alva vanderbilt was a very interesting character. as i mentioned before she grew up in the south and during the civil war her family moved to france to get away from the warfare in the south so grew up with a lot of sentiment for friends. she then married william vanderbilt. he was one of the richest men in the world, so she did very well for herself. she forces her daughter to marry the duke of marlborough, and later when the divorce proceedings were going forward, it was alva vanderbilt who stepped forward and said i am responsible for the marriage of my daughter. please, judge, please, let this marriage come to an end. alva vanderbilt divorced william vanderbilt soon after finishing this house actually and went on to become one of the country's foremost suffragettes and fought for the right for them to vote and on the lawn of marble house she would gather thousands of women together and there would be speeches and speechifying and she spent a lot of her money on the cause working with her women to great the right for women to vote

people who made that reputation occur was harold vanderbilt, having been a skipper of an american cup yacht, having won over the years. he is the son of alva and william k. vanderbilt. this is consuelo's bedroom. here is this young woman who is crazy about another man, not the duke of marlboro. her mother has just what many believe has faked a heart attack. her mother's friend has said consuelo, you need to do something to help get your mother back in good health. the only thing that is going to get her back into good health is agreeing to marry the duke of marlboro. her friends cannot get in to see her. there are all of her letters that she writes to friends outside are not getting delivered. her father is traveling, so she has no one to talk to. her brothers are too young to appreciate or understand what it is like to be forced into a marriage. so i think that this bedroom must have been a place where she did a lot of soul-searching and a lot of misery-keeping, if you will, trying to reconcile in her mind what her mother wanted for her and for the family and what she wanted. as we know from history, she agreed the duke of marlboro would

this house was built really by alva vanderbilt with richard hunt. it was a 39th birthday president from her husband william, to her, and alva was a great frank 0 file. she lived in paris. right during the civil war. she came from mobile, and living in paris she became quite the francophile and well-informed about french art and architecture. she had a hand in what this building was going to look like and how it would be decorated. it is very much in the french style, designed to be a fak sim milly of this building. we will see that many of remembrances come floo play. we are in the gold room of the marble house. this is the room for entertaining. this is the ballroom if you will. everything is guilded. the most important part of this room is the major restoration effort that the preservation society undertook to replace the upholstery on the fabric and the furniture and to replace these curtains. the interesting story about this fabric is that it was made in france with the same loom with the same design which was used to create the textiles. it is

so alva vanderbilt, built the chinese tea house really as a folly in 1914. she hired two architects and commissioned them to travel to china for more than a year and they came back with this design, which was later built. it was an expression of fun she used to host parties centered around the tea house and certainly it was a great focal point standing on the terrace looking out to the sea overlooking this tremendous silhouette the wonderful red color. i think a great, great addition to the entire property of the marble house. >> this week on the civil war, author and history professor, william shay, talks about the battle of pea ridge arkansas, fought on march 7th and 8th, 1862. he spoke to a group at the library in benton, arkansas, a few days after the battle. this is a little over an hour. >> all right, i think we are about ready to start. i would look to welcome you to the saline county library and our series on civil war history. celebrating the 150th anniversary of the civil war. and my name is steve purdue curator of the arkansas room and head of gen

so alva vanderbilt, built the chinese tea house really as a folly in 1914. she hired two architects and commissioned them to travel to china for more than a year and they came back with this design, which was later built. it was an expression of fun she used to host parties centered around the tea house and certainly it was a great focal point standing on the terrace looking out to the sea overlooking this tremendous silhouette the wonderful red color. i think a great, great addition to the entire property of the marble house. >> we can always go back and read all of the reports bit doesn't really tell us what a war time experience is like for an individual, whether they served in combat or in -- in a supportive capacity. you can't begin to understand, we as a society can't begin to understand our history until we understand and listen to the people who lived through and helped shape that. 40 years after the first full-skate engagement between u.s. troops and the people's army of vietnam, the vietnam archive at texas tech university and lubbock, texas, inter