First families, 200 years of private life in the white house. He served as a consultant to the smithsonian, and was the National First ladys library historian until 2017. Hes currently writing camera girl for simon and schuster. So welcome, carl. Thank you. I appreciate so much being able to join the White House Historical association today and very honored to give you a little bit of a back ground about Florence Harding and the book. I have to tell you, as is often said, a parent should not really have per se a favorite child, and, you know, i think an author shouldnt perhaps have a favorite book. But i will say that the research of this book, and then the unique promotion that i did for the book will always be a very important part of my life. I started writing this book, researching this book at a time when there was still the sun was just setting on the last generation of people who knew the hardings firsthand. Of course, they were Young Children and one or two had almost been teen teenagers. And then at the end of the process, the 75th anniversary of the death of president harding. Of course, he died in 1923, so this was in 1998. I retraced the hardings western tour, you know, Transcontinental Railroad trip in the blistering summer of 1923 and all the stops along the way. And then even went up to alaska. The hardings had gone up to alaska, and the president had driven the golden spike that completed the alaska railroad, and we as a guest of the alaska railroad,ers brought up and there was an elderly man there who had been at that original ceremony, then in his 90s, and he redid that little bit of the striking of the golden spike with a second golden spike. So this story has a lot of personal resonance for me. I would also say that i think Florence Harding has a lot of personal resonance for me, because shes well, as so often will happen, we had many great first ladies who were married to president s who were not always remembered quite so kindly. But what ends up happening so often is these women really are forgotten. They are often times turned into caricatures, and nobody really gives them much attention. And i always detected something about mrs. Harding that i thought was as worthy and important as ellenor roosevelt was to the role of first lady. And as i began doing the research over a long period of years, starting when i was in college, i really felt the full measure of her greatness. Flos Florence Harding had been born to a very successful, smalltown central ohio man who owned real estate, traded horses, owned a hard ware store and started rather modestly. She was born above the Hardware Store on the second floor. The eldest of three, her father had hoped she would be a boy. So he sort of raised her as he would have a son. Teaching her all of those things that at that time with so much of a conscious notion of what genders should or shouldnt be doing, he ignored that. She rode horses, had great physical strength. And they were close, but he was rather tyrannical. And her mother was a bit passive. As time went on and she began developing more of a sense of what she wanted to do with her life, which was to be a serious musician, and he did send her to the cincinnati conservatory of music. There was a lot of there were a lot of arguments. Ultimately, she ran away with a neighborhood boy and theres no proof of their being a legal marriage, but they held themselves out as married and was recognized as sort of a common law marriage. And she became pregnant, had a son. Unfortunately, the husband, her companion abandoned her and she had to come back into the small town of marion, her hometown, where she broke into a house that she knew was abandoned for the winter. And from there, really continued to struggle. Ultimately, her father made a sort of a deal with her in which he would take her son in and raise him as his own. She begins giving piano lessons. One of her students is the young woman named charity harding, who has a brother by the name of Warren Harding, who is interested in journalism. He buys a small local paper, and florence really goes after him. Hes five years younger than her, but they really form a great business partnership. And she becomes the Business Manager of the newspaper. And she ends upturning it into one of the most successful daily papers in the state. And it was not only required a great deal of business accumen but great personal skills, as well as a sense of what made a great story, because she was working with journalists. He is elected Lieutenant Governor and pages a run for the u. S. Senate. And florence was really behind him in this. Now, he formed friendships a friendship with a powerful lobbyist by the name of harry dokerty, and he and florence became sort of comanagers of hardings career. He comes to washington as a she comes to washington as a senators wife, and shes now just a senate wife, doesnt really know anybody. But harding, as the u. S. Senator from ohio, becomes friends with, and knew ahead of time nicholas longwor longworth, who was a congressman. He was married to the daughter of president Theodore Roosevelt and established as washingtons premiere hostess. It is through and there the famous poker games began between the longworths and the hardings. But they also included a man by the name of ned mccclain, whose father owned the Washington Post and the cincinnati enquirer, and his wife, evalyn walsh mcclain, owned the hope diamond. She and mrs. Harding, despite their 30year age difference, became instant friends. And in a sense, more than friends. They became great confidants. Evalyn and she were excited to discover that they not only shared a common bond in their love and respect for animals, for all living beings, but also for astrology. And a belief in various forms of spiritualism and mrs. Mcclain took mrs. Harding to her fortune teller, who was apparently everyones in washington, including the incumbent first lady at the time, edyth wilson. A woman by the name of madame marsha. And madame marsha did tarot card readings, and astrology readings for mrs. Harding about her husband, and she predicted in the winter of 1920, right as the republican president ial primaries are beginning, she predicted that if harding ran, he would be elected. But that he would die a sudden, peculiar, death by poison. Now, whats interesting is, these things were reported in the newspaper at the time. And, in fact, at the june 1920 convention in chicago, mrs. Harding spoke openly about them. And saying she saw one word above her husbands head if he was elected, and that word was tragedy. Whats also going on at that time is the 19th amendment is on the verge of being passed, ratified. And mrs. Harding had always been a suffragist. She always believed in the equality of women, so she began to give interviews with reporters, which candidates wives usually didnt. And rather unusually announced the fact that she zdidnt wear wedding room, didnt like to cook, that her interests were mostly in business. She addressed some of the hot political issues of the day. For example, very much against the league of nations, and entangling the u. S. In any overseas obligations. This, of course, coming on the heels of world war i. Upkeep of the house, the entertaining part of the you know, at that point, a traditional feminine role, a womans role in american society. But florng haence harding reall expanded that. She felt a sense of a great civic responsibility. And this manifested primarily with three consistencies. One was the wounded and disabled veterans who were returning from world war i. In fact, when harding helps to establish the newly formed bureau Veterans Bureau, its mrs. Harding who weighs in, unfortunately, on the choice of a Charles Forbes to head that. He was a friend of hers, and she a friend of both hardings, and she strongly believed he was capable of that. But she gets involved in veteran bureau affairs. When scandals start to break, shes on it very quickly. The second area she really concentrated on was economic and political and professional and education alec whial equity for. She encouraged women to seek Higher Education. She supported a ban on sugar when sugar prices became too exorbitant. She talked about how the housewife could have power, and she encouraged women to become more involved in the political process now that they had the vote. She said its not a question of if, its a fact. So women should become better educated, and although she was a republican, she supported what many at the time in both the democratic and republican parties saw as a potential threat to their, you know, loyal members by the creation of a National Womens party. And she supported that party in the effort to have a monument but any way, and the third area she focused on was animal rights. She was rather radical. She was an antivivisectionist. She didnt even support the use of animals in any kind of experimentations of development of products that, you know, would be that humans would use. And she was very engaging. Very friendly. Buts are very blunt. Sometimes she rubbed people the wrong way. They attributed that to her small town ways. Even though she was older than many of the other first ladies had been when they assumed that position, she was really very much in touch with current popular culture. So for example, hes the first to use film, movies. Its a silent filmed called the covered wagon which the sound of it was provided by a live orchestra. She used that as after dinner entertainment in the white house. She was fascinated by the movie camera through evalyn mcclain, she got to know d. W. Griffin. She brought the first radio into the white house. Although she tried her best to stick to the traditional first ladies should not speak on the record with reporters, she couldnt help herself. So she really was in a very short period of time, a very dynamic woman and a very honest woman. Now, everybody always also wonders about, you know, the scandals. And the fact of the matter is, as far as personal life goes, we know from letters released that Warren Harding had a fullblown love affair with a woman who had been his wifes best friend in ohio, Carey Phillips. We also know because of dna that than britten, almost 40 years younger than harding and in love with him, had a child by him. The degree to which mrs. Knew about nan britten is not entirely clear, all know theres some suggestion she suspected something. But she knew about the Carey Phillips incident. In another entirely different dimension, the hardings very much loved each other. When mrs. Harding almost died in september of 1922 because of a kidney ailment, the president was beside himhimself. And the love he had really emerged from firsthand accounts at that time. As part of her sort of spiritualist beliefs, mrs. Harding was always rather almost obsessed with this vision she had for many decades of going to alaska. And she felt somehow it was part of some mission. She had to complete. And so even though the president s health is beginning to deteriorate, a and shes looked over by a frankly very incompetent homeopath from their hometown who actually has mrs. Hardings full trust, because she believes hes the only person who can save her. Even when the mayo brothers come and shes almost dying in the twho white house, its only little doc sawyer who is able to really save her. But through the notes of the second in command, physician, joel boone, we know that sawyer was very incompetent. And during this trip out west was doing things that were worsening what boone knew to be a very pabad heart condition. Ultimately, president harding died in mrs. Hardings presence in San Francisco on august 2, 1923, in the palace hotel in San Francisco. And so ultimately rumors began that she had poisoned him, and there is some suggestion even by her good friend that perhaps the power of suggestion, mrs. Harding believed that the president would die. But later, a book come back out that said she poisoned him was utterly fiction. But the book was well crafted in that it took well known truths and spun a web around those. So ultimately, mrs. Harding is was, for many years, remembered as the first lady rumored to have poisoned the president. I believe his name was bully boy. I cant confirm that 100 . But the more famous one was the arradale called laddie boy. Many times, mrs. Harding would let laddie boy go serve as a host, if you will, for a lot of Animal Rescue and Animal Protection fundraisers. Here is mrs. Harding with a group of women she loved meeting at the white house with a wide variety of women activists, whether they were professional organizations or even in the case of a delegation of filipino women who came seeking support for filipino for the independence of the philippine islands. She particularly loved to encourage groups of graduating classes of women, because she so believed in the needs for Higher Education for women. Here she is after the election but before the inauguration at a Senate Luncheon honoring her. The woman with the white feathered hat on one side is evalyn mcclain, on the other is lowis marshall, who is the outgoing Vice President s wife. Evalyn mcclain left us some vivid recollections of those years, the most famous of which is poses mrs. Harding after the body of the president has been brought back to the white house in a flag draped coffin, asking the coffin to be open, and then speaking to him and telling him the trip hasnt hurt you a bit and expressing the feeling that and this is sort of what helped lead to these rumors. Now that its all over, i was beginning to think it was all for the best. And heres mrs. Harding. Interested in and fascinated by the new technology of film. And motion picture. And here she is, of course, winding a camera on the lawn of the white house and i believe the group was a group of amateur women camera people, i guess you would call them, or camerawomen, as they were called. But in many ways, she developed the notion of the photoop, that both president s and first ladies use. She would pose, she would participate by holding something that was symbolic of it. And she never she was very selfconscious of her physicality and was uncomfortable sometimes posing for images. I suppose because the pinched glasses which sort of made her eyes pop out and so forth. But none the less, she always did it as part of what she felt was her public duty as first lady. This is after her recovery from her illness in march of 1923, before they head down to florida for their annual winter vacat n vacation. At this point in the spring of 1923, so many of their friends who close, personal friends who he will held power in the administration, the scandals were beginning. So the senator from new mexico, appointed secretary of interior. The secretly seeing of oil, federal oil reserves as teapot dome, and others, begins to raise eyebrows. Charlie forbes and the Veterans Bureau scandal breaks in february. And then just two months a of this trip, which is taken with attorney general dokerty and his companion, jeff smith, who was sort of a dollar a year man at the justice department, its discovered that smith was involved in, you know, the illegal trafficking of confiscated liquor during prohibition. And he commits suicide. And he was a very close friend of theirs. So you can understand that by the time they are leaving a month later for alaska, mrs. Harding has a lot of dark clouds over her. Here she is at a fair, where helping to promote some of the textiles that were made by the disabled veterans up at walter reed. It was evalyn mcclain who first introduced mrs. Harding to the men returning from the front who were being treated at walter reed. And here she is at walter reed, with, i believe he was a blind veteran of that first world war. She referred to them as my boys and tying in with the squaws, the lemon mint squaw, mrs. Harding started the garden parties every spring. She had a series of them. And one of the biggest and most important to her was the garden party for the wounded veterans and just wounded and disabled veterans from walter reed. You know, hundreds would come down to the white house and thats where those squaw drinks were served. But that remained a tradition. I dont belie i dont believe it did during the roosevelt years, but up through the eisenhower years, those white house garden parties for veterans were held. Sorry about that. All right. So lets transition into our q and a. We have a bunch of Great Questions for you tonight. Unfortunately, i dont know that well be able to get through all of them. But lets see what we can get through. All right. First question, we have a question from denise from ohio, and she says, on the anniversary of 9 11, i was reminded how First Lady Laura Bush was a perfect first lady for that time in our history. In what ways do you think Florence Harding was or wasnt the best fit during that sometime she was the best possible fit. Even though she was older, she embodied the notion of the new woman. Sometimes caricatured as the flapper. She even wore shorter dresses and styles, maybe not necessarily the most flattering to her, but representing a certain sense of liberation. She also had a navy combo band perform jazz music for the first time at the white house. So in so many ways culturally and politically, i think she really was one of those who ideally fits the times. A lot of people want to know, do you believe the alleged views that florence poisoned her husband and that is really what led to president hardings death . No, i dont believe she did. Im convinced absolutely that she did not. However, i think what happened was, because this guy, dr. Sawyer, i do think that she was an unwitting accomplice to a negligent homicide. And i think that had dr. Boone prevail, that the president might have been saved, with you with the sort of nutty concoctions and things consider sawyer was doing, and because sawyer saved her life, she had implicit belief in him. He was a bit like a rasputin to her. So jim ramsey from washington, d. C. Asks, given mrs. Hardings savvy with the media, why is she not better known in our u. S. History and culture as was ellenor roosevelt . The main thing is, no matter how much good a first lady does, it can never overcome the per received damage or harm or failure of her husband. We always have to keep that in mind when we talk about first ladies, that i mean, i always say, it may be true that we would never know about these women had they not been married to those men. The flip side is had these then not been married to these women, we may not have heard of these men. But she died only about a year and two months after the president had died. As a widow, while the teapot dome trials were going on, and other scandals are coming out, she is still there, but a little paranoid, thinking her phone is tapped. Theres even a move to get her to run for governor. She wants to write a book about her husband, and i suppose that in some ways it would have served as an autobuy rog a fi. But she never got her version of her life out. The harding papers were closed because dr. Sawyer and his son were very possessive and very territorial. The hardings, of course, having no children and the sawyers being in there and controlling everything, and they kept those papers locked up for some 40 or so years. So really its more of a matter of fact that he never had a chance to tell their story. Bill from San Francisco asks, was Florence Harding vilified like others were for usurping her role as president , or did his death preclude that . Well, an interesting question. Two things, because there was such a new attitude in the country with women voting, not only the reality of it, but sort of the perception about it. Mrs. Harding being sometimes referred to as a cartoon that harding said the president and mr. Harding. Was a little bit more removed from that whole thing i think as a young woman growing up, you can imagine that it was more difficult for her. But the dna has, of course, unequivocally proven that mr. Blazys grandfather is president harding. Onya asks, publicly president harding was a supporter of civil rights for africanamericans as he supported the antilynching bill in 1920, but there was a rumor he was a member of the klan. Can you clarify his stance on civil rights and what was the first ladys position on civil rights . Harding was not a member of the klan. And he spoke out against it, but what did happen was, there was a convergence in washington of the ku klux klan. At the very same time there was a convergence of one of the secret, sort of vaguely secret lodges of the masons. And they had different sort of pacts, they werent by any stretch of the imagination anything similar. But it was sort of a ceremonial kind of hat that the members wore, and the hardings welcomed them in the white house. It seems to me that these two stories have become conflated. Mrs. Harding very strongly condemned racism and, in fact, when a woman member of the Republican Party of florida, the state party, wrote was trying to get a letter to the president , and then wrote to mrs. Harding to use her influence in a way that was a strike against equal rights for people of color in florida, mrs. Harding responded very sharply and said if these are your views and this is what youre advocateliadvocat advocati advocating, i would ask you to no longer write to my husband or myself. Because this does not represent our views. So, you know, its interesting, because like the roosevelts, there is this adherence to the way things were, meaning there were people of color who largely served in domestic roles. There were a limiting number of those who had achieved a level of National Prominence that they were welcomed at the white house. I dont find a record of any problem of people of color being welcomed at the white house. But in terms of correspondence and in terms of what she said publicly, mrs. Harding advocated for civil rights. Whats interesting too, when she went to alaska, as far as i was able to determine, shes the first figure of National Prominence associated with the federal government who advocates statehood for florida, and is very engaged in the native culture of alaska. And speaking of them as whole americans. Only time for a couple more questions. A lot of people want to know a little bit more about what mrs. Hardings life looked like after her husbands death and what she did then. I think her legacy was muted because he died in office, she died a year later, and really its only evalyn mcclain, you know, as the wife of the editor and owner of the Washington Post, who is at that point writing very positive things about her. But when you look at she is the first first lady to really feel a sense of commitment to the American Public, that the American Public was her constituency, that the first lady had a responsibility to answer the needs of the american people. So you have her weighing in on immigrants. You have her helping small, little individual cases of people who need help. And referencing those letters to the different departments and agencies. Very much like ellenor roosevelt did. In the past, you might have a first lady like mrs. Cleveland who got involved in a local charity or mrs. Taft, who had a vision for the city and mrs. Taft, for example, got involved in legislation that ended up in the first health and Safety Measures and standards in the federal workplace. But it was all related to life in washington or life in the federal government. Ellen wilson, again, the whole issue of her seeking to rid the city of deplorable housing without providing housing for the displaced people of color, you know, there were those before her who undertook this. But mrs. Harding had a national view. She saw the entire nation as her constituency. And even when they made that western tour across the country and up to alaska, she began to speak and deliver speeches, informal speeches from the back of the train to the public. She saw the first lady as a public role as i think thats her most important legacy. Excellent. Just for a final question, what do you think her what specific impact did she maybe have on future first ladies . Well, im not so sure she did, because i think she was largely forgotten. Ellenor roosevelt knew that mrs. Harding had a very close friendship with a couple of reporters, women reporters, because some of those women reporters who covered mrs. Harding, you know, ten years later, covered mrs. Roosevelt. So they spoke to her about that. I think, you know, to my knowledge, no other first lady has ever gotten involved in animal rights. But certain hi in terms of advocating economic, political, educational and professional equity of women, you see ellenor roosevelt doing that. And later lady bird johnson. And then mrs. Carter and mrs. Clinton and then laura bush. You see also the care of the veterans particularly. I think thats where her great legacy is, because many first ladies became advocates for the disabled and wounded veterans of world war ii, of the korean war, of the vietnam war. Y right up to mrs. Obama working with second lady jill biden, a m where and directly to help active military and their families. So i think that is a big part of it. Mrs. Lincoln did a bit of that but, for example, fix up to four if they cross the path of the individual veteran of the civil first lady from mrs. Lincoln to mrs. Hearting really did not focus on that. I think if anything, that is maybe where she laid groundwork. Excellent. Thank you, carl, for your wonderful presentation this evening for. On saturday, Eastern Connecticut State University professor Thomas Balcerski teaches a class on the relationship between two prominent mid 19th century politicians. James buchanan and William Rufus king. Heres a preview. Well to some modern observers the answer is simple, these two bachelors were more than just friends. They were lovers. As these images reveal, you do not need to search google for James Buchanan to discover the inaudible. American history has declared him to be the first gay president. From there it does not take long to discover that this popular understanding derives from his relationship with one man in particular. That is right, William Rufus king. Let me hear give a special shout out to project potus pages account on instagram for the incredibly of octave art of buchanan and king that you see on the screen. Here too is another lesson for the historical researcher today. Engagement with the social media can be both enlightening to understand popular opinion and rewarding as a way to validate the importance of your research subject. The sketches on this and subsequent slides wonderfully illustrate the points that i made in my research. I recommend that everyone follow this accounts that has its mission to illustrate the life of all president s of the United States. On that point, let me stress here about the connection between researcher and subject. The truth is, that we all study the things that interest us about which we are passionate. My interest in the story of James Buchanan and William Rufus king is no different in this regard. As a gay man living in the 24 century, i admit to having been quite intrigued when i first heard this characterization of them as lovers. As they say, we often study what we do because we want to relate to our Research Subjects in some way. But i also knew that i needed to be more critical in how i approach this topic. And to ask questions that might yield a fuller picture. So i began ask as i ask you now, what was the real nature of the relationship . Was each man gay as newsweek would have us believe . Or Something Else . And why do americans seem fixated on making buchanan our first gay president . All right spoiler alert ahead. As i have stressed this semester, historians must follow the research wherever takes them. My research has led me to archives in 21 states, the District Of Columbia and even the British Library in london. My findings suggest that James Buchanan and William Rufus king had an intimate male friendship of the kind common in the 19th century. A generation of scholarship has uncovered numerous such intimate though most platonic friendships among men. At the same time, some of these friendships could include an erotic element as well. The friendship of buchanan and king included both platonic and erotic elements but not the way you think. The evidence suggests that king year in the longer and deeper for buchanan who never reciprocated in return. In fact, you can shrewdly cultivated kings affection when it was convenient and ignored him when it was not. In the unequal terms of their relationship, king kept giving and you can and kept taking. Not in a sexual way, but in an emotional and especially political way. In the realm of politics, more than anything else, their friendship made its greatest impact. In the years before the civil war, friendships among politicians such as buchanan and king provided a crucial way to bridge the growing chasm between the north and the south. Simply put, friendships provided the political glue that bound together a nation on the precipice of this union. Watch the full Program Saturday at 8 pm eastern, 5 pm pacific here on American History tv for. You are watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan 3. Follow us on twitter cspanhistory for our information on the schedule and keep up with the latest history news. Sunday on american artifacts, john f. Kennedy was assassinated on november 22nd, 1963. We visited the National Archives in 2014 to learn about the assassination records and to see some of the iconic artifacts such as lee harvey was wild rifle, the socalled magic bullet in the original eight millimeter film of the assassination taken by abraham. Here is a preview. This is the famous rifle which as wild used to assassinate the president. Again you could see the custom box that was created by National Archive conservation staff. Again it has its own Commission Exhibit number, which is Commission Exhibit 139. We considerate part of the records of the Warren Commission because they were the organization that had custody last prior to the transfer. So the next item is this blanket and this is the blanket that was found in the house of ruth payne and ruth payne was the woman with whom on swabs wife and daughter were staying at the time and oswald had stored some of his affects, i believe in the garage. And so it is believed that he actually had racked the rifle in this blanket while it was in the garage and was found after the assassination. So this is probably one of the more famous bullets in existence. It is sometimes referred to as a magic bullet. I referred to as Commission Exhibit 339, because that is the number side to it by the one commission. It was found on the hospital stretcher. It is believed, by the one commission, that this is a bullet that first hit president kennedy, exited through his next neck and actually hit governor colony who was sitting in front of the president. After going through his bodys arm, it was lodged to his thigh, they believe, and that she fell off while he was on the stretcher. Again, one thing to let people know is that we have very high quality High Resolution images of most of these artifacts. This one in particular available on www. Archives. Gov. I want to try to give as many views of this as possible because people have questions on every aspect of this bullet as you can imagine. And that container, is that just a special bullet container . It is a container that we have created ourselves in order to have it in a container where you can see it but that has a plug on a top and film on the bottom so it can be in there without rattling around. You could turn it and view it from different angles. So its just a way of conservatism it but trying to keep it so that if we needed to pull it out for some reason, you could actually visibly see it. We had special housings made by the conservatives here at the National Archives for our various symbols that are associated with this. So once the limousine was back in washington of course it was gone over very carefully and there were bullet fragments found in the limousine. So that is what you are going to see here. Very small bullet fragments. There is the commissioning exhibit number, 840. And then this is a larger fragment that was also found. Its a separate Commission Exhibit number. There were cardboard boxes that were found on the sixth floor of the texas schoolbook the where the warrant commission believed the shots were fired. And, yes, those boxes are retained by the National Archives and are in our stacks. Boxes put into two boxes. As you can see there. Learn more about the kennedy assassination sunday on american artifacts at 6 pm eastern, 3 pm pacific here on American History tv. During the Constitutional Convention in philadelphia, the issue of slavery was frequently debated throughout the summer of 1787. Next, in a discussion hosted by the Colonial Williamsburg foundation, a law professor and two actors who portray free and enslaved blacks in williamsburg discuss the role compromises over slavery played in drafting the constitution and the enduring legacy of those compromises. This program also includes two dramatic interpretations of 17 eighties african americans. What good evening, and welcome to so important interest, slavery of the United States constitution. Im Deirdre Jones and i want to welcome you to our final event for our constitution weekend. You may know me as a programming lead for the actor interpreters and maybe recognize me for my time in Colonial Williamsburg, portraying free and enslaved black people. This evening i have the pleasure of serving as your moderator. I am also