Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On Women And Power 20150426

Pride in being both barbadian and being of african descent. Let me throw out another question. In the 1970s professor Laurel Thatcher ulrich coined the phrase well behaved women seldom make history. [laughter] tell me if you agree. What rules did your women break and what rules did they follow and why . [laughter] well, for angela davis i think despite the fact that her upbringing was really one of the ways in which she was influenced and became amenable to the ideals of communism and the left, her mother being an activist, and she was also politicized in college as well, angela davis sort of coming into her own, she was born in 1944 and so she was growing up at the time of the emergence of the civil rights and black power movements. And in a lot of ways she stepped aside from some of the ideals of nationalism, the strong black identity politics, and she infused that with a sense of deep class analysis. So she was very strong in terms of the connection between to oppression and class, also on speaking to to presentation of women in particular. So in a lot of ways even though she was part of a movement of people who were trying to make this social change, she was still also a little bit on the outside of that because of her radical ideas, because of her stance as a woman that even though people embraced her in a symbolic way, there were many times when the actual angela davis and all of the complexities of her politics were actually rejected by people who may have aligned with her. So shes definitely somebody who blazed her own path and she was not a pioneer in that way though. I feel like she was walking on the path that many left organizations and leftist women had opened the doors to. So she was very influential in that way, and i think in a lot of ways she continues to do that, sort of blaze her own path and break rules. Well Elizabeth Gurley flynn was known as the rebel girl, so she was certainly famous for that image. And in a way it reminds me a little bit of angela davis because her image was so significant to the movements that she led. So this image of this young woman, you know, with flowing hair standing up on a soap box and proclaiming in the early 20th century was this really striking image about that the iww used. And flynn really embraced that idea of herself as the rebel girl. But one of the things that really interested me in the research was that while she was very far, you know, leftist of the left, very rebellious in terms of her politics, in terms of her personal life in certain ways she was a little bit more conventional. She never got married but when she got pregnant, when she was 17 actually, she did get married. She did get married briefly when she got pregnant. The guy was sort of incidental to the baby. [laughter] but she didnt feel like she could be an unwed mother. So it was interesting to me that even though she wasnt really that interested in this man she felt like she had to marry him. And i think part of that was that although her family was very radical her mother was a feminist and her father was a socialist. In certain ways they had sort of victorian values, and they expected their daughter to behave respectably. And she was also very aware she was, she really wanted to be a significant figure in the Labor Movement, and some of the people in the Labor Movement didnt share her kind of radical ideas about sexuality. And she didnt want to alienate them. So that was another reason why she felt like she had to get married when she got pregnant. How about, how about Catherine Beecher . [laughter] she was very bad. [laughter] having described her as the Martha Stewart of the 19th century, you have some explaining to do, lucy. [laughter] martha went to jail. Thats true. So Catherine Beecher was, as i mentioned, not a radical but she and she definitely had you know, she definitely advocated a very prescribed role for women. And she really was addressing middle class white women primarily, although Catherine Beecher also did have writings for working class women. She had some manuals for servants, for example, but those were largely about how servants should act in the homes of middle class women. So she she did not believe that women should go outside of their domestic roles. She really believed that and she did not believe that men and women were equal. She really earn sized, as many emphasized as many people did of her time, she emphasized a difference, the differences between men and women and the i ways in which women should capitalize on those differences or emphasize those differences in order to create a space for themselves in the polity. So beecher definitely believed women should have a role in, as they called it at the time, the public sphere, but she didnt think that that role should be a role of employment or a role of political protests. She argued against suffrage for women which put her at odds with another one of her sisters, actually, isabelle beecher, who was a suffragist. So she definitely had a kind of, again, prescribed sense of where women should be. But even with that she did believe that women should play this role, that women should emphasize domesticity and that they should have a role in the polity because they were mothers, and they were responsible for the home and for raising families essentially. And so how could they to that if they did not how could they do that if they were not aware or if they were not involved in some way in reform . And that actually, was the link between her work with domesticity and her work with education, was that she really believed that womens education should not just be, essentially finishing school, but actually women should be educated in order to be able to raise, you know, well rounded children who then could take a role in the polity. What do you think was most surprising was the most surprising thing you discovered when you were working on the biography . Im a biographer as well, and theres always something that suddenly you go, boy, i didnt expect this, or i never realized this. Barbara, do you have a thought on that . Finish. Well, quickly one of the most interesting things for me doing the research was learning about the history of barbados. And i just and the connections between barbados and the United States. And since you mentioned the domino sugar building, brooklyns wealth was based upon sugar, and most of the sugar came from barbados. So the connection between chisholms 20th century life and the history of slavery and sugar and wealth are connected. But one thing that i will say that i knew about but i didnt realize the depths of it was the misogyny against Shirley Chisholm. Misogyny, i mean, misonly you cant misogyny, you cant it was sort of so unreal and so deep and so hateful someone i interviewed for the book told me that when mrs. Chisholm was in congress and she would sit at meetings when she would get up from her chair, you know to leave the meeting a white southern male congressman would wash down her seat. I mean, this is, you know, disgusting behavior. Some of you who remember nixon and his dirty tricks, you know, they did the letter that, you know made muskie cry in public, and they did all sorts of dirty tricks, but if you buy my book or read it, you will see what the Nixon Administration to mrs. Chisholm was absolutely excra bl, and i mean that world and despicable, and it was very gendered and very racial used. Racialized. The Congressional Black Caucus, the men in the Congressional Black Caucus, the depp canths of their dislike of her and the misogyny toward her was really mind boggling, how they were jealous, they were angry that she ran for president , and the things they said about her really bothered me very deeply. But in the end we shouldnt be surprised. [laughter] right . If Catherine Beecher heres my favorite question. If Catherine Beecher angela davis, Elizabeth Gurley flynn and Shirley Chisholm sat down together for dinner not what would they eat, but what would they talk about . Are there commonalities this their experiences in their experiences despite the differences in class race, chronology and political orientation . Well sorry. I was actually thinking about Judy Chicagos dinner party and all of these historical women sitting down together for dinner and what they would talk about. And i think with our four subjects, this is going to seem really off the wall, but what i think maybe after a couple of glasses of wine they might get to is the question of who does your hair. [laughter] because each one of these women has a really distinctive hair style that communicates a lot about her. I mean, if you think about Catherine Beecher with those curls, i mean, that is very labor intensive. [laughter] and angela davis, her afro is so iconic. And i know from talking with barbara that you met the woman who used to comb out Shirley Chisholms wigs, and Elizabeth Gurley flynn she went to prison for being a communist. One of the thicks she wrote things she wrote about missing was going to the hair dresser every week and getting her hair dope. So what did these hair styles mean to these women . They were very much a part of their public image. And if you look at prechisholms election to congress andchism how manys chisholms election to congress, you really see the impact of the large, of the wigs that she wore. Any other topics you think they might cover . [laughter] i really like that because it would be something i talked about too. Well, in a more open way i think they might talk about the personal politics or what it meant to be an activist a mother or a partner a family member, how did people respond who were close to them to choices that they made, to what extent dud that leave them isolated and lonely or did it bring them community . I think those questions are often times not focused on, but i think women who are activists you know, are sort of rooted in all of those questions, right . Theyre fully you know, theyre embodied human as they go around changing the world and they do make sacrifices. And some of them are deeply political, and they to face consequences that are deeply political, and they do have joys that are deeply personal and political too. So id be curious to find out you know, those kinds of topics because its interesting two of the women were married and two one pretty briefly and two were single. Do you think that this would be a topic of conversation about what was gained, what was lost by these two positions . Definitely. I mean, i think for flynn she had that brief marriage but she was really married to her work. I mean, she was so devoted to her activism. She really didnt feel like she had time to have a family. And i think she missed, she missed that. And her mother and her sister really had to raise her son because she was just so busy with all of her work. Yeah. I would say, first of all, i wanted to say i would want to talk about what was served for dinner. [laughter] and whether its, you know, prepared in the 19th century or prepared in the 20th. But i actually think in some ways this is a commonality between beecher and flynn even though in other ways they really do not have a lot in common, i mean, Catherine Beecher was engaged to be married, and her fiance died at sea. And at that point she made a decision to not follow into a lifetime of domesticity to not create a household of her own but instead to, you know play a role as a reformer and advocate for womens education and open schools, and eventually she wrote hot of books about education lots of books about education and domesticity and went on election circuits. She was really very much a public figure, and for her in the 19th century, it it was done although it was very very difficult to both be married woman and also have a public role. And thats what i mean, i was a little bit flippant about the Martha Stewart reference but thats what i mean about beecher. In order to be an advocate for domesticity in public, in order to be a female education reformer, she had to be a woman who was not head ago household or not running a household. And that really was a decision she made and that really made her different from that really placed her in her time as a 19th century american woman. Now chisholm was married twice. Her first husband, Conrad Chisholm was more or less mr. Shirley chisholm. Very supportive of her the first seven or eight years when she was both in albany and then when she came into congress in washington. He had worked for a Detective Agency so he also was her bodyguard. And one thing i think she may have had in common with some of the women is mrs. Chisholm loved to dance. She was the first one on the dance floor and the last one off. I dont know the rest. [laughter] she also was very clothes copps and she was considered to be copps, and she was considered to be the best dressed woman in washington d. C. But i wanted to raise something else. I think if there was a dinner party, i think theyd be a bit wary of each other at a first. I dont know who drank. [laughter] [inaudible conversations] few glasses of wine. Some of them may have been tee totallers. I know angela davis would have said thank you for being the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to raise money for me and mrs. Chisholm was for the black did for the black panthers. Mrs. Chisholm was very wary of the communist party and who knows how the members of the communist party would have felt about her as an active member of Democratic Party. And i would love you to speak about having mrs. Beecher or ms. Beecher show up at a dinner party with two black women [laughter] yes. I think that she would be very confused. She would not she would be confused about why everyone was sitting at the table. [laughter] and i think that that would really definitely be an illustration of, you know, the path being a foreign country would be like she came from, you know, really an alien world into this, you know, late 20th century realm. I think that she might find some things to celebrate though. She would certainly be, excuse me amazed at a black woman going through college and being educated, her devotion to education. That would be a point of contact between the two women. Yeah. I think thats right. Were any of your women teetotalers actually . Not shirley. Im not saying she was a drunk [laughter] in that case, thered be no problem at all. [laughter] i mean, beecher didnt talk all that much well, actually, yes, she did talk a pit about temperance. I mean, those 19th century reform movements were very linked, so womens rights, abolitionism, diet reform, dress reform temperance, they were very linked. So she probably would not have imbibed. I think one of the things, if i can just interject that i learned because i wrote about angelina grim key, and so i encountered all these abolitionist reformers. The difference between, i would think, the seriousness of angelina of angela davis im getting my angelinas and her circle and the fact that these reformers from the 19th century were kooks. I mean, they were they followed water cures and strange diets, and they read bumps on the heads, and they went to the table rapping and so they were engaged in a lot of activities that were much more alike what the 60s hippies were doing and much less like what you would picture people who were seriously engaged in temperance and reform and abolition. They in their in their personal life they were a little nutty. Well, the 1830s is really akin to the 1960s. Yeah, i mean, in terms of reform. And there are links too actually. I always bring it back to food. [laughter] you mentioned them, right . The diet reformers, theyre the precursors to vegetarians and to the health food movement. Some environmentalism. And Catherine Beecher, you know, she not only talked about education and domesticity, but she also was very concerned about health, and that was because she had bad health. And a lot of those figures did a lot of those reformers had health problems. There was a rich diet can, there industrialization, they were very nervous nervous people, just peptic, a nation of and so, you know, i think that there are definitely links in terms of her reform era and the reform era of chisholm and of angela davis even though she would have been surprised at the direction that those reforms were taking. I want to open it up to the audience because i would imagine you have questions. I could sit and listen to them talk all night but is there anybody who would like to ask a question of all or any of them . Carol, over here. Oh. Theres yeah. I had a question when they started and maybe when they finished, if they felt they had made a change or they made an impact or they thought they hadnt. Good question. Success or failure. Thats a great question. I think flynn definitely felt like she had made an impact, and her career was so long. I mean, she was born in 1890s and she started speaking on new york city street corners when she was about 15, and she was active all the way up until her death in 1964. So i think she saw huge changes especially in terms of womens roles just really transforming. And she thought it was interesting, she actually was opposed to suffrage during the Suffrage Movement just because she thought voting was a waste of time. It wasnt radical enough for her. But then in retrospect when she evaluated it, she thought that that was just a huge shift in womens coppsness that women consciousness, that women had gotten the vote had become politically active. She thought that was important. And i think she also felt her work on behalf of Civil Liberties really made a difference. Her activism and the act vusm of the iww helped really establish the right to free speech and that was something around the time that she died in the 60s that was getting picked up by a new generation, and she was encouraged by the activism in the 1960s. And i think in a lot of ways angela davis was very purposeful. Her politicization and the ways in which it dovetailed with her quest for education and her travels abroad, i feel like she was someone who was seeking knowledge and information and then constantly revising what she was thinking. I think as a philosopher, she was a deep thinker on many issues and really trying to embrace nonconformist answers to questions of things like crime and punishment, to male female hierarchies to social organization of society. So in a lot of ways i feel hike she was moving through like she was moving through this milieu of people doing the same thing. So each as shes a college student, hes interacting with with leaders shes interacting with leaders of the growing black power movement. So i think as she was moving through her activist world, she was aware of the many changes that were going on around her and herself an active agent of that change. I feel like she constantly remade herself and embraced platforms where she could really talk to people about what she felt were potential solutions to the crises that were facing the Larger Society. Even when those conclusions were things like challenging the Prison Industrial Complex or questioning male female relations and tying that back to enslavement and speaking out against sexism and in favor of communism, i think she was very much aware that the world around her was changing, and she was an agent of that change. I think when chisholm died in 2005 she felt that she had accomplished a great deal. I think she probably was extremely aware of, you know, the problems have not been resolved but when she looks back at her life, that is she played a pivotal role in transforming the old White Democratic Party in brooklyn. Of course, being opening the the way for africanamerican women to get elected to congress, founding the Congressional Black Caucus. In her book, the good fight, which is about her attempt to run for the presidency in 1972 she ends it by saying maybe i opened the door just a little bit for the next woman and the next africanamerican which clearly she did. So i think that she did know that she was a woman who made and a person who made a significant accomplishment in post1945 u. S. Society. And yeah, i mean i just did recognize a commonality among these women which may not be an accident which is that they had long lives and careers. And so i think that allows them to have some retrospective and angela davis is still alive has had well, you can figure out the [inaudible] [laughter] and so for beecher also, i mean, her career spanned the entire 19th century just about. Of or her life. She died in the 1870s and talk about change, you know, i mean, she was born into a royal society, and when she died an agrarian right . And when she died, the United States was, you know just at the cusp of being the worlds industrial power. And she changed as well. She did move away in terms of her thinking from her evangelical reasonings for reform and for womens role in the polity into a more professional role for women. So, you know, i really see her as a bridge between the sort of republican motherhood of the 18th century and the Early National period where mothers role was seep as raising good re was seen as raising good republican sons as in the republic, not as in republican thats right. Right. As in the early republic. And so the idea of raising up a virtuous citizenry. So a bridge between that and the kind of social worker progressive era housekeeping model for women. And she really did bridge that. And towards the end of her life, that is really where she was seeing education going. So i think she certainly had an idea that she had played an Important Role in terms of fostering those changing roles for women and i think maybe paving the way then each though she might not have approved of the direction that it took, but really paving the way for some of the reformers of the 20th century who were more radical in their political ideology. Anybody else. [inaudible] how did you end up with the specific woman you ended up writing about . Carol told me to. [laughter] thats the shorthand for my career. I knew you could not resist that. [laughter] we did have the press and i. One of the things about this book, these are not biographies that are just personal biographies. These are biographies that use these women in a way as a window on the movements or the technological changes or the crises or the economic changes that are going on in their time period. So you can read American History as well as the history of these women. And so we have a list. But some of the women when i approached scholars who i knew wanted to write a book like this, they came up with women who i had never heard of. Now i understand the progressive era. Now i understand certain periods that i never really got from reading a book that was only about president s, and so there is a real mix i think in the series of famous women and of women i assigned and women who you all picked. So you can speak to why you picked them. I started the Shirley Chisolm project at Brooklyn College. The question might be, why did die this . And, one teach at brook rein college and im in women and gender studies and nobodying including of that the women studiy affiliates had if heard of me to me this erase sure of women from the erase your of women from the history books is more than heartbreaking for all of us. It means that students, as they go out in the world can dont understand the country and the world in which they live because they dont know this complexities and the real challenges facing us. So i started the Shirley Chisolm project. Hope you look at our archives at Brooklyn College and join us on Shirley Chisolm day. So thats why i did it. My work on the 1960s is center end around the black power movement, and angela davis has been somebody that always comes up. Im always asked about her. Always assumed she was a member cardcarrying member of the black Panther Party and somebody that ive had to speak to even though she was not the direct subject of my research. She was also somebody i wanted to know more about because of her, the contemporary ways she came out. She came out and spoke about changing diet and food processes, in the revolutionary way. So she is somebody that would constantly be in the news in terms of challenging and changing, and that i would know the angela davis of the 1960s and then there was angela davis the scholar. She has written several books philosophical books political books, talking about historical topics talking about contemporary issues. So i felt look i knew her in all of these different ways but i didnt know how dish didnt have the opportunity to bring all of that together into a life, and to think about her in a more intimate way in the interior way, who was she really . Especially being so iconic, behind the icon is often times a figure that is very different than what people imagine. So i wanted to open that door and ask those questions. I think for flynn i was really intrigued by her because i knew that she was an important person but she doesnt really fit into womens history or labor hoyt. Its just kind of not clear where she fits because in the era when she was active, the main thing is supposed to be the Suffrage Movement, and she was not really a part of that, and then for the Labor Movement, i think the fact she was a communist made her a really problematic subject for a biography so people kind of put her aside. So i felt like she had been a little bit neglected and then i was also really intrigued because she had this memoir called the rebel girl that is just about the first 20 years of her career, and its this really vivid kind of first person account but only 20 years and i knew her career lasted for almost 60 years. So i was really interested to find out what happened when the rest of her life . One thing also, they had in common. Cant speak for beecher. They both were very flirtatious with men. Chisolm was really proud of that and i know from your book and other readings that even when flynn was older and by conventional misogynist smarteds not a skinny, busty sexy check she had all sorts of lovers and flirted like crazy. That was one of my favorite things to discover going through her papers, poems or letters that its like, wow okay. And she is this 50yearold 60yearold woman, 70 and yes she definitely kept going. And with younger men. Yes. Shes a cougar. All younger men. The second half of her life its all younger men and then she had this tenyear period where she actually lived with a lesbian woman and maria qui in Portland Oregon so thats phase of her life as well. So she kept busy. Theres another area of commonality with congratulate lynn ing katherine just kidding. I do want to say it was a little flip because carol did not tell know write a biography of Catherine Beecher. She said would be representative of the period you study . And i thought Catherine Beecher was very good example because even though she really is representative of a very small slice of womens experience, her life touches on so many areas of development in 19th century United States. So she went west. She established a school in cincinnati. She did shifts from the evangelical breed of reform, into a more municipal housekeeping kind of reform. She really embodied she didnt embody she represented in many ways the cult of domesticity in her work or the ideology of domesticity. So she is a very interesting window into a lot of the major developments that happened in American Society over the course of the 19th century. Any other questions . Yes. This is a question directed towards charli chisolm and angela davis. Contemporary context what would they think of the current boy black lives Matter Movement its Structural Development and the course in which its going or growing right now . Well, angela davis is a big supporter of the black lives Matter Movement. She speaks in support of the movement. She speaks against racism, against even really thinking about connecting the movement to the larger Global Development so she speaks out against imperialism, and things like that. She has been an uncompromising voice in that way. So its also really exciting to think about her because she is somebody who like i said, was politicized in her education was big part of how she expressed her politics. Then she or den though she is a professor, and i love that, being a professor her job is her day job is a professor but through her classwork her coursework, her write examination her activism on and off comp bus she campus she really has been one of the figures, like a cornel west, who has been one of the voices in the wilderness taking on subjects that are not popular or often times perceived as controversial, but she has been very uncompromising in her support. In terms of the course of the movement, think thats a good question as well. I think because she was and is she remains a member of organizations. She started an Organization Called critical resistance about the criminal Industrial Complex and she has the great book called i think its about prisons being obsolete. I think its called the end of prisons or something lick Something Like this. So she is always willing to push people to challenge how they understand things, whether it be crime and punishment, whether it be the role of capitalism in the Larger Society and i think she is someone would who is very broad and also she has followed the same sort of ideaingol track in some ideological track in some way in that she has romained on the left who it critical of capitalism who advocates for socialism, communism feminism. She has been associated with particular ralliesal strandologial strands and the contemporary movement does not have that the language is different. This year the chisolm project is dedicated to black lives matter and on scheyerly chisolm day we focused on black lives matter. I cant sigh what she would say today because we have to focus upon what the person did. But when she was alive and in congress for example well, when she was active in the Democratic Party in brooklyn, she spoke out against Police Brutality and that is one of the issues that helped overturn the white controlled Democratic Party. She had she was involved in support for the attica rebellion and other prison rebellions. Usually one of the few Congress People called in. She, as i said, she supported the black panthers. She raised money for angela davis when no other president no other member of the Congressional Black Caucus would do so, and for other black revolutionaries, and she wrote in both in the good fight she in other words the anger of young africanamericans and why it was expressed the way it was and when asked to denounce the fact that the panthers supported her presidency, she sort of answered, i thought in a beautiful way. She said, you all should be glad this black militant organization is coming back to electoral politics as opposed to denouncing them. [inaudible] hi. So, when i think about empowered women, i always am curious about their relationship to their fathers growing up. You talked a little bit about their childhood. Im curious to know the relationship of each woman with her father. Certainly for Elizabeth Gurley flynn her father, tom flynn, was an important figure in her life, and he was a very strong socialist and actually the whole family kind of converted to socialism in 1902. And in that way i think he really influenced Elizabeth Gurley flynn, and he supported her. When she was just 15 or 16, he would kind of travel around with her, around new york city, where she would speak and to places like philadelphia or new jersey, and so he was often kind of accompanying her on her early talks. I think he was very proud of her, and one of the interesting things was the pride that her family took in her work, and i know he was very proud of her. But one of throwns i was able to write this book is because they saved all of these clippings of her appearances. So just rare newspaper clippings, very difficult to get from just obscure little papers, and the family took it all and saved it. All pasted into these books which is amazing. Shirley chisolm acoward adored her father. She was from guyana, policed in and then came to brooklyn. He was a gar veryite and Shirley Chisolm always said if her father had been able to go to college could afford to go to college, would have gotten into college he would have been a great professor and he supported her all her work, and before he died, he became an admirerrer of the growing black in brooklyn. Dont know much about angela davis relationship with her father. I certainly jotted that down as an area of future inquiry for me but she was definitely her mother had an Important Role in her life, and her sister in particular. When you ask people about her and its not sort of angela davis, its like she is always paired with her sister as two people who continue to be public in terms of their support whose friendships was very well known and things like that. Definitely still exploring her relationship to different family members. I spoke to a little bit to Catherine Beechers relationship with her father and his influence. It was miserable. He really he is kind of an interesting figure because he he didnt approve of it in any way, so he would he was kind of fire and brimstone preacher but at the same time his children wrote about him so lovingly and so supportive, and she also adored her father, and even he was very, very rich about her torn up about her failure to convert which was very important to an evangelical minister and that was kind of a point of contention between the two of them for a while. But he certainly approved of her, of her path in terms of reform. I think that was very interesting. I would have asked about their mothers, being a mother. I would have that was an interesting question. I think were sort of beyond our time limit. But i would imagine that over a glass of wipe, you could corner any of these historians and talk to them. And theyll sign books and i do want to for those who are teachers these are books that can be read by high school students. These are books that definitely your sons and your brothers ought to read. Women already know about women. Its the men that we need to have read these books and theyre not expensive, and theyre really very wellwritten. I want to put in a plug for looking at this series as an educational property as well as just for the joy of reading about these women. Thank you all. And ill add that we have two of the books the two published right here in our shop. I want to thank everybody robin, Barbara Laura cindy thank you so much, carol for a wonderful discussion. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] booktv is on twitter and facebook. We want to hear from you. Tweet us, twitter. Com, booktv, or boast a comment on our Facebook Page facebook. Com booktv. Now on booktv we want to introduce you to history professor kevin cruz. He teaches at Princeton University where booktv is and just published a new book one nation under god. Professor cruz, have we always been nation under god . Guest thats a great question. Depends on who you ask and in what sense. A lot of people believe we have been nation under god from the very beginning. Recent poll show that 55 of americans have believed that from the getgo. We have been a christian nation. The ways in which we think. Whether or not we are a christian nation, the signs we point to the symbols think ceremonies we invoke, those are actually recent inventions. They come not from the Founding Fathers but from our our grandfathers and grandmothers and fathers and mothers. They were invenned in the ear raf to the cold war. All the thing wes take for granted now know national day of prayer the National Prayer breakfast, the addition of hurt god the he pledge of allegiance and in galled we trust. All inventions of the 1950s. Host why . Guest the original thought is it was about the cold war that america got religion fighting the god laws communist so invented new phrases and mottos and slowing ganz to distinguish us from the athiests of the soviet union. The fact is the real story is actually one that take place not in the 50s in Foreign Policy but domestic policy in the 1930s, and comes from not Foreign Policy issues but domestic politics. A revolt against the new deal. Corporate leaders and conservative clergymen in the 1930s, advanced an ideology they called freedom under god and from their public speeches and the private correspondens its clear the state power the feared the most was not the soviet regime in moscow but the new Deal Administration in washington, dc. Freedom under god. Who started this. Guest reverend james spicefield coined the phrase, a pastor of an elite congregation in los angeles, and with applele backing from corporate leader hides protest moats the idea that weds christianity and capitalism together. Takes a loose approach of the bible. Says famously reading the bible should be like eating fish. Take out the bones all parties are not of eannual value. He ignored the warnings about wealth and made christianity and capitalism go hand in hand, and aligns them against the quote creeping socialism of the new dole state. So who are some of the corporate folks that got involved in this movement . Guest his big backer is howard fuchs, an oil map the leaders of u. S. Steel, General Motors chamber of commerce, Conrad Hilton big names from the era are funding this because its an effective way to push back again the new deal. They tried to do it on their own. They start off in the 30s funding massive campaigns of Public Relations propaganda, theyre opponents call the to push back against the regulatory state of the new deal. The problem was people saw right through this, this is business look ought for itself. The most famous was a group called the american liberty league, and the chairman of the Democratic Party says we ought to call it the American Cellophane League but a its a dupont product and you seek right through it. They decide they need a better pr campaign and ministers are the most effective people to make the case to the American People because theyre the most trusted so the reached out and found them to make the case on their behalf. Host what some of their discusses and failures in the 0s and 40s. Guest in 0s, hough row to hoe. The new deal is popular and by the early 50s theyrestatting to fine a national audience. Very wellfund sod they have a monthly magazine, weekly radio program. The biggest success early on is a National Radio program in 1951 that takes place on the fourth of july. On this theme of freedom under god, and hugely produced event seesle b demil plans it, jimmy stewart, the mast are of ceremony an allstar cast a of hollywood stars attentions. Are she sponsorship prom is by hoover reagan, and a massive series of corporate funders. Host january, 1952, Dwight Eisenhowers inaugural. What did that have to do with this group . Guest eisenhower is a strong supporter of this group. Host january 53. Guest a strong support are of the group and he had been aligned with the christian libertarians for quite a time. Not really abraham very day and w. We dont think of, billy graham. Billy graham is a staunch supporter of the christian libertarian movement. An advocate of corporate interests that a london newport calls him the big business evangelist. He is . A 1952 address that the garden of eden will be a place with no Union Leaders no union dues, no snakes and know disease. That is his idea of paradise, and icen hours aclose confidante of his and eisenhower believed he is to lead the country into a spiritual revival. And he makes that man fest from his gnawingation. He hold asthmassive Prayer Service that morning. Previous president s prayed largely in private. He head 800 people in the church with him and 800 more outside help leads the country in a prayer he wrote himself that morning, again, first for inauguration. The very first float is called, gods float says freedom under god and in god we trust on it, has massive house of worship on it. On it went. The theme from the very start of suffusing religion into politics is an important one for him. Host was Dwight Eisenhower a religious man . Did he sincere have i believe this . Was it political . Guest a little of both. He is sincerely religious. He calls himself most deeply religious man i know in fact. Hed like to call his family had not a good record of attending church but fought of himself as a fundamentalist. He could quote bible verses by the yard, according to friends from the army. When he comes into office he firmly believes in the power of religion but also sees the political ended. The platal ends were different for him than the people who had been aligned with him. They had seen public religion as a means an end a way to roll become the new deal, and with his election they think theyre finally at this moment where theyre going to roll it back. But eisenhower believed the new deal state was there to stay, famous letter to his brother he said if any party tries to push back and undo Social Security and arm and and labor legislation, youll never hear of them again. So he makes peace with the new deal. He takes this public religion that had always been a means to an expend makes it the end itself. He embraces public religion in a way he thinks to unite america and he makes it a birth tent than before. So previously this movement had been one of conservative protestants, and liberals, protestantses and catholics and jesus, democrats and republicans alike. So contemporary persons who think was a time when we were a religious nation, theyre right its just not the founders. Its eisenhower. From your book, one nation under god, the invention of Christian America you write once in office, Ronald Reagan helped deepen the secularization of the state. Guest that means that eisenhower had an example for the nation but also had an example for certain politicians and reagan had been a lifelong democrat and comes to follow eisenhower. The first republican he votes are and and just as eisenhower put the new religious traditions in place reagancrafts one of his own with take it for granted a president with sign off a speech with the phrase, god bless america. Thats an invention of Ronald Reagan. Before that only one president hads done that before. That was Richard Nixon trying dooring out of watergate. Its unthinkable for a president to end a speech with that signoff. And he constantly invoked the symmetry of one nation under god, and in god we trust and wraps his politics in these twin themes of piety and patriotism. Host how has this been an effective Political Tool for republicans and hurt the democrats . Guest originally one that boast sides embraced. Democrats are responsible for putting this into place. It becomes polarized during the nixon years. Nixon tries to replicate under what he had seen under eisenhower. Had had a frontrow seat. When he is president s he is a little more heavy hand with it than eisenhower. Used more as a partisan club and he has say Massive Public rallies with billy graham after the invasion of cambodia, to try to calm down the public unrest. A huge event at the university of tennessee huge event on the mall honor america day which is seen as a very partisan effort. He has Church Services inside the white house in the east room which according to insiders in the white house are awful completely political. Nothing sincere about them. An effort to lobby congressmen to raise support for certain bills and measures they want passed through congress. So with nixon it takes a turn. And it becomes this language of piety and patriotism which has been embrace bid both parties and becomes a tool of the partisan right and then becomes a mainstay republican politic. So we mentioned what reagan had done. George h. W. Bush does much of the same thing. He wraps himself in the flag and also in this language of the christian nation. George w. Bush does some of the same. Democrats have tried to embrace this but always been faced a double problem. One, their base has come to see this as a politics of the right and, two their motives are always called into question. To bill clinton used this religious language a lot but it was seen as selfserving. Barack obama has spoken often about democrats believing in an awesome god and things like that. Always been dismissed as insincere so it seems in some ways the press has bought into the con nation of piety and patriotism as being the province of the right alone. Host kevin cruz, a professor of history here at princeton his book is one nation under god. And as he conclude tuesday in the book, history reminds us our public religion is an invention of the modern era. This is booktv on cspan 2. Heres a look at books being published this week now authors cornel west and robert george, political opposites, discuss what they learned from each other summon of the more divisive issues of the day. [inaudible conversations] good evening. What a electricity. Its been like this all day. Everywhere where cole west and robby george go theirs electricity. Im pleased and proud to serve as director of the center for president ial studies at grandees valley state university. I want to tell youve about the Organization Behind this event. The hallenstein center is sponsoring the event. What are we about . In our cynical dysfunctional age, the hallenstein center seeks to rebuild confidence in our public institutions. Were not a right wing enclave left wing enclave. Thelines and story lion American History do not take place really at the extremes of American History so much as in the middle. The real action in American History, unfolds in the middle. This is why i dont understand when people say the boring middle. The middle is anything but boring since this is where left and right come together and clash. The middle of the field of conflict where these ideas collide, and where principled people learn to listen to diverse pins and harmonize them the best they income our Democratic Institutions. We engage in prison el compromise, cultivate the skill to create new possibilities for our communities. It is the only way our Democratic Institutions can really work. So were not trying to turn democrats into republicans or republicans into democrats. It would be educational malpractice to try to engage in that kind of group think. We are aiming higher. Our real purpose our better goal, is to cultivate intellectual diversity. Its to make sure that we can develop strong individuals who know their own minds yet have the courage to enter the Public Square and be able to work with people who are different from themselves. Thats what the hallenstein center is trying to promote. Its what the founders of our country did two centuries ago. What the Civil Rights Movement achieved and for you young people in the room in the audience today its what your generation is called to do as well. Our Democratic Institutions are built or constructed in such a way as to absorb a lot of conflict. A lot of differences of opinion if if ethical and skilled people know how to work in those institutions and thats where the hallenstein center comes in with our Common Ground initiative and with our Leadership Academy with some 40 young people that