c-span: is it unusual for gertrude himmelfarb to have graphs in your book? >> guest: very unusual, first time i've ever done it. it introduced me to the whole arcane mode of graph making. i knew nothing about it before then. c-span: was this a difficult thing to decide to do? >> guest: once i had those figures i had to do it. how could i not dramatize this decline in victorian england from 7 to 4 percent and the rise in our period from 5 to 30 percent? it just called; it just shouted for graphs. c-span: when you're telling folks what you think about why this is happening, what reason do you give them? why did we go from 5 to 30 percent illegitimacy? >> guest: i think one important reason, and that explains the title of my book, is the fact that we have undergone a kind of general state of de-moralization. now, i've hyphenated that word "de-moralization" in my book. i had to battle with my copy editors to do that because the ordinary way of spelling the word, of course, is without the hyphen. demoralization in its familiar sense means simply a loss of morale.

c-span: what are the chances that in a hundred years gertrude himmelfarb will be the absolute authority, like we're talking about karl marx today, on the

there is one i want to talk about, "seeing gertrude stein." >> gertrude stein is a local woman.he was raised in oakland. she was an extraordinary individual who helped create -- many people call for the mother of modernism. years ago, i was introduced to someone doing research on her. i thought it would be an extraordinary exposition to take her and understand her at all for complexity. that is what we have on view during the summer of 2011. >> it is full of wonderful drawings, paintings, and sculpture. >> there is incredible art on view. we have photographs. we have sculpture. we have a lot of different things. we have a little something made for her by picasso. there are five different ways of looking at her life. it is not in chronological installation. it is looking at how she is portrayed in help artists, painters, and photographers presented her and how she thought about her own style and presentation. many people think she always had short hair. it was not until she was 52 that she cut off all of her hair. the second element is called "domestic stein." alice b. toklas was

[ betsy ] you know my weakness. [ gertrude ] real good. [ norma ] you're so sweet. [ maude ] you're soalty. [ betsy ] irresistible. [ female announcer ] giving in to snacks? there's a better way to satisfy your cravings, twice a day with special k. enjoy something sweet... and something salty and still stay on track. ♪ so go ahead and embrace snacking with special k. >>> it will be no surprise in s >>> it will be no surprise to texans but the lone star state has just had the hottest summer on record for any u.s. state. the national weather service says that the average temperature in texas from june through august was 86.8 degrees, that just edges out the summer's heat wave in oklahoma and the old oklahoma dust bowl record from 1934. also in texas today firefighters will use a converted jetliner to drop retardant on the big fire burning east of austin. the bastrop fire destroyed about 800 homes as seen in cell phone video taken sunday. fires have destroyed about 1,400 homes and killed four people. >>> scientists say fossils found in south africa appear to be the 2 million-year-old rema

there is one i want to talk about, "seeing gertrude stein." >> gertrude stein is a local woman.he was raised in oakland. she was an extraordinary individual who helped create -- many people call for the mother of modernism. years ago, i was introduced to someone doing research on her. i thought it would be an extraordinary exposition to take her and understand her at all for complexity. that is what we have on view during the summer of 2011. >> it is full of wonderful drawings, paintings, and sculpture. >> there is incredible art on view.

. ♪ [ gertrude ] you do look good. [ maude ] well...if you insist. [ norma ] how can i say "no" to youweakness. [ gertrude ] real good. [ norma ] you're so sweet. [ maude ] you're so salty. [ betsy ] irresistible. [ female announcer ] giving in to snacks? there's a better way to satisfy your cravings, twice a day with special k. enjoy something sweet... and something salty and still stay on track. ♪ so go ahead and embrace snacking with special k. ♪ fresher less processed foods introducing freshpet vital recipes so fresh the only preservative we use is the fridge freshpet fresh food for fido efefefefef welcome, to the this is our plant.ur. these are our workers... and this, is upper management. but what you won't find around here is any freezing, flavoring or concentrating. which brings us to our end product. simply orange. honestly simple. (whoo, whoo, whoo) that's just ththnight watchman. [ male announcer ] each of these photos was taken by someone on the first morning of their retirement. it's the first of more than 6,000 sunrises the average retiree will see. ♪ as we're living long

. >> gertrude. >> starts with an m. >> many. >> maria. >> that seemed on a obvious to me!as a poor effort by me. this labor day when you fire up the grill, wow your guests with the perfect steak. who better to learn from than the people at delmonico's. joining us the executive chef at delmonico has great recipes and that is a thick steak. >> it's about 22 ounces. delmonico rib eye. we're going to grill delmonico rib eye with a marinade. >> make it room temperature. why is that important? >> it's important because you don't want to take it right out cold, stick it on the grill. it tenses up. it will make the meat a little tough. so room temperature. >> just salt and pepper on top? >> just salt and pepper and we'll have a little chipolte marinade. go ahead and brush that on. >> what's on it? >> roasted garlic, shallots, salt and pepper, tabasco chipotle sauce. which is great. >> pretty generous on here? >> yeah. >> great smoky flavor. that's great. now we're going to be doing some corn, which we have here on the grill. i have one of these. why don't you grab some corn butter

and an enormous amount as you know has been written about the 1920s and the '30s, gertrude stein and f. scott fitzgerald. i think that -- i've been thinking a lot about this idea and this point of view. i think that history, as you know, is much more just politics and social issues. it's also medicine, science and art, music, theater and poetry and ideas. and we shouldn't run things into categories. it's all part of the same thing. and one of the most interesting characters in this study that you've done is oliver wendell homes, sr., who spent his whole life -- devoting his whole life on medical science. he was on the harvard medical school board for many years and a very prominent physician to the medical school. there was no incongruity and he also wrote poetry and essays and helped start a magazine called "the atlantic monthly." it's all part of it. and i think that's the way history ought to be taught and i think it ought to be the way it's written. it's the way i would like to think myself more about as time goes on. my own life, i at one point i thought i wanted to be a painter