Obviously, as mentioned earlier, all parks have a website and theyd more than welcome an inquiry from you in terms of what their acquisition needs or their interests might be. And im positive that you will get a response in a timely fashion. A special program tonight on the anniversary of the Parks Service, produced by American History tv, part of the cspan family of television content. And were delighted to introduce you to what we do here at American History tv. You can find us all weekend, every weekend, with visits to historic sites, lectures in history, tours of battlefields, all firstperson history and nothing else really quite like it on television. We hope if you like it tonight youll find American History tv on cspan3 on the weekends and also on the web. As we close out here tonight, i really want to thank your colleagues here at arlington house for the hospitality in allowing us to bring this equipment in and move the furniture around. Whats the closing thought you want to leave people with about the role of the Parks Service, this is for both of you, in American Life . We may be here for a few more hours just to talk about that. But the parks are special places. They are places not only to enjoy in terms of play, but also places in which we can learn. We can develop a greater respect for ourselves, for our neighbors, our friends, and a respect for the other species that inhabit this fragile place that we call earth. So parks are contributed to us becoming better people and a more united nation. And im not nearly as eloquent as mr. Stanton, but i would Say Something we talk time and time again about these days is relevance, and for the Parks Service to survive another century, we need to be relevant make that connection. Make a connection to people to come and visit. Please, come and visit your National Parks and tell us how we can be relevant to you. If there are stories you think were not telling, tell us about it and get involved, volunteer and make the parks relevant to your life, continue the dialogue about what its like to be an american and these american stories and that will guarantee were around for another hundred years. You have a final thought . In closing, i want to salute you and cspan and the listening audience thats participated and your outstanding staff and i would only salute you in the words of our first director, steven mather, who observed shes a better citizen with a keener appreciation of the privilege of living here in the United States, who has toured the National Parks. We become better citizens. Well, thanks to both of you for giving us your time tonight. Thank you for you in the audience for watching, your questions, and as i mentioned the conversation continues on facebook. If youd like to talk to others who enjoy and officiate the National Park service, and happy centennial to the National Park service. A reminder that this program will air tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern time once again in its entirety, and right after were finished here, youre going to see a full tour of arlington house just as if you were here yourselves. Thanks for being with us. Each week american artifacts takes you to museums and Historic Places to show what artifacts reveal about American History. Next, National ParkService RangerMatthew Penrod leads a tour of arlington house. The robert e. Lee memorial, the 19th century mansion situated on the hill above president john f. Kennedy kennedys grave in Arlington National cemetery. Today it is the most visited historic home in the National Park service system, which is marking its centennial this year. Arlington house will close at the end of 2016 for a yearlong restoration made possible by a 12. 35 million gift from philanthropist david rubenstein. My name is matt penrod. Im a Parks Service ranger here at arlington house, the robert e. Lee memorial. Ive been here many years. Sometimes joke that ive spent more time in this house than robert e. Lee did, although it was his home for about 30 years. Arlington house is perhaps the most unique place in the entire National Park service, and perhaps in regards to Historic Houses, one of the most in the entire country. Because what we have here is a place that truly represents the entire history of this country, from its earliest founding of the original co naal colonists to virginia and america in the early 1600s, through the revolutionary period, leaders of the American Revolution, signers of the declaration of independence, they are represented here by the family who built and own this house. And it was a plantation. It was a working plantation. So, representing in many ways one of the uglier aspects of American History, and that is slavery. It played a crucial role in the american civil war. Home of general robert e. Lee prior to the war during the period he was a u. S. Army officer for 32 years. He developed and became the great soldier that would lead him to become this extremely consequential man during the american civil war. But this is where the story takes a dramatic twist, because this home is a National Memorial to honor robert e. Lee, but robert e. Lee is a man who waged war against the United States government. Who led an army against the United States government. That army, arguably, its believed, killed more u. S. Soldiers than any other single enemy army in the history of this country. And yet here this house is a National Memorial to honor him. Dedicated by congress in 1925. So it really represents the way the country developed in its earliest years, how it divided, and then how the national somehow was able to come back together after that war, because this home is a memorial to honor lee not for what he did during the war, but what he did afterwards. When he became a leader in the south and promoting reunion, and reconciliation. Healing of the country. Telling southerners it was their duty to restore peace and harmony to the nation, and also to once again obey and respect the authority of the national government. That government across the river here, that the Southern States had just waged a terrible war against. Robert e. Lee was telling them, that is now their legitimate government again, and it was their duty to respect that. And so lee became a very important voice and influence in the clause of healing and rebuilding this country, so in 1925, congress made this home a memorial to honor, just three years after the Lincoln Memorial was dedicated. And then Memorial Bridge and avenue were built across the river to symbolize the reunion of the country. And what adds to the what adds to the extraordinary nature of the story is that this house was originally built as a monument, a memorial, a personal memorial, to honor the memory of George Washington, the father of the country, owned by washingtons step grandson, George Washington park custess, and in many ways this could be looked at as our First Washington monument. First memorial built to honor any president , first structure of any kind built to honor any man like that, and so this house had a fame all to itself, apart from robert e. Lee, but then lee married into that family, became part of the washington family, and so when the coming of the civil war happened, and lee was put in a very painful and difficult place in which he had to choose sides, president lincoln wanted him to command federal troops. It was offered to him, but he couldnt fight a war against virginia, his native state, his home and family, as he characterized it. And so he was caught in this terrible dilemma, and ultimately his choice would have a massive impact on the course of the civil war in American History that would follow. It would also lead to the u. S. Government taking this home, this plantation away from his family to punish him, and creating Arlington National cemetery as both a place to honor the dead, but also a form of revenge or retribution against lee for that role he played as a confederate general. So, what youre seeing here at arlington house is primarily the original structure. Built between 1802 and 1818. We calculate 80 , 85 of the physical structure is intact, but its been here for about 200 years. And it requires a great deal of care and effort to maintain, restore, conserve it. And its been many years since a major restoration effort has been undertaken here. Theres going to be a lot of work done over the next year and a half to two years to bring this place back to its glory, so at the end of this year the house will shut down for approximately a year while this restoration work is done. So why dont we go inside the house, take a look, see how it is today, give you an idea of what it is and the work well be doing, and you can come see us 2018, and see how much of an improvement has been made to the restoration of this great mansion. So follow me inside. So here we are in the main hallway at arlington house. The center hall was designed to impress. Remembering that George Washington wanted this house to be a memorial to George Washington. He had the house designed to be like a gallery, to be very monumental, to impress what he thought would be some of the most important people of the country who would visit. And over the years, president s, congressmen, and senators would visit him here at arlington house to learn more about George Washington. The original architect of the mansion was a man named George Hadfield, whom George Washington personally invited to america from england to do design work on the nations capitol, the capitol building. So George Hadfield was one of the most prominent architects of his day, so this house has a great history in architecture in the history of this country, as well. Its not just because of people who lived here and the events that took place here, but the structure itself had great meaning. And its one of those places sometimes a Historic House or a structure takes on a meaning because of the events that happen or the people who live there, but this house was built to be consequential. So, it has that history to it, as well. And robert e. Lee married into that. In this parlor on june 30th, 1831, under the archway where you can see the uniform and the dress on display. 24yearold lieutenant robert e. Lee of the u. S. Army married 22yearold maryann that randolph custess, the only surviving child of the owner, sweetheart of robert e. Lees, as well as great granddaughter of Martha Washington, but this wasnt the only wedding that took place here, in fact, it wasnt even the first wedding. The first wedding took place here ten years earlier when a woman named Mariah Carter married charles cyfax. What made that wedding important in the history of this place is mariah and charles were both enslaved here and mariah was believed to have been the daughter of the master, and so she was an enslaved woman from some type of relationship that existed in which George Washington part custess fathered a child by one of the enslaved woman here, a woman named ariana koetter. And this is forcing us in many ways to reexamine how we interpret the history of arlington, because here we have the story of slavery, and in this place, represents the founding ideals of this country, this home built to honor George Washington and celebrate the values and beliefs of the father of the country, the house itself built by slaves, but then you have the family, as well, the family relationship. And George Washington part custess, in essence, had two daughters. One was white, was his heiress, she married robert e. Lee, one was enslaved. Both great granddaughters of Martha Washington. So in that regard, George Washington part custess as a representative of the first first family of the country, who spent 55 years of his life promoting and celebrating that, was, in essence, also representative of another aspect of the history of this country, and the simple truth of it is, the first family of this country was biracial. So we recently reenacted that wedding with family representing both charles and mariah. Also enslaved, Selena Norris in the house and gray who worked in the mansion, as well. That was averarranged and the wedding took place in this parlor and serena gray would live in one of the two historic slave quarters that we maintain, that still exist and are going to be restored as part of this big project, as well. Now, you can see this room is somewhat empty of furnishings and thats representative of the fact that right now we are in the process of removing furnishings and artifacts from display so by the end of the year we will begin this restoration project, but all the furnishings have to be removed before we can do that work. So you can see the boxes and work and preparation being made. As we walk down the hallway, you also see empty places on the walls, there are numerous historically there are numerous portraits in the hallway, family portraits, historic ones of washington and other members of the family. However, some of those have been removed, but at the same time, there are holes in our collection. And our new restoration project, through this generous donation by david rubenstein, will, in fact, allow us to acquire more original artifacts and reproductions of original artifacts, including paintings, so that we can represent the true appearance of this house as it was when the lees and custis families lived here. There will be examples we will leave, like this. This bare patch of plaster on the wall. This plaster was its not just something we chose to leave exposed for no good reason. Actually, what we discovered during a recent, about seven years ago, a restoration project where we stripped down paint down to the plaster and repainted different rooms, we found writing, we found graff i graffiti. And some of this writing, its very hard to see, its very faint on the walls, but this, we think, even predates the civil war. Some of the graffiti we have in the house is civil war related left by Union Soldiers. Some of this predates the civil war and goes back, perhaps, to the earliest construction of the house. And so its something that were leaving exposed because it is representative of that history and we want to be able to preserve it and perhaps in the future find a way of even interpreting it. Were not exactly sure what the writing says, so it is a mystery that is going to be left to us to solve in the future. This is the family dining room. It was one of a couple rooms that were used as dining rooms in the mansion, and what makes this room so significant is the large number of original furnishings that do exist, including the china that is on the dining room table. The blue and white plates you see at the front, cincinnati china, that belonged to George Washington. And other china we believe belonged to Martha Washington, and its representative of what was here historically. George washington parke custis when he moved here brought with him as much as the washington possessions he possibly could collect, inheriting things from Martha Washington, as well as purchasing things from estate sales, he gathered together what he called his washington treasury, he built this house to house those items in and to exhibit them to the public. He wanted this house to be a public place, a kind of museum, a personal museum, and these were items that people could use. You could have come and dined with the custises and lees, perhaps, and eaten off the same china george and Martha Washington had eaten off of. Today, we have a number of washington items still in our collection, but the civil war threatened them. And at the beginning of the civil war as robert e. Lee left here, mrs. Lee was worried that Union Soldiers would take over and steal many items from the house, she removed most of the what she considered to be the most precious washington family heirlooms, including the bed that George Washington died in and a number of other pieces, and later her family donated those things, many of those things at least, to mt. Vernon, to washington and lee university, and there are also items in the smithsonian, so that you can visit those places and also get a better understanding of what was here historically. The back hall was George Washington parke custiss hunting hall, his trophy hall. As a true gentleman of the day, his two favorite pastimes were horse racing