it is difficult to raise funds for a viable campaign. >> jim webb, this sunday, on a road to the white house 2016. >> history bookshelf features popular writers and heirs on american history tv every weekend. author joe jackson recounts attempts in 1927 of charles lindbergh and other aviators to complete a transatlantic flight and it went $25,000 prize. he talks about how this contributed to lindbergh flight. this is sponsored by westbury memorial public library in 2012. joe jackson: thank you for having me. i spoke in manhattan today and this and the time in manhattan was the first time i have given a talk with powerpoint, so i will try not to blow anything up. they showed me how to push the buttons, so it should move forward easily. this is my seventh book and whenever i start a new book it is usually from an idea. when i started thinking about this book, it was 2008, the year of the beijing summit olympics and the presidential election. there was a lot of talk in the press about whether or not the united date was the most -- united states was the most competitive culture on earth. i was interested and that and i thought about the 20th century's biggest race. i look at the story this turned into a story of celebrity. looking at this hero business richard byrd one of the rivals in the race, that is what he called it. i started writing this book and it became doubly fascinating. when i was researching, there was no way to escape lindbergh. but i really wanted to write about the losers, everybody has always written about what became them -- became known as the atlantic are being from the victor's perspective, the way that we do it in the united states, but they have forgotten all of the others. from september 1920 62 1927, 16 aviators from the united states france, norway and russia, took part in this, but six of them died. were trying to become the first aviators to fly across the atlantic, nonstop, from new york to paris. raymond orteig offered a prize of $25,000 to the first one who could do it. he was a frenchman and he was romantically excited about the airplane. the technology to make this flight was not really available to flyers until 1924, 1925 certainly 1927. what is more interesting about this story, after the official race ended something stranger and deadlier began. it from june to december of that year, less experienced pilots tried to duplicate lindbergh and all failed. they either crashed, didn't get off the ground, or died. during that six month. , 12 more pilots died in the attempt to cross the atlantic, many of them women. more people land that died trying to cross other large bodies of water. but, those who tried to cross the atlantic, some of them were women, they were trying to prove that women were capable in the air. just as capable as men. it made sense to me as i was writing, that this would happen when and how it did. the technology had come, the technology for long-distance flight, 33 hours, 3600 mile flight had come about with cooled engines. if you go into an area with crop dust, you still see these engines around. they look like octopus like with the arms radiating out. they are powerful. and there was a belief at the time that the airplane would make the world a better place. that a winged utopia would evolve. the idea was because consonants would be more quickly -- consonants -- continients would be linked and there would be more piece. they thought cities would float in the air and men would leave it -- men would lead in -- live in the atmosphere. they believed a new breed of homo sapiens would evolve. these altitude men. as i was researching, i began to see the growth of america's celebrity culture, about which we know -- so inundated today it really took place during this time. especially during this race. technology made this possible. in 1926, 1927, you have the establishment of two national radio networks, abc and cbs. they had to fill the airwaves with information. there was an explosion of the print industry, more magazines then ever before. and then in 1927, you had the talking movies. one reason lindbergh would become well known, because he was the most films individual -- filmed individual at that time. millions of the of celluloid was used on lindbergh, 2 million more than the prince of wales, the second-most filmed individual. the idea of celebrity is a person of importance, taking shape in our minds. a great gossip columnist understood instinctively that same had become the heart of a daily conversation. he didn't understand what the conversation was, it was a moral conversation, but it was important. it also seems to be therapeutic for those conversing. not necessarily for those subjects of the conversation. nobody knew what the language was, the grammar, nobody knew what the rules of the game were. then in the mid-1920's to events occurred that clarified celebrity, we can still see the patterns today in celebrity environments. the first event occurred in 1925. there was this little unknown kentucky person named floyd collins who went down into a cave shaft in kentucky and got stuck and for the next two weeks, newspapers covered the attempt to try and save him. there were several wire agencies that flashed news of his rescue attempts all over the u.s. there were newsreels about floyd collins. during intermissions of plays on broadway, the management would give updates on what was going on with floyd collins. basically when journalists look back and they realized -- look back, they realized that they were trying to grab the reader's interest and trying to hold it. this was a story of life and death. they could tell physically that people were interested because during the two weeks that this occurred, there were at first hundreds of people lining the road leading to where the cave was, then thousands, then 10,000 and at the end, 50,000. they knew something was going on. and later they understood that what they had done was to sustain this tale by creating a cast of characters people that the reader seems to know. they were often simplified, to a certain extent stereotypical but every time we wrote about these characters, we broke -- we always remind the people about the basic tale. the characters in the floyd collins story, first off there was floyd collins, he was devout , and every man. he believed his faith in god would bring him out of the cave, and when it became clear that his faith would not get him out his faith in god would take him to heaven. there was a reporter who went down the shaft to bring him water, food, to give him light. it was like a stripped copper wire. his name was miller, and was from the louisville newspaper. he was very small. he was called skeet, like a skeeter. the narrative with skeet miller, he was a cynical reporter who was going down to interview the sky every day. he finds his humanity. and then there was the father. he was portrayed as a hard drinking not near. and his mother, a hard-working mountain woman whose back was bent from years behind the cloud. there was floyd girlfriend, who waited at the shaft. it wasn't really his girlfriend. and his loyal dog ship -- shep, who waited for him at the entrance of the cave every day. but really, his dog's name was obi, and he did not wait for him every day. now to lindbergh. next monday or tuesday will be the 85th anniversary of his flight. the greatest example of euro worship that anyone can remember -- hero worship, that anyone can remember. when they go back and look at it, this was a race with winners and losers and with the body count adding up, it transformed from a simple race to something much more metaphorical. it was a race of life and death. the journalists learned from other lessons with floyd collins and they framed the rivals with things that we knew, they were given labels. there was lindbergh, the youth personified, the dark horse. he was the outsider. there was richard burr -- byrd, the scientists and explore guided by reason. there was a fellow who had ridden the range as a cowboy from utah, a mormon. he had math books in his saddle bag. he was presented as almost like the sheriff who wrote out of the west -- road -- rode out of the west. there was constant -- costan, who already had a nickname, the bad boy of the air. he was the sheikh. he was the reckless ladies man. burn stormers -- barnstormers were the rock stars of the day. they left children behind. and then there was nungusser. he and his copilot were the only frenchman who tried to come from paris to new york, the harder route. he was very romantic and thought of as glamorous night of the air. he had been in hollywood movies one of which would not be released until after his death. there were no complications in this. it was easy to understand the people as they were presented. the storylines were simple and because of that they became -- it was the host of -- it was the hoax -- hopes and dreams of millions that became their own. at this time lindbergh was not ordained to win. he showed up a week before he was to fly. he was new and that made him news. he was young, it was a young age, the jazz age. the reporters went nuts about him. every flyer had been declared the front runner, a one time or another. the press had speculated, that every flyer, would be the one that would win. every flyer was accomplished, just as capable as the rival. nobody saw at the time that bloomberg was any better -- lindbergh was any better than any other flyer. if anything, lindbergh watched the others act and watched them start before him, then he took advantage of their crashes and fatal mistakes and then he took his chance when the moment presented itself. ok let's talk about the characters. this is where things blow up. this is raymond. raymond bordick -- the frenchordick expatriate -- raymond orteig, the french hotel man who put down to five dollars for the prize. -- $25,000 for the prize. it was clearly understood that whoever was first to cross the atlantic, in addition to this prize, he would probably be rich very soon. a couple years after winning lindbergh was worth $1 million. and he continued to make more. he got offers in his first month , which he turned down, from film studios. they were calculated to be about $5 million. he turned all of those down in the first month. raymond orteig had been born at the border between spain and france and when he was young his grandmother put francs in his belt and said go to the u.s. and see what you can do. he became a waiter at the lafayette cafe in new york. in 10 years, he bought the cafe and its adjoining hotel and with a partner he owned two hotels in new york. hotel lafayette and another. the second had the best wine cellar in new york during prohibition. it was known. and the hotel lafayette was considered a slice of authentic france in the middle of new york. everyone went there. what happened, raymond orteig during world war i, the hotel lafayette was the preferred place to stay for french military men when they came to the u.s. for training or diplomacy. and they came and told stories about flying and he was already homesick about his country and he just remembered that. after the war was over he was homesick. he missed that, he was nostalgic. in 1919, he hosted a dinner for eddie rickenbacker, the united states premiere world war i ace. rickenbacker was talking and he said, you know, i miss the companionship that occurred between the french flyers and american flyers and i only hope that as technology allows us, that are two great countries will be united in the air, not through war, but by piece. raymond orteig was so inspired that night he went home and joined the aero club of america. he wrote a letter saying, i hope to donate $25,000 for this prize , which was basically a nonstop flight from new york to paris or paris to new york, you know, a 3600 mile trip. he didn't know at the time in $25,000 was 1/8 of his liquid capital. if there had been an emergency, he would have been slitting his own throat. he did not realize that until long afterwards. most of the flyers, they started in long island, right around here. where is the roosevelt home -- mall? ok, that way. this was a natural airfield. the center of nassau county, where the mall is, that was known as hempstead plains. it was the only naturally occurring prairie east of the alleghenies. it was flat, no trees, very few farms. the grass was soft. the undercarriage is of the planes at that time were very delicate. you had to be able to bounce up and down a little bit. you didn't want to break and crash. in 1926, 1927, there were three airfield right next to each other on humps field -- hempfield planes. mitchell and curtis fields were not really available to private flyers. roosevelt was the best kept that was where all of them took off. this is renee funk, who came over from france and said he was going to be the winner. he was the greatest living ace from world war i, 75 official kills to his name. the red baron had more, but he had not survived. he was known as the best in races. he came across an american consortium that was starting to build a plane, thinking about or -- thinking about going for the prize. he presented himself and said, i want to do this. as famous as he was, the americans went nuts. the plane was designed by the same man who designed the helicopter. at that time he was building planes. during world war i, he was the main airplane odor for the czar. -- airplane builder for the czar. he built bombers with observation decks. they were so massive that only one was shot down by the germans. he had to run after the revolution and he first went to paris, but there were a lot of displaced airplane designers there, so he came to the united states. fonkck got together a crew, and american copilot, a french radioman, and a russian mechanic. they, it was felt that his flight was a sure thing. he didn't have many competitors. but he drastic -- drastically overloaded the plane. it never got off the ground. if bumped up a giant hill that separated roosevelt field from curtis fields and the plane disintegrated and burst into flames. at the russian mechanic and the french radioman died. fonkck holies said he would -- always said he would try again, but you never got enough money for a second try. immediately afterwards, all of these americans started to think about, i can do this as well. the first person to start thinking about this was richard byrd. in 1926, he had flown over the north pole. he claimed that he was the first person to fly over the north:. today, that is disputed, it is believed today that he probably felt 100 -- fell 150 yards -- 150 miles short. those that are unbiased, he was always known as a navigator, they think that maybe he just -- he just miscalculated. maybe you turned back before he was over the north will. -- north pole. he is shown with president coolidge and floyd bennett is who floyd bennett field was named after. he was a respected flyer and he was always byrd's pilot. >> who is that guy? joe jackson: the guy over to the side? i don't know. i don't think he had anything to do with aviation. what happened was, in november of 1926, and owner of department stores said to byrd at a dinner honoring byrd, i will give you $100,000 to build a plane and be the first to cross the atlantic. you must name it america, it must be all american-made and it will be in the name of science. purely in the name of science. byrd cannot really back out. although it was not reported in the press at first, it was kept secret. the designer was anthony fokker who had built planes for the red baron. he had built byrd plane that flew over the north pole. this was a star-studded consortium. that was the first person rumored to fly. first person who actually officially entered was noel davis. he was the mormon cowboy. he had ridden the range when he was a young man. utah had four openings two in annapolis, so he decided to try and get in. he went to war and after the war, like many board navy officers, he decided to become a pilot in pensacola. he had the first airplane that was available and ready for flying. he was the front runner for a while. many people thought that the odds of byrd and davis were just about equal. on a final test, close to where i live near virginia beach what is now langley field his very heavy plane could not lift off and he crashed and both he and booster -- wooster were killed. many people believe that the turning point of the race was when lindbergh showed up. it was not at all. it became much more serious when davis and stanton booster -- wooster died. of course the russian mechanic and the french radio operator had died before them, but they were not part of the small world of american flyers. it was a tragedy, but these were people that were known, so people started losing friends at this point. at that point, a cloud descended over the race and there was a sense of doom. >> is this the plane? joe jackson: i talk a lot more about the personalities than the mechanical instruments, but that was one of the biggest bombers in the u.s. at that time. it was built by the huska land company out of pennsylvania. the american legion gave davis $100,000 to build this. it was a great engine plane. another big claim like birds plane was. -- byrd's plane was. the next two people that we see our birds across the --the next two people that we see is bu rt acosta and lance chamberlain. acosta was the man that you would see in the movies. he was tall and dark. but chamberlain was the opposite. he wore a bow tie, he was as un -piloty as a pilot could be. and the man that owned the airplane that they would be flying in did not believe that chamberlain could fit the image of a pilot, of a world-class pilot, if he was the first to cross the atlantic. the cousin the owner rightly believe that the first person across the atlantic would be in world celebrity, bigger than chaplin, douglas fairbanks, the biggest person in the world. he was right at the time. but at this time they were not really any professional pilots. this is what is different about them. they were upon stormers -- barn stormers, but they were show men. they were rarities. there was lindbergh, this photo was taken on or around 1924. this was when he was getting his wings as an army flyer in texas, or early in his career as an airmail flyer. he was not well known at that time. he flew after getting his wings in texas, he started as a barnstormer. he knew that they do not live long, they do not have a great future. though he became an army -- so he became an army aviator and joined the airmail. when he was flying the airmail from st. louis to chicago after fonck crashed, he thought i can do that. he thought if i can stay awake for 40 hours, which i have done as an airmail pilot, then if i fly alone and keep the weight down, i have enough gas to make it across. and his theory of how to do it was different from all of the other pilot at that time. that is his plane, the spirit of st. louis, when he landed a week before taking off. this is a photo of lindbergh shaking hands in front of the spirit of st. louis, with byrd in between. you can see that bloomberg was quite tall -- lindbergh was quite tall. his nickname was "slim." he was one of the youngest flyers. there was a norwegian flyer who could have been as young. he towered over everybody else and when he had his plane developed you wanted to have plenty of leg room. this is charles nunn guesser. he and his copilot were both world war i aces. they were revered by the french, loves by -- loved as much of the french as lindbergh would be by the americans, and when nunngesser died in flight, it was a tragedy. he is shown with his american wife. she, her mother had married one of the discoverers of the comstock loade. she had millions and access to new york society. she was studying in france when she met this dashing young aviator, nunnge she married him, but her father said if you do not get this marriage annulled, i will cut off your allowance and write to the will. so she did, but they had a plan. she did not want to be without money. so as the un-av at her said that he would win, he would land at the base of the statue of liberty. they designed the plane to land on water. we had his medals with him. they were going to meet their -- their --there and he would become a celebrity. all evidence today points to the fact that he was the first to cross the atlantic, but he disappeared somewhere near newfoundland and nova scotia. the best evidence suggests that he could have been shot down by a rum boat. it misses prohibition. if this is true, nunngesser was not the victim of natural forces, but rather of prohibition. this is chamberlain once again. and the owner of the columbia. that is his plane. charles levine is the owner, he had the best plane at the time. lindbergh wanted him. lindbergh always painted levine as a duplicitous man, a jew. because he always felt better about the fact that he had the columbia within his grasp and then looking jerked it -- levine jerked it away from him at the last minute. levine was the first transatlantic airline passenger he jumped into the plane at the last minute. lindbergh went across on may 20. chamberlain and levine went across in june, they went to berlin, farther than lindbergh. levine was the only flyer who did not receive a letter of commendation from calvin coolidge. the jewish population in brooklyn had a fit about that. so that is living -- levine, many newspaper men called him a madman, because he was always changing his mind. but like lindbergh he was an outsider. he was uncomfortable with society, he was a gambler in terms of life and death. he was a fascinating character. and the last to go over was birds crew -- byrd's crew. the man who was the assumptive winner, was the loser. there had been a crash that severely injured floyd bennett so they had to change the crew list. bert acosta became the pilot, there was a radio man and a norwegian who could fly by instruments, compass and things like that. something that none of the other pilot could do. he probably saved all of their lives, because they flew for hours in a fog, and could never see the ground until he crashed off the coast of france in the very end. when they crashed in france that officially ended the race. but in late june to december, many people wanted to duplicate lindbergh's flight and many of them were women. and the only woman to survive was ruth elder. she got as big of a reception when she landed in new york, as lindbergh did. she was young sexy, and they thought that she was single, but she had a husband back home. the papers went nuts about her. she was raised very poor in alabama. she got married and moved to florida wow -- while lindbergh was making his flight. while that was going on, she thought, if a man can do it why can't a woman? she was learning how to fly, she got her flight instructor -- they bought a type of airplane a lot like the spirit of st. louis. she said to the press, as an american boy can have great dreams, why can't an american girl? she made it as far as azores, but she crashed inside a norwegian tanker and they saved her. perhaps more than any of the other flyers, she understood the new world of celebrity. because she said early on anybody who flies -- the first woman who flies across is going to be famous. they will make money they will be famous, i don't want to go back to the life of a dental hygienist in florida, why should i do this, this is my way out. when you are looking through these archives, there are these letters to these flyers from both men and women. most of them are saying, take me along. the most pregnant -- for none -- poignant were from women. there was one from a woman who had seven children, but five of them had died. one woman made burgers in philadelphia and she offered to bring food. these women wanted a way out. ruth elder thought this was her way out. when she was in new york, she was a huge success. see that ribbon around her hair every day she would come to roosevelt field with a different ribbon in her hair. they were called ruth ribbons. all the clothing stores in new york quickly carried them and all the girls in new york carried -- wore them. she crashed, but she was offered a vaudeville tour. she became a brief movie star. she married well, several times. and after a few years, she gave up flying and she became a golf champion. but she certainly did a lot better than her little home in the hills in alabama, or in florida. she knew what she wanted and she went after it. she understood and manipulated the rules of celebrity more than the others did. does anybody have any questions? >> -- joe jackson: please speak into the mic when you ask a question. >> was the spirit of st. louis the first closed cockpit aircraft as far as the planes in the competition? didn't have heating? joe jackson: it didn't have heating, that would have added weight. it was, no, the columbia, that was a closed cockpit. the only airplanes that were completely closed cockpit where the single engine planes, the columbia and the spirit of st. louis. let me see. birds playing -- byrd's plane was about half closed, a canopy went up halfway and then it was open. >> it only had the side doors, side mirrors? joe jackson: lindbergh could look at the side of his window and he had a little periscope telescope so he could see right in front of him. he said that was the way that he flew anyway. he didn't really need glasses in the front or anything. he had his gas tank in the front. >> do you draw any parallels between lindbergh and neil armstrong? joe jackson: it's interesting. you know who really -- lindbergh really liked during the apollo 11 mission was not know armstrong, but michael collins who stayed in the capsule alone. when collins was the director of the air and space museum, there was a retrospective of lindbergh, the 50th anniversary and they were -- lindbergh was alone looking at the spirit of st. louis up there and collins watched him. lindbergh came to him and said, of all the astronauts i envy you the most, being alone, the silence, that is what i really valued. it is interesting. so. any questions? yes ma'am. >> i still feel today that we still love our airmen. with these wonderful stories bring to mind is someone like sullenbergner. joe jackson: you are right. he is a consultant for cbs. he is revered. i would agree with you. i do not think that it is quite as over as it used to be. i think probably what we will see, the next big spurt is when we start to have space pilots. we have the astronauts, of course, but the next phase in space exploration is the private industry and they will probably be these daredevils space pilots down the line. i would agree with you. >> your research, being a librarian, i want to know how you did all this wonderful research? joe jackson: i went to a lot of archives. the biggest was the lindbergh archives in st. louis where they kept everything about the flight. and then collected letters of byrd, that was at the research institute in ohio state some of these guys published books. i searched the archives on all of them that i could find. i also flew in a crop duster so i could get the feel for these planes and how bumpy the air felt. i spent a lot of time on this. a lot of letters and papers are in the library of congress or the air and space museum. the library of congress manuscript division has an incredible amount. as does the air and space museum. >> thank you. joe jackson: write down here. >> first question. involves nothing that you spoke about. i happen to share the initials of a man named bruno, the person who is ostensibly tried for for the kidnapping of the lindbergh baby. do books touch on that at all? joe jackson: slightly. most of the book is about the construction of celebrities. lindbergh's fall from grace was the most doublet and well known. and the first horrible thing that happened to him was the kidnapping. i do not spend a lot of time on that, because that is a book in its self. >> it was never 100% written in stone that he was the person responsible. joe jackson: right. >> you also mentioned the archives are in st. louis, but lindbergh was living in new jersey. joe jackson: there are many lindbergh archives. but the one incident was basically he came out of st. louis, he was funded by st. louis businessmen, so he was getting offers for jobs massages jobs, people were sending him home loans and paintings and finally st. louis opened this museum with all of his junk and it became a pilgrimage place for everybody who worshiped lindbergh. so, that is the place to go for lindbergh information about the flight. if you want to go -- if you want to find out about his childhood, you go to the historical society of minnesota. and if you want to find out about his, what got him into trouble and got him labeled as an anti-semite, you go to yield -- yield -- yale. but that is outside of the purview of my story. >> many years ago before alex trebek and jeopardy, the first time around i was a five-time champion and one question that they asked was who was the 28th person to fly across the atlantic. i said lindbergh and that was right. joe jackson: we are talking so low and nonstop -- solo and nonstop. lindbergh was not the first to cross the atlantic. there were two flyers named out caught -- alcott and brown, they flew in 1919. they made a lot of money at the time, it was a publicity stunt for two newspapers. they flew from newfoundland to ireland. they only flew maybe 1000 something miles. it was like, welders -- well their plane was a bomber. it was a world war i bomber. and so they were the first to actually make it across, but if you are talking, this is a 3600 mile flight for lindbergh versus a 1000 plus mile flight for alcott and brown. a lot of it is the mechanics of publicity. in 1927, you had movies, radio newspapers, you had photographs millions of lindbergh songs, lindbergh just came and the prize competition came at the right time for this kind of like fascination and world adulation. some meals -- somebody else? >> you spoke about ruth elder and at the beginning you talked about a lot of women who tried to cross the atlantic. can you say something more about them? joe jackson: there was in -- there was a woman from england who was part of royalty. she tried to fly across and she disappeared. you have to remember when i start researching a new book the full details start to go away, so forgive me. but the other one who is really fascinating was the niece of woodrow wilson, she was a new yorker and her name was francis grayson. she tried to fly across in december, and everyone was telling her that this was suicidal, ice will form on the wings and he will be dead. she would not listen. she had several kind of revolts within her crew and the day that she left, she was going to fly to newfoundland, service her engine, and then fly across. the day that she left, the reporter -- a reporter saw her slip a gun into her purse or backpack or something like that, and the reporter said something about a symbol of her authority and she changed the subject. and then she disappeared. i don't think she killed everybody on board but she was competing at the same time as ruth elder. it was interesting. once again, the mechanics of publicity are going on here. she was in her 30's, she wasn't unattractive, but she was stern. [indiscernible] and she was a feminist, so she was kind of scary to the press. ruth had movie star good looks she was sweet and would talk to everybody. all the girls in new york loves her and she got her way through charm. there was a moment when the owner of roosevelt field closed down the field because he was scared she would, she got the owner alone and charmed him to reopen it. she got away by charm. ruth elder, well francis grayson moved her base before ruth elder did and she took off and didn't make it. and then francis grayson took off maybe a few days before christmas eve and she disappeared. [indiscernible] joe jackson: we cannot be extemporaneous here. >> ok, you mentioned fokker. they are still making aircraft. joe jackson: he had a fight with the people who took over his company. >> i mention it because i just happen to be at laguardia airport when flight 50-50 crashed into the bay, the problem was icing. joe jackson: i know it. that french plane that disappeared on the way to brazil, it was theorized that it was the same thing. talking about planes are still -- talking about la guardia, makes me think, i still think planes are considered glamorous. when i flew in yesterday, on the tarmac was a private jet and it stood alone in a circle of light and painted on the fuselages was trump. it was donald trump's giant jet. when i was in new york i had gotten on the trump princess. it was like an exercise in excess. i wondered if his plane was the same. >> he bought the trump princess for a song. i was on it once for a party. jackson: somebody wants to ask a question. ok. >> did you get a chance to talk to charles lindbergh's grandson eric? ten years ago were so he did a flight over the atlantic in a single-engine. jackson: i read about that. i did not get to talk to him. i wrote a letter to lindbergh's daughter because you have to get permission to delve into the yale archives. she never wrote me back and i didn't pursue it. they're justifiably senver ttive -- sensitive about things. i talked to davis' son who was a year-old when his father crashed. i talked to stanton worse sir's half-ver tster who was ten years old when he crashed. what i kick myself for is clarence chamberlain's family is around here somewhere, new jersey or something and there's a fellow -- i got an e-mail from a fellow by the name of billy stott or stough, one or the other who made a documentary about clarence chamberlain that showed at the imax theater. i am sure i am pointing in the wrong direction. a cradle of civilization. that way. his family is still alive. i would love to have known they were still alive. his children are still alive. i would have loved to have talked to these people. chamberlain was a fascinating character. at a time when there is a lot -- in this book there's a lot of -- i don't harp on it but can't get away from it but there's a lot of prejudice and discrimination in here. levine -- there's a lot of anti-semitism. at the time, in 1927, there were african-american flyers who wanted to fly but a few places that would let them fly. chamberlain was one of the few flyers in new york who regularly went up with a black flyer. i think he was jamaican. his name was -- what was his name? hubert fauntleroy julian or something like that. he called himself the black eagle, and for a couple of years advertisers would pay him to go , over harlem in a red devil suit and jump out and he would trail behind somewhere and he -- trail behind him some marquee. he and chamberlain were the best of friends and finally he built this plane, he was going to be the first american flyer to fly from new york city to liberia . i guess it was a pretty rickety plane because he invited chamberlain to fly with him and he said you are not going to fly in that. come along with me. the plane took off and in three seconds it landed in the east river and julien was in the hospital for a wwitk or -- a week or something like that and i don't think he ever tried again. he is a fascinating character. he went on in aviation but chamberlain was the only one of the flyers in the orteig prrade to get along with levine and the only one -- this guy who was not ms wie star caliber was feeling one of the flyers to get along with levine who everyone else disparaged partly because of anti-semitism and the only one to take up the only black flyer that i could find east new york that i could find based in new york during that time. pretty interesting. i wish somebody would do a story on this julien fellow or a documentary or something. i think he is just kind of this fascinating fellow. any other questions? yes? >> not so much a question as a comment but there's a celebration and the grandson of lindbergh is supposed to be there next weekend. jackson: is that eric, who you were talking about? >> yes, and annie phipps, who had been from westberry and wanted to fly the atlantidayand financing the flight that amelia earhart took? jackson: there's also the designer of chamberlain and levine's plane. he is married to a woman from omaha and her sister myrtle brown came out from omaha wanting to be an art student in new york. she sat around a table when all of this was going on and decided to be a flyer and during this period she was going to be the first woman to make it across the atlantic. she decided this when she dt -- did not have a license, a plane, or a backer, but she dt -- did find a catholidaypriest -- did find a catholic priest from pittsburgh who said he would fly with her if she would fly to rome. he was going to fly to rome and she became the first licensed female pilot in delaware, and she also became one of only 25 female pilots to hold a commercial pilot's license in the united states. the last story i had of her was that myrtle brown kind of have the quarter from delaware to new york -- you know, that was her sky. as many of these people did her plane conked out and she landed in a field of spinach. she knocked herself out with spinach. when she came to, there was this farmer watching her and he was identified as freeholder joseph something. i could never get this straight but if somebody was called a freeholder was he, like, amish or something? i don't know. i didn't go into that. but this freeholder was watching her, and when she came to first thing he said was young lady you ruined $100 worth of spinach and i am not giving back your plane until you pay for it. and he didn't. he did not get back the plane until she paid for it. these guys are always running afoul of farmers. >> in those days, that was a lot of spinach. jackson: yes. when chamberlain and levine were trying to make it to berlin they landed in the field of wheat outside berlin. they landed and mashed a bunch of wheat up and this woman goes that is my week. you mashed up my week. who is going to pay for my week yet the thin the woman thought there had been these kidnappers around lately, and she suddenly grew very afraid because she not she was confronting kidnappers with a new and unique way of kidnapping people. she only calmed down when her 's son, who could speak a little bit of english, explained to her that these were just lost americans. then they took off again. they got a little bit of task, and they flew a few more miles and their plane conked out and landed in a field of beats. the mayor of the local town drove up and said, "don't worry. it's just the -- just beets. come and have some beer. they're always against farmers. anybody want to ask any more questions? >> you mentioned renee funk. was he flying anything by blerio ? >> there were some bleriot monoplanes around. i know that a bleriot monoplane was bought by william randolph hearst, and it was considered too flimsy, and he gave it away to a philadelphia department store owner. but it did not have anything to do with this flight. that was a decade earlier. two decades. >> the other thing was i was surprised that the name havilland did not come up. jackson: i was not one of the planes used. he was surprised the name to havilland did not come up. there were lots of to havilland farmers -- to havilland commerce during world war i -- there were lots of de havilland bombers during world war i. i concentrated more on personalities. i knew that was my week point. if i try to pass myself off as an expert on airplanes, there are millions of people out there who could let me know that i was barking up the wrong tree. ok, we have a question. >> [inaudible] average altitude was at that time? jackson: it was low. he flew by site a lot of times and dead reckoning, which is a way of using the compass and also your watch to figure out where you are, but you had to figure out wind speed into dead reckoning, and he was close enough to the waves a lot of times that he could see which way the tops of the waves -- which way the froth was going off the tops of the waves. they had these schools installed within the tops of the planes, and a lot of times he flew 10 feet off the waves. a lot of times, he had to go higher. >> [inaudible] jackson: i don't think so. sometimes he might have been when he was trying to get around the routes, but on the average he was not flying as high as some of them. anybody else that were -- anybody else? all right. thank you very much. i appreciate it. >> on history books of, here from the country's best-known history writers of the past get every saturday at 4:00 p.m. eastern. to watch these programs any time, visit our website www.c-span.org/history. you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. here are some of our featured programs this weekend on the c-span networks. "booktv" is live at "chicago tribune" printers are lit fest. today's speakers include david axelrod, senior adviser to president obama, erik larson on the lusitania, and margaret lazarus dean on the last days of american spaceflight. festival coverage is followed by a two or of the new york times book review at 7:30. sunday at noon, we continue live coverage of our three-our "in iin depth." followed by scott simon on his book "unforgettable." and on american history tv on c-span3 join us for several featured programs on sunday beginning at 4:00 p.m. eastern on "reel america." at 4:30, a world war ii photographer on his thousands of pictures capturing the war experience and the story behind some of those images. at 6:00, we visit with senator lamar alexander as he shares stories behind political mementos in his washington d.c., senate office. at 6:30, veteran journalist bob schieffer, p to, and david hume kennerly discuss their experiences. get our complete schedule at www.c-span.org. 70 years ago in 1945 allied forces liberated the nazi concentration camps. on american history tv, we will hear holocaust stories from those who lived them. these interviews are part of the oral history collection at the united states holocaust memorial museum.