We have a few things that speak to her connection to the room here. One of the things she wanted to highlight was the native American Heritage here in the hill country. We have a small collection of arrow heads there. She had an eye for copper and collected items through the years and had gifts from various friends. Mrs. Johnson gave a tour of the house in 1968 that was filmed and where she featured the china you see here purchased in mexico. Very colorful. First lady mrs. Johnson spent a lot of time at the ranch. It was important because it provided such a respite from the turmoil of washington, particularly later in the presidency where the johnsons could come home, recharge their batteries and make the connection back to the land in this place they valued so much. First lady, ladybird Johnson Monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern live on cspan. There are some serious scholars in womens studies. Most departments include their fair share of nonideological academics who offer straightforward courses, sometimes wonderful courses in womens psychology, womens history, women in literature. Ideologically fervent, statistically channelled hard liners set the tone in most womens studies departments. If there is a department that defies the stereotype, i would love to visit them. By the way, conservative women, moderate women, libertarian women, traditionally religiouses women left out. Her critiques of late 20th century feminism and feminism in contemporary American Culture led critics to label her as antifeminist. Sunday your questions for Christina Hoff somers. Looking ahead to the new year join radio talk show host mark levin january 1. Book tv in depth the first sunday of every month on cspan 2. All weekend American History tv is featuring ann arbor, michigan, home to the university of oh michigan. The school was moved from detroit to ann arbor in 1837 and fuels most of the citys economy. Hosted by our Comcast Cable partners, cspans local content vehicles recently visited many sites show casing the citys history. Learn more about ann arbor all weekend here on American History tv. This is the story of willow run, one of the ford farms that virtually overnight became the largest aircraft plant that was ever built. A story that now can be told in full. [ bell ringing ] we are presently in whats known as hangar one at willow run airport. We are in bay eight. If you look out at a 45degree angle from here we see the two doors where the bombers would come off the Assembly Line after they were built. There are a lot of stories that lead up to the building of the factory. With the war in europe turning hot when the blitzkrieg took place in the low countrieses the u. S. Was unprepared. Roosevelt went to congress and said the u. S. Must build 50,000 airplanes to protect itself. Then in the fall of 1940, the battle of britain took place and the bombers were devastating england. It came out that bombers would be the way that you would have to fight world war ii. All the Auto Companies were given projects to build engines and airplane parts. Ford Motor Company was given the b24 bomber which was a problematic airplane. It was the newest plane we had. It was still in development stages. They wanted to mass produce the airplane. So ford said, im just going to build parts. I will build complete airplanes. That was henry ford speaking for his company. In january of 1941 his chief production guy, Charles Sorenson went to san diego, california, to watch how consolidated was building the b24 bomber. What he saw for a production goou guy was out of this world. They were building them one at a time by hand. Every airplane. An individual handcrafted masterpiece. He said, you will never build a lot of airplane it is ths the w. Ford cant help you. Ford builds everything the same and you guys build it different. He went back to the coronado in san diego. He stayed up all night. In the back of 42 place mats he drew the willow run bomber plant where we are today. He went back the next morning. He told them they could build one per hour on an automotive style Assembly Line. The u. S. Was desperate that without even asking how you could do that they said start the project. They allocated 200 million to win the factory. The largest allocation in the history of the u. S. Government at the time. They broke ground on the plant in april of 1941. They broke ground on the airport at the same time. By november of 41 the factory was producing parts. This 80acre plot was built in record time. It was made into two parts under one roof. A manufacturing plant and assembly plant. This was the largest single factory under one roof ever produced in the world when this plant was designed. It was originally designed to have 60,000 employees. They never got above 42,000 because of the logistics of living here and getting people in the plant. When they were in peak production there was only 17,000 employees in this factory. Between january and june of 1944, 35 of the four engine bombers built in the United States were delivered here at willow run. That was one of 11 factories building the b21 bomber. Of course this was something new in assembly. Not just another relatively simple automobile with only 15,000 or so parts to be made and assembled. Each of the machines is made of 1,225,000 parts. What they did was took what had been done as individual pieces and they took the engineering drawings and designed it to hold within 2 10,000 of an inch. Then they would knock out pieces and unskilled Assembly Workers with a little bit of training could assembly airplanes. All the pieces were precise. You could interchange parts and it would fit because they fit them to blueprints like cars. They still have hand fabrication the to complete airplanes. At fords willow run near detroit, manpower shortage had become a problem. The need for workers had risen sharply. There was a shortage of manpower so the women came into the workforce and even by may of 42 before production started, women made up about 20 of the workforce here at willow run. The women didnt get drafted and the women didnt volunteer to go into the service like the men did. They tended to come in here and stay. So as the employees turned over it was on the male side and the females stayed in here. By the end of the war 40 of the production workers in the factory were women. Not peeping toms, but riveters. Learning how and where to put the 700,000 rivets that go into a single liberator bomber. There was a girl named rose monroe out of kentucky. Moved up here to take the job at the factory. There was a promotion out in hollywood about the women in the defense industry. They picked this girl because her name was rosy it tacked onto rosy the riveter. She was the prototype for the female production worker during world war ii. The willow run bomber plant is a project the Yankee Air Museum is involved in. We want to save a part of the plant and make it a display of what happened in world war ii, how the Auto Industry stepped forward in a time of need the to really save the world. The willow run plant is in the process now of being demolished. You can see the two big hangar doors behind me. Those represent the end of the plant. The end of the Assembly Line where 8700 b24s rolled out. We intend to restore a piece of the building, about 175,000 square feet. The Yankee Air Museum into it and show people what the history of this was about in the 1940s. Something for us to remember and save for our kids and grand kids to see. When ford Motor Company was finished with bomber production in 195, they cleared the plant out and in 1947 it was purchased by the Kaiser Fraser company. They used the plant both for their automobiles. Roughly 800,000 automobiles here. Kaiser frasers, henry gray. As i said, about 8,000 automobiles were built. Also most people win of the b24 bomber plant and the b24s that were built here. Very few people know we had c119 flying boxcars built here. Roughly 200 were built in the early 1950s. After Kaiser Fraser was done with the automobiles and their aircraft production, General Motors bought the plant. They lost one of their transmission facilities to a fire and they saw this plant. It was empty at the time they purchased it. Ever since then until 2010 when it became vacant after the General Motors bankruptcy. Right now if you look inside the facility there is not much in there. There is a lot of the manufacturing equipment left from General Motors on the floor thats slowly being cleared out. Once it is cleared out and the power is restored to it again, you can see that it looks just like it did in 1942. This end of the building was never restored. The other end of the bomber plant was restore add number of years ago. And modernized by general motor. This end hasntment. The original plant was 300,000 square feet. Its now 5 million square feet with the General Motors additions. We intend to save 175,000 square feet. So it really is an insignificant piece of the entire plant. But it represents the most significant part of it because its where the bombers rolled out. We intend to move the Yankee Air Museum into it some day. We can get all of the airplanes into it except our b52. We use it for a hangar for the other airplanes. The airplanes we have in this hangar. Initially we are looking at raising 8 million. That money is needed to bring the Building Back up to code. Essentially they make it a functional building. By the time they are done well have put 15 million, poss bli more into the building. Of the 8 million we have to raise up front we have 2. 5 million left. This ship is strong. The strength built in by skilled brains and hands. With all the experience that ford has gained over the years of mass production. Detroit had some rough times over the last ten years or so. Especially in the last kwouple of years. But this is something that detroiters and people from southeastern michigan and northern ohio, all the people that supported the plant worked in it and the companies that supported the production here. This is something we can look back at and smile about. We did something in detroit that was not done anywhere else in the world. It literally saved the world from the axis powers. Throughout the weekend American History tv is featuring ann arbor michigan. Our local content vehicles traveled there to learn about the rich history. Learn more about ann arbor and cspans local content vehicles at cspan. Org local content. Youre watching American History tv, all weekend, every weekend on cspan 3. I started with teddy roosevelt. I knew so much had been written that i needed another story. I got into taft knowing they had been friends and had broken apart in 1912. When i figured out the difference in the leadership it was teddys public leadership. Tafts failure as a public leader. I started reading about the public and the magazine and the press. These guys do it at stenter of it. They will say these people were the vanguard of the progressive movement. I started reading about them. I didnt know the others and i didnt know mcclure. He came into my life. Roosevelt, taft and the muck rakers sunday night with Doris Kearns Goodwin at 8 00 on cspans q and a. Next on American History tv sherri caplan, author of pet coats and pinstripes. She talks about how women played an Important Role if the world of finance. She argues that world war one was the water shed moment for women who entered the financial world. This 30minute event took place at the museum of American Finance in new york city