I was really worried about giving him my manuscript. I thought whatever was going to happen was probably not going to be good. Anyway, so i thought what what i would do is wait until friday and then i would give it to him and that way he would have the weekend to cool down. So friday rolls around and he comes into the clinic and all of my coworkers knew what was going to happen, they are all anticipating this. He walks in and has a big cast on his leg. One of my coworkers pointed that out to me she said hey look at dell, at at least she cannot chase you around. So i gave him my manuscript and waited for him to completely go after me. Instead, he got really sentimental. He told me that we had this new hospital, these nice facilities, and most of the staff had stayed on but he always it felt like there was something missing. He could never put his finger on what it was and then he realized, that it was a spirit, it was a ghost that you could actually feel when you are at the old walter reed. I really felt like he said at the best. Walter reed was americas oldest military hospital. It was open for 102 years. It treated soldiers from every single war we fought and from world war one forward. Its over 500,000 patients. Of course there is a spirit there, it was the spirit you could feel every day. So, if you read the book i hope you think about that spirit and i appreciate your time. Thank you [applause]. If we could just open up the floor for maybe one question, does anyone anyone have question for mr. Levine . I think it is interest. I watch the Lincoln Movie and that was about walter reed and everything like that. All of the history that went through that place is really astounding for everybody in america who is familiar with it. So how did you feel being a part of that entire history . Were you able to follow the history or were you just concentrating on your work . That is a great question, i love the history there. They have the original hospital, we worked in the newer hospital but we had to go to the original hospital to get a lot of administrative stuff done. They had the stairs, the stone steps that actually sagged in the middle. So so many people had walked up them, every time i walked up it just blew me away. I just cannot believe that this was really going to happen, we are really going to shut down. We hoped until the last second that would not be the case because so much history had happened there. To think that we were going to be his final chapter was extremely sobering. I was very grateful to have been there. I really am said they are going to develop it. Hopefully they develop it in a nice way that we can all enjoy. It used to to be a civil war camp for a while. It has been there throughout american history. Thank you all for attending the session. I hope that you are enjoying your time here at the louisiana book festival. We will have your book signing from 10 45 a. M. To 11 30 a. M. At the barnes noble tent where she will have her book, run dont walk, the curious and courageous life inside walter reed medical center. Thank you. [applause]. Our coverage of the 12th annual louisiana book festival continues with the life of George Washington carver. A man born into slavery and invented many items that are still used today. Good morning, thank you for coming out in this gloomy halloween day. It is my privilege to introduce to you the distinguished historian and writer, doctor bella. He has worked many years and is the visiting professor at tulane, she lectures on historical and biographical topics and is a consultant for the u. S. State department. Her first book book was published by lsu press where i work was chosen as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times book review which praised her spectacular job of excavating the historical records. Also a coveted star review from weekly which called it a spellbinding narrative of 19th century france in new orleans. She has written the wellreceived hitler twist, indecent secrets. Lsu press is it proud to be the publisher of her most recent book entitled George Washington carver, a life. This research and investigation into the life and career of one of the most remarkable man it of the last century is the first biography to fully examine both carvers personal life and his scientific achievement. It is written in highly accessible and engaging style and the volume has only been out one month has already received wonderful notes from the press. It says that this is an extraordinary look at the life of a brilliant man, it it is also garnered a very favorable notice from Publishers Weekly review that says it is carvers genuine genuine warmth that shines in the story while producing scientific achievements that benefited all. Lsu press is proud to be the publisher of this book and i am on or to introduce its author for you today. Please join me in welcoming doctor christina bella. Thank you darling, i dont know if i can live up to all that. Thank you so much for braving the rain. It occurs to me that if you are not an american and if youre not young, or if youre not old, you might not know exactly who George Washington carver is. That is kind of amazing because in 1950, if you had asked any third grader who is George Washington carver that could would have known, they would have told you everything about him and all the things George Washington carver did. If you ask him who is president of the United States he may or may not have known. Thats a famous carver was. It was a deserved deserved vein. What did he do exactly . Well, he came to the south and discovered there was abject poverty among the sharecroppers of the south because they had been producing cotton on the same land over and over again. Cotton leaches the soil. So it was producing less cotton. The south was in a miserable condition. The sharecroppers worse darling. He saw saw what they needed to do was find some cash crop that would enrich the soil and at the same time they could sell. So he did experiments and came up with something that was wonderful for the soil, it was within a few seasons it would make it productive. That something, was peanuts. Peanuts and Sweet Potatoes were really good for southern soil. Peanuts, and those state was no more a cash crop and parsley. If you tell someone youre going to plant peanuts will say what they can do with pain its you cant sell peanuts. So he set about trying to invent things to make products that would make peanut something you could sell as a cash crop. In the course of his research as he came up with over 2000, over 2000 products made a penis. That was that was not all. He took all kinds of things that were useless, things like nobody wanted, things that were going to waste like animal bones. Barnyard feathers, red clay in the hills of alabama. Alabama was where he is located. Weeds, all sorts of things, dust. Can you imagine dust. All sorts of things. He came up with commercial products. By with commercial products. By the time of his death, peanuts was the thirdbiggest cash crop in alabama and georgia. He had actually succeeded in pulling these beautiful sharecroppers out of destitution and made a lot of them at least good farmers. Added the start off . He was born on a slave farm to kindly white people and when he was an infant he was kidnapped and taken to arkansas this was during the civil war when all authority has broken down with no police or army in the area to keep order. So they say we are confederates. They werent they were just a hoodlums. Basically they were gains of neighborhood teenagers. His mother was separated and she was never found but his older said to someone after him and traded him for a race horse and brought him backing and praised him. And was taught to paid that to play the fiddle. He could not really was totally illiterate. When carver was 10 years old he wanted to go to school but the white school would not have him. So he went to missouri inmate to school there howdahs a tendril to arrive by himself . Egos to work for a family and works for them during the day and tell he saved enough money to go to school to buy books and he goes to school for three of four months until he runs out of money and then goes back again. That is how he survived from the age of than until he finishes high school in his mid20s. He was of a drifter going to all the upstart towns in kansas and allaround to always see if he could work but they were selling of the west city graduates from a highschool in his mid20s he has all of his letters of recommendation to go to college he wanted so badly to have a College Education and a number turned him down but one that had advertised that we are open to everybody and all sorts of people so he gathered his information and applied and walked 25 miles to get there. They take one look at him and they said we now and were open for indians not negros so he was turned away. He didnt have enough money to get back so he stayed in the town embar a washboard and he started to take laundry to support himself so he was supporting a sell washing and ironing clothes and at one point he tried his luck and a homesteading they would give people lead they would build on it and farm. Said he gets his stake in a little land. The when you get these documents did you read exactly what they required the people who were getting the land they read about the size of what i am walking in right now. A big bathroom you had to build a side house then ucb inventory, and the actual documents for the chair is in the washtubs and the plants and their side houses. To get your hands on these documents. So he is nice for three years. For discussion is of great authors. How did he learn about grey authors . And a white church she could hear music how did you learn . And is almost enough to make key religious. To have such marvelous taste. And managing as a wonderful painter on a farm to take flowers and boil them. And the paintings on the tree stump and that is how he had his artistic ability said he is okay for about three years. And the teacher tells them you have no future at all as a negro artist. So i want to apply to iowa state to get a degree in agriculture. But they wont take me. He said yes. My head is that my father is the head of the Botany Department said he went to iowa state in worked his way through a and he lived in the toolshed auntie chiapas he found no plumbing and no water no electricity nothing. Just a bare toolshed. He moved into it he lifted it the whole time. He worked as a janitor but i was day was not just any college. It was the harvard of agricultural school. It is hard to remember that america could not be is also they were desperate for scientist in our agricultural science is what i. T. Is today. So he goes to a school that produces three secretaries of agriculture. In a vi of agriculture. In a vicepresident ial candidate. He goes to a school where they will all become bigwigs. Especially Henry Wallace and james wilson. Henry a. Wallace. They loved him. They think he is a genius. And then did all sorts of things with his knowledge and they encourage am a fate he has hung the moon. And that he gets up faculty position. He is a professor. Everything turns up roses. Is doing Important Research he is valued if you have read the thousands of letters of this man he was positive he didnt have a critical word. He always has a jocund something funny. They loved him to death but a man named booker t. Washington though happens to be the foremost black man of his time passes through iowa and once to interview with George Washington carver and asks him to come to tuskegee in alabama. It calls itself a colleges really a Vocational School in the hills of alabama. And carr were falls under the spell of booker t. Washington. He does not come off too well in my book. Probably one of the most unpleasant ruth was and contemptible people i have met in history. I dont begrudge him his feelings to the white people because if you lived in that time there was no other way. But what i cannot excuse is the abominable treatment he yells out to anyone that is personally connected with his cohorts or anybody. He has a very fraught relationship with booker t. Washington that in fact, end with the woman he was in love with throwing yourself off the top of the building. Our time is short but i should tell you that besides fighting into making washington wretched he dies and carvers career was a lad to take off. He is famous everywhere in the world. Then from all the racial hatred he fell head over heels in love with a 23 yearold white man that lasted 10 years ben carver was thought to have come up with a cure for polio. He was also was citing people with his oriole 12 hours a day. People were lighting up begging for help. I want to tell you before i close that carver never accepted a fee for lecturing