WEBVTT - Make America Creative Again | The Next Frontier with Dr. Kevin Roberts 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:10.160 Milania leaned over to me during the Kennedy Center Honors 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:12.280 and she said, don't touch those lights. 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.440 And so you're not going to have those highlights. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.360 One hundred and eighty million collection items, one hundred and 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.200 eighty million correct, correct, Well, largest library and the we 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:21.799 think of ourselves as the forever institution. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:22.840 We need to be here forever. 0:00:22.920 --> 0:00:23.840 I'm preserved these things. 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:27.640 I'm walking into two of America's most important cultural institutions. 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.480 One built for performance, one built for preservation. 0:00:32.400 --> 0:00:34.960 So I'm asking a simple question, what. 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:53.320 Does it take to keep a cultural inheritance alive? The 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:57.200 Kennedy Center was conceived as a temple to artistic excellence, 0:00:57.840 --> 0:01:04.440 ballet opera, dedicated to beauty, skill, and the deepest expressions of. 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:05.200 The human spirit. 0:01:06.280 --> 0:01:08.839 We met up with Richard Grennell, president of the Trump 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.560 Kennedy Center, to get an inside look at what it 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:13.639 takes to keep an American tradition alive. 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:17.520 Well, first of all, welcome to the Trump Kennedy Center, 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.200 to the opera house here where we do amazing musicals 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:25.560 and all sorts of special programming. I think the first 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.440 thing that I have to say while it's sitting here 0:01:27.520 --> 0:01:30.240 is I haven't really sat in these particular seats. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:31.800 These need work. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.880 The velvet is not in great shape, the seats are 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.200 not in great shape, the arms. You just feel like 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:46.600 America's cultural institution has been neglected, and that makes me 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:50.120 a little sad. I, of course, came here at the 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.080 request of the President, and on my first day when 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:57.559 I arrived, i'd say within the first forty five minutes. 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.320 The first thing I did when I got here was 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.160 to say, can I speak to the CFO? And they 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.760 told me, well, she's not working today, she works from home. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:10.120 And I said, great, can I get her on zoom? 0:02:11.040 --> 0:02:14.560 And I started speaking with her and just asking some 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:17.519 math questions, some really basic math questions. I've got a 0:02:17.560 --> 0:02:22.040 finance background, so I thought it might be simple questions. 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.399 How much money do we have in the bank, what's 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:27.680 our liabilities coming up around the corner, what do revenues 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:28.040 look like. 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:29.960 I just wanted to get a general sense. 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:33.880 The very first person that I spoke to, and she 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.000 acted like she was part of the PR team. She 0:02:36.080 --> 0:02:40.079 was spinning me more than anything, and it was troubling. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:46.160 I got off the phone and immediately thought, Wow, this 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:48.760 is not good. And within an hour she had resigned. 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:51.760 She resigned because I asked her some hard. 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.239 Questions, asked some math questions of a CFO. 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.360 And she said, I'm out of here, and so I 0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.480 didn't have to make that change. 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.440 She made that change. 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.440 Simply because I was asking questions and trying to get 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.520 to the bottom of what was going on. That to me, 0:03:06.960 --> 0:03:10.560 is indicative of what the next year unfolded like. 0:03:11.280 --> 0:03:15.160 We had a rainstorm pretty quickly after. 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:19.639 That and an immediate flood, and I just decided to 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:22.679 bring the president over and to say he was an 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.720 incredible construction guy who likes to do this on his 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:30.320 free time. Walk into the basement with me, and I've 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.640 learned a lot about construction from him while being here. 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.240 But he saw it immediately and he was able to 0:03:36.280 --> 0:03:39.320 talk to the guys who run this building who had said, 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:42.400 you know, it's been neglected for ten or fifteen years, 0:03:42.600 --> 0:03:44.680 the deferred maintenance is really bad. 0:03:45.200 --> 0:03:47.280 We should think about tearing it down and starting over. 0:03:47.360 --> 0:03:49.440 And the President had an immediate reaction to say, no, 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:50.720 we're not going to tear it down. 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:51.960 We're going to fix it. 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.600 And he immediately went to Congress asked for the money. 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.920 That's a long answer to say, this place is America's 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.280 Cultural Center. We should have been taking care of it. 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.080 We didn't. And I think one of the reasons why 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:08.600 the media in. 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:15.280 Washington right now is freaking out is because they ignored 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:15.840 this place. 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:17.960 We had media. 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:21.159 Coverage that only focused on programming, Who's the latest, the 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.320 greatest coming in. No one was asking these questions. I've 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:28.240 asked reporters consistently, do you know what debt reserves are? 0:04:29.000 --> 0:04:32.320 And they didn't know, and they were covering this place, 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.440 and I said, well, you know what's interesting is when 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.760 I arrived, we were paying staff with debt reserves for 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.760 our balloon payment in twenty thirty. We were digging into 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:45.560 our debt reserves to pay for operations. And so that's unacceptable. 0:04:45.760 --> 0:04:50.359 I think it's immoral, maybe even criminal, but it's definitely immoral. 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:53.600 And I wanted to fix that. The President wanted to 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:54.040 fix that. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:54.560 And so. 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.599 When President Trump came and wanted to really save America's 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.040 Cultural Center, he realized it needed to be saved financially 0:05:04.720 --> 0:05:05.880 as well as physically. 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:07.080 And that's what we've been doing. 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:13.160 And saving America's Cultural Center should it should transcend partisan politics, 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:17.040 but of course in Washington these days, nothing transcends politics. 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:20.320 But that's all the more reason for you and the President. 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:22.080 God bless the two of you for doing it, for 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:24.719 doubling down and saying we are going to get this 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:25.360 place fixed. 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.480 We're going to address the deferred maintenance rip. 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:29.600 One of the things I've been fascinated by since I'd 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:31.599 arrived at Heritage four years ago. 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:32.680 Is cultural diplomacy. 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:35.120 And this is something you're truly an expert in, and 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:37.599 so that's top of mind for me as I stand 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.279 here with you because of your expertise, but also visiting 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:45.080 the Trump Kennedy Center. What's the importance of cultural diplomacy 0:05:45.160 --> 0:05:46.560 right now in the twenty first century. 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.479 Look, I think a lot of countries have cultural ministers 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.919 because they know that they've got to win this battle 0:05:52.040 --> 0:05:55.080 on the culture. I think Republicans have given it up 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.039 for so long. It is something I think the President 0:05:59.080 --> 0:06:02.120 cares about, always wants to fight on this issue and 0:06:02.200 --> 0:06:08.240 bring people together. And we should have it nonpartisan or bipartisan, 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.960 whatever you want to call it. When I came here, 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:16.000 we had a system where we employed people to look 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.520 at different cultures, different countries and figure out what programming 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.760 could we bring here. I decided to flip it and 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:27.080 instead of that, we went to all of the embassies 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:30.840 here because the world is represented in Washington, DC. Washington 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:34.640 DC has a luxury of being able to quickly tap 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.560 into the world with a couple of phone calls. You 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:40.880 know this, And so we decided to go to the 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:42.919 embassies and say what do you have, what do you 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.400 want to bring here? Also, can you pay for it 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:47.640 when you come here, so that we wouldn't have to 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.120 necessarily just pay for it. But countries want to bring 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:53.760 their programming here. They want to celebrate cultures, They want 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.360 to celebrate the best of what they have. They want 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:57.919 to showcase it to Washington. 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:03.040 The language of culture is usually poetic. It concerns beauty, meaning, 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:08.360 and inspiration. The language of running a building starts with leaks, ledgers, 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:13.160 and broken seats. But stewardship is never just plumbing in budgets. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.320 The moment you touch a flagship institution, you touch the 0:07:17.360 --> 0:07:22.200 politics that surround it, sometimes even the politics people try 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.760 to bring into it. As I sit here now in 0:07:25.800 --> 0:07:30.160 an empty Kennedy Center, I think often about the performances 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:32.400 my wife and I have seen here. I think about 0:07:32.400 --> 0:07:36.200 the importance of this place for America's cultural identity, but 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:38.680 really the cultural identity of the West, something that you 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:42.560 and your own experience and international relations are an expert in. 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:45.600 But the other obstacle that's out there, just given the 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.320 nature of political discourse in Washington, is that the media 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:51.760 and of course their allies, some of their allies in Congress, 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.840 continue to impose upon this cultural institution politics in a 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:57.960 way that politics doesn't belong and in the same way 0:07:57.960 --> 0:07:59.160 they've done that in classrooms. 0:07:59.280 --> 0:07:59.400 Right. 0:07:59.840 --> 0:08:03.280 So, along with the physical restoration of this place, which 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:05.680 is a glorious plan, by the way, what do we 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:08.120 need to do even more broadly as a society to 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.880 get politics out of where it doesn't belong. 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:15.840 I don't think you're going to get it out out. 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:18.160 Of this city, right. 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.520 I mean, we shouldn't be surprised that Washington, DC is 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.880 the most political city in the world. America is the 0:08:23.920 --> 0:08:27.160 greatest country, and our politics are going to be great 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.120 because of that. And so I've been around the politics 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:36.040 enough to where I'm really dismissive, dismissive of it here 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:36.880 in Washington. 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:40.200 When I get out of Washington, people don't care so much. 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:43.079 And I think that bubble mentality is what we need 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.800 leaders to do we need leaders to understand when you're 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.760 fixing a cultural institution, it's a good thing and people 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:54.439 support it. Only in Washington is Republican money going into 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:55.840 the arts a bad thing? 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:56.280 Right? 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:00.760 So I thought in the beginning there was a chance 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.800 that maybe because the President of the United States, a Republican, 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.640 was asking for two hundred and fifty seven million dollars 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:10.920 to be put into the Kennedy Center to support the 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.480 then Kennedy Center, to support this institution and to fix 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.320 it and to make it grand again, I thought that 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:20.800 the Democrats would support that. 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:22.120 They haven't. 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:27.120 They've turned arts into a partisan issue. And I think 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.520 that it's clear because we decided that we were going 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:34.040 to get into it. It's not dissimilar than the union 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:37.600 issue when the president decided to go after unions. When 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:41.240 President Trump decided to campaign with first and second generation Americans, 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:45.320 the Democrats really melted down. I don't want to see 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.560 that here. I want us to be sitting in these 0:09:48.559 --> 0:09:53.079 seats and the person that's right next to us maybe voted, 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:58.400 maybe didn't vote, maybe voted for somebody that we don't 0:09:58.559 --> 0:10:01.320 vote for, but at the end of the day that 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:04.440 we don't care, right and that's what we want, because 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:07.840 we've got an amazing stage. We saw le Miz here, 0:10:08.360 --> 0:10:10.520 we saw the sound of Music here. We've seen some 0:10:10.600 --> 0:10:14.920 amazing shows. And the performers shouldn't expect the audience to 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.680 agree with them either. And we got to get back 0:10:17.679 --> 0:10:17.960 to that. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.400 The real test of an arts institution is whether people 0:10:21.440 --> 0:10:22.720 still choose to show up. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.880 We cannot have the cancel culture in this type of setting. 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:29.320 I'll finish with this. 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:32.360 I don't quote the New York Times very much, but 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:35.600 last summer the New York Times did a front page 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:40.800 piece about how Broadway was dying, about seats not being sold, 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.400 people not going to Broadway, and the conclusion of that was, 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:50.120 if you bring back a revival, and within kind of 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.800 the arts community, a revival is like, you know something 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:56.760 that was already on the stage, and we're going to 0:10:56.800 --> 0:11:00.480 bring it back an updated a little bit, the old stuff, 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.600 the common sense stuff. If you do a revival, it's 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:06.800 much better for ticket sales. People want to come to 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.920 see that. Now, when you take a a movie in 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:12.160 today's world and you turn. 0:11:12.040 --> 0:11:15.600 It into a Broadway show, very risky. Not a lot 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:16.400 of people are going to go. 0:11:16.400 --> 0:11:19.480 In the beginning the critics may like it because it's 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.240 cutting edge, but the people don't. 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:25.199 And so if you want to have. 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.199 An institution that's around forever, I came here and I said, 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:32.719 you got to do three things. You have to put 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:35.000 as many people in the seats as possible. But we 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:39.000 know in a post COVID world all ticket sales are struggling, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.479 and the New York Times showed us that with Broadway 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.360 you have to have individual sponsors, people who are just 0:11:45.520 --> 0:11:47.559 wealthy who like the arts, who say, you know what, 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.280 I want to see Tchaikovski and so I'm going to 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.480 write a big check because I love that score, right, 0:11:55.320 --> 0:11:59.000 or corporations who say this kind of aligns with who 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.640 we are a people like this, and so corporate dollars, 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.760 individual dollars, ticket sales all need. 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:08.200 To come together to get us to at least revenue neutral. 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:10.800 And if we make a little money, then we can 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:14.600 do some arts education, right, And so that's what we're 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:15.320 trying to. 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:19.760 Do, is be able to further the arts. I love 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:20.559 arts education. 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:24.160 You know, as a child, I tried the violin, I 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.360 tried the piano, I tried the cornet. 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:31.400 I love trying new things. 0:12:31.840 --> 0:12:36.320 And I think young people really respond to music, to acting, 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:41.199 to programming. There's not everybody is just a sports guy, right, 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.200 And so it's really important to me that we remove 0:12:46.280 --> 0:12:50.160 the politics and have places like this that celebrate everyone 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.640 coming together and watching some amazing performances. 0:12:54.040 --> 0:13:00.679 A performing arts center is a living organism. It needs audiences, patrons, discipline, 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.600 and constant repair. But if you want to know what 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:06.880 a nation truly values, you also look at what it 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:11.560 refuses to let disappear. The Library of Congress safeguards the 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:16.880 record of American imagination. Doctor Kevin Butterfield historian, fellow historian, 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.400 fellow Kevin for that matter, research center director here at 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:23.439 the Library of Congress, I just have to say, from me, 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.079 not even on behalf of the audience, what a treat 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:26.760 it is to be here. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:28.960 Thanks for your time, So happy to do it, Excited 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.120 to show you things in this room and in this building. 0:13:31.480 --> 0:13:34.839 People will know as they're watching the show what I'm 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:36.840 up to and being here, because they know that what 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:39.520 we're trying to do is to reveal to them sort 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:43.080 of an insider's view for important cultural institutions. And any 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.600 American would know right off the bath the Library of. 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:46.560 Congress is one of them. 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:49.720 But tell us, given your experience here and also leading 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.320 up to hear, why what happens inside this building is 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.120 so important for the everyday American. 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:57.400 For one thing, it's more than just this building. We 0:13:57.440 --> 0:13:59.640 happen to be in the Thomas Jefferson Building, the beautiful building. 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:02.120 Just as from the Capital everyone can recognize the dome, 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.280 beautiful space open in the eighteen nineties, but the library 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.679 outgrew that quite quickly. There are more buildings, including off 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:11.000 side storage, to hold the rough one hundred and eighty 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.880 million collection items one hundred eighty million correct, correct, the 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.240 largest library in the world, unquestionably, and no. 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:22.120 This isn't the National Archives. The difference matters, simple but 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:24.920 important question. What's the difference between the Library of Congress 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:25.960 and the National Archives? 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:28.680 So the Archives much younger really than the library. 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:29.680 Oh, I see what you do do? 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.280 Were created to become a repository for all the official 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.800 records produced by all the branches of government, and those 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:41.720 things are contained there and including offside storage all around 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.720 the country, by the way, millions of items. I don't 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:47.080 know the exact scope of the National Archives, but the 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.280 Library for quite some time actually served some of the 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.440 purpose that the Archives currently serves, for instance, the Declaration 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:54.160 of Independence. 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.240 The original manuscript was. 0:14:56.200 --> 0:14:59.360 Actually here for decades in the twentieth century, and only 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.280 with the opening the Archives building on the mall didn't 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.160 move in a grand procession to. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.320 Be displayed there. But the library. 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:09.080 Preserves things that are not official government records, and the 0:15:09.200 --> 0:15:10.560 archives are there to preserve those. 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:14.160 And then you see the record up close through objects 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.640 that were never meant to last, and you may be 0:15:16.760 --> 0:15:21.000 delighted to find some familiar friends sitting alongside America's oldest 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:23.480 and most important works of literature. 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:24.680 Within this collection. 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.760 As you say, there's a lot of surprises got in 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.200 the hat, including Doctor Seuss. And this is I actually 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:35.600 had this next to another instance of great American literature, 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:38.920 some of which people know instantly, the cat and the hat, 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.320 some of which they may have forgotten. This is actually 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.880 but both of these are pedagogical. There these are teaching 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.080 tools and Doctor Seuss theater guys. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.040 He wrote this with. 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:55.560 A opportunity to teach young children how to read in 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:57.440 ways that were a little more interesting than the Dick 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.120 and Jane premers that might exist. 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:01.360 Webster was doing. 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:05.680 Something quite similar in trying to create and capture a 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.600 way to teach Americans how to read and spell and 0:16:09.720 --> 0:16:13.840 pronounce English. This is in the nineteen eighties, No Webster, 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.640 it takes off, and this is long before his Dictionary, 0:16:16.680 --> 0:16:18.680 but he decides that there is a market for a 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:23.040 purely American English speller that can be used and assigned. 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.600 And it was this is. 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:26.400 As you see. 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:28.560 A young woman in the nineteenth century actually created a 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.560 sampler to preserve this thing. It's been warned to tatters, 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.680 but we have it here at the library. The Cat 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:37.440 in the Hat is per scene, by the way. But 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.560 both of these books were there to teach, and with 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.640 this one he uses only a couple of hundred words. 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:46.520 There's none of the fanciful, made up Susian words that 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:46.760 we know. 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:47.880 It's all real words. 0:16:48.440 --> 0:16:51.480 Because he wanted to create something that students, young kids 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.080 could read and begin to be able to read for themselves. 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:56.360 Webster was doing the same thing. 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.320 Well, professor, you taught me something today. I had never 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:02.280 thought about the importance of these two things. Cat and 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:05.000 the Hat with no. Webster's work really important part of 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:06.320 our American story. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:10.679 They both are teaching young people what American English is right, 0:17:10.720 --> 0:17:12.800 and Webster was very self conscious about it, because there 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.520 were no American spellers or anything vitally important. 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:17.359 And he knew it. 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.040 He knew that he was also quite grandiose about it. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:23.320 But he believed that if we could. 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.040 Find a way to all, as Americans say things in 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:30.040 the same ways, not have regional dialects that were dramatically 0:17:30.040 --> 0:17:32.960 different from other parts of the country, that he might help, 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.359 through his own efforts, do the same sorts of things 0:17:35.359 --> 0:17:37.760 that the framers of the Constitution were doing knit the 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.560 nation together. And so when Webster writes these things, and 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.720 they wind up becoming, by the way, by some measures, 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:46.320 the single best selling book ever written by an American, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:49.200 because they're sold in the hundreds of millions of copies 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:51.000 over the course of the next hundred and some odd years. 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:54.359 But he knows that he's doing something very important to 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:57.280 teach and unite Americans. I don't know if doctor Schuss 0:17:57.280 --> 0:17:59.600 had the same sense there, but he certainly made an impact. 0:17:59.680 --> 0:18:01.680 It's cultfully significant, that's right. 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:04.640 Doctor Seuss was a huge influence on millions of children. 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:07.600 But one other work stands out is the most important 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:12.720 novel in American history, the famous novel now known as Moby. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:17.000 Dick Herman Melville's Moby Dick, totally unappreciated in its own moment, 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.680 was printed in December of eighteen fifty one, the American edition. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:23.400 We're actually looking at it here. This is the original 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:26.159 cloth binding. All you can see on here is just 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.280 a life booi, right, a sort of a life preserver. 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.040 It doesn't say Melville, doesn't say Moby Dick. It says 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:36.000 Harper and Brothers. I believe New York. But as we 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.440 turn into this and you get a chance to see 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:44.480 the very first American printing of Moby Dick, you can 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:48.000 see a book that has become in some ways described 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.480 as the grade American novel. And it goes on for 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:55.000 several hundred pages. He changes his mind a couple of 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:56.639 times about what he wants to call it. First he 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:58.960 thinks it might be the Whale. Later decides Moby Dick 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:01.360 kind of splits the difference, calls it Mobi Dick or 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:05.320 the Whale. It's printed actually a couple of months earlier 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:09.760 in Britain, in a bad It's filled with errors, including 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.280 a very important error. There's an epilogue to Mobi Dick 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:16.000 where you find out that dishmail survives. Sorry to spoil 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:18.879 the outcome from mobi Deck, but you find out that 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:22.000 he survives. The British edition left that out, and critics 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.960 seized on it, saying, not only is this book incomprehensible, 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:27.840 but it doesn't even follow the basic rules of having 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.040 the narrator survived the action. How could we even be 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:33.440 reading The British are thinking. 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.880 How perfectly America it gets panned, and that is one 0:19:37.880 --> 0:19:40.480 of the factors, including the fact that maybe it was just. 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:43.879 A bit ahead of its time in some ways. I mean, 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:46.000 there is something kind of proto post modern about what's 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:51.359 in this work. But it has been reinvigorated in the 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.680 twentieth century, starting with Melville's The Anniversary of his birth 0:19:54.800 --> 0:19:59.480 in nineteen nineteen, the people began to rediscover Herman Melville. 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.000 Only by the thirties, forties, and fifties does it become 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.560 sort of the great American novel. But this is a 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:07.560 very first printing of Mobi Deck in that original coth minding. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.920 Well, it's tremendous to see that original printing, and it's 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:17.160 also worthy of the reminder for American students who might 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.360 say that they suffered through having to read Mobi Dick 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:23.440 to understand that it's important for two reasons. Intrinsically as 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.080 a work of great American literature, but also as the 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.440 quintessential American novel, whose popularity and the appreciation of it 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.960 really increased deep into the twentieth century. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.040 And one of the great things that I love about 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:38.840 these kind of first moments, that is, no one knows 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:40.080 what's going to become of this book. 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:43.120 These works have endured because they address what is permanent 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:48.399 in the human soul. Their restoration is not nostalgia. It 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:54.399 is the recovery of a vital inheritance, timeless, transcendent, and 0:20:54.560 --> 0:20:57.960 worthy of the civilization that produced them. If we want 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.920 great art to remain part of American life, we can't 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:05.399 treat institutions like scenery, useful only when they flatter our side. 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.360