Remember because i was a child of the 1940 and i learned them in school. That is how we learned history, the books out f tof the Library Fourth and fifth grade or with the way history was taught. When i got to graduate school in the 1960s i discovered that some of my fellow students from overseas would come to me periodically and say who is this joe and why should he say it aint so. So i told them the story. Then much later a friend of ours who is an immigrant doctor from south africa came to me and said why do my patients when they see me what is up doc and laugh maniac maniacally. People under 30 had no real idea of what these slogans and catch phrases meant, where they came from or why people used them. I decided there is a book and i should write it and i started a long time ago. As i wrote one slogan or catch phrase at a time i realized there were a number of questions that i was going to need to answer if i was going to really pursue the book and finish it. Because i was writing the history the way i wanted to the indepth about very little and the context is always more important than the facts that gave rise to the facts. The kinds of questions were like why is history important. We any it is important anecdote al kwreu ally but why . That became one rabbit hole i disappeared into several months until i was able to come to one kind of answer. The second is why is American History so important to americans. American history starts to get written while the revolution is going opbn. And it was published by a woman by the name of mercy warren otis mercy otis warren, who was socially and politically check connected in and around boston and started putting together Research Material to write the history of the revolution while the outcome was still in doubt. She published the book were later partly because she was ill several times and several children died. She published in 1805. She had a very specific reason that she gave for publishing it. That was fragility of the nation itself. She was sure if we forgot our history and why we did it the country would begin it break up into regions and different interests, that foreign powers would take over the country. So she had to get this down because if we didnt remember our history we would lose the country. We tend to forget that from the time of the revolution through the end of the civil war the country was amaze ging strokes of luck this it ever survived. That was another question, why was it so important. It was important because they felt if we didnt remember the history we would lose the country. People like noah webster and others writing American History early and his first pages were 1787 were doing it for a different reason. It is the old federalist grouch was complaining kids condition know what we had to do. He felt it necessary to write down the history and they had to learn tit if we were going to keep the country on the right track. Slightly later another impulse was added and that was immigration. As more immigrants came the sense was we had to teach them not why they came but what they came to. We had to make our history into their history, too. So very early on history was written. Then came the third question. Why slogans . What were slogans all about . Very simply, slogans started because of textbook writers. Education tended to be rote and small School Houses and facts only and a couple of smart text backs writers say if you tell the kids stories they will pay more attention. In fact, that is what happened. I want to read you two descriptions of bunker hill and you can see what happened in one generation. When noah webster wrote about burninger er bunker hill he said this. The americans withstood continual two of fire which would not have condition discredit to old troops. They didnt return a shot until the kings forces approached almost to the workers when a most dreadful fire took place by which a number of the bravest machine and officers men and officers fell. That is not bad. But 30 years later, this is what was written. General swiveling told the soldiers how to manage powder and ball are scarce said he and you must not waste tell. Dont fire until you can see the whites of their eyes. Fire low fire at their waist bands. You can skill a squirrel at 100 yards. Take good aim. Take off the coats and this they did and the enemy fell by the score. That is how to keep control of a squirming classroom. You will notice in the middle the first use i could finds of dont fire until you see the whites of their eyes. That is what happened the more American History got written the more stories got told during this time period that the totally forgotten patriot nathan hale was rediscovered and his words went in. It was a way of teaching history and they also then became a way of remembering the lesson each one of the slogans sought to teach. Because if knowing history was going to make american citizens out fof the young and immigrants they had to learn with values were here and each slogan had catch phrases to eaches an attitude or a teach us an attitude or value that america wanted to sustain as a culture. If you look at all of the slogans and catch phrases in there and there are at least another 1 of 1 p,600 that never made tit they formed the way we wish to see ourselves, the way away did see ourselves and the way we want those who come here to see themselves. That is what is behind the book. Thats it. Thank you all. Speaking of history, we just had some. We are less than 24 hours past the election of barack obama. A long campaign. Lots of words. What was the slogan . Well, since slogans like history are never written by the losers nation first is not going to be one of the survivors. Drill, baby, drill might be although i dont think that the governor realized it is a play on burn, baby, burn. One that i thought was going to last might get lost is yes, we can. And i loved it when he started. It partakes of the childrens back we know the little engine that could. It also picks up on the repetition of the optimism that is basic in American Life and you can see any number of its the same idea as tomorrow is another day. I thought it was a loss because it was dropped as soon as barack obama clearly was going to make it. But he brought it back last night and he brought it back in a very, very interesting way. I think of american cultural life as every time we get a new president there is a moment of tension, we reach back and you can see it and you saw it last night in Barack Obamas speech. He didnt say what raa wonderful thing. He put it in context of American History using the figure of the 106yearold woman and that was punctuated with yes, we can. That is the one that will survive. A followup question about that, when we talked last week you mentioned yes, we can was not much in evidence. At what point do you know what a slogan is going to be a slogan. Im thinking of some of the revolutionary war slogans and stories about the founders that the book tells us didnt really get put in place until 1830, 1840 after their lifetimes. When will know that yes, we can, made it . One was we shall be a city on the hill was 160 and disappeared from sight from be but academics and religious authorities until 1960, when it was used in a quote to the General Court of massachusetts. But not really noticed outside massachusetts it was brought back to promise innocence by Ronald Reagan who added the word shining and decided that governor winthrop who was one of first freedom men despite the only freedom he was looking to was preface his own religion and everybody to go to rhode island. So, there is a slogan which was created in a sense by Ronald Reagan and it took 300 years to get it done. Slogans come and go. I doubt if theres 10 of the people in this room know what millions for defense but not penny for tribute comes from or why it comes from there. It was once an extremely important slogan. Tippecanoe and tyler too survives, first line frof whig song during the election but the other great slogan from this campaign is harrison, roast beef and 2 a day which never really made it. So slogans come and go. The ones that have come closest to the core values we wish to transmit or score sentiments we want to remember are the ones that survive. I have a dream will never disappear because it like yes, we can and tomorrow is another day are europeans talk about always optimistic and you look back in the culture one of the most basic elements of our culture is basic optimism and it is really the core of say it aint so because this news boy who probably never existed if you read the oral story but the news boy saying say it aint so is crushed because he believed so badly. So, i have no idea and if i can predict the future i woepbtuldnt by a convertible. You take us from city on the hill 1630 to Ronald Reagan, 1987 tear down this wall. After this that . I stopped that because my publisher said you have x number of words and you get to stop. It also had to do my feeling of things 1987 was more journalism and 1987 was problematic. But there are a number of things from where is the beef to mission accomplished, which i suspect will be remembered for not the slogan but what it now evokes which is hubris. Overreaching. But that line, make my day, read my lips, no new taxes. Some are so particular they probably wont survive. Whereas no taxation without representation which as far as i can tell was never a slogan and not repeated in the text books until after the civil war survived because theres another core value which is is we dont like taxes very much. From another perspective it appears on the d. C. License plate. The initial tag laneine. There are local meanings. You have an interesting idea in the back talking about the way slogans emerge with mass media. Newspapers play a role. You suggested also that president ial gains are an earlier form of mass media. I want to ask condition srpbgsal wisdom is conventional wisdom is we are beyond mass media and in the internet. What happens it slogans . Internet is not part of mass media or communication. It is a it is so individualizing and segmenting the public that it splits it apart. There are events, political elections, still bring us together. But National Points of communication now are disappearing. And i dont know if theres enough cross cutting loyalty in groups to sort of meld them back together or not. It also brings things at such a speed and eats them alive so quickly that it is not much that gets remembered. The only slogan i could ever think of out of the internet was you have mail. And that is only around for people who have a. O. L. Which is a quickly daying service dying service. I dont know. What happens if you have im just not sure where the new shrgens come slogans come from. The political campaigns which are the second oldest i think textbooks are first form of Mass Communication but second is political gains. Newspapers only come third. Political campaigns and our favorite american thing, wars are a mass form communication because the country participates as a whole, not necessarily always in favor but we participate. Does that mean that slogans only take hold when they apply to whole culture . No, the perfect example the vietnam war was a form of most communication in which everybody took part what you were there or stayed here. And which really gave birth to two important slogans. One is hell no, we wont go. The second is our country, love it or leave it. Both of those have survived. Both evoke important messages for the culture and both existed it divide the country and to a large extent still do because we have not come to terms with that want yet. That event yet. Slog slogans do necessarily unite. They dont provoke thought but they provoke aalong skwrapbsd allegiance and emotion. The debate over abortion is the same. If you use the word slogan on a street what do you mean when you say slogan they probably talk about advertising slogans. Yet in the book you only write about one advertising slogan, which is. You have come long way, back. Which has the advantage of not only allowing me to talk a little about the advertising business and its ability to subvert almost any cultural trend trend, but to talk in the womens liberation movement. It is an interesting slogan because it was actually welcomed by womens liberation. I dont deal with advertising slogans per se because in many ways they are too effervescent and the product disappears and when they survive like where is beef they survive because they evoke they can be used for a lot of situations. It was used immediately in political debates. But i think that is going away. Which twin had the toni and i wonder where the yellow went. Manufactured slogans are generally obvious and dont work very well. Just like all art people complain to me it is a madeup holiday. There wasnt across mass there wasnt christmas. All holidays are created by somebody so all slogans are created by somebody. The question becomes how long they last and do they arrive as something organic in situation at the time. The one slogan to me that i would not use because i swear it was made up by a Public Relations department is this is one small step for man i was getting out of rocket ship on the moon i would have said wow or what a view. I would not say this is one small it never quite made sense to me. This is off topic but do people complain to you about [inaudible] . And why is that . I dont know why they do but you can always hear comments about kwanzaa, about any new holiday. Of course, as somebody who worked in Public Relations and participated in the birth of motherinlaws day i have no idea idea. But motherinlaws day went back to where it came from. And we went on. Back on point. Downtown from here probably right at this hour there are people locked in Conference Rooms trying to come up with slogans and tag lines and memorable phrases. Are you saying that they cant or they have to be lucky . Part they have to be lucky. If they are successful they are often successful for reasons that they would rather they werent because the slogan will be record and the product will be tpropbgforgotten. You have come a long way baby. People wont know that is a cigarette commercial under a certain age. It became more emblematic of the Womens Movement than of cigarettes. If you get lucky you may be lucky for the wrong reasons because all slogans are made it make you do something. A battle cry. Dont shoot before you see the whites of their eyes. Remember the alamo. But if you have a product what you are supposed to do is go buy it. That doesnt continued to get remembered very long. You just touched on this and you discuss in the book the difference between a shreg slogan and a catch phrase. What is the difference. Slogans are battle cries that make you do something. Tippecanoe and tyler too is implicit because the vote for is that. Catch phrases come out fof Popular Culture and are more reflective of a dominant and true way of seeing life. For example, nice guys finish last is a perfect reflection of something away rather dont believe but probably do at heart as there are costs to success. Frankly my dear i dont give a damn is a wonderful reflection of the sort of how frustrating people can feel and the opposite and always optimistic reply after clark slammed the door, tomorrow is another day. Which is the sort of we will just keep going. But catch phrases then are not asking you to do anything but it is this is how we feel here. And it covers a wide variety of subjects, often takes opposite point of views of view. And they are not telling this is just saying this is how we feel. The catch phrase lasts as long as the feeling last. When it stops the catch phrase dies. You talked before about conflict and about catch phrases being youdused to divide. We have also talked about lift that is written by history that is written by winners. Any examples of catch traces phrases being used by the losers or not yet winners. Slogans that people remember . This is written by a p. R. Department for the white house in jerry fords time. Those might remember whip inflation now or win. He couldnt get that part correct. That came and went with incredible speed. Keep cool with coolidge is not generally remembered or win with willkie because they lost. There are many sloggensans that are still current in an Ethnic Community or smaller segment that we are just not generally aware of because they didnt become generalized. But im not a crook certainly was i am not a crook is like mission accomplished. One of those slogans that characterize an era or a person and im sure that people involved would rather they didnt remember them. So there is the subject of snark snarky slogans. The one that lasted longest is the one which is not in the back but very old probably not solely american. But the only good ex you put your own noun in there is a dead ex has been with us for a long time. It will probably always be with us. Partly because function of history is to say who we are. Who are we as opposed to them. And we are the people who did x xyz. We are the people that believe xyz and the only good is a dead is part of who is we and who isnt, the quick and the dead. We talked a lot and you write about slogans in American History. What about overseas . Do other cultures do this or do they not need to . Other cultures do it. I have asked contemporaries in other cultures and you get a few but you dont get the incredible wealth we have here. In england it is everything from we shall fight on the beaches, we are not amused. In france it sis fortune[speaking a foreign language]. Germany has them. The only article i have ever seen on slogans theoretical was done by lenin because they made a serious study of slogans. So yes, they are in other cultures but they dont seem to be as pervasive as here. I think the reason is particularly in beginning of the 19th century and certainly in the late 18th century this is a strange place. Every other country in the world that existed had been there forever. There was no before and after. It is all in some vague evolving past. They all will months when a king died or there was an invasion or the goths arrived. But in the United States there was a before, it was the colonial periods. There was an after. There was a brief time of almost like the explosion of the universe where we created ourselves. And people new people who lived before the time and they were living after and there was a clear separation so that this was a created thing. So it was so precious that we had to remember it and all of these things developed as a result. I dont think you see the same thing, search dont see the same thing in the only country that is the exception is switzerland which is a very small republic. And they had william tell. And but i think land england is one that has some but not the same. We talked for a pweutbit about the internet and mass media. And what that does to slogans. There is a sort of conventional wisdom among some of us of a seven age that words are less important than they used to be. That paofpl people read less and this is the age of the image and make instead of slogans and catch phrases we have videos that go viral. What happens to the slogan if people are not thinking of words so much and they are expressing themselves in other ways . People for invented the crucifixion might have a problem with thinking images are just coming because words create immileages and images create words and one thing barack obama has proved is at least in a public sense it is not dead. Power has been misused or unused for so long. Ronald reagan was an excellent public speaker and occasionally so was bill clinton. But it has been rare that we have had somebody as powerful as this as a speaker. Im not sure what goes on. Yes, you can have images. But im not sure. Im of a certain age and im older than you where everybody wants to say things are going to hill in a hand basket and young kids dont know squat and i have one at home and it is true, they dont know squat. No it is not true. He is very smart. This has all happened before and it will happen again. And it wont rail really change. So i dont know what the answer is. I guess i prefer writing about history because it has happened and i dont have to worry about it writing about the future or fiction which is so difficult that it is beyond my ability to think about. Which means you wont like the next question. What do you expect from the from an Obama Administration by the way of slogans and catch traces and use of language . Is that going to be a deliberate part of the strategy . I dont think we will have it. I think we have been through a time which was so concentrated on the spin, the selected use of words. I think we are about to enter into a time when we have an honest dialogue from somebody who is not afraid of talking to us. Yes, we can. Yes we can, correct. But what you are saying is that slogans are not going to work, messages are not going to work. Im not saying emergencies what work messages wont work. There were sloggens and messages slogans and spin as far back as alexander washington was writing speeches and tom payne was spinning news. They with substitute for reality. Im currently reading a book about kissinger and in this casenixon and when you look at what happened with johnson and then nixon and now, the arguments for what is going on overseas have not changed. They use the same words. And it is really odd. They are substituting words that it will become reality and i dont think this administration will do that. I think if they try they are going to meet a wall of angry disappointment. We have an aorgeager looking audience. Questions at this point. Lets throw it open. Who would like to jump in . We have a microphone. You mentioned messages are more important these days than words. Not messages visions. What sort . I think what al was trying to say that as the internet and texting and youtube and all the things that are available now are destroying the written word as a primary form of communication, books are read less comic novel illustrated novels are preferred. It all detracts from the ability to have civil discourse in print or in public. I suppose that is true. What i was saying is messages will still be important, but images i just dont know enough. I dont pretend to know enough about communication theory to answer because im not sure i see the difference between words and images since i think one creates the other and vice versa. But im old fashioned. Any other questions . I was thinking wait for the microphone. I was thinking when you were discussing slogans and old telegraph you would sit around and what starts as man i want you to do your article and this turns into a slogan. When you talked about the internet i was thinking of cut and paste. All of history seems it lefthand itself to lend itself to slogans but cut and paste doesnt. It is not the same sitting around a fire. By the time someone says what jan says around a camp pair it turns campfire it turns into a story and the next guy it is even better. So, how do you see this oral tradition continuing . Im not sure it even continues now. I think the oral continuation is pretty well gone at least in this country. Not at your house. That is always the excuse part. On the other hand what you are saying for a slogan to be a slogan and take hold it has it evolve. People have to take it on and work on it and bring it forward. Are you saying that stops happening . I dont know. It will be interesting to see what happens. Because that sis easily adaptable. But so was i have a dream and i was shocked when a Company Started using, got permission to use that for its Corporate Image campaign. Using it makes it more valuable and cheapens it at the same time. The microphone is coming, maam. Which slogan that you wrote about is your favorite and why . Oh, my in many ways is hit them where they aint and for an odd reason. People have known for years that wee Willie Keeler said it and nobody could find the source. It is not a tribute it me it is a tribute to searchable text and nobody has done and the Brooklyn Eagle is now online and i found the exact article where it was a rained out game and Willie Keeler and his friends were talking about betting on baseball which was fairly common in those days and this is well before the black socks scandal and turns to the reporter and says you know everybody and he goes into secret 10 inches down and inside no wonder nobody has seen it before and i probably wouldnt if i had not used microfilm. That is one of my favorites. When you think memorable slogans and you touched on this a little but i wonder if you kcan go into more detail it more important that it selfcontained a chicken in every pot, or that the mere or some other factor helps helps, tippecanoe and tyler too which i dont know what it means but i remember it. You are right. Do you remember 54, 40 or fight which was the angelo saxon form of making poetry. I think the most important thing is for almost all of them is what value it is teaching and why the culture is keeping it in its group memory. But there are things like tippecanoe and tyler too and 54 40 or fight which or even i like ike which is the most innocuous Campaign Slogan ever and got him elected. So there are some that are for just total nonsense reasons and i cant explain and why anybody would remember the looks of harrison and tyler we harrison died a month after getting elected and tyler was eventually then out of the party for being such a bad whig. He was not a whig to begin with. So it was a completely failed administration yet that sticks around. I dont know. Anyone else . We do have some more time. Eager as you might be. I want to ask about life, liberty and pursuit of happenness. Is it a slogan, is it a catch phrase or none of the above . Just as all men are created equal, they are not in the book because the one thing i figured everybody did know was the declaration of independence. But it is probably the most powerful catch phrase slogan, all machine are created all men are created equal. We started going back to that when jackson started toen large the democracy to enlarge democracy and win back to it when lincoln was debate inging douglas and could not justify his switch, his feelings on segregation by the constitution because it was in the constitution. So he switched the focus of the argument to the declaration of independence, which he saw as a prior and more important document. Every rights group in this country have started by touching on all machine are created all men are created equal. It is probably the most important american influence on the rest of the world. It is a very powerful vision. Others may be less powerful but lightning round. Greed is good. I think only those of us who saw that movie have any idea what that means. Greed is good comes from the movie wall street with michael douglas. It fswas sort of the last time we hated wall street and now we hate it again. It hasnt survived because i think we hate it so much and sentiment is so repelling that we dont remember it. We dont choose to remember it. Im curious what you think the slogan of in god we trust on every dollar bill. Is that something that will endure . Does god belong with monetary pursuits . Well, it is not really monetary monetary so much as it is the belief that the Founding Fathers were to a superior beginning. To many was not a christian good. But the belief in a god of some kind was basic to the country. Elizabeth doles last different attempt to stay in office was to accuse her opponent in North Carolina of being an atheist. It is amazing she didnt say her daughter was. Is it the proper place for money to be . Given the centrality of the capitalist Economic System in this country it is hard to argue that it isnt. Irrational exuberance . No. That gets into the area of epithets. It is not really a slogan or a catch phrase. It sis like the kingdom of our embattled c. E. O. It is a lovely subject and one we used two spend a lot of time thinking of all the homeric epithets. Bobby schantz and he thought they had named him dominion. But it isnt really a slogan. Will it be remembered . Probably not. It depends. The ability of newspaper writers and editorial writers and Television Commentators to be lazy about their choice of words and phrases is almost boundless. I was talking to a reporter from the Washington Post, you will be interested he retired and i said there is one thing i want to complain to you about and he said what. I said if i hear the term gate any more im going to run screaming into the void and he said you will be interested to know there is a policy against the use of the word gate at the Washington Post unless it refers to the original or using it in a quote. But it is automatic, it is lazy lazy people who and you cant blame them. They were trying to fill air time last night and painful. Unless somebody said it looked like princess lay princess laia waiting to be beamed up. You have got to believe. That is great but it is so tied to new york. Or philadelphia. Thats true. But they stole it from us. It is to say you got to believe there are any number of those. It is in the future and wait until next year is the same one. And they only gave it up when they took the team to los angeles. Final question. We have talked about this nation, other nations, tribal identify identities. Can there be a slogan or catch phrase that stretches across boundaries and becomes a globalization or a global catch phrase . Not until the awful thing happens and the world becomes a system culture. Single culture and that would make our lives as boring as it could possibly be. Thank you all for coming. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] we have the best known American History writers of past decade talking about their books. You can watch or series every saturday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern here on American History tv on cspan 3. Tonight we visit the Tulane University classroom of John Ray Proctor learn about August Wilson his contribution to africanamerican theater and his Pulitzer Prize winning play fences. If we can perform the narrative of blackness in such a way that it becomes universal, then maybe there can be empathy. Maybe then we can get more we can get the respect of america to go you know what, this demonizing of blackness that has happened on an ideological level and step away and it is just a mother and a son. When we look at rose and look at troy in fences we are hearing the story of a man and a woman, right . They dont really concern themselves with the white world around them. They are concerned with their lives. That process of exposing or showing the deeply personal, by showing the specific and personal, it is an attempt to make that story universal. Learn more about africanamerican play write August Wilson tonight at 8 00 and midnight eastern on lectures in history. Join the classroom here on American History tv. Next library of congress archivist delivers an always straightened talk on how to use the Library Resources and collections. Her presentation focuses on fall river legend a 1948 ballet that spwrpbts spwrpbt spwrpts the murder case of Lizzie Borden who was acquitted of killing her father and step stepmother with a hatchet. The Historical Society hosted this as part of a series on congress and the arts. With that i will move on to todays speaker. Shes the librarian of congress been there since 2015. Before that she was the executive director at Dance Heritage Coalition where now she provides outreach to artists and national preservation. This is vitally important. Im a dancer in another part of my life and im excited about this. She advises organizations on how to f