About becoming this inventor. And he keeps a notebook, actually, he keeps several notebooks and we have them at the museum. This is invention diary and sketch book where hes recording his ideas. Earl tupper, shirley, massachusetts. And then i think this is so fascinating, this first page starts with my purpose in life. And he really outlines sort of his goals for his career as an inventor. And then goes on and on. This diary is from the 1930s, as i said, and it really is hes inventing and trying to start a business inventing in probably the worst moment in American History, which is 1933, when 25 of americans are out of work. There are dozens of inventions in here. He tries all sorts of things, from personal Care Products like pocket combs to corsets, to my favorite, which is a rumble seat protector. So hes doing addons to cars, something that would keep you dry when youre sitting in your car. Thats one thing that he tries to patent it. He protects the idea, and he tried to market it. And he runs into the same problems that most independent inventors face, which were the capital to produce the invention, to actually manufacture it. But then also, the money and the knowledge to market it, to bring it to a market so that people would buy it. And you see his struggles with those things throughout the diary. Okay. So let me put this underneath my cart and im going to bring out some of the other objects that we have in a very large earl tupper collection. So this is his patent, much later, for tupperware, for the sealable bowl. This is 1957. So now hes moved forward in time. This is a product spot that would have been done by the tupper company of their early products. This is when tupperware was all white and not in colors yet. And then this is a pretty unusual and rare photograph of earl tupper at his desk talking to probably an engineer about the production of tupperware. And the many different forms that it would come in, because they didnt just make these, what were called bowls, but were probably mostly familiar with, and not even these. He really expands into an entire line of specialized containers, some of which are actually behind me. A salad dressing container, and my favorite, the millionaire drink shaker, so you could make your cocktails and keep them in the fridge without spilling. Plastics are really a 20th century material. They are new. And so he has an early encounter with dupont, the big plastics and dupont makes a lot of things including gun powder in this period, and they have a subsidiary in massachusetts, and so he works there for about a year. And then after world war ii, he gets a piece of polyethylene, which is a much more flexible plastic. And he actually invents from that an even more flexible and translucent plastic. This is all sort of postworld war ii, just as the Consumer Market for these things are really taking off. And he sort of enters that market with this new product and with a new material. American consumers and the women who did most of the buying for the home were really skeptical about plastic containers. They would much rather, even after world war ii, inclined to use glass. It was easier to clean. They thought about plastics, again, as like fragile or brittle or stinky like the plastic itself had an odor, or that they would not be clean or easy to clean. And glass was all of those things. So tupper faced not just an invention challenge but a marketing challenge. Like how to get women to buy the plastic container over the glass container. So earl tupper had a great product. But he didnt have a great way to sell it. And a lot of independent inventors and indeed Companies Struggle with how to market their goods. Especially if theyre new on the market. If consumers havent seen them before. What earl tupper does is he tries a number of selling venues. One is department stores. He places his products there, and it falls flat. People are not buying it because theres really nobody to tell you, again, what the benefits of the product are. Eventually, he figures out that family home products, which is a direct consumer sales, somebody who knocks on your door and says do you want to buy these products and demonstrates them for you, was really, there were a few sales people who were really moving tupperware. One was brownie weisz. A woman who really was a gifted salesperson herself and a big personality. She would come out of world war ii where she worked in an airplane factory, and then took up home sales as a way to support herself. Earl tupper hears about her. Here they are, and eventually, makes her Vice President of the company in charge of sales. And she moves the sales wing to florida. And she really does several things that are innovative. One is she sells with women to other women. And she incorporates this kind of stay at home domestic woman who is a mother and a wife or just a wife, as a way to make a little extra money on the side for things that they might want to buy. And that gives women a tremendous incentive to sell. And she taps into that. She also creates all sorts of other incentives and annual conference where the top sellers get really fabulous prizes like fur coats and new cars. And really gets the sales force into the culture of tupperware and into selling. And a lot of fun, these things were themed. The parties were like landing on the moon spacethemed party or caveman party. She makes it really, really fun. We have a couple of other sales literature things that were given out to the saleswomen. So heres a demonstration. And this really all hinged on the demonstration, again, women who were the main shoppers for the home were not necessarily sold on plastic containers. But if they got why they would keep fresh food fresher longer in a sealed container and why plastic had some benefits, then they would buy. And heres another piece of sales literature in our collection. Its a great color palette. And here are the fabulous products. And heres our millionaire drink shaker here thats in the refrigerator. You could own them in different colors, which was also a sales technique. So thats why this story is in the consumer era section of american enterprise. This is the era is really 1945 to the 1970s. And its a moment when americans across the board really have more money. So there is a middle class again. But from the 19 late 1920s through the 1930s, the depression and then through the world war ii years, americans just didnt have a lot of money to spend on consumer purchases. The depression, people are out of work, during the war theres rationing so people have more money, but theres fewer things to buy. Now, finally, after world war ii, americans have a little bit more money in their pockets, and they are spending it on houses, on appliances, and on things to fill those appliances and live the good life in america, which they computed with consumption. You have seen only a small part of our innovation wing today, but its a permanent exhibition and there are more stories, more objects, and more American History if you come down to visit us. Thank you very much. You can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our website, cspan. Org history. American history tv airs on cspan3 every weekend, telling the american story through events, interviews, and visits to historic locations. This month, American History tv is in primetime to introduce you to programs you could see every weekend on cspan3. Our features include lectures in history, visits to College Classrooms across the country to hear lectures by top history professors. American artifacts takes a look at the treasures at u. S. Historic sites, museums, and archives. Reel america, revealing the 20th century through archival films and news reels. The civil war, where you hear about the people who shaped the civil war and reconstruction. And the presidency focuses on u. S. President s and first ladies to learn about their politics, policies, and legacies. All this month in primetime and every weekend on American History tv on cspan3. Each week, American History tvs american artifacts visits museums and historic places. And up next, a visit to the National Constitution center in philadelphia to learn about the exhibit constituting liberty from the declaration to the bill of rights. Our tour guide is president and ceo jeffrey rosen. The National Constitution center is a very special place. Its the only institution in america that has a charter from congress to disseminate information about the u. S. Constitution on a nonpartisan basis. That means we bring together all sides in the constitutional debates that transfix america to debate not political issues but constitutional issues so that you the people can make up your own mind. We do that in three ways. With the museum of we the people, which is this Beautiful Museum here on Independence Hall in philadelphia, and im looking out on one of the most beautiful constitutional views in america, Independence Hall, where the declaration of independence and the constitution were drafted. Were also americas town hall, a center for debates and symposiums and podcasts and you can find us on cspan and online at constitutioncenter. Org, and a center for constitutional education, and were building the best interactive constitution on the web so you can click on any provision of the constitution, hear the best arguments on both sides about it history and contemporary meaning and decide what you think it means. But today is a very exciting day for me because i have the chance to share with you our president george h. W. Bush gallery, which displays rare copies of the declaration of independence, the constitution, and the bill of rights. Were now one of the only places in america aside from the National Archives where you can see rare copies of these three priceless charters of freedom in one place. What we have tried to do in this gallery is tell a story. A story of the evolution of rights and in particular how the rights that were promised in the declaration of independence are implicit in the constitution and were finally codified in the bill of rights. So let me sort of set the stage by telling about the evolution of rights and we can look at each of the documents and talk about what it means. So what we have tried to do in this gallery is tell the story about the relationship between the declaration, the constitution, and the bill of rights. And we have written up a pamphlet which you can find online thats thrilling and completely incisive pamphlet which happens to be written by me and David Rubenstein, who has lent the rare copy of the declaration of independence. We were trying to encapsulate and set the stage by talking about their similarities and differences. Heres our introduction. The declaration of independence, the constitution and bill of rights are the three most Important Documents in American History. They express the ideals that define we the people of the United States and inspire free people around the world. How did each document influence the next . In americas ongoing quest for liberty and equality . Our three core documents have different purposes, still all have preamble. All were drafted by people of similar backgrounds, generally educated white men of property. Most importantly, the declaration, the constitution, and the bill of rights are based on the idea that all people have certain fundamental and inherent rights that governments are created to protect. The declaration, the constitution, and the bill of rights are in many ways fused together in the minds of americans because they represent what is best about america. They are symbols of the liberty that allows us to achieve success and equality that insures were all equal in the eyes of the law. So underlying each of the three documents is a philosophy. And its a philosophy of rights and in particular of natural rights. What was a natural right . The framers disagree about many things, but they agreed that all men, men and women, have certain unalienable, inherent, and fundamental rights. These rights in us by virtue of the fact were human. They come from god or nature, not from government, and the framers believed that these rights could be discerned by the mind of men, by reason. And they talked often about the same kind of rights as being natural and unalienable. The right to worship god according to the dictates of conscious. The rights of enjoying life and liberty, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety and in particular, in some ways most importantly of all, they talked about the unalienable right of individuals to alter and abolish government wherever it becomes destructive of these ends. There was a theory of the nature the framers absorbed from philosophers like john locke and Thomas Jefferson read these philosophers as did george mason, the author of the virginia declaration of rights. Jefferson when he wrote his declaration of independence had beside him at his desk two documents, the virginia declaration written by george mason and his own virginia constitution, which jefferson had drafted. So what was the philosophy of natural rights . The basic idea is when were born in the state of nature, before we move into civil society, were inhered with these certain fundamental rights. When we move into the state of nature, we surrender to the government or alienate temporary control over certain rights, but the point of that is to insure better security and safety of the rights we have retained. Thats why we give the government temporary control over punishment of private bounds. To protect our rights of life. We give the government the ability to regulate certain natural rights in order to protect the rights we retain. But there are certain things we cant alienate. I cant alienate to you my right to worship god or not because my religious beliefs and opinions and freedom of thought is the product of reason, operating on my external sensation. So thats why conscience is an unalienable natural right. It might be the case when government become tyrannical and menaces and threatens these rights rather than protecting them. Basically, breaking the terms of the social contract. Under those circumstances, the framers believed people had not only a right but an obligation to alter and abolish government so it would protect the rights rather than threatening them. That really is the idea that unites the three documents, the declaration, the constitution, and bill of rights. You have the declaration, which is a document that is breaking way from england because of the claim that the king of england had broken the social contract and was threatening basic unalienable natural rights. You have the constitution, which creates a frame of government energetic enough to achieve common purposes like taxing for war and regulating the economy, but is also constrained enough so it protects rights rather than threatening them, and finally the bill of rights itself which actually spells out the basic rights that the framers believed were natural and unalienable, for the greater security and safety of insuring that the government is going to keep its ends of the bargain. Theres a great drama about whether or not to list the rights that had to be protected, whether that was a good idea or a bad idea. That was one of the main divisions that divided the Constitutional Convention and so lets go inside the gallery. Lets look at the declaration of independence, step back a sec, and think about what jefferson was trying to achieve and how the ideals and promises of liberty and equality that he declared ultimately evolved through the constitution and ended up in the bill of rights. So this is the george w. Bush bill of rights gallery. The first document that we see as we come in here is a rare copy of the declaration of independence. This is the one that was lent to us by David Rubenstein and this is really remarkable story about how this document came to pass. The copy of the declaration that most people think about is in the National Archives. That was the one that the framers famously signed, that john hancock vividly said im going to sign so big that king george can read it without his spectacles. Thats hancocks big signature. The thing about the document that is now in the National Archives is even by the 1820s, it was becoming beat. It was really beat up when Dolley Madison rolled it up to save it during the war of 1812, and president John Quincy Adams became concerned that the original was going to fade so much that it couldnt be read. So he commissioned in 1820 an engraver called stone to make a perfect copy of the declaration that would look even more like the real thing than any other print. There was only one problem. Stone came up with, by some accounts, a rather cutting edge copying technique that involved taking a wet cloth, which was soaked with acid, and lifting half of the ink off of the original declaration and putting it on a copper plate that was made to make this copy. The result of all of this is that the original declaration was even worse shape that the one that originally was, but this spectacular copy is pristine and looked more like the copy the framers signed in 1776 than the one in the archives. The bad news for the original declaration, good news for those of us lucky enough to have copies of this precious stone declaration. 200 cop as were originally made and sent out to important institutions and public officials. About 27 or so of these copies survived, and this is one of them. So now lets talk about the ideas that are represented in this declaration. The declaration of independence has three parts. It had a preamble which now has become the most important part of the original document. It has a middle section listing the sins of the king of england and a third section declaring america is going to break free of england. Its the preamble, the first section, that essentially contains the entire theory of American Government in a single paragraph. If you want to understand the natural rights philosophy that animated the framers, all you have to do is return to the preamble. I could try to do it by heart, but im going to read the preamble. I was going to r