bedroom and they're all connected by doors. so they could walk into any room whenever they wanted just by opening a door. when sara roosevelt built a townhouse for franklin and eleanor roosevelt as a christmas gift she added -- she had it built in 1906 in new york city,

that place had connecting doors from one apartment to the next because sara roosevelt built that building as a due flex. she would live in half of it and franklin and eleanor roosevelt lived in the other half. and there was connecting doors on various levels so that sara could pop into their section whenever she wanted to unannounced which made eleanor roosevelt not happy. she wrote about this townhouse and you could kind of read between the lines, where she just mentioned that it wasn't a great thing where sara was living right next to them and she decorated their part of the townhouse and so forth. and i would imagine that she was not happy to be in a wing of the -- of this house where sara could also open the door way from her bedroom into eleanor roosevelt's bedroom or early on,

franklin and eleanor roosevelt's shared bedroom, whenever she wanted to. when she moved into this section of the house, she moved all the furniture out of the room where franklin roosevelt was born into this room. and then the birth room, as we call it, was used as a guest room. so this then became in essence the master bedroom to the house. and then after sara died she had left a note that she wanted to have birth room furniture put back into the room where f.d.r. was born because she knew that f.d.r. had planned to turn this place over to the national park service and have it open to the public and she want the room to appear as it was when he was born in it. so this then became more of a guest bedroom after that point. sara roosevelt passed a i way in september of 1941. and they say that right after she died, a giant oak tree fell

over on the property. it's almost a symbolism of she's gone and boom, that's kind of the end of a very important part of the story of this estate, sara's life here. after sara died, it was hard for f.d.r. to come back here because his mom would always be at the front door on the front porch, greeting him when he came up the steps. i mean, it was devastating for him. he was so close to his mother that for him something really important went out of his life. so as much as he loved this house when he came back here he felt that loss, the emptiness of this house without sara's very strong presence in it. franklin roosevelt died in april of 1945. and she died in september of 1941. so she was really around for most of his life. it was a terrific loss when she

passed away. f.d.r. loved this home from the time he was born here until the time he died he loved it so much that he wanted the american people and people throughout the world to come here and understand what it meant for him to be born and raise here and what influenced him when he was growing up and how it perhaps translated into some of the thing he is did as president of the united states. he gave this house to the american public. he made arrangements while he was president to have this given to the national park service eventually. so it was his hope and dream that people would come here and learn about him as a person and as president of the united tates. >> america's 33rd president escapes life in washington, d.c. by visiting what he calls the little white house in key west, florida.

next we take you there as we hear the stories of of how president truman spends his time t this historic retreat. ♪ >> the little white house got its name partly through an accident. partly through just the fact that franklin roosevelt had had a little white house. in our particular case president ruman was at everglade city, dedicating the jer glades national park in december -- the

everglades national park in 1947 and the press started yells at -- yelling at the president, are you going to come back to florida? they said -- and he said of course i'm coming back, i have a little white house here. so the -- they took it as he was returning so they pained the gray house white. >> i'd like to welcome you to the little white house. it was built as the navy commander's home back in 1890. it served a number of various commanders over almost a 100-year span but it was slightly interrupted by

presidents taft and franklin roosevelt andujarry truman and dwight eisenhower and john kennedy and jimmy carter and bill clinton and the department of state and the department of defense so we seem to have a continuum through american history. this building was the largest building on the naval base. this was 9,000 square feet. and consequently it was built originally as the paymaster and commander's home but by 1911 our new base commander realized things were getting snug so he merged it into a single dwelling of almost 9,000 square feet and at that time, key west was the command headquarterers in seventh naval district which covered everything from key west to charleston and admir -- and admiral chesterny mits is here inspecting the base -- chester nimitz is here inspecting the

base. and he finds that the commander has moved to smaller quarters because he's a bachelor and doesn't want to bounce around this large space. nimitz is here, sees the large house sitting empty is impressed by the top secret research being is in key west, he washington and hears the president has a hacking cough. he said, i have the perfect vacation venue, it's warm, it's secure, i'm sure, mr. president, you would love key west. that's why the president came. he came strictly for a week of r&r. they're rest, swimming, soaking up the sun and the president is writing to his wife say, what a fabulous place it's turned out to be, that his cold has disappeared in just a week's time and as he leaves key west after that first week, he

promised our city commissioners whenever i get tired i will be back. 12 weeks later, he's back. so each november and december and each february and march the president would take up residence a week, two weeks, three weeks, a month at a time and the little white house literally becomes the functioning white house for the united states. president truman on his very first vacation to key west is invited by the navy to go out on a capture jer -- a captured german sub. so president truman and 16 of his closest staff go out on this captured german sub. the captain of the sub is a missouri native so they felt every bit of confidence that he would look after them. and of course as fate would have it they submerged to 450 feet and the sub springs a leak. the staff wrote in the official logs, which do happen to be on our website, that they weren't

the least bit concerned because we have a missouri captain they knew he would look out for them but on the next breath they also were denying submariners that extra 50-cents or dollar an hour that they earned in pay because it obviously was a very hazardous job and so after a time the instruments re-engage and they slowly go to the surface and they crack the hatches and president truman's staff scramble up and sit down on the wet deck awaiting the president he walks up and sees them all sitting there with soaking wet trousers and says, i see you're hiding your lack of apprehension sitting in the puddles. president truman started coming here in 1946. the navy really had not put any money into fixing the place up. by 1949, the president had already been here four times and following the defeat of tom dewey, the navy realized the president would be coming back

much more often. -- the ed the premier premiere interior decorator at the time in miami beach, mr. lassiter he made no consultuation the president he simply wanted to create a timeless venue, something that would be acceptable to the guests that would be coming to see the president and he picked colors that were popular at the time. grays, wall, taupe, tomato red. the house of course had 20 years of admirals living in it from 1953 to 1974. so many of the things that had been done for truman were discarded. it was our task to restore the house as it was and of course although we had the records of what was bought, they didn't necessarily tell us who it was from. so we found this fabric that is

shown in the drapes and on the couch, turned out to be a waverly print. none of us knew that. we happened to find a scrap of this fabric on ebay, we found 200 yards of fabric, we ended up needing 187 yards to complete the task. the paintings on the wall, i had been led to believe were stolen. until one day we found a notation that they'd been loaned by the naval academy. well the naval academy had no idea what i was talking about. and so finally we found the list of collection numbers from the truman library. we approached the naval academy for the paint, they informed me they were worth $1 million and we were definitely not the president and we weren't getting them. they shot high resolution scans so all the paintings are exactly as they are in the photographs when president truman was here in the house. so the little white house is a very, very pure restoration to

the time when president truman was using it as his little white house. at the moment we are in president truman's living room, his library, during the daytime it was his office. every evening it became a movie theater. he has a staff of 59, seven are playing poker so what do you do with the rest of them? they ran first run films here in the living room. now there's many neat things about the little white house. and the living room is someone iconic in the number of pieces that are actually connected with president truman. ♪ his piano is in the corner, now rarely did the piano -- did the president have the piano here in key west. he had instead that piano came on board the presidential yacht, the u.s.s. williamsburg.

so on occasion it could be brought into the house, and that was the way it was when the president was here as president. president truman was an extremely talented musician. at the age of 6 they found he had incredible musical talent and he enrolled in music lessons for the next 10 years. they expected him to become a concert pianist and around the age of 15, 16 , he dropped out of the lessons saying he's not quite good enough. the truth of the matter is, we believe he dropped out of lessons to save the family the cost, the expense. but he regularly played the piano and he loved to play mozart and chopin from memory so he's an extremely fine pianist. in 1953, the u.s.s. williamsburg, the presidential yacht, was decommissioned. president eisenhower felt it was a luxury he didn't need. being a navy vessel, the art facts from the ship were scattered. in 1964, about 10 years later, our base commander, admiral

kern, put out a directive, i want the piano. amazingly, admirals get what they want. they found the piano in storage in birminghammington, washington, had it shipped back to key west, had it restored and president truman on a post-presidential visit was surprised to find his old piano in the little white house. this is where the president came to relax. now, the president told everyone he was on vacation. working vacations but on vacation in key west. it turns out it was all a lie. both the president and his staff were lying to each other. harry would get up on vacation at 7:00 in the morning, read a newspaper, come downstairs, have a glass of orange juice with a shot of bourbon. he would then go out walking 10 blocks for -- at a pace of 128 paces a minute, that's cardio if

ever i heard of it. and then he'd take up his position at this little desk. every day or every other day, very large mail bags would arrive via courier and they would contain correspondence, legislation, sometimes the books the president asked to have brought from -- brought to key west. the president would run the country from this degree. after several hours the president would insist they'd all go swimming, and it was important that his staff rest. the staff were working behind his back thinking at least the president is relaxing. and the president was doing the same thing because every night he'd take a stack up -- stack of work up to his bedroom working into the wee hours. it came to a head when he wrote to his cousin, the vacation is a farce, i'm signing my name 200 to 600 times a day on vacation. the work of the president never

ends. it foe lo -- it follows you no matter where you go. which brings back this iconic symbol. the buck stops here. harry truman made it quite famous because he believed that all responsibility ends at the president's desk. the only person that the president of the united states can pass responsibility to is to god. it comes from the wild west. in the wild west, a bone handled knife a buck knife, was placed in front of the dealer. when it wasn't your turn or you didn't want the responsibility, you passed the buck. the buck knife. to the next dealer. that's who indicated the dealer. well, harry truman, being a poker player, would know that. so the buck stops here is the sign that ended up on his desk. this is one of multiple copies the president received. the original one of course is at his library in independence, missouri. the one thing though that people

rarely get to see is the back of the sign. the back of the sign says, i'm from missouri. why is that important? it reminded harry truman don't ever get a swelled head, don't think you're better than the people that elected you, because one of these days you'll be going back home. andujarry never, ever lost that concept, he never forgot who he was, nor where he was going, and he always was one of us. at the moment we are in the harry s. truman little white house, we call it the rec room, wraparound porch or if you're old enough you might call it a florida room. this is where the president relaxed with his staff after hours. probably one of the most iconic things in the house is this poker table. it was made for the president, in our cabinet shop, as a gift from the navy back in 1949. the president had already been here for four other vacations

prior to that and so the president relaxed by playing poker with his closest staff. they played cards from about 7:00 to 11:00 every night. to president truman this was a team building exercise. this was all about camaraderie and had nothing to do with winning or losing money. we are narnt two of truman's staff are still live, ken heckler and george ellsie. mr. ellsie made eight of the 11 trips with the president to keys we. he said when they boarded the plane in washington they threw $50 in the pot. uring the month the banker would pinch the pot, so if you ran out of money thebacker would give you money. he didn't feel anyone ever lost more than about $20 during an entire month. president truman regarded the big white house as the great white jail he felt he was constantly under everyone's eye.

by coming to key west he could come with his closest staff, let down his hair. sometimes the staff would let their beards grow for a couple of days. they certainly at times used offcolor stories an they certainly could have a glass of bourbon and you know visit back and forth without any scrutiny from the press. we know for a fact that president truman shared his decision not to run for re-election with his closest staff. sitting at this table. and for the next six months, not one person leaked the story. president truman had shared that information with them so they would have the opportunity to leave government service and get a job before everyone else left government service. so he was looking out for his closest staff. he had great fun with his staff. although he personally did not like fishing he would go out fishing with his staff in order to bet on the biggest catch, the longest fish, you know, things

like that. a sportswear company sent a case of hawaiian shirts to the president. with the thought that if the president is wearing our shirt we'll sell a lot of shirts and so president truman wore those free shirts that first year and then organized what they called the loud shirt contest and that was the official uniform of key west. it was hunt all year long for the craziest, you know, tropical shirt you could find so the president was often seen wearing wild, loud shirts. the press corps followed suit. they wore loud shirts too. and they even formed a little group of which president truman referred to them as the one more club because they were always hollering, oh, just one more, mr. president, please, just one more. the house is very simple. if you go to your -- if you go to europe you go to palaces.

if you go to, when we were allowed to go to the big white house, the white house is very formal and very presidential. the little white house reminds many of our visitors of their mom's house or their grandmother's house or perhaps a favorite aunt. it is very humbly furnished. it's a very subtle elegance about it. but i think the number one thing is that people coming in just go, i could live here. this feels like my house. and so it really is the people's house. in so many ways. it's not a palace by any means. they get it. harry truman was truman the human. he was one of us. it certainly would have been so out of keeping with his character had they had guilded furniture or something.

it would have just been inconceive to believe harry truman to ever have anything like that. >> in 1975, bill and hillary clinton were married inside their home in fayetteville, arkansas. up next, we visit the site in the ozark mountains to learn how this house helps kick start the political career of america's 42nd president. >> welcome to fayetteville, arkansas, we're at 4e clinton house museum, a little south of the edge of the university of arkansas campus. this house was built in 1931 by a local man named scottie taylor, would have been on the outskirts of town at that time in the middle of the ozarks in the depression. this would have seemed like a pretty fancy house for that era. the clintons actually bought this house in 1975. and did a little bit of remodeling but for the most part the house is entirely original

to 193 1. the house became a national historic register property in 2010 and the street became linton avenue in 2010 as well. this is the living room. this is the famous room where bill clinton and hillary rodham were married here in front of this big window on october 11, 1975. bill bought this house while hillary was out of town, actually and surprised her with it. she came back from visiting friends and family for six weeks and he said i bought that house you thought was pretty and you you have to marry me, i can't live there alone and she said yes. on the third try. that was his third try he did that. the house again is original to 1931. so the floors, the windows, all of those things. it's a big room for a living room, it's a small place to get married. and the clintons had only 10 guests here for their wedding. it was the two of them. a couple of close friends, and

family and that was it. very modest. one of our visitors' favorite thing to see is the wedding dress. this is a faithful replica of hillary's original wedding dress. it was designed and made by connie sale, a little rock designer, a longtime friend of the clintons. hillary bought this dress the night before the wedding at her mother's assistance. she was just going to pull something out of the closet and her mother said no, we've got to go to the store, you have to get a nice dress for the wedding. they pulled this jessica mcclintock gunny sax dress off the rack at dillard's for $53. one interesting thing to note, at the time of their marriage hillary decided to keep her name and be called hillary rodham which would have been unusual for 1975 in arkansas and really anywhere. and both of their mothers had hope shed would change her name to clinton but she stayed rodham

and bill was very happy about that. when bill and hillary came to fayetteville they had just graduated from yale law school and done about a year's worth of other things before coming here but they were just a young couple like so many others. they didn't have any money they didn't really have any furniture, they were just getting started in life and their lifes were very busy with lots of political activity, lots of friends, traveling back and forth to little rock and doing other kinds of campaign things. they also traveled a lot in those years. so they didn't have a lot of money but they spent a lot of time building networks and friendships. the urge to participate in public servais began very early for both bill and hillary. hillary was active at wellesley in lots of political movements and campaigns. her graduation address at wellesley made quite a national splash, it was fairly radical for her time. she went on to yale law school and that's where she met bill of

course. bill had started and knew he was going to be a political animal from his high school years. and he actually met president kennedy while he was at boys nation in 1963, just a few months before kennedy was assassinated actually. and he was involved in lots of democratic initiatives, all across the country. lots of campaigns, worked hard for mcgovern. for frank holt here in arkansas. for jay williams fulbright. so he always knew this was going to be the path he was going to take he gained a lot of experience before running for office himself. before the clintons were married and bill was living east of town in an jones designed house, he decided to run for congress he talked it over with the dean of the law school who gai him his blessing and promised his support and he had toe de-sided to run against john paul hammersmith. he had asked several other people to run against

hammerschmitt, a popular republican in the third district. nobody else wanted to do it. they wanted to run for other things he finally decided maybe it should be him. and everyone thought he was fighting a losing battle and probably he was and he knew it. but he openly says he didn't think it could hurt his future chances at other offices. and he was absolutely correct. that early campaign in 1974, he lost to hammerschmitt by only by about 6,000 vote which was remarkable for a newcomer against a very broad republican district. and he often says that losing that congressional election enabled him to go to the white house. if he had won the election for congress, he would have gone to washington and stayed there. but his decision to stay here in arkansas, be the governor, eventually led to his bid for the white house. one of the fun things about this room, the dining room, where most people would use it as a

dining room, the clintons used it as campaign headquarters. bill decided to run for attorney general two years after losing to john paul hammerschmitt and he had two primaryhe had two prn the democratic primary and he won handily in the statewide primary and he did not have a contender in the general election. running his attorney general's campaign from here in the dining room. because he did not have a component -- an opponent, he was able to work on behalf of jimmy carter in 1976. carter went on to win 65% of the arkansas vote that year. was runningime bill the arkansas carter campaign, hillary went to indiana and randy carter campaign there and

help set up offices. and ran the carter campaign there and helped set up offices. bill became the attorney general easily in 1976 and two years later, would become the youngest governor in 1978. when bill and hillary were married, hillary kept her maiden name which would have been unusual in 1975 and arkansas. and she worelook glasses and no makeup and natural hair, that kind of thing. after bill lost his second term as governor in 1980, they regrouped and you see at the beginning of the 1980's, her transpiration and -- transformation and his transformation politically and her transformation into what arkansas would have considered

an appropriate first lady. she changed her hair, she started wearing makeup. you see the clothes changed a lot. earlyapparent in the 1980's. in 1982, clinton ran for governor again and he won that time. he had this new first lady with him. is thenton house museum great american story like so many others. it is a great example of the best of american ideals. people can start from nowhere and they can work hard and engage in public service and do what it is they set their mind a chance toyou get spend time in the same place other people have lived, you absorb some of that energy and think about how people got started and where they would end up. our visitors love that idea.

they like standing in this place where these people, these smart people, spent early days and were plotting out there life's course. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] announcer: c-span travels to u.s. cities to explore literary life and historic sites. ourou like to watch features, you can see them all at c-span.org/city sort -- cities tour. as north and south carolina are in the midst of hurricane florence, chef jose andres will share his experiences tonight providing food relief after hurricane maria hit puerto rico last year. his organization is called world central kitchen and his book is fed an"we