Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Susan Cheever Drink

Transcripts For CSPAN3 History Bookshelf Susan Cheever Drinking In America 20240713

About her book drinking in america our secret history. This was held at politics and pros bookstore in washington, d. C. We are so honored tonight to welcome susan cheever, best selling and highly esteemed memoirist, biographer and novelist as she launches her newest book drinking in america our secret history. You will tell us the secrets. Her distinguished bibliography includes the 2015 biography of e. E. Cummings, which was chosen by the economist as one of the best books of that year. It is now considered the definitive biography of that iconic poet. Other biographical works include american bloomsbury and my name is bill, bill wilson, his life and the creation of alcoholics amon mounonymouanonye before dark and treetops, a memoir. Shes the author of five novels and a frequent contributor of essays and articles to leading publications. She is influential as a member of the corporation of yado and of the Authors Guild counsel and is a faculty member at the b benni Bennington College and the new school in new york city. In her fascinating and compelling new book, she traces the pervasive influence of alcohol at key moments over centuries of american political and cultural history from the beer shortage induced illegal landing at cape cod to the assassination of president kennedy and president nixons last days in the white house. Explores its impact on many historic and literary figures if between and since, toward asking the central question, what forms a National Character . Ladies and gentlemen, susan cheever. [ applause ] hi. Thanks for coming. Yeah. The pilgrims. So its its a great hoppnoro be here at a store thats the center of the literary universe in this country, if not the world. Im just going to talk about this book a little bit and read three short sections from it and hope that it somehow informs you and intrigues you at the same time. One of the great privileges of being a writer is that we get to make history come alive, which is really fun. We get to take the pictures off the wall and make them dance and make them eat and make them drink and make them fall in and out of love with each other. We can notice that grant was a short man who adored his wife or that Alexander Hamilton hated drinking because his father was a drunk who took off and left him with his mother or that Henry Theroux was a favorite teacher. We can include not just the momentous events that happen, which is why we put these people in history books, but also the texture of their everyday lives. Did their shoes hurt . How were they feeling about themselves that day . Were they thinking about what they were going to have for dinner . That kind of stuff. Which really takes us there into history. The food, the sex, the clothes and, of course, the drinking. In this book by looking at drinking in america and showing its influence on events, i have tried to bring our heroes and our villains to life on the page. I hope that if you read this book, you will come to think of John Quincy Adams as a sad friend who lost two brothers and two sons to alcoholism and sympathize with kissinger who had the unenviable job of babysitting a drunk. This book has i spanned four centuries in this book. It starts with the pilgrims. We will get to that. It goes through the american revolution, senator joe mccarthy, jfk assassination. I just took a bunch of events in which alcohol seemed to have or did have a huge affect on what happened and went through them starting in 1620. It really all begins with the pilgrims. Im going to start with them as rhonda did. Im hoping i can find a way to read and have you hear me at the same time. I will probably go for about i think its 18 minutes. My daughter is in the back. She timed me earlier. Then i hope you will ask me questions, because i love to answer questions. As im sure you all know, when Henry David Theroux moved to walden pond in , the last thing had in mind was writing a book about it. He didnt have anywhere else to live. He moved in with the emersons to do a favor because. Er s emerson went to europe. He found theroux had done his job foo wetoo well. He said, you cant live here anymore. He said, am i going to move back in with my mother . Im 35. Emerson said, i have a wood lot on walden pond. Build yourself something. He did. He didnt think he was going to write about it. He thought he was going to write a book about a river trip he took with his brother. H hawthorn asked him to come and give a talk. So he came and he gave the talk about the river trip. In the q a, all anybody wanted to know was what it was like to live in a shack at walden pond. I believe that q a are magic. I know that this one will not disappoint us. Here we go. The pilgrims landed the mayflower at cape cod, massachusetts, on a cold november day in 1620 because they were running out of beer. Their legal charter from king james was for a grant of land in northern virginia. Instead, they anchored illegally and carved their First Community from the sand laying the foundation of the american character. American character. Since the beginning, drinking and taverns have been as much a part of American Life as churchers and preachers or elections and politics. The interesting truth is that a glass of beer, a bottle of rum, a keg of hard cider, a flask of whisky, or even a dry martini was often the silent powerful third party to many decisions that shaped the american story from the 17th century to the present. And one of the things thats unusual about american drinking is our ambivalence. So there are countries where people drink more. And there are countries where people drink less. But there is no other country where we were the drunkest country in the world in 1830 and we outlawed it entirely in 1930, and by 1950, we were back to being up there, and now were on our way back in the other direction. So we get the medal for ambivalence when it comes to drinking. Every cinchry, our drinking pendulum swings wildly. And thats not so true in other countries. Thats something, you know, were a country of extremes, and we either love it or hate it. So now im going to read the longest of the three sections, which, you know, its been said by actually a washington native, that in his wonderful book the great experiment im always selling other peoples books, that we began to in the civil war, when lincoln fired his sober general George Mcclellan and hired his drunken general ulysses s. Grant, and indeed, that is when the tide seemed to turn and it did seem to turn because of grants cando attitude. What do we call it . Because of grants refusal to admit defeat, because of grants Forward Motion that nobody could seem to stop. As lincoln said of grant, hes a man who gets git, right . He was a man who also drank. So here goes grant. Of all the drunken generals, who fought during the civil war, and there were many, the one who most famously battled the bottle was ulysses s. Grant. Born the son of a Leather Goods producer in ohio, grant was sent to west point where he graduated in the bottom half of his class. At west point, he fell in love with his roommates sister, julia dent. He proposed, she demurred. He proposed, she asked for more time. His father disapproved of julia. Her parents disapproved of him. After a fouryour courtship, he won her over. The couple adored each other. They had four children. Almost 40 years later, grants dying act was to finish his great autobiography, personal memoirs of ulysses s. Grant so they could be supported after he died. A soldiers life is not his own, and grant was posted from camp to camp, finally ending up in ft. Humboldt in california. Here with his beloved wife and family far away, his drinking began to catch up with him. There was plenty of tolerance for drinking in the military, but less tolerance for a drunk. Grant was a small man, 52, who became famous for being unable to hold his liquor. He would sometimes get drunk on what appeared to be one glass and other times would drink a great deal. Grants commander arft. Humboldt took offense. He gave grant the choice of resigning his post and military career or having charges pressed against him. Grant resigned. Suddenly at the everyoage of 32 with a family to support, grant had no profession. His father, who still disapproved of julia and even his own grandchildren, offered him a job in the leather business if his wife and children would leave and go home to her family. They refused. The couple refused. Instead, grant tried farmer which didnt work out, and finally, his father came around and offered him a job with no conditions, so grant moved his family back to galina, illinois, and joined his fathers store. But what of the alcoholism that got him booted out of the army. Under julias influence, grant was able to moderate his drinking. Half afraid, half eager to be the husband he felt she deserved, he was apparently able to drink less when he was at home than he almost inevitably drank as a soldier. Like many alcoholics, he struggled to control his drinking, a struggle that was sometimes more successful than others. When the war began in april 1861, grant acted decisively. Soon, he was the head of a company of illinois volunteers who launched an attack from cairo, illinois, on the confederate armies near the important junction of the ohio and mississippi rivers. At this point, grant did not drink. And he did not tolerate drinking among his men. Grants forces won, and this early victory for the union after the demoralizing defeat of bull run made him famous. Grants next engagement was more complicated and paerilous, but equally victorious. Now a major general, grant led his forces south to mississippi on the Tennessee River, where the Confederate Army was massed. And by this time, of course, he had started drinking again. On the morning of april 6th, 1862, the Confederate Army launched a surprise attack with the aim of wiping out the main union army once and for all. The first day of the battle at pittsburgh landing, which is also the battle at shiloh, as you know, all these battles have two names, right, and the confederates named the battles after the places where they were fought. Sharps brg, manassas, bull run, am i getting this right . And the union army named them after a landmark, shiloh, antietam, et cetera. I call it pittsburgh landing, but it was really shiloh. Ill call it shiloh. The first day of the battle of shiloh was disastrous for the union, but grants troops held on, fighting disast rely in the mud, although grant was not around. It was said he was visiting troops across the river. Night fell without a retreat from the union, although many of nen were two miles closer to the Tennessee River and defeat from where they had begun the day. The troops were exhausted. Many people thought the union was beaten. Including the Union General and grants friend, william tukuecuh sherman. They had been in the thick of the battle all day. Grant had been absent during the first day, and his men thought he had been drinking. Sherman, who had his own struggles with reputation when he had been treated for a nervous condition earlier in the war, was ready to quit. Perhaps he thought the war was over. Then, during the night, grant reappeared. It was raining hard, and grant set up camp under a tree, ignoring the pain from an ankle injury caused when he had fallen off his horse when he was away. The evening before. General sherman found grant under this big oak tree just before dawn, smoking a large cigar. The rain was heavier, and thunder and lightning had begun to flash through the trees. Sherman was coming to talk about the details of what seemed inevitable, a union retreat. The trees were dripping water, the battlefields were a sea of mud. But grant was placidly puffing away as if he were in a Gentlemans Club with a snifter of brandy. As the storm passed away to the south, the two men stood quietly looking toward the Rolling Hills beyond the battlefield in the darkness. Standing there, sherman found he couldnt bear to talk about retreat. Although he still believed it was necessary. Well, grant, we had the devils own day, havent we, he said. Yes, grant replied. Well lick them tomorrow, though. Grant was right. Instead of being finished off the next day, the union launched a furious counterattack and drove the Confederate Army back to its original position. Later in the war, sherman summed up his friendship with grant for a reporter. General grant is a great general, he said. I know him well. He stood by me when i was crazy and i stood by him when he was drunk. And now, sir, we stand by each other always. So thats grant and kump, and now im going to go to the conclusion, which the more i i guess i dont reread it, the more i think about this book, the more i become interested in the different ways that we write history. And i do think that theres a new kind of writing history thats growing up in this country, thats very exciting, and i do think that more and more historians are including peoples intimate lives rather than just the monumental parts and the big inventions. And there are many historians who are doing this, who actually take you to the place and let you be in the scene with the people that theyre writing about. And thats what, you know, i hope to be one of those historians. I hope that i in this book take you to that place and let you feel what it was like to be grant on that night or let you feel what it was like to be ethan allen at ticonderoga. Also somewhat drunk. Okay. So this is my conclusion, and were coming back to the mayflower for the for the my final words about the nature of history. In the second week of december 1620, almost a month after the mayflower landing on cape cod, after braving almost unimaginable hardships, the journey, the failed explorations of inhospitable cape cod sands, a storm that almost wrecked the shallop they were using to explore the coasts, they landed in what would come to be named plymouth harbor. They landed right around the bend in Province Town harbor, but they knew they couldnt settle there, so they spent a month looking for a place to settle. Now, im not saying this happened because the ration was a gallon of beer a day, but they were between two of the greatest harbors in the world, new york and boston. And what did they do . They got in their shallop and made little circles until they found a place to settle, plymouth. Not that theres anything wrong with plymouth. But they had to drink beer because they couldnt drink the water. The way you drink water, they drank beer. So if theres any possible thing that they might have needed to do with a clear head, that was very difficult for them. I mean, you know. Anyway, thats not the point of this paragraph. Sorry. For bradford, the pilgrim story was parallel to the biblical story of exodus. New world israelites they had with gods help finally found their canaan. Many of his companions on the mayflower, was entirely shaped by his version of the king james old bible testament which had been completed a few years earlier. Every sea was the red sea, every voyage was the voyage of israelites. Bradfords world view made him an effective leader and a resilient soul. Whatever happened to the pilgrims happened in a largen context overseen by an erratic but ultimately loving god. This was the controlling idea through which he saw, understood, and wrote about everything. Bradford took history personally. Modern history, unlike bradfords history, claims to be objective. Our historians write as if theyre reporting events with an unbiased eye. This happened and then that happened. This is our modern equivalent of gods will. An observant neutrality occasionally punctuated with wise commentary. There are many advantages to this kind of history. The historian ostensibly has no ax to grind, no idea to sell, no political point to make. But there are also disadvantages. One is that in taking a broad dispassionate view, historians miss a lot. Their emphasis is on the sweep of time, not on the moments that make up our lives. They are never personal. Their opinions and the assumptions on which they base their lives are hidden. Their history is as far away from memoir as it can get. In these books, we see the panoply of history through the narrow keyhole of our own day in time. Our own beliefs and knowledge. Were stuck in the First Quarter of the 21st century, and looking back over the past 400 years is like trying to make out the details of a ship on a far horizon. Historians make many decisions about how to deal with this. Should we bring modern knowledge to bear on the characters we write about, what kind of language should we use . How will we acknowledge the differences in language between then and now . How will we factor in our own tolerance for womens right or racial integrations into times where those things were unheard of . So those are the questions. And now, im going to go to rhonda really set me up perfectly. The National Character. What creates a National Character . America is another name for opportunity, wrote ralph waldo emerson. Its an opportunity that starts with the pilgrims taking the opportunity and landing in the wrong place. The american attitude toward the law, the american attitude toward hardship, the american insistence on doing things to benefit the individual, all come from that cold afternoon in Province Town harbor. Kar character is a combination of environment and experience, and the american character was being formed in those minutes when the pilgrims finally exhaustedly reached the beach. To survive, they will have to develop a fierce individualism and a craving for freedom that will spread down from the bent arm of the cape toward what will become the Louisiana Purchase and westward to where their feisty spirit will settle huge tracts of land and explore seemingly impassable rivers and mountain ranges. The american character has been formed by 100 forces, defining it as someone has written is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. Still, to try it, it began with new england with the pilgrims landing that afternoon in what is now Provincetown Harbor driven by many forces, both natural and manmade. One of those forces, a force of both pleasure and pain, a force of both brilliance and incompeten

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