Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. According to legend, there exists a magical spring
Speaker 1: capable of turning anyone who drinks its waters young again.
Speaker 1: Countless explorers have gone looking for it, most famously pon Stalion,
Speaker 1: the Spanish conquistador. The promise of immortality is compelling. Life
Speaker 1: is so short already, and we don't have nearly enough
Speaker 1: time to see and experience all of what it has
Speaker 1: to offer. It's no wonder that the myth has persisted
Speaker 1: to this. But one woman lived a full and satisfying
Speaker 1: life unlike any other, and she didn't need a magical
Speaker 1: elixir to do it. Her name was Margaret and Nieve,
Speaker 1: born Marguerite and Harvey on the island of Guernsey in
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety two. Her father had made a lot of
Speaker 1: money as a merchant shipman as well as a privateer
Speaker 1: during wartime, so the family was fairly well off. Margaret
Speaker 1: had six younger siblings, two of whom died when they
Speaker 1: were very young. She almost died herself when she was
Speaker 1: little after taking a nasty fall down a flight of stairs. Luckily,
Speaker 1: she survived, although the accident had left her with a
Speaker 1: concussion that lasted for three days. Her father commanded Guernsey's
Speaker 1: militia during the French Revolution at the end of the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, the time that she remembered as being particularly
Speaker 1: tough for her and her family. Almost ten years later,
Speaker 1: in eighteen oh seven, a fifteen year old Margaret and
Speaker 1: her father set sail for the coastal town of Weymouth, Indorset, England,
Speaker 1: but a bad storm during the trip tossed and turned
Speaker 1: their boat around, forcing them to land on Chisel Beach
Speaker 1: on the other side of Dorset. But Margaret made it
Speaker 1: out unscathed and went on to attend a school in Bristol.
Speaker 1: She developed a love for reading there, with a particular
Speaker 1: fondness for poetry and literature. She also learned how to
Speaker 1: speak fluent French and Italian while attending a finishing school
Speaker 1: in Brussels when she was in her early twenties, Margaret
Speaker 1: was something of an anomaly among girls of her age
Speaker 1: at the time. She loved to travel and study. Then
Speaker 1: she wasn't in a rush to get married. In the
Speaker 1: years before her eighteen twenty three marriage to John Nive
Speaker 1: from Kent, Margaret went to Waterloo's battlefield after the dead
Speaker 1: had already been buried. She collected souvenirs and brought them
Speaker 1: to London, where she showed them to a Prussian field
Speaker 1: marshal named Gebhart von Blucher, who had been present at
Speaker 1: the battle. Waterloo was also her honeymoon destination with John.
Speaker 1: Eight years after that first visit, Margaret even met General
Speaker 1: Charles du Maurier, who had fought during the French Revolutionary Wars,
Speaker 1: and referred to her as law spiritual, meaning the spiritual
Speaker 1: or the witty. Sadly, her happiness was cut shorts in
Speaker 1: a teen forty nine upon the death of her husband.
Speaker 1: She and John had never had any children together. Margaret
Speaker 1: ended up moving back to Guernsey to live with her
Speaker 1: sister Elizabeth. There they resided in the home their father
Speaker 1: had bought back in eighteen o eight, named Showmier or
Speaker 1: the Thatched Cottage. The sisters didn't let their old age
Speaker 1: stop them, though, they spent much of their later years
Speaker 1: traveling all over Europe, including a trip to Poland in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two. It was there that an eighty year
Speaker 1: old Margaret got her first glimpse of Krakow, which was
Speaker 1: still under Austro Hungarian rule. She never slowed down, even
Speaker 1: after Elizabeth died in eighteen eighty five. It was as
Speaker 1: though Margaret was living for both of them. If she
Speaker 1: wanted to snack on hern apple, she would climb a
Speaker 1: tree and pluck one right off the branch. If she
Speaker 1: craved marmalade, she would make it herself in her kitchen.
Speaker 1: To her, age was just a number. On May eighth,
Speaker 1: her birthday, the whole town came out to celebrate. Two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty residents, including town officials and neighbors, gathered
Speaker 1: along with her, surprised and elated that Margaret had made
Speaker 1: it to the age of one hundred and eight. That
Speaker 1: was also the same year she came down with bronchitis,
Speaker 1: although that didn't stop her. She continued to survive and
Speaker 1: thrive up until her death at one and ten. So
Speaker 1: what was her secret to such a long life? According
Speaker 1: to a newspaper article, written about her. Margaret drank a
Speaker 1: glass and a half of sherry at every lunch and
Speaker 1: a little bit of whiskey and water at dinner time.
Speaker 1: She also woke up early every day and didn't snack
Speaker 1: between meals. She took her last breath on April four
Speaker 1: of nineteen oh three, a month shy of turning one eleven.
Speaker 1: She was not only the first female super centenarian, meaning
Speaker 1: that she had lived to be one d and ten,
Speaker 1: but she also was the only person to exist within
Speaker 1: three centuries. Margaret and nev had survived the seventeen hundreds,
Speaker 1: lived through the eighteen hundreds, and had made it to
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds. She had seen the world change unlike
Speaker 1: anyone else, but she didn't just witness history. She was
Speaker 1: also a big part of it. It's every kid's least
Speaker 1: favorite time of the year when department stores put away
Speaker 1: their water guns and pool noodles and replaced them with
Speaker 1: crans and notebooks. That's right, it's time to go back
Speaker 1: to school. But thanks to one man's efforts, the back
Speaker 1: to school season has become a little more fun because
Speaker 1: it isn't about a number two pencil or glue sticks.
Speaker 1: It's about how cool your notebook is. His name was
Speaker 1: Ernest Bryant crutch Field, and he was an executive at
Speaker 1: the Mead Corporation, founded in Dayton, Ohio in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: six by Daniel Meade. The company had started small as
Speaker 1: a paper manufacturer, then in the twentieth century, it began
Speaker 1: producing other products such as cardboard shipping containers. As it
Speaker 1: continued to grow, meat acquired companies like Data Corporation, which
Speaker 1: had lucrative divisions for inkjet printing and electronic data management.
Speaker 1: But Ernest had no part in printing or data management.
Speaker 1: His department, called New Ventures, was focused on finding the
Speaker 1: next big thing for the office supply market. He started
Speaker 1: by conducting research in nineteen seventy two with a fellow
Speaker 1: from Harvard, and their findings told them that classroom rosters
Speaker 1: were only going to get a little larger in the
Speaker 1: coming years, and not only that, but those students were
Speaker 1: going to have to deal with heavier course loads and
Speaker 1: smaller lockers on top of it all. Ernest looked at
Speaker 1: the numbers and saw that notebook and folder sales were
Speaker 1: jumping by thirty percent each year. But that presented a
Speaker 1: new problem. Kids shouldn't have to lug half a dozen
Speaker 1: notebooks and folders around in their backpacks as they moved
Speaker 1: throughout their school day. So he started thinking about ways
Speaker 1: to lighten their loads, and he stumbled on a novel thought.
Speaker 1: He had changed the standard horizontal pockets and needs folders
Speaker 1: to vertical pockets instead. He called these new products peaches.
Speaker 1: Unlike regular folders, which allowed the papers inside to fall
Speaker 1: out when turned upside down, peaches trapped the paper within.
Speaker 1: Thanks to their vertical pocket design, Students couldn't shake, drop, swing,
Speaker 1: or otherwise chuck their folders across the room and have
Speaker 1: everything fallout if it all stay within the two cardboard house.
Speaker 1: That was one problem solved, but another still remained that notebook.
Speaker 1: Ernest settled on a three ring binder style which was
Speaker 1: made of plastic with a snap button to hold everything in.
Speaker 1: This way, kids didn't have to jam all their different
Speaker 1: notebooks into their backpacks at one time. It was groundbreaking.
Speaker 1: This binder system that Ernest had come up with collected
Speaker 1: the peaches, the paper and the notebooks all in one place,
Speaker 1: and the kids loved it. He knew that because he
Speaker 1: never stopped focus testing his creation, even his own teenage
Speaker 1: kids at home offered their feedback. Through the development process,
Speaker 1: Ernest spoke to children and teachers. He toured schools, and
Speaker 1: he got to look at the lockers and the cubbies
Speaker 1: that kids were using to store their supplies between classes.
Speaker 1: After half a dozen prototypes, he finally settled on a
Speaker 1: version of his binder that would accommodate almost everyone. It
Speaker 1: was made of PVC and boasted plastic rings that didn't
Speaker 1: snap closed on tiny fingers. Inside there was a place
Speaker 1: to store a pad and a pencil, while a flap
Speaker 1: on the outside held it all in one place with
Speaker 1: a button snap. Ernest wrote and filmed a commercial in
Speaker 1: New York in only three hours on a shoestring budget.
Speaker 1: It first aired in Wichita, Kansas in eight At the
Speaker 1: very same time, the first shipments of the product were
Speaker 1: arriving in stores. Surprisingly, even to Earnest, they sold out
Speaker 1: almost immediately. Wanting to understand why, he started including feedback
Speaker 1: cards to see why kids like them. Those who filled
Speaker 1: them out and mail them in were promised a free
Speaker 1: binder for their troubles. Ernest got fift hundred cards back.
Speaker 1: The reasons ranged from I heard it was good, my
Speaker 1: girlfriend had one too, because they keep your papers where
Speaker 1: they belong. A few years later, the binders expanded from
Speaker 1: their test market into stores all over the country. They
Speaker 1: came in three colors and three unique designs like soccer,
Speaker 1: a coastline, and a dog and a cat. Over time,
Speaker 1: licensing deals allow them to feature characters like Garfield or
Speaker 1: artwork from designers like Lisa Frank. For several generations, Ernest
Speaker 1: Bryant crutch Field's product transformed the school supply landscape. Kids
Speaker 1: everywhere had to have one stocked with folders otherwise known
Speaker 1: as trappers, along with paper stored within its three ring
Speaker 1: keeper system. School was already hard enough, thanks to the
Speaker 1: trapper keeper, it was a little easier to hold everything together.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: One