Lock for these look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. And so now im very please today introduce tonights author presenting his acclaimed new book, the book that changed america. Randall fuller works at the university of tulsa as well as the author of from battlefields rising. His work has appeared in the new york times, the wall street journal and other publications. Professor fuller is a winner of phi beta kappas award for best literary criticism. The book that changed america how darwins theory of evolution ignited a nation, explores how five luminaries gained new perspectives on the origin of the species in the leadup to the civil war. Thank you very much for the nice introduction. Thanks for coming out on what to oklahoma feels like a chilly night. I realize it is not really that cold. I am really glad to have been invited by the harvard bookstore. I have spent many hours over my professional life browsing in this bookstore while i have done research, trips across the street. One of those Research Trips occurred three years ago when i found myself at harvard in the archive with this wrapped up Cardboard Box placed in front of me. The archivist there told me this was a book that hadnt been examined for probably a generation, two generations. If anyone in the audience is a literary historian or archivist, you know that thrill you get when they give you the white gloves to put on your hand, you know you have something precious that is not supposed to be handled too roughly. I had my white gloves on, always wrapped elaborately like a Christmas Present and i opened the box up and what i saw was one of the first if not the very first copies of Charles Darwins magisterial, revolutionary on the origin of species to arrive in this country. I am not a scientist, i am not a biologist, i came at this book in a kind of a roundabout way. As a literary historian, someone interested in many of the writers in england in the 19th century we know so well, ralph waldo emerson, emily dickinson, a little farther south, walt whitman, herman melville, i was working on a project about Henry David Thoreau, and i just had encountered a single line in a biography that said on january 1, 1860, the row Henry David Thoreau had encountered a copy of darwins on the origin of species and i remembered thinking wow and i will tell you why. It is widely assumed or at least it was widely assumed by me, and by Many American studies folks, American Literary studies folks, that darwins book did not have a Significant Impact in this country until after the civil war. The idea is that book was published in late 1859, arrives here and makes its first impact in early 1860 and within 14 or 15 months or so, the civil war erupts. The nation is really preoccupied with that for the next four and a half years and only after that time does this sort of amazing, intellectual revolution affected by darwin make itself felt in the United States. I was surprised to learn that Henry David Thoreau encountered it so early but i shouldnt have been surprised because he was almost always ahead of the curve when it came to ideas. What i found after reading about Henry David Thoreaus encounter with that book was curiosity on my part to find how he got a hold of that book. Here is the story. Charles darwin publishedes on the origin of species in november 18, 59, the book famously sells out the day it is published, has a print run of 1500 in england and almost immediately a new print run is produced in england but of the First Edition he sent several copies to the United States. The one that i was interested in is a copy he sent to the harvard botanist asia grade, the first botanist at Harvard College who was not entirely selftaught, had a Little College education, but was largely a field scientist who was a master categorize or of north american biography. He was the preeminent botanist in the United States in the 1850s, and developed a friendship with darwin. Many of you know Charles Darwin was a largely reclusive person who tended not to leave his home very often, a voluminous and widespread correspondence primarily with other scientists. Over the course of the 1850s, darwin asked periodically through the mail, his colleague here, a the gray, if you could give more details about the way there were some plants in north america also in japan but no other place, he has questions like that. He didnt know why he was asking those questions but is a gray was flattered he would answer those questions and over a period of a couple years gray and darwin became longdistance friends. So when his book is published, Charles Darwin sends a complimentary copy to his friend aza gray. Aza gray immediately seizes upon this book. People ask me is this the actual book . It actually is not. This is what the original one looks like, this is a First Edition, on the origin of species. This one is from the Natural History museum in new york because it was easier to photograph or a Publishing House in new york. This is basically what it looked like. Verdant green book printed by john murray, the english publisher famous in my world for also publishing Herman Melvilles moby dick and darwin sent it to aza gray in late november of 1859, it crosses the storm tossed atlantic and arrives here, dont know the exact date but december 10th or december 15th somewhere in that time period and aza gray devours this book. He marks it up with pencil. This is why i came here, to look at this thing, he put exclamation points, underlining passages, eventually he writes yes, i agree, sometimes no, i disagree, and those are longer explanations, taking notes to provide feedback for darwin but he reads the book quickly, and fills it with notes. There is a long list of minor corrections, to darwin as he finishes the book. He begins in cambridge, he encounters, he tells charles purse, the great pragmatist philosopher, and the comparative anatomists, he tells about this book, at christmas time, his relative, his wifes relative from new york visits, tell the relative about that book, charles grace, we tend not to remember him, something of a wellknown figure in antebellum america but if you know anything about him now, this Child WelfareReform Movement that he started, specifically about something called the orphaned trains. He was planning to become a minister until he moved to new york, he saw incredible poverty especially among a new immigrant population for german and irish folks living in Lower Manhattan and what often happened is their children were orphans or abandoned, the streets in Lower Manhattan were filled with primarily irish and german immigrants orphans. He began a series of reforms, created lodging houses for these children, created special lodging houses for newspaper sellers, the newspaper boys that became featured in a musical, these were actual kids who were largely homeless and needed a place to stay. He created a number of schools, primarily vocational schools for these children but the big thing he did was came up with this idea that if orphans in the gritty and unhealthy urban environments of Lower Manhattan could be put on trains and sent to the west in western pennsylvania, keeps moving, ohio and south dakota. If those kids could be placed on trains and relocated with essentially largely rural families they would become americanized, and culture rated to the idea of what the american upbringing constituted. So essentially grace is the founder of what we consider the foster care programs. He creates the sort of foster care network. Brace was also eagerly, also eagerly read darwins book as well. Like his wifes cousin, aza gray, he was powerfully interested in new science. He read the book over christmas break. As it happens, he was invited to come to massachusetts for a lecture on the orphaned trains on new years day. Getting close to Henry David Thoreau. One of the fun things about writing the book was simply trying to determine what the weather was like and it was extremely cold, 7 below 0. There was about the high depth of snow. You can imagine the frost on the windows. Brace gave his talk at the town hall on the orphaned trains and was led back to a house in the center of town owned by franklin sanborn, a radical abolitionist who had been a key figure in finding john brown. We can talk about john brown in just a little bit. He invited brace for dinner with two other people, the abstruse philosopher and father of louisa may alcott, those of you who know about bronson alcott, you may know the anecdote he went on a 6month lecture and came back for five dollars. He was not a money guy. He was a philosopher, he was an idealist. And last person at the dinner table was Henry David Thoreau. As i say in my book, of all those people who provide a chance of looking at this one particular book, the person who was most influenced was Henry David Thoreau. He was in many ways no longer the cantankerous transcendentalist hermit. I am caricature rising him. No longer the inhabitant of walden pond. He finished walden in 1852, he was beginning a second act in his life and that second act was a kind of scientist. A field scientist as it were. Every day of his life from 1852 on, Henry David Thoreau would leave his mothers house on main street and woods walk through the meadows and fields and forests of that area, taking notes. Taking notes on every bit of natural phenomena and that he saw, whether it was when the ice melted from walden pond, the sweet maple leaves first unfurled in the spring, when migrating birds came through. He takes notes on everything. Wonderful happening at this time. Wasnt quite a top hat but had a larger crown then usual and he built for himself a platform inside the crown of that hat in which he would place botanical samples and this large collection of flu music that belonged to his father, making creating all of these specimens in the attic of his mothers house. He one day the kind of plant, put the collection of seedpods in the crown of his hat on the little platform, a kind of seedpods that explode with seeds at a particular time of year and is walking home, and they sound like gunfire but he is doing this very empirical finegrained Natural History from the early 1850s on, when he gets a hold of darwins book, he doesnt get this one. He talks about it at dinner on new years day. What he does in his typical Henry David Thoreau way is get a copy as soon as possible and the library and apparently does by late january and he reads the book. It really transforms a lot of what he is doing as a writer, he takes these enormous newspaper sheets of paper and begins to create what look like very early forms of spreadsheet and traces every single plant and animal he has observed over the course of eight years. At the top, 1852, january through december and this long row of plants and animals, primarily interested in botany. When they lost the lease, saw a seed planted, all these things he records. These are at new york public library, enormous spreadsheets of data. He also writes an essay called the succession of forest trees, largely forgotten essay by Henry David Thoreau that was the most published essay written that he wrote during his time, picked up a newspaper that spread all over the nation. The question darwin raises in on the origin of species, that question is darwin says everybody has heard that in america, when you cut down a pine forest and and oak forest sprouts up and vice versa. If you cut down and oak forest, a pine forest sprouts up. There were a number of theories about why this might be, including one that emerson and louie argosys, the comparative anatomist at harvard believed, which was it was spontaneous, an example of spontaneous creation, but something either chemical or divine something happened where a different species sprouted up. Henry David Thoreau made a well reasoned and well observed and what now seems fairly obvious observation which is what i noticed is squirrels take acorns and plant them under pine trees because pine trees sheltered them during the winter time and he observes how forests come into being after an old forest is cut down. So i want to shift gears for just a second and say Henry David Thoreau was by no means typical in his reaction to darwins origin of species on the origin of species. There were three more common reactions. That is right before the civil war. I will go through those quickly and see what questions you may have. The first of these is the religious response, the one that in some ways is still with us. Somebody keeps pointing out to me in a twitter feed. That abysmally low number of people actually believe humans have evolved from animal ancestors. That comes from the initial religious response to darwin and that response in the first 18 months or so was fairly vociferous, the methodist review for example and other theological journals, there are writers who almost immediately recognize darwins idea of Natural Selection because it focuses on entirely physical or material processes poses a challenge or threatens traditional religious belief, in a divine creation. Specifically the one that worried people the most in 1860 is the divine creation of people. God created man in his image so the bible says, darwin seems to come along and throw that into some doubt. A number of theological periodicals of the period say what Charles Darwin has done has removed design, or removed the creator from the creation. There is this religious reaction we can anticipate to some extent. The reactions i think are more interesting and the ones i really focus on our twofold. Both of them are related to the historical moments in which the book arrived here. Go back for a second to john brown. John brown, as you probably know, had an idea he would, with a small band of people, take over and are morey in virginia at harpers ferry, release those weapons and distribute them to the slave population and foment the slave rebellion that would effectively put an end to slavery. He believed he was called by god to do that. And over the course of a month there was a trial and he testifies on his own behalf and on december 2nd. 1859, he is executed in virginia. That execution galvanized the country. The country is polarized over the issue of slavery but ratcheted up even more. It really led to intense divisions in the nation over the issue of slavery. After darwins book arrives, within a matter of weeks, there are periodicals in newspapers in the north and the south who are using darwins idea of a nature that is constantly at war and constantly competing with itself to describe the nation. So for example, a periodical in new orleans says something along the lines of we southerners are different people from those northerners. And we have different beliefs and different values, a completely different culture. Only one of those cultures is going to survive. The new york times, almost this moment in february 18, 60, is saying the same thing. We are two peoples, we cannot live together any longer. Slavery is going to spread through the south and to the west or it is going to be abolished. The two can no longer live sidebyside. The language that gets used over and over again is we are at war. Only the fittest will be able to continue. You can see what is happening here, darwinian sense of survival is being applied to a social context. Even more intensely, darwins theory in the first year arrived. Especially in this area, in new england, cambridge, sort of like the twin whitehot centers of evolution, darwins theory is seen to comment on racial ideology of slavery. Let me tell you what i mean and i will open up for questions. Louie agassi, the comparative anatomist at Harvard College, had a theory, he didnt originate this theory but he was its most vocal proponent throughout the 1840s and 1850s, something called special creationism. That was an argument that god when he created the world had created each species of plant and animal in a particular zone that it was meant to thrive in and he placed them there because it was the best place for them and they were never going to change. The species were immutable. They would not alter over time. For example a whale in the north atlantic was put their by god because that whale was a creature adapted to that climate just as the toucan in south america was. What he and other american socalled ethnologists, the school of ethnology did was say the same thing applied to human races. Saw this differentiation in race as also being hierarchy. People of tackerrer skin had been gods sort of first draft. It always redounded upon the idea that white people were superior, a cultural elites that was meant to meant by god to be superior to these other races. That was the dominant scientific motion of race in this country in the 1850s. There were certainly quarrels about it. That was the most in 1850s and what darwin did is say, my theory that all species, all plants, all animals can be trace today common and shared ancestors. And so in the first year of darwin being in this country, thats really all i focus on, i have a narrow window from 1859 to about when the start of the civil war, in the first year the most enthusiastic adopters of tar wins book were the abolishists. Had come along that could couldnt the predominant American School of etnology that the south liked to have in its pocket and that were in fact, brothers and centers sisters w