WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.720 --> 00:00:03.720 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to 2 00:00:03.839 --> 00:00:06.639 day I will be reading from a special edition of 3 00:00:06.679 --> 00:00:13.839 the Smithsonian magazine America two fifty Revolutionary Spark. As a reminder, 4 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:16.960 Radio I is a reading service intended for people who 5 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.239 are blind or have other disabilities that make it difficult 6 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:23.640 to read printed material. Please join me now for the 7 00:00:23.679 --> 00:00:28.640 first article, which is part two of America's original travel 8 00:00:28.679 --> 00:00:33.119 influencer drew up a revolutionary itinerary two hundred years ago. 9 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:37.240 There is still plenty to see along the way by 10 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:42.000 Tony Perrette. In the first part of our story, we 11 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:46.640 explored how Gideon Minor Davison's eighteen twenties guide book The 12 00:00:46.719 --> 00:00:51.159 Fashionable Tour, helped define one of the earliest distinctly American 13 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:54.679 travel itineraries, a route from New York City through the 14 00:00:54.759 --> 00:00:59.399 Hudson Valley and Saratoga Springs to Buffalo and Niagara Falls. 15 00:01:00.159 --> 00:01:03.079 The author explains that the guide book emerged at a 16 00:01:03.079 --> 00:01:06.959 moment of growing national confidence after the War of eighteen twelve, 17 00:01:07.319 --> 00:01:11.519 when new transportation technologies such as steamships and later the 18 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:15.400 Erie Canal made leisure travel more practical for a rising 19 00:01:15.480 --> 00:01:22.200 middle class. Davison's innovation lay in combining practical advice, fairs, schedules, 20 00:01:22.239 --> 00:01:27.680 and lodging with patriotic storytelling tied to revolutionary war landmarks, 21 00:01:27.959 --> 00:01:33.400 turning travel into both a recreational and nationalistic experience. To 22 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:37.599 test how well Davison's directions still hold up, the author 23 00:01:37.719 --> 00:01:40.560 retraces much of the original route in the present day, 24 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:46.319 visiting sites such as Lower Manhattan, West Point, the Catskills, Saratoga, 25 00:01:46.519 --> 00:01:50.120 and stretches of the Erie Canal. Along the way, we 26 00:01:50.280 --> 00:01:54.879 learn how early tourism blended natural beauty, luxury, resorts, art, 27 00:01:55.079 --> 00:01:58.959 and history, helping shape a national identity rooted in American 28 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:04.719 landscapes and revolutionary memory. Even where original hotels, wharves, or 29 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:09.639 canal traffic have disappeared, many views, monuments, and historic sites remain, 30 00:02:10.120 --> 00:02:14.039 allowing modern travelers to reconnect with the excitement that made 31 00:02:14.159 --> 00:02:19.120 this grand tour so influential two centuries ago. For an 32 00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:23.520 experience of the canal itself, the author arranged a rendezvous 33 00:02:23.520 --> 00:02:27.680 at its end point in Buffalo. After driving through industrial 34 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:31.319 back blocks, he met members of the city's Maritime center 35 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:35.280 at the ruins of the canal's western terminus, where the 36 00:02:35.319 --> 00:02:38.520 seventy three foot long wooden replica of an eighteen twenty 37 00:02:38.560 --> 00:02:42.599 five canal boat called the Seneca Chief, painted canary yellow 38 00:02:42.680 --> 00:02:46.439 with green and brown trim, was moored here. Now is 39 00:02:46.560 --> 00:02:51.719 part two, As we glided. John Montague, the Maritime Center's 40 00:02:51.800 --> 00:02:56.520 president emeritus, explained that the Center began rebuilding nineteenth century 41 00:02:56.520 --> 00:03:00.560 watercraft to help Buffalo recover its civic pride after a 42 00:03:00.639 --> 00:03:05.319 long period of economic depression. Quote there was a tremendous 43 00:03:05.360 --> 00:03:09.360 wealth here once, he said, including the world's largest collection 44 00:03:09.479 --> 00:03:12.960 of wheat silos and the most millionaires per capita in 45 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:17.680 the early twentieth century. Quote every great American architect built 46 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:22.199 something for Buffalo aristocrats, from Henry Hobson Richardson to Frank 47 00:03:22.319 --> 00:03:25.719 Lloyd Wright. The city has been struggling with its identity 48 00:03:25.800 --> 00:03:29.080 since the nineteen sixties, when its industry declined and it 49 00:03:29.159 --> 00:03:31.719 became part of the rust Belt. But if you look 50 00:03:31.759 --> 00:03:34.680 at its flag, the first things you see are a 51 00:03:34.759 --> 00:03:37.840 lighthouse and a canal boat. The Erie Canal is what 52 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:43.159 made Buffalo. It was America's real gateway to the West End. Quote. 53 00:03:44.159 --> 00:03:47.360 Eight hours later, we floated through the Deep Cut, a 54 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:50.680 seven mile stretch of solid rock that presented the most 55 00:03:50.800 --> 00:03:54.159 challenging engineering obstacle when it was dug by hand in 56 00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:59.479 eighteen twenty five and into our goal lockport. We were 57 00:03:59.520 --> 00:04:02.199 greeted on the dock by an eager crowd of passers 58 00:04:02.199 --> 00:04:06.280 by and locals who had spotted the antique looking vessel's arrival, 59 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:10.520 as well as representatives of an artisanal beer company named 60 00:04:10.560 --> 00:04:14.319 after one of the canal's fond nineteenth century nicknames, the 61 00:04:14.360 --> 00:04:18.240 Big Ditch. From Buffalo, it was only twenty miles to 62 00:04:18.279 --> 00:04:21.439 the holy grail for nature lovers in the eighteen twenties, 63 00:04:21.920 --> 00:04:26.240 Niagara Falls, which most Americans had seen only in engravings. 64 00:04:26.839 --> 00:04:29.759 Travelers could visit the falls during a hectic day trip 65 00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:33.639 by stage coach from Buffalo, but most preferred to stay 66 00:04:33.720 --> 00:04:38.560 at the newly opened Cataract House. From there, it was 67 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:41.720 a five minute walk to Goat Island, which devised the 68 00:04:41.759 --> 00:04:45.759 American Falls from Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. Although 69 00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:49.639 Davison warned that the two rickety bridges over the Frightful 70 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:54.000 Abyss could strike terror in the faint hearted, some travelers, 71 00:04:54.040 --> 00:04:58.480 he wrote, turned back, but once across a network of stairs, 72 00:04:58.519 --> 00:05:04.079 trails and viewing platform afforded breathtaking views. The strategic location 73 00:05:04.240 --> 00:05:07.480 also made the Cataract House, a favored stop on the 74 00:05:07.560 --> 00:05:11.920 underground railroad. Black white staff helped runaways from the South 75 00:05:12.240 --> 00:05:15.519 who were disguised as servants, slip out a side door 76 00:05:15.639 --> 00:05:20.079 and row to safety. In Canada, the Cataract House burned 77 00:05:20.120 --> 00:05:23.199 down in nineteen forty five, but I pulled up across 78 00:05:23.240 --> 00:05:26.480 the street from its old location at the Red Coach Inn, 79 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:29.920 opened in nineteen twenty three and named in honor of 80 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:33.399 the scarlet stage coach the Marquis de Lafayette used In 81 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:37.720 eighteen twenty five during his farewell tour of the United States, 82 00:05:38.439 --> 00:05:41.920 the elderly French hero of the Revolutionary War was so 83 00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:45.600 awed by the grandeur of the falls that he fantasized 84 00:05:45.639 --> 00:05:48.920 about getting a summer cottage there. According to his travel 85 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:54.160 companion and chronicler Andre Nicholas le Vassieu, feeling a light 86 00:05:54.240 --> 00:05:57.279 spray on my face, I followed a thunderous roar into 87 00:05:57.360 --> 00:06:01.639 Niagara Falls State Park, across a thankfully solid bridge, on 88 00:06:01.720 --> 00:06:06.279 to Goat Island and over to Terrapin Point. Confronting the Falls, 89 00:06:06.319 --> 00:06:09.920 I took in the sensory assault that the Philadelphia lawyer 90 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:14.480 in Esthete Dilworth Gilpin, a guide book author and Davison 91 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:19.600 imitator described thus, the vast body of water, whirling and 92 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:23.279 fretting and foaming among the rapids. Above, the deep and 93 00:06:23.399 --> 00:06:27.720 deathlike stillness with which it approaches the precipice, then, gathering 94 00:06:27.759 --> 00:06:30.759 all its mighty force, the plunge which it makes into 95 00:06:30.800 --> 00:06:35.279 the abyss, below the vapor clouds, the rainbow, now glowing, 96 00:06:35.680 --> 00:06:39.839 now fading away, and above all the ceaseless roar, which 97 00:06:39.879 --> 00:06:45.639 diffuses through the mind a feeling of ungovernable awe. As 98 00:06:45.680 --> 00:06:48.920 I retraced my route back south, I had one last 99 00:06:48.959 --> 00:06:52.120 mission on my grand tour. While my jaunt on the 100 00:06:52.160 --> 00:06:55.439 Seneca Chief gave me the experience of being on the 101 00:06:55.480 --> 00:06:58.720 Erie Canal, I had found spending time on the once 102 00:06:58.920 --> 00:07:03.079 teeming Hudson River difficult, But then I received word from 103 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:06.720 a man named N. D. Austin, an artist, a designer, 104 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:09.800 and of all things, a tug boat captain I had 105 00:07:09.839 --> 00:07:13.399 heard about from friends of friends in Brooklyn. He and 106 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:17.160 a vintage tug owned by the non profit tideland Institute 107 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:20.720 Shoe Fly were at an annual tug boat round up 108 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:24.839 up river. Austin suggested I hop aboard in the port 109 00:07:24.879 --> 00:07:27.879 of Hudson and return to New York City, one hundred 110 00:07:27.879 --> 00:07:33.240 and twenty miles south in traditional maritime style. The following afternoon, 111 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:36.759 we chugged across the mirror flat waters of the Hudson 112 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:40.879 in an inflatable motor boat towards Shoe Fly, whose stately 113 00:07:40.920 --> 00:07:44.519 bulk was anchored midway in the river's flow. It's an 114 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:49.120 entirely different experience seeing the Hudson from the water, Austin said, 115 00:07:49.160 --> 00:07:52.319 as a blue heron swooped past. To see the river, 116 00:07:52.639 --> 00:07:55.360 you've got to be on the river. The only sign 117 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:59.439 of civilization on either of the densely forested rocky shores 118 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:03.160 was a ship's graveyard, with decaying hulls poking from the 119 00:08:03.199 --> 00:08:07.439 water line. After we clambered aboard the tugboat, we were 120 00:08:07.519 --> 00:08:12.040 joined by other vintage watercraft, a ramshackle house boat, a 121 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:15.959 string of old yachts, and a restored schooner called Apollonia 122 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:19.800 that runs cargo to New York City entirely by sale, 123 00:08:20.199 --> 00:08:23.600 each part of a modest and quirky maritime community that 124 00:08:23.720 --> 00:08:27.920 still exists along the Hudson. The vessels were lashed together 125 00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:32.399 to the tug, creating an improvised platform for around fifty 126 00:08:32.440 --> 00:08:37.080 people to enjoy a unique floating social gathering, complete with 127 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:42.679 string musicians performing Herman Melville era sea shanties. It turned 128 00:08:42.679 --> 00:08:46.360 out to be a more immersive adventure than expected. After 129 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.639 we weighed Anchor the next morning, Austin handed me the 130 00:08:49.679 --> 00:08:52.679 wheel so he and two crew members could focus on 131 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:56.759 minor repairs, and so I found myself steering the vessel 132 00:08:56.879 --> 00:09:00.360 south along the Hudson, keeping an eye on a navigatational 133 00:09:00.480 --> 00:09:04.080 chart that showed the river's depth and location of buoy's 134 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.759 and other markers, while Austin blasted opera from a sound 135 00:09:07.759 --> 00:09:12.679 system and saluted passing vessels with salvaged ships horns and bells. 136 00:09:13.559 --> 00:09:15.960 After sleeping a second night on the floor of the 137 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.799 tug's wheelhouse, I awoke to find the river enveloped in 138 00:09:19.840 --> 00:09:24.080 a ghostly mist. The sun burned weakly through as I 139 00:09:24.120 --> 00:09:27.840 stood on the prow, watching the shapes of ancient trees 140 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:30.120 on the banks drift in and out of the fog. 141 00:09:30.559 --> 00:09:33.879 Past and present blurred. It could have been a moody 142 00:09:33.919 --> 00:09:38.159 scene painted by Thomas Cole or conjured by James Fenimore Cooper, 143 00:09:38.519 --> 00:09:43.039 whose adventures frequently took place along these shores, But more 144 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:47.159 importantly for me, it was a nineteenth century traveler's dream. 145 00:09:47.879 --> 00:09:51.120 For two weeks, I had followed the earliest American tourist 146 00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:54.720 guide book, and this was precisely the wild Escape. It 147 00:09:54.840 --> 00:10:00.919 offered immersion in a distinctive and inspiring American landscape. As 148 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:06.399 Davison promised, I had a taste of the sublime. Accompanying 149 00:10:06.399 --> 00:10:12.360 this article key takeaways the first American tourists. Gideon Davison 150 00:10:12.399 --> 00:10:16.519 Miner's eighteen twenty two guide book blended of fixed route 151 00:10:16.559 --> 00:10:21.639 travel tips and revolutionary history. That same year, America's population 152 00:10:22.120 --> 00:10:26.600 surpassed ten million, explaining how a growing middle class enabled 153 00:10:26.639 --> 00:10:30.879 a travel market at scale. In eighteen twenty four, the 154 00:10:30.919 --> 00:10:34.559 painter Thomas Cole took his first Hudson River steamboat trip, 155 00:10:35.000 --> 00:10:39.679 and his subsequent landscape paintings helped transform upstate New York 156 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.279 into a travel destination. The Erie Canal opened the next year, 157 00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:48.320 providing pleasant and scenic travel from the Hudson to Niagara 158 00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:52.600 Falls and the Great Lakes. By the nineteen thirties, Hudson 159 00:10:52.679 --> 00:10:57.440 River luxury steamers proliferated. Resorts in the Catskills in Saratoga 160 00:10:57.480 --> 00:11:01.759 Springs were major destinations, and copycat guide books were in 161 00:11:01.879 --> 00:11:07.559 wide circulation. Next at a pivotal moment of the Civil War, 162 00:11:07.960 --> 00:11:11.639 Frederick Douglas delivered a speech that reframed what was at 163 00:11:11.639 --> 00:11:16.679 stake if slavery stood in the mission of war. America's 164 00:11:16.679 --> 00:11:20.879 incomparable orator helped turn public sentiment in favor of the 165 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:25.879 Union in Abraham Lincoln, beginning the process of national regeneration 166 00:11:26.799 --> 00:11:31.879 by David W. Blight. In the cold early months of 167 00:11:31.919 --> 00:11:36.399 the election year eighteen sixty four, the abolitionist Frederick Douglas 168 00:11:36.440 --> 00:11:39.679 wrote a speech called The Mission of the War and 169 00:11:39.720 --> 00:11:42.600 took it on the road, delivering it dozens of times 170 00:11:42.879 --> 00:11:46.320 in towns and churches to which he'd been invited across 171 00:11:46.360 --> 00:11:50.840 the Northern States. The speech was one of douglas rhetorical 172 00:11:50.960 --> 00:11:55.000 masterpieces in a fifty year career as perhaps America's pre 173 00:11:55.080 --> 00:11:59.080 eminent orator. In this pivotal moment of the Civil War, 174 00:11:59.480 --> 00:12:03.879 Douglas crafted a work that served several purposes, a partisan 175 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:08.000 election campaign address on behalf of Abraham Lincoln, and a 176 00:12:08.039 --> 00:12:12.080 war propaganda speech to boost northern morale. It was also 177 00:12:12.240 --> 00:12:16.559 a bid to redefine the conflict. The speech forcefully called 178 00:12:16.600 --> 00:12:20.679 for an abolition war that would transform the country forever, 179 00:12:21.240 --> 00:12:26.879 insisting that moral ends, transcended policy imperatives, and finally, it 180 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:31.759 offered a Bible inspired apocalyptic vision of history as sometimes 181 00:12:31.799 --> 00:12:36.919 requiring violent rendings and regenerations. For Douglas, all was at 182 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:41.480 stake in eighteen sixty four whether the American experiment would survive, 183 00:12:41.720 --> 00:12:46.399 and even more crucial, whether and how slavery would truly 184 00:12:46.480 --> 00:12:50.080 be destroyed and a new country forged from its ashes. 185 00:12:51.200 --> 00:12:55.039 Douglas performed his mission speech in the vein of Jeremiah, 186 00:12:55.360 --> 00:13:01.440 the Hebrew prophet he most closely emulated. Douglas God's admonition 187 00:13:01.600 --> 00:13:05.159 to Jeremiah, I have this day set thee over the 188 00:13:05.240 --> 00:13:08.200 nations and over the kingdoms, to root out and to 189 00:13:08.240 --> 00:13:12.720 pull down, to build, and to plant. According to Douglas, 190 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:16.159 the Civil War was a quote potent teacher end quote, 191 00:13:16.320 --> 00:13:20.399 its lessons written in quote characters of blood. For the 192 00:13:20.480 --> 00:13:23.759 former slave, the struggle was a holy war, a fight 193 00:13:23.879 --> 00:13:28.039 against naked barbarism on behalf of quote, a nobler and 194 00:13:28.159 --> 00:13:32.320 grander cause than the world had ever seen. Raining down 195 00:13:32.399 --> 00:13:38.120 poignant metaphors and flowing refrains, Douglas personified slavery fourteen times 196 00:13:38.399 --> 00:13:42.679 in one paragraph, and warned against a slaveholding peace and 197 00:13:42.759 --> 00:13:47.240 against complacency in the coming election. Let but the little 198 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:50.360 finger of slavery get back into this union, he declared, 199 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.360 And in one year you shall see its whole body 200 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:58.279 again upon our backs. The speech appealed to his listener's 201 00:13:58.399 --> 00:14:03.320 moral hearts. It also marked a new political role for Douglas. 202 00:14:03.360 --> 00:14:07.000 No longer casting himself as a reformer or the mere 203 00:14:07.080 --> 00:14:10.960 voice of conscience, he was now a radical patriot arguing 204 00:14:11.039 --> 00:14:15.840 for revolution. The most hopeful fact of the hour, Douglas announced, 205 00:14:16.279 --> 00:14:19.519 is that we are now in a salutary school, the 206 00:14:19.559 --> 00:14:26.559 school of affliction. If sharp and signal retribution, long protracted, wide, sweeping, 207 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:30.159 and overwhelming, can teach a great nation respect for the 208 00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:34.679 long despised claims of justice, surely we shall be taught 209 00:14:34.919 --> 00:14:38.639 now and for all time to come. This was history 210 00:14:38.720 --> 00:14:44.159 presented as bloody, bitter instruction, an unfolding tragedy in which Catharsis, 211 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:49.519 Douglas said, offered real hope that winter and summer, neither 212 00:14:49.600 --> 00:14:52.759 side was assured victory, and the loss of life had 213 00:14:52.799 --> 00:14:56.480 reached a scale no one had foreseen. Lincoln stood for 214 00:14:56.559 --> 00:14:59.399 re election to the presidency in what was the first 215 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:03.200 ever gener general election conducted by a republic during a 216 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:07.399 Civil War. He would be opposed by the Democrat George B. 217 00:15:07.559 --> 00:15:11.679 Mc clellan, the former commanding general whom Lincoln had fired 218 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:15.639 in great controversy after the Battle of Antietam in eighteen 219 00:15:15.679 --> 00:15:21.080 sixty two. Since his emancipation proclamation of January first, eighteen 220 00:15:21.120 --> 00:15:24.879 sixty three, Lincoln and the Republicans had been stamped by 221 00:15:24.879 --> 00:15:28.919 Democrats as the dangerous party of Black freedom and equality. 222 00:15:29.559 --> 00:15:33.679 Democrats ran the most racist campaign on record to that time. 223 00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:39.600 They called Lincoln Abraham Africanus the First and even invented 224 00:15:39.600 --> 00:15:44.919 the word misagination to argue that electing Republicans would somehow 225 00:15:45.320 --> 00:15:51.360 codify forced into racial marriage. That August, Lincoln invited Douglas 226 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:54.840 to the White House. The president needed the most important 227 00:15:54.919 --> 00:15:58.080 African American leader on his side at a moment of 228 00:15:58.200 --> 00:16:01.440 dire crisis when he believedived he might lose the election. 229 00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:05.960 He asked the radical abolitionist if he should back away 230 00:16:06.039 --> 00:16:10.159 from the emancipation policy in response to northern public opinion, 231 00:16:10.559 --> 00:16:16.600 to which Douglas, as Lincoln expected, delivered an emphatic no. Astonishingly, 232 00:16:16.960 --> 00:16:20.919 Lincoln also asked Douglas to organize an effort to funnel 233 00:16:21.159 --> 00:16:23.840 as many slaves as possible out of the Upper South 234 00:16:24.120 --> 00:16:27.879 before election day in November, in case McLellan and the 235 00:16:27.919 --> 00:16:34.080 Democrats won, thwarting emancipation forever, Douglas returned to his home 236 00:16:34.120 --> 00:16:37.399 in Rochester, New York, and began to recruit agents for 237 00:16:37.440 --> 00:16:41.360 the border state liberation scheme, but he was in effect 238 00:16:41.519 --> 00:16:45.759 saved by events. On September two, just days after the 239 00:16:45.799 --> 00:16:51.159 Democratic National Convention in Chicago nominated McLellan, news spread across 240 00:16:51.200 --> 00:16:54.480 the country that Atlanta had fallen to General William de 241 00:16:54.559 --> 00:17:00.120 Cumpsea Sherman after a long siege Confederates. Rising hopes plummeted, 242 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:04.720 and many war weary Northerners suddenly saw victory on the horizon. 243 00:17:05.359 --> 00:17:09.000 With morale boosted, Lincoln was re elected with fifty five 244 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:12.440 percent of the popular vote, and the policy of emancipation 245 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:16.480 was reaffirmed even by Union troops, who, in a massive 246 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:20.559 and unprecedented soldier vote, cast seventy six percent of their 247 00:17:20.599 --> 00:17:24.599 ballots for the Republican The School of Affliction, though was 248 00:17:24.640 --> 00:17:28.279 hardly over, the war still had to be prosecuted to 249 00:17:28.319 --> 00:17:32.240 its haunting end, and the long and turbulent aftermath of 250 00:17:32.359 --> 00:17:38.039 reconstruction lay ahead. In his extraordinary speech, which undoubtedly helped 251 00:17:38.119 --> 00:17:42.359 turn public sentiment. Douglas had announced that the quote mission 252 00:17:42.480 --> 00:17:47.039 of this war is national regeneration. The address ended with 253 00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:50.920 a peroration that prefigured Martin Luther King Juniors in his 254 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:54.839 I Have a Dream speech ninety nine years later. If 255 00:17:54.880 --> 00:17:58.480 remaking the United States on the doctrine of equality before 256 00:17:58.519 --> 00:18:03.039 the law could be accomplished, Douglas proclaimed, our glory as 257 00:18:03.039 --> 00:18:06.200 a nation will be complete, our peace will flow like 258 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:10.519 a river, and our foundations will be the everlasting rocks. 259 00:18:12.079 --> 00:18:16.240 And with this article, did you know Frederick douglas sons 260 00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:20.839 fought for the Union. After Douglas campaigned for black enlistment 261 00:18:20.920 --> 00:18:24.440 in the Union Army, helping recruit black troops, two of 262 00:18:24.519 --> 00:18:29.000 his sons, Lewis Henry and Charles Riemond, served in Massachusetts 263 00:18:29.079 --> 00:18:33.839 fifty fourth Infantry Regiment. Louis became a sergeant major and 264 00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:36.960 was wounded in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner less 265 00:18:37.000 --> 00:18:40.279 than six months before Douglas debuted his Mission of the 266 00:18:40.319 --> 00:18:44.480 war speech. The widely publicized bravery of the fifty fourth 267 00:18:44.519 --> 00:18:49.200 Massachusetts Infantry Regiment served Douglas and others as a powerful 268 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:53.119 proof of the courage and resourcefulness of black soldiers and 269 00:18:53.240 --> 00:18:56.559 Douglas drew on this credibility as he argued for the 270 00:18:56.559 --> 00:19:01.839 fuller integration of non white enlistees. A third son, Frederick Junior, 271 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:08.039 helped his father recruit black soldiers and also accompanying this article, 272 00:19:08.599 --> 00:19:14.480 feat that fostered freedom for all. Bold inventive abolitionists changed 273 00:19:14.559 --> 00:19:22.440 minds and saved families by organizing by tarn White. William Still, 274 00:19:23.240 --> 00:19:28.039 born in eighteen twenty one, Still inherited abolitionism from his parents. 275 00:19:28.640 --> 00:19:32.440 In eighteen forty four, he moved to Philadelphia and eventually 276 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:37.400 began working at the Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society. As chairman 277 00:19:37.480 --> 00:19:41.279 of the Vigilance Committee. He assisted hundreds of freedom seekers, 278 00:19:41.680 --> 00:19:46.279 raising funds, coordinating journeys, and helped finance several of Harriet 279 00:19:46.279 --> 00:19:50.279 Tubman's missions to the South. He recorded stories from nearly 280 00:19:50.359 --> 00:19:54.599 one thousand of those he'd aided, helping families find loved ones. 281 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.200 Still found his own long lost brother when the latter 282 00:19:58.640 --> 00:20:03.359 visited the Society after buying his own freedom. He shared 283 00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:07.599 his records in eighteen seventy two's The Underground Railroad, Still 284 00:20:07.680 --> 00:20:14.200 a vital resource for historians. Mary Anne shad Carey, a 285 00:20:14.279 --> 00:20:18.599 pioneering figure in education law, and civil rights. Carrie was 286 00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:22.720 born in Wilmington, Delaware, in eighteen twenty three, and founded 287 00:20:22.799 --> 00:20:27.240 multiple schools to advance black education. After the passage of 288 00:20:27.279 --> 00:20:31.359 the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty, Carrie moved to Canada. 289 00:20:31.880 --> 00:20:34.839 She was the first black woman in North America to 290 00:20:35.039 --> 00:20:39.839 edit and publish a newspaper, the Provincial Freeman. She returned 291 00:20:39.839 --> 00:20:42.559 to the United States after the start of the Civil 292 00:20:42.599 --> 00:20:46.400 War to recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. In 293 00:20:46.480 --> 00:20:50.920 eighteen sixty nine, she enrolled in Howard University and later 294 00:20:51.039 --> 00:20:53.480 became one of the first black women in the US 295 00:20:53.880 --> 00:21:00.680 to earn a law degree. Angelina Grimka Weld in eighteen 296 00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:04.880 o five. Weld grew up in Charleston, South Carolina. Her 297 00:21:04.920 --> 00:21:08.599 parents were in slavers, and she witnessed the brutality of 298 00:21:08.680 --> 00:21:12.960 slavery up close. She moved to Philadelphia in eighteen twenty 299 00:21:13.039 --> 00:21:16.480 nine and published an appeal to Christian women of the 300 00:21:16.559 --> 00:21:21.200 South in eighteen thirty six, urging her readers to oppose slavery. 301 00:21:21.839 --> 00:21:24.880 Less than two years later, she became the first woman 302 00:21:24.920 --> 00:21:28.359 to speak before a legislative body in the US, presenting 303 00:21:28.440 --> 00:21:32.960 twenty thousand anti slavery petitions. At the Massachusetts State House 304 00:21:33.000 --> 00:21:37.240 in Boston. In her powerful address, Weld drew on her 305 00:21:37.279 --> 00:21:42.039 family history. I stand before you as a repentant slaveholder. 306 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:45.480 I owe it to the suffering slave and to the 307 00:21:45.519 --> 00:21:49.279 deluded master, to my country and the world, to do 308 00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:56.799 all that I can to overturn a system of complicated crimes. Next. 309 00:21:57.440 --> 00:22:01.200 Woodrow Wilson's legacy is loaded with good and bad, but 310 00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:05.799 his work to even the economic playing field is often overlooked. 311 00:22:06.279 --> 00:22:08.720 He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in 312 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:12.000 ending World War One and worked to improve the plight 313 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:16.640 of American workers. Today, his blind spots shrouded most of 314 00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:23.480 his accomplishments. By Richard Norton Smith, imagine American democracy as 315 00:22:23.519 --> 00:22:26.839 a mountain lake, its waters held back by an earthen 316 00:22:26.960 --> 00:22:32.880 dam of legal, constitutional, and cultural restraints. Periodically, the dam's 317 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:37.880 sluice ways become clogged by entrenched interests, concentrated wealth, or 318 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:41.759 fear of the unfamiliar. At such moments, we welcome an 319 00:22:41.759 --> 00:22:46.599 Andrew Jackson or a Theodore Roosevelt, those improbable champions of 320 00:22:46.640 --> 00:22:50.799 the working man, to clear the spillways of our democratic experiment, 321 00:22:51.240 --> 00:22:56.000 strengthening the dam and the lake it makes possible Woodrow. 322 00:22:56.000 --> 00:23:01.359 Wilson's March nineteen thirteen inauguration heralded just such a repair job. 323 00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:04.680 That spring, he became the first president in more than 324 00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:08.720 a century to address Congress in person. The next day 325 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:12.759 he returned, operating out of the President's Room in the Capitol, 326 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:17.400 he successfully lobbied members to enact the most significant tariff 327 00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:21.440 reductions since the Civil War. This was the opening move 328 00:23:21.519 --> 00:23:25.480 in Wilson's campaign to level the economic playing field by 329 00:23:25.480 --> 00:23:31.119 strengthening competition against the forces of monopoly. A minister's son 330 00:23:31.319 --> 00:23:33.920 reared in the South during and after the Civil War, 331 00:23:34.440 --> 00:23:38.400 Wilson may have had dyslexia, and his temperament was judged 332 00:23:38.480 --> 00:23:42.640 too remote for mass appeal. He remains the only American 333 00:23:42.680 --> 00:23:47.680 president to earn a pH d. Deploying persuasive talents honed 334 00:23:47.720 --> 00:23:52.279 as an academic, instructor and administrator, his first term legislative 335 00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:57.640 record reflects the progressive agenda. At flood Tide, Wilson created 336 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:01.720 the Federal Reserve to reclaim for Washington the fiscal initiative 337 00:24:01.799 --> 00:24:05.400 that had been assumed by Wall Street. Consumers as well 338 00:24:05.440 --> 00:24:09.559 as small businesses, benefited from his establishment of the Federal 339 00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:13.880 Trade Commission, labor unions gained new protections via the Clayton 340 00:24:14.200 --> 00:24:19.039 Antitrust Act. Under Wilson's leadership, the federal government worked to 341 00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.920 curtail child labor in factories and introduced an eight hour 342 00:24:23.039 --> 00:24:27.920 work day for railroad employees. Twice, the President vetoed emigration 343 00:24:28.039 --> 00:24:32.359 bills because they included literacy tests that he thought unjustly 344 00:24:32.440 --> 00:24:38.839 targeted disadvantaged populations. In nineteen sixteen, he appointed Lewis Brandeis 345 00:24:38.920 --> 00:24:43.160 as the first Jewish justice on the Supreme Court. Admirers 346 00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:46.720 hailed Wilson for his eloquence and his commitment to reform. 347 00:24:47.319 --> 00:24:50.720 Harry Truman called him the greatest of the greats. In 348 00:24:50.839 --> 00:24:55.039 nineteen fifty eight, Herbert Hoover wrote a sympathetic memoir biography 349 00:24:55.079 --> 00:24:59.119 about Wilson, the visionary who drafted his fourteen Points, hoping 350 00:24:59.160 --> 00:25:02.599 to end the First World War and prevent future conflict 351 00:25:02.680 --> 00:25:06.599 through a League of Nations. Seven decades on, the mention 352 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:11.559 of Wilson's name evokes a very different consensus. Few historical 353 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:15.880 figures better illustrate what British historian E. P. Thompson labeled 354 00:25:16.119 --> 00:25:20.839 the enormous condescension of posterity, with its inherent Biyats toward 355 00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:25.359 now Over a less enlightened than scorned on the right 356 00:25:25.440 --> 00:25:28.920 as a statist conducting a dress rehearsal for the New 357 00:25:28.960 --> 00:25:32.880 Deal and Great Society. Wilson is disparaged by the left 358 00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:36.720 for his segregation of the federal workforce and wartime abuses 359 00:25:36.759 --> 00:25:41.039 against civil liberties. His diplomatic performance at the Paris Peace 360 00:25:41.079 --> 00:25:46.359 Conference is widely panned. His stubborn refusal to compromise with 361 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:50.000 Senate critics of the resulting Versailles Treaty is blamed for 362 00:25:50.039 --> 00:25:53.400 the United States failure to join the League. On the 363 00:25:53.559 --> 00:25:57.319 eve of his first inauguration, Wilson had mused, it would 364 00:25:57.319 --> 00:25:59.920 be an irony of fate if my administration had to 365 00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:04.759 deal chiefly with foreign affairs. The remark was sadly prophetic 366 00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:09.000 for a while. U S foreign policy ever since has 367 00:26:09.039 --> 00:26:13.240 been weighed for its adherents to Wilsonian priorities, and Wilson's 368 00:26:13.240 --> 00:26:17.160 own efforts to promote human rights and international cooperation earned 369 00:26:17.240 --> 00:26:20.720 him the Nobel Peace Prize in nineteen nineteen. His name 370 00:26:20.839 --> 00:26:24.799 is commonly linked with home front intolerance and suppression of dissent. 371 00:26:25.559 --> 00:26:29.680 A near fatal stroke effectively ended his presidency seventeen months 372 00:26:29.720 --> 00:26:33.200 before he officially left office in March nineteen twenty one. 373 00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:37.680 During this period, Wilson's second wife, Edith, functioned in a 374 00:26:37.799 --> 00:26:42.799 role somewhere between doorkeeper and deputy president. Today, the sole 375 00:26:42.839 --> 00:26:46.279 Democrat to occupy the White House between Grover Cleveland and 376 00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:50.240 Franklin Roosevelt, has been air brushed out of his party's history. 377 00:26:51.039 --> 00:26:55.799 Other institutions have followed suit. Weeks after George Floyd's death 378 00:26:55.880 --> 00:26:59.160 at the hands of white police officers. In May twenty twenty, 379 00:26:59.519 --> 00:27:04.119 Princeton University, citing the racist thinking and policies of its 380 00:27:04.160 --> 00:27:08.119 one time reformist president, struck Wilson's name from its School 381 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:13.200 of Public Affairs. Ironically, before recent reckonings, the last time 382 00:27:13.240 --> 00:27:16.599 anyone had toppled a Wilson statue was in nineteen forty 383 00:27:16.599 --> 00:27:20.559 one in Prague, as ordered by the city's Nazi occupiers. 384 00:27:21.440 --> 00:27:25.720 Even now, America's twenty eighth president is more highly regarded 385 00:27:25.759 --> 00:27:31.160 in Poland and the former Czechoslovakia nations whose establishments he 386 00:27:31.279 --> 00:27:37.240 championed at Versailles than among his own compatriots. And yet 387 00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:41.559 that we are still debating the Wilsonian legacy a century 388 00:27:41.599 --> 00:27:45.400 after his life ended at his house on s Street 389 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:50.119 Northwest in Washington, d c. Testifies to the scale of 390 00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:54.640 the man's ambition and the relevance of his ideas. He 391 00:27:54.759 --> 00:27:58.640 may be out of fashion, but now as then, Woodrow 392 00:27:58.640 --> 00:28:04.720 Wilson matters. This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. 393 00:28:05.240 --> 00:28:08.480 Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, 394 00:28:08.519 --> 00:28:09.720 and have a great day.