Abraham lincolns hand. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this took place virtually, and the New York Historical society provided the video. Good evening, everyone. It is my absolute delight and pleasure to have the opportunity to speak with my good friend and professional colleague Harold Holzer. And as we said, please feel free to use the q a button at the bottom or the top of the screen and well get to as many questions toward the end. Lets turn our attention to some objects that help us describe the civil war. And might we see the cover of our book, civil war in 50 objects. In the museum realm, particularly the history museum, the art, objects, and documents on display have the power to stand in for a larger historical narrative conveying so much more than what is structurally defining of that object itself. But harold, what about our book civil war in 50 objects . How did this come about, and how effective is it at conveying the narrative of the civil war in 50 objects . Its kind of a tactile history that brings you closer to the lived experience of the civil war. Thats because i was thats what made it so exciting for me, and if youre asking how it happened, it happened because of louise maris. She asked me if i would be interested in doing this kind of a chronicle for publication. And she said, why dont you come in . I think you were there that first day of review. Why dont you come in and ill put some of the objects i have in mind on a few tables in the Administrative Offices of the Historical Society . And what i saw during that first visit literally took my breath away because, i mean, we will be discussing these objects over the next four weeks or at least, you know, ten of the 50. But one of them was a relic of Abraham Lincolns presidency in his own hand that i never knew about. And i had been 40 years in the field. Thats just a way of paying tribute to the kind of boundless trove that the New York Historical society boasts. So it was just a thrill to see it. And i wanted i know you did, we wanted to share the thrill of the actual object from war time with our leaders and with members and attendees at the Historical Society. Absolutely. It was hard to whittle them down to 50, so many things to choose from. It was wonderful. We could have done 100, but the mandate was 50, and it was an editing process, for sure. It was. And i enjoyed editing you very much. You are an amazing writer, but also wonderful to edit. Thats how i first got to know you. It was just a thrill. So this is nice to revisit this wonderful project. So tonight, well be looking at two objects in particular. Maybe we can see the images. Yes, a cast of lincolns hand, and a spearlike pike. Now, can we see the pike by itself, please . So this first object looks like a spear from the middle ages. What is it, harold . Its a spear, all right, but its not a spear from the middle ages. It is a weapon that the famous abolitionist john brown ordered from a blacksmith in connecticut to supply the planned raid he had in mind against the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, virginia, what is now West Virginia. Why did he order this kind of a weapon . Because, and its kind of ironic in a way. As much as john brown believed that slavery was evil, that people of color had a right to live in liberty and pursuit of happiness, he didnt harbor illusions about africanamericans of the day and their abilities to use modern weapons, which were nonexistent because even where africanamericans were free, they were generally forbidden from using arms for fear by whites that they would, you know, mount an insurrection. As john brown planned this incredibly daring raid into western virginia, he ordered dozens of these pikes because his idea was not only to raid the arsenal but to arouse african enslaved africanamericans in western virginia at the news of his incursion to rise up against their owners and start a slave insurrection. So these are the weapons he thought African People would be using, you know, in the most primitive manner to secure their own freedom. And theyre simply 66 wooden pikes, by the way, about the height of Abraham Lincoln. And on the end was a buoy knife. It was the simplest, most ancient weapon one could think of. I dont want to get ahead of the story, but the story is whether they were used, obviously, as we go through the story. Right. If we could have the image of john brown, just so we have a sense of who this person was. This is a famous painting in the New York Historical collection. Its huge, like maybe ten feet high, called john browns blessing. Lets talk a bit about him. Who was he . Abraham lincoln himself said john browns effort was peculiar. How so . And by the way, he said that in new york city. And he said it two months after john brown was executed. And ill talk a little bit about brown and then ill explain a bit about why he said what he said. So john brown was a former leather tanner, like ulysses grant, cattle rancher, who had an epiphany in 1837 when a mob in alton, illinois, destroyed the Printing Press of a journalist named elijah lovejoy, and then killed him in the warehouse where he had hidden his Printing Press. He was an abolitionist editor. That event had an interesting impact on the two people were going to be speaking about tonight. For Abraham Lincoln, it inspired his very first major public address. In his home in springfield, illinois, where he said this act of violence should inspire reverence for the laws. As john brown interpreted it, he believed it should inspire reverence for insurrection. He became an abolitionist overnight, and he believed in armed resistance to the struggle. And he devoted the next 22 years of his life to ending slavery with violence if necessary. In the 1850s, he and his sons led a band of antislavery guerillas into kansas, a disputed state, which was either going to enter the union as a slave or free state, to frighten proslavery residents and those coming in to add to the proslavery voting bloc. And you know, conducted battles, burned peoples towns, and meanwhile, the proslavery people were burning abolitionist towns and destroying newspapers and courthouses. He killed so many people in kansas that he became it sort of became bloody kansas on his watch. And his initiative. And he became one of named after one of those battles that his armed men fought. And then he retreated back to new york, where he was funded by a lot of donors to mount this next insurrection into virginia. So while Abraham Lincoln is debating for the senate and he is part of the political system, for sure, and he believes in gradualism to destroy slavery, brown is still at his armed insurrection per se, and many famous people donate to the fundraising for this. Frederick douglass and others. We dont know for sure about douglass. We know that he was frightened enough when the raid came up that he fled to europe to get away from prosecution. But William Lloyd garrison donated 25. Future governor of massachusetts, john andrew, donated money. And he marched to maryland with his sons and a band of 18 people. With the spears, and in october 1859, a surprise attack against the old arsenal in Harpers Ferry, which is still there, still stands. Overpowered the guard, took over the arsenal, and from there, everything went wrong. Plantation owners surrounded him on the hills around the arsenl e which sits on the confluence of several rivers. Its a crazy place to build an arsenal, but there were 100,000 weapons there. It was an inviting target. And eventually, as history tells us, he was taken prisoner. And there was a fascinating cast of characters when i was reading this essay again that participated in the raid on Harpers Ferry, even robert e. Lee, jeb stewart. They show up in the story. How did that unfold with them . And ultimately, what happened to brown . It was an act, considered an act of treason by the governor of virginia, even though it was federal property, so he immediately called out the marines. And the commander of the marine regiment that went, that marched on Harpers Ferry to get john brown out of there and arrest or kill him, was colonel robert e. Lee. Not the lee we know about who had the luxorian beard that john brown had, but a very handsome supposed to be the handsomest officer in the army with a black mustache, and he at one point dispatched one of his officers to walk up to the arsenal and demand that john brown surrender or be taken dead or alive, and the person he dispatched to do that was jeb stewart, who would be one of his generals in the Confederate Army in just two or three years from that point. Brown refused to surrender. The marines stormed the arsenal. Another of browns sons was killed in the raid. Brown was nearly killed. He was struck with a sword, but he lived. And he was put on trial very quickly. By december, he had been convicted and he was hanged. In charlestown, virginia. Just a few miles away from Harpers Ferry. The painting that we looked at a minute ago by noble, who grew up on a plantation, by the way, and was radicalized against slavery himself, shows a moment in legend that has some truth in it. And that is that brown, as he was marched down the courthouse steps, toward the gallows, with a jeering mob, and some sympathetic africanamericans outside, saw a woman with a baby, and the woman held her child up for a blessing, and brown put his hand on the babys head as if to bless the child, and this moment of kield nd of nobility and courage became instantaneously a weapon and was quickly immortalized by the former slave owner painter who had also become very, very antislavery. By the way, talk about the continuing coincidences, Abraham Lincoln was in kansas, the site of john browns original raids, when the news came that he was executed. And lincoln gave a speech in leavenworth at which he said john brown is executed. He committed treason, and there was no other recourse, but let this be a lesson to any Southern State that contemplates treason against the union in the future. They will be dealt with exactly the same way. Yeah, and then when he comes to new york, just a few months later in february, to give his cooper union address, his Harpers Ferry, it would thrust him into national fame. He says, val, what you said earlier. John browns case was a peculiar one. And what he wanted to convey by that, by peculiar, he means unique, not strange. He wants people to understand that antislavery men are not all violent. Theyre not all willing to start an armed rebellion. He wants people to know that there is a way of putting slavery, as he puts it that night, on the course of ultimate extinction without violence. As we know, that was not what the future held. But he wanted to separate the Republican Party from john brown, for sure. Lets just see the pike one last time again. And before we move on to our next object. Just so looking at this pike again, just explain how these weapons exactly were used with this little knife at the end of a stick and how the handful of africanamericans would joined the raid, they werent really instructed on how to use them. ni do you want to explain. Yeah, i mean, i am assuming that you hold a javelin style and you throw it or use it underhand to thrust against your enemies. But the fact is, as you point out, they were never used and irony piles upon irony. When the africanamericans who were part of the john brown Raiding Party saw these weapons, they had no clue and had never been to the movies, they had never seen racist interpretations of native people using spears so they hadnt a clue. So by that time brown had trained them in the use of rifles. Idea that africanamericans were not capable of using modern weaponry would be dispelled within four years when africanamericans joined the union army and fought for their own freedom. But they had no clue. And neither do i, when it comes down to it. It looks pretty daunting to me. It is a fascinating object and it is a thrill to see it. By the way, im sorry to interrupt, the 1,000 of these made for this slave insurrection that never occurred and theyre all numbered so we have number 101 which is pretty good in the distribution. Well, you conclude your essay in the book saying john brown tried to launch a madern revolution with spears. With a medieval weapon, yeah. Lets move on to the next object this evening. This is a castor actually a cast by i guess it is augustus st. Goddens. Here is the ghand and wrestler and fairy debater, it looks like he was swatting bees, you say, he also, of course, if you want to row mant size that it is called the emancipation proclamation. So tell us how these casts were made. It is started with a sculpture, leonard wills volk, who is a cousin by marriage of steven a. Douglas, while volk was a nonpartisan artist and after seeing Abraham Lincoln conduct a trial in 1860, he asked him to pose. He had seen him when he was a douglas rooter and lincoln came to his studio on dearborn street in chicago in march of 1860 to have a life mask made which was a tool that sculptures of the period used if they werent going to enjoy repeated sitting and lincoln was a trial lawyer on a case so he submitted to this very difficult life mask process, with plaster hardening on his face for 30 minutes while he had straws in his nose for breathing and then when it came time to take it off, he couldnt get it off and lincoln took those massive hands and tugged and volk remembered that it brought tears to lincolns eyes because they pulled the hairs out of the temple and he did not remember it with amusement. But it did come back and then pose for the bust a bit. He would come from court, he would take off his jacket, he would take off his shirt and he would, volk asked him to pull downize union suit, i guess i was wearing long underwear, so he took off his long underwear top and tied it in front of him and he was pretty embarrassed about it because when it was over he raced down the stairs and someone stopped him on the street and said, excuse me sir, excuse me, tall sir, but your sleeves of your underwear seem to be dragging behind you. So he had to go back to the any way, volk told the story. He was going to make he did complete this bust from neck up. I have a little copy of it. I hope people could see it. It is over my shoulder, that little white plaster was the copy of the original bust. Lincoln liked it. He said there is the animal himself. He said when he saw it. Then a couple of months later, lincoln was nominated for president. Well volk realized he had something going on here. He didnt just have to do a small bust to put in a store window in chicago with his other work, so got on a train the day that lincoln was nominated in chicago, lincoln was not there, he was home, tradition of the day, and he got to lincolns home town of springfield, the day after the nomination and he said now id like to cast your hands as well because you are a National Figure now and i wan to make a full length statue of you as i have done of my cousin Steven Douglas who you just defeated and he finances my Art Education in rome but youre the man. Could we just lets just look at a picture of lincoln. Can we just throw that up on the screen. This is a photograph of the animal himself. Right. And by the way, whatever the capture is, it is 1864, it is not 1865. Well that is from our collection, from our print. Early period wrote that in. That is right. In pen. That is not what we do now. Right. But you said in your essay that lincoln realized that in order to be taken seriously as a statesman he needed to subject himself to make himself more readily available to painters and sculptures and artists. Why is that. He had been photographed from time to time. Obviously when that picture was taken he was already one of the most photographed men in the country. But what a great choice because it shows those hands as they looked when he was in repose. Photographs were fine. They were becoming popular because they could be reproduced by 1860 and 61 and be circulated to increase a persons recognition quotient. But paintings were for famous people. Lincoln had gone to washington and seen the statue of George Washington outside of the capitol even though it was something of a national joke and was later relegated to the smithsonian, he had seen the statue of jefferson outside of the white house at resepgs sece and that was gone. But so volk was the first and there were other sculptures who followed and artists who were available for sittings even though he never sat still the way washington did for stewart. He always chatted but he made himself almost constantly available, never said no. Ive only found a few examples over the next five years. And by the way, when volk arrived on may 19th, 1860 to do the hands, lincoln was not in the best condition to have that kind of a thing done. Lets just see that hand again. Could we see that image again, please. There we go. So the night before he hosted a reception at his home after winning the nomination and he had shaken thousands of hands to the point where his hand had swelled up and you could see there are no veins on the back of the hand because the hand was puffy. Volk said to lincoln, this casting was done at his home in springfield. And volk said, mr. Lincoln, do you have an object that you could hold. So lincoln excused himself and the next thing volk remembered is he heard sawing coming from the direction of lincolns privy and shed and when lincoln came back he was holding the end of a stick and he explained that he had cut a handle off a broom and now he was whittling it and volk said, mr. Lincoln, you dont have to do that because im just im not going to use the stick in the final sculpture. And lincoln said oh, i wanted to have it nice. So he continued to whittle it and that is the cast of the right hand that had shake ebb so many had shaken so many hands it had swollen. That is something that happened to lincoln because we know that just three years later, his hand was so swollen from handshaking at a new years reception at the white house, he felt he could not sign the emancipation proclamation until he rested and stretched, people who were with him, about four witnesses, who he put the pen down people thought he would renege on signing the proclamation and he explained, ive shaken so much hands for new years at our party that i have no feeling in my hand and into people look in a hundred years at my signature and see that it is quivering, they will think i hesitated. And so he waited. So that was a consequence the way Richard Nixon grew a mustache during a debate, i Abraham Lincolns hand swelled up. And before q a, i waned to ask you one more thing. If we could see the image of lincoln. This is Daniel Wester chess and we have the life size head for Lincoln Memorial but this is very famous sculpture of lincoln. And id like you to tell our audience about the reach of the casts that volk did and how subsequent generations of sculptures owe a great dead of gratitude for what he did. So, obviously, in the absence of the living model after 1865, sculptures relied on volk, volk went on to create his statue. There is one in rochester and one in springfield, not enormously successful as public works of art but he did reproduce busts, nondrape busts, the hands and he did very well manufacturing this these reproductions. So that sculptures eventually bought copies of their own. Augustus used the mask for his standing in chicago and Daniel Chester french, of course, used the mask and the hands which are preserved at chesterwood in the stock bridge, massachusetts, to model the great Lincoln Memorial sculpture. And no, they dont say a. L. In sign language which is a myth about the hands in the Lincoln Memorial. Interesting. I wrote a book so i get a love of questions about that and he done a statue of gala det so it was his tribute to the death of students and teachers he had come to know during that commission. Anyway, i digress, later the hands become great collectibles and saint goddens own copy, a bronze, is the one that the New York Historical society owns. By the way, in an accident of geography, the left hand from the saint goddens set is across the park at the metropolitan museum of art and people could run from one side of the park to the other to see the complete set. You know, it is interesting, how did it come to be augustus saint goddens get his copy. The editor of the magazine owned the original copy at one point and he browns replicas made. And here is the most fitting irony for the day. Liz name was Richard Watson guilder. Richard guilter. And the new york society and all of the other objects of his life of generosity just lost our richard guilder and sort of brings the story full cycle, full cycle. Absolutely, indeed. Were about out ready to open it up for questions. Our first one is this, why with George Washington and Thomas Jefferson statues considered jokes and removed. I only said the washington is a joke. Because it kind of is. But jefferson was removed because they remodeled the fountain area where it had stood. The washington was a the sculpture showed washington if a toga, bare chested. And although it was visible it is huge. It is gigantic. And it is visible in the early photographs of president ial inaugurations. Lincoln looked at the back of it when he was inaugurated in 1861 and 1865. But people just thought it was a riot to see George Washington without a shirt and they nicknamed it georgie if his bath. Or georgie poor g, it was not washington but the work and eventually it was taken away at one of the early Capitol Plaza renovations and it sits down i think in the National Museum of American History where it is at eye level and not you cant really tell much from it. It sort of banished to a corner. But there is was. It was one of the most prominent public sculptures in the country. Lets see. We have another question, where is the Steven Douglas statue now . The Steven Douglas statue, which is teamy like Steven Douglas, is on top of the stairway at the Old State Capitol in springfield, illinois. It was purchased for the state. And it sits just outside, ironically, of the room where Abraham Lincoln delivered his house divided address in 1858 warning against the divisiveness in the country over the slavery issue. Steven douglas was full foot or more shorter than lincoln, was he not . Yeah, he was about 54 a lincoln was 64 and they might have made a contrast on the stage. Is there any plmemorial to jn brown and if so, when did it become acceptable to have a memorial to him. John browns hesitation has gone up and down over the years. Most people condemned him. The Africanamerican Community never did, incidentally. And for generations he was dismissed as a mad man. And you could go up to the 1940s, i think the movie was called sante fe trail and i hope im not wrong about the movie, my donor was a film historian will be very angry at me. But it he was portrayed, interestingly, by Raymond Massey who also portrayed Abraham Lincoln in a famous film and portrayed him as a demonic mad man. I would say the most famous memorial tribute to john brown, and im going to get the dates wrong so i wont venture them, is a mural in the topeka state house which shows brown as sort of an angel of god with his hands upraised and fire, war breaking out in back of him. It makes him sort of an apostle of violence that leads to freedom. And it is appropriate that it is in topeka, in a way, because it is the town where the brown v. Board of education case was hatched. It is also very poignant to see his grave and his, i guess his sons are with him in lake placid, just a very simple but beautiful memorial in and of itself, i think. Here is another question about john brown, why didnt he use the muskets that were in the armory rather than the spears. He did. He just didnt think the africanamerican followers would be able to use the muskets. Once they were liberated or liberated themselves which is the unlikely scenario he created from the plantations nearby. He used there was rifle fire at the armory. He broke out a few windows and fired back at lees marine contingent and there was a lot of exchange of gunfire when the marines led the charge, broke down the thick rounded door to the armory. So they used the rifles for sure. Here is another question also. A lot of interesting john brown this evening, which is great. Something as odd looking, were trying to keep lincoln away from you, youre the lincoln man. But it is interesting how a spear could generate this kind of discussion about the topic of john brown and what he stood for. And here is a question. Was his antislavery passion a function of his religion and were his sons as dedicated to the antislavery causes as john brown was . So the answers are yes and yes, it is definitely bound up in religion and in gods his interpretations of gods will and hatred of slavery. So it is a messianic approach. Val, when you say that the overwhelming number of questions are about the pike, i dont know if you remember how worried we were about putting that thing that object at the beginning of the book. Because it doesnt really photograph all that well. It is what it is. And also how do you convey the size of it . Because it is 69. Like this in the book. And you came up with the idea of running it diagonally across two pages which at least added some heft to it and that is a good decision. But again, im glad people get it. Because it is not a picturesque object for sure. No, not at all. So here is one about the yoke casts. How many were created from the original and where were they described during lincolns life. So there were casts of the hands and face and there were busts. There is no good count of how many of these were created and it is also extremely hard to it takes an expert eyes that are more expert than mine to tell what type of mask they were. The masks started in the 1880s and cap rony and company was one of the early manufacturers of them and you could see little brass name plate in the plaster of some of them. The bronzes were much more exclusive and much more expensive. But it is like having lab prints, there are no record and theyre valuable and desirable in private and public collections, but they were i dont want to say common, but they were ubiquitous. Well you could still buy them in our store at New York Historical, i believe, right. And lincoln had a second life mask taken a couple of months before his death. A much easier to bear process, but it never achieved the popularity of the first one. And the first mask inspired poetry and, again, the patronage of other artists who recognized it as the model. And there is a certain immediateness to seeing the hands, make a nice paper weight. There is actually a question i think were going to get every week. And maybe the answer will be different every week. What item of the 50 objects is your favorite and the most significant . Which might not be one in the same. But which is your favorite . My favorite is probably one that we will get to at the end of the program, the end of the series, so i shouldnt say too much about it, but it is very much like a 19th century version of tim russerts famous oak tab tabulation of electoral votes and if those remember the election, the late tim russert, vote down the votes, here is how florida and West Virginia will do this and how bush could get to 270 and here is how gore could get to 270. That book tag is in the smithsonian. Well the New York Historical site has a mini version, Abraham Lincoln calculated how on earth as unpopular as he is in 1864 hell get to the required number of electoral votes to be reelected. That is my favorite. A disturbing little document. Did you ask about the most significant, too. Yes. So we will get to this one, too. But lets say it is a original relic of the draft riots in new york of 1863. Which consumed almost the city but certainly sent it into fear and much destruction and death as well. And we have a living relic of that ep seed in American History. And you describe it so beautifully in the book. I have to say it is one of my favorite chapters of the book. Thank you. But we wont give it away. Well have to come back and hear it next time. Ill get a chance to ease my mind,a mind, as you say. I think we have time for one or two more questions. Which was lincolns favorite bust or portrait of him and was it the one that you discussed . Well, he told a sculpture in 1864 that he had created his favorite mud head. That was his description of another bust. But if that is so, i dont really think his taste was that terrific because it is not as good as the volk or saint goddens, which is later. He is very practical. He likes the next work that is being done. He liked to photograph from his prepresidency in 1857 but his wife didnt like it, he admitted, because the disordered condition of his hair. So i think well rely on what he said to a print maker who sent him a copy of an engraved portrait and lincoln wrote back and said, it seems to me an excellent likeness but truth to say i am a very indifferent judge. Fair enough. Looks pretty good in the matthew brady, famous and iconic well he had some question about that because his hair was parted on the wrong side for that day. And he always thought that i think he thought they looked peculiar. But those sittings have inspired the 5 bill photographs and the lincoln penny. One other question about john brown and the pike. Why were they numbered . I think it is a habit of the Metal Workers and the forge where they were made. Or, and we dont know, maybe the person who made them and supplied them to john brown and he was paid of course, maybe he thought these were going to go down in history as important a relic for freedom as the muskets that we used at lexington an concord. And again to have our number 101, were very excited about. Another question here, did lincoln express any opinion with respect to brown and his actions either publicly or privately . After reading the book yeah, i think ive relayed all of his accounts and that is that he thought he was regarded as a traitor, that is what he said publicly. It was just dangerous for a mainstream politician, even a liberal politician of 1860, to identify with armed revolt and armed insurrection against the south. And if lincoln had the hindsight that we have in 2020 he would look back, no doubt, on john brown as a hero of the second american revolution. But he could not afford that kind of casual dismissal of the violence at that time. Right. Last question. Large hands can be a manifestation of martians disease, did lincoln have this disease and did it have any influence on his presidency. Wow, that is a tough one to answer quickly but i see were almost out of time so ill try. So mock van syndrome is a disorder that has been attributed to lincoln. It manifests by causing its vikes to be tall and loose joints, to have eye issues and lincoln did have a roving eye to suffer from depression, which arguably lincoln did at times. However and his voice, too. I mean the voice is a little a clenched voice at times. But patients are seldom live to the age that lincoln lived and cut down to the age of 56. And theyre also weak. They dont have power in their hands. Lincoln was a rail splitter of course in his youth and in the weeks before he died, he was on a boat back from the front in virginia, back toward the white house and was riding on the deck of the ship and saw one of those axes in the corner of the ship, those who were old enough remember these used to be axes in all Public Schools that said in case of fire break glass with this ax and get a hose and put out the fire, i guess. But it was an ax. And lincoln said to his young guests on board, i would like to show you a feat of strength, i wonder if any of you could do this and this is something that we have witnesses attesting that he did it periodically, if he saw an ax in an Office Building or a government building, he liked to show off. And ill do a poor imitation of an ax. He took it between his thumb and forefinger and extended it far and held it parallel and let it drop thug to the deck of the ship and he said anyone like to try. Guess what . No one could do it. So he enjoyed showing that off. And every physician that ive ever spoken to insists that a m marfan could do that at age 56. But it is a tough myth to destroy. That is a lot of information packed into two minutes. And 45 minutes. And i see that were out of time. And thank you, so much, harold, for being a terrific partner in tonights program and in this series which i look forward to doing with it. I do too. It is a great first episode. And val, thank you for being such a great partner in the civil war in 50 objects and to louise for making it all possible. It was a real thrill. And im so happy to revisit it. And i want to thank our audience for watching this evening. For your attention and for your questions anl most importantly for your membership support through this time. We look forward to seeinga back here a week from tonight when we move to the war itself, looking at a trio of objects connected to abolition. Until then, thank you and good night all. Youre watching American History tv, every weekend on cspan3, explore our nations past, cspan3, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. Weeknights this month were featuring American History tv programs as a preview of every weekend on cspan3. Tonight a look at hiroshima, nagasaki and the end of world war ii. August 9th marked 75 years since the u. S. Dropped a second atomic bomb on japan. Devastating the city of nagasaki days after the first attack on hiroshima. We examine president harry tewmans decision to use the new weapon and the legacy of the attacks. Guests include richard frank, author of downfall, the end of the Imperial Japanese empire and peter cussnick, watch tonight beginning at 8 00 eastern, American History tv, this week and every weekend on cspan3. American history tv on cspan3. Skpl exploring the people and events that tell the american story every weekend. Coming up this weekend, saturday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern on american artifacts, library of congress curator beverly brannon on life in the 1930s and 40s through colored photographs and on sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, three films on the 1976 elections produced by the u. S. Information agency for an international audience. Then at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the the presidency, acceptance speeches from five president ial nominees, harry tewman, stevenson, Dwight Eisenhower and john kennedy and Richard Nixon. Exploring the american story, watch American History tv this weekend on cspan3. We continue now with the story with Harold Holzer and Valerie Paley looking at