He tape this on may 20th he died on may 27th. [inaudible conversations] good evening i delighted to have you here of where we are the stories that many of us have never heard before. But the thing that i really like is tonights author is typical of the type of author that we have here. I encourage you about upcoming authors and 60 minutes correspondent scott kelly to talk about the stories he has done over the years i have read the book its fascinating but we have wonderful author programs i would encourage you to pick up a sheet i would also encourage you to come back to the museum. We have a fabulous exhibit call georgia on my screen. When carter was governor he established the Georgia Film Commission to bring movies to the state of georgia. Sweet home alabama, a whole bunch tyler perry stuff. The actual set from Stranger Things it is just really really good i would encourage you to come back for that but tonight is a special night tony horwitz is an awardwinning journalist from the graduate school of journalism and spent a decade overseas as a journalist over wars and conflicts into the wall street journal and in 1995 won the Pulitzer Prize for working conditions and also devoting full time to writing books he has now written seven books including confederates in the attic and one for the road but tonight is special with those stories that we dont know about. We are very fortunate to have the host of the podcast of literary atlanta and a former broadcast journalist so we are very fortunate to have her interviewing tony tonight. Please join me to welcome them tonight. [applause] its great to be here. First of all i want to thank tony clark and the bookseller talk about a cappella books and thank you for coming here on a monday night to talk about this book. What did you think of the final episode of game of thrones . [laughter] as on book tour you are only competing against something. Normally its a sports game. Normally was confederates in the attic and the first few nights people would show up. Against the Golden State Warriors and then last night to being up against the game of thrones which i also love. But remarkably we did discuss game of thrones but also other subjects. No spoilers here that things have a promising writing career. And then at the Biltmore Estate what was it in the late twenties or early thirties to pursue a career in writing . And to be attracted to this in the first place is the making of a peculiar genius. He does not have a typical path. Particularly on that day. Coming from a privileged family his father is a merchant in hartford his brother goes to yale and goes off as a merchant marine to china and the wonderful letters in the library of congress between friends and family they recognize he has some kind of genius if only they could get it together. Maybe he would make something of himself one day and with that Landscape Architecture even in his mid forties. So he is a bohemian figure in that way. So for those purposes olmsted has started writing in about his travel so what did he hope to accomplish to say i will travel to the American South and write about what is happening there . At this point he is 30 and a farmer on Staten Island and also has a hopeless lovelife. He has been jilted by his fiancee. He is a hugely romantic soul falling in love with everyone but cant find the right partner. And then he wants to escape the farm and his heartbreak but is also an aspiring writer and is a hardheaded connecticut yankee who wants to see the south himself. If there is Common Ground at the moment the nation is pulling apart. So that is the impetus for his trip. And we should talk about that time period of 1852 or 1854 so whats happening in our country at this time . It is long lead up to secession and civil war. But it is flareup and what will we do with New Territory . Uncle toms cabin is published just before he heads off. And it is getting increasingly tense with this. The kindling is added to a bonfire that will finally erupt. So it gets much worse so he takes that southern trip over the national crisis. Lets talk about especially in this region where olmsted is visiting what does gtt stand for . A wonderful phrase, and in that era and that olmsted popularized gone to texas. And it meant that other parts of the south were fled because of trouble with the law, or your spouse, or you could not pay your debt. You would write gtt on the door of your home or somebody else would put it there after you were gone and they were off to texas. At that point to the booming front tier was a second chance. And olmsted sees this and sentences this great migration he is also a farmer fleeing his life. And much of my book is about that Movement Across the south to this promise land or what it seems for many people. So he has pitched the story thinking it will be a quick judgment and as we mentioned taking about a decade of his life he takes a trip to the south. He sets off with the fairly vague notion and the New York Times has offered me as a former newspaper journalist and is loaning out his expense budget and he doesnt like the food and it is his word for writers block. [laughter] that the first trip he takes a traditional tour georgia and alabama and the gets on a boat to new orleans and sees a little bit of louisiana. That is the first trip that he is so possessed he sets off soon after for a much more ambitious trip through the upper south and down the Mississippi Valley and across louisiana and texas all the way into mexico. That was a destination for the slaves he went to interview and then ride back to virginia. So he takes a much more extensive trip and thats the one that i chose to follow. Because you know that is contentious when you say i will travel to the south. One of the nice things is that you have maps in here to see the different routes that he took so you can follow along. And all the you portray him as passionate perhaps to his detriment he did not consider himself an abolitionist at this time so what were his motives and how it transformed over the course of the journey . He writes very frankly about it because he has friends who are red hot abolitionists and wanted full citizenship he was much more in the moderate camp to track Abraham Lincoln very closely its what was called free labor and anti slavery but we should contain it but constitutionally and practically its not feasible to just end it now. So thats one reason and the new york time views themselves as the moderate temperate paper of today but his views changed dramatically as he traveled to the south and later on right to the civil war and like lincoln by the middle of the civil war that the whole system must die. Its interesting to see it is quite representative for the northerners were. And olmsted like many others is the absolutist and moralistic and had an uncomfortable relationship with religion. He was not comfortable with christianity of the abolitionist movement. And he was traveling at a time that northerners in the south particularly northern reporter are often suspected of being abolitionist snoops and stirs. Wandering around the south with a reporters notebook and anyone can tell in two minutes im not from the south but in the opening episode of my own travels, i described a woman in a bar in West Virginia that essentially sees right through me and says i get it you are a yankee boy down here spying on us hillbillies and the title is also kind of a joke on myself. And that was a direct quote. The subtitle of the book is the odyssey across the american divide. Like mentioned, there are maps in the roots. What did he consider and what do you consider the american divide that you were approaching when you reach race to the steps . 2015, 16, and then a little bit in 2018. It was much more clearcut geographically we had the line that wasnt an absolute divide but it was the enslaved states entering what would become Enemy Territory for the north end for him its clearly harder to find today perhaps the polarization and ideological divide. The north and south defined part of that, but in my own mind certainly after the maturity i came to feel the coastal interior split in much more significance than looking at it anymore as some sort of a north and south although i would say many people in the north still view it that way. The south has become a sort of standin for what the northern progressives opposed and its kind of a convenient marker whether its alabama. The news of the day ther theres still an element of that but obviously not in the way that it was. In 1953 they published a single volume entitled the content kingdom. This is a book that you encounter at two different times in your life. How did you come across this and what inspired you to pursue that as your own work . The starting point for this book with previous books ive had something earnest and highminded to say about how i got the idea. My lifelong passion for the civil war and great discovery in the archives but at this tim tht happened while cleaning house. My wife who is also a writer and i lived in 18th century farmhouse in new england where everything sags and or overflowing books definitely do not help and we were fighting over shelf space. She said its finally time you recall them from college that youve been toting around the globe. For all these years claiming you are going to revisit them. They had been assigned in a southern history class i read a few pages and read a few more. And my curiosity is ho of how wt from there to central park and then also this mission im going to cross this divide and try and understand what is happening in this country at this moment it seemed a very relevant mission for our own talk. If to make notes about certain things in certain areas that you wanted to visit and see if those places still existed or how did you prepare for the trip. It led me to the others and he actually wrote three books that were then put together in the kingdom which has so its really an anthology back to the original dispatches at the time and personal letters and theres a lot of material and i decided to follow the path of the second trip. Partly because of the territory on the first trip, coastal virginia the sort of battlefield and quirky state. A lot of that was new to me including the entirety of texas that he was particularly fascinated with mankind as he saw it the struggle over slavery and for complicated reasons i had barely set foot into geographically did it quite closely. He was known to his friends and family and i came to think about it he goes through many different modes of transportation in the end. All very slow modes of transportation and yet on one of your first trips you managed to find the slowest mode of transportation possible. Could you tell us about your trip . Whenever possible i wanted to go not only where he went from about by the means of transport. I found one in kentucky and he would take me to a bourbon distillery. But often i had to improvise. He went down the river from virginia, West Virginia didnt yet exist to kentucky on a lavish steam boat of today. They are no longer steamboats on the part of the ohio, but he also wrote about all the barges full of cool floating down from pittsburgh and they are still there. On my way where they are stationed around the clock in these coalfired power plants around ohio. People that he knew or that his family knew were connections that they had. Im thinking of one gentleman that he knew that was in nashville and so the same went for you. You had some friends who hosted you when you were in the cities on the travels but it is a nashville that olmsted really seems class in a different way. When you talk about why this was kind of a turning point. Generally speaking i am weary of the epiphanies and they are very convenient for biographers and novelists. They are very rare but i think that he really has one about midway through his southern travels she set off as a kind of moderate openminded approach to the south where he has a vivid exchange with the aristocratic slaveholders one who wouldve been whod been aclassmate of ht yale. The leading men of the south as he called them completely intransigent on slavery they have utter contempt for the common man and democracy itself they truly believe that a Feudal Society is in every respect to the north because they are incapable of governing themselves for uplifting himself a end of this affects his sensibilities on every level that is in a new direction it ends up a central part. One he realizes as he puts it this is a dangerous class in america he sees seven years before the civil war. They are not listening anyway, and instead, reform by demonstrating the power and promise. Which at that time it did not exist. To the point of conflict and by other means soul of the american experiment. There should be places and times where the rich and the poor, the cultivated and the sturdy and selfmade people shall be attracted together and encouraged to assimilate. This is the notion that a not just in the south when he begins work at central park. Newspapers and others are saying this is a waste of time and money. It was a particularly rough part of manhattan in the day and then after it can share the same space. It is a genuine experiment and quite old and it worked. Unfortunately, it opens right before the civi civil war as a e of it is demonstrated to the south. You visited the parks. Its hard to go somewhere in the United States that has visions or the suburbs like the hills neighborhood in atlanta that his sons i believe were commissioned to do here. Do you think that this vision all these years later they are coming together and share public spaces it certainly worked in his time. The central park was an immediate hit and there was no friction. The only crime was people writing too fast on their horses. Generally speaking i think it was a success, that aspect, but there were things he couldnt possibly anticipate. So late in his career as a Landscape Architect he gets commissioned in the south where up to that point. At the very end of the career but with the parks his vision was partly undone by jim crow and segregation so for instance in louisville he decides what many considered his masterpiece in the entire park system but they then designate one part of it ended school black people from the other part and the same happens with this suburbs through redlining and other things that it really ran counter to his vision of bringing people together. Not only in the south all these things went on in the north as well bunorth aswell but perhapsn the south, his very democratic vision of people of all backgrounds coming together was undercut. You generally begin each chapter talking about the observations or what he wrote in different geographies and then you will come in and kind of parallel them anthen and you will eithere whats happening in each or the different issues. So maybe we can talk about a few examples. You mentioned earlier he wasnt a very religious person. Will you talk about what he did believe and then how you juxtapose that with your tour of some of its religious landmarks. He was a little unusual in his day because he was basically educated by country pastors in connecticut. His father was a very traditional puritanical congregationalist and it just didnt take so he becomes a quite profound religious skeptic whose scripture shouldnt be followed as the absolute truth. He is very spiritual in other ways but not when it comes to traditional observance. One of the interesting ties that i come to is what you are referring to as one of the biggest stands with Charles Darwin there is a lot of interesting intellectuals that ties into slavery. Its the view that people are shaped by their environment contrary to the common view of the date of africanamericans were genetically inferior molded by its environment abolitionists picked up on that right away and recognized the message as inherent. I talk about in the book partly in the context one of the places i stumbled across in my travels trying to travel as fred did wherever my curiosity led me into this the Creation Museum some of you may know about it. Its designed and caterers to the young earth creationists who believe the liberal dates in the bible which theyve calculated the creation of the earth and i believe it is 4,004 bc and have constructed a whole belief system about that including dinosaurs getting on the ark because the dinosaurs did not perceive humans etc. And yet i had a kind of interesting particularly when i talk to a minister and employee about where do i as a jew fit into this picture. I tried to ask for it because this particular museum, hundreds of thousands of visitors and certainly in kentucky and much of the area that i was traveling through, serious bible belt so that was an aspect of of travel. On his travel, fred was accompanied by his brother, john. You indicated your brother to come with you and he not so politely declined. [laughter] his second southern journey i think his brother kind of invites himself along. Hes gone to yale and is giving medical training that he has tuberculosis, late 20s, tragic and obviously in that they really no way to treat it and thought that a horseback ride in texas which was the ultimate destination of olmsteds second journey so he is along for the ride. I invited my brother that i knew wasnt going to come and you know, basically said i have a life. [laughter] dot weirdly, yes an australian friend but not a close friend was fascinated when i told him what i was doing and had never seen what he called americas outback. [laughter] and he does not fit the american stereotypes. He isnt a big beer spotting, backslapping swelling type. Hes a kind of small thick glasses very cerebral he has a similar kind of sense of humor and is well known in australia. So i was a little worried about him but he appears and accompanies me from new orleans across louisiana, part of texas and i hope provides some comic relief in his rather jaundiced commentary on both the south and america while he is claiming and killing him with the heavy food. Louisiana really is a heart attack on a plate. I love it, but i wont till the end of the story, but some hard issues become involved. [laughter] i do want to talk about how you can strike a balance between the entertaining and funny stories and the comic relief that bring you and the people that you meet. How do you strike a balance between the things that they say and speak to perpetuating stereotypes are comi