A few items before we get going, we would greatly appreciate it if you turned off or silence your cell phone. This is my favorite part everybody starts reaching. So as not to disturb the conversation. We have a microphone affinity this one for the q a portion of the event it will get passed around if you raise your hand. We are recording this evenings event so we want to use the microphone for any questions we have. Copies of the book are available at the registers youd like to purchase one copy or many copies. We encourage many. If youd like to get your purchased books sign sign up in an orderly fashion. Against this cabinet. At the conclusion of the talk. Its now my pleasure to introduce alexis coe, author of you never forget your first, a biography of George Washington. Hope follows her awardwinning alice plus free to forever a murder in memphis soon to be a major Motion Picture . With a fresh and lively look at George Washington that firmly separates the men from the legend. The host of audibles and no mans land, cohosted president s are people too and a consulting producer on abcoviews the founders to a feminist lens. Drawing on curiously unexamined archival material she recounts how he was raised by a determined single mother, chrtas the stubbornness that caused him to never back down, relates the youthful error that caused an International Incident and traces the effect of his failure to face the contradiction of a free nation reliance on free labor. Alexis will be in conversation with jamel buie, columnist for the new york times. Please join me in warmly welcoming alexis coe and jamaal bully to politics and prose. Hello alexis. Hello. Lets get started. Lets do it. What was the genesis of this book . His first book as mentioned is about a murder of a young couple and it seems like a very different direction then crime. And asked this question and ask it enough you would think i have a really good distinct answer and i dont. They seem really different. As a historian, when you are in grad school you study with very little time period, which is literally a year, 1922 of them acted at my first job was at the new york public library. The schwartzman building in bryant park. I worked in exhibitions and my job is really collective memory. You start with the mayor form, Virginia Woolf walking stick. Its all over the place. During that time i began to think a lot about Allison Freda forever which i found an example in a book when i was in grad school. I didnt want to be someone who is known as a woman, i wanted tenure and i thought you cannot touch love as a woman as a historian or else youre not gonna get a job. I thought about it for years and i felt like it was a really interesting story and explains so much about the origin of prejudice against samesex love. I felt like if i knew the story and didnt talk about it and didnt make the connections i was somehow complicit in it. Thats what i felt about washington too. I love president ial biographies, the audible series the president s president s are people too would require in my mind to understand what it was going on as i read micro history. I would also read three or four biographies of the same time in conversation with each other and i would emerge with some sort of understanding of the president , hopefully. That just never happened for me with washington. It needled me and i felt like its a surprising assertion to make because you look at washington books there are quite a few one book on Allison Freda but i felt like i had to do something to that bookshelf it needed something. In the introduction you talk about how these washington biographies its not just that theres a lot of them that but they all have a similar cast and written by a similar person. I will be honest, at the beginning is a typical washington biographer grew up going to historical sites, lived in virginia and i was like it sounds like me. [laughter] could you talk more about what you are trying to responding to the world of washington biographies . I found that i joke that when these men got their book contracts that before they signed it they had to take a solemn both and say, i will proceed in the exact same manner, i will say the same things i will say i have the same goals. I will do it the same way. I didnt take the oath. This thing at first i thought it was really sort of funny. They all say hes too marble to be real and negatively came out and then they do talk about things that i joke about. They are really into his size that seems inappropriate. Its funny. [laughter] they are nice, ive seen nicer, hamiltons are also nice. Like hamiltons thighs are like adam driver . While this is called off in a feminist biography, if they had written a book versus size, we would all be up in arms. Its also a double standard it works both ways. I thought it was very strange, they were is a defensiveness around washington. There is zero interest in women. I didnt understand can we talk about lord, obama, clinton, as president s were raised by single mothers who struggle. Why are we talking about washington . He is the ultimate american story. His mother was born to an indentured servant. That is amazing. So why do we talk about that . Nothing made sense to see addison as i checked what i do specialize at the same time we know its a little number in a sentence mean. He checked the end know if the endnote keeps quoting a secondary source and a secondary source quotes another secondary source then it keeps happening you know something hinchey is going on. That takes us to the book proper and is divided into four sections, one dealing with washingtons early life is early middleage and then his death. I found the first part to be so fascinating, in part because you begin it was basically a series of acoustical is about washington and you can talk about that, even as someone who knows a bit about the guy i find it immensely useful to be given an info dump like that. I love to hear you talk about the reasons for approaching the information andrefers with fred to weave it into a narrative. It jumps up at you but its also its a very useful way of getting into the book. So much of this early part of washingtons life as you discuss it is consumed with the people around him, his context as this young virginia stryver. A social climber. He is a guy who wants to has his eyes at the top. He cant feed his horse. Theres a lot of struggle going on. In early virginia if you walked at all you were poor and looked down upon. That was essential to him if you look at the washington biography they have the same portrait. I called them coffins. Washington always destiny which i have a problem with. Nobody is destined to do anything it takes i want president ial history because the presidency and especially the person who established the office to person built around who everybody pressure is really important that everyone understand him in the presidency but the biographies are alienating them in the ways that visual presentations, their titles, the way that they are written. I really wanted the world to feel like if they had never that they had everything they needed the beginning of the book and at the beginning of each section to up to feel as though they were the expert so that was part of it. I did think a lot about my reader and the other parts of it dear president ial editor called him vanilla once to my face. [laughter] i think, cristobol, adams, you cant compare, there too much fun thats why their letters survive, they do that. But the thing is, he is, you can break him out of the smoking can be fun he can be interesting but you have to have fun with them as a person, its called reverent, which i think is a whole the link. A lot of the things you see the way i organize the material in my head when i was trying to make sure i got things crossed decided to be vulnerable and share it with everyone. I think that there are certain things that help you understand, i can tell you in a sentence at the beginning of the revolution we can say is they all do, he lost more battles than he won. So why are we talking about the battles . Hes not fighting on the front lines. Hes in a tent most of the time. Hes not out there. Why are we wasting time talking about it. Thats less important to me that you understand something thats usually just a sentence but everything gets lost in a paragraph, which abwe had one general and the british had many generals. By presenting you with the chart at the beginning of that section and listening to George Washington and then all these other guys get it and you take the knowledge with you. I just wanted you to have those. I dont want my reader ab longest answer ever abi dont expect you to turn around and give a really long talk about this, i want you to be really excited about it. I want you to turn around and talk about it like a cocktail party. Was talking to my wife i was like, you know washington loved the abloved his dogs . [laughter] she didnt know that we talked about the dogs. To your point, i really wanted to talk to you about these facts i learned about George Washington. It is important to note that he loved dogs, he has to be a fully formed person to you, you have to know that he was silly enough to call his dog sweet lips and he that, right . It makes him like you imagine him like that it was an you also tells about like you cant just know that company inflate people he owned and felt a certain way you need to know he insulted his slaves. You can hear that. You said something earlier that got my brain turning and that was because those so much to commit demystify washington, place it in the context of his relationships. Because he is a model for the presidency, what kind of almost also does demystify the presidency. Unlike the more traditional biography feels like they are really biographies about roman emperors. This is a biography about president and the president at certain point is just a dude that we chose. I think its interesting how it did around the book. You are always sure to emphasize not just somebody who has goals and aims but i had in mind danny glover in legal weapons. Im just to old for this sh and i dont want to do it anymore. We think of the founder as a model list and in agreement at all times. They understood what they were doing. They set out with all the details worked out and thats not true. Washington was annotating the constitution while president. He was doing the best he could. I found that so revealing. Getting into his head about how he understood himself doing the job. I think that this humanizes him in the office and it should give us comfort in the messiness in some ways. A big part of the book deals with washington as a slave owner. You cant not deal with that. Its one of the overriding identities of his entire life. smain business. Right. He was always concerned about what he was going to do about the farm, how he is going to feed and house other people he owned and what they were going to do for him. I think you talked about toward the end how washington would always say that yea im going to free my slaves at some point and never acted on that. I wonder if you could talk about his ambivalence there. His unwillingness to take the extra step. He appears in virginia who did take the extra step. I also feel like this is something that biographers are trying to pull over on us. They make it sound as if washington had this abi think this is helpful to them because its hard to. Which is a bias. Its hard if you cant see him as having this beautiful realization so washington begins to have not a change of heart but a change of priority during the revolution. The argument is sometimes that enslaved and free black men fought during the revolution and that thats what changed his mind. No, he didnt want that, he is really reluctant about it. Just like billy lee his righthand man is always presented to the narrative as though hes always been there and though he is representative of everyone rather than the exception. What i wanted to do was have that presence because its present in his mind. Its as important to him as anything else. He is presented as writing home to mount abwhat to concerned about at mount vernon . His labor force. His forced labor force. To me, to be honest, and to understand him and his anxiety and priorities had to be there the whole time has close as i could get it. I wanted to smash a bunch of micro histories into one biography because i think it can be that way. Washington, its not a wish he would have done this its understanding why he ultimately did the thing he did, he could have sold his land when we say he was cash poor, all we call them planters which is i think misleading. They are plantation owners which is a genteel reflection for forced labor camp. They were all cash poor but they had land and no one had more land than George Washington because he had gained a ton of really choice land during the french and indian war when he fought for the british. I think he wouldve happily continue to do and we might be british subjects had they just given him the promotion he wanted. [laughter] he was a reluctant rebel he was not some idealist. Not talking about thomas paine here. I think thats important to think about the things that he is saying are not quite sure hes saying i dont have the money i cant do this i cant do that, he could have if you really wanted to. If he wanted to be the person that lafayette thought he could have. He had examples people like to say he had no examples. There were people in virginia who did this who had to leave under duress because of their slave masters were terrified of this. I just think lets look at him clearly and when we also do that, lets talk about how it was kind of vague objectsabit e up hurting the inevitable but also the same problem existed that he just didnt want to see and be responsible for which was the separating of families forever. If you could refresh my memory, how many people were enslaved at mount vernon kind of throughout . It fluctuated. Martha was married before she had two children from her previous marriage. The custis estate had over 130 enslaved people. Washington inherited 10 enslaved people when he was 11. That number swelled because he purchased them. The other weird thing is his biographers would say an enslaved man was sold to him. Its not like he was like, oh fine. [laughter] he went with the explicit purpose of buying people. That number swelled to 214 by the time he dies. The thing for me reading about washington as a slave owner is it also reminds you that most of the people he saw for most of his life were enslaved people. I think, i live in charlottesville and monticello is right there and they talked about it in those terms there that most people jefferson saw, most of the time, the people who he enslaved. But for me at least radically changes how you think about these men. And how they mustve thought about themselves because it wasnt a salon every day with all the founder buddies. Thinking big thoughts like ben franklin. [laughter] it was from sun up to sundown most days seeing the people you enslaved thinking about fast track at some point during the day when you had to discipline. Maximizing. Right. I dont know about the questionnaire its more of an observation. I think there is something really worthwhile and just thinking about it and talking about that that washington was really, people talk about he was so impressive the way he thought about these new schemes and inventions to maximize profit and labor to make sure that he was applying that. I think its really important because we do think of them as sort of like doing important work all the time. They were messy, they were drama queens and they were also cruel and thought themselves to be better. Its important we understand that on a sunday washington would hang out with his wife and make enslaved people rowboats and race across the potomac. Thats like what he did on a sunday. I want to know that he went to church sometimes but i also want to know that he did that. A big part of the book and what to me i never thought about as washington goes as this patriarch as not just with enslaved people but a large number of young men and young women, some related to him through various connections although part of a Washington Post old and washington as a keeper. Its something traditional biographers dont deal with at all. In terms of washingtons life. But seems to be a very big part of his life and something he was very invested in. They really married to this narrative that he had no biological children, our conception of children has really changed over time. It wasnt uncommon to marry a woman who had children. That was a really good sign that she could have more. It was so strange to me we spent so much time because it doesnt further the understanding to talk about 10 pages of what he couldnt have children. Instead what it would look about the fact that he was lousy with children. They were everywhere and always going giving people problems. Thats what the archives tell us he wrote so many letters finding a better tutor giving unsolicited love advice and that was a part of his worldview. Thats what he saw every day. You dont read those letters and think, hes not really interested in this. He so angry and its not like there just like us but when he lectures his grandson he doesnt say step grandson, we say step grandson. When he lectures washington its about losing his umbrella. The other part of that and something that really struck me throughout is how much not just that washington seems followed by death, most of the men on his side of the washington side of the family died pretty young but also he at a certain point becomes hyperaware of his death and becomes almost acting with his legacy in mind. How are people going to remember me when im dead. What should i do now to ensure those memories are positive 2. I think he was really sensitive. Untouchable the first four years and the second four years he was not and become really angry about that. He surrounded himself he created this cabinet with people who disagreed, Health Jefferson leading the pack and he thought, this will be like a counsel war and asked them all for their opinions because he did really value other peoples opinions and then i will decide what i want to do and he thought he was still in general and that would be fine, of course it wasnt, it was a disaster. He realizes worst fears and partisanship and became really aware of how people thought about you when they were seeing his face all the time. And he was the most famous person in the world. Then he didnt really think about how could i, he was a control freak. How could i get control of the situation demands of slaves certainly was a big part of it. You dont want to deny that it had a real impact these peoples lives. Good and bad. They never saw family members you will like this he was proud of telling indians that the white mans way of life was better and why dont they just follow his example. He was saying listening incredibly paternalistic way. He thought that was great. He thought we would think that was a very positive thing. Before we go to questions, there is one thing i think strangely relevant today since we have aband washington this is well known that when he left office in his farewell address he warned about these things. As you heard me mentioned earlier, he sort of unavoidable became a partisan figure. One of the more interesting anecdotes you tell is that on his birthday be the last year of his last term someone made a motion in the house to adjourn for a little bit to celebrate washingtons birthday. It was like dancing in the streets before that. People are like, were not interested in that anymore. What do you think, what do you sink abnot washingtons life per se but washingtons presidency and sort of the way in which faction and partisanship consume american politics very quickly. What relevance does it have for the present in the moment when people are lots of bipartisanship people have an idea theres some way we could banish those things . It doesnt seem like we can is just part of the deal. From washington you think theres any lessons we can take about how to manage it or deal with it . Partisanship is inevitable. It doesnt have to be a terrible thing. He was wrong about that. He was wrong that you could just ban it forever and have a unifying figure. It is the job of the president to do a much better job of being a unifying figure and then say what you will about obama, he could control himself and he acted in an appropriate manner because at the end of the day, he is serving the entire american body, not just the people who voted for him. I think we need to expect more of our leaders not stability what is that even, thats meaningless in a lot of ways. Say what you mean but also act in a way that serves everyone and i think at the end, we as the electorate have more power then, and its hard and we get really frustrated and it seems impossible to fix but Like Washington was not a natural revolutionary. He got pushed into a corner and had to find his way out. Im not saying we should stage a revolution, we are close but we are not there. [laughter] but that we can demand that things get done because we are at the point where we have people like mcconnell who washington did warn against they were making power into work everything else. We need to focus on holding them accountable and i think job that something we can improve upon the legacy of the founders. Not emulate them exactly because it was never the intentions. Its question time. This microphone will be going around. I guess raise your hand and going to urge you to ask the question, i wont have a microphone but i can say loudly that i dont think youre asking a question. [laughter] please get that intonation at the end it will make me a very happy person. [laughter] thank you very much. My question is basically coming you alluded to something about the dislike of all aspects of washington especially slaveholding. Im curious if you can tell us the most is likable parts of his personality, maybe the most admirable abanything also they give you a vignette or anecdote that told you about his personalities. Question it was three questions. [laughter] i will trying to get through them. I think the thing with washington that surprised me maybe his worst attribute is when he was done with you he was done with it. He could be very cold he could let you possibly die in a french prison. He would claim he didnt want, thats thomas paine, thats a white man but he could also claim he didnt want to sell enslaved people and sell when he could not discipline demand be put on his ship to barbados where he had maybe three years to live under those conditions. Knowing that he might not even make it there. He knew what he was doing. I think washington did have a great sense of for a Certain Group of people of what was right and what was wrong and he did believe in ambition and opportunity and those are fundamental American Values it only applies to a Certain Group of people. I think he was a good friend. He could be a good friend to someone like lafayette. He was very into exceptional people. He had great things, he also was an amazing athlete. That is something. Something that we everyone is always grasping to describe, why him, why did they all revere him . Its something we cant describe. We couldnt describe it about someone we see in this room, its charisma. Its the hardest thing to really go into detail about. I think that was probably his greatest attribute was something we could least describe. At that. Im curious how you think about the importance of telling a complicated narrative about historical figure thinking about it in the me too era when we are like figuring out whats black and whats white and how to make sense of gray areas and am thinking about with kobe bryant how he was memorialized, how you think about grabbing all those details and telling a story. What you think is important there. You might be able to answer it in a contemporary sense but for me, for someone Like Washington or jefferson, we cant really allow cancel culture because you cant cancel them. You cant cancel washington. I understand the defensiveness. I dont pose a threat to washington. [laughter] is going to be just fine. [laughter] i think the thing is, we have to remember that these were people so we see them on their best days and the worst days and we do a little bit to be balanced. Somebody like kobe bryant, i dont know, im not a sports fan so i dont know. The same idea that you just have to try to look at them on the whole and not let them be defined by the worst thing they ever did or the best thing they ever did. Thats really difficult when you dont know the person. I think of washington now as a person who i was terrified would haunt me last night as i spent the night at mount vernon. I do think of him as like a person who was amazing in a lot of ways and really disappointing and just like anyone else now. I think part of the thing you have to do is avoid moralizing. Its difficult, especially for men Like Washington and jefferson and madison or all of them because they were involved in something that was evil. You can communicate that but i think its important you present not matteroffactly but sort of like this is just a part of their life we are trying to understand that we are trying to understand the relationship to it you as a reader can draw your own conclusions the goal isnt moralization thats a difficult thing to do. In all kinds of writing but especially in writing about frost individuals. I think whats interesting about people get really its okay to engage in magical thinking, jefferson didnt have the clout. He had emancipated slavery if he had written the things and acted in a way that was consistent with them we probably wouldnt know his name. Annette told me that when i interviewed her two years ago but thats not true for washington. He couldve sold all of it, would it have made a difference . Would we have had a civil war a lot sooner . I dont know but its okay to engage in that thinking, you can be flexible but keep dealing with the person. Its a circular thinking. Nothing is really clean. First, thank you so much for coming. This is awesome. It was just reading through a bit of the introduction when you speak about the five men in washington. I was curious to think about how you thought about writing. Directly about historians and also writing a history and those curious about that dynamic itself about choosing to name people and how you decided to do that. I have a graduate degree so i do come from this background in which i think about historiography. What i could possibly learn from that and how i want to enter the conversation. I am a popular historian which means when i get to chapter 1 its narrative. I have a note but im telling you a story. I needed to really be direct in the beginning and i needed to situate you really quickly and hundreds of years of research and the only way i know how to do that is to give you the best examples i have and to talk about why i thought it was wrong. And to do it in this way which is sort of revealing of my process which i began to think of them as the thigh men of dead history. That was just the name i give them and then i put it as a placeholder which was also by the way the title and it was in brackets in my editor they both took the brackets out and capitalized thigh and men and dad history i thought, okay, they are actually reacting to this. If thats engaging you if its really making you understand it and not just a sentence but as a general approach the same way like the charts or anything else we are in it together. Its inviting you into that process. In that whole section is meant to prepare you to start out a totally different way because then we start out with his mother with his story being told to his mother and its never told that way, its always to his father. Or someone like ellis skipped ahead and goes, you are 21 we dont know what happened before. Which is like a move. An enviable one at times. You have to try and work with what you have. The last few weeks theres been a lot of discussions about what the founders thought about the limits of executive power. Everything from they were very afraid of the tyrant or the article 2 gives you the ability to do whatever you want on the other hand. As a framer and then also the first president , what was his perspective on the limits of the executive and how did it change as his role changed from president of the Constitutional Convention to actually the president. Thats the thing, he was always the president hes always presiding but not actually writing those things just giving his input saying how things work but thats madison, thats jefferson, it would not put monroe in that group. If you talk to washington scholars like monroe was not a great thinker. [laughter] so much shade thrown at him. He was really just annotating it. I dont think he had this abthe idea that the founders were among the list and all like this is what we decided, this is how we are Going Forward is total bs. They were fighting all the time. Thats why partisanship happened. Theres room to remember that. Its a healthy amount of siding is good. Its a conversation. But its so ridiculous to imagine that a country who fought eight long years to break free of the monarch of the king wanted absolute power. If they wanted that, they would have had a king. There is a romance novel called american royals and washington decided to be a king and its sort of interesting is the same publisher so they sent it to you but we dont have that for a reason. It makes me upset to hear that. Its sort of abuse of our history to present it in this way and i think what people do that if there being generally you just shouldnt trust them. I think they could say it three times you take it away like a toy. I do think thats ridiculous. Also there was an inappropriate tweets in the white house account. You have to present yourself as representing all americans and you never saw obama do this but you have these tweets you can twitter off, everything w had twitter. There was this tweet that said by todays standards of the democrats the following people would be impeached of course it starts with washington and lincoln is on there. Anyone can be impeached thats the whole point. If you are president , you can be impeached. Everyone can be impeached. I think in other words, their greatest fear was that we fell into decay because we allowed corruption to be rapid. Heading time is presented otherwise you know that they dont know what they are talking about. In the back. You mentioned looking at the sources and other biographies so i was wondering if there was any like where you started with your sources and if there is anything you are trying to uncover like what sources you used two sort of find your new perspective. When you research a woman there is very little in the archives you have to really work hard to find it. There is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the founders thats why there is no excuse to sort of generalize about the material is there is too much of it. Theres something called founders online. I go to the archives i go to library of congress and went to mount vernon i spent a lot of time in these places but you in your home can google founders online you can type in dogs for example you can type in sweet lips and you can see jefferson asking about sweet lips and you can see slot is an example there are all kinds of results for that. Jefferson is a single dad tells his daughter not to dress like a slot basically. He says dont dress like a slovenly slot. Its really easy to check these things and what i did was when something seems strange like i would say Like Washingtons father this was the first time i realized something was wrong and he said washingtons father wanted to tame his mother. That he had disliked desire to do so. There is no endnotes. Enter now did it feel like he had to give one because and i say this in the book plagiarizing myself here and probably worse than i wrote it but we just accept that and think, sure, a shrew needs taming sure enough. There are other things like the story that washington that his mother wrote a letter to the Virginia Assembly during the war and asked for help that she needed money. Of course that was really embarrassing to washington because he was the general. She never wrote the letter. She never wrote the letter. She talked about struggling as all people in their 70s did which is why virginia was giving out pensions to older people and of course they would like, washingtons mom lives here, shes an older person she struggling she should be first on the list. They were trying to do him a solid but she never did that but they all think like how could she do that to him . How could she embarrass him . She didnt. Not only that, shes really struggling and he admits that later which none of them cite this letter in which he is like she had a terrible manager stealing from her and mismanaging everything. I guess she was telling the truth. He writes to Benjamin Harrison who will be president of the forgotten dynasty, the harrisons, he writes in his light, she is fine, ignore this, please dont give her any money its fine. He writes to his mother who is actually struggling months later. Viewing her as this offer person saying that she see he was being negligent toward his elderly mother. Its just really a matter of checking the sources and then when it doesnt check out, asking what is another way to look at this . And it doesnt readily come to me after think about it for a while. It takes me forever to write these things because after think about what could possibly have been going on and present three different options and suggest which one i think might work best. I cant decide between two questions so feel free to answer whichever one you prefer. The book is really funny and it says that on the back but its also a serious topic so i was wondering how you maintain that humor of playfulness and then second, you mentioned in the prologue how your perspective as a woman allows you to read sources differently than the men had. I was also wondering how your perspective as a public historian allows you to present this differently than a traditional historic academic and might. People keep calling it funny which is nice. I think the preface in the introduction are funny because abi dont think the rest is funny. I think i have a dark humor, i know that about myself. I think as you read my first book you would see that while they are really different lives the same tone to them. But i dont think its so funny. Its not so much that in bringing this female perspective, its not, im just one of three women who done it and thats three women compared to hundreds of men. These other two women one was a conservative writer the other was a novelist, they werent historians. Thats also Something Else im bringing its not so much about, its deviating its not just that im a woman but women and people of color and other people took on president ial biographies, which means they also have to do micro histories because thats been left out of the narrative if they do this double duty if they do all the labor i dont think they would miss these things either. April who have written washington biographies are all a man from a certain asian background. They dont have curiosities about certain things. There are many men who i know right about politics who have some curiosity about half the population or are not obsessed with virility. I also think theres just like a changing of the guard. History wasnt even a profession there wasnt a way to go about it the last hundred years it was figured out what it means to be a historian. Thats why its so important that every generation needs new storytellers and historians have to do all this work but like we have to think about the women whod been dismissed or mischaracterized and also to look at these works and see what was going on. A more dramatic example of this than what im doing here is of course Annette Gordon reeves. She taught us in the most dramatic way that we dont know what we think we know in these men who have been defensive about jefferson have been denies this thing that was obvious forever. People had done it and sorted the wrong way she did it in the right way and she had all the best examples and it was really tight delivery. Everyones always improving on each other and i hope this is not, this is the woman is biography written by the woman i hope this is the beginning. I cant do it all there are too many president s. We have time for one more question. Now everyone is silent. Do you think were entering into a new age of history . Like during the 70s there was a new social history like women do exist we should probably talk about them you think its safe to go ahead and say maybe we can start taking shots of some of these figures we thought were infallible before. I hope so. I hope its an ever evolving thing. I think that at the same time while there is an interest within this crowd i was at mount vernon last night and i thought they told me there were a few hundred people who had rsvped i was sure it would be a different crowd, it wasnt, its the same crowd ive seen there which was like a sea of old white people. They were excited i thought i was getting a lot of comments, questions and people were going to be very offended and maybe they just didnt speak up but they were excited about something and excited to have a conversation just bring some conflicts thats not saying washington was awful, terrible person and we should not study him because he did xyz. Saying like this is really complicated lets try to work this out. I do think this is the next step but i do think that like we are supposed to get better as a country, as a wife, as a mother, i hope everyone aspires to be that too. [applause] thank you so much. [applause] we will have the signing up front. We have copies behind the front desk up there if you will line up going this way after words. Good evening, and welcome to the Atlanta History Center here in this wet night. I appreciate all of you coming out tonight and braving the weather to hear o