We are thrilled that cspans book tv viewers are also joining us. So welcome. [applause] cspan will be here throughout the day recording the events on the stage. This stage has a long history of being one of the festivals festivals most popular stage and we will delve into the role women played in the civil rights movement, americas relationship with the bald eagle, and a more complete accounting of the mexican revolution, and the strange history behind the search of the source of the nile river and many other topics. You learn a lot here at the history and biography stage and we hope you will visit us at the library of congress to do research about subjects you are interested in to expense the beauty of the Thomas Jefferson holding or attend one of our life at the library events. Most thursday nights we keep most exhibits open until 8 00 p. M. And host dynamic, free events for visitors. On september 15, and actress and podcast sisters will join us for a discussion. Determine 22nd, mosaic theater will present a preview of the upcoming series of plays. Novelist ian mcewan will talk about his new novel, lessons. Our first event will feature the undersecretary for museums and culture at the Smithsonian Institution and a conversation with twotime Pulitzer Prize winner David Maraniss about his new biography about jim thorpe. Please sit back, enjoy, and have a wonderful day at the library of Congress National book festival. David it is my honor is my honor to be here. Why did you choose jim thorpe . David i think of this as a third book in a trilogy of sports figures who transcend sports the first was vince lombardi, who is not only a great football coach but representative of the mythology of competition and success of American Life and what it costs. The second was roberto clemente, who so many athletes are called heros and he was in the way he died in a plane crash delivery military aid. It seems the National Natural third trilogy that he was not only a stunning athlete but also offered the opportunity through his life to explore the native American Experience from 1887 to his death in 1953, such critical years in the lives of all native americans. I am honored to be here with you. It means a lot to me. Kevin so very important in federal policy and you described it in your book. David 1887, the year jim thorpe was born was one of the crucial years in the government policy towards native americans, and that it was the passage of the act which was an effort to take away the sense of Communal Property that native americans had and send them onto small parcels of land that were often then taken away and they had to prove over 25 years that they deserved to have that land. That was part of the long process of trying to turn indians into white people in different ways and jim thorpe endured that in many ways throughout his life. Kevin and then in 1953, the termination policy was enacted. David which was the same thing, trying to terminate reservation life. Luckily that one didnt prevail. Kevin if i started reciting the things i did not know, the review here until midnight. Blackhawk. David blackhawk, i start with the parallelism between black, and jim thorpe, because they are both from the same tribe, same clan or band, and it is a little bit unclear whether jim thorpe was actually a descendant but there is some indication blackhawks greatniece was jim thorpes grandmother. His mother often told him he was the reincarnation of blackhawk. What i found fascinating was away to explore how both of these famous men, native americans, or treated by White Society. Lockout, in 1833, after the blackhawk war as it was called but it was really a massacre when blackhawk tried to leave, 1000 members of his trying over the mississippi into their homeland, the military chased them back and killed many of them. Adjusting, interestingly, three future president s were involved in that. Abraham lincoln was in the illinois militia. Zachary taylor was an officer fighting against blackhawk. Jefferson davis worked under the president of the Confederate States of america and work under taylor and took while caulk down to saint blackhawk down to st. Louis. Once blackhawk was captured, he was taken east and he became sort of an iconic figure in white america. Huge crowds would come out. That represented the notion of indians being romanticized and diminished at the same time. I found paralleling that trip of lack of to cincinnati, pittsburgh, washington, d. C. , norfork and up to new york, it paralleled jim thorpe after he won the olympic gold medals and being taken on parades into new york and philadelphia and carlisle. He wasnt a prisoner of war of fame. They were both equally being romanticized and mythologized. Path lit by lightening kevin path lit by lightning. David the story is there was a thunderstorm on the night that and he was a twin he had a brother that died at age nine in a boarding school of disease. The night they were born along the North Canadian River in oklahoma, there was a thunderstorm and jim thorpe was given a name which is often translated as bright path, but i side more poetic which was path lit by lightning. And i thought that eliminates everything and that is how i chose the title of the book. Kevin great name. So jim thorpe is like a great many native americans during that time in history, is raised in very difficult circumstances but eventually ends up at the Carlisle Indian industrial school. David that was the third boarding school he was sent to. He kept running away and eventually his father who had five wives and 18 children altogether, and the wife he was married to at that point, she didnt want anything to do with jim and they sent him away to carlisle, the flagship Government School of all of the scores of indian boarding schools in the nation. It was founded in 1879, only three years after the battle of little bighorn. Most of their fathers fought against custer and in the indian wars of the midcentury. With her Standing Bear was one of those and he later wrote a book about all of his experiences and he said he thought he was going east to die , to show his bravery and die. The motto of the boarding school was killed the indian, save the man. That was the notion of the founder, who thought he was doing good, sort of saving the indians from the genocide of the past and that the only way they could survive was by being forcibly, thoroughly assimilated into White Society. It was a cruel and traumatic process for many indians sent their. Sent there. Especially in the early years of the boarding school, many of them died, literally died at the school had the most hunting experience of my research was going up to carlisle, where much of the school is still there although it is now the army were war college and the Indian Cemetery is there. Looking at the gravesites of Young Indians who were taken there against their will mostly and died in the process was really a hunting experience. That is the school jim thorpe and about 8000 young native americans over the course of the schools existence endured. Kevin it seems an odd place for a College Football team. David it does. It wasnt really a college, it was an industrial school, yet it had a fabulous Football Team that played against the big football powers of that era, it wasnt alabama, lsu, oklahoma, it was harvard, princeton, yale, penn, and west point. As part of i would say the acculturation process, football which was an eastern elite sport in that era would help the young native athletes. They had a brilliant football coach, pop warner, who was taking these really great athletes, many before four. There, before four. There, before thorpe got there. There were all these fascinating formations and he loved to philip trick plays. I love that in that early era of football, warner devised a kangaroo pocket to hide the football in an no one knew where the football was here he also had a play where they line up by the sideline and go around the opposition bent and go around the other side to catch a pass. But yes, carlisle is playing against the great teams of College Football in that era and beating them thoroughly. Kevin including famously the team from west point. David i consider that game in november of 1912 the greatest act of athletic retribution in american history. It was on the plains of west point and it was the indians against the army, and it was a level Playing Field at last. It was jim thorpe and gus welch and a family us a Fabulous Team against west point that had Dwight Eisenhower linebacker, omar bradley on the bench, and the indians won, 276. Eisenhower in one of his teammates, before the game, football is always been a violent sport, it was even more violent then. Eisenhower would acknowledge that he and teammate were plotting and how to knock jim thorpe out of the game because he was the greatest player in america. They had one play where they hit him high and low, but he got up and capped playing and kept playing. Kevin that came just a few months after stockholm. David yes. Kevin how did jim thorpe end up in stockholm . David first of all, he was the greatest all around athlete, so he was not only playing football for carlisle but was also their trakstar. The carlisle track team was also dominant, so much so that jim thorpe, who could compete in events of all sorts the motto of the olympics involves jumping, running, and throwing weights, and he could do all of those things. He and his teammate, a longdistance runner, literally beat entire track teams by themselves. Both of them competed in tryout to go to stockholm and they were selected. They went over with pop warner who was their coach, and jim thorpe dominated their there. Imagine competing in 17 events in two weeks. The decathlon is 10 events, the pen tackle on his five events, and he competed in the high jump and long jump and he won two gold medals. During one period of the decathlon competition, he couldnt find tissues. Find his shoes. The mythology is that they were stolen but i cant corroborate that. He had to find some shoes to compete in the high jump. Define a mix matched they found a mix matched pair of shoes with one too big and he had were several socks but he won the event. At the event at the end of those limbics, king of sweden of those olympics, the king of sweden was handing out the metals medals can trophies, and he said you are the greatest in the world. The mythology is that he responded, thanks, kid. It is funny but also the condescending in a way. He was the greatest athlete in the world at that point and worldfamous. Kevin it brings this to mind when you talk about the mythology. One of the things i heard was that for one track meet they arrived at the stadium and it was just pop warner and jim thorpe. David that is one of the myths. In any case, it is not true, but it might as well have been because they won all of the events. Kevin lets talk about pop warner. David as i said to come he was an incredibly innovative, brilliant coach, but not a reputable human being. His coaching he became so famous at carlisle and pitt where he won two national championships, and then at stanford. He is in the College Football hall of fame. Some might know that football is the pop warner league, but when you really study what he did at carlisle, it is not so good. That is putting it mildly here there was an congressional investigation in 1914 of the school, and among the many things he found was that warner was betting on games, selling tickets in lobbies, and mentally and physically abusing his students, many of whom turned on him at that point. The critical moment of jim forbes life jim thorpes life when the metal medals were taken medals were taken away, pop warner turned on him. Kevin the fact that jim thorpe had played Minor League Baseball comes to life. David he played in the Eastern Carolina league for two summers, 1909 and 1910. For about 30 a month, scores of College Athletes were playing Minor League Baseball then, but using aliases to preserve their amateurism. Dwight eisenhower played in the kansas stately under the name wilson. The Eastern Carolina league where thorpe played for the Rocky Mountain railroaders and the highlanders, has so many playing with aliens because that it was called the pocahontas league. Jim thorpe played as jim for and he never tried to hide it. There are several key factors. One is that all of the powerful white figures who were involved in jim losing his medals, knew exactly what he was doing, starting with pop warner, who had been sending indian athletes to play baseball for years, whose close associate in pennsylvania was the scout who brought jim and his teammates and matt with thorpe at least twice and met with thorpe at least twice while playing baseball. Once they went hunting in oklahoma. After the story broke that jim thorpe had played baseball, the story broke in worcester, massachusetts in the worcester telegram. A reporter in worcester heard one of jims former managers was in town and talked about how he managed jim thorpe. He wrote the story and it became a big deal and got to new york. Warner was asked about it and denied new anything about it here he was just lying. James e. Solomon, the head of the american lipid committee and on the board of advisors of the carlisle athletic association, he knew and he lied about it to save his reputation. The superintendent at carlisle, moses friedman, who there are documents of letters urging him not to play baseball, he lied and said he didnt know about it. Pop warner even wrote a letter of confession and in its, in the most condescending way, he basically made the argument in jim thorpes words that he was just an ignorant indian and didnt know any better. In all of those ways, pop warner was disreputable and disappointing, as with the other people who basically just saw thorpe as an easy target. The two other aspects to the amateurism part of it, one is technical, the rules said that to have a challenge to someones amateurism, the challenge had to be filed within 30 days of the end of the olympics. The story broke six months afterwards, and it was too late. Sweden even said when sullivan and warner took the medals back, it was too late. The committee eventually agreed and took the medals away. It was morally reprehensible, not as for the reasons of hypocrisy of those people, but the notion of amateurs that it was a sham. Another member of the 1912 a lipid team was george s. Patton, the future general here he competed in the modern pen tackle alone, a group of military even, target in the modern pen tackle on pentathlon. Jim thorpe played baseball and had nothing to do with the events he was in. The entire swedish team was on leave from there job to train for the olympics but getting full pay for their jobs is that amateurism or professionalism . In so many ways jim thorpe was the victim of all of that sham of amateurism. Kevin that brings us to david breckinridge. And something i never knew coming in the 1912. Avery brundage, and something i never knew. David i always envisioned him as a fat cat traveling the world and staying in posh hotels. He was a did kathleen deca thlete himself. Brundage had just competed and it doesnt matter what nation youre from come he was so humiliated he quit after eight events what nation you are from, he was so humiliated, he quit after eight events. Brundage rose to power and consistently denied jim thorpes do and refused to give back the medals. Kevin after the olympics, these days, afterwards you are on the covers and making lots of money for endorsements. Did that happen for jim for russian mark four jim thorpe . For jim thorpe . David jim thorpe after he lost his amateur status did signed to play baseball with the new york giants for 5,000. He later played professional football making 300 a game. He was never able to make the money out of athletics that modern athletes do. He was still worldfamous. One of the reasons he was signed to play baseball for the new york giants was because at the end of the 1913 season, they were going to go on and world tour with the white sox. They would to japan, china, philippines, australia, egypt, and europe. There are a lot of famous american baseball figures on that tour, including john mcgraw, the manager of the giants, charles comiskey, the owner of the white sox and other hall of famers, but the rest of the world didnt know them. A new jim thorpe. Wherever they went, everybody wanted to see jim thorpe. Even as he lost the medals and it went against them for the rest of his life, he never lost the fame and admiration from the world. Kevin so, one of the things that struck me, i had no idea how mobile he was. He saw the world. David he did. He saw the world in 1913, all of those places. He saw it again at age 57. In world war ii he joined the merchant marines. He wanted to participate in world war ii. Of his four sons, they were involved in the military. The army would not take him, even though he is great with rifles. So he joined the merchant marines and saw the world again. Went through the suez canal for a second time. Up through egypt for the second time. In his in america after his athletic career was over he was constantly struggling to find footing come and he lived i documented in 20 different states. He took jobs ranging from at one point digging ditches in los angeles during the heat of the depression, to serving as a greeter in bars and taverns, to working for the chicago athletic youth association, to the most interesting period i think was when he was in los angeles and he was on the fringes of the Hollywood Studio industry and was an actor in about 70 movies. He was directed by john ford and frank capra. He was acting with all of the famous hollywood stars of that era. But most importantly, it was in that period he found his identity again as a leader of native americans and really helped organize them to get the jobs in all of t