Transcripts For CSPAN3 Barbara Bush Scrapbooks 20240712

I was starting research for my book and i was able to go down to College Station to my grandfathers library and they have the archives there. My coauthor and i are like, we are here for a day and a half, lets do it. We walk in and mary finch who works at the library was like, where do you want to start . She opens the door and it is millions of different scrapbooks and videos and things. We are like, what . We only have a day and a half. We started in her scrapbook. My grandmother had kept scrapbooks from every part of their life together. While at the george h. W. Bush library and museum, director warren finch showed us one of Barbara Bushs scrapbooks containing mementos from their life together. We are here in the research room. We are going to take a look at one of about 120 scrapbooks that mrs. Bush began keeping shortly after she and president bush became engaged. She was an avid scrapbooker and documented their entire history and his political history and their lives together for their entire marriage. This one is from 1944 and 1945, i believe. Mrs. Bushs granddaughter was doing a book on the president and mrs. Bush. Kind of their love story. And she was using the scrapbooks as a resource for that book. One of the things she found because it was sitting inside this envelope, we had not found it before, was what we thought was a scrapbook a scrapbook from their first thanksgiving. She has the guests that were there and what is kind of funny is she even has the one guest who could not come because he got sick. This is the kind of stuff she kept. Pictures of him. Baseball scorecards. She annotated it all in her own handwriting. She was so much in love with him that she wanted to document their life together. The children, the grandchildren as time went on. At some point, she stopped the scrapbooks. But then she started to send us she had a digital camera and she would send us digital photos and all the backup with the photos. They were not exactly in scrapbooks. If she was at a dinner, she would take a lot of pictures and send us the invitation and the program, the menu from the dinner. At some point i think someone said that from an archival standpoint, gluing the pictures in the scrapbooks probably wasnt the greatest idea. Once they are glued in, it is hard to get them out for preservation purposes. They are a great resource. What of the reasons we did the museum about 12 years ago because we discovered all these great artifacts in these scrapbooks and beset weve got , to use them. I told mrs. Bush, thanks for the scrapbooks. We are going to put this stuff in the museum. As you walk to the museum a lot , of the photos and stories are from her scrapbooks. Shes a big part of the museum also. You can watch this and other programs on the history of communities across the country at cspan. Org cities tour. This is American History tv, only on cspan3. First ladies influence an image on American History tv examines the private lives and public roles of the nations first ladies through interviews with historians. Monday night, we look at the first thing we look at the first two first ladies. Was first ladies, influence and image, monday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on American History up next on the presidency, we hear about Richard Nixons reforms of native american policies that led to the restoration of indian lands and inaugurated a new era of selfgovernment. His administration is credited as being one of the most part where merrick proindian of the 20th century. Alcatraz island by native americans. Declaring they were reclaiming their land. About theso hear native American College football coach who may have inspired the young Richard Nixons thinking about indian affairs. Featured speakers including officials that helped craft these new policies. This 2