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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm far A Dowdy and I'm to bling a charcoal

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Speaker 1: boarding And this time we're going to pick up with

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Speaker 1: an interview we conducted earlier this summer with author David McCullough.

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Speaker 1: We got to talk to him about his new book,

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Speaker 1: The Greater Journey Americans in Paris, And during the first

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Speaker 1: half of this interview we really kind of just talked

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Speaker 1: about the book and how it was almost an unusual

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Speaker 1: style of book. It covers so many people, so many

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Speaker 1: different Americans who travel to Paris during this long nearly

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Speaker 1: hundred years span of time and accomplish a lot um.

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Speaker 1: And we also got to talk to him then a

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Speaker 1: little bit about his research specifically for this book, of

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Speaker 1: a lot of it surprisingly took place here state side. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we talked to him about some things like his inspiration,

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Speaker 1: how he picked his protagonists, um, a lot of questions

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Speaker 1: that focused on the book specifically. But we stopped the

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Speaker 1: first part of the interview there knowing that we had

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Speaker 1: more to give you guys, but we wanted to give

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Speaker 1: people a chance to pick up the book and be

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Speaker 1: able to read it first, and we didn't want to

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Speaker 1: give too much away, and we wanted Mr McCullough's words

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Speaker 1: here to be able to kind of add a little

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Speaker 1: bit of context to to what you got from the

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Speaker 1: book and what you already knew. And also selfishly, we

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Speaker 1: wanted to be able to take the chance to talk

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Speaker 1: to him a little bit more about his own process,

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Speaker 1: what really inspires him and how he does his research

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Speaker 1: and puts a book together. Not too selfishly though, because

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Speaker 1: I think it's really going to help all of you

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Speaker 1: guys out there who are historians, are amateur historians, are

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Speaker 1: just interested in conducting your own research. He gave us

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Speaker 1: some really really great tips. If we're gonna tease you

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Speaker 1: guys a little bit here at the beginning of this interview, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So basically, even if you haven't read the book, I

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Speaker 1: think you'll really enjoy this part of the interview. But

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Speaker 1: that comes later, and first we're going to get back

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Speaker 1: to a greater journey. So the part of the book

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Speaker 1: that I was most eager to talk about and to

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Speaker 1: hear the author talk about was a chapter called the Medicals.

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Speaker 1: In it, as the title suggests, Mr McCullough focuses on

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Speaker 1: the this little world within a world of the greater book,

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Speaker 1: and it features hospitals, famous doctors, patients of course, with

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Speaker 1: all sorts of ailments. But his main focus here in

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Speaker 1: this section of the book is the American medical students

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Speaker 1: who come to Paris. There are people like James Jackson Jr.

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Speaker 1: Mason Warren Oliver, Wendell Holmes, and where you really get

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Speaker 1: to see how they come to Paris and really grow

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Speaker 1: to love it, and not just the city, but the

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Speaker 1: things that they're learning there. They get to attend these

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Speaker 1: awesome lectures, they get to follow these illustrious doctors on

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Speaker 1: their rounds and see them perform all these all kinds

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Speaker 1: of procedures. But what really struck me as learning why

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Speaker 1: they came to Paris to study in the first place.

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Speaker 1: They came there because the education they could get in

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Speaker 1: Paris was so far superior to what was available in

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Speaker 1: America at the time. And it was really compelling this

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Speaker 1: whole examination of the differences between the two countries in

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Speaker 1: this respect, and it really became a story of the

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Speaker 1: history of the medical field both here and there. But

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Speaker 1: a big folks, a big part of the focus here

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Speaker 1: was America although it was a story about Paris too,

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Speaker 1: and so we really wondered how Mr McCullough crafted this

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Speaker 1: part of the story, how did he choose what to

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Speaker 1: keep in and how much to leave out. So here's

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Speaker 1: what he had to say about that, Well, that I

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Speaker 1: could have written an entire book on just that subject.

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Speaker 1: I could have written an entire book on the friendship

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Speaker 1: and the adversities they faced between uh. Uh John Samuel

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Speaker 1: left B. Morris and James Ventimore Cooper. Uh. I could

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Speaker 1: have written a whole easily, a whole book about Hellihu

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Speaker 1: Washburn and his experiences. But I think in many ways,

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Speaker 1: of all the subjects that I had to happily undertake

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Speaker 1: in this book, the story of those medical students has

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Speaker 1: stayed with me. Has um strengthened my understanding of the

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Speaker 1: times better than anything. Uh. There are several aspects of it.

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Speaker 1: That particular subject also, as you just suggested, illustrates not

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Speaker 1: just where France was in development of medical training and

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Speaker 1: in the practice of medicine, but how far back behind

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Speaker 1: we were. And this is the case. In all of

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Speaker 1: these subjects, you're learning about where we stood proportioned to

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Speaker 1: the rest of the world, which I think is a

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Speaker 1: healthy reminder in the for example, that we had fewer

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Speaker 1: medical schools than there were states in the country. That

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Speaker 1: most of the doctors in our country, this is in

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Speaker 1: the eighteen thirties, eighteen forties, really right up through the

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Speaker 1: our Civil War, most of the doctors never went to

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Speaker 1: medical school at all. They were trained by other doctors,

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Speaker 1: most of whom have never on a medical school. Uh.

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Speaker 1: Medical students didn't make the rounds of hospitals as part

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Speaker 1: of their training. Cadavers for dissection dissecting purposes were illegal

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Speaker 1: in many states. Consequently, the bodies that were available were

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Speaker 1: available in the black market, which meant they were very expensive.

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Speaker 1: Which also meant that most medical students never got to

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Speaker 1: dissect a human arm. First time they would ever start

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Speaker 1: dissecting a human arm was on a living person, and

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Speaker 1: at that time there was no not yet any anesthetic.

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Speaker 1: Ether doesn't didn't commit until late eighteen forties. UH. The

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Speaker 1: fact that most American women in that day would have

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Speaker 1: preferred to die, literally would have preferred to die that

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Speaker 1: I have a man examined their body. And since all

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Speaker 1: doctors at that point were men, that meant a great

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Speaker 1: many of these women died. It also meant that students

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Speaker 1: never got to examine or make the rounds with a

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Speaker 1: practicing physician, a teaching position of female patients over half

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Speaker 1: the popular human population, so that when they began practicing medicine,

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Speaker 1: they knew next to nothing except what they had read

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Speaker 1: in books about the female anatomy, the whole process of birth,

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Speaker 1: and the rest. And there were none of those social

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Speaker 1: stigmas in France, either concerning the availability of cadavers for

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Speaker 1: this dissection or the examination of the female anatomy. And

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Speaker 1: so as Pauliver went to Holmes said in one of

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Speaker 1: his letters to his parents he could learn more in

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Speaker 1: two years there than he could in ten years practicing

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Speaker 1: medicine at home. So it's really interesting to learn about

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Speaker 1: how he did craft that story within a story. And

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Speaker 1: I think to Blie, if that was your favorite part,

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Speaker 1: mine was the account of the American minister in Paris

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Speaker 1: Lahu Washburn, And I mean, it's it's just again, it

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Speaker 1: is a story within a story. It's kind of this

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Speaker 1: gripping central chapter in the middle of the book. But

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Speaker 1: what really interested me about it, I mean, I enjoyed

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Speaker 1: it so much that I flipped to the back of

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Speaker 1: the book and started reading the source notes, and I

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Speaker 1: came across a little note that mentioned this was an

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Speaker 1: entirely new story. This, this journal, this account of Washburn's

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Speaker 1: was was new to historians, and so we clearly wanted

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Speaker 1: to ask Mr McCulloch not only about how he felt

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Speaker 1: about Washburn's account, but how the account came to light

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Speaker 1: in the first place. And here's what he had to say.

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Speaker 1: I should say that I have been writing books now

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Speaker 1: for more than forty years, and I have had the

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Speaker 1: good fortune to come across material um of of surprising

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Speaker 1: kind that had not been known before, both in quantity

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Speaker 1: and and in small parts and pieces, and some of

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Speaker 1: it has been very exciting. But never has there been

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Speaker 1: anything quite like this. Eli Hu Washburn, our ambassador to Paris,

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Speaker 1: arrived on the eve of the Franco Prussian War, and

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Speaker 1: the Franco Prussian War, which started in the summer of

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Speaker 1: eight seventy was a disastrous mistake on the part of

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Speaker 1: the French and really totally unnecessary for Europe, and the

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Speaker 1: German army very swiftly defeated the French army and marched

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Speaker 1: on Paris, surrounded Paris, kept Paris under siege, and proceeded

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Speaker 1: the star of the city. In this submission, eli U

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Speaker 1: Washburn was the only minister, diplomatic representative of a major

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Speaker 1: power who, of his own choice, stayed on, did not

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Speaker 1: get out of the city, did not leave. All the

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Speaker 1: others left, but he felt it was his duty, because

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Speaker 1: there were Americans still in the city, to go through

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Speaker 1: it all. After the siege ended nearly five months later,

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Speaker 1: there was a brief period of comparative peace, and then

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden, a horrific civil war broke out

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Speaker 1: in Paris, French killing French uh to a degree that's

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Speaker 1: hard to imagine. It was as if all the latent evil, violence, sadism,

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Speaker 1: and destruction that's part of the part of the human

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Speaker 1: nature erupted like a volcano. And to have it happened

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Speaker 1: in this most civilized of all cities, this most um temperate,

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Speaker 1: supposedly and educated, cultivated population, made it all the more

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Speaker 1: god awful. Well again, wash Burned stayed through the duration

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Speaker 1: of it. And if he had done only that, we

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Speaker 1: would he would he would be somebody we should need

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Speaker 1: to know more about. But he kept a diary every

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Speaker 1: single day, and that diary has been unknown up until

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Speaker 1: just recently, as part of the process of work on

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Speaker 1: this book, my research assistant might Kill found the diary,

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Speaker 1: or rather a letter press copy of the diary, in

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Speaker 1: of all places, the Library of Congress, where nobody knew

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Speaker 1: about it. We then managed to trace the location of

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Speaker 1: the original diary, which is up in Livermore, Maine, where

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Speaker 1: Washburn came from. And so I was able to tell

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Speaker 1: the story of this terrible tragedy, this this bloody, violent

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Speaker 1: spasm that Paris went through. Yeah, from an eyewitness, eye

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Speaker 1: witness account that's not only new but is Fulsome these

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Speaker 1: aren't just little jottings at the end of each terrific

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Speaker 1: day that he went through, their long takeouts. The whole

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Speaker 1: text transcribed runs to more than sixty pages, and that

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Speaker 1: that diary alone is a window on those times such

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Speaker 1: as we've not known about before. And that's part of

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Speaker 1: the excitement of doing history. New things do come to light,

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Speaker 1: New treasures in the way of letters, diaries, memoirs are found,

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Speaker 1: and not just in a trunk and in somebody's attic,

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Speaker 1: but in some of the great repositories of treasures that

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Speaker 1: are known to everyone. So it's so cool to hear

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Speaker 1: Mr McCullough talk about the joys of being a historian

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Speaker 1: and talking about these little treasures like finding Washburn's journal.

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Speaker 1: But it's even more interesting when you consider that McCullough

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Speaker 1: didn't start out as a historian. He was born and

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Speaker 1: raised in Pittsburgh, went to Yale, and I think I

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Speaker 1: read that his first love was actually art, and then

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Speaker 1: while he was at school he got inspired to write,

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Speaker 1: and he actually started as a journalist career wise, so

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Speaker 1: we wanted to know how he got his start as

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Speaker 1: a historian. And here's what he said. Yes, I started

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Speaker 1: out as a writer for magazine's Time in Life, and

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Speaker 1: then I went to Washington during the Kennedy administration, who

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Speaker 1: added a magazine for the Arab World. And I was

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Speaker 1: young and very much over my head and trying to

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Speaker 1: do seven things at once and to learn as fast

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Speaker 1: as I could, And part of the way I coped

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Speaker 1: with it was to work on Saturdays. And one Saturday,

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Speaker 1: with the help of my wife, rose Leye, I was

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Speaker 1: at the Library of Congress looking for material for a

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Speaker 1: piece that we were going to illustrate in the magazine

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Speaker 1: for the Arab World, and quite by chance, saw a

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Speaker 1: collection of photographs taken in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, after the terrible,

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Speaker 1: disastrous flood of I mean, I had grown up in

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Speaker 1: western Pennsylvania. I had heard about it much of my life,

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Speaker 1: Johnstown Flood, but I really didn't know what happened. And

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Speaker 1: when I saw the the scale of the of the

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Speaker 1: destruction and damage, the human tragedy of it in those photographs,

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Speaker 1: I simply wanted to know more about it. What happened?

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Speaker 1: How did this come to be? And I took a

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Speaker 1: book out of the library and it wasn't very good.

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Speaker 1: I had a number of questions that it didn't answer,

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Speaker 1: And so I took another book out and if anything,

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Speaker 1: it was even it was even less satisfactory. And so

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Speaker 1: I to myself, why don't you try to write the

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Speaker 1: And that was more than more than forty years ago.

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Speaker 1: So I really liked Mr McCullough's idea that he writes

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Speaker 1: the book he wants to read. I think that's a

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Speaker 1: that's a great way to pick your topic. And I

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Speaker 1: had read earlier that that's really kind of how he

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Speaker 1: personal interests. There wasn't enough information out there to read

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Speaker 1: wonder what else was on his to read list, as

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Speaker 1: in what other books did he want to get out

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Speaker 1: there and write and research, And we asked him about that.

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Speaker 1: I keep it list sort of marketing list, if you will,

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Speaker 1: of ideas, and I guess the list probably numbers different

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Speaker 1: ideas at the momentum which of those I may pursue

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Speaker 1: focus because of something someone says in a conversation such

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Speaker 1: as we're having or something I read. I don't know yet,

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Speaker 1: um I I love the adventure of finding out. It's

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Speaker 1: like working on a detective case. And the wonderful thing

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Speaker 1: about our human nature is a curiosity, which is is

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Speaker 1: accelerative like gravity. The more we know, the more we

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Speaker 1: want to know, Thank goodness. So I've never undertaken a

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Speaker 1: book about which I was an ex subject about which

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Speaker 1: I was an expert. If I were an expert on

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Speaker 1: the subject, I really wouldn't want to write the book

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Speaker 1: because I already know the subject. I love the idea

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Speaker 1: of landing in a foreign continent or a feeling of

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Speaker 1: starting off and thinking this is going to take me three, four,

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Speaker 1: maybe six years. But think how much am I gonna

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn that? To me, I'm an I'm not

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Speaker 1: a train trains the story. And I was an English major.

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Speaker 1: I thought I would wind up writing I don't know

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Speaker 1: novels or plays. Um, but I love to read history.

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Speaker 1: And when I started reading compelling history by people like

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Speaker 1: Shelby Foote or Barbara Tuckman, I thought maybe maybe I

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Speaker 1: could do that. Um. It's it's so important for people,

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Speaker 1: if all possible, to do work that they love, and

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Speaker 1: to work with in the field where you are with

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Speaker 1: people of a kind and help you to grow and

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Speaker 1: broaden your outlook. I I'm always glad, of course, when

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Speaker 1: my books have h welcoming readership. I'm always pleased when

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Speaker 1: people tell me how much they like this or that

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Speaker 1: that I've written about. But the real reward, the real

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Speaker 1: prize that goes with it, is the work itself, and

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Speaker 1: so I'm always a little sorry, a little down when

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Speaker 1: it's over. And now for that really selfish question that

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Speaker 1: we mentioned before, not just for us, of course, but

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Speaker 1: for our listeners to We know that many of you

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Speaker 1: out there are amateur historians, were professional history perfect sational ones.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you studied history, maybe you didn't, Maybe you work

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Speaker 1: as an editor like us, or maybe you work as

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Speaker 1: an accountant or somebody something entirely different. But we wanted

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Speaker 1: to know Mr McCullough's personal advice for turning history from

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Speaker 1: just an interest or a passion into a profession. And

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Speaker 1: he did us one better. He gave us a five

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Speaker 1: point step by step list, and here it is. Oh

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Speaker 1: I could I could really talk to you for a

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Speaker 1: long time about that, And it's a wonderful chance to

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Speaker 1: tell I hope some of your listeners a few things

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Speaker 1: that I wish I had been told when I was starting.

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Speaker 1: One is, be sure you pick a subject for which

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Speaker 1: there is more material then you think you're going to need.

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Speaker 1: Because you do need more material. I would say the

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Speaker 1: ratio is probably twenty to one of what you accumulate

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Speaker 1: what you know to what you finally put down on paper.

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Speaker 1: It has to be that way. Uh. The second thing

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Speaker 1: is to pick a subject that has a real story,

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Speaker 1: and wherein the characters in the story, the protagonists and

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Speaker 1: the secondary figures recorded what they saw, said, did so forth.

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Speaker 1: An awful lot of life is talk. An awful lot

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Speaker 1: of type of life is expressing the human um, the

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Speaker 1: human side of our nature. Uh, dark or light uh

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Speaker 1: in language. And you can't make that up if you're

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Speaker 1: writing honest biography and history. You can't make up dialogue.

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Speaker 1: I don't like to read and in a book of

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Speaker 1: history or biography that as the as he walked from

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Speaker 1: the old Executive Office building over to the White House,

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Speaker 1: he was thinking about this or that. We have no

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Speaker 1: idea what he might have been thinking about. Um. You

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Speaker 1: have to you have to take it out of what's

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Speaker 1: in the record as having been said, either in letters, diaries,

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Speaker 1: or quotations, from transcriptions of trials, court transition transition transcriptions,

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Speaker 1: or from newspaper interviews or accounts. You have to have

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Speaker 1: a source. So you want to pick a subject for

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Speaker 1: which there's lots and lots of material to work with.

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Speaker 1: Think of it as processing or to make steel. You

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Speaker 1: need an awful lot of it to make the steel.

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Speaker 1: And secondly, when you go to a library, or maybe

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Speaker 1: this is thirdly, when you go to a library or

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Speaker 1: an archive, remember that it isn't just the books that

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Speaker 1: are in that library, or the rare letters or diaries

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Speaker 1: in that library, or the apps or the photographs that

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Speaker 1: are of value. It's the librarians or the archivists. Talk

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Speaker 1: to them, Tell them what you're working on, have them

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Speaker 1: think about where you would best look or what you

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Speaker 1: need to know. That's why they're there, that's their job.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the mistakes students and others make

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Speaker 1: is they try to hide because they don't want to

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Speaker 1: be embarrassed by it. They try to hide how much

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Speaker 1: they don't know. Be very candid about what you don't know,

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Speaker 1: what you're trying to find out, and that you need help,

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Speaker 1: and time and again, those wonderful people that are in

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Speaker 1: libraries and professionals and archivists will not only help you

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Speaker 1: at that moment, but they'll call you up two years

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Speaker 1: later to say, remember that question you asked me or

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Speaker 1: that subject you were trying to find out more, But

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Speaker 1: I just found something I think you will really be

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Speaker 1: interested in. I can't tell you how many times that's

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Speaker 1: happened to me. How indebted I have been to those

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Speaker 1: who helped that way professionally. The other thing is asked

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Speaker 1: questions of all kinds of people. Don't hide what you're

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Speaker 1: working on, don't keep it a secret. Talk to everybody

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Speaker 1: you can about it, because you never know who knows

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Speaker 1: something that might be of help to you, that might

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Speaker 1: be beneficial. And work. Get down, sit down and start writing.

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Speaker 1: Don't try to do all the research and then write

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Speaker 1: the book. Start writing when you think you've done maybe

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Speaker 1: a third of the research, because it's when you're writing

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Speaker 1: that you begin to realize exactly how much you don't

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Speaker 1: know and need to know. So therefore it targets your

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Speaker 1: research more efficiently. And so i've i've I'm doing research

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Speaker 1: all the time, from beginning to end. Uh, very often

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Speaker 1: doing research. When the books in galleys or even page groups,

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Speaker 1: I'm still doing research. And that's that's part of the kicks,

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Speaker 1: that's part of the fun. The hard part is to

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Speaker 1: tell yourself to stop re searching, because it is addictive,

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Speaker 1: and you have to say, I got to start writing

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Speaker 1: and just sit down. And my my advice is started

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Speaker 1: at the beginning and and just proceed work every day.

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Speaker 1: Don't don't put it off. It's easier if you work

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Speaker 1: every day. So I know, Deablina and I were trying

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Speaker 1: to take down notes while we were talking to him

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Speaker 1: about these five tips and try to apply them immediately

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Speaker 1: to our work. But I hope that they're also helpful

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Speaker 1: to you guys out there who want to do more

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Speaker 1: historical research yourself. And also I was kind of inspired

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Speaker 1: by what he told us to about picking his career

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Speaker 1: and doing something he really liked. It was it was

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Speaker 1: great to hear from from somebody, and here's such kind

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Speaker 1: of inspirational words. Yeah, and just that idea of creating something,

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Speaker 1: you know, how he wanted to read something or see

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Speaker 1: something out there and he couldn't find it and so

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Speaker 1: he created himself. I mean, to me, that was the

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Speaker 1: most inspirational part of it. It's just you know, having

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Speaker 1: that motivation to do it. So hopefully we can all

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Speaker 1: find a little bit of that. Definitely, So this is

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Speaker 1: our second podcast of this interview, but we are definitely

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Speaker 1: willing to keep the conversation going through social media through

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Speaker 1: our blogs, which are on the how Stuff Works homepage

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Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com, also on Twitter,

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Speaker 1: misst in History also on Facebook. So if you guys

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Speaker 1: have picked up their book by this point and read

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Speaker 1: a little bit, you can definitely email us or or

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Speaker 1: comment in some way and share your thoughts and we'd

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Speaker 1: love to hear from you. Yes, we would love to

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Speaker 1: know how you felt about the book, what parts were

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Speaker 1: your favorites. You can write us at history podcast at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, or you can look us

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Speaker 1: up on social media, Sarah said. And if you want

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Speaker 1: to find our blogs, you can find them by searching

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Speaker 1: off our homepage for them. Our homepagees www dot how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our

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Speaker 1: new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how staff

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Speaker 1: Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing

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Speaker 1: possibilities of tomorrow. The houst Works iPhone app has a rise.

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Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes