Transcripts For CSPAN3 Lectures In History White House Myths 20240713

But think about to when johnson pivska visited the class and we talked about the Jackson Magnolia. Who remembers the story . Andrew jacksons wife died right before he went to office so he planted this tree because it was her favorite tree. And he brought the seeds from the hermitage in tennessee and do you remember what jonathan told us . He said there isnt any contemporary evidence, Andrew Jackson never mentions planting a tree, theres nothing in newspapers so it seems like this is a story that has these romantic origins and its continued to grow from that ever since. So this is actually first known exterior photograph of the white house taken by a welsh born photographer named john plume jr. In january 1846. So if youre looking at the white house, this is 1846, so in theory jackson planted his tree already, right . But i dont see a magnolia anywhere. So this also bolsters the case that perhaps the magnolia came a little bit later than people think. Heres an outdoor shot by lewis walter in 18571858. You can see the white house conservatory on top of what is the west colonnade going to the area today that is the west wing so you dont have the green houses but you have the conservatory above the west colonnade and in that place where you usually have the Jackson Magnolia, it looks more like a barren tree in the middle of winter. It doesnt look like a Jackson Magnolia. However, this is a photography that was of the cassius clay battalion, union army, april 1861 and that looks like the Jackson Magnolia to me. If we look at that tree and its probably at that point, maybe about 15 to 20 feet tall, depends on when it was planted or if it was transported. But the photographic evidence seems to suggest that that famous tree attributed to Andrew Jackson more than likely was planted later, probably some time in the 1850s. However, that story and that legend has continued to grow and grow over time. Heres another shot. This is actually Matthew Brady so this is during the civil war. You can see the flag pole on the south lawn. Theres part of jeffersons ha ha wall and some of the Union Soldiers who were essentially keeping an eye on the white house grounds. Again, you look and you can see what looks like a young Jackson Magnolia so, again, early 1860s, it looks like there is the famous tree that we all know. In 2007, you probably remember this, december 2017, the Jackson Magnolia made a lot of news because there were reports that the tree was going to be cut down because of safety issues and its announced that its going to be pruned and one of its major branches will be taken down and preserved and you remember from our visit to the white house you could kind of see, yes, the Jackson Magnolia is still there but its being held up by a steel pole, by these cables and its because pretty extensive rot on the inside of the tree and i pulled up some of the news stories from december of 2017. So whats interesting is, i guess ill ask you, what Media Outlets do you think published each story. Read this one and who do you think published this information. Any ideas . Nope. York times. Cnn. The first one was cnn. What about this one . Matthew . Msnbc. Christopher . Washington post the Washington Post, yeah. Do you notice theres a key difference between first one, the second one. What word did they use . Lore. White house lore. If we go back, theres not really it kind of repeats the story verbatim that we know but at least the Washington Post acknowledges that theres lore to it. It may not be entirely true, were just not sure. What about the final one . Any ideas . Kind of using it as a way to be critical of the president . How so . Because its talking about how theyre trying to take down, not because its old, but theyre trying to talk about how he wants to take it out as a negative way to betray the president. So you think theres a negative portrayal of the president . It seems like this article is pinning blame on melania trump. Thats why people would read it. What about the language before Jackson Magnolia . So called. So called. This is the new york post. Regardless of your politics, you can see how the stories have continued to the present and even when stories are put out there, there are slants to how the story is told. It was very different but he was considered a democrat, right. Because of its historical significance and the living history that continues to happen today, public fascination with the white house has created many legends and myths, some perpetuated by social media, the internet, journalists and historians. The point of todays lecture is not to discount or dismiss the fables but to unpack them and contextualize why they were created in the first place and reinforced. Myth number one, the white house is white because of the british burning. Have you heard that before . Youve never heard that . Alex . If im not wrong, they used white wash in order to hold the fencing together which is why it was then named the white house. Exactly. If you look at the exterior of the white house, that particular sandstone, much of it which came from virginia, particularly aquiia creek and thea, quia quarries in Stafford County, a lot of the sandstone produced had a gray color so you have to imagine the white house as a gray building and what they did, because sandstone is so porous, you have to seal it and protect it from winter months because if water gets into the stones pores, it freezes and then it cracks because water expands in those pores so what the scottish stone masons did and the workers who built the white house, enslaved and free workers who built the white house, they applied a coat of lime based white wash in 1798. White wash is different than the white paint they use today but that was really where the story began of starting to call it the white house because it was a white wash that was first applied so they do add the first coat of lead white paint in 1818. This is after the burning. But that colloquium term of white house had already been established so the idea that they started calling it the white house just because of the burning, no. There was a white wash that existed before then. They kept the coats of white paint up until the 1970s during the Carter Administration is when they undertook a major project to strip all of the layers of paint off the white house. In some areas of the house, were talking 30 to 40 layers of paint that had to be removed. And the project ended up taking about 25 years. It was completed during the Clinton Administration so it started at the end of the Carter Administration and this gives you some visuals of what the white house looks like without its current variation of white paint. Again, you can see its primarily gray. It has bits of white in it but theres also these tints of red. Youve probably seen the Smithsonian Castle on the national mall. So some of the sandstone quarries, eventually when you dug too deep, you would hit these deep red veins and sometimes the stone would turn completely blood red. So thats why we call it washington brownstone. Made in the early part of the 19th century. That is sandstone, its just red sandstone. From Stafford County it was primarily gray. You can see the flex, theres flecks of red within the stone itself but by stripping all the paint we could see the intricate detail of the carvings because you have to imagine layer of paint, layer of paint all of a sudden all of this is globbed. You cant see the carvings or see anything so it took 25 years but they finished it during the Clinton Administration and there are still parts of the white house and they saw it when they started removing paint, that there are still scorch marks you can see. Now on the exterior, its pretty much all painted. This is actually downstairs. We were on the ground floor quarter but behind it, the basement area service spaces, this is one of the doorways and you can see they left it unpainted and you can see some of the scorch marks still around the frame. But again, you can see the variations of the stone, also probably tell you that the stone was coming from different sources. Heres a shot of the north portico. Again, you get a sense of how white the building is and really you cant see the individual stones as opposed to here you can actually see each individual stone and again, flecks of red, streaks of red throughout the north portico columns and this is during the reagan administration. Heres a shot of the north side of the white house and again you can see the individual gray stones on either side but then still painted portico in the north entrance. Lets just say hypothetically you wanted to paint your apartment or dorm room or something the color of the white house, the closest you can get is durhams whisper white thats commercially available. Thats as close as you can get. White house myth number two. White house tunnels. We were just talking about this before class. The existence of tunnels, who used them and why did they use them. So one of the stories that there were tunnels beneath the white house that allowed for a quick escape, that one could get all the way to the Potomac River and that Dolley Madison used the tunnel to escape to Octagon House and Abraham Lincoln had an escape tunnel. These are not true. We know the architect of the white house did build several sewer systems and my guess is that Dolley Madison wouldnt have climbed through the sewer. And these were installed for Running Water but there really werent any fullsized tunnels anyone could have used. Now, of course heres Octagon House where the madisons lived for about six months after the burning and its just down the street from the white house. Now, during the civil war, general win field scott did suggest the possibility of adding a tunnel between the white house and the Treasury Building and heres the Treasury Building down at the bottom and up at the top you have the war department. At that point it would have been probably war, you would have navy and state using that space, as well. With the Treasury Department was to the east of the white house and the idea was that this could sort of be a citadel of sorts. If the Confederate Army innovated washington and they didnt want president lincoln to be captured, they could move him quickly to the Treasury Building, he could seek safety in one of the vaults and that essentially the people that were guarding him valid to fight to the death. This was an idea that Winfield Scott had. It never really materialized because lincoln didnt have to but heres a picture of the Treasury Building later and again you kind of get a sense of this imposing spectacle that this would have been a good place but if you were going to move to a fortresslike structure in the 19th century, this was a good place to do it. During Franklin Roosevelts administration, there actually is an underground tunnel built between the east wing and the Treasury Building and in fact they go so far as to even furnish a room in the Treasury Building for franklin roosevelt. Heres a picture of that room. This is where we start to see the presidency entering the new age of world wars and the cold war and that president ial security obviously changes but they need to have either structures in place to protect the president in the event of an immediate attack or in case that there is a chance that there could be an aerial bombing or later a Nuclear Weapon targeting the white house and the United States that the president has a place to go. Now, during the truman administration, thats when two sub basements are added beneath the ground floor of the white house so up to trumans time in the white house, there really wasnt central air conditioning, there wasnt central heating. This is a big part of the 1940th renovation, gutting it, changing things. Its made out of concrete and steel and they dig further underground and part of the reason they do that is because they need that space for things like utilities, air conditioning, electrical, plumbing. But also to add this walkway which now runs the length between the west wing and the east wing. Heres a finished version. And now this tunnel although would go all the way to the east wing and it hooks up with roosevelts bomb shelter so roosevelt had the tunnel built for access to the Treasury Department but he also had the east wing built in 1942 and thats the perfect time if youre building a structure to be also building something underneath it so he actually had the bomb shelter made beneath the east wing. Closer, didnt have to get to the Treasury Building and truman connects it between the west wing and that security complex so if the president is working in the west wing or the oval office, they they have a quick way to get to the bomb shelter and you probably actually have all seen it before, this is actually part of the president ial Emergency Operations center that was used on 9 11 by Vice President dick cheney and several members of the bush cabinet because remember for some time we werent quite sure where that last plane was heading towards. It certainly seemed like when it turned in pennsylvania that it was coming to washington, d. C. Was it going to the capitol . Was it going to the white house . We dont know because the passengers on that flight decided to try to take control of the plane and it crashed. But essentially what they did was they rushed white house staff and members of the administration down into the Emergency Operations center. President bush was visiting a school in florida at the time and they advised him to stay away from washington, d. C. Until they figured out what was going to happen with the last plane but for the members of the administration, there wasnt any type of real protocol for this type of scenario. Everybody that ive talked to or has talked about that experience essentially has told the secret service came in and told people to get out and to get to a secure location and get away from the white house because we dont know where this plane is. So and this is actually this is an image of that day. You can see things do look a little bit outdated and this was also then spurred a new effort to modernize and put in new technology and Communications Systems and the president ial Emergency Operations center. Myth number three, Dolley Madison saves the Gilbert Stewart portrait. We had to read a selection of sources for todays class and hopefully you did that. Now, who wants to you probably all heard the story before. You probably heard it in grade school, in high school. So who wants to tell us what youve heard. Alex . The british were coming in and they were burning down washington, d. C. Dolley madison runs back into the white house with a few people, takes down the Gilbert Stewart portrait and runs out to save it. In that version of events, Dolley Madison, its like a lastsecond thing, shes there, the british are essentially you can see the british on the horizon. Shes about to leave but she runs back in. At least you did acknowledge that there were other people there but that she was there when they took it off and they sent it away. Part of the reason why the story is so popular is because this was the story that was really put out there after the war of 1812 and Dolley Madison also played a part in keeping the story alive and well but it was picked up for Childrens School books. It was published in a variety of different story graphical works. And it was a story that kept getting perpetuated and well talk more about that as we dig into the sources. Source number one, the selected letters of Dolley Payne Madison and its anna cutts writing to her sister, Dolley Madison, circaa the burning takes place on the 24th. My sister, tell me for gods sake where you are and what you are doing and what youre going to do. I have only time to ask mr. C to take out the floor part of the carriages, putting in the piano trying to escape anything he can get in there or wagon since the british are coming. We hear nothing but what is horrible here. I know not who to send this to and will say little. What do you take away from reading that letter . How its written, how its phrased . Shes trying to get as much as she can written to her sister, its really short and sweet, i got to go type thing. You can definitely tell its very rushed. It also seems she doesnt finish entire sentences. Theres clauses and a pause and she says something else. Its relatively short. She even says i dont know who to send this to. She sent it to the white house, to Dolley Madison, but she wasnt sure if she would be there even or if she would be out with president madison who was out in the field to watch the battle. She doesnt know, it seems rush. Thats fair. Now, what about this, you had to read this. This is actually from the National Portrait gallery of distinguished americans published in 1836 by d. C. Socialite and historian Margaret Maynard smith and what she publishes is based off of Dolley Madisons recollections. There is no response to this letter. This is the sisters letter. Dolley madison always said she responded but that letters lost. Theres a story that it was eaten by mice. Theres another story that it was burned. Many years later, 1836, now this is 20 years later, when Margaret Maynard smith is writing her biography, she asked Dolley Madison, oh, can i see the letter and she says we dont have the letter but i can i can give you a copy of what i remember. So this is what she gives her. So, again, tuesday, august 23, 1814, dear sister, my husband left me yesterday morning to join general winder. He inquired whether i had courage or firmness to remain in the pes house and on the assurance that i have no fear he left me beseeching me to take care of myself and the cabinet papers public and private. She mentioned she received two dispatches. The enemy seemed stronger than reported. I am accordingly ready. I have pressed as many cabinet papers in the trunk as to fill one carriage. Our private property must be sacrificed. It is impossible to procure wagons for transportation. The letter goes on and on. So what do you notice about this letter . She was packing things away in case the british were coming to the white house. If this is supposed to be her response to her sister, remember how frantic her sisters letter was. Does this letter seem frantic . Does it seem it was written after the fact . So now do you question whether or not, how accurate the narrative is . Think about it for a moment, if somebody sends you something and you need to frantically get it done and then three months later its sort of like, tell that story again but take your time, walk us through every step. Youre going to add a lot more detail and by that point in time, this is 1836, the storys become pretty well versed that Dolley Madison saved the Gilbert Stewart portrait so at this point she cant really go back on that. She kind of has to align things with how the public has perceived the whole story. But whats interesting is now this letter responds, she goes into wednesday morning, 12 00, since sunrise i have been turning my spy glass in every direction and watching with unwaried anxiety. 3 00, would you believe it we have a battle skirmish near bladensburg and i am here within sound of the cannon. Two marriages come to bid me to fly and i wait for him. At this late hour a wagon has been procured. I had it filled with the most valuable portable articles belonging to the house. Whether it will reach its destination or fall into the hands of the british, events must determine. Our kind friend mr. Carroll has come to hasten my departure and i insist on waiting until the large picture of general washington is secured and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process would sound too tedious for these perilous moments. I have ordered the frame to be broken and canvas taken out. It is done and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen from new york for safe keeping. And now i must leave this house or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road and i am directed to take. Thats Dolley Madisons version of events circa 1836. I thought it was weird how she said, general washington, instead of president washington, because thats how she thinks of him . Nowadays weve become more accustomed theres president and theres also former president but also we still sometimes refer to people as president george w. Bush, president bill clinton. In those days, this was one of those precedent things that washington was after, there should only be one president so when he left the presidency, he preferred people address him general so typically they called him general washington. So we have the frantic letter from sister anna cutts, we have Dolley Madisons response many years later as she remembers it so not the actual response from august 23 or 24, and then we have this newspaper article from the Baltimore Sun dated may 25, 1847. So did you find anything interesting about this particular article . It was sort of i dont want to say rude but it was a little critical of Dolley Madison, because, one the real saveiors when its talking about the people that actual saved the painting, suggesting he wasnt a real savior. A jab at her. Sure. This is 1847. Now were talking about 33 years after the actual event and theres still this scuttlebutt in the newspaper about what exactly happened, who did what, who deserves credit and it gets to a point where even Dolley Madison who at this point is quite elderly. I think she only lives a couple more years before she passes away in washington, where she needs to weigh in and sort of as the article suggests, a historical error corrected. But it talks about general john mason because a new story emerged that general john mason was the one who saved the portrait and the two gentlemen from new york that Dolley Madison mentions were these guys, jacob barker and robert depister, the two men from new york who did walk into the white house and essentially they were responsible for transporting the Gilbert Stewart to safety. So those men were certainly there. That was their account. Dolley madison agrees it was their account. But they do have some minor differences. Theres also daniel carroll. She mentioned mr. Carroll. So daniel carroll, he had gotten more involved in saying that his Family Member who had helped essentially transport Dolley Madison away from the white house also was the one who saved the portrait so we still dont have any clear answer. But whats interesting is that Dolley Madison writes a letter to robert depister in february 1848, again, towards the end of her life. You will see by the enclosed what is said at the time the impression that mr. Carroll saved stewarts portrait of washington is erroneous. The paper which was to accompany the letter has not reached me but i believe his family believes he rescued it. On the contrary, mr. Carroll left me to join mr. Madison when i directed my servants thats an interesting statement i directed my servants in what manner to remove it from the wall and remained with them until it was done. I accepted your offer to assist me by inviting you to help me preserve this portrait which you kindly carried between you to the humble route. I acted out of respect for general washington. The merit belongs to me. Please accept my respect and best wishes. The merit in this case belongs to me. Now, who here has heard of Paul Jennings . What do you remember about Paul Jennings . We talked about Paul Jennings earlier this semester. His order by Dolley Madison to take the portrait. Hes a key player, right. Wrote a biography later on. He wrote a recollections, sort of like some of his Life Experiences but also his experience with the madisons so he was born in montpelier, born enslaved to the madisons and he traveled with them to washington when the madisons went there first as secretary of state but then later as president. Jonathan . First white house memoir. He did. At the time when it was published essentially during the civil war there was some question about how authentic or how accurate this account could be. Its partially because of his formerly enslaved status because at that point he was a free African American man. Its similar to what we saw with elizabeth keckley, question the narrative based on their social status or former social status as formerly enslaved people but jennings has a very interesting version of the story, as well, and that was the last source that you had to read for today. Its a little bit longer and it talks about the events of august 24. So what did you notice about this last source . What did you pick out that was a little bit different from the other sources . Leaving was relaxed, not rushed. It took a couple of hours for the british to come and there was a lot of [indiscernible] one of the things thats interesting is because jennings is working to set the table for what they expect to be a victory meal at the president s house and a messenger rides up and says clear out, clear out. Certainly gives the impression that the british are on the march and theyre going to be in washington at any minute. Thats the story, rush, get out of there. But jennings implies it took a while for the british to get to washington and we know from other accounts that was true. The british didnt reach washington until about twilight and the first place they went was the capitol to burn that so they dont actually burn the president s house until much later that night. So his version coincides with other eyewitness accounts. Anything else jump out to you about this source . At the very end of the story he says that the idea that she herself took it down is ridiculous because he says she would have needed a ladder to do it and he says all she did was get her silver and then run away and then, too, it was the gardener and the door keeper were the ones that took it down and brought it without her. A very different version of events. Now why do you think jennings tells this story in the 1860s . Because he didnt want, at that point, Dolley Madison was more like trying to get, again, in the spotlight, it seems. And jennings, after being enslaved by that family for years, most of his life, was kind of tired of it. I would be, too. Dolley madison was trying to portray herself in a heroic sense but she really wasnt. She was any other rich white girl. And also keep in mind that after James Madison passes away, he essentially leaves his enslaved people to Dolley Madison. He adds the stipulation that he really doesnt want her to break up families but she does and she sold Paul Jennings to an insurance salesman named pollard webb in d. C. So she does sell Paul Jennings turnover someone else and eventually its Daniel Webster who buys out his debt and he enters into a Work Agreement with jennings that hell work with webster and pay off the debt and earn his freedom so thats how jennings gets from being enslaved to being free. Keep in mind, Dolley Madisons been dead for a decade by the time this is published. So he doesnt this isnt published while shes still alive. Its very strategically placed later but there are some interconnections between his account and some of the things shes saying but then there are some Unanswered Questions like how would she get the portrait down . Some people say the portrait was cut out of the game. Thats not true. They did have to unscrew it from the wall and break the frame because when they did conservation work on it they were able to check and look for serrated edges and there werent any so that blows the hole in that theory so ultimately what we end up coming away with is that these men, remember, Dolley Madison mentions her servants. At that time, oftentimes people did not use the term slave. They just sort of reserved to anybody who worked for them, whether it was for wages or they were owned, as servants. We dont know necessarily who she shes specifically talking about but when we look at jenningsaccount, he mentions john susay. His real name was jeanpierre susaint, the steward of the white house and the gardener but those two positions would have been paid so to use the word servant seems to suggest that perhaps at least one of her enslaved workers was responsible and jennings, i mean, hes there. Hes part of that account. He had the eyewitness account and then depister actually says when he labels the people that were there, he mentions servants and one of the dining room servants, he says. So ultimately what we take away from all of of this is that Dolley Madison didnt cut out a portrait. She didnt stand up on a ladder and try to remove that portrait herself. You guys have all seen the Gilbert Stewart portrait in the white house. Its a massive portrait. You would need a group of people to take it down, right . Lets just think about it in terms of basic physics. Youre going to need probably at least three or four people but Dolley Madison for most of the 19th century got the lions share of the credit. Since then weve reevaluated that and i usually like to go with Dolley Madison ordered the portrait to be saved because you cant deny that she was the one who said, we need to save that portrait and really you can kind of think of it as it was really the first major act of Art Preservation in a sense in American History but you also have to give due to the other people who participated in it. So if you ever hear anybody talk about Dolley Madison saving the portrait, you can fill them in on all of this Background Information and you can tell them, well, its probably more appropriate to say ordered to be saved. Now, lets think about it from Dolley Madisons perspective. Why perpetual this story . It looks good for her. It looks good for her and also looks good for the president and tells a story when the british were attacking washington which was a huge embarrassment. Yes, it paints her well but also shows that the country will still last burning of the white house. Ok. We have it makes Dolley Madison look good. This was obviously a low point for americans in terms of morale and the war effort. Any other reasons . Let me ask you this. Brian . [indiscernible] more focused on something positive. Something for positive and thats what americans needed to hear about. I want you to imagine for a moment, lets think about this in todays terms. If a foreign army innovated invaded the United States and burned down washington, d. C. , how would you feel . Probably not great. But also, how would you what would you think of the president whos leading the country at that time and their leadership . So let me ask you this, close your eyes for a second. When i say James Madison, whats first that i think pops in your mind . Short guy. Constitution. What was the first name that popped in your head . Constitution . University, constitution. And obviously, James Madison deserves credit and his due but if you asked anybody on the street, oh, yeah, James Madison, wasnt he president when the city was burned down . Would anybody say that . No. Everybody talks about the constitution. Its almost like in addition to the war of 1812 being sort of a forgotten war, weve also kind of relinquished that James Madison was president when the city was destroyed or nearly destroyed and i think a big part of it was Dolley Madisons role in building this folklore about saving an important piece of American History and i think thats also probably helped when they were talking about should we rebuild, should we move somewhere else, you know, it was worth putting themselves at risk to save a piece of American History. If we move away and build a new capitol, what does that say about us . And this was a positive story. Several you made that point. The war of 1812 was not a particularly decisive war for the americans. In fact, a lot of the issues that we still had with the british continued beyond the war. But we dont really remember that part. Seems like when you mention the war of 1812, people remember Dolley Madison and saving of the Gilbert Stewart portrait. And this is probably, in my time being a white house historian, this is the one that is hardest to try to untangle from Popular Culture because its everywhere. So, again, if you run into somebody to talk about Dolley Madison and the burning of the white house, you can tell them more about the correspondence and when it was dated and it was a recollection and it was a memory and so on and so on. All right, lets shift gears to the white house alligator. Not much of a transition in between but the story goes that president John Quincy Adams received a pet alligator from the marquis de lafayette when he did his grand tour of the United States in 1824, 1825. When he visited the white house the first time in 1824, james monroe was president and he visited again for a Birthday Celebration in september for himself, september 1825, John Quincy Adams threw a Birthday Ball and reception for him at the white house and theres this story that he presented John Quincy Adams with an alligator and that John Quincy Adams, not really knowing what to do with that, essentially just put the alligator in the east room and that was just where i guess thats where alligators are stored because at that point in time tomorrow the east room wasnt finished yet. It was sort of a Storage Space so its like, ok, i guess that part sort of holds up. But if you know anything about John Quincy Adams, he was meticulous with his note taking and his diaries and he was the kind of guy that when he went for a walk in the city, he would identify plants and trees and flowers and then try to remember their latin names and he would record them. It was a way he was teaching himself the latin names of plants and trees. So i find it hard to believe that John Quincy Adams wouldnt have mentioned in his diaries that he received an alligator. Seems like a pretty standout event, right . But lets keep digging. August levsir, lafayettes secretary, who will published an account of the travels, mentioned seeing alligators during their voyage to savannah in march 1825. So they did see alligators. Its possible. They went to savannah, maybe they captured a baby alligator and brought it to the white house. Well, thats a pretty big gap between march and september so what were they doing with an alligator for six months . That doesnt make much sense. What i found when i was doing a little bit more research into this particular myth, i couldnt find any newspaper accounts related to it but what i did find was this 1888 childrens magazine called wide awake by Harriet Taylor upton and what it said was, a quote from that particular article, when General Lafayette made his visit there, this famous east room was given up to him to deposit the many curiousities sent him. Some live alligators among them. So really in 1888, thats the First Published instance of alligators in the east room. Thats about, what, 60some years after lafayette actually visited. And this is actually an article from the evening star from 1867 and it mentions a mr. John if he canners Grocery Store in georgetown and it says the crocodile excitement. The alligator at the Grocery Store, mention of which was made, created excitement in town and many have called to see it. So there were people putting alligators in stores in d. C. In the late 1860s so is it possible one of those stories morphed from that . Probably. Theres really no evidence that there were alligators in the east room so i consider that to be a pretty big myth. Myth number five, Theodore Roosevelt and Christmas Trees. Has anyone heard this before . What do you know about the story or what do you for remember hearing about it . I dont really remember the full story. All i know is that the Christmas Trees is mostly a four germanic tradition taken over to the United States. Thats just what my family has told me but theyre also german. The whole idea of putting a Christmas Tree in your house is a much more modern tradition. In fact, the first documented instance of a Christmas Tree at the white house is during the Benjamin Harrison administration in 1889 so the first documented instance was much later. Its become much more consistent in the 20th and 21st century and now we have annual Christmas Decorations and the Christmas Tree lighting and the Christmas Tree in the blue room is a lot more compared to what president s in the late 19th century did. Oftentimes if they had anything it would have been a small tree up in the second floor in the private quarters. They really didnt put things on the state floor because thats where people were constantly going. But the story goes that Theodore Roosevelt, because he was such a big conservationist, did not believe in cutting down Christmas Trees and thats why the roosevelts didnt have Christmas Trees and so the story goes that one of the roosevelt boys, archie, snuck a Christmas Tree up into the white house and he put it in the closet in one of the upstairs rooms and decorated it and of course this is then later the image that captures the story that it was archie who brought christmas to the white house and even though president roosevelt didnt believe in cutting down trees, he let this one slide. So goes the story. Now, roosevelt was on record opposing destructive lumbering practices. But he never appears to have singled out the practice of harvesting Christmas Trees. Its worth noting that one of the people he worked with, chief forester actually saw nothing wrong with the practice and by 1907 was urging the creation of businesses specifically for growing Christmas Trees. A few contemporary newspapers note how Family Tradition held the roosevelts never had a Christmas Tree. It was expected that roosevelt, the father of six children when president , would have a tree in the white house despite this but he never did just because the roosevelts didnt celebrate christmas with a tree. To the earlier point, some families didnt. So there was no ban. Some people say roosevelt banned trees. It just wasnt how the roosevelts celebrated christmas. Archie changed that in 1907. The president got a kick out of it and he let his son continue to do it but the whole idea that there was a ban on Christmas Trees is a myth. Heres an image of one of the earliest renditions of a Christmas Tree, upstairs in what is today the yellow oval room on the second floor. And, of course, this is the tradition today now with the the annual Christmas Tree in the blue room. Its been consistently in the blue room since 1961 when the kennedys started that tradition. There were two times when it was moved elsewhere 1962 when they were refurbishing and renovating the blue room and in 1969 the nixons moved it out to the Entrance Hall but other than those two years since 1961 this has always been in the blue room any of that recently came out with melania theres trees all over the white house. Great question because this is something i was just asked by someone else so i know the answer. I would say up to the eisenhowers, typically what most families did was they had a Christmas Tree up in the residence and then there was a large Christmas Tree in the east room. Of course, the east room is the tallest room and thats usually where they would put an 18foot, 20foot tree. And a lot of president s just did this practice because it made the most sense. If were going to do christmas receptions or parties, you do it in the east room, the biggest space. Usually they did have annual receptions for white house staff, as well. First instance of a tree in the blue room is 1912. The tafts were the first ones to do it but it doesnt become a consistent thing until the kennedys. When we get to the eisenhowers, Mamie Eisenhower loved to decorate for holidays and shes really the first one that jumps into halloween. The annual halloween celebration that you probably remember reading about kicks off with her but she also loved christmas and all of a sudden the white house went from having maybe a few trees to i think one year they had 16 trees and then towards the end of the Eisenhower Administration they had 29 trees which is a lot but i know last year the trumps had 81 trees. So its grown ever since the eisenhowers where all of a sudden now Christmas Decorations are not just isolated to the quarters and theyre not just in the east room. Theyre everywhere. Theyre on the outside of the white house. Theyre all over the state floor. Theyre on the ground floor. Theyre on the east wing, in the west wing. Weve really seen the expansion of how the first families and staff decorate for the holidays since the eisenhowers. Yes, alex . Whos in charge, who has been in charge in the past of decorating . Is it the historical association, curators . The first lady . Or a bunch of people . All of that is done internally. I would say primarily decoration is done, overseen by the office of the first lady, east wing staff. They have upwards of 500 people who will come to the white house and help decorate and they get all of those decorations done right after thanksgiving and then reveal the decorations usually the next week so they need to have it pretty much orchestrated, planned, organized, and then be able to have all those people turn it around and get the decorations ready by the following week. And the decorations themselves, they either end up with the president ial libraries or they go off to the executive support facility. Sometimes one of the things people often wonder is are they buying new decorations every year . Sometimes they will repurpose previous years decorations. They can change the ornaments, they can change the colors. But sometimes they do use they get new decorations, as well. Ok. Myth number six, the naming of the white house. Have you heard this one . Who called the white house . Theodore roosevelt that used it on stationery for the first time . So the story goes that it was president Theodore Roosevelt who officially changed the name of executive mansion to the white house even though as weve already covered people were sort of referring to it as the white house because it had that lime based white wash but it wasnt like an official name change. And here, of course, this is one of the instances that i was able to locate. So what you have is on one side on the left side, that is the executive mansion, washington stationery. You can see thats september 1901 and thats later, thats november 1901. So theres that gap in that month of october, right. What do you notice about the paper on the left . Anything in particular stand out to you . How is it different . Besides executive mansion and white house . The one on the left is signed by the secretary to the president , the one on the right is signed by the president. Thats one of the differences. Yeah . Blueprint and black print. Different signatures, different colored fonts, type written. The color of the paper itself. The one on the right looks more white. The one on the left looks more cream. Different color paper. More wording on the paper on the right than the left. Youre finding all these great differences but im looking for the one big one. What about the outside of it . Does anybody know what that is . The border, what is it . Black. Matthew yes. Why does this letter of president ial correspondence, why does it have black trim around it . Any ideas . Easier to send . Free mail when its government. What just happened in september 1901 . Oh im thinking of the black hand. Thats a totally different thing. President mckinley just died. President mckinley just died in september 1901. Hes assassinated and lingers for a while and they think hes Getting Better and it turns out he has a terrible infection and he dies and usually what you have is a month of mourning. So all the stationary thats stationery used at the white house for that month will look like that. So you have the black trim, executive mention, washington in black. We call this mourning paper. It was what people did. Bright blue ink screams mourning. [laughter] we know in september, late september 1901, theyre using this mourning paper which must have been made shortly after mckinley died and they used it and then in early february we move to the white house so that tells us, ok, october 1901. Something happened between those two. Heres another good example. This is actually a document, its in the National Archives something happened between those two dates. Heres another good example. This is a document from the National Archives. Again, what do you see . We see the trim. We see the morning paper mourning paper. My dear sir, i was directed by your attention the desire to change the headings of all official documents requiring his signature from executive management executive mansion to white house. It will become necessary in preparing nominations for senate and for either house of congress to observe this change. Very truly yours, the secretary to the president. The letter is dated october 17, 1901. We have the president s secretary telling the sectary of state, for future reference, any documents that you sent to the president , or him to sign that our official documents, the heading should be, white house. You can still buy that kind of paper today. 20 on amazon. October 17, 19 01, that is when the directive is sent. There really is no executive order. There is no law. So when they say that roosevelt officially changed the name from executive management mansion to white house, it is true. That it is hard to pin down exactly when it happened. We know it is october, 1901. But is it when they start sending those letters out . Theres only one letter to the secretary of state. Does everyone else just fall into line a week later . I do not know. But theres more to the story. This is a reason people just say october, 1901. Because were not sure of the exact date. Ok. Myth number seven. Lincoln bed in the lincoln bedroom. This is a painting done by an artist named peter what al who did a series of these historic portraits that show different moments in white house history. And how the white house was decorated at certain moments. This is supposed to be a picture of what is today the lincoln bedroom. In lincolns time, it was his cabinet room and his office. So if you have seen the movie, lincoln, you probably remember that space. There were maps on the wall. He had his desk, he had a large, rectangular table, right in the middle and that is usually where the cabinet gathered. So he used the lincoln bedroom space as his office. And the cabinet room. But Pay Attention to these details and what it looks like. Because it changed rapidly over time. One of the first visiting foreign dignitaries to come to the white house was prince albert. When he came to the white house during the lincoln administration, the white house did not really have a guest suite. They just had a spare room the bunch of different furniture in it. One of the things Mary Todd Lincoln does is she purchases a specific suite of furniture, for this new room that is supposed to be for a visiting head of state or dignitary. Is in it that there were ghost sightings in lincolns room . We will get to that. Because the lincoln bedroom is supposedly haunted. I think it was president reagans dog who would not cross the threshold and there to the room. That is one of those stories. Here is the lincoln bedroom. This is later, probably the late 19th century. It is still a bedroom. Some president s used this furniture for their own president ial suites. That is what it look like in the cans time. Hair you can see this is the suite of furniture Mary Todd Lincoln purchased. Here you can see. The chairs, the table, the bed. It is often called the lincoln bed. It is eight feet long. And six feet wide. Its a big bed. Most people assumed that the bed is eight feet long so president Abraham Lincoln must have slept in it, right . He did not. It was supposed to be for visiting distinguished guests. Even though it is called the lincoln bed, he did not sleep in it. Distinguished guests. Roosevelt, coolidge, they moved the bed into president ial bedrooms and they used it. Other president s have used it. Not lincoln. Truman repurposes the space as the lincoln bedroom, post renovation. And he puts lincoln era objects and memorabilia in there so it looks more like this. Keep in mind in lincolns time, and the time of lincoln, the late 19th century used as a bedroom. Later it is used as a private office for the president. This is where president s work until the building of the west wing. Today we call it treaty room. It was between that treaty room and that leaking bedroom, those were and the lincoln bedroom. Those spaces were used for cabinet meetings. This is later. I think during the wilson administration. You can see the lincoln bed used there. I think this is during the coolidgeknow this is later, during truman. Eventually get to the moment in time where truman his who is in American History and he learns that laura behind this that there are objects the lore of objects in the house that have association with Abraham Lincoln. So he designates a space on the second floor at the lincoln bedroom. Before that there was the leak and study and the lincoln room. With truman becomes the guest bedroom, the lincoln bedroom. With truman. It stayed the same from truman up until the association funded a major refurbishing and renovation project during that George W Bush administration. This was a big thing that laura bush really wanted to do. She wanted the space to still be the lincoln bedroom and house the furniture misses like and purchased, she wanted that misses lincoln purchased. But she wanted the carpeting and walls and interior to reflect what the room looked like in lincolns time. This is later, nixon, clinton, and then bush. One of the things we had to do, was the research in the background, on the bed canopy. So you can see from the images that it disappears, because at some point it was lost. We do not know what happened to it. Here it is in the late 1890s. You can see it at the top. We had to use photographs and do research to try to create a reproduction. There is the lincoln bedroom. And lincoln bed. And the accompanying furniture. So, quick recap the white house was not painted white to cover the burn marks. Because whitewash had been used before and become the accustomed color. That is why people referred to it as the white house. Andrew jackson likely never planned to famous magnolia tree. Later an underground white house emerged beneath the building. The marquita lafayette never put an alligator in the east room. Roosevelt never banned chris with trees. People have been calling the white house the white house before result ordered new official stationary. And lincoln never slept in the bed named after him. The biggest one, Dolley Madison did not save the painting by herself at ordered it to be safe and it was through the collective efforts of several people including at least one enslaved man, Paul Jennings, that this was done. So what to these myths tell us about the white house . The white house is rich in deep history. Conditions are optimal for inventing president ial and first lady laura and legends. As we see with the gilbert example, history is often complicated and complex. There was always more than meets the eye, were factors more than meets the eye. The myths are difficult to untangle from our Popular Culture. Many details persist today many of these persist today, which tells us about how americans shared historical anecdotes in many ways. These traditions underscore deeper truth about what it means to be an american, that we are constantly defining and redefining who we are as a people. In attempting to ground those shifting realities in the confines of our shared national past, myths can serve the greater good, generating interest in history, promoting Civic Engagement and education, and compel visuals to critically analyze the historical record for more answers, like we did with Dolly Madisons correspondence today. But it can also be detrimental, furthering falsehoods or mischaracterizations that our presented for deferred purposes. Represented 40 purposes. The key in this course is understanding the world around you. That is why show the accounts by cnn and the Washington Post and the new york post. So even when people are talking about history you have to be aware of the sources. And who is writing, for what audience. And it is no different than we study history. Represented for different purposes. When we use the skills you can see how powerful and prolific mythmaking can be. It has been with america since the american revolution. Any questions about white house myths . Or anything you took away in particular about some of these stories . That the bush family renovated the lincoln bedroom to restore it. The bushes did quite a bit of work in the white house. That was one of the big projects. Generally, the association does get more involved in things that are more on the state floor because those are the public rooms. They are rooms people see on tours and that stay fairly consistent in terms of changing things and having an association assessed in that. But because the link bedroom is up in the residence, there are different rules. Now, because the lincoln bedroom is one of the most famous spaces in the white house, we made a compelling case that this is something that should be done and needs to be done. And the committee for the preservation of the white house agreed. Government funding . A little bit or . For those types of projects generally, no. Government money goes to maintenance, upkeep, necessary renovations. Like the truman renovation, that was a necessary renovation. The types of things where it is more cosmetic or you want to change the look of a room, those things have to be privately funded. Possible white house myth. Privately funded. Possible white house myth. Is it true that president Zachary Taylor never voted in any election . That sounds right. But im not positive. Ok, so, ok. So, there some ssa Abraham Lincoln was bisexuals there are some myths that say Abraham Lincoln was bisexual. Does that qualify as a myth or is it just a claim . Some of them were in newspapers, that one was a bodyguard and another was one of his close friends. Wasnt like, because like it was a traveling lawyer, that because sometimes he had to share a bed with a man, that some people have said that yeah, that is who he was . Think about it. In those days, people did not get their own rooms. We get our own hotel rooms today. That was not a thing in the 19th century. Useless costs. That meant use shared beds. That is the way it worked. That meant you shared beds. That is the way it worked. Where was the gabbert store portrait when the white house was being refurbished and left the white house. And when did he get back . More credit to Dolley Madison because she does secure the silver pieces and does take the papers her husband leaves behind because she does not want those to be captured. She also takes the red velvet curtains from what is today the blue room. We know that it seems likely, based on eyewitness accounts, that jennings was right, that there was losing at the right at the white house, but it was probably americans who are in a panicked frenzy and they were on their way out of the city anyway, and some of the undead swing by the white house and grabbed some things some of them did swing by the white house and grabbed some things. The gilbert portrait was put on a wagon and arc or got it out of the city. Barker. And they hit it in a barn in maryland and it stayed there until the british left. Then they brought it back to the city and gave it to the secretary of state, james monroe. It is a weight from the white house for a little bit. It is away and it cannot back because the white house was burned out but it goes back in time when james monroe moves in in president his own right in late 1817. You mentioned white house tunnels as a White House Security meth. The biggest myths i heard was that there was no red found that connected the moscow red telephone that connected to moscow that people claim to cold war president s had. Gina . Do you know . Johnson had a teletype machine which was one where they were constantly communicating with the russians. They were planting the rose garden in 1962, they had a Strategic Air command phone when they were planting and digging they severed the line. Alarms started going off. They thought, did something happen to the white house . They just cut the phone line by accident. But there was no physical red phone that a lot of people said there was . I do not room or seeing that. They would have been able to connect with their counterparts in moscow. I do not think they need of specific phone just for that. It is something i would have to double check. It does not sound right to me. What are some accounts of hunting . Haunting. Go stories. We just had halloween ghost stories. Some people believe in ghosts and some people do not. We had the white house curator worked for 40 years at the white house. He said i had no expenses and do not believe in them. Some of the other ones she said i had no experience has with them. He said. There was one that looked like a ghost of a teenage boy called the thing during the taft administration. Archibald but talks about that story. People said they saw this boy. And taft told his staff, do not let this leak to the press. This is ridiculous. We are not going to talk about it. There are stories, some people say they have seen a specter of a british soldier carrying a torch. That david burns the original landowner the white house is built on, that he shows up and cackles and laughs here and there. Andrew jackson the same. It seems everyone saw Abraham Lincolns ghost. Churchill, that was one of the hyphen may of her that story. Churchill was actually naked at the time. And it was sort of like, mr. President , you have come exposed. And the lincoln ghost smirked and disappeared. So there are these different stories. [laughter] during trumans time, truman believed the house was haunted. He talked about, he said he could hear footsteps. He said sometimes the chandeliers would start swaying. And sometimes he would be in bed and all of a sudden he would hear, knocking him a pounding at his door. And he would get up, go to the door, open it, and there was nobody there. So there are all of these unexcited noises and phenomena that truman experienced. He believed the white house was haunted. The case. Before the renovation. It turns out that was because the white house was so shoddy at that point because things were creaking, falling apart in the infrastructure. A piano fell through one of the floors. That is how they discovered that it was. The idea that the chandelier started swaying . That was because some of the chandeliers were literally pulling the floor down. Remember, a lot of the interior structure was made of wood. I have voiced thought that loud banging noise could have been what stress literally popping. Wood struts. When Calvin Coolidge adds a roof, it is made of steel and concrete. That weight is put on that old wed. You will hear noises, not normal noises. The white house crying out in pain because of the weight it was carrying atop that old would. Wood. I think truman had enough go set his own after having to deal with dropping the bombs on japan twice, and having to reconcile with having a war. I think president truman had a lot of his own demons inside of him he had to reconcile whether or not that was fair. Yes, i mean, my general understanding is i have not heard much about ghost stories since the renovation. That is my other argument to that point. These stories are constantly in the press or people talk about experiencing unexcited things. But it seems a lot of these stories go up until 1952. And then you do not hear a lot after that. Theres a story about president reagans dog would not go into the lincoln bedroom, but it would stand outside the door and barked. But im sure you have dogs like that. I have a dog like that. I do not think that is this is really haunted. Did people say they saw the ghost of Willie Lincoln . Two think that is a possibility . Do you think that is a possibility . Do i believe in ghosts . Im saying, has thatnever mind. What i would say as a historian he supposed to look at evidence, i think a lot of these things probably are not real at the same time, i know there have been so many instances were people experience something they cannot explain. So it is possible. Im not going to take a definitive stance. I think it is one of those things that depends on your experiences. Have the senate ghost at the white house . Have you seen a ghost at the white house . No. Im not. And bill who worked there 40 years never had any of those expenses. Those experience has. Passages, is it true that secret Service Stops johnson from using that as a shortcut. And is the same passage that may be in the media the clinton used . My understanding is that Monica Lewinsky was a white house intern so i do not think she needed to go through a tunnel, she probably had a pass. My guess is president s used those tunnels if they want to get away from the white house and not be seen. Keep in mind we talked about the growth of media and press coverage the president leaves the white house, it becomes news. People in President Trump left the white house think about when President Trump left the white house to go to walter reed and that became an immediate story. There may be times when the use that tunnel. But i would think it was not a regular occurrence. I wanted to know, is roosevelt secretary of state the same john hay that works for lincoln . I believe so. And could you speak to, there are stories that president kennedy would sneak mistresses into the white house . You know, yes he did say that before classi can recommend books if you would like to read those. Generally, i do not get too bogged down in personal lives. He started the trend with the interns . My own personal opinion is that, i dont know. Marylin . Now we are wandering. My point is and what i want you to take way from the class, is that you should always be asking questions. Should be looking at evidence. Do not just accept something at face value because it is put out by a media outlet or a historian. Dig deeper. Form your own is important to think about these things and not just accept things. . Yes . The holidays. [indiscernible] that this probably misses trump because she is the one who does the decorating. But that isfirst ladies generally have overseen that part of it. If we go back, the eisenhowers. The 20s. The bushes were in the 30s. It is higher. But the white house is a big place, right . So it is easy to decorated with trees all along the entire public to her. Did washington have what indentures. Is that true have wooden dentures . Is that true . No. The set of complete dentures mount vernon has is made out of metal. The teeth in their were actually human teeth and sometimes animal teeth. Yep. And sometimes the teeth came from overseers. Sometimes they came from his own enslaved people. What . Yep. I believe he paid for them. That is still you talked about questioning a lot of stuff and white house stuff, not to take stuff at face value. Is there any essential part two white house history that no one should question . Like there should not be any questions at all and just accept it . Anything i say. No, no, no, that is a good point. Obviously there are things we can factually say and prove and we have evidence of. But i mean, i can even say in my experience in this job, i am constantly finding things that slightly change the narrative or at a different layer of complexity that has been there, or what people have presented for. Presented before. Family or pets . Any living things buried at the white house . [laughter] denting us. [laughter] dead things. The white house things that were previously living. Is possible but no one has directly asked me what pets habit died in the white house and been very there. Are there any gravesites on the white house grounds . Not that we know of. Before they were building white house, they used to be a cemetery in lafayette park. They had to dig up the graves and move the coffins, and the tombstones. Now, there is reason to suggest that there could be people buried on the grounds. The best instance i can think of is one of jeffersons enslaved cooks, who gave birth to a child. She gave birth to the first child born in the white house, not jeffersons granddaughter. If you say the first child related to a president born in the white house. It was one of his cooks. One of these babies got really sick. We know, based on jeffersons account books, that he paid a doctor for most visits. We also know later that he paid out a man to make a small coffin. So, i do not think they i think it probably would have buried the enslaved baby on the ground somewhere. But as far as i know, i have not seen, there is no reference, no other references beyond just built a coffin. So did the baby go back to monticello . Was that baby buried somewhere else in d. C. . Was the baby buried on the grounds . We do not know. To see if it is true, a cadaver dog. This is to hunter 10 years ago 210 years ago. Between the renovations and digging up of the white house grounds, i think you just dont know for sure. Oftentimes people would write it and say, i was led to believe that mike great great grandmother my great great grandmother. You have to direct them to the National Archives or libra of congress. The number of people right and want us to authenticate things. Which we do not do. Authenticate things. They want us to be able to tell them, yes that was in the white house. I get it. Maybe it is a personal memento. But we do not know. They might be thinking about selling it at auction and hava an Association Stamp of approval, they think that will help. You have to be very careful about what you respond to what you dont respond. To have you ever been contacted by the pond stars team because i heard they buy white house staff. Pawn stars. No but that would be great. I would love to talk with chum lee them. Is he dead . Hes too young to die. There are times when people do have interesting things and even though we do not authenticate it, we can connect them with people who specialize in a particular. Of furniture or light fixtures. Sometimes it turns out, these were from the white house. That stuff is still out there. People are still finding it. Thats a part of why i thought the white house artifact assignment would be fun and give us better sense of what is out there and maybe what the association should see what it can do in terms of to returning it to the collection. Any other collections questions . I want to thank you all for a great semester. [applause] it is hard to believe it has gone so quickly. I appreciate you putting up with me. It has been fun. We will stand touch and if you need anything you can reach me by email and i will get the rest of the papers done. I do have a parting gift for all of you. In boxes over there, i have 20 copies of one of our books. We did a book on the executive mentions of the world. Obviously the white house is one of them. Then you have buckingham palace. Mansions of the world. It is our gift to you. As were walking out, feel free to grab a copy. We will be in touch in the next week. If theres anything else i can help with, email me your final version of the paper. That way i can do the grading. Yes . There is no final. Dusted the research paper. Just the research paper. And the other questions, final statements, anyone feel they really need to share something . No. You have shared plenty. [laughter] dont worry, they will edit it out. What did you want to say . No, it is fine. I have all i need to send to american university. Thanks for letting me know. Ok. Anything else . I plan to also, as we move into spring, what i will do is be in touch with some of you about publishing your papers on our website. Keep that in mind, when use a bit the final version of the paper. When you submit the final version of the paper. If you submit an exceptional paper i would be happy to work with you to publish it in the spring. In the past 18 months, myself and my team at the association has been working hard on this new initiative. The president s neighborhood. We talked about this earlier but now we have reached the point where the initiative is coming together. This is the temporary collection we have. If you are interested in learning more about the subject, we have information about the history of slavery in washington, d. C. , itself. Slavery at toward washingtons president ial homes, scrolling down, the enslaved household of James Madison, thomas jefferson. Then we have individual standalone pieces that focus on enslaved individuals who either worked at the white house or had association with the white house, and their stories and their family stories. We do not get to visit decatur house. This article i wrote about it. We have a new website being designed and we plan to launch it in february. Stay tuned for that. It will have a virtual tour of the slave quarters. We have new exhibit paneling. We have initial active timeline so you can scroll through and seek key moments in American History related to slavery. Key moments in the district, related to slavery. And where these individuals fit on this specific timeline. I believe this is a subject that needs more exploration, needs more research. So as you arehow many people are history majors . Just a couple if you are thinking about going in that direction, maybe someday down the road your thinking, you might want to write a research paper, i want you to be aware of this resource. Because i am really proud of the work we have done. I want people to know about it so they can use it. [applause] have a wonderful exam week. Luckily you do not have to take an exam here, just email the papers. [cross chatter] you can watch lectures in history every weekend on American History tv. We take you inside college classrooms, to learn about topics ranging from the good morning. Welcome. Today we are going to talk about one of the most tenacious media myths in american journalism. It revolves around the suppose he had vow of William Randolph hearst to furnish the war with spain at the end of the 19th century. This has been over the years an allpurpose media