If you have a question that you would like to ask gail collins, having just watched her program, heres how you can get a hold of us, 202 ab 2027488200 for the east and central time zones. 202748201 if you live in mountain and pacific time zones. If you want to send a text message please include your first name and city and that number is 2027488903. Gail collins, since you take that program with megan twohey and the library of congress ab whats her legacy as an older woman in American History . Her legacy in general theres a lot of legacy people have been talking about obviously that there are legal legacy the thing i think about when i think about her is that she is really the first woman i can think of in American History whose passing was more not as an wonderful person, which she actually was but as a woman empower a person and power, as a major part of the power structure of the government, as a person who made history and changed the way we live in different ways with her rulings and thats really new. Beyond all the other things about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which we been talking about since her passing. Thats the stuff i think about a lot. Did you know her very well at all . I have met her and interviewed her wants, she was very gracious and lovely and we sat down and i wrote about her but i did it have a longrunning personal relationship with her at all. People who did just couldnt speak more highly of her. This is your seventh book, did you have a favorite character from no stopping us now . Gail i have a bunch. One of the ones i really have become much fonder of than i thought i was going to be when i started was Elizabeth Cady stanton, a famous suffrage leader. Always sort of have this kind of a little bit remote aura, if i was reading her stuff when most of the things i realized about her this was a woman she has seven kids she does all of her stuff shes Walking Around doing going to speech is doing all the things shes been doing to end slavery and give women the right to vote and she suddenly realizes that there is so much prejudice against women doing things in public, if you gave a speech in public you were a harlot, people throw stones at you it was a very big deal. She thought about that and she realized that she could use her old list to make all this work. She was suddenly Walking Around the country saying, gray hair, i have gray hair, im really old but here i am, im gonna come talk to you about homemaking and the life of the family and maybe a little bit about slavery and abolition and the right to vote. She traveled all over the country at a time when women did not travel by themselves at all. Playing cards, Railroad Cars with the soldiers and riding wagons in the middle of the night. The way she went about doing all the stuff she did really kind of knocked me off. Why did you choose to write about older women rather than women in general . Had written a couple other books about women in general, i wrote the history of women american women, which is what i sort of focused on that a while back i wrote a book i really enjoyed called when everything changed. It was about the period when i was comingofage and getting into the world when suddenly in the history of the world, the vision of what women could be and what they were doing was transformed. There never been never had women anywhere have the stature and the power and the freedom that suddenly they had during my lifetime and how that came about just really knocked me out. That was why i wrote that book, which when everything changed, which i had a great time doing. This book i started thinking about as i was writing some of the other wants to. I came across a letter that one of the early colonists brought back to england and our first columnist said ajust thought our requirements is that the women should be civil and under 50 years of age. There you are, thats our standard, thats what we need. It was much later i was reading the text from an ad that some of your listeners may remember from back, somebodys fair hair coloring and the ad went, youre not getting older, youre getting better. It was a famous famous slogan, to showing everyone abit was very irritating. I wrote the text read the test of it outside a woman these days whos 25 is considered although i thought wow, we went from 50 is desirable, 25 is old and then Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her 80s doing pushups and Everybody Loves it. This is a really interesting story about what happened and thats what i wanted to tell. Did ageism play a role in your view in the 2016 election . There were so many things that played a role in the 2016 election i dont know that ageism was. I dont think ageism was a big problem there. In fact, for women its always been difficult the other way when you are younger woman sometimes when you are trying to move up in a world, get a job or run for office, if you are young sometimes at least in the past people would say just a girl doesnt count. There were so many saga of Hillary Clinton and what happened during that election. I dont think age was one of the big ones. Doesnt matter that nancy pelosi is approaching eight are abapproaching 80 years old, it doesnt because its nancy pelosi, i was looking at this today, mitch mcconnell, i cant think about, 76. Everybody practically is about 76. I thought congress had gotten past that point when everybody was much older. Nancy pelosi has just shes a pistol and the way shes always been. There are people when they have bigger 80s slowdown and need to rethink things but thats true of both men and women. The interesting thing to me was trying to look at aging and see what things were different from women and men and how they had changed over the years. Gail collins appears twice weekly in the New York Times for six years she was the Editorial Page Editor of that publication as well. Her newest book, her seventh is no stopping us now the adventures of older women in American History. Teresa as calling and from asheville north carolina, teresa, you are on booktv, go ahead with your question for gail collins. First of all, i am crazy about her book when things changed, it really made so much sense to me all the Different Things that gail wrote about that i almost had forgotten about now, what id like to know, is that book on the syllabus for women studies because it should be at every university. What a nice question, thank you so much. Before we get an answer from gail collins, i want to ask teresa if she could give us a snapshot of her self before we get an answer from gail collins. Im 76 and i i came up in when gail talked a lot about when things changed i came from a small town in indiana but i didnt realize how many things i had lived through until i read her book when things changed i talk all about the people, i quote gail, its just wonderful. It really validated a lot of the things that i had gone through in my period of time in the 60s, 70s, 80s and just made so much sense. Im so thrilled that she wrote that. I wanted to get her new book because it really does help to understand women of my vintage and the things that were prevalent at that time. In that era in our country and expectations of women. Im such a fan gail thank you thank you. Host gail collins b. Gail [multiple speakers] theres a lot of women studies programs that use it, thats nice too. Host lets hear from zachary in long beach california, you are on with the New York Times gail collins. Thank you for taking my call. I called in before so im going to give you a snapshot of myself. Middleage fellow, 52 years old. Im in Public Relations. Prior to that during the 1990s i worked for libraries, thats what i went to school for his Library Science but a patron of the arts i eventually moved into the Public Relations focusing on the arts and athletics. Including the literary arts and i still read the industry publications to stay with the current. I want to say i do appreciate everything youve done in your career, people like you. I look forward to reading your book. My question is, is there some sort of followup book that could be possibly to this book . The reason im asking is, i was schooled by a fantastic group of nuns, mother superior over saw those nuns and in retrospect looking back she had an impact on myself and other students on trying to develop us to be not just Good Students but good stewards for society. I have an aunt that also passed on who was a registered nurse a part of the Surgical Team and she also was a good role model so i think people like this should also be, we should all know i have others to look up to like this. Id like to see a book like this focus. Im sure there are some out there but id like to see more on it, there is certainly not enough i could focus on some of the mature women who have helped us directly or indirectly like these two men on what i just mentioned. Zachary, thank you so much, gail collinsb. Gail thank you zachary for sharing your story about your family. Its been a pleasure. For people my age, im about your age. For women to think that we live through this that abnever has anything happened like this where you have an entire gender transforming their relationship to society within a 50 year period. I feel blessed all the time i got to be around to see it. Where she was still extremely popular and successful. And she was a big help. There was a lot of great moments like that that i consider with her and talk with her. The writing of the book was a pleasure by interviewing people before hand was great. Host the paperback is coming out next month austin texas you are on the air with dale call and speak to you i just want to comment you mentioned that so many people such as yourself and mcconnell and others in your seventies and other leaders or even older. In 1966 or 67 we had the surgeon general. Im 88 by the way. [laughter] and since then cigarette smoke being one smoking has been banished and now for the first time we have real leaders that we hang on and on and on. [laughter] thats all i have to say. It is a bit unusual if you look back to congress all my life there were old guys that actually they have gotten younger as time has gone on a lot more younger men and women taking positions there is no stopping place that is 65 everybody goes away and they cannot come back. There is no longer the sense that your public life working life stopped. That is agreeableness. Host if you can get in the mines you can text us just include the same university go to college you talked a couple times about how things have changed over the last 50 years. How do you think the Glass Ceiling . With bader ginsburg. Nobody was ever in the court system at that level pay for it all my life certainly would to Juvenile Court or another women did good work and achievements but then you would stop. Left different places at different times and the one thing about what i found one of the great thoughts is trying to figure out why certain women popular and why were ever is locked up in a closet opened by the fireplace and shunned . It has a lot to do with economics and women who will do were able to make money and have assets and control monetary as men and then everything changed and thats the biggest of all. Now we see so many women who were still working in their sixties and seventies and eighties. Nancy will see that you are. More and more like men. Not everybody will do that for nancy pelosi is so when we look to that she is still doing that. It is incredible she is so powerful and forceful. Host i dont know if you saw the president s announcement of the Supreme Court today and judge barrett speech he talked about seven kids and being the first working mother of schoolage children and she is 48 years old. Guest nobody has ever said that man has schoolage children running a company or whatever it is a big change for women and the fact talking about the large family and everything she has accomplished but i cannot tell you how much that has changed over the years and here we are. Host dorothy from arizona go ahead. Caller i want to thank you, gail collins, for writing your book. Because i have had all of them. You inspired me to become a woman history scholar. Thank you. Caller i have taught womens history. Because really we were left out of the history books. So thank you again. Thats the nicest thing i have heard all day. I appreciate that. Host dorothy, tell us about yourself, please. Caller i was a nurse and a Health Educator in california. That i married and we moved to michigan and of course i immediately joined the National Organization of women. Michigan era america, we were the first state to ratify the equal rights amendment. Of course now we know what happened all the states necessary for now the archivist refuses to publish it. It is a struggle all along the way. Isnt a quick. It certainly is. Caller estate their traditional roles not to be involved in politics that is what they tell us. [laughter] guest they will not tell you that anymore. I swear. Host gail collins did you find any differences if women were republicans or democrats or their political affiliations . It depends where you are and what happens when the Republican Party stood out against slavery when i was growing up the more forceful speakers in congress were older and thats just the way it has always plan. For men at least it was limited to in the sixties and seventies we got to. When they really reporting and then went right along with that but there were a lot of people 30 that people didnt trust the advisors and teachers so it has never been as quite as clear. Host kate from st. Paul minnesota please go ahead. Caller. Hi. I am 70 years old. Ive never married i always intended to marry and have kids but i didnt find the right person. Looking around my generation and i really disappointed with a lot of the guys i see around me who cant seem to operate and adjust to the new World Without a woman tending to them in getting a mask on they just seem clueless and unable to adjust those that say we need to wear a mask and do this or that it seems to be that women. It seems like their reaction as i have my rights i would just like your opinion. Guest a lot of history and a lot of American History for middleclass women the world only had to do things to be a wife and a mother if you watched tv in the fifties and sixties like leave it to beaver mom was a wonderful woman who stayed in the kitchen and for high heels even early seventies Mary Tyler Moore first wore slacks on television that i was a Huge Movement we didnt appreciate that enough and then women were suddenly wearing pants it made it more functional and made it possible for them to do things they had not done before and changing the whole image and it happened in a fast. I remember there were moments whenever reporters in the Nixon Administration a woman in her forties and fifties came to a press Conference Wearing slacks and nixon said what is this . I am shocked i dont know what this means. But everybody got over it. I think that is something to think about historically we dont get enough credit to. Host gail collins how did you get from cincinnati to new york . I went to college in milwaukee and i was there studying journalism in the sixties and seventies revolt. Because of that i and all my friends who are working with me head incompletes and ethics of journalism because the professor was very conservative. Was graduated i was in graduate one graduate school three months before he finally handed me my diploma. Host and then to the New York Times . [laughter] guest i moved to connecticut my husband got a job in new haven and there were no jobs for journalist at that point i couldnt find anything. I finally did and went around to the little papers and i got about 30 of them to agreed to ten or 20 a week to send things back every week and what this meant to waterbury or legislator was up to that week i cant tell you how hard i worked i was writing 30 or 40 stories a week it really put down the barrier for me so now its the same as talking i feel any barrier at all is just the way i communicate every day all the time. Then i got a job at the united press us a wire service in new york who went to the daily news and newsday and then with the editor at the times n95 called me and asked if i wanted to be the local opinion writer so i said sure and did that for a while. I did politics with them during the clinton era. I had written a lot of historical essays about cleveland that he had a big sex scandal which is ironic because the hes the least sexy person in the history of the presidency i think they would say can you write again about cleveland to explain clinton and i did that for a while. Then one day house said he was going to become the news editor and said he talked with the publisher and they wanted me to be the Editorial Page Editor. I said ive never done anything like that ever i never had a job except for writing editorials i was terrified he just looked at me and said there are not that many candidates to be the first women one woman to do something unless you will be the baseball commissioner take this. Laughed and i did and it was a wonderful job. Host what about your mother . Was she a role model . Yes. She always wanted to be a journalist that was her dream in high school and then world war ii came along she started college for only a tiny bit before she was put out because of the war when she got married and i was her first, the oldest. She was always into the idea i should write whatever i wrote anything she would get very excited and shortage everybody. She really really made the path for me. Host you can still read gail collins twice a week in the New York Times her newest book is called no stopping us now thank you for joining us on tv. Host coming up in about 15 to 20 minutes another call an opportunity with was a prizewinning historian john meacham. His most recent book is his truth is marching on about the late john lewis we will show you that program from the National Book festival and after that your calls for john meacham. I and john meacham and what is essential to American Life the republic of letters broadly is the use of reason and in many ways the American Revolution however incomplete or unfinished is about putting reason at the center of our National Experience if you think of the unfolding in the