Transcripts For CSPAN Books 20240705

View of government funded by these Television Companies and more including comcast. You think this is just a Community Center . It is more than that. Comcast is creating wifi enabled places so students have the tools to be ready for anything comcast support cspan along with these television providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] in partnership with the library of congress, cspan brings you books that shaped america. Our series explores key worvetion literature that have had a profound impact on the country. In this program, Willa Cathers 1918 novel, my antonia. Set on the nebraska prairie at the end of the 19th century, its told through the reminiscences of jim, an orphan by, who traveled west to live with his grandparents he befriends the daughter of their immigrant neighbor, antonia. When jim and his grandparents move into town, antonia begins to work for their neighbors. Jim goes to college and returns less and less. As the book comes to a close, he reunites with ant knee yasm after years struggle, she has 10 children and a farm of her own, her version of the American Dream. The novel was wellreceived and mirrored part of waiters own life. She traveled west as a young child where she met the inspiration for the novel. Red cloud and its people played prominent role in her work. Later in life, in 1934, she said, my antonia, in my opinion, is by far the best of all my contributions. Host welcome to books that shaped america, our cspan series that looks at how books throughout our history have influenced who we are today in. Partnership with the library of congress this 10week series has been exploring different topics, viewpoints, and eras and were glad youre joining us for this walk through history. So far in the series, weve looked at early america, its growth, the era of slavery, and the development of the law. Weve also started to explore classic novels, including huckleberry finn. Tonight its the immigrant experience and a novel by the awardwinning author, willa cather. My antonia, from 1918, is a book which introduced readers to life on the prairie. It became a classic and put cather at the forefront of american writers. Our guest tonight to help us learn about the impact my antonia had on our literature and our nation is melissa hom sted. Shes an english professor at the university of nebraska, lincoln. Shes director the cather project. Shes coeditor of the complete letters of willa cather. And shes author of the only wonderful thing the only wonderful things, the Creative Partnership of willa cather and edith lewis. When did willa cather come into your life . Guest the first time i read cather was in 1980, one of my favorite professors at teacher, at Freedom High School in bethlehem bethlehem, pennsylvania, suggested i read cather because i was looking for a topic for a College Application essay looking for people alive in 1902 to invite to a dinner. I ended up reading my antonia and oh pioneers in one weekend. I liked oh pioneers better at first but by time i graduated from college id read my antonia more than 25 times. Host theyre part of the prairie trilogy. Guest theres not real y a prairie trill jism one book thats usually included in that trilogy was set in colorado, not on the prairie at all, though they all three do feature immigrant or children of immigrant heroinies. Host when my antonia came out in 1918 did it have an impact . Guest it had a strong critical reception and had several strong reviews. Cathers her said there werent many strong reviews and piem didnt understand it but that was not true, i have read several strong reviews from the time. I think one the things she wanted to do was make people understand the importance of immigration to nebraska and in particular the heroine of the novel was bohemian or czech, a population being targeted for exclusion from immigration at the time indeed were effectively minimi or excluded inhe 14 immigration act because etern europeans the portion of allowable immigration under that law. So i dont think that that part succeeded. Her argument, her proimmigration argument didnt succeed, but i do think that it opened up the pioneer experience and in wellregarded, critically regarded literature. Host what about womens issues . Guest im not sure cather was foe cushion on womens issues as womens issues. She herself wasnt a feminist. The narrator of my antonia is a man who actually criticized feminists. He doesnt criticize them. Theres a narrator of the introduction who is willa cather, though not named. Jim burden is introduced and the narrator, willa cather, criticizes his wife, general vaive whitney, because shes involved in suffrage and supports labor unions, so feminism isnt really advanced as a political cause in the novel. Host our partner in this endeavor, books that shaped america is the library of congress we traveled up there to see an original edition of my antonia. Heres what it looks like. Heres what the library said about my antonia. This novel explores both the immigrant experience and the issues facing women in the move west across the continent. This is taking place in the late 1800s. Correct . Guest correct. 18 80s and 18 90s and it flashes forward at the end to about the moment of publication. Host nebraska became a state i believe in 162. That was it like in the late 18 80s when ant nia when antonia was out there . Guest well, it was for the European American pie neerks whether they were settled americans who were just called americans, or more recent immigrants it was a challenging experience. Indigenous people had recently been removed, they seem to be long gone in the gavel but they were only about 10 years gone from webster county. Willa cathers aunt mary wait a we could. Amanda smith cather, she wrote to her classmates at Mount Holyoke college about native Peoples Still hunting in the area through the 18 20s. For willa it seemed new and empty but it hadnt been long. Host do they play a role in the novel . Guest no. Theres a circle where they are described as having its debated were they torturing prison norse training horses, but it was a faint circle in the grass. Host is that an oversight in your view by cate her guest no, i dont think its an oversight. I think its the way the dominant culture operated. You just banished people who were there before, it would have been the pawnee. Host describe blackhawk, nebraska. Guest its a more populous place then than it is now,t was the basis for red cloud. It had about 10,000 people then, about 1,000 now. It was a stop on the train. There were traveling troupes of artists coming thru, theyd come through from denver, omaha, chismg it was a bulsing market town for an agriculture area but still a small town and you get a fair sense of that in the novel, a small town where Everybody Knows everyones business, jim burden feels bored when he moves into town with his grandparents. Host some of the main characters are based on people willa knew. Was jim burden based on somebody she knew . Guest there have been theories about his name and where it might have comefrom some of the experiences in the book are her own experiences she gives to jim. Other she is didnt really directly have. For example, the pro to type for antonia, her father had killed himself before cather and her family moved to the area, that was a story she heard not something she experienced. Other people, so the miner family that become the harvetion rlings, in particular, mrs. Harling, told two of her daughters that was as close as she came to a portrait of a straight up person. Otherwise she was mixing together bits and pieces of various people and adapting them to her own purposes. Host if a student came to you and said, i want to read my antonia, what advice would you give . Guest i would sago ahead and read it. Its up to you whether or not you enjoy it and what you make of out. Its a book for me that has changed over the years. Ive read it so many times, i find Different Things in it every time. Theres certainly a lot of strands that you can work your way through. Host Willa Cathers statue was inveiled at the u. S. Capitol this summer. We want to show you a little bit of the event. You were at the unveiling. Guest yes, i was. Host what was that like . Guest it was entertaining. It was also very crowded. Youll see, i think, i dont know if well see that shes next to chief Standing Bear who also was brought in as one of the representatives of nebraska. They replaced William Jennings bryan and jay sterling morgan as the statues in statuary hall. As i went over today to visit the statue and get a picture of myself with it, shes not in the rotunda because they can only have 37 statues in the rotunda at a time, because of the weight, they cant support all of them, so shes in the visitors center. Host the sculpture, whats unique about him . Guest he was the first africanamerican to sculpt one of the sculptures mand maybe and maybe any of the part in the capitol he was from washington, d. C. And but now teaches in omaha. Host at the same event, there was a reading from my antonia. I first heard of antonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey across the midland plain of north america. I was 10 years old, i had lost both my father and mother in a year and my virginia relatives were sending me out to my grandparent whs lived in nebraska. I traveled in the care of a mountain boy, jake, one of the hands on my fathers ole farm under the blue ridge who was now going west to work for my grandfather. We went all the way in day coaches, becoming more sticky and grimy with each stage of the journey. Beyond chicago we were under the protection of a friendly passenger conductor who knew all about the country to which we were going and gave us a great deal of advice in exchange for our confidence. Once when he sat down to chat, he told us that in the immigrant car ahead, there was a family from across the water. Whose destination was the same as ours. I do not remember crossing the Missouri River or anything about the long days journey through nebraska. Probably by that time i had crossed so many rivers that i was dull to them. The only thing very noticeable about nebraska was that it was still all day long nebraska. [laughter] i had been sleeping kurld up in a red plush seat for a long while when we reached blackhawk we stumbled down from the train to a wooden siding where men were running about with lanterns. I couldnt see any town or even distant lights. We were surrounded by utter darkness. In the red glow from the fire box, a group of people stud huddled together on the platform encumbered by bundles and boxes. I knew this must be the immigrant family the conductor had told us about. The woman wore a fringed shawl tide over her head and carried a little tin trunk in her arms, hugging it as if it were a baby. There was an old man, tall and stooped, two half grown boys and a little girl clung to her mothers skirts. Presently, a man with a lantern approached them and began to talk, shouting and exclaiming. I perked up my ears for it was positive the first time i had ever heard a foreign tongue. Another lantern came along, a bantering voice called out, he willlow, are you mr. Burdens folks . Fur its me youre looking for. Im otto. Im mr. Burdens hired man and im here to drive you. He led us to a hitching bar where two farm wagons were tide and i saw the foreign family crowding into one of them. The other was for us. Jake sat on the front seat with otto and i rode on the straw in the bottom of the wagon box covered up with a buffalo hide. The imgrans rumbled off into the empty darkness and we followed them. I tried to go to sleep but the jolting made me bite my tongue and i soon began to ache all over. Cautiously i slipped from under the buffalo hide, got up on my knees and peered over the wagon. There seemed to be nothing to see. No fences. No creeks. No trees. No hills or fields. If there was a road, i could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land. Not a country at all. But the material out of which clints are made. Host professor, you were reciting along with laura lunsdenblack there. She talks about the country almost as a character. Guest yes. One of Willa Cathers contemporaries, mary austin, wrote about regionalism in literature. She was unhappy with cathers representations of the u. S. In the 19 20s, but said the what makes regionalism regionalism is the land is a character. You can say that of cathers nebraska book. Host this was the beginning of the book she was reading. Guest yes, very beginning after the introduction. Host and theres a little humor. Why did willa cather hyphenate everything . Hyphenate the words . She hyphenated all the words . Guest which words . Host in my version she hyphenated every word. Married like maried. Guest that must be your version. Host oh good. Well leave that alone. Do you have a favorite passage . Begin theres a an austrian cowboy who is increasingly my favorite. Its interesting tv an austrian cowboy. Theres also a character in one of her other novels, a cowboy. I love the idea that this is the sort of second instantia tirvetion on of that character. Hes marvelous. I have a passage about him. He was mentioned in that opening passage. Hes with jim burden work jake, and they buy jesse james dime novels. Theyre getting into the westernster y type. As we sat at the table, this is at the home of his grandparents, the farm, when they get there. Ke kept stealing covert glances at each other. Grandmother told me while she was getting supper he was an austrian who came to this country as a young boy and led an advench rouse life in the far west among mining camps and cow outfits. His iron constitution was somewhat broken by mountain pneumonia and he drifted back to live in milder country for a wild he had relatives in a settlement north of us but for a year now he had been working with grandpa. Immediately after supper, he took me back in the kitchen to whisper that there was a horse bought for me. He told me everything i wanted to know how much he lost his ear when he was a stable drive for the a blizzard how much to throw a las zoe. He promised to rope a steer for me before sundown the next day he got out his chaps and silver spurs to show to jake and me and his best cowboy boot, stop stitch top stitched in bold desierntion roses and lovers knots and undraped female figures. These he said were angels. I know last week about huk finn that it was in the bys vis. This is not in the boys voice. Jim burden is a middleaged man in new york. You get moments of him recreating that childhood perception. The childhood eyes. And the undraped female figures who were angels, right. You have that sense of him as about a 10yearold boy with his cowboy, meeting his first real cowboy. Hes recreating his experience of child hoovmed host was there a go west young man sense to this book . Guest its a little later than the Horace Greeley go west young man moments. You have the railroad. You dont have the conestoga weapon, you have the immigrant car or the day coach like he and jake are in. The day coach. So its a little bit of a later moment. It isnt really the early homesteading moment so the grandparents are based on cathers own grandparents to an extent. They were homesteaders under the homestead act but that was 10 years earlier. At this point it was mostly land transactions. People proved up their claims and took possession of them or you were buying railroad land, the railroads were given a lot of land to sell. This is a sort of different moment from that. Host good evening and thanks for joining us here on books that shaped america. This is our seventh show. Tonight were look at my antonia by willa cather. These books on books that shaped america are not necessarily best sellers. They are not the best books in america. They are books that have had an impact on society at the time that they were written and today. And we chose this list from our partner, the library of congress larger list of 100 books that shaped america. So were pleased that youre joining us for the willa cather show. Wed love to hear from you 202 is the area code. 7488920 in the eastern time zone. 2027482921 in the mountain and pacific time zone. For Text Messages only, 202748003. A reminder to include your first name and city if you do send a text. Our guest tonight is with the university of nebraskalincoln. Her name is melissa holmsted shoosmest shes an english professor, director of the cather project, coed tore of the complete letters of willa cather, and author of the only wonderful things the partnership of willa cather and edith lewis, which well talk about in maine. We talked about immigration. We want to give you a sense of what the country was like in the 18 80s, where this book is set, even though it was written in 1918. The great wave of immigration was ongoing, abo 12 Million Immigrants arrived in the u. Between 1870 and 1900. For the pop so the population is approaching 70 million at this point. The largest number of those immigrants came from northern europe. The new immigrants were coming from southern and Eastern Europe as well. Including bohemia which well talk about. Were those southern and Eastern European immigrants welcomed as much as the Northern European immigrants . Guest no, they werent. There was a very vigorous discussion amongst anglo americans about what the true american character should be. Northern europeans were considered good because they were mostly christian. Southern and Eastern Europe were considered offwhite and they were largely catholic and jewish. They were considered to be not truly qualified to be american citizens by many people debating laws and setting policy. Host and the bohemians who arrived in Willa Cathers nebraska . Guest they were you get a sense in the book, when for example, when jim has killed a snake and antonia is praising his bravery and he said, why go rather than bohemian was an ethniclur, diminishing her for failing to speak english and failing to communicate with him. Host were there laws to prevent or restrict immigration at the time . Guest i think in 1917 there were the first restrictions, though they werent quite quo t. In 1921 theres an emergency quota act. In 1924, the policy for immigration quaw toes comes in really strongly for the first time and it was the proportion of immigrants in the 18 90s that set the proportion Going Forward which is say, Northern European immigrants were privileged and southern and Eastern European imgrants had a difficult time getting in. Host you menged the homestead act we visited the home stad National Park near beatriz, nebraska, heres a little piece from that. [video clip] were here at the National Homestead park, dedicated to remembering the leg sthoifs homestead act of 1862. The homestead act was an opportunity to earn 160 acres of land to any man, or a woman if she was head of household and over 21 years of age. This was 60 years before women could vote, they had a pathway to landownership. You didnt have to be an american citizen to start the process, you declared your intention to become a citizen. People came from all over the world in response to the homestead act. Im standing in a cabin that was built in 1867 and would have been extremely nice. We are looking at the interior, the lower level would have been where the adults slept. There was an upper level where the children would sleep. As you can see the interior isnt very big. A lot of the activities would have taken place outside. Much of the cooking, the washing, a lot of the daily efforts. The homestead act was an opportunity to earn 160 acres. You had to live on the land for five years. You had to build a shelter this one is built of wood and bricks. A lot would have been dugout, you know, sides of hills, cavelike struck chowrs sod houses that used the prairie grass to keep dirt bricks together. You also had to improve the land. Cultivating a crop. This would have been a whole family effort. Even during school time, if it was time to harvest, or it was time to tsao and put the seeds to sow and put the seeds in the grounds, the kids, especially the boy, would be focused on that. Because having a successful homestead was dependent on meeting all those requirements. During this time period, we really see the value of a home and the place of your own. And the American Dream really becomes landownership. Because in europe its extremely difficult to acquire land. Success looks different in america, especially when we move into the 18 80s and we get closer to the 1900s or the 19teens when the book was written. For some women like lena thats having her own business. Living independently. For people like antonia, its going to be that American Dream of landownership a place thats your own. Belongs to you. That you work that land and you survive off the produce of that land. That that continues to be a central part of the American Dream for many people and for many families. When people come to Homestead National historic park i hope they see what a significant part of the National Story the homestead act was. It lasted 123 years. It was in 30 of the 50 states. As many as one in three americans or 93 million americans are descended from a homesteader. As much as 10 of all land in this country was directly settled through this act. I hope people walk away with the significance of that. And that this duly made a difference in the shaping of the country. When we look at a map in 1860, we see a lot of territories. By 1900, most of the American West are states. That is because of the homestead act. Host melissa homsted, great last name, what was the impact of the homestead act . Guest it was part of the displacement of native people from nebraska. The reservation, the native peoples from nebraska were removed north and south to become settler for nebraska to become a settler state. It did transform nebraska from indigenouser to to settled agricultural territory. Host when the southern europeans and the Eastern Europeans and the africanamericans were taking advantage of the homestead act were they settling in specific communities or areas . Guest i know that africanamerican settlement was largely in dewitte, a northern part of nebrask certainly people heard about the experience people from their own communities, they would follow. Even to get a little bit of that in my antonia, the man from whom antonias family bias their property was the original homesteader of that property. He was also czech. Youll have those kinds of connections. In that county there were not that many czechs, the also the scanned thank that you see. Host moved to nebraska age 9. Also lived and worked in pennsylvania, new york and New Hampshire. 12 novels, 60 short stories. Pulitzer prize for one of ours, died in 1947 in new york city. Why did her family move when she was age 9 . Guest well, there were stories about the family barn being burned down that might have had to do with union sim thinks during the civil war but thats never been substantiated. The biggest reason was that most of the family had already gone so that were the sort of last bunch of migrants from northbound to virginia. Actually, her four father, before he got married in 1 1 he went fifth west, to the southwest a couple of times and was considering setting up a stk ising business there. He was a sheep farmer and he dn do that. They were already thinking about west every before she was born. Host melissa homestead, lets get to some calls and texts. And were going to start with a text message. Im interested in melissas last name homestead. If anything is relevant to the plains, its the homestead act. What is the relevance of your name . Guest homestead in this case has nothing to be with american homesteading. Him paternal grandfathers step father, his last anymore was a farm name in norway. Most people in norway unless early in elites did not have surnames at all and then they took the name of farm names where they worked. Its a very rare farm name in norway. He and his brother moved to new york and aingely sidessed it to homestead. In cathers family, it was her grandparents work homesteader who took a claim and proved up that claim and owned Agricultural Land and when willa cather moved out. She and her family were in the countryside on a farm for about a year before moving into town and her father went into farm loan insurance in town. Host lets take some calls. Jesse from albuquerque. Please go ahead. Caller thank you so much. Good evening, peter. And professor homestead. Im really honored, honestly, to be speaking right now about this book. So im a teacher and im teaching u. S. Government right now but honestly i think these kind of books are incredibly life changing for udents and i just wanted to praise willa cather and all the books ive read by her. My antonia, depth comes to the arch bishop, song of the lark. Sulphura and the slave girl. Amazing story belk telling, as that woman showedat video. I think her writing is just so teachable on such dark subject. They dont get as foul as mark twain or as dark as steinbeck sometimes does. As brutal as Uncle Toms Cabin and beloved. I absolutely think her books should be taught more. Host jesse, thank you for coming in. In fact, depth comes to the arch british hop is from his area in the country, isnt it. Guest it is, it is. My antonia is actually a pretty dark book. Lots of dark things happen. Its kind of episodic, not plotted like a traditional novel and every once in a while these dark and gruesome things happen. Tough story of the couple that they throw the bride and groom to the wolves. Antonia is at her home ask theyre eating popcorn and tachi and suddenly she tells the story of a tramp who throws himself into a thrashing machine. Its really pretty dark. Antonia is going to be sexual assaulted by her employer but jim goes to stay there instead so she ends up being saved by that experience but then she ends up being lured into a man into not marriage and finds herself in without support back on the family farm. Host from claim payne, illinois, please claim payne, illinois. Please go ahead. Are you with us . Were going to move on and talk to mark out in bridgewater, massachusetts. Mark, youre on cspan. Please get. Caller peter, good evening to you and good evening to your distinguished guest. Professor homestead, i listen to some of the comments you were making about how you could find so many strands to talk about from in work by willa captainer and i wondered if cather and i wondered if it was possible that host mark, go ahead, wre caller peter, im i was trying tryg to think about peter, can i call you back . Host no, you cannot. Can you turn down the volume on your tv, please . Go ahead and just finish your question and then well have professor homestead answer it. Caller ok, i just was curious that if willa cather had taken more of a satirical approach to her novel and rather spoke and narrative, she had been a little bit more conscious or made the readers conscious of the amount of lessa fair practices that were taking place on the plains that it would have been possible for her to reach out to an audience and prevent the possibility of climateinduced change during the 1930s. Host thank you, mark. We have a lot to work with ther professor homestead, what would you like to say to mark . Guest when she was writing the book boo, i dont think anyone anticipated the dust bowl. Certainly in the 19th search, there was a professor of horticulture at the university of who pop grated that rain followed the plow, which isnt exactly what happened. It was always dicey in terms of water fly, semiarid climate but also i think hes celebrating the development of agricultureture in department and i dont think she knew charles going to happen. I dont think she was anticipating the climate disaster of the 19 30s. Theres a lot of reason people should have but no evidence she did. Host why do you think another book won the Pulitzer Prize instead of my antonia . Guest my antonia was, i lieve, the first year of the Pulitzer Prize a they were still working out their procedures and trying to figure out what they were doing. The willa captain irspring conference was about the Pulitzer Prize and prizes in general in regular to cather. I looked at research and its not clear but its clear that her publisher mifflin put my antonia forward. And it may have been the genius of arthur knopf why another book of hers won instead of my antonia several years earlier. Host she also worked in pennsylvania, correct . Guest yes, she worked in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, for a decade. She went there to edit a short lived regional womens magazine then she worked for a newspaper which shae had done in nebraska as well. Then she worked at a high school. Which she thought was going to give her plenty of time and summers off. Then she went to work for a magazine, which did also not give her time. So it took her time to find her feet. She started about her age early in her career because she thought she hadnt gotten to the level of achievement in the later in her career. Host there was a Historical Marker mentioning that willa cather had worked there for a while. Her work in new york was her most well known work, correct . Guest the work that she wrote there . Yes. Most of the work that she wrote while living in new york city was her best known work. Oh, pioneer, the song of a lark my antonia all written pretty much when she was living at 5 banks street. Unfortunately there are no pictures ive found that showed the original place. There are pictures of 0 Washington Square, which is the first place she lived but that building is gone. Host Greenwich Village is also described as bo homeians bo medium bohemian. Was it that way when cather was living there . Guest yes, the first years, it was a quiet bo homea. It really became the sort of bohemian world of Experimental Arts and lives. During the years of her growing fame as a novelist in the teens, it was definitely the place where people went who were living on the edge and living experimental lives. She wasnt right in the middle on Washington Square anymore. Host and she did end up on park avenue. Guest she did. Yes. Host you are also the author of a book called the only wonderful things the Creative Partnership of willa kateer and ed it lewis. Who was ed it lewis . Guest she was in lincoln, nebraska. She and catcher met there when krafter was coming back from cather was coming back from a trip to the west. Lewis had graduated from smith college, which is whe i also went to colge. She was heading to new york to ge a job in publishing and then she and cather cather would come to visit. And she was she would come to new york in 1906. She edited every week magazine from 1915 so 1918 and then she was an advertiser exciter for many years and worked from until her retirement in the 1940s. Host were they partners . Guest yes, they lived together for 40 years. They didnt label their relationship but they also didnt hide i theres pretty much an open vacation for tea at 35 bank street on friday afternoons. I found a notice in the paper saying miss cather and miss lewis are opening up their tea vacation again. Host and what do you talk about when you talk about the only wonderful things. Guest thats from the one surviving full letter from edith lewis in 1906. Thats a beautiful letter about venus in the night sky. Its about just really what it is to be we arent the only wonderful things because we can wonder looking at this beauty in the night sky and talking about the fact that they had spent a lot of time from. And when i say Creative Partnership, im talking about two women who lived together as partners for nearly 340 years but also edith lucid ited willa cather. The first surviving type script is from the professors house in 1925. But there was also a poem that ed it lewis kit lewis edited. She read proofs with kateer in 1918 in jaffrey for my antonia. That much is clear. Host why only one surviving letter . Guest there are actually three postcards but theres a difference between we dont know where they are and they must have been destroyed and even if they were destroyed we dont necessarily know who destroyed them. Thats an interesting question. Its possible that those letters are still out there. I know that there are many people who probably heard that willa cather burned all her corresponds, demanded that people burn it but there are more than 3,000 ex at t letters at this point. If she had wanted to do it, her family, she could have asked for them to send corresponds back but its not clear that was the gentle at all. Host we have a related podcast about willa cather and Richard Norton smith who is a big fan of cather did the podcast and heres a ltle of what he had to say. I think what she overcame and the fact that she, from the earliest years is a kind of standin for nonconformists, however you twine the term, gives her an almost a you know versallity of appeal that im not sure during her lifetime anyone would have necessarily dying noticed. Diagnosed. Host any comment to that . Guest in some ways she was a nonconformist. Certainly in her younger years when she wore her hair short and called. Hes william. Although the idea that she dressed in mens closeting isnt supported by evidence but still, she was coloring outside the lines and other things she did that were coloring outside the lines. In a lot of ways she was not as conservative as some people make her out to be either. But she wasnt a Greenwich Village radical. She was among them but not entirely one of them. Host a caller from new york. Bob, youre on with melissa homestead. The topic, willa cather. Caller thank you so much for taking the call. Really wonderful show, both of you. I was going to ask you how she felt about having published the letters but you answered that. My other question was im right now reading the poetry april title and other poems and what do you think of the poetry . Sh wrote very little poetry. Do you know anything about it like why or when or how . Host bob, well get an answer think of the poetry . Hat do you caller it seemed very simple. Not as intense or colorful as the short stories in particular. So i must say im only halfway threw it now and it will probably take a reread to get back into it. Maybe i was expecting something different. Host thank you, sir. Professor . Guest first, i would say that she didnt want her letters published but thats not the way excite works. They went into the Public Domain and as a scholar i feel comfortable in contrasting an authors wishes. As for her poetry, it probably seems different to you because most of it was written before the fiction that you know. Its pretty conventional for itself time. Sheever really gets modern. I think shes moreodern in her form and technique in fiction than she is her poetry but she pretty much stopped writing her poetry at the time she started writing the fiction that you know. Host did her literary style in my antonia impact literature at that time and even today . Guest im not sure about literary style. I think that probably seeing an even more theres been recent work by a scholar about contemporaries. Not now. Late 20th century and early 21st century writers of immigrant backgrounds inspired by cather. If you think of the film minari, which is about an Asian American family in arkansas who have a farm and they keep getting crushed by debt, in fact. The director of that film, the writer and director of that film credited my antonia with inspiring him. So i would say that for me, whats really interesting, like i said is contemporary authors of immigrant backgroundings finding inspiration in kathy ir cathers pictures of immigration more than 100 years ago. Host mary is calling from nebraska. Go ahead, mary. Caller hello . This is mary from nebraska and i wanted to just tell you all that im a retired teacher and my classmates and i read my antonia in our High School Class and since we have retired now, we have gonevisit in red cloud and read all of the books and had book studies and stay in the i believe its the second house. Guest yes, the cather second caller and enjoyed all the amenities in the red cloud area as a group and we stayed and had a wonderful time and we learned a whole lot more about willa cather and we were just so excited to be able to do that and to spend several days in red cloud to honor this amazing author. Host thank you, mary, for calling in and sharing that. Professor . Guest i would say that i know were going to hear more about the national wilher nter in red cloud but for High School Teachers out there, the center returns a Summer Teachers Institute that anyone from across the country can apply to and they provide housing and a travel stipend for teachers to come and learn about information that could be shared with others. For teachers, thats a wonderful opportunity. Host returning right now to red cloud, nebraska, and a rook at some of the places related to my antonia and willa cather. Here it is. My name is rachel olson and im the director of education and engagement at the National Willa Cather center and were standing in front of the burlington depo in red cloud, nebraska, where the railroad arrived in 1879. Later in 1888, it became a stop on the red line between kansas and denver. This is also an important stop for homesteaders traveling to nebraska. A busy depot that saw up to eight passenger trains taillie. This is where anna pavelka and willa cather arrived in 1 3 to start their lives on the divide. Were standing in front of the j. R. Minor ooh miner house, 187 elle and located just a block away from the willa cather home. As a child willa would have spent a lot of time in this house. She admired julia, the family matriarch and also got to know anna pavelka, who was a attorney. She was part of an immigrant family trying to homestead and this friendship later inspired cathers most famous novel, my antonia. If you walk inside the miner home youll see a parlor followed bay formal dining room and youll walk from there into the kitchen where there is a small kitchen bedroom that anna stayed in when she was employed by the miner family. Youll also see a hallway that served as a parlor for julia to entertain guests where she also played piano. And youll see a space that served as mr. Minors often. Red cloud developed in the 20 years that would have included cathers childhood here so from the 1880s to the turn of the century. Cather. Hes would have witnessed a town in the making so the businesses and services that we take for granted as always being available in our hometown or in our community were still in development as cather grew up and that evolution of the town made a strong impression on cather that later came out in her writing. We are standing in front of the pavelka farmstead and were about 16 miles north of red cloud in webster county, nebraska. This is where anna and john raised their 10 children and where they farmed and this is also the site where willa kateer and anna were reunited in 1916 during a visit cather paid tonnish. This visit proved to be very important. It served as sort of the inspiration for cather to write my antonia which was published two years later and many of the beautiful final scenes that you read in my antonia are set at this farmstead. This farmstead is far different from the dugouts that many homesteaders lived in in the early 1880s. Just like anna pavelka did with her family but its a great representation of the larger homesteading culture and immigrant farm life that kateer endeavored to capture in her novel. Host professor, how much visitors come there a year. Do they get a pretty good crowd in red cloud . Guest yes, i dont have the numbers but yes, it does. I think its still growing after the pandemic. Host red cloud i believe is down to 500 people. A thousand in population. Guest yes, its a small town. So its an important driver of Economic Development and bringing other sources to town as well. Host our topic this evening on books that shaped america is my antonia my willa cather. If you want to call in. 7488920. In the east and central time zones. 202748468921 and if you scant get through, try the text number. 20247 7488003 make sure to include your first name and your city. You are the director of the cather project, which is guest it promote teaching and research on willa cather. We publish the semiannual journal devoted to work on cather. Host and do you teach any of cathers books in yore english class . Guest theres a story coming afro diety ill be teaching. Its set in nebraska. Ill be teaching a graduate seminar on willa cather next fall so yes. Host text message did Ernest Hemmingway steal some of his style from willa cather . Guest i dont think so. He does make a statement about the iceberg theory that 1 10th of everything is and most of the meaning has been cut away and thats the rest of the iceberg thats still there, even if you cant read the words. That does resonate with daytimersest nettic theory in a novel which talks about the thing not named and the divine thats heard like an overtone, not the thing on the page. Hes is more conventional in a lot of ways but its certainly compact and concise and trips away the unnecessary. Host tracy frommivity coo, new york. Tracy, please get. Caller oh, my goodness. Thank you so much. I fliped to this by accident this evening just a few moments ago and i was fascinated by what im hearing and seeing, the history, the beauty of where they lived. And one of my thoughts was did they ever actually live in new york for any reason and now while was on hold i heard that theres a Greenwich Village story but either way, i thank you so much for the informative information of these beautiful women and what you are doing for history. Host thank you for calling in, tracy. Guest i will say its very interesting that cather, she traveled back to nebraska regularly while both of her parents were alive. Once both of her parents were dead, she didnt. But she didnt really write in anybody. She wrote in new york city when she was in new york city. She went to jaffrey, nebraska. She wrote about nebraska from all of those playses but she really did not write about nebraska in nebraska. If she had stayed there, im not sure she would have written the fiction that she did. Host and professor holmes mentioned she was from nebraska. Would you write about nebraska . Guest no, im not a fiction writer. For cavitier, i think, really she needed that distance in order to write about it. Not to be immersed in it. Even in my antonia, the fact that jim burton, he travels back to the west. In fact, the introduction, hes on a train talking to the standin figure for cathe who is the introduction they rater but he was a new York Railroad lawyer so he, in fact, supposedly writes his narrative of my antonia in his apartment in new york and brings it to willa and presents it and says this is what i wrote. Says you didnt write this thing, this is my thing. This is my antonia. So i think that distance is important. Host you have another selection to read for you. Guest yes, i do. This is from earlier in the novel. Earlier i was reading about otto, the cowboy. This is the prairie scene. He has gone out into the garden with his grandmother. Excuse me a little. I sat down in the middle of the garden and this is where he asked to be left in the garden where his ground mother and grandfather warmed him about snakes. I leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There are some cherries growing along the furios full of fruit. I pulled back and ate a few. All about me grasshoppers were doing acrobatic feats. The goffers scurried up and down the plowed ground. The wind did not blow very hard but i could hear it singing its humming tune up on a level and i could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me and warm as i crumbled it through my fingers. Queer little red bugs came out and moved in squadrons around me. I kept as still as i could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt like the pumpkins and i did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire. Whether it is sunshine and air or good and knowledge. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep. Host why did you choose that . Guest because the words are engraved of Willa Cathers tombstone are in it and because its that sense of the land being a character that we talked about earlier. Host throughout this series, we have visited with teachers who teach the different books that we are talking about and were going to introduce you now to Ryan Griffith. Hes an cather education english teach every and he teacheses willa cather and my antonia. Of course there are always challenges in teaching older knots to young adults. Its not the language so much as it is the cultural references and illusions that are made to the time period in which the story takes place. In a lot of ways its almost like reading a fantasy novel. For students today, the controversy surrounding, for example, mr. Shimmertons place of burial. The layout of the farm house and even the opera that jim and lena lynnguard go to see. All of these might seem as foreign to students as a mythical kingdom but once they can connect with the characters and the universal experiences and emotions that those characters have, its easy to become immersed in the world of the past in just the same way that we can become immersed in a fantasy novel. Students respond to characters who thought and felt the same way that they have and lking back on it. And grow older, they m mature return to my a. They might remember that there was a character in that book who experienced something that theyre experiencing now as an adult. Because as a young adult you can only be nostalgic about so much but as we grow older and more regrets pile up in the removal of our lives, the Rearview Mirror of our lives, the themes become even more relevant as we age and as time goes on. Its a wonderful novel. I think everyone should read it in classrooms already on their own. Willa cather deserves to be more well known as an author than i think she is and its a great story. Host and Ryan Griffith also teaches english and humanities as tailorville high school in illinois. How do you teach the book . Guest i just wanted to say the idea about nostalgia ive always been very frustrated with jim burden as a narrator but once i hit my 40s, i was a little more sympathetic with his narrative but i was less sympathetic with him for antagonizing her for almost getting remained. When you teach it in nebraska especially, especially rural students due understand a lot of the novel. That line that was read earlier on that it was all day long in nebraska. It totally cracks them up and a lot of students have czech in their current backgrounds so they recognize a lot of those things so in nebraska it release pretty ripe. Id say the real challenge is the blend darn over episode which is this racist fantasy about a pianist from virginia. I think its probably less of a challenge than teaching all of huck finn. I know you talked about that last week but still ating for why is it there . Host thats what i was going to ask you. Guest i think we admire cathers embrace brace of Eastern European immigrants but its like appease mans pace virginia black story, which theres no reason to tell that story about blind darn over that happened in the book except in some ways that fantasy about black subservience and black primitivism makes way for the bo bohemian immigrants to be part of american. Thats like the exclusion of africanamericans from citizenship. It was troubling. I think the immigrant characters get in this part by that exclusion of blackness. Certainly there were some black homesteaders in nebraska but they were pushed off. Host george is in palmetto, florida. George, good evening. Caller hi, thanks for taking my call. I just wanted to share with you an experience they had a few years ago in red cloud. Ive visited often. My wife is a red cloud native and we were in re cloud doing a concert actually at the red cloud opera house and when i took a break, i went downstairs, i have to confess, to smoke a yet . Out on the street and there emerged from the shop downstairs two japanese a young japanese couple who had traveled they were both High School Teachers of american lit in i dont think it was in tokyo. I dont remember which city it was in and they came all the way out to red cloud because they were fascinated by willa cather and wanted to see the sights and i thought that was rather sweet. They looked like typical for me, typical japanese tourists. She had her little rain hat on and they had their cameras around their necks and they were fascinated and just couldnt get enough of the scene there. Host george, thank you for sharing that story. Guest yeah, there are certainlm many places. Not just all over the United States. She hasnt been out to red cloud yet but i have a visiting chinese scholar funded by a Chinese Agency who is a great enthusiast for willa cather and is very excited to get out to nebraska and red cloud. Host when it comes to pop culture and knowing willa cather and my antonia, there was a song and were going to play a short portion of it. You are my shelter in a storm you are the one i will alway remember all of the daysf my life a mission that took me far from her a treasure so fine and so fair her smile or a touch of her fingers fire in her heart and the smell of her hair. Host that was Emmy Lou Harris and dave matthews. Are you familiar with that song . Guest no. I hadnt heard it before. Host its called my antonia red dirt girl. A text. Was willa cather able to support. Hes through her writing and have any of her books been made into movies . In so, did you like the movie . Guest so, yes, by the time she gets to my antonia i would say she is supporting. Hes through her writing. When she stopped working in magazine editing she had saved up some money and she had to also sell short stories. A lot of her short stories were set in new york city, not in nebraska but she made money from selling them. By the 1930s she was quite well established and was making pretty substantial amounts of money and as far as movies, there was a silent film an adaptation the lost lady, which cather apparently found ok. There are no prints of it so we dont have a basis to judge. From was a talky version in the 1930s which has almost nothing to do with cathers novel. Theres an airplane. The characters names are the same but it has nothing to with her book. More recently there was a usa network sort of miniseries, i think, of my antonia, which i think is pretty dreadful. Neil Patrick Harris about when he was doggy houser maryland and he looks pretty ridiculous whether they turn him into a young man. A hallmark hall of fame o pioneers with jessica lang, which is quite good. Host our next call from david in oklahoma city. Hi, david, please go ahead. Youre on with melissa homestead. Caller yes, melissa. Been listening to your talk and youre very wise, both of yall. Im a writer myself. I have a book out there called portrait express. Youll see a picture of it on the billboard in times square between now and christmas. Hopefully by my birthday, which is next month but i think youre doing a great job here and i think youre great about books and you have a lot of great books. Anyway, thank you very much. Host david, thank you for calling in. We appreciate it. Lets hear from john in lincoln, nebraska. Your home now. John, please go ahead. Caller my name is john hemphill. My great grand mower was antonia. My great grandfather was so i really enjoy your show and i wanted to tell you about an interesting introduction i had a couple of years ago. My wife invited one of her friends over and her husband came and it was david burden. The great, great grandson of jim burden and we had a nice talk. Thank you for your show and its very entertaining. Guest jim burden was a fictional character so it may have been that the name came from someone whose name i think there is a tombstone with the name burdennen in the red cloudemery with you hes a fictional character and Antoinette Turner who used to introduce. Hes as antonias granddaughter. She passed recently but she was a granddaughter of ana pavel car, not of antonia. The real person who. Hes i mean, very much knew that the novel was based in significant ways on her life but it also diverged from her life. Host willa cather died in 1947 but it was in 1935 at an awards ceremony in new york city she discussed the importance of novels. Heres willa kateer in her own voice. Its certainly a very new arrival among the arts. And we hope that the most developments as a novel are still to come. Looking back over its short pasd variety you discern discern inaudible [indiscernible] [indiscernible] host that was willa cather in 1935 talking about the importance of novels. Well, the books that shaped america series came from a list from the library of congress. 100 books that shaped america. This list came out in 201. We chose 10 2013. We chose 10 from that list. There were other books from the era that my antonia was published in 1918. Heres a look at some of the others. Zane greys western novel writers of the purple ge, released in 191. Edgar burrows story of the man raised by apes was released in 1914. Titled tarzan of the aims. Margaret singer published family eliminations in 1914, which explained how to prevent pregnant nancecy. Spinning and all in 1923. Robert frost received his first Pulitzer Prize for his 1923 book of poetry New Hampshire. Here are more books from the library of congresss list of 100 books that shaped america. And scotts fitzgeralds novel the great gatsby was published in 1925. Langston hughes collection, the ishii blues. In 1919 William Faller ins the sound and the fury was published. Rounding out the decade, dashiell happen ets thriller red harvest was released in 1929. Host and if you go to the website. Cspan. O bks that shamed america, youll see the lra of congresss list of all 100 are on the website and you can make your own point of view about whether or not those are go bks. In fact, you can send us an email from viewer input at the top of the page and tell us what you think is a book that shaped america. Other willa cather books. O pioneers. The song of the lark. Death comes for the arch bishop. One of ours, which won the 1922 pulitzer. Willa cather was the author of 12 novels and nearly 60 short stories. As we discussed, melissa homestead ask very is very active with the willa cather papers and at the university of nebraska lincoln, her colleague, a lobbies professor there, talks about them. We have very excitedly here, her own personal copy of the my antonia book. One thing that cather did with her personal copies or her own books was insert things into them meaning thankful to her. In this copy, she put in a letter she received from anna pavelka. Her old friend who was the inspiration for the character antonia. And this was a wedding invitation to annas daughter that was happening the same fall that my antonia was published. Here is another copy of a book. This is one that cather gave to her partner edith lewis shortly after the nashville came out. Edith put in photographers of cather at about the time she wrote the novel so there were two photographs in here. One of cather in jaffrey, New Hampshire. With a pen and man you script enhanced. Maybe it is my antonia but also a picture of cather in front of a a tent. That seems outside except we know that cather wrote major portions of my antonia in a tent and a medicineo havers named high mowing near jaffrey, New Hampshire and so this represents part of the moment where the novel was taking shape in catheterize imagination. We have many letters, particularly between cather and her family and cather loved to share the good news and sometimes bad news about her writing life and professional life as well as much more with her family members. This was a letter to her dear brother roscoe. Sharing reviews that she got from my antonia. My antonia was distinctive in cathers life. It propelled her into a new level of response. Readership. The critics loved what she had to say and she wanted to share this success with her family. This one shes quoting reviews to her brother and the other one is to her sister elzy. She takes time to both share with elzy some of her ambitions for the novel. What she wanted to accomplish. In her effort to be authentic and to tell the truth, the whole truth but also she wanted to share the an dick tote about when she saw some women in a bookstore buying all the copies of my antonia they had. She shares stories of her life with her family and sometimes this letter, this last letter, is a little different. It was a letter to a different who wrote kateer and shared her enthusiasm. This was years later in the mid 19 20s but a student at the university of lincoln nebraska wrote kateer, shared how much she liked it and cather wrote her back and said she didnt have much time but celt felt she deserved a good response because it was such a kind letter. Host now, melissa homestead, we were talking during this and commenting on some of the things. Was she close to her family and was she a good letter writer . Prolific letter writer . Guest yes, of the things about letters, of course, when you say are they close . You dont write letters when someone is in the room with up. So her brother roscoe was in next. He was in wyoming then in california. In fact, all of her brothers ended up in califnia and her parents were still in nebraska so there are letters to them because she didnt live there but she did keep in very regular touch with most members of her family. Although we have a lot of letters to roscoe but her brother jim, its a great mystery where all those letters went. There could be many more letters out there. Host to give you a sense of cathers legacy. 1821947 were her years here on earth. This is a statue at the u. S. Capitol. Theres a city or town called willa cather prairie in next. Scrolls in schools in omaha and chicago are named after her and there is a scholarship since 1987 awarding to dozens of students about 200,000. Who sponsors that scholarship . Guest im not sure when scholarship youre talking about. Host thats fine. We mentioned that if you are interested in submitting a books that shamed arica idea, you can go to the website. Cspan. Org bookshat shaped america. Up at the top, you see viewer put up there. Go ahead and click on that. And you can send us a video. Here are some of the submissions that weve gotten. Im from france and i do believe that the book from in this series because they follow people like Ronald Reagan and [indiscernible] and they were able to to third world countryings. My name is erika. Im from washington, d. C. And one book i think that shaped america is called the distance between us because it shows and describes the journey of immigrants who have shaped the country. My name is alex and im from fairfax, virginia, and one of the books that shaped america is the series by tamara pierce. It opened up an entirely new category of media for young adults, allowing teenage girls to have a bridge between the childrens section and grownup fantasy that to be them seriously as individuals. Pope opened up a new category of mold ive for teenagers around the world. The book that i think shaped america is a tree grows in brooklyn. The reason is, its a book that told the story of a typical immigrant family and their experiences during that time period in the United States but its also a story that anyone can relate to because its the story of a little girl and i read it when i was a little girl so it meant a lot to me even know my experience was nothing like hers. Hi, my name is craig howell. Im from nebraska and the books that i think shaped america is to kill a mockingbird. I think that atticus and gem and scout and everybody showed so much on how we are supposed to treat people with respect and dignity. I think it really had an impact on this country. Im from boston, massachusetts. The book im choosing right now is 184 by george orwell. The reason is because if you look at the future and youll find theres foot just big brother involved. There are a lot of other things that can happen. I want to say its shaping how we think if we were to put ourselves in this position. Im from long island, new york and the book is lost horizons by james hitten. Shank a la or paradise where people live together. If we could all live in peace together, i think that would be great and i highly recommend the book. Lee chose the 48 law of the power because it teaches you really good lessons and helps you change your mindset to something that will help you grow in life. See ya. Host the books that shaped america website fm, you can see it if you want to submit your own video of a book that shamed america. Melissa homestead of the university of nebraska, what has been the impact in your view of my antonia and willa cather . Guest shes given a great deal of pleasure to a lot of readers and wrote about so many places, not just nebraska, and opened up different eras of american and canadian history. One of her novels to readers and just the Great Variety of her expression. Shes really not just one thing. Host we appreciate your time this evening. We appreciate you joining us for books that shaped america. Well see weeknights at 9 00 eastern, cspans encore presentation of our 10 part series books that shaped america. Cspan partnered with the library of congress to explore key pieces of literature that had a profound impact on our country. Wednesday night we will feature zora neal hurstons their eyes were watching god, set during the jim crow era. Our guest is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University and all three of Zora Neale Hurston the history of southern life. Watch cspans encore presentation of books that shaped america wednesday 9 00 eastern on cspan, or go to cspan. Org booksthat shapedamerica to learn about each book featured. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government. We are funded by these Television Companies and more, including charter communications. Charter is proud to be recognized as one of the best internet providers, and we are just getting started. Building 100,000 miles of new infrastructure to reach those who need it most. Charter medications supports cspan as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front row seat toemocracy. This week, watch washington journals special holiday offers week series featuring live segments each morning with a new writer. On wednesday morning, michael brown, senior political analyst for the washington examiner, discusses his book, how geographic imagination guided americas revolutionary leaders. Watch washington journal live wednesday morning starting at 7 00 eastern with our special holiday authors week series on cspan, cspan now, or online at cspan. Org. The Supreme Court heard oral