Congress, Politics, Books
and American History

From the Milwaukee meeting of the Organization of American Historians, Columbia University history professor Eric Foner and University of Iowa history professor Linda Kerber discuss the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the "birthright citizenship" provision.  The historians argue that birthright citizenship dramatically changed American history for the better, and that the provision is unique to the United States. Professor Kerber also discusses women's citizenship in U.S. History.

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Time Magazine Editor-at-Large David Von Drehle talks about 1862 and the 37th U.S. Congress.  While the Civil War was being fought, the 37th Congress passed the Homestead Act, the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act, the Pacific Railway Act, the Revenue Acts, and established the U.S. Agriculture Department. The University of Nebraska in Lincoln hosted this event.

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Why do we study first ladies? That was the question posed -- and answered -- at a conference titled, "America's First Ladies: An Enduring Vision." The conference was the second of three planned at presidential libraries in Texas, and was convened at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas. ABC News correspondent Cokie Roberts moderates a panel considering the role and influence of first ladies throughout our history.

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We tour the restored 1892 mansion of Captain Frederick Pabst in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The sea captain not only founded the world famous Pabst Brewery, he was a philanthropist and real estate developer and had a great influence on the growth of this Midwestern city on Lake Michigan. Historian John Eastberg shows us examples of craftsmanship, original furnishings and art which teach us about Pabst’s German heritage, Milwaukee’s history, and America’s Gilded Age.

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Ball State University history professor James Connolly looks at Immigration and the Roots of Pluralism in the United States. Ball State University is in Muncie, Indiana.

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Historians and authors discuss ongoing legacies of the Civil War — the issues and controversies still being borne out today. Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition hosted this event.

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Author and historian Douglas Brinkley talks about his book "The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America." The book tells the story of Theodore Roosevelt's contribution to the early days of the conservation movement. Between 1901 and 1909, TR was responsible for 230 million acres of land being set aside as wilderness. Mr. Brinkley sees this as the most important initiative by a U.S. President between the Civil War and World War I. The interview was conducted at the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. The Center is part of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. This is Part One of a two-part Q&A.

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John Nagy talks about espionage during the American Revolution.  He's the author of "Invisible Ink: Spycraft of the American Revolution," and is a founding member of the American Revolution Round Table of Philadelphia.

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Mercury Seven astronaut Scott Carpenter – one of America’s first men in space – was interviewed as part of the NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. Carpenter was the fourth American in space, and the second to orbit the Earth.

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Each week American Artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and historic sites around the country. At the outbreak of the Civil War in the spring of 1861, Washington, DC, was lightly defended and vulnerable to attack, with only one fort located 12 miles south of the city and the Confederate state of Virginia just across the Potomac River. By 1865, the nation’s capital arguably had become the most fortified city in the world, with about 70 armed forts and batteries encircling the city. We visited three of the surviving forts with Dale Floyd, author of a study on the Civil War Defenses of Washington for the National Park Service.

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