Our first guest tonight is from the lincolns cottage, where Abraham Lincoln resided for over a quarter of his presidency. Situated on a hilltop in northwest washington, d. C. , president lincoln made some of his most critical decisions at lincolns cottage. Lincoln visited with winded Wounded Soldiers, spent time with self emancipated men, women and children and drafted the emancipation proclamation. Joan cummins is a public historian, artist and educator. She supports their public facing programming, particularly for students and teachers. She also works closely with one of their programs called students opposing slavery for young abolitionist working to combat human trafficking. She is the cohost of a podcast, called q and abe. Welcome to history happy hour. Joan thanks so much for having me. Im excited to be here and to share you all about lincolns experience during the summer of his presidency. He lived at the cottage for three summers while he was president. The summer of 1862, 1863 and 1864. The family was planning to come out again for the summer of 1865 when the president was killed. There were three main reasons the family moved to the cottage as opposed to staying in the white house through the summer. As many of you may know, summer in d. C. Can be very sticky and humid and unpleasant. The population of d. C. Was rapidly increasing during the civil war, so the infrastructure was having trouble handling that. Not to mention, the white house was open to the public. Anyone who had a question or wanted a job could line up and ask. The lincolns were looking for some relief from the pressure of downtown. The other big reason they were looking to get away from the white house was because in february of 1862, their middle son willie died in the white house at the age of 12. The family was looking for a place that did not around every corner remind them of willies loss. What mrs. Lincoln said about it, when we are in sorrow, quiet is necessary to us. I want to show you all the picture of the cottage from her family album. And this for me is a reminder that the cottage is one of the few places we are sure the lincolns were happy to be during the civil war while they were here in washington, d. C. The other big reason and this is what the cottage looks like today. Right up against that historic photo, if you are curious about that. The last big reason the family was looking to come out to the cottage was because lincoln was facing an extremely difficult and complicated presidency. He had a lot of challenges facing him. He was looking for a place to think about complicated things. I encourage you to think about whatever the place is in your life that works for you to think about complicated things. Many people are looking for a place that is a little bit quiet, that perhaps has access to the outdoors that gives you space to think. The cottage was that place for Abraham Lincoln. While he was out here, it was very much not a vacation for him. Lincoln was commuting to and from the white house every day to work. It took him about a half hour to ride the three miles from the cottage to the white house. It was mostly on horseback. He was often going alone. I can imagine it would be nice to have that halfhour to yourself to ride to work through the woods in the morning, because the commute also gave lincoln an opportunity to talk to ordinary people he met along the way, whether that was people who had escaped slavery living on the outskirts of d. C. , whether that was Wounded Soldiers on the road to the hospital, or active serving soldiers camped in his backyard lawne green line green on the south side of the cottage who had been detailed there to guard the site and the president. The campus then, as now, is a retirement home for veterans. Lincoln had access to folks who had already served in the armed services. While he was up here, lincoln was working on one of the pressing challenges of his presidency, what do we do about slavery . He had been sure from the beginning of his presidency he believed slavery was wrong and the question was, what could he do about it . While he was at the cottage, lincoln developed the emancipation proclamation. This was the room in which he did so. It was the biggest bedroom in the cottage. It is open and airy. Those two windows overlook the capitol. They look south over the city. They are the thirdhighest elevation in the city of washington, d. C. That is a replica of his desk in the center. The emancipation proclamation wove together several aspects of the problem. How to keep the country together, what was going on with the war, what lincoln personally believed was the right thing to do. The cottage gave him the space and time to come up with a carefully crafted, carefully calibrated answer to that question. The proclamation was addressed as a challenge to the confederate states. It said, you have 100 days to peacefully come back and rejoin the country. If you come back, you can keep all the people you enslaved and everything was the same as before. If you do not come back, the enslaved people will become free. Nobody took a lincoln up on that offer. The emancipation proclamation took effect in full on january first of 1863. It did only apply to people who were enslaved in confederate territory. While it applies to over 4 Million People enslaved, it did not free everyone who had been enslaved in the country at that point. There is plenty more complications to the proclamation we can talk about. For me, what matters about the cottage is that it gave lincoln the space and the time he needed to work on this idea and figure out how it was going to work because the proclamation had been a foundation on which many other people had been able to build, including those people whom it freed in the first place. The other thing i think i value about this place is it gave lincoln a chance to be a person as well as a president. It gave him a chance to sit on the carpet and play toy soldiers with his son, to sit on the porch and read the newspaper. That is part of why our statue of lincoln, which is at the cottage or looking at now, is lifesize. 64. Lincoln is still the tallest person to be president of the United States. Part of what we hope for when people come to the cottage is that they also have the chance to get a taste of the experience lincoln had. That they have a moment of peace, that they have been opportunity to reflect on their principles and that they have a chance to think deeply about what they want the future of america to look like so this can continue to be a home for brave ideas. There is a couple ways to find out more about the cottage, if you would like to do so. We are open for outdoor tours at the moment. In an effort to be as safe as humanly possible under the circumstances. You can also listen to our podcast that colleen mentioned, q and abe, which takes real visitor questions have gotten on tours that we wish we could take a half hour answering. It is more of me talking, so if you are enjoying that, that is a great starting point. For now, im going to turn your back over to colleen so we can jump forward in time. Director shogan thank you so much for that presentation. We are going to move forward in time. Our next guest is from the summer retreat established by president Herbert Hoover during his administration. The camp is located within the boundaries of Shenandoah National park. It has recently been restored to its 1929 appearance, and is an excellent reflection not only of this era, but of president hoover himself. Claire comer is an interpretive special at Shenandoah National park. She began reading tours in 1990 and has been involved in the restoration of the cabin and in the development of an exhibit. When the camp transition to a congressional retreat transitioned from a congressional retreat to a popular interpretive site. Welcome to history happy hour. Thank you so much. I am excited to be with you all and share a little bit about the camp. When Herbert Hoover was elected president in 1928, he and misses mrs. Hoover knew immediately they would need a place to renew their balance and strength. A place to rejuvenate. A place to escape what he called the pneumatic hammer of public contact. He assigned the task to find the perfect spot to one of the secretaries. Lawrence ritchie delivered. He had three criteria to work with. One, they wanted a place close to washington, d. C. Maybe within 100 miles they maybe within 100 miles, because they wanted to be able to go to the camp frequently. The second criteria was they wanted something in the mountains because we know what washington, d. C. Summers can be like. This is before air conditioning. The third and most important criteria was it had to have trout. Lawrence ritchie delivered in a big way. Today, i would like to take you to the hoovers home. So, here we are on the porch of the brown house. People have told me that hoover was a dour man without a sense of humor. I doubt that, because i think it is kind of fun he named this the brown house. Get it . White house, brown house . This is where the hoovers were. They derived a lot of peace and rejuvenation from the outdoors. When mrs. Hoover designed the camp, which she was responsible for all kinds of details, she wanted to look for ways to bring the outdoors in and to provide Great Outdoor spaces. All of the cabins have these huge, wonderful decks. I want to take you to a particular feature of this deck and look at a couple of things right here. I want you to notice this panel right here and these hinges. We are going to talk about that more in a few minutes. Looks like there is a problem here. If you look down here, you see a hole in the deck. That was totally on purpose. The hoovers, being huge lovers of nature, they did not want to cut down the trees. They let the tree grow right through the porch and into the roof. It had to be unfortunately taken out in later years. Lets take a look inside and see these relaxing, beautiful spaces she created. The hoovers came often. One of the things that happened to evolve about the camp is they started to use it as a working retreat as well as a recreational retreat. Hoover would have themed weekends where he would invite people around a certain issue. He liked to isolate them so they could have these intense conversations and not be interrupted. One weekend, he invited charles lindbergh, the postmaster general, and several other people and they discussed the possibility of airmail. That was something he did a lot. Here is what i wanted to talk to you about that window. This is the inside of that panel. Because she wanted to bring the outdoors in, she created these panels. The inspiration for that was tents. She wanted canvas. This is what they had at first. There was this incessant flapping. It drove them nuts. Plus, they wanted to be able to come more often in the chillier months. They actually enclosed with this german siding. Because she liked the idea of tent flaps, she created these wooden ones that went down. As you can see over here, the windows tilt out. She is bringing the outdoors in. Lots of details that she wanted to make sure it was a relaxing, wonderful spot. None so much as her corner office. How about that . I would love to work there. I think i could get like nothing done. Lets take a look at the bedroom. Originally, they shared a bedroom. As things got a little chaotic during his administration, they added a second bedroom. If you do this tour on your own, which you can, i am just hitting some high spots, do not miss his shower. I bet it was a little chilly in the morning. The greatest thing about hoovers bedroom is this is what was out his door. This is what was part of the lure of the camp. He loved to fish. He spent a lot of time at the the camp. When he wasnt in meetings and working, he spent as much time as he could fishing. You see his creek here. I wanted to talk about his connections to the stream and to fishing. If you look in his own words, president hoovers personal secretary or personal physician he never saw hoover happier then when he was at the camp. He would jump out of the car without even changing clothes and head to the stream. In his own words, hoover said to go fishing as an accepted reason for an escape. It requires no explanation. Probably most poetic, he said, to go fishing is the chance to wash ones soul with pure air, with the rush of the brook or the shimmer of sun on the water. It brings meekness and inspiration from the deepness of nature. Patience towards fish. A quieting of hate. A rejoicing that you do not have to decide a darned thing until next week. And it is disciplined in the equality of men because all men are equal before fish. Makes you want to grab a fishing pole and head on out to shenandoah. Thanks for inviting me and i look forward to your questions. Director shogan thanks so much for joining us. That was a fascinating explanation. Also very intrigued by president hoover and fishing. That is a new fact for me. Our last guest is from Marthas Vineyard museum. Founded in 1922 as the dukes county historical society, it changed its name in 2006 to better reflect its extensive holding on objects of historical significance, paintings, and oral histories. Abe first came to Marthas Vineyard at the age of three months and returned every summer until he moved there in 2011. He finished his phd in history from the university of wisconsin at madison and taught at University Level for 21 years before joining the Marthas Vineyard museum as a reference librarian, journal editor, and staff historian in 2014. Welcome to history happy hour, beau. Beau greetings, everybody from the island of Marthas Vineyard, five miles off the coast of cape cod in southeastern massachusetts, where for the first 5000 or 6000 years of human habitation, it was all about fishing and farming, farming and fishing, until one the years immediately following the civil war, a group of enterprising businessmen got the idea of buying up some unused farmland by the sea in the north corner of the island and establishing this summer resort. They called it oak bluffs. Into [inaudible] and it became within 15 years, a town in its own right and set the island on the path to where it has been ever since world war ii. A place where people still fish and still farm, but where the economy is mostly dependent on summer and offseason tourism. The very first of the nine or 10 people who at one point in their lives were president of the United States and visited the vineyard was ulysses s. Grant who came for three days in 1874, visiting oak bluffs soon after it began to take off as a summer resort. Grant did not have what we think of today as a typical vacation. He stayed at a tiny cottage owned by a methodist bishop, gilbert haven, watched a firework show, dined with friends and gave what may yet be the shortest political speech ever recorded, which ran all of four lines and took less than 30 seconds. ,he most inspiring line being i know you are all tired. So, i. So am i. Have a good night. Other president s followed in grants footsteps, but the vineyard was put on the president ial vacation map in the early 1990s when president bill clinton came for the first of what would be seven president ial vacations in 1993. The exception being 1996, when he was running for reelection. President barack obama followed suit, coming for the first time in 2009 and returning every summer with his family except for 2012 when he was running for reelection. Part of the appeal of the vineyard vacation is the island, all 100 square miles and six towns of it, is incredibly diverse. Your vacation can be whatever it is you want it to be. For both clinton and obama, a big part of their time on the island was playing golf with other wellknown summer residents like Vernon Jordan or steph curry or Alonzo Mourning or with locals who were lucky enough to get invited. There was even one epic moment during one of obamas later vacations when bill clinton joined him. You can imagine what the press and secret service entourage at the golf course was like that day. Both the clintons and obamas liked to go out to dinner with friends and liked to be seen visiting some of the local shops. They both frequented the two independent bookstores. They stopped for ice cream at mad marthas. The obamas perused the overcrowded and diverse shelves at allies general store, which had been in business since the 1860s. That said, each of the two president s who spent multiple summers on the vineyard and had their own distinctive vacationing style. Clinton, as would surprise nobody who followed his presidency, loved to get out among the people of Marthas Vineyard, whether at the fences of the golf course, the airport or the ice cream parlor, shake peoples hands, chat people up. It is still talked about to this day how in the summer of 1993, at the couples first visit to bookstore,f grapes Hillary Clinton shook the hand and took the time to talk to every single employee of the store, giving them a onceinalifetime experience. The closest i have ever come to a Marthas Vineyardbased brush with a president was my mom working as a volunteer for a Charity Golf Tournament where president clinton showed up to make some kind of speech and wish people well, and she got to shake his hand and said, my gosh, now i know why he is president. It is just electric to be around him. A lot of vineyarders i think felt that way about him. The obamas tended to be quieter, more reserved and to do more as a family during the day. President obama liked his golf, but he also, as was wellknown, like his basketball. The house they stayed in on the north shore of the island featured a halfcourt Basketball Court on which he and whoever was around to play with him could shoot a few hoops in between whatever else was going on. The obamas were famous for their many long bike rides along the islands network of bike paths. In one of his earlier vacations, he excited a bit of a furor by being pictured not wearing a bicycle helmet as he rode along the shoreline in edgartown. This excited some comment and lead to a White House Press release to the effect that president obama supports the wearing of bicycle helmets, just not necessarily on the vineyard apparently. For us at the Marthas Vineyard museum, the high watermark of the obamas multiple visits was twofold. One, the toured the Gay Head Lighthouse at the far end of the lighthouse, whose original 19th century is a centerpiece in our exhibit. They were kind enough to sign the guestbook, which we promptly put on display. Also, president obamas coming to the island was a huge moment for us at the museum because it gave us an opportunity to call attention to the history of Marthas Vineyard in general but particularly to the town of oak bluffs as a popular vacation resort for africanamericans. Since 1900 or so africanamericans felt they could come and relaxed and feel welcome and escape somewhat from the tensions and the pressures of the wider world, where they could come and feel accepted. And so, president obama and his family, although they did not stay in oak bluffs, the fact they came to the island gave us an opportunity to tell that story in a new and fresh way and close the circle of the story that began in 1900 and continues to this day. Now, i would like to hand it back. Director shogan thanks so much. I would like to invite joan and claire to join us again so we can get to some terrific questions we have. If you want to submit a question, hit the q a button at the bottom of the screen. Tell us your name and where you are watching from. The first question is for joan. It is about lincolns cottage. It is from matt from durham, north carolina. He asks, wasnt lincoln shot at during one of his rides between the white house and his cottage at the soldiers home . Joan matt, you are remembering correctly. We know of one time when lincoln was on his way up to the cottage when he was shot at. The bullet went through his hat. Kind of a near miss. We do not know anything about the shooter. No one was ever able to catch that person or track them down. I cannot give you a motive. Confederate spies or anything, we just do not know. The other thing i will say is that booth, in formulating his plan, was originally planning to kidnap lincoln. Because he knew the route from the white house to the cottage was relatively undefended, there might be a moment where lincoln might be vulnerable, that was on booths list of options where when his plan was to kidnap the president. After he heard he was proposing offering the vote to africanamerican soldiers and then to be at the theater later that evening, which was an environment booth was comfortable with, he switched the plan up and did not end up using the commute route in the final act. Director shogan great. The next question is for claire. Did president hoover ever visit the house after he left the presidency . Claire yes, he actually did come back once. One of the littleknown facts is that mr. And ms. Is Hoover Hoover purchased the property for the camp with their personal funds. It was always his intent to donate the property to Shenandoah National park, which was just in its beginning stages. We were not established until 1935. He had hoped future president s would use it. However, roosevelt did not like the camp. He built shangrila, which became camp david in maryland. Thanks kind of just sat unused for a while. In 1948, the park service least the park service leased the camp to the boy scouts. Hoover came to visit. Hoover was a huge supporter of boys clubs of america and the boy scouts. Later, after about 10 years, they decided to use the camp as to renovate the camp. They took down 10 of the 13 buildings and then used it as a president ial retreat for future president s and also other people of the office of the president. It served in that capacity for many years before it became an interpretive site for Shenandoah National park. Director shogan next question is for beau. I hope i get the pronunciation right. This is from timothy. He asked you if you can discuss president ial visits to the island of cuttyhonk where president s enjoyed the fishing club. Beau that is a great question, timothy. To orient people, the Elizabeth Islands are a chain of small islands that run parallel to the north shore of the vineyard. A few miles away across the water. Both cast and kuttyhunk were places where wealthy collections of gentlemen from the late 19th century built fishing clubs. Basically the equivalent of a hunting lodge, except you are after bass instead of deer. You hung out with your fellow rich guys. There were stands, thin piers build out over the water. We went out in the morning and sat on a chair at the you went out in the morning and sat on a chair. Assisted by a servant you could hire at the rate of six dollars a week to handle all the messy stuff for you. No president i am aware of ever visited the pask island club. I am uncertain about whether any of them made it to cuttyhunk. Although it was certainly popular. We do know president Chester Arthur hitched a ride on a u. S. Fishery Service Vessel and went trolling in Vineyard Sound in the 1880s and that president grover cleveland, whose retreat was on cape cod, came down in 1897 to visit a friend and tried the bass fishing at a similar club on the south shore of the vineyard. The locals got a good laugh out of it because president cleveland, once he got on the end of his stand and got his line in the water, succumbed to the warm, sunny day and nodded off only to be rudely awoken when the tide came in and filled his boots with cold saltwater. What he caught in the process, we do not know. Director shogan great. We will go back to joan for a question concerning the layout of lincolns cottage. The question is from mary from d. C. Was there a hospital for Wounded Soldiers near lincolns summer home for veterans and did lincoln visit the veterans when he was staying there . Joan mary, that is a great question. If any of you are familiar with d. C. At have heard of something called the old soldiers home, that is us. It is now called the Armed Forces Retirement home. The institution predates lincoln coming to visit the college. The building the lincolns lived in was built for a wealthy washington banker who lived there for about 10 years and owned more than 200 acres of land surrounding the house. He sold the house and the land to the government as the government was looking to start a retirement home for soldiers in the aftermath of the mexicanamerican war. It is the retirement home that invited the lincolns to stay at the cottage. The lincolns never owned the building and did not have any say in the design or construction. The retirement home had about 100 residents while the lincolns were staying at the cottage. Lincoln did interact with them. There were several hospitals kind of near the cottage in northeast d. C. This institution on the grounds of which the cottage is is not and has never been a hospital. This is a retirement home for veterans. Some of them have been discharged because of disability, but it is not a hospital facility. Again, that institution continues into the president. Into the present. There are more than 300 veterans who live here right now, including at least one world war ii veteran. Director shogan we will go to claire for the next question. This is a question about the house itself. Is the brown house original, and what about the furnishings inside . Claire the house is original. It was used for many years as a retreat, so it was updated at that point, but in 1990, the early 1990s, we started a restoration. We took out the kitchen that had later been added and made some other adjustments to make it as close to how it was when the hoovers were here. And then, we did a historic refreshing. There are a couple of pieces that are original to the camp, but because the hoovers chose the furnishings and bought the furnishings themselves, they took them with them. Most of what is there are reproductions. If you look at the tour yourself, you will see pictures of their time and see what we used as a guide to do the refinishing. The light fixtures are original. A couple of the pieces of furniture are original as well. Director shogan for beau, we have a number of people who have asked this question. I am not going to attribute it to any one of our viewers. The question is about the kennedys. A lot of people said they know the kennedys vacationed on cape cod, but did they ever spend time on Marthas Vineyard . Beau it is a great question, and it is when we get a lot at the museum. President kennedy, as most of you probably know, was an avid sailor. Before he was elected president , he came to the vineyard at least twice to sail in the annual edgartown regatta. Once just before world war ii and once just after. Once he was in office, the first family did come to edgartown and come to edgartown aboard the yacht one sunday in 1961. It was unannounced. Locals did not know anything was up until coast guard boats loaded with coast guard crewmen and Plainclothes Police officers started to swarm around edgartown harbor. By that point, president kennedy and caroline were enjoying a swim off the back of the boat. Mrs. Kennedy had flagged down a passing motorboat behind which someone was waterskiing and asked if she could have a ride, which she did to the great enjoyment of everyone who was watching. Mrs. Kennedy, then misses onassis, also bought property at the west end of the island long after she had left the white house and came there summers, as did caroline and john jr. For a number of years. It has since been sold, but the kennedy family, despite the association with hyannis, does have an association with the vineyard. Director shogan the next question we have is actually for all three of you. Can you talk about the security challenges that president s might have had at each of your respective president ial sites that either soldiers or secret Service Agents had to deal with . The question is about security, and how president s dealt with security when they were away from the white house and at their vacation sites. Claire, do you want to start . Claire sure, i can start. When president hoover was in camp, there was a nearby marine camp conveniently located. They did a lot of maintenance. Some of the furniture pieces that you saw on the tour were built by the marines. They also offered security. I am not so sure how effective they were, because it did not boy a young, local mountain from coming into camp on hoovers birthday to present him with a possum for his birthday dinner. Joan we also have a security situation at the cottage. Lincoln had a security situation that is very different from how we might expect president s to interact with security today. Lincolns presidency predates the practice of the secret service guarding the president. While there were soldiers camped on the ground at the old soldiers home at the cottage to guard the president and his family, they were here to guard the site and to stop confederate soldiers. They were not here to stop members of the public getting access to the president. We have stories of visitors coming up late into the evening and saying, i am here to see the president and i insist on being seen. Lincoln did also have, especially later in the war, a cavalry escort that was meant to go with him commuting to and from the white house. Often, lincoln would be awake quite early in the morning, would come downstairs to breakfast, and then leave without telling his escort he was departing. They not only thought their job was kind of boring because they would rather have been chasing confederates up and down the shenandoah valley, but also frustrated that lincoln was not communicating with them. Beau, i would imagine there would have to be serious security concerns for more recent president s including the obamas and the clintons. Beau there were, and the vineyard was an interesting paradox in that respect. On the one hand, it is an island, which means access to it is relatively easy to control. And both the clintons and obama stayed in parts of the island where they were in houses that were isolated on large with large areas of open land around them. It was easy for the secret service to set up a perimeter and make sure they could control access. The flipside of that is the three largest towns on the island, oak bluffs, edgartown and vineyard haven, are geographically small and incredibly densely packed. When the clintons, especially, went downtown to go shopping, getting ice cream come, restock their supply of books, the secret service were faced with trying to control an incredibly small space filled with people and having to virtually shut down, not just a block or two, but the entire town in order to have some hope of controlling access to the president and the first family, which in both the cases, the clintons and obamas, led to a great deal of grumbling in the letters column of the newspaper about shutting down the town, inconveniencing the rest of us, which led to a series of responses. As if the tourists do not do that every summer, you know, at least we get to have the president and his family stay here. Get over yourself. But thankfully, it all went off without a hitch and nobody wound up with a hole in his hat that was not there when he got up in the morning. Director shogan joan, can you tell us about the Civil War Cemetery that is near lincolns cottage . This question is from jerry from ohio. Joan absolutely. That cemetery is known as the First National cemetery. It is the easiest way to think about it is across the street from the cottage. It is about 200 yards north of the cottages front door and during the civil war, over 4000 people were buried there, union soldiers, largely. It works out for a while the time lincoln was here, about 30 soldiers a week. That meant lincoln was faced in an extremely direct way with the consequences of his decisions as commanderinchief and the impact the war was having on the real human beings around him. We know lincoln would walk through the cemetery on a regular basis. It is hard to imagine that would not affect his decisionmaking going forward. That cemetery is still there. It actually filled up during the civil war. They ran out of space up here, which is part of why they began looking for the site that would become Arlington Cemetery today. Director shogan we have time for one more question. This is for all of our panelists, all three of you. Can you tell us, what is one special aspect or characteristic of your president ial site that makes it a special president ial retreat . If you could only say one thing that makes it a special retreat for the president or president s that spent time there, what would you say . Who wants to start us off . Claire is first. [laughter] claire i think it is the connection to the outdoors, the connection to the environment. The sense when you are there, i think politics aside, the thing i respect the most about hoover is that he lived his convictions. He was a man of convictions, not necessarily of convenience. When he said he loved nature, he loved nature. You get a sense of that the minute you step into the camp and into any of the buildings. It is completely unpretentious. It is completely connected to the water, the sounds of the water, the wind, the plants, the whole surroundings. I would say his connection to the outdoors is the thing you feel the most when youre in camp. Beau i think in the case of the vineyard, it is something i alluded to at the beginning, that in its 100 square miles, it encompasses both absolutely trackless, peaceful, undeveloped wilderness, and the most incredibly vibrant bustling social life you could imagine. At any given moment when you are on the island, it can be whatever you need it to be in that moment. If you want to be able to just be alone with your thoughts and be completely cut off [indiscernible] if you want to be with people and feel that energy as president clinton so often did, you are an easy drive from town where you can be part of incredible excitement and energy. It is all up to how you feel when you did up in the morning. Joan i think that i have something slightly intangible like claire was talking about. This place has a very strong presence and very strong sense of peace and rootedness. We call it the lincoln shiver. You can feel it when you are here. That lincoln was here and this place is a powerful place for him. One of the most striking indications of that is when lincoln came out here, he was in his mid50s. Yet, within a couple months, he had an absolutely radical for a radical idea for how to move forward with the big problem that was facing the nation. I do not know what it is about being here, but it was being here that makes that happen. We can make inferences about what that was, but part of it was being here. I really value that while the lincolns were not carefree while they were here at the cottage, they found a place where they could be themselves. Presidency, we hear from archivist craig wright about a road trip that first Lady Lou Hoover took with her newly widowed father, traveling from california to washington, d. C. Long before there was an interstate highway system. Her father documented the september 12 to october 16th trip down to how much they spent on gas. His four page summary is in the collection of the Herbert Hoover president ial library museum. It is quoted during this talk. The hoover president ial Foundation Provided this video