james monroe not as much but also there was a lot there that i could use to get a sense of who james monroe was and how he interacted with his compatriots. so arizona state university was an excellent resource. the library of congress was a great resource. i tried to go to places like the hebron lutheran church just to see what it would have been like when madison and monroe sat out there after a church service and debated the constitution in the snow for hours. i got to spend a lot of time in virginia working on this book because i was working on an election there and it was wonderful to be able to retrace the steps and work on an election in what used to be the fifth congressional district in virginia work to support candidates there in the footsteps of madison and monroe. so those are the two principal places and the sources i looked for for this research. any other questions? >> why do you think this race was so overlooked by other historians? >> that's such a great question and i get it a lot and the problem is, what immediately jumped out to me was being historically significant

this was one of two incidents in the book where james monroe narrowly escapes death. one of the things i focus on in "founding rivals" is how seemingly small and minor and unremitted events conspire to make great events happen on the stage of history. james madison served in the u.s. congress. when he arrived in congress, he found an absolutely ruinous state of affairs. i know it's nothing like you could imagine today -- [laughter] but the congress had already taken an enormous, crippling national debt. when congress had exhausted it revenue and exhausted its sources of credit, they simply started printing money and giving it out to people. [laughter] thank goodness our leaders today are too wise to do this. [laughter] i think it's really telling that madison served on something called the board of admiralty. this was the committee that ran the naval affairs of the united states during the war. one of the first things they do is to deny a three-month-old request for a sea captain for bread and flour. it was not that this request was unreasonable per se, it was simply t

a decentent of james monroe will use the first lates. they sought out the descendents of the presidents and first ladies. by the time they opened a show, they amassed a good amount and had something to represent every former first lady. it did create what i called the smithsonian definition. that was not the white part of the president. it's the person who played the official role of white house hostess. usually it's a wife, but it can be a daughter or daughter in law or family friend. it's all of those things and the exhibition is featuring the clothing of the mist ress of the white house. >> there were examples in this exhibit today of those that weren't the spouse of the president. talk about them. >> as i look behind me to see who is in this exhibition, this case is mostly wives. in the china and the back section we will go through case studies. you will see dolly madison. she served as the first lady for the widowed -- the widowed thomas jefferson. his daughter would also serve as the hostess, but so did mrs. madison, the secretary

the man behind him is another future president of the united states, james monroe, who was lieutenant of infantry and was in fact in this event. he's struggling to hold up an american flag that hadn't been invented yet. it would be coming in 1777. there are many people in the boat who inspired some debunking. there is that interesting figure bending over an oar in the long red shirt just behind the flag. and i got a letter from a radical feminist debunker. and i had speculated in my book as to whether that was a woman. it might well have been a woman. there were many women in these armi armies. general howe kept records and 10% of his armies were women on the ration. and it was probably something like that number at least in the later stages of the war for the american army. but the feminist said about that person, yes, it is a woman. and look again. she's the only person in the boat who is actually row iing. there's some interesting things that are going on here. just a word about george washington. this was a man who came from a very special part of america. it was called the northe

alexander hamilton and james monroe both appear briefly because they were very minor parts of the story at that point. they were very good young officers and they're portrayed as that. but they weren't people of real consequence in what happened the way knox and green and others were. i also write about people like fitch who was a farmer from connecticut and john greenwood who was the little fifer boy from boston and joseph hodgkins the massachusetts shoe sh shoe maker, and those people played a real part in that time, in that moment, we know because they wrote about it. you have to remember that all we know is what we have in diaries and letters. there was no correspondents covering the war, reporting what a terrific job alexander hamilton just did. nor were there artist correspondents. all we have are orderly books. other government records of various kinds and the diaries and letters. so, if somebody kept a diary or wrote a lot of letters, that really pours it out, tells you what it was like, describes the scene, describes his own feelings and describes the suffering and the hardship

and in 1817, he resigned when james monroe was elected. he had not finished the structure, to president monroe lived elsewhere but wasted no time ordering new furnishings for the new interior. latrobe went on to act as an engineer, ark trekt and landscape architect for sites in maryland, virginia, pennsylvania, ohio and louisiana. he aided in building of the first catholic church in america. next one. the baltimore basilica. which took almost 20 years to construct. and the decatur house. also adina, ohio and pope villa in lexington. another in new orleans where he designed the city's water works but ironically he died of yellow fever, the very disease he was trying to prevent from spreading with the water works system. there's a lot of history that's left up to interpretation, excess lishl the madison and la strobe relationship which seems to have been pretty copacetic. la from being loud-mouthed and unappreciated especially at a time when manners were very well appreciated. and since most of his structures are actually in ruins now and do

his less than favorable attitude began to take a turn again and in 1817 he resigned when james monroe was elected. hoban had not yet finished the structure so president monroe lived elsewhere while waiting for completion but wasted to time in ordering furnishings. latrobe went on to act as an engineer, traditional architect and landscape architect for sights in maryland, virginia, is is pennsylvania, ohio, kentucky and louisiana. he aided in the building of the first catholic church in america. next one. the baltimore basilica. took almost 20 years to construct. and the decatur house. also adina in ohio. and pope villa in lexington, kentucky. his final destination ended up being farther, farther south in new orleans where he designed the city's water works. ironically he died of yellow fever, the very disease he was trying to prevent from spreading by the way of engineering pursuits with that water works system. there's a lot of history left up to interpretation, obviously. especially the madison and latrobe relationship which seems to have been pretty copacetic for the majority of th

hues happened to be a descendant of james monroe. a hook was born. we'll use the first ladies. they thought out the descendents of the presidents and first ladies and asked for clothing. by the time they opened the show, they amassed a pretty good amount. by 1932 they had something to represent every former first lady. but it did create what i call the smithsonian's definition of first lady. which is not necessarily the spouse, the wife of the president. it's the person who played the official role of white house hostess. so that can be -- usually it's a wife. but it can be a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a niece, a family friend. and it's been all of those things over time. and the exhibition was actually called -- featuring the clothing of the mistresses of the white house. >> there are some examples in this exhibit today of those that weren't the spouse of the president. talk about them. >> yes. as i look behind me to see who's in this particular exhibition or in that case, this case is mostly -- is mostly wives. but in the china and in the back section where we'll do case st

the electoral count was 183 for james monroe and 34 for federalist rufus king.for a generation, the nation woulwould, in fact, have but one party in the wake of this, the democratic republicans but said the federalist party died in the war of 1812 a self-inflicted wound. now, how about his botanical majesty and mr. madison? might either of their countries have been called victoria's? well, the royal navy was shown to be vulnerable. in the ship-to-ship confrontation that began the war, the timing american navy 15. both because of the prowess of the american sailor. on the other hand we didn't make very good job of protecting our capital. witnessed the burning of the nation's public buildings by a british force of a few hundred men. which in short form is to say that some wars are won, others lost, but still others like the worth 1812 nearly in when the combatants, both bloody and bowed, pack up and go home. that's kind of what happened at the end of the war of 1812. yet given how the goals of our most recent wars have been lost, the focus has become less on winni

. >> bigger than marilyn monroe and james dean? >> huge, huge, the biggest in the world.magazine's person of the century. >> every 12-year-old in the world recognizes his picture and instantly equates it with genius. and einstein's beneficiary, the hebrew university of jerusalem, has earned millions and millions of dollars from baby einstein videos and nike commercials featuring kobe bryant executing a genius move as the late princeton professor. the last time we saw martin cribbs, he was working up a campaign to resurrect the mildly scandalous career of hollywood siren mae west for a pitch to stationers and perfumers. unlike agents for the living, he was at peace knowing that he didn't have to worry about her next movie bombing or his client getting sent off to rehab or the headaches of having to deal personally with the notorious diva maria callas. are there advantages to representing people who are dead? >> absolutely. if you are a cosmetics company and you've invested a million dollars in maria callas, i can guarantee you there's not gonna be any wardrobe malfunctions