Chernow into a rock star. It is true for years ron was recognized as one of our great contemporary historians. His life of George Washington won a pulitzer prize. His history of the house of morgan received the National Book award. His biography of Alexander Hamilton was a New York Times best seller. But lets be real. Before hamilton became a sensation, ron was not exactly what anyone would call a household name. He once said to a journal when he was told in the hundreds every week ron replied wiftfully his books usually drew about 30 letters. Now thanks to hamilton ron gets a multiple of that number every week. Now thats stardom. Im sure ron finds even more satisfying how excited hamilton has made people about American History. This one burst of musical genius has turned the Founding Fathers into, well, hip hop theyve gone from being formerly known as dead white men to living, breathing, multi racial figures whose songs young people constantly download and whose cast album just won the grammy. The most electrifying part of this is the impact on young people. How many of you in the audience have brought your families with you . Weve seen in the rsvps kids from tweens to college students. Be honest. When was the last time your kids asked to go hear a couple historians sitting around talking . So great is the excitement about hamilton that the Roosevelt Foundation has bought up blocks of tickets so Public School students can go see the show. [applause] just think of the impact in connecting our youngsters to our nations history in a fun, relevant, and catchy way. This show is not just entertainment. It is truly transform tiff teaching moments in america. I think also what that means for the future of broadway, all those youngsters getting their first exposure to one of the greatest american art forms, a chance they could never afford on their own. For so many of them, it will be at the beginning of a life long love affair with theater. All of this comes at a time when attitudes toward the american a past have been turning sour. Institutions named in honor of Woodrow Wilson and john calhoun for example are being debated. Washington and jefferson are being identified solely as slave owners. Alexander hamiltons place on the 10 bill was in jeopardy. Then the show hamilton. Now the Founding Fathers are seen as real human beings who love, hate, have passions, and ambitions, instead of card board figures in dusty books. And hamiltons place of honor on the 10 seems very secure. All of us at Hunter College look on these extraordinary developments with pride because we claim with him as one of our own. He is after all a graduate of Hunter Elementary School and hunter high. [applause] in fact, this is where it all began. By the time he was in eighth grade he had already written his very first musical based on a favorite novel, the chosen. While he was working on his first Tony Award Winning hit, he returned to Hunter High School to teach english. Now, it wasnt always clear sailing for lynn. In his fifth grade music class with mrs. Ames he got a report card that noted his many talents but also spotlighted a short , coming. After awarding him satisfactory in the stan be dard categories ms. Ames hand wrote this note. Lin manuel sings beautifully. He is very theatrical and dramatic but seems to have no interest in chorus. No interest in chorus. So it looks like even then lin manuel was dreaming of the center spotlight. Barbara ames, the teacher, with such an inspirational influence is here with us this evening. I want to welcome her and thank her on behalf of everybody for what she has done with lin manuel. Now, there are a few people in addition to mrs. Ames who have a better understanding of what makes Lin Manuel Miranda tick than ron chernow. Lin got the inspiration of course for his musical after he started reading rons outstanding biography of hamilton. He saw the story of an immigrant with an impoverished background who rose to become one of the greatest Founding Fathers and realized this story speaks volumes about the American Experience and connects directly and powerfully to the lives of countless people today who struggle to find their piece of the american dream. Lin asked ron chernow to serve as his historical adviser for the creation of hamilton and that story of the electric collaboration is what well hear tonight. Ron, we are also grateful to you for your willingness to share this experience with us. And we are delighted that the person discussting with you is our own director of roosevelt house. Harold joins us after a brilliant career in public life including being press secretary to one of hunters own. He had a long life as head of Marketing Communications for the metropolitan museum of arts and, of course, he is, himself, an extraordinary historian. No one could be better cast in this evenings role than harold. He is one of the foremost biographers of abraham lincoln. Just last year he was awarded a prize for his book on lincoln and the press and his collective contributions have earned him a National Humanities medal. Now that lins musical has taught broadway how to bring history to life perhaps the next will be about lincoln. The only caveat is that harold has reduced so much rich material that it would need to be a marathon like staging all four ring operas in one night or another nicholas nickelby. It is a pleasure to have these two outstanding authors here for what i know will be a discussion that is really transformative, what ron has called a biographers Wish Fulfillment fantasy. Will you join me tonight in welcoming them. Thank you. [applause] Harold Holzer i brought a prop for the two or three people in the audience who dont know what the book looks like. Welcome. To the audience on cspan as well. We will have a conversation and we will invite questions toward the end of the conversation so you will be invited to microphones. I want to welcome my friend ron. It is a banner day. It is wonderful that you are doing this for roosevelt house. As we sit here, it is very 25th. February 25. The 225th anniversary of the chartering of the first bank. Your subject worked against a lot of competition a lot of dissents a lot of pushback from a Recalcitrant Congress who thought it was unconstitutional. How did your character maneuver against such formidable opposition as jefferson . Ron hamilton was a messenger from the future. Hamilton had a vision of the country that was not only not based on agriculture but also based on stock exchanges and large corporations and central banks. The world that we live in today. Hamilton because of his upbringing in the caribbean as an illegitimate orphan kid has a sense of combat that he had to fight for survival. You can see this in his medical career when he battled with every verbal weapon at his disposal and wrote at inordinate length about things. Harold i wanted to get that anniversary note so we start out with a portrait of the combative hamilton. We are going to talk about this remarkable transition, transformation from the book to the stage. I think we should ask and im not sure if we can see a show of hands how many people in the audience have seen the play . [applause] i have to ask. Youve signed so many of these books. How many playbills have you signed . Ron chernow i have made a point of not exiting through the stage door with the cast members because i was so be something pretentious about it because im not one of the stars of the show. But i was there a couple of weeks ago and the cast members were all going to parties and he said come along. So they insisted i go out to the stage door. And there were several hundred people there. Rene suddenly pointed to me and said this is ron chernow, he wrote the book. They started screaming as if mick jagger had materialized. I started signing not only playbills but posters and souvenir albums and mokes. And mugs. Theres even a guy who stuck to 10 bills in my hand and asked me to sign them. [laughter] my first thought was isnt it a federal infraction to sign the currency. How many people bring the book to the show. Having the cast members sign the book. I discovered is that once you sign one persons you have to do everybodys. Harold about half of them are entrepreneurs to sell them. It is good you are keeping Small Business thriving. Congratulations are in order. Yesterday the Edward Kennedy prize for the best play adapted from American History was bestowed on hamilton. Another great kudos. When you wrote this, and i know you are writing another one, do you think in terms of adaptations . Ron theres some people who write biographies of with one eye on a possible dramatization. After the book came out in 2004, it was optioned three times for feature film. It disappeared into a black hole. I kept saying to my agent that i dont get it. This is the most extraordinary story. Illegitimate orphan reinvents himself as a founding father. There is a sex scandal. There is violence. It had all the ingredients of an extraordinary movie. He says that after he read to chapters in the book he immediately started clicking around to any said surely somebody mustve already adapted this. It was just sitting there for me as a biographer. Harold he took this formidable book on a beach vacation. What is he told you about the epiphany he had . Ron i met lin through mutual friend. And i said i heard my book made a big impression on you. He said he was reading the book on vacation and hiphop songs started rising off the page. And i said really . [laughter] then he started telling me that hamiltons life is a classic hiphop narrative. And i said what on earth is this guy talking about . I am a hiphop ignoramus. The reason i pursued it, i could tell he would did not want to do something satirical and outrageous. He wants to do a serious, complex rendering of this character. He said i will educate you about hiphop. He pointed out two things that are still very important to the show. The lyrics are so dense and so rapid that you can pack more information into these lyrics than any other musical form. He started talking about all of the rhyme. Internal rhyme and wordplay. Harold how did he get to you . Does he call your publisher . Ron i live in Brooklyn Heights and a Brayden Schenn my friend whose daughter had gone to wesleyan with him. He was excited to find out that they knew me. There was an enormous amount of happenstance. He was about to option team of rivals about lincoln. Then he read that Steven Spielberg was doing a movie based on that. On nine pages of the book. He saw that and decided that he did not want to compete with Steven Spielberg. Feeling heartbroken, he wandered into the borders bookstore and saw the book about hamilton. I said to them why does you buy the book . When he was at Hunter High School he had written a paper on hamilton and his duel. Harold it all starts at Hunter College. You say you are ignorant about hiphop. Did you need to be convinced . Ron i was intrigued by the idea. I was captivated by his show in the heights. He asked if he could come over to my house, he wanted to sing something for me. How does a bastard orphan son of a whore dropped in a forgotten spot in the caribbean impoverished in squalor grown to be a hero and the scholar . [applause] i can do the rest of you if you want me to go on. [laughter] in providence, impoverished and squalor. I had never heard such rich language in broadway lyrics. As he sang that first song, he hasnt changed the word. I was thinking this guy either writes very tight or i write very long. This is almost as is my book has been thrown in the washing machine and shrunk. This runs throughout the whole show. A cross between 18thcentury speech and early 21st century slang that is picked up in the music. I was so impressed by the first song. He spent an entire year writing the first song and the entire year writing the second song. The reason he spent so much time of those first two songs was establishing the style. That was a great breakthrough. No great breakthrough in broadway history. It proved not only to me but to himself that he can do it. The director said at this rate we would all be dead before we finished the show. So he put him on this regimen of doing one or two songs a month. He would be the keyboard singing another song. They were done more or less in chronological order. I can still remember my reactions. I can remember sitting alone in my office listening to the first king george the third song, youll be back. I remember sitting there laughing uproariously. It was so ingenious. Such extraordinary craftsmanship in this show. He was visualizing the whole scene around it. The great rewind seen when angelica sings the song satisfied. She keeps rewinding the scene where she meets hamilton. The sister eliza singing helpless. You suddenly see that it is tragic because she sees deeply into his nature and realizes that her very innocent sister is going to have a more complicated marriage than she bargained for. Harold he is clearly not a big reviser. You say he gets the songs down quickly. Ron i am a compulsive reviser. He actually is a reviser because he is an almost manic perfectionists. He kept revising it up until the day they recorded the cast album which they call freezing the show. Otherwise he would still be rewriting the show. His mind is always throwing off these sparks. He was constantly sharpening and tightening it. I was commenting through the end of the Public Theater ron and even the beginning of the broadway run. He responds to things that i had said. I said late in the game there is a very big point about hamiltons life that we havent covered. When he took over the government he was bankrupt and by the time he left five years later the country had gone from bankruptcy to prosperity and he had restored american credit. The next time i saw the show madison comes out and he says you took us from bankruptcy to prosperity. I hate to admit it but he doesnt get enough credit for all the credit he gave to us. That was a direct reaction to my saying that. Before he had madison coming out and saying that hamilton had died a poor man. He was wonderfully responsive. I would give him my reactions to things he would be sitting there at his laptop and if i said something completely asinine he would not say anything he would just air at me in silence. Stare in silence. If i said something that struck a nerve, he would start typing furiously on the laptop. Harold so you were never directly confronted with a suggestion that wasnt going to work. Ron he is very diplomatic. Harold how did you respond to him aside from astonishment . That race blind casting that you encountered. Ron im embarrassed to say now that lin and i went through this. Where he was sending me songs. I wasnt thinking about the casting. I want you to come and listen. I went to this little rehearsal studio in the garment district. He was already in their standing there with actors. The first thought that went through my head was oh my god, they are all black and latino. The only musical i ever saw about the Founding Fathers was 1776. A bunch of middleaged white males and powdered wigs. I was thinking to myself that im going to take him aside and say we are talking about the Founding Fathers of the United States here they started singing. They did the entire first act. I said these are the most glorious voices i have ever heard. About two or three minutes into it, i was thinking that i have never heard any singers capture the fire and passion of the American Revolution the way these young black and latino performers did. I had become a raging militants on this whole issue. It is more than colorblind casting. I would say after a couple of minutes i completely stopped thinking about what color or ethnicity anybody was. When it started at the Public Theater people didnt have a picture of what this was going to be. It became a nonfactor. By having this young black and latino cast, incidentally this has gotten less attention, is how young everybody is. We have our image, maybe not hamilton who died relatively young. Our image of washington and jefferson and madison is often them as older man. The casting of young actors was in its way as innovative as having people of color. And more accurate in a certain way. And captures the spirit of the revolution. An extraordinary inspiration on their part. They only say that one of the things that that accomplishment is that it immediately shakes the audience out of their preconceptions. These figures are familiar to us as icons on the wall. Suddenly you walk in. They could begins kids walking down the street today. The director had another inspired idea. From the neck down their 18thcentury but from the neck up their 21st century. Sasha has an afro. You are simultaneously seeing americas past and americas present. The visual effect of these new york type kids. Harold you became the historical advisor to the show. Ron i laughed and i said you want me to tell you when something is an error . He said yes, i want to the historians to take this seriously. He showed great strength and great integrity in terms of wanting to have the story be accurate. But after a while i felt that the least important thing i was doing was affecting the show for historical accuracy. He was have a plausible dramatic reason for why something was happening the way it was. He never placed any limits on what i could say or do. At rehearsals but i didnt want to do that unless the actors initiated it. I was always afraid, i didnt want to take him aside and say heres what i think about aaron burr. They had to respond to the lyrics. I didnt want to confuse the issue. I have a fantastic dinner with the actress who plays eliza. Chris jackson plays George Washington. He sought me out. A lot of the actors didnt and i did not want to really undercut what the producer and director were doing at the rehearsal. Harold my experience in being a historical advisor was rather thankless and frustrating. I talked with tony kushner on this stage when the Lincoln Movie came out and the problems that had arisen. I was always asked my opinion and spielberg would say he didnt like the way i thought it should be and i would say its not the way i think its the way it was. His view was that art can go where history cannot. Hamilton has one son in the play and he had five. It is made more simple. Did they ask you to give that an ok . Ron if you ask me about my one big take away was, is that history is long and complicated and broadway shows have to be tightly constructed. I had hundreds of people mentioned in the book. A broadway show you have to have had most maybe eight or 10 principals. Everything has to keep happening to them. Sometimes things would happen in the show not to the characters that they happen to a real life. He would always take a fanfic historical ingredients and give it a faithful reading. There is a scene in the show where jefferson and madison and burr confront hamilton with the reynolds scandal. That scene actually happened but neither jefferson and madison nor burr was there. But it was three jeffersonians who confronted him. So he took the three jeffersonians who were in the show. You have to work with this limited number of principal characters. If it was mentioned in the show that they had other children people would say where are they . I think that he did the right thing. Harold you said you didnt want to be a finger wagging pedant. People do seek you out. I love the fact that the actor who played washington sort you out. The head of the Public Theater said that your participation beyond granting the rights added some gravitas to the proceeding. I think that is right at least from the audience perspective. Hiphop is not always a serious medium. There was a seriousness and a joyfulness at the time. Ron i want to create a safety net under him. I want you know how people will come at you if they want to attack you. About three or four weeks after the opening there is an article in the New York Times with historians squawking about it. First show that has been such a sensational success and we are now 13 or 14 months into the process. It is amazing that there has been nobody who has come forward and said the attack on the history. Gordon ward did a great review of it for the new york review of books. I said gulp. Gordon wood is here. I said, you know there is some dramatic license in the show. He said dont worry, i have been listening to the cast album. But people are impressed with how much accurate history there is. I knew that i would have to see and have a relationship with him i would have to see the show not only as a biographer of it as a theatergoer. The first time i heard the third song of the show or the second show where hamilton goes into a tavern and he meets Hercules Mulligan and the marquis of lafayette. It never happened. He said to me i have to establish that quartet early in the first act. And i said youre right. So i was seeing it as someone who loves theater as well as a biographer. Harold you have confided in other interviews that is much as you love theater, the musical comedy genre was not your favorite. When did you realize that this was not just the success but revolutionary . Ron there were two or three times when i look into the future. Back in january 2012 he did a performance where he did a few hiphop songs. He said to the audience im doing this concept about Alexander Hamilton. He sang a few songs from the show. It was a packed house. They were on their feet screaming and cheering. Theater festival at vassar. Summer of 2013. They did the first act concert style. A lot of new york theater producers go there to scout shows. Every producer in the house want to invest in it. We were getting extraordinary actions. By the end of the first act almost everyone was simultaneously in tears and inspired. She said ive never kind of felt such patriotism. Lin has an extraordinary capacity to connect with the audience emotionally. Harold the residual effect has been on the book. The only two authors in the last couple of years whose books of the previous decade have returned to the bestseller list are ron and harper lee. [applause] on sunday when the New York Times book review appears the paperback will be the number one bestselling paperback in the country. That is truly extraordinary. For you questions, i will do some lightning round questions. How may times have you seen the musical . Ron i have seen about 50 times. I was seeing it about every third night. Sitting in the last row. He wanted reactions. I go backstage each time. Two enormous thrills. Seeing this vivid threedimensional life on the stage. But also meeting this extraordinary cast. Just as lovely offstage as on. They have on braced me in the family. I would go backstage. I have a very fatherly feeling towards them. They are also extraordinary and it is not my job to criticize them. Harold have you been brought on stage . Ron none. I have told him that i would like to go on and do the opening number. He has resisted me on this. [laughter] 10, founding father. Harold do you find yourself looking as much of the audience as at the stage . Ron we are in the delayed gratification business. Writing a book. Harold my gratification has been delayed much more than yours has. [laughter] ron here i am in this tribal culture of the theater. I often turn around to see people cheering and laughing. I was there last night. This show has the strongest Audience Reactions i have ever seen. It keeps changing. Harold when he comes out, the pause between the first two is 30 seconds. Ron there is a rock concert intensity to the audience. As the lights are going down, the audience starts screaming and applauding. I saw something last night i had not seen before. The cast album has been so widely heard that as the actors began to saying people start applauding. As if they were listening to sinatra. Ive never heard that in the theater. Oh, there is the room where it happens. Harold is this distracting . Ron i was talking to him about that. They love it. They are feeding off the waves of energy coming from the audience. This is the greatest experience of their life. It is a very strenuous show. Very exhausting. They had been performing for six hours. No matter how tired they are, the audience always lifts them up. Harold it is extraordinary for you. We can take a few questions. What are you doing now . How are you able to work when you are at the theater every week . Ron ulysses grants life does not move to a hiphop beat. My writing life is mornings and afternoons on weekdays. My involvement with the show is nights and weekends. It has involved inspiring this book. You hope to change the way this person was seen. This is an amazing situation where between the book and the show we have changed how people perceive hamilton and the entire era. Harold so you can be immersed in the civil war and the gilded age and then go back to hamilton . Ron my life has been very exciting. Theres something nice about crawling into my cubbyhole and working on the book. Healy says the simplest three hours of the day are when he is on stage. All he has to do is do what he did. As much as i enjoy the experience of the show is a collaborative process. There is a giveandtake. You win some battles and you lose some. I am the dictator of my world. In the book. I was struck by the way it ends. The love story. What she goes through. How her life continues. I started reading your book. Your book starts with her. If she ripped it up, how did you know . Ron i didnt know how he was going to end the show. He was writing chronologically. When i was writing the book i do not want to end the book with the duel because i thought that would be cold and depressing way to end it. As eliza sings in the show, i stopped wasting time on tears. I lived another 50 years. The epilogue would have to eliza as an old woman. She tried to preserve the flame of her husbands life and legacy. I did not know until very late in the process. We did a workshop down across the street from the Public Theater. It was the first time i saw a complete runthrough of the entire show. And hamilton dies. Suddenly she comes out and i said oh my god he is doing it. It is so moving. So unusual to do that in the show. There were broadway producers, no one has an about. An epilogue. The audience is just bathed in tears. It is the most amazing ending. It was interesting working with lin. Even though the media we were working and was so different. Yet, were going to a parallel process and i realized that he had come up with that same solution. Opening night on broadway he went outside holding a copy of the book. He said i want to read to you the opening paragraphs of the book. The opening is also about eliza as an old woman. He almost broke down in tears. As strong as i knew his reaction had been to the book, it showed just how profound his insight was into the love story. While reading the biography and taking notes, i was struck by the constant characterization of hamilton is a feminine person. I am wondering if you could speak to the Historical Context of describing a leader as feminine. In a world in which women were not in public life and in the public view. It didnt seem to be a negative characterization. Ron quite a number of descriptions of hamilton would say there was something feminine about him. Often said in an accusatory style. I thought that hamilton was somebody who was a person of infinite possibilities. Extraordinarily complicated. He decided not to go to the fact that there was something very amorous about his relationship with john lawrence. He may have been bisexual. God knows, hes very heterosexual for the rest of the story. Hamilton was an infinitely complex person. Capable of extraordinary sensitivity. His mother had been overwhelming as an influence on his life. His father had been a feckless character. Who abandoned the family. I dont know if that sensitivity came from the relationship with the mother. First of all, thank you from barbara ames to you, to lin manuel, inez been such a happy to it has been such a happy show to watch. I love the easter eggs in the music. When he says your pants look hot, and he says i like you a lot. Is that a reference to his ron no i think it is much more innocent. But you have to ask him. Who knows . Do you have favorite moments that go by quickly you could share with us . Ron one of the delights for me of watching the show is that it recreates the research that i did. I was doing research in the rare manuscript room at columbia. Going through the hamilton papers. As you see in the show, at the time of the reynolds scandal hamilton never publicly commented on it. I found a tiny handwritten letter from angelica and her sister. She is trying to console her. You married an icarus. He flew too close to the sun. The first time i heard the song show. In the art has to go to places where i as a buyer for can as a biographer cant. She just felt that was such a world of private pain she never spoke about it. Lin not only could go there, he had to go there. That song is so beautiful. When she comes out with her little lantern. I can remember the first time i heard it i said to myself everyone seeing this show is going to be convinced that that line was pure invention. It sounds too good. Married an icarus, flew too close to the sun. And yet it came directly from a real letter. I am a High School History teacher and i work with my schools cutera program. My High School Theater program. My students are obsessed with this show. I used the opening song and the election of 1800 in my class and they wanted to hear the whole cast album. One girl did a prom proposal using the titles of all the songs in the show. We have heard a lot about how lin manuel came from reading the book to doing the show. How did you decide to write a biography of Alexander Hamilton . Ron i started working on the book in 1998. I had done a series of books about moguls and tycoons. I had lunch with my agent. After i finished the rockefeller book. I brought 16 different subjects. The 16th was Alexander Hamilton. She put her finger on number 16. I said to her you know why this show is here . Because of you. You were the one who put her finger on hamilton. As i started to investigate it, hamilton was fading into obscurity. He seems to be regarded as a second rate founding father. People knew nothing about Elizabeth Schuyler hamilton. Everybody knew about abigail adams. Eliza who . There was a real opportunity here to resurrect this man and this story. To start reading some of the earlier biographies and this was by far the greatest personal story of any of the founders. Combined with a list of monumental achievements that compare with anybody. It was an easy call at that point. I am up to chapter five. Ron start reading. Allowing for my classes. I see his star rising. Would you think hamilton will be relevant today on the american political scene . Where would he be . Who would he align with . Allowing for the cast of characters vying for the office of the presidency . Where would he be . [laughter] the people running for president . Ron i fear that the one place he would not be is in washington. Our political system is so dysfunctional and theres only so many disincentives to public service, the nonstop need for fundraising, all these good reasons for not going into politics. Hamilton might be doing leveraged buyouts. Or doing biotech research. He was such an intensely verbal character. If he felt strongly about an issue he would sit down and write 25 consecutive essays for the newspaper. I find it hard to imagine how would hamilton fit into the political culture of today. Hamilton was very outspoken. Donald trump will be the exception to what im about to say. And a political world where everything now is the pollsters and the focus groups. Hamilton wouldve been, he was never muzzled. Harold he mightve been huge. [laughter] hamilton was heading toward the status of a historical footnote into you resurrected in with your book. You put them back in the pantheon of Founding Fathers. What you did next to nurture and be the father to the cast of this show. And educational phenomenon as well. You said being involved with his work was a biographers Wish Fulfillment. Judging from the response, it is great for Hunter College and roosevelt house to have you. [applause] 10 scholar. You have written about the 10 scholar. He is one in a million. I want to thank you. [applause] ron thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2016] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching American History tv on cspan3. We bring you archival coverage of president ial races. Next, a 1980 debate between Ronald Reagan and george h w bush. It took place in houston. Governor reagan went on to win the primary with 53 of the vote. He then picked mr. Bush as his running mate. States in ticket 144 the 1980 general election. Our coverage is courtesy of the league of women voters and the Reagan Library and museum. Howard good evening. Im the National President of the league of women voters