Journey through history with David McCullough

David McCullough: Yes. Certainly it was. And when they rode away from their homes, their families, they knew that possibly they'd never see them again.

Upstairs in the hall, there's a library. The country's very first lending library.

David McCullough: It was Ben Franklin's idea. At the very beginning comes the idea of learning, of books, of ideas.

Ben Franklin still watches over this city. And so does George Washington.

Morley Safer: Tell me something. As a historian do you get any funny feelings when you wander around Philadelphia?

David McCullough: Now, Morley, you understand, I don't believe in ghosts. You, you, that's clear.

Morley Safer: OK.

David McCullough: But at night walking up Market Street or Chestnut Street, going past where they all lived and convened it gets very quiet. I know that they're here. They really, you feel it. You feel it. Walk around at night. Walk over to the cemetery at Christ Church just up the way here. You'll feel it.

You might feel it too at the City Tavern, the watering hole for Franklin and the others. Where, after hours, they plotted revolution.

David McCullough: This is the place where George Washington and John Adams first met. This was the hangout. And it was loud. It was lively.

[David McCullough: Well, I would like to start with Mr. Washington's beer. And say here's to our Founding Father....]

The beer is from Washington's own recipe. And you wonder, looking at the examples of colonial cooking from Chef Walter Staib's kitchen - how the founding fathers ever got up from the table. Fried oysters. Beef pie. Mushroom toast.

[Walter Staib: Thomas Jefferson served it often...]

Washington's West Indies pepper pot soup. Supposedly fed to the troops at Valley Forge. Fried tofu, first introduced here by that early hippie, Ben Franklin.

[David McCullough: Whoa!]

McCullough's favorite: homemade sausage and sauerkraut.

[Morley Safer: I think I've hit my limit here.]

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[patpaint]

Mr. Safer and Mr. McCullough: As a history teacher, a reader and admirere of McCullough's work, and a long-time viwer of 60 Minutes, I am appalled that McCullough would blame American teachers of history for the ignorance of one college student! First, all American secondary teachers DO major in the fields they teach and not in education! Have for years. They MUST be "highly qualfied" in their areas of teaching (have a major or minor, or a graduate degree)- they cannot be hired otherwise. Second, teachers of American History certainly DO teach the LOCATION of the 13 colonies, including the use of maps - I sure have, and made those lessons as engaging and memorable as I possibly could. That does not mean, however, that all of my students would remember that now, or that they listened in the first place. Really, gentlemen? Let's not blame the ignorance of the few on the American teaching profession, which is faced just now with an entirely new set of challenges (common core) to ensure that our children get the best education possible. I'm very disappointed in both of you. Didn't you have teachers who inspired you to learn what you now know?

[Donald951]

Safer proved he wouldn't dare say anything bad about the Republicans and McCullough proved he is still a Republican. When Safer asked about the current election all McCullough could emphasize that it was all negative and so expensive. If Mccullough were a nonpartison historian as he should be, then he should have pointed out that it was 5 Republican appointed Supreme Court judges who decided to unleash all the undisclosed, unlimited political spending (Citizens United v. FEC). And Safer just let him get away with it!
The major media networks let Bush off for his go to war lies, his war criminality (agressor war & torture), his illegal eavesdropping, outing a CIA agent, and malfeasance to prevent 9/11 after multiple warnings.
Now Romney's outright lies are just "negative" and hardly even addressed in the major media. Jefferson was right when he said an educated populace only could make democracy succeed. The major media and especially Fox News are failing democracy!

[plattre]

Founding Fathers? Where were the facts re the number of slaves held by all of them?

[plattre]

Founding Fathers? Where were the facts re the number of slaves held by all of them?

[lemastre]

I noted this comment in the show's transcript:

"Morley Safer: The new nation was barely out of adolescence when it realized it had a lot to learn. So the best and brightest of America went to seek out the wisdom of old Europe. . . . "

Interesting idea, isn't it, to seek counsel from experienced heads. Why doesn't the U.S. try that today? Hubris I expect.

[Bobjoy34]

Interesting how one chooses to apply feelings of today to the history of over a hundred years ago. The mindset was, obviously, different. Does this make it right? No, but that is how things were then.

Revision of history is easy if one has facts not available at the time, but again one needs to be able to place themselves in the time period.

Shady lens! No. Dealing in facts. Yes.

[Bobjoy34]

Interesting how one chooses to apply feelings of today to the history of over a hundred years ago. The mindset was, obviously, different. Does this make it right? No, but that is how things were then.

Revision of history is easy if one has facts not available at the time, but again one needs to be able to place themselves in the time period.

Shady lens! No. Dealing in facts. Yes.

[mrsannabutterworth]

2 days before an historic election, 60 minutes puts it into perspective with a compelling story about the founding fathers. Arrogantly, however, they aired only half of it tonight and pre-empted the second part until next weekend in favor of a piece on the Green Bay Packers. I am so disappointed, CBS. I changed the channel and will not be back next Sunday to see the conclusion of your cliffhanger on principle. Shame on you for trying to improve your ratings rather than raise the country's collective democratic spirit.

This seems as good a place as any to add that 60 minutes just isn't what it used to be. Not since Andy Rooney was replaced by Anderson Cooper and that awful Lara Logan. There are 23 million Americans out of work and millions more college students who will not find work when they graduate, and CBS gives a prime spot to a South African. Call me old fashioned, but that didn't sit well with me. It seemed a little un-American.

[tyelise]

It is amazing how there can be a discussion about the American Revolution and the great"founding fathers", yet not even mention the institution of American Slavery. I say this because many of the founding fathers were slave holders. McCullough makes special mention of George Washington as the best president and yet never makes note of the fact that Washington was a slave holder! Thomas Jefferson, writer of the Declaration of Independence, was also a major slave holder. Jefferson wrote that "all men are created equal" but did not believe blacks were equal to whites. However, this belief did not prevent Jefferson from having children by his slave Sally Hemmings and possibly other female slaves. The "peculiar institution" of slavery was such an integral part of American history before, during, and after the Revolutionary War. Historians need to at least acknowledge that the "founding fathers" for all their commitment to LIBERTY did not consider African slaves worthy of Freedom. Tell the whole story or at least make mention of "it."

[BethesdaHowie]

In early 1978 during the senate debate of the Torrijos-Carter Treaies, as the Public Affairs Officer of the American Embassy, Panama, I accompanied Sen. McGovern and Mrs. McGovern who were invited on a day trip into the interior of the country by General Torrijos. While visiting the general's beach house near Rio Hato, Torrijos was lounging in his hammock smoking his favore cigar, a Cuban Cohiba and enjoying a glass of Black Label, when the senator asked him, "General, did you read The Path Between the Seas (which had come out not long before). I remember distinctly the general's replay, "Read it, I've lived it." Later that day we flew by helicopter to the general's mountain retreat, the village of Coclecito, and after lunch took a long hike down a muddy forest road. My lasting impression of Senator M. from that trip was of a soft spoken gentleman, a good sport to put up with the General's whims.