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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 Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. I went

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Speaker 1: on a trip just the other week that involved flying

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Speaker 1: into Buffalo, New York, and since we were so close

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Speaker 1: by Niagara Falls, we went to Niagara Falls. I had

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Speaker 1: never been there before, and it reminded me that way

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Speaker 1: back last summer, I had been planning to do a

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Speaker 1: podcast on people going over Niagara Falls in a barrel,

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Speaker 1: and then I stumbled across an article about Anette Kellerman

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Speaker 1: while I was doing the research for that. I got

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Speaker 1: completely distracted. I forgot totally about it. Having been reminded

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Speaker 1: by going to the actual waterfall, we are going to

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Speaker 1: get back to that today with Annie Edson Taylor, who

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Speaker 1: was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in

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Speaker 1: a barrel, and we're going to start off with a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a brief history of industrialization and commercialization

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Speaker 1: at Niagara because this whole barrel trip was part of

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Speaker 1: a much bigger story of tourism and daredevil's at this

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Speaker 1: natural wonder So. Niagara Falls is a collection of three

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Speaker 1: waterfalls on the border between the United States and Canada,

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Speaker 1: Ontario on the Canadian side and New York on the U.

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Speaker 1: S side, and they're on the Niagara River between Lake

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Speaker 1: Erie and Lake Ontario. The falls are the Horseshoe Falls,

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Speaker 1: the American Falls, and the bridal Veil Falls. Sometimes Horseshoe

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Speaker 1: Falls is known as Canadian Falls. Most of the Horseshoe

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Speaker 1: Falls are on the Canadian side of the border, while

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Speaker 1: American Falls and bridle Veil Falls are both in the

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Speaker 1: United States. Horseshoe Falls is the biggest of the three.

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Speaker 1: It's the one that's shaped like a horseshoe, like its

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Speaker 1: name suggests, and it's what comes to mind for a

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Speaker 1: lot of people when you say Niagara Falls. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: impressive in persons, it's it does have sort of the

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Speaker 1: iconic aspect to it. The area are around Niagara Falls

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Speaker 1: has been home to a number of Iroquois speaking indigenous peoples.

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Speaker 1: Leading up to the seventeenth century, a confederation known as

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Speaker 1: the Neutral lived on what would become the Canadian side

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Speaker 1: of the river. And this name comes from the French

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Speaker 1: describing them as neutral in conflicts between other Iroquois nations

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Speaker 1: and confederation. Uh So, this is a guess at pronunciation

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Speaker 1: because we couldn't find a clear one. But the uh

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Speaker 1: when Roarinn or when Row lived on the other side,

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Speaker 1: and the Neutral Confederation and the win Row were allies

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Speaker 1: until sixteen thirty nine. After that, a combination of wars, epidemics,

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Speaker 1: and other factors led to both of them being dispersed

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Speaker 1: by and absorbed into other Iroquois tribes and nations. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are descendants of these people surely living still today,

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Speaker 1: but there's a whole complicated history of all the various

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Speaker 1: Iroquois peoples that they were not a monolith, So some

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Speaker 1: people wound up going to completely different parts of the country.

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Speaker 1: Others sort of made their way into other tribes and nations.

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Speaker 1: The first European known to see the falls was probably

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Speaker 1: Father Louis Hennepin, who was a French priest in sixteen

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, and he wrote about it after he got

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Speaker 1: back to France. Although in his account he said that

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Speaker 1: the falls were six hundred feet tall, they are really

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Speaker 1: about a hundred and seventy feet or fifty two meters tall.

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Speaker 1: The first Europeans settlements in the area were started after

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Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War. It's hard to eyeball distance and scale

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Speaker 1: I understood, and they are quite impressive. They are I

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Speaker 1: could see where you would you would think they were

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Speaker 1: way bigger than they actually are. The nearby city of Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: New York, started to grow dramatically after the completion of

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Speaker 1: the Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to Albany,

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Speaker 1: New York, and then from all Many people could reach

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Speaker 1: New York City via the Hudson River, and as railroads

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Speaker 1: started to expand in the nineteenth century, Buffalo became a

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Speaker 1: major railway hub. It's proximity to Niagara Halls helped make

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Speaker 1: the falls a major tourist destination. In eighteen o one,

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Speaker 1: Theodosia Burr and Joseph Alston visited the falls as part

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Speaker 1: of their honeymoon. They were kind of the it couple

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Speaker 1: at the time, and that's this helps set the trend

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Speaker 1: of Niagara as a honeymoon destination, although sometimes people give

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Speaker 1: that credit to Napoleon Bonaparte's brother Jerome, who also honeymooned

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Speaker 1: there in eighteen o four. It was another hundred years

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Speaker 1: or so, though, before Niagara Falls really started billing itself

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Speaker 1: as the honeymoon capital of the world. By the eighteen thirties,

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Speaker 1: the tourist industry was booming in Niagara Falls. Hotels and

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Speaker 1: knickknack shops and tourist attractions were popping up everywhere, and

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Speaker 1: developers were buying the prettiest vantage points along the river

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Speaker 1: so that they could charge people to take a look.

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Speaker 1: And people were already complaining that the area around the

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Speaker 1: falls was too commercial and too tacky. So complaints about

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Speaker 1: commercialization at Niagra not going not new remotely, and it

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Speaker 1: was much to the chagrin of European visitors. And the

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Speaker 1: words of Alexis de Toqueville and a letter to a

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Speaker 1: friend in one quote, if you wish to see this

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Speaker 1: place in its grandeur, hasten. If you delay, your Niagara

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Speaker 1: will have been spoiled for you. Already the forest round

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Speaker 1: it is being cleared. The Romans are putting steeples on

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Speaker 1: the pantheon. I don't give the Americans ten years to

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Speaker 1: establish a saw or flour mill at the base of

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Speaker 1: the cataract. This letter was president. Industry also became a

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Speaker 1: major part of the Niagara scene, with mills and their

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Speaker 1: water wheels dotting the river. Nicola Tesla famously worked on

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Speaker 1: a hydro power plant that started operation on November. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: there were so many mills that they physically affected the

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Speaker 1: flow of the water over the falls. Some of the

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Speaker 1: tourist attractions that still exist today date back to the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. The May of the Mists started operating in

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty six. That's one of the boats that will

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Speaker 1: take you up to the bottom of the falls and

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Speaker 1: a little colorful poncho. At first, the Mate of the

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Speaker 1: Mists was a passenger vessel that was carrying people across

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Speaker 1: the river, so it was serving a much more practical role.

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Speaker 1: When a suspension bridge opened across the river in eighteen

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Speaker 1: forty eight, the Mate of the Mists became a sightseeing vessel.

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Speaker 1: By the eighteen sixties, there was so much commercial activity

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Speaker 1: and other development at Niagara that people started calling for

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Speaker 1: some kind of preservation effort. A group of politicians and

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Speaker 1: prominent public figures started the Free Niagara Movement to encourage

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Speaker 1: the State of New York to buy back some of

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Speaker 1: the private land and restore it as a public park.

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Speaker 1: It was both about preserving the natural beauty of the

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Speaker 1: park and making it so that people could view the

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Speaker 1: falls for free, rather than having to pay a mill

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Speaker 1: owner for a peak at a view that also included

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Speaker 1: all of their industrial equipment. This eventually led to the

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Speaker 1: Niagara Reservation Act in eighteen eighty three and the creation

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Speaker 1: of Niagara Falls State Park, established as Niagara Reservation in

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Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five. The park itself was designed by Frederick

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Speaker 1: Law Olmsted. The Niagara Parks Commission was established in Ontario

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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty five as well, and on the Canadian

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Speaker 1: side the area adjacent to the falls as Queen Victoria

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Speaker 1: Park today. Throughout all this time of commercialization, industrialization, and

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Speaker 1: preservation at Niagara, performers were also working at the falls,

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Speaker 1: trying to make a living by entertaining tourists, and in

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Speaker 1: the days before TV and film, daredevils were a huge draw.

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Speaker 1: Sam Patch, also known as the Yankee Leaper, jumped off

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Speaker 1: a platform on Goat Island, which is between Horseshoe and

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Speaker 1: American Falls, on October seven, eight twenty nine. He jumped

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Speaker 1: from a height of eighty five feet it's about twenty

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Speaker 1: six meters, and he survived. He made another jump from

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Speaker 1: a height of a hundred and thirty ft that's forty

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Speaker 1: on October seventeen. He survived that one too, although he

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Speaker 1: died during a jump near Rochester less than a month later.

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Speaker 1: There was also a lot of wire walking at the falls.

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Speaker 1: Jean Francois Gravelli, also known as Charles Blondin, was the

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Speaker 1: first person to cross the falls on a tight rope

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Speaker 1: on June fifty nine. About twenty five thousand spectators gathered

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Speaker 1: to watch him do this, and then he went on

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Speaker 1: to do a whole whole lot of other wire walking

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Speaker 1: stunts at Niagara, including carrying his manager across on his back,

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Speaker 1: and one time carrying a stove to the halfway point

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Speaker 1: and cooking breakfast on there, and once he was done

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Speaker 1: cooking this omelet or whatever, he lowered it down to

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Speaker 1: people on board the Maid of the Mist on the

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Speaker 1: river below. He kept doing all of this, Dare devilry

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Speaker 1: until eighteen nineties six, and he was the first of

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Speaker 1: really many wire walkers at the falls. That is a

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Speaker 1: big old ball Nope for me. Yeah there well, and

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Speaker 1: there's I mean, there is still wire walking at the falls.

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Speaker 1: Like I remember, back in the day when we were

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Speaker 1: owned by Discovery, they were being a much hyped wire

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Speaker 1: walk at the falls that was beyond TV. It's still

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Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah, all of that is a big note

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Speaker 1: for me. Uh, Like, why would you do that when

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Speaker 1: you could sit on the boat. I understand the impulse,

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Speaker 1: I just it's not for me. Uh. Steve Brody claimed

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Speaker 1: that he went over the falls in nothing but a

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Speaker 1: padded rubber suit in but there is no evidence that

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Speaker 1: this feat ever actually happened. He had also made a

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Speaker 1: disputed claim to have jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge and survived.

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Speaker 1: One popular stunt was to try to survive the extremely

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Speaker 1: treacherous Niagara Whirlpool, which is downstream from Niagara Falls at

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Speaker 1: a point where the river makes a sharp bend. People

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Speaker 1: would try to make it through this treacherous whirlpool in

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Speaker 1: barrels or sometimes protected by nothing other than a preserver.

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Speaker 1: On June sixth of eighteen sixty one, Joel Robinson successfully

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Speaker 1: took the Maid of the Mists through the whirlpool after

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Speaker 1: it was sold to a company in Montreal that would

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Speaker 1: only accept delivery on Lake Ontario. Matthew Webb, who had

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Speaker 1: been the first person to swim across the English Channel,

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Speaker 1: died trying to swim that stretch of the river in

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Speaker 1: eighty three. This is just a sampling of all the

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Speaker 1: dare Devil stunting that was going on at Niagara Falls

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Speaker 1: leading up to the turn of the twentieth century. But

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Speaker 1: one thing all of these dare devils had in common.

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Speaker 1: Nearly all of them were men. It was a very

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Speaker 1: masculine world, which made the first person to go over

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Speaker 1: a falls in a barrel even more of a novelty.

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Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about her after we paused

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Speaker 1: for a sponsor break. Annie Edson was born October thirty

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Speaker 1: eight near Auburn, New York. Her parents were Merrick Edson

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Speaker 1: and Luke Crisia Warren, and the family was pretty well off.

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Speaker 1: Merrick owned some milling interests in the family spent their

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Speaker 1: summers out in the country and their winters in the city,

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Speaker 1: and he also had at least two older brothers. She

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Speaker 1: had an adventurous streak from the time she was quite young.

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Speaker 1: She liked to be outdoors and to read adventure stories,

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Speaker 1: and she also had a fondness for Roman history. Her

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Speaker 1: father died when she was ten, and at fourteen, she

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Speaker 1: and her brothers were sent to a private seminary to

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Speaker 1: finish their educations. Four years later, Annie married David S. Taylor.

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Speaker 1: They had one child together, although the baby didn't live

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Speaker 1: past infancy. David was killed while fighting in the Civil War,

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Speaker 1: and at first Annie still had enough money to live on,

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Speaker 1: but it soon became clear that that money was not

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Speaker 1: gonna last forever. Her seminary education also hadn't really set

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Speaker 1: her up for supporting herself, so she enrolled in a

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Speaker 1: state teaching college. After she finished her studies at the

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Speaker 1: teaching college, she spent a few years traveling to different

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Speaker 1: cities where she had friends and family working as a teacher.

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Speaker 1: It was I mean, really, it was all over the

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Speaker 1: United States. She also went back to school again to

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Speaker 1: study dance and physical culture. If you remember from our

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Speaker 1: episode on Fort Shaw, Indian school, physical culture is a

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Speaker 1: combination of calisthenics and strength training in general health and

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Speaker 1: wellness that was really popular in the nineteenth century. She

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Speaker 1: started teaching dance and physical culture and even opening her

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Speaker 1: own school, even though that school failed. Sometime around Taylor

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Speaker 1: moved to Bay City, Michigan. By this point, she was

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Speaker 1: really unhappy with her prospects for her life. She had

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Speaker 1: gone from a comfortable childhood and youth to working as

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Speaker 1: an itinerant teacher. She had also had a series of

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Speaker 1: misfortunes in which she lost a lot of the savings

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Speaker 1: that she had, including living through both a robbery and

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Speaker 1: a fire. There were no pensions or retirement programs, and

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Speaker 1: she didn't want to be poor or live off the

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Speaker 1: charity of her friends, so she kept trying to think

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Speaker 1: of ways to earn money, enough money to be self

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Speaker 1: sufficient and comfortable again. According to some accounts, she had

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Speaker 1: heard about Steve Brodie's alleged stunt at Niagara Falls, and

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Speaker 1: she didn't think he had really done it. But it's

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Speaker 1: possible that having heard about that planted the seed for

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Speaker 1: her own stunt. Later on, in her words, quote two years,

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Speaker 1: I had been constantly studying, when not occupied in teaching,

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Speaker 1: what I could do to make money, To make it

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Speaker 1: honestly and quickly, all kinds of schemes ran riot through

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Speaker 1: my brain. Reading in a New York paper about people

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Speaker 1: going to the Pan American Exposition and from there to

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Speaker 1: Niagara Falls, the idea came to me like a flash

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Speaker 1: of light, go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. No

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Speaker 1: one has ever accomplished this feat. I did not think

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Speaker 1: it wrong, as there was nothing immodest in the act,

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Speaker 1: nor did it involve the life of anyone. But myself.

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Speaker 1: I believe in prayer and that God will answer if

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Speaker 1: only there is faith. As my motive was not a

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Speaker 1: selfish one, but to succor two friends, one who has

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Speaker 1: little children, the other indelicate health, and to aid myself financially.

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Speaker 1: I believed I would live. I was determined to live

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Speaker 1: to vindicate to the world God's mercy and goodness. So

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Speaker 1: it was a side note. The Pan American Exposition in Buffalo,

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Speaker 1: which she referenced there is where President William McKinley was assassinated.

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Speaker 1: He was shot on September one, and he died several

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Speaker 1: days later. It's not totally clear where in the timeline

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Speaker 1: Taylor thought up this stunt or whether the assassination affected

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Speaker 1: her plans at all. Regardless, though she knew that to

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Speaker 1: make this journey and survive she would need the right barrel.

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00:14:45,280 --> 00:14:47,960
Speaker 1: She started mocking up models, cutting them out of paper

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Speaker 1: and sewing them together with twine, and ultimately she designed

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Speaker 1: a custom made barrel that was about five feet or

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Speaker 1: one and a half meters tall, and it had a

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Speaker 1: twelve inch head, a twenty four inch middle, and fifteen

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Speaker 1: inch foot so that's thirty centimeters sixty centimeters and thirty

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Speaker 1: eight centimeters from head to foot. She selected white Kentucky

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Speaker 1: oak for the wood, with ten riveted metal hoops. Taylor

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00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:16,120
Speaker 1: also planned for a ballast sometimes it's described as an

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Speaker 1: anvil that would be in the bottom of the barrel,

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Speaker 1: and she hoped this would make the barrel stay upright

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Speaker 1: while she floated down the river, rather than having it

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Speaker 1: just roll around every which way with her inside of it.

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Speaker 1: She looked for a cooper to make the barrel, and

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Speaker 1: once she found one, he refused to do it. He

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Speaker 1: thought this was way too dangerous a plan for any

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Speaker 1: person and that she would surely be killed if she

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Speaker 1: tried it, but she persisted and eventually he gave in.

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Speaker 1: The final barrel had the words Queen of the Mist

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Speaker 1: on the side. Going over the falls in a barrel

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Speaker 1: was just one step and Taylor's plan for her future

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Speaker 1: prosperity From there. She was planning to go on a

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Speaker 1: lecture tour, so she hired a man named Frank M.

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Speaker 1: Russell to act as her manager. She decided on October

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Speaker 1: twenty three, nineteen o one, as the day for her plunge.

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Speaker 1: This was the day before her sixty third birthday, but

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Speaker 1: thinking that no one would want to come and see

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Speaker 1: a sixty something woman daredevil or on the lecture circuit,

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Speaker 1: she and Russell described her as being twenty years younger.

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Speaker 1: Everyone but Taylor, and maybe also Russell, thought this was

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Speaker 1: a terrible idea. Authorities thought it was so dangerous that

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00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,000
Speaker 1: they told Russell they would charge him with manslaughter if

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00:16:29,040 --> 00:16:32,640
Speaker 1: Taylor died in the attempt. But even as everyone she

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00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:35,960
Speaker 1: encountered tried to talk her out of it, Taylor insisted

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Speaker 1: that she would do it. She even did a trial

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Speaker 1: run by sending her cat over in a barrel on

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Speaker 1: the eighteenth of October. According to most reports, the cat

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00:16:44,560 --> 00:16:49,040
Speaker 1: was frightened. But okay, it makes me her very much, frankly,

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Speaker 1: but it makes a lot of people not like her

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Speaker 1: very much. I understand, Yeah, I own thing. I read one.

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Speaker 1: Uh you know, there are a number of sort of

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Speaker 1: retrospectives and more recent years that people have written, and

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Speaker 1: there was one that I read that just was not

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Speaker 1: charitable in its read of her at all. And that

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00:17:10,200 --> 00:17:12,399
Speaker 1: was one of the things the person was so mad about.

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Speaker 1: But on the twenty three, the day she had selected,

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00:17:16,400 --> 00:17:19,520
Speaker 1: the weather was bad. High winds made the surface of

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00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:23,840
Speaker 1: the already fast moving Niagara River incredibly choppy. She had

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Speaker 1: hired two men to assist her, Fred Trusdale and William Holleran.

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Speaker 1: Truesdale and Hollerand looked at the water and they said

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Speaker 1: there was no way that they could safely navigate to

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Speaker 1: the drop off point in those conditions. Taylor was crushed,

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00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:42,480
Speaker 1: but she tried again the next day, her sixty third birthday.

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00:17:42,600 --> 00:17:46,440
Speaker 1: Truesdale and Hollerand rode her out to Grass Island, and there,

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Speaker 1: away from the crowds of thousands of people who had

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Speaker 1: come to watch her do this, she took off her

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00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:53,680
Speaker 1: hat and coat and overskirt and got into this barrel.

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00:17:54,480 --> 00:17:57,919
Speaker 1: Inside she tied one strap around her waist and another

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Speaker 1: around her foot with the hope of keeping her head

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Speaker 1: from slamming into the top of the barrel. The barrel

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00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,080
Speaker 1: was packed with cushioning, and once the lid was on,

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00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:09,880
Speaker 1: her assistance used a bicycle pump to pump in more air.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes this is described as trying to pressurize it, but

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Speaker 1: she was afraid of running out of oxygen before getting

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Speaker 1: to the falls. To avoid being swept over the falls themselves,

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Speaker 1: her assistance had to cut her loose almost a mile

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Speaker 1: away so she had a lengthy journey before even getting

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Speaker 1: to the falls, followed by a wait for someone to

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Speaker 1: fish her out of the water. Once the air had

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00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:34,679
Speaker 1: been pumped in, Taylor plugged the air hole with a

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Speaker 1: cork almost immediately, though it turned out that her fears

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Speaker 1: of running out of air, uh, we're maybe not totally

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Speaker 1: founded it the barrel was not airtight. It also was

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Speaker 1: not watertight. It started leaking, and soon her feet were

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Speaker 1: in a pool of freezing water. At about four in

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Speaker 1: the afternoon, after rowing to the deepest part of the river,

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Speaker 1: Taylor's assistance cut her loose. And that's where we're going

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Speaker 1: to pause for a sponsor break. Here's how Annie Edson

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00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:12,600
Speaker 1: Taylor described those first moments adrift in the Niagara River. Quote,

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Speaker 1: my heart swelled, and for some moments I felt as

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Speaker 1: though I were being suffocated, but I determined to be

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Speaker 1: brave by a supreme effort of will. I calmed myself

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00:19:21,320 --> 00:19:24,119
Speaker 1: at once and began earnestly to pray if it was

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Speaker 1: God's will to spare my life, if not give me

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00:19:27,200 --> 00:19:30,360
Speaker 1: an easy death. This reminds me a little bit of

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Speaker 1: Henry Box Brown's account of being in the box while

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00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:35,840
Speaker 1: being shipped around. I'm gonna say he has a much

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00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:38,440
Speaker 1: better reason to be put in a box and sent somewhere.

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00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,680
Speaker 1: I wholly concur But just that moment of like I'm trapped,

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00:19:41,720 --> 00:19:44,679
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pray and look like I'm either going

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00:19:44,760 --> 00:19:47,199
Speaker 1: to gut it out or it's gonna end. Uh. The

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00:19:47,320 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 1: rapids on the Upper Niagara turned out to not be

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00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,639
Speaker 1: all that bad. The water in the barrel kept getting deeper,

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Speaker 1: and there was the constant tension and anticipation of when

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00:19:57,119 --> 00:19:59,320
Speaker 1: she would get to the falls and whether she would

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00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:02,240
Speaker 1: survive go over, But in terms of how rough the

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00:20:02,320 --> 00:20:06,359
Speaker 1: ride itself was, she was pleasantly surprised. Then, at about

347
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:10,560
Speaker 1: four twenty three, the barrel finally shot over the falls,

348
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:12,960
Speaker 1: and her words quote, I thought, for a moment my

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00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:16,959
Speaker 1: senses were lost. The feeling was one of absolute horror,

350
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:19,439
Speaker 1: but I still knew. When I struck the water of

351
00:20:19,480 --> 00:20:22,480
Speaker 1: the lower river, the shock was not so great. But

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00:20:22,520 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: I went down down until the momentum had spent itself.

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00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:30,160
Speaker 1: For a few brief moments, she was completely under water.

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00:20:30,720 --> 00:20:33,960
Speaker 1: But then the submerged barrel came back up under the torrent,

355
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Speaker 1: and that turned out to be worse than the anticipation

356
00:20:37,200 --> 00:20:40,800
Speaker 1: or the fall. She described it as being whirled like

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Speaker 1: a dasher in a churn. After several terrifying minutes, constantly

358
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,040
Speaker 1: spinning and striking rocks, the barrel finally popped out from

359
00:20:49,119 --> 00:20:53,960
Speaker 1: under the cataract and Taylor lost consciousness. But then the

360
00:20:54,040 --> 00:20:57,640
Speaker 1: mate of the mist, which had resumed operation in came

361
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 1: to retrieve the barrel. Chief end Near John Ross was

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00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:04,080
Speaker 1: the person who opened the barrel and exclaimed the woman

363
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:08,840
Speaker 1: is very much alive or something similar. She replied something

364
00:21:08,880 --> 00:21:12,000
Speaker 1: along the lines of yes, she is, though much hurt

365
00:21:12,119 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: and confused. I don't think I would be that composed

366
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:20,360
Speaker 1: in my initial speech after something like that, but probably

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00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: mine would not be fit to print. Taylor was bleeding

368
00:21:23,440 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 1: from a head wound when she was pulled out of

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Speaker 1: the water, and she almost certainly had a concussion, but

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00:21:28,280 --> 00:21:31,560
Speaker 1: other than that and some bruises, she was unharmed. She

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00:21:31,600 --> 00:21:34,480
Speaker 1: had become the first person known to go over Niagara

372
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:38,720
Speaker 1: Falls and survive. Like we said earlier, thousands of people

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00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:40,879
Speaker 1: had come out to watch this stunt, and it was

374
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:44,240
Speaker 1: covered in the Niagara area newspapers and some other scattered

375
00:21:44,240 --> 00:21:47,119
Speaker 1: newspapers as well, But it wasn't really that big of

376
00:21:47,160 --> 00:21:50,679
Speaker 1: a news sensation elsewhere. The Boston Daily Globe had a

377
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:53,320
Speaker 1: small feature about it, for example, but when I looked

378
00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:55,679
Speaker 1: through the New York Times archive, I didn't find anything

379
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: about it. As it turned out, her manager was in

380
00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:03,200
Speaker 1: put in a fraud or both. A lot of other

381
00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:07,560
Speaker 1: well publicized stunts at Niagara had been performed before throngs

382
00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 1: of spectators who paid for a seat on bleachers that

383
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,400
Speaker 1: had been put up just for the event. Russell didn't

384
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,280
Speaker 1: arrange anything like that. The only thing he tried to

385
00:22:16,320 --> 00:22:19,639
Speaker 1: do to make money on the day was self signed photographs.

386
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:22,280
Speaker 1: He also didn't do a very good job of getting

387
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 1: her on her planned lecture tour. She did appear at

388
00:22:25,640 --> 00:22:28,679
Speaker 1: the Pan American Exposition, but the only engagements that he

389
00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:31,400
Speaker 1: lined up for her after that were at Dime museums,

390
00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:35,639
Speaker 1: which she thought those were beneath her, So there's some

391
00:22:35,680 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: accountability there on her too. He did line up work

392
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:40,520
Speaker 1: for her that she did not want to do, but

393
00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:43,080
Speaker 1: like it also wasn't the work she had been wanting

394
00:22:43,119 --> 00:22:48,000
Speaker 1: to do. Taylor's decision to build herself as forty three

395
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: instead of sixty three also came back to bite her

396
00:22:51,040 --> 00:22:53,480
Speaker 1: because when people did come to see her. They did

397
00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: not believe that this old woman could possibly be the

398
00:22:56,840 --> 00:22:59,360
Speaker 1: forty three year old Annie Edson Taylor that they had

399
00:22:59,400 --> 00:23:01,840
Speaker 1: heard about. I actually think the fact that she was

400
00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: sixty three could be the selling point right like today,

401
00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,679
Speaker 1: it definitely could be the selling point. But no, she

402
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 1: didn't think that was gonna work. That was a poor

403
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: calculation on their part. The closest thing that Taylor ever

404
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:19,560
Speaker 1: got to a lecture tour was a series of engagements

405
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: appearing in department store windows where she would pose with

406
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: her barrel, and then Frank Russell disappeared, taking that barrel

407
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: with him. She found a new manager who hired a

408
00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: younger woman to impersonate her. Taylor never got her barrel back,

409
00:23:36,880 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: even after borrowing money to hire a private investigator to

410
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,840
Speaker 1: go look for it. Eventually, she had a replica barrel

411
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:46,440
Speaker 1: made and went back to Niagara Falls, where she tried

412
00:23:46,480 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 1: to make ends meet by posing with this replica barrel

413
00:23:49,600 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk and selling postcards. She also wrote a

414
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:57,440
Speaker 1: brief autobiography in two we have quoted from it. It's

415
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 1: probably embellished, especially in some of the places we didn't

416
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:04,040
Speaker 1: quote from, so for example, it took a lot of

417
00:24:04,119 --> 00:24:07,600
Speaker 1: guts to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. But

418
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:10,480
Speaker 1: she also said that while being robbed at gunpoint, she

419
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: looked at a robber who had a gun to her

420
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,800
Speaker 1: head and said, quote, blow away. I would as soon

421
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: be without brains as without money, And that as a result,

422
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,880
Speaker 1: is Robert let her live. That just seems like an

423
00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:24,680
Speaker 1: unbelievable presence of mind in the middle of an armed robbery.

424
00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,840
Speaker 1: But maybe that's just me. Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

425
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:31,280
Speaker 1: I mean, to me, it seems impossible. I couldn't pull

426
00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: that off. But I also would have said a whole

427
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,440
Speaker 1: lot of expletives when I came out of a barrel,

428
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,159
Speaker 1: So I clearly I am not of a mind to

429
00:24:39,240 --> 00:24:41,840
Speaker 1: handle either of these things in the commonest of manners.

430
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:45,800
Speaker 1: Annie Edson Taylor spent her last year's at the Niagara

431
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: County Almshouse, and she died on April at the age

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00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: of eighty three. She is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in

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00:24:54,600 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: Niagara Falls, New York, in an area called Stranger's Rest,

434
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 1: which is the burial site of an number of Niagara Daredevils.

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00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: After Annie Edson Taylor survived her trip over Niagara Falls,

436
00:25:06,080 --> 00:25:09,120
Speaker 1: She's reported to have said, no one ought to ever

437
00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 1: do that again, or, to be even more direct, quote,

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00:25:13,560 --> 00:25:15,399
Speaker 1: I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a

439
00:25:15,440 --> 00:25:17,840
Speaker 1: cannon knowing it was going to blow me to pieces

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00:25:17,840 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: than make another trip over the falls. You know. She

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00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:23,240
Speaker 1: just seems like maybe she had like a way with words.

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00:25:25,960 --> 00:25:28,680
Speaker 1: But in spite of these warnings, she did start something

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00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:31,679
Speaker 1: of a trend. In addition to people who have been

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00:25:31,720 --> 00:25:35,120
Speaker 1: swept over the falls by accident or have intentionally gone

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00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:39,040
Speaker 1: over without intending to survive, at least sixteen people have

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00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 1: tried going over the falls in a barrel or some

447
00:25:42,000 --> 00:25:45,639
Speaker 1: other kind of barrel like device since Annie Edson Taylor

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00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: did it. Eleven of those people have survived. The next

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00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,919
Speaker 1: person after Taylor was Bobby Leach. He went over the

450
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: falls on July eleven, so not quite ten years later.

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00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,600
Speaker 1: Before his trip over the falls and a steel barrel,

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00:25:59,600 --> 00:26:02,240
Speaker 1: he had formed with Barnamon Bailey's Circus as a diver

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00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:05,640
Speaker 1: and a stunt swimmer. He did this stunt as part

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00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: of a much hyped triple challenge that also involved him

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00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 1: parachuting off the upper suspension bridge at Niagara and going

456
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,640
Speaker 1: through the whirlpool in a barrel. He broke several bones

457
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 1: and as he was going over the falls, and then

458
00:26:19,080 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 1: after he recovered, he went on a speaking tour of

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00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:25,399
Speaker 1: the United States in Europe with his barrel. He was

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00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 1: on a four month speaking tour of New Zealand when

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00:26:27,560 --> 00:26:29,439
Speaker 1: he slipped on an orange peel, broke his leg and

462
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:36,000
Speaker 1: died of complications of gangering on a So while he

463
00:26:36,040 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: did have more of a career in showmanship than Andy's

464
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 1: ads and Taylor did, this is definitely a case of

465
00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: like him doing something she had done ten years before,

466
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:47,960
Speaker 1: but becoming famous for it in a way she had

467
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: not been able to do. Yeah, he kind of had

468
00:26:49,880 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 1: exactly the career she had hoped for right up until

469
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 1: that orange peel incident. Yeah. Also, don't go over Niagara

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00:26:56,480 --> 00:27:00,880
Speaker 1: in a barrel. It's dangerous and illegal. We're advocating going

471
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: over Niagara in a barrel. Just I mean, I again, clearly,

472
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: I am not a daredevil in my heart, but I

473
00:27:08,000 --> 00:27:11,480
Speaker 1: just don't get it. Sit in a nice restaurant nearby

474
00:27:11,680 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 1: and watch the falls and eat. That's what we did

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00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:18,320
Speaker 1: at Niagara Falls. After walking around Niagara Falls, we had

476
00:27:18,520 --> 00:27:21,240
Speaker 1: a wonderful lunch at a lovely restaurant where we sat

477
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:24,399
Speaker 1: there and watched the falls while we ate. That sounds great.

478
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: Would you want to give great? It was great? Do

479
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,160
Speaker 1: you have some great listener mail? I do. This listener

480
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:37,920
Speaker 1: mail is from Jessica, and Jessica says, Hi, Holly and Tracy,

481
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,280
Speaker 1: Happy first day of summer. So this was sent on

482
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,680
Speaker 1: the first day of summer. Thank you for your work

483
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,800
Speaker 1: on the podcast. It helps me get through my daily commute. Here.

484
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 1: I've been a long time listener, but never written in

485
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: I just finished the latest podcast, Six Impossible Episodes, Evacuating Children,

486
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:55,960
Speaker 1: and thought you would like to know about a connection

487
00:27:56,040 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 1: to a piece of nineties animation, given Holly's interest in

488
00:27:59,640 --> 00:28:03,639
Speaker 1: anime and history. In this section on Operation Baby Lift,

489
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 1: my ears parked up as it was one of the

490
00:28:05,600 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: few evacuations I could picture in my mind's I thanks

491
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,480
Speaker 1: to the animated cartoon Hey Arnold. This seems like an

492
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: odd connection since Hey Arnold is a children's cartoons centered

493
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,359
Speaker 1: around kids growing up in the nineties. An Operation Baby

494
00:28:19,400 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: Lift was an evacuation in the nineties seventies Vietnam, but

495
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: in a heartwarming and tear jerking episode of the cartoon,

496
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: one of the tenants in the boarding house, which the

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00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: titular character, Arnold, lives in with his grandparents, tells the

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00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:35,560
Speaker 1: story of how he was separated from his daughter during

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00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:38,160
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War when he put her on a helicopter

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00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: to evacuate to America. The story of how the character

501
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:44,360
Speaker 1: Mr Wynn made the decision to flee the country and

502
00:28:44,360 --> 00:28:47,000
Speaker 1: eventually be separated from her in order to save her

503
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: life is told through a flashback to the war. The

504
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,440
Speaker 1: show goes on to demonstrate the pain felt by parents

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00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,960
Speaker 1: who were separated from their children during these types of

506
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,480
Speaker 1: evacuations and the difficulty in trying to find them once

507
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,480
Speaker 1: the conflict has ended. Mr Wynn spent twenty years making

508
00:29:02,520 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: his way to America and desperately searching in a foreign

509
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: city for his child uh. In the end spoiler alert,

510
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: Mr Wynn is reunited with his daughter thanks to one

511
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:15,080
Speaker 1: of the other child characters, and there is a tear

512
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,400
Speaker 1: inducing happy ending. I've attached a link to the clip

513
00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: for your viewing pleasure. I want to say, I watched

514
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: this clip this morning at my desk, and I was

515
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: glad to be alone because then I was crying. Got

516
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: this cartoon that I had never seen before in my life,

517
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 1: and knew nothing about until this moment. Jessica goes on

518
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: to say, obviously they don't call out the country or

519
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: the name of the evacuation, but it was clear from

520
00:29:38,840 --> 00:29:42,200
Speaker 1: the context clues what conflict they were discussing. As someone

521
00:29:42,240 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 1: born well after the Vietnam War, the stories from that

522
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:49,560
Speaker 1: time come mostly from popular media and hardly ever deal

523
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:51,240
Speaker 1: with the impact and the people who were on the

524
00:29:51,360 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 1: Vietnam side. This clip is stuck with me for many

525
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 1: years is how devastating decisions and sacrifices people have to

526
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 1: make in order to give their families a better life.

527
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 1: The show doesn't go on to examine the relationship between

528
00:30:03,280 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: Mr Wynne and his daughter or explained the type of

529
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:07,600
Speaker 1: foster family she would have been placed with, but I

530
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: thought it was an interesting look into something not often

531
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: talked about. I thought you would enjoy this odd connection

532
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 1: and the deeply moving way in which a children's show

533
00:30:14,600 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: can help educate on some of the harshest moments in

534
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 1: our history. Keep up the great podcasting cheers, Jessica. Jessica

535
00:30:21,760 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: was one of our listeners who wrote to us from Canada,

536
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: which was very exciting. I, like I said, had never

537
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: even really I had never watched any of this show ever.

538
00:30:31,520 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: It was barely even in my consciousness as a show

539
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: that existed. And when I first saw children's show having

540
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: something to do with Operation Baby Left, my first gut

541
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:45,840
Speaker 1: impulse was like, oh, you were picturing Grave of the Fireflies.

542
00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 1: Weren't you like something like pain? No? I was, I was, Um,

543
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 1: I was picturing something more like a Pooh from The

544
00:30:55,880 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: Simpsons does social commentary. Um. But you know, it's then

545
00:31:02,280 --> 00:31:04,479
Speaker 1: I looked into a little bit more and it seems

546
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:08,000
Speaker 1: like that character is a little bit more fleshed out

547
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: in some cases. Um. And at least based on one

548
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: of the blogs by a Vietnamese person that I read

549
00:31:15,520 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 1: this morning as I was learning about this episode and

550
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:23,000
Speaker 1: this character and this show. So that is definitely fascinating.

551
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:26,560
Speaker 1: Thank you for writing and sending that in uh if

552
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:28,400
Speaker 1: you would like to write to us about this or

553
00:31:28,440 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: any other podcast or history podcast at hell staff works

554
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,880
Speaker 1: dot com. We are also on social media as missed

555
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 1: in History. That is our Facebook and our interest in

556
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,040
Speaker 1: our Instagram and our Twitter. You can come to miss

557
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 1: in History dot com, where there is an archive of

558
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,480
Speaker 1: every episode we've ever done and show notes for the

559
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: episodes that Holly and I have done together, and you

560
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:53,000
Speaker 1: can subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts and Google

561
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: podcasts and whatever else you used to listen to podcasts.

562
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit

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00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:09,320
Speaker 1: how staff works dot com. H