American History Tellers - J. Edgar Hoover's FBI - Humanizing History with David McCullough | 7

Episode Date: May 22, 2019

Pulitzer Prize winner. National Book Award winner. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. Today David McCullough, one of America’s greatest living historians, joins us to discuss his new book, The Pioneers, about the heroic men and women who shaped the Northwest Territories, in present-day Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois. Without their bravery, foresight, and commitment to their ideals, the United States we know today might look very different. The author of Truman and John Adams shares how to make historical figures come alive on the page, why history matters, and what he sees as history’s two greatest lessons.Support us by supporting our sponsors!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Imagine it's May 22nd, 1843, a little before midnight. You stand guard outside a massive caravan of emigrants who have hunkered down and made camp for the night. That morning, your caravan departed from Elm Grove, just a few miles outside of Independence, Missouri, to make the long, arduous journey to the Oregon Territory. The wagons are circled, the animals are corralled, and most everyone has gone to sleep, but not you. You and your partner are sentinels, and your job is to keep the caravan safe.

It's no small task, either. 120 wagons, 5,000 loose horses and cattle, and nearly 1,000 souls. Souls you're charged with protecting. You warm a pot of coffee over a small fire. Your partner makes conversation to try and pass the time. When's wake up again? 4 a.m. What time does our relief get here? Soon. At least you hope it's soon. You've been standing watch for hours. You stoke the fire, eagerly waiting for the coffee to be warm enough to drink. How long do you think it'll take us to get there? Five, six months? Long way to travel, especially through Indian country. I'm not worried about the Indians. Oh, Christ, you should be. The Plains tribes will not take kindly to us passing through their sacred land. Captain Gant knows how to handle them. He's getting paid a dollar a head to guide us there. You better know how to handle that.

You grab a tin cup and pour two coffees. As you hand your partner his drink, you hear about that pregnant woman, Ruby? Only that she gave birth today. Twins. Stillborn twins. God help us. God help us indeed. I think we're going to need all the help we can get. What was that? Could be one of our animals.

Or a raiding party. Your partner's not taking any chances. He trains his weapon in the direction of the sound. Easy now, we don't know what's out there. I'm not waiting to find out. As he tightens his grip on his rifle, a figure emerges from the darkness. Don't shoot, I'm your relief. As your partner lowers his weapon, you snatch the rifle out of his hands. Like I said, I'm not worried about the Indians. What are you worried about?

You're shooting someone, you damn fool. Flustered and frustrated, you walk back to camp. You peek into your wagon and see your wife and children curled up on the floor, sound asleep. You grab your rifle, a blanket, and a saddle to make a pallet on the floor, sound asleep. You grab your rifle, a blanket, and a saddle to make a pallet on the ground underneath the wagon. You're exhausted, but you don't even bother closing your eyes. There's no chance you're getting any sleep tonight. You try to keep your composure with your partner, but the truth is, you're just as scared as he is.

If the Indians don't wreak havoc on the caravan, disease certainly will. Not to mention, it's only a matter of time before you have to ford a treacherous river or weather a deadly storm. It's only the first night of your journey. You have more than a hundred more to go. From Wondery comes a new series about a lawyer who broke all the rules. Need to launder some money? Broker a deal with a drug cartel? Take out a witness? Paul can do it. I'm your host, Brandon Jinks Jenkins. Follow Criminal Attorney on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Now streaming. Welcome to Buy It Now, where aspiring entrepreneurs get 90 seconds to pitch to an audience of potential customers. If the audience liked the product,

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From Wondery, I'm Lindsey Graham, and this is American History Tellers. Our history, your story. Music The Great Migration of 1843 began on May 22nd when Captain John Gant, a former Army officer, led nearly 1,000 immigrants westward along the Oregon Trail, 176 years ago today to the day. Many of the immigrants were worried about attacks from Native Americans, but in hindsight, their own human error was the far bigger threat. Drownings, horse accidents, untreated disease, and accidental shootings were responsible for most of the deaths on the Oregon Trail.

After five long months, and after traveling over 2,000 miles in brutal conditions, the caravan successfully arrived in Oregon in October of 1843. In the early 1840s, economic anxiety was rampant due to the long-lasting recession caused by the panic of 1837. During this tenuous time, Oregon fever swept over the country. The Oregon Trail captured the imaginations of thousands of Americans who dreamed of moving west and starting anew. From 1843 until the early 1850s, nearly a quarter of a million Americans traveled along the Oregon Trail, the longest voluntary migration in American history. Today on this special episode of American History Tellers, we're going to talk about journeys west. For many, the story of American

pioneers might seem familiar, but my guest today has rediscovered a powerful chapter in that story. The settlers of the Northwest Territory were significant pioneers in America's westward expansion. But their stories, and those of five trailblazers in particular, are largely unknown. Telling their story in a new book is one of America's greatest history tellers, David McCullough. McCullough has received numerous awards and accolades as a respected author, lecturer, and master of narrative history. His dozen books include two Pulitzer Prize-winning biographies, Truman and John Adams, and he's a recognizable voice on public television and in

documentaries. He's also the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation's highest civilian honor. His new book is called The Pioneers, the heroic story of the settlers who brought the American ideal West. McCullough joined me to talk about the making of the book and where American history fits into our lives today. Here's our conversation. David McCullough, what an honor it is to have you with us here today. Thank you, sir. My pleasure. You have an illustrious career writing about American history. You've twice won the Pulitzer and twice the National Book Award, tackling diverse subjects, but each seated firmly in American history.

Before we get to your new book, The Pioneers, I wanted to ask, what is it that has drawn you to the history of our country in particular for so many years? I've been drawn to American history with increasing power, if you will, because of the story of who we are and how we became what we are. is a story filled with essential lessons about life and about our place in life as communities and as citizens who have had the blessing of the American opportunity. And because the stories are powerful in the extreme, the reason they're powerful is because history is not just about quotations and statistics and memorizing this or that. History is about people. History is human. What was remarkable to me is, as you just said, that history is human and always a story, but your works have never been out of print. the story is foremost and very compelling. And I was wondering,

what are the tools that you find to make nonfiction in history so irresistible to read? It's only irresistible if you're able to be in the life of the protagonist. In other words, to know them, to know them as human beings, fellow human beings, and to know the time in which they live. But they didn't live in the past. They lived in the present, just as we do, only it was their present, not ours. And it's a mistake to assume that their present, their time, was just like ours because it wasn't. You have to know the time as well as the individuals, and you have to know the place. I started out, I wanted to be a writer.

I wanted to be a novelist or a playwright. I learned early on from the advice of a number of superb writers and teachers and accomplished advisors on writing that you have to go where things happen. You have to soak up that environment. You have to smell the coal in the air at night or look at the horizon, whether it's mountains or sea or wherever it is. So that in learning about the life, writing about the life of someone like Harry Truman, you have to go and spend a good deal of time in Independence, Missouri. Or if you want to write about someone like the Wright brothers, you have to realize how it was that they grew up.

And who were their teachers? Very, very important. And what did those teachers teach them? And their teachers are very often some of the most influential people in their lives. And very often, of course, it's also their parents. The influence of the father of the Wright brothers, for example, on them and what makes a good life, what their purpose in life should be, is uplifting in the extreme. We can all learn from those same people they learned from. Well, talking about knowing about a place, there's probably very few consequential places, as consequential places in American history as the Northwest Territories. Your book, The Pioneers, is out and is all about this particular area.

That's right. Well, let me just start off and say that most of us don't know about the Northwest Territory. We think of the West as the West of the cowboy and the covered wagon and the expansive buffalo land and so forth. This is the territory that was North and is North and West of the Ohio River. And I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the place where the Ohio River is created when the Allegheny and the Monongahela Rivers meet there. And I've lived with the Ohio River for much of my life. River towns are story towns almost always because human travel is passing through just as the water of the river is passing through both directions. And the river in itself winds and

turns and there are bends, and you don't know what's around the bend and so forth. The Northwest Territory was ceded to us by Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War, part of the Peace Treaty. And it is as large as all of the original 13 colonies. But at that time, it was all forest. It was all wilderness. It opened up opportunity. It opened up a future to the people in the eastern part of the country of a kind that was never available before. And out of the Northwest Territory would come five states, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The first of the pioneers to go out and settle

in that wilderness were a group of people, veterans of the revolution, from New England, where I live. They were being compensated for their service in the revolution with land because the pay that they had received, what they called scrip for their services, was all but worthless. It was 10 cents on the dollar, if that. And so here was this rich land, deep topsoil, good top, some of the best in the world. It was available to them at a very low price. So these pioneers shouldn't be pictured as Daniel Boone with his long rifle and coonskin cap going out alone. They're going out as families. So there's children, wives, everything. And they're going to confront adversities, changes, tragedies of a kind that they had

very little expectation of. Now, they weren't softies. They worked hard, most of them on farms, hard all their lives, men and women, and struggled to make a living and to bring up their children. And of course, they'd also, the men had served in the war for eight years. Even so, they confronted problems of a kind that they had never known before. Storms, floods, an earthquake, epidemic disease, and of course there was the problem of how to deal with the natives. And they were plentiful and they were potentially dangerous both ways. There would be in this territory four essentials of this, what became

known as the Northwest Ordinance, complete religious freedom. There would be public support for education, which was not true in any of the colonies. In other words, public education, public schools, paid for by the people from grade school all the way through college. Hence, it was the birth of state universities. And the natives, and they were many tribes, would be treated with fairness and honesty in the hope that they could all get along. And finally, most important of all, there would be no slavery. Now, there were slaves in every state of the original 13 colonies, 13 states, every one. So finally, the dream of America in which all men are created equal was no longer just words on paper. When you cross that line into the Northwest Territory, you were crossing into a place where there was no slavery.

This was all accomplished by one of the most amazing and, I think, admirable men in our history. His name was Manessa Cutler. Why don't we talk about the Northwest Ordinance, of which he is largely responsible. As you've hinted, it sets up pretty much the American character for years and years to come, but it didn't really have to go that way. Not all was guaranteed. No, it didn't have to go that way. It went that way because we had people of noble intention. And one of the most important themes of this story and accomplishment is the whole idea that if you're going to be a self-governing people, you have to be educated.

Everybody has to be educated. Everybody has to know how to read. Everybody has to understand that it's only by the life of the mind that real progress, real decency, and humanity toward one another can proceed. And that, of course, has remained one of the great opportunities, if you will, one of the great freedoms and blessings of our country. And let us hope it will never stop. I'm Tristan Redman, and as a journalist, I've never believed in ghosts. But when I discovered that my wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door to where I grew up, I started wondering about the inexplicable things that happened in my childhood bedroom. When I tried to find out more, I discovered that someone who slept in my room after me, someone I'd never met, was visited by the ghost

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of what an American entrepreneur is. Oh, my God. Are we excited for this moment? Ah! I cannot believe it. Woo! Buy It now. Stream free on Freeview and Prime Video. Let's talk about some of the other main characters that are in the book.

Rufus Putnam, for instance. Who was he? Rufus Putnam was a general in the Revolutionary War. He was a military engineer, if you will, that Washington spotted very early on. And he built many of the most notable fortifications that the American army had the benefit of, including West Point and Brooklyn Heights and so forth. And Washington thought the world of him, and rightly so. And he was from Massachusetts, and he was really the leader of the group.

Dr. Manessa Cutler, the minister, never went out to settle in Ohio. He went out and looked things over. But he had too much going on back east for him to transfer there. But Rufus Putnam was the one in charge. He was a born leader along with a lot of other things. And he was a man, for example, who had been denied an education by a very unkind stepfather, who had longed to be able to advance and read and have proper use of English language his whole life. And he then becomes, when he's in Ohio, one of those who works hardest of all to get the first university established there. It was one of Vanessa Cutler's sons, his oldest son, whose name was Ephraim,

who did go out at his father's request and out of his own desire with his young family to settle there. And Ephraim Cutler is in some ways one of the most interesting, admirable, and human figures of our past that I've ever had the chance to read about or get to know. And what makes this all possible is that they all wrote letters and kept diaries all the time. And those diaries and those letters, which number in the thousands, quite literally in quantity alone, let alone quality, the thinking that you feel what it is they're trying to achieve. And they're not doing what they're doing in order to be rich or to be famous or to have more possessions than other people or any of that. They had purpose,

high, worthy, decent purpose, and they did not give up. I've never seen anything like it, and they're all in one place, and they've been sitting there for a great many years in the archives of the small college in Ohio, Marietta College in Marietta. My discovery of that was, for me, one of the most thrilling events of my whole writing life. Well, this is an amazing treasure trove of primary source material. Oh, it's phenomenal. Now, I did find some other things at libraries such as the Library of Congress and the Yale Library, but basically it's all drawn from this one magnificent collection at the heart of Marietta College, which was one of the

creations of these early founders. Amongst all of this wonderful source material is this real stories of these five and more people. And they suffered, they suffered immensely. In a dramatic chapter of the book, you detail the misery and pitiful conditions of these early settlers. Running low on food, suffered horrible morale. People abandoned camps daily. You included an entry from Rufus Putnam's letter to George Washington about the conditions in Marietta. Yes. Could you read an excerpt of that for us? Yes, I can. At the close of this incredible letter, and keep in mind, please, that both

Washington and Putnam know each other very well and highly respect each other. And he's talking about how the federal government, the government under Washington, has so far provided them no help whatsoever. So he says, so unless we can be assured of government protection, self-preservation dictates the propriety of getting away as soon as possible. I do not wish to entertain groundless jealousies, nor frighten myself with imaginary evils, but it must be allowed that a black cloud hangs over us, and God only knows when or on what devoted spot it may break. Now, there's several things about that letter, it seems to me. One of

them is how superbly it's written, and how to the point it is, and how desperate the situation appeared at that moment. And he's talking about the lives of hundreds of people, men, women, children. These people had courage, extraordinary courage, and they knew how to work. Oh, my God, did they work. We have no idea. Women from the first light of day on into the dark of night. And I have to say that the more I read about them, the more I got to know them and understood the details of their lives, I realized we're a bunch of softies by comparison. There's a lot to learn from them. I've always felt with every one of the books I've undertaken that I learned things from the characters I was with. And you

get to know these people if you're doing research on them. You get to know them as well or better than you know people in real life. Because in one thing, in real life, you don't get to read other people's mail. And so you get inside them. And their backbone, their admirable purpose in life. It was the same with the Wright brothers, that they were raised to have purpose, that happiness doesn't come with materialism or fame or money in the bank. Happiness comes with work you love, with achievement that you're proud of, to be useful. Manessa Cutler established a school in the third floor of his home beside his church in the town of Hamilton, Mass. And the theme or purpose of the whole school was to press forward on the importance in life of you being useful. Make yourself useful and make the world

a little bit better than it was before you came along. And that is at the heart of what these people stood for. Manessa's message must have been heard very loud and clear by his son, Ephraim Cutler, who moved to the Ohio region, then eventually became the Washington County delegate to Ohio's Constitutional Convention, where they were contemplating becoming a state. In that convention, the younger Cutler drafted Section 2, which specifically excludes slavery or involuntary servitude. I was wondering if you could talk to me more about his legislative career and his decisions to uphold the Northwest Ordinance's abolitions and ideals.

This is, in many ways, my favorite moment in the whole story, and it's incredible. And if a novelist had concocted it, his editor or her editor would have said, no, no, that really couldn't possibly have happened. Oh, yes, it did. Ephraim Cutler is at the pioneer capital, if you will, of the new Ohio, there was a big movement after Jefferson's election to dispense with the rule of the original ordinance that there would be no slavery, and they started admitting slaves into Ohio. And it was very popular with the people who were Jeffersonians. Ephraim was battling this with all that he had in the legislature, as was Rufus Putnam. And it was about to come to a vote, and Ephraim

became suddenly very seriously ill, and he couldn't get out of bed. And Rufus Putnam came to him one morning, to his room where he was staying and said, you've got to get up. The vote's going to come today and you have to be there. Several other people carried him into the legislature on a stretcher. I never found any solid evidence of that. But one way or another, he did get out of bed, and he did go in to vote. And he was like the son of the originator of this no slavery, was carrying his father's banner into the biggest battle ever, and with the most far-reaching consequences. And he did it, and his side, block against any slavery ever, won by one vote.

I cannot overstate the importance of that moment. If Ohio had suddenly been open to slavery, our history would have been changed in ways that are hard to calculate. As it was, let's remember, the Ohio River had become the gateway to freedom for Black people on the slave state side of the river, and of course gave rise to the Underground Railroad as so vividly portrayed in Uncle Tom's cabin. All the evidence is that Ephraim Cutler was also involved, if ever so secretly as one had to be, he was involved with the Underground Railroad. In other words, getting black people across the river into

freedom. I think Ephraim Cutler, if he had stopped serving the causes that he believed in, and on that alone, he would be someone of immense, admirable accomplishment. But he then went on to be the leading figure in creating the university, first university west of the Allegheny Mountains. That university is what happened to draw me into this whole story. I was invited in the year 2004 to come give a speech at the commencement because the university was celebrating its 200th anniversary. And I was very pleased to accept and proud to be included. But at that point, I knew very little about the history of the university. And that's when I

began reading and how it came about. And the oldest building on the campus was called Cutler Hall. And I wonder why was it called Cutler Hall? And that's what made me learn about Manessa Cutler, the father. And once I learned about him, I then found out about Ephraim. I found out about the college at Marietta that had wonderful background material on the story. And once I saw that, I realized I was hooked and happily, happily so. One of the biggest, best strokes of luck in my life. In November 1991, media tycoon Robert Maxwell mysteriously vanished from his luxury yacht in the Canary Islands. But it wasn't just his body that would come to the surface in the days that followed. It soon emerged that Robert's business was on the brink of collapse, and behind his facade

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I'm curious about your habits outside of the research laboratory of libraries that you travel to. You've been writing in a shed that's quite iconic. For those who haven't seen it, it's... Well, now, some people refer to it as a shed. I think upon it as world headquarters. Headquarters. I like it. World headquarters. No, that's our home on Martha's Vineyard, where I've written many of my books, most of them. And it's a small cabin that I had built far away from the house so that our children wouldn't grow up being told constantly they had to be quiet because father was working. I wanted to give them the freedom to raise hell as children will and should, as they wished. And so it's probably nearly a hundred yards from the house. But it had all that I wanted, which were the books,

the papers, and so forth. No telephone, no communication at all, very little in the way of elaborate equipment. But I have probably a thousand or more books, and I have my typewriter on which I've written everything I've ever had published. And sometimes I think maybe it's writing the book. The Ghost in the Machine is quite an accomplished author, if so. So a lot has been said about the study of history, that history itself repeats or it rhymes and that we can learn from the mistakes of the past. But I want to know, what does history for you mean? Why does history for your readers matter? I think that history is essential. I think it should be required all the way through high school and college. And some people, for one thing, students, young people,

ought to learn that in life some things are required. But mainly it's who we are. How did we get to where we are? And what are the essential fundamental truths about the human society and human accomplishment that we all need to learn and take inspiration from by knowing our history. But I think also, and this I'm feeling more strongly now than ever, there are two great lessons of history that we all need to be continuously aware of. One is empathy. To put yourself in the other person's place. In order to understand what

happened in that other time, we have to be able to put ourselves in their place, understand how they saw things, understand what they didn't know that we know. And the second quality of immense importance, and I feel so strongly about it, is gratitude. Gratitude for what they did. Gratitude for what they suffered for our benefit. To just take that for granted, to know nothing about it, to care, have no concern or interest in it, isn't just to be ignorant. It's to be rude. It's to be unjustly selfish, because we owe far more than most all of us realize to those people who went before we came along. David McCullough, we're so glad you could join us today. It was a real pleasure speaking with you.

Well, I'm so glad you questioned me as you did. And it was very reassuring to be interviewed by somebody with insights of the kind that your questions reveal. Thank you so much and keep up your good work. Thank you. You too, sir. Bye-bye. That was my conversation with two-time Pulitzer

Prize-winning author and notable historian David McCullough. Check out his latest book, The Pioneers. We've been asking listeners of American History Tellers to answer this question. If you could be an everyday person at some point in history, which time period would you choose and why? And we've been getting some great responses. Hello, American history tellers. My name is Todd Madison, and I am an EMT calling from Flint, Michigan. If I had to go back to, if I got to go back to any time in American history, of course, there are recent times that I would like to see for myself, but there are people who were reasonable adults at the time who have introspection

who are still alive that I could just talk to you about that. So, of course, there's only one time left that sticks out to me. That is the age of invention, the 1840s through 1860s. My mom always said that she has been saying since I was a child that I was just born in the wrong century. And that's that's exactly where I belong. Hi, my name is Ellie. I'm calling from Los Angeles, California. And I would choose to live in the 1940s because I'm obsessed with just the culture of the era, the music, the fashion. And also our country seems like it was unified in a way that it hasn't really been before since. And I think that would have been really fascinating to witness.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Jordan Hewitt and I I'm a history major, and I live in East Tennessee. The time period that I would pick would actually be about the 1780s, 1790s, following Daniel Boone down the Wilderness Road. It seems like a free lifestyle that I would love to experience and wonderful to read about. Have a great day. Thank you. We loved hearing from you, and if you haven't called in, please do. We're at 424-285-0548. Call to tell us which time period you would choose and why. Remember to include your name and where you're calling from.

We might play your message on the show. Again, that's 424-285-0548. One more time, 424-285-0548. From Wondery, this is Episode 7 of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI for American History Tellers. On the next episode, in partnership with National Geographic, we begin a two-part series on American epidemics. 100 years ago, the Spanish flu brought American society to the breaking point and forever reshaped the way the United States responds to public health crises. And in 2014, the nation's pandemic response will be put to the test once again when Ebola makes landfall in the United States. If you like American History Tellers, you can binge all episodes early and ad-free right now

by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. American History Tellers is hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsey Graham for Airship. Sound design by Derek Behrens. Our producers are Jacqueline Kim and Jenny Lauerbeckman. Executive producers are Marsha Louis and Hernán López for Wondery.

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