Speaker 1: The Zeros taught us phosphorus. We learned to like the
Speaker 1: fire by playing glaciers. When a boy and tender guest
Speaker 1: by power of opposite to balance odd, if white a
Speaker 1: red must be paralysis. Our primer dumb unto vitality. Welcome
Speaker 1: to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome
Speaker 1: to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And that was a little Emily Dickinson to catch things
Speaker 1: ablaze here as we begin our third and I guess
Speaker 1: final episode on matches. Who would have known that she
Speaker 1: had a poem by chemistry this one. I had never
Speaker 1: heard of this, this particular poem before. I was just
Speaker 1: looking up. I was just researching phosphorus and then lo
Speaker 1: and behold, there's a poem by Emily Dickinson. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, we've got to include this. I've
Speaker 1: got to do a cold reading of this poem. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's actually about chemistry. I have no idea
Speaker 1: what this one's about. Like like many of her great
Speaker 1: poems that I really do enjoy a reading line by line,
Speaker 1: it ultimately becomes very difficult to understand what they're about.
Speaker 1: If anything. Yeah, Like it's it's almost I guess certainly
Speaker 1: not literally about phosphorus, but it is at least using
Speaker 1: phosphorus as a metaphor for something. It's bringing up tinder
Speaker 1: and the white and the red. Well, I can't help
Speaker 1: but wonder if that is a reference to white and
Speaker 1: red phosphorus we'll be discussing in this episode now. In
Speaker 1: the last episode, we finally got to the friction match
Speaker 1: attributed to the English chemist and and druggist John Walker,
Speaker 1: who in the eighteen twenties put together this paste made
Speaker 1: of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, all bound together with a gum,
Speaker 1: put that on the end of a stick, gave it
Speaker 1: to you with a piece of sand paper and said
Speaker 1: have fun. That's right. We also discussed the properties of phosphorus,
Speaker 1: white phosphorus, and some of the danger us sounding inventions,
Speaker 1: or not just dangerous sounding, but outright dangerous inventions that
Speaker 1: sought to take advantage of its incendiary properties. Right. And then,
Speaker 1: as pointed out in one of our sources for this episode,
Speaker 1: uh an article by Pollock, Brown and Reuben that was
Speaker 1: published in two thousand fifteen in Cranio Maximo, Facial Trauma
Speaker 1: and reconstruction. Around eighteen sixty, phosphorus and strike matches began
Speaker 1: to come together in a major way, right, because there
Speaker 1: are different recipes you can use for a kind of
Speaker 1: strike match, right. Uh. Obviously, phosphorus has an advantage because
Speaker 1: it has uh the the ability has a low ignition
Speaker 1: point in the ability to ignite in the presence of oxygen,
Speaker 1: so it's not hard to get it burning. Then would
Speaker 1: also sometimes be combined with like some sulfur elements. There
Speaker 1: are a few different ways you can put together the
Speaker 1: chemical head of a match, but phosphorus is clearly a
Speaker 1: winner for that recipe. Yeah. The authors here mentioned that
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty nine, which would have been the year
Speaker 1: of Walker's death, he found uh white phosphorus also sometimes
Speaker 1: referred to as yellow phosphorus being added to sulfur based
Speaker 1: match dick coatings to trigger an even more volatile flame,
Speaker 1: which is you can imagine it could be more beneficial,
Speaker 1: especially if you were in a trying environment. Even today,
Speaker 1: you can get you can get matches that flare up
Speaker 1: more and a little or a little more you know,
Speaker 1: almost explosive at the initial strike. Another thing I'm not
Speaker 1: positive about, but I kind of wonder if having more
Speaker 1: power in the phosphorus and less in the sulfur would
Speaker 1: make the matches less noxious in terms of fumes and smell,
Speaker 1: because remember in the last episode, one of the main
Speaker 1: types of matches were these things called lucifers, the sulfur
Speaker 1: based strike matches that were being produced by a guy
Speaker 1: out of London I think named Samuel Jones. And you know,
Speaker 1: it was like warned, it was like, be careful in
Speaker 1: haling this stuff. It is not for the week of lung. Now.
Speaker 1: According to Jamie Wizniak, who was one of the authors
Speaker 1: that we referenced in the previous episodes, who wrote wrote
Speaker 1: a piece about the history of matches, you had an
Speaker 1: earlier innovator by the name of Jacob frederic Or, who
Speaker 1: is often credited as the first manufacturer of the phosphorus
Speaker 1: based friction match. However, French chemist Charles Mark Saria, who
Speaker 1: lived eighteen twelve through demonstrated the design earlier than that,
Speaker 1: and all of this began to get going really in
Speaker 1: earnest around um eighteen thirty, but again eighteen sixty. By
Speaker 1: that point, the white phosphorus friction match was apparently very popular.
Speaker 1: So here we go a new evolution in our match technology.
Speaker 1: They were very popular, they were handy, but as it
Speaker 1: turns out, their manufacturer was coming at a horrifying price. Yes,
Speaker 1: so to be clear that there are no shortage of
Speaker 1: horrors to be found within the Industrial Revolution, the world's
Speaker 1: growing demand for manufactured goods, in the rapidly changing ways
Speaker 1: that these goods were produced and introduced a variety of
Speaker 1: environments and practices that were harmful to human and environmental
Speaker 1: well being. So the manufacturer of the phosphorus match, though,
Speaker 1: presents a particularly pronounced and horrifying example, and that is
Speaker 1: in the creation of these phosphorus matches, Uh, the individuals
Speaker 1: who work to create them day in, day out, hour
Speaker 1: upon hour began to suffer from what is known as
Speaker 1: Fossey jaw, or more officially, phosphorus necrosis of the jaw.
Speaker 1: This is a necrosis of the bones in the face
Speaker 1: that was common enough that it got a cute nickname
Speaker 1: Fossey jaw. And somehow that makes it so much worse,
Speaker 1: you know, especially when you're looking at photographs. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was an age of a photographic evidence. We have
Speaker 1: photographs of the kind of damage that was wrought on
Speaker 1: people's facial features. Yeah, like what if you had like
Speaker 1: a cute, funny name for cholera, Like that's telling you
Speaker 1: you're getting cholera away too much? Yeah, it makes it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just makes it all the more sinister. Um. So,
Speaker 1: humans have been working with white phosphorus since its discovery
Speaker 1: in the seventeenth century. But it's one thing for an
Speaker 1: alchemist or a chemist to encounter the fumes of its
Speaker 1: um of of working with it, you know, perhaps in
Speaker 1: passing inside of a layer or a workshop. It's quite
Speaker 1: another for these fumes to be summoned in an industrial
Speaker 1: environment and inflicted on unsuspecting workers day in and day out.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what happened. So Pollock at All discussed
Speaker 1: this in that that paper. The full title is Fossey
Speaker 1: Jaw and this Fosse Jaw of the nineteenth and twenty
Speaker 1: first century, The Dioternity of John Walker and the Friction
Speaker 1: match Man. I had to look up the word diuternity.
Speaker 1: I was not familiar with that one. Apparently it means
Speaker 1: having the quality of long lasting nous. So they point
Speaker 1: out that the vats that were used to create these
Speaker 1: the phosphorus pace for these matches. It released all these
Speaker 1: toxic fumes, and these were particularly pronounced in the dipping
Speaker 1: centers and in the drawing rooms for the matches. As such,
Speaker 1: the dippers and the handlers were exposed to it the most,
Speaker 1: right because there were a number of different jobs. I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the things that came about during the Industrial
Speaker 1: Revolution was like the division of labor into smaller and
Speaker 1: smaller jobs repeated more and more. So like there were
Speaker 1: some people whose job was just to like cram the
Speaker 1: matches into the boxes as fast as they could and whatever,
Speaker 1: and so like those people were at lower risk than
Speaker 1: the people who were dealing directly with the fumes at
Speaker 1: the more volatile stage. And these sort are some pretty
Speaker 1: tough fumes. I mean, we know today that as little
Speaker 1: as fifty milligrams of white phosphorus can prove fatal, for
Speaker 1: for instance, and and here that the fumes are just
Speaker 1: you know, and imagining the places where these uh, these
Speaker 1: matches are being produced, the ventilation is probably not that great,
Speaker 1: and the levels of the toxicity from this exposure basically
Speaker 1: broke down as follows. This again according to Pollock at all. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, ginger ittis within three to five years
Speaker 1: of exposure, so gum disease. Yeah. Uh, and then also
Speaker 1: sequestriation of alveola crest bone within three to five years
Speaker 1: of exposure. Now, sequestration in the medical sense is abnormal separation,
Speaker 1: and the area in question this is the uh, the
Speaker 1: most coronal portion of the bones surrounding the two. So yeah,
Speaker 1: as in common terms, people would talk about the teeth
Speaker 1: becoming loose, because like the bone and the gums, everything
Speaker 1: that's sort of holding them in place is getting loosened
Speaker 1: up and coming away. Yeah. The fun part two is
Speaker 1: that if you read this entire paper, you will begin
Speaker 1: to feel your teeth loosen a little bit. I got
Speaker 1: so gross Starward researching this episode. Yeah, that's grim stuff.
Speaker 1: So yeah, this would also this could also result in
Speaker 1: lost teeth, of course, uh, because then the next level
Speaker 1: is full on osteo necrosis of mandibular and maxillary bone stock.
Speaker 1: This would be the Fossey jaw within three to five
Speaker 1: years of exposure. So we're talking quote death of bone
Speaker 1: tissue due to temporary or permanent loss of blood supply
Speaker 1: to the bones. And the authors described this resulting in
Speaker 1: quote unrelenting jaw pain. Yeah, and of course you can
Speaker 1: understand why, because the bone is basically turning into a sponge,
Speaker 1: you know, like it's like losing density because it's not
Speaker 1: being able to replace itself with new tissue, because is
Speaker 1: not getting the blood flow. It needs something that's even
Speaker 1: more eerie and kind of hard to believe, but I
Speaker 1: read read mentions of this and a couple of sources.
Speaker 1: There is this idea of the phosphoric luminescence as the
Speaker 1: gums begin to separate and the jawbone begins to decay.
Speaker 1: Apparently some victims gums would glow a faint, pale green
Speaker 1: in the dark. That is horrifying. And yet there's more,
Speaker 1: because this could also lead to oral and oro cutaneous fistula.
Speaker 1: These were also common, and fistially means connections between two hollows,
Speaker 1: so like unnatural connections between two hollows, and with increased exposure,
Speaker 1: they could also develop fossy lung resulting in cough speutium
Speaker 1: production and hemoptysis, and hemoptysis is coughing up blood, and
Speaker 1: then you could also develop Fossey brain. This would be
Speaker 1: where the individual would would would have seizures. Obviously this
Speaker 1: could be fatal. You could also become anemic. This would
Speaker 1: be where the blood lacks enough healthy red blood cells
Speaker 1: or or hemoglobin. And then also you could have Fossey
Speaker 1: marrow and this would just be reduced white blood cells.
Speaker 1: Now there are lots of existing photographs of what this
Speaker 1: is like, it's uh, it's horrible. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: complete decomposition of the jaw and extensive inflammation of the
Speaker 1: surrounding tissue. And it did not apparently take the match
Speaker 1: industry long to realize that there were some serious issues
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, I was reading actually as early as
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty two. Charles Dickens wrote about quote one of
Speaker 1: the Evils of matchmaking in his weekly magazine Household Words,
Speaker 1: which include it. Included reports from different matchstick factories about
Speaker 1: the like the disease and the conditions there, Like he
Speaker 1: talks about one factory that I don't know exactly what
Speaker 1: it was they did, especially he he reports like some
Speaker 1: hygiene conditions they're involved, like washing and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: But I don't know exactly how that would contribute to
Speaker 1: reducing the exposure to the vapors or something. But he's
Speaker 1: like they were were doing dental washings for the individuals
Speaker 1: and he doesn't say, dental It sounds more like some
Speaker 1: kind of bathing or something. But I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't fully understand what was happening there. But he at
Speaker 1: least says, you know, in some factories the conditions aren't
Speaker 1: as bad as in others, and it seems to be
Speaker 1: suggested that you can do something to prevent this. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, I mean maybe, I mean, I'm sure
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens was not an epidemiologist here. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I'll probably get to this in a bit.
Speaker 1: But but later on you do see some of these
Speaker 1: factories implementing dental checkups and some level of dental care
Speaker 1: for the individuals. So that's why my mind immediately thought
Speaker 1: went to like the idea of maybe like a mouthwash
Speaker 1: being instituted for for everybody, to what a degree that
Speaker 1: it would actually help, you know, I'm not sure. So
Speaker 1: I found a good post about Fossey jaw and the
Speaker 1: the actual medical progression here by Susan Isaac on the
Speaker 1: blog for the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons
Speaker 1: in England, and a lot of this post focus is
Speaker 1: on the experience of a surgeon named James Rushmore Would
Speaker 1: who wrote a medical article in eighteen fifty seven about
Speaker 1: his attempts to help a patient named Cornelia, who was
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old girl. She worked full time in
Speaker 1: a New York match stick factory for about two and
Speaker 1: a half years. And I will warn you this is
Speaker 1: going to get pretty graphic for a minute here, but
Speaker 1: I think it's important to to drive home what these
Speaker 1: workers were facing, and so U consider yourself warned. Uh
Speaker 1: So quote in May eighteen fifty five, she was seized
Speaker 1: with a toothache and swelling on the right side of
Speaker 1: her lower jaw. To relieve the pain, first her gums
Speaker 1: were lanced and later a tooth was extracted, but the
Speaker 1: swelling gradually increased until a spontaneous opening formed under her jaw,
Speaker 1: which continuously discharged pus. Despite this, she continued to work
Speaker 1: in the factory until a week before she was admitted
Speaker 1: to Bellevue Hospital on seventeenth December eighteen fifty five. Uh So, So,
Speaker 1: once she's at Bellevue, she starts to have real difficulty eating,
Speaker 1: obviously because it's too painful for her to chew, and
Speaker 1: she had severe pain in the jaw and swelling of
Speaker 1: the face, and eventually would decided that the only way
Speaker 1: to save her was to remove the decaying bone on
Speaker 1: the right side of her jaw, and this is an intervention.
Speaker 1: At the time, they thought that you remove the decaying
Speaker 1: bone and that prevents the spread of the phosphorus poisoning
Speaker 1: to other parts of the body, like it prevents it
Speaker 1: spreading to the brain. So this surgery took place in
Speaker 1: January of eighteen fifty six. There was no anesthesia. He
Speaker 1: had to use what was called a chainsaw to cut
Speaker 1: down the middle of the jaw, and that this wouldn't
Speaker 1: be a motorized chain saw like we have today. This
Speaker 1: would be more like a chain or a wire pulled
Speaker 1: back and forth by hand to saw the bones. Isaac
Speaker 1: compares it to a big cheese wire. And then in
Speaker 1: the middle of the procedure, the chain broke and he
Speaker 1: had to get the rest of the jaw half off
Speaker 1: using for saws. So she survived the surgery and she
Speaker 1: was healing, but then the left side of her jaw
Speaker 1: started showing the same phosphorus poisoning symptoms the right had,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of February they had to go
Speaker 1: back in and remove the entire remaining lower jaw. As
Speaker 1: she was treated with loudon um, and in the following
Speaker 1: days it says she received wine and quote a daily
Speaker 1: lead an opium wash. But amazingly, Cornelias survived the surgery
Speaker 1: and she was still able to move her tongue in mouth.
Speaker 1: Apparently she recovered to better health after this, and would
Speaker 1: mention that he apparently was proud he had somewhat preserved
Speaker 1: the appearance of her face despite having to remove the
Speaker 1: entire lower jaw. My goodness. But yeah, I mean, it's unbelievable,
Speaker 1: especially given the medical technology of the day. Like they
Speaker 1: didn't have antibiotics at this point. They couldn't give her that.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure a lot of people going in for
Speaker 1: these kind of surgeries probably didn't fare as well as
Speaker 1: Cornelia did. Uh. And the surgery is just as described
Speaker 1: as unimaginable to right, and and and and indeed we're
Speaker 1: seeing this carry out prob by an extremely gifted search
Speaker 1: and of the day. You know, not everybody was was
Speaker 1: lucky enough to have access to someone like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so this is what tons of workers in these
Speaker 1: factories of the period we're facing. And one of the
Speaker 1: hardest things to understand is that it wasn't like nobody
Speaker 1: understood what was going on. You know. It wasn't like
Speaker 1: nobody knew that phosphorus could be bad for you. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean white phosphorus was already recognized as an irritant poison,
Speaker 1: and poison literature of the eighteen tins bone necrosis was
Speaker 1: reported as early as eighteen forty. By eighteen sixty nine,
Speaker 1: phosphorus wasn't use as a poison by criminals. And this
Speaker 1: duding wasn't doing large part because white phosphorus pace was
Speaker 1: being used in animal poisons like for you know, poisoning
Speaker 1: of rats and vermin and whatnot. Um and there was
Speaker 1: no cure. That was another reason it was again popular
Speaker 1: with with criminals, at least until an individual by the
Speaker 1: name of Jacques Person who lived in eighteen sixteen through
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty conducted experiments on dogs and found that turpentine
Speaker 1: could be It could be used to treat such poisonings
Speaker 1: as it hinders the him a globin attacking properties of
Speaker 1: phosphorus in the blood. Early in eighteen thirty nine. In fact,
Speaker 1: the hazards were to some degree appreciated within the industry.
Speaker 1: Uh The issue contributed to a major London strike in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty eight, for example. Yeah, I'm gonna come back
Speaker 1: to that in detail in just a minute. And like
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, match factories began to offer free dental
Speaker 1: care and regular inspections for employees. Um I believe it
Speaker 1: is that that cranio facial paper actually had a photograph
Speaker 1: of one of these dental clinics from a match factory.
Speaker 1: And yet the use of white foster has continued until
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century, when an international ban came into
Speaker 1: place in I believe nineteen o six, and major international
Speaker 1: manufacturers followed suit over the following decade. Well, maybe we
Speaker 1: should take a quick break and then when we come back,
Speaker 1: we can talk more about the rebellion of the match
Speaker 1: stick factory workers and the strike of eighteen eighty Alright,
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's talk about the match sticks strike. Okay.
Speaker 1: So I was reading about the British campaign against conditions
Speaker 1: in match stick factories in the eighteen eighties in a
Speaker 1: short article by University of Bradford nursing and healthcare scholar
Speaker 1: named Catherine Best. And this was especially good because through
Speaker 1: it I found a link to an original document from
Speaker 1: the period. That's just amazing. Um, So Specifically, she is
Speaker 1: focused on the match stick girls who worked in the
Speaker 1: East End of London, often for fourteen hours a day
Speaker 1: for low pay under pretty miserable conditions. For example, employers
Speaker 1: would impose fines on the workers for all kinds of
Speaker 1: ways they screwed up and at the job, so like
Speaker 1: if they accidentally spilled matches on their bench, you could
Speaker 1: get a fine, or if you talk to the person
Speaker 1: next to you during a shift, you could get fined.
Speaker 1: So just all sorts of punitive measures to try and
Speaker 1: ensure production goes off without a without a stitch. Yes,
Speaker 1: and most importantly, there, of course, is this constant exposure
Speaker 1: to the now well known hazards of white phosphorus vapors
Speaker 1: like as we discussed, the negative health effects of white
Speaker 1: phosphorus were well known by this time, but also at
Speaker 1: this time they were not sufficient workplace safety laws in place,
Speaker 1: so there are no laws to protect the workers. Really,
Speaker 1: factory owners are just sort of on their honor, and
Speaker 1: of course many of them are going to decide, well,
Speaker 1: what am I going to make less money or am
Speaker 1: I going to subject my workers to this peril as
Speaker 1: one of the costs of doing business. You can guess
Speaker 1: which one a lot of them chose. Oh yeah, because
Speaker 1: you can also imagine workers and I mean the factory
Speaker 1: owners having an attitude of like, well, we'll do something
Speaker 1: about this later. Right now, we got to focus on
Speaker 1: on the profits. But of course, uh, the the white
Speaker 1: phosphorus poisoning that's going to come in every day for
Speaker 1: work on time, it's never going to fail to show up.
Speaker 1: That is a very good point. So then in the
Speaker 1: year eighteen eight, Annie Bissant wrote an expose of the
Speaker 1: conditions that Anton May, which Catherine Best points out, this
Speaker 1: is confusing, is somehow not the same as a different
Speaker 1: modern company called Bryant and May, which also makes matches.
Speaker 1: So so I guess whoever the modern one is, don't
Speaker 1: hold this story about this other company against them. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so Annie bisson wrote this article for a London socialist
Speaker 1: journal published on June and so she goes through explaining
Speaker 1: the impossibly low wages they get paid and how you
Speaker 1: know you can barely survive on them, and then she
Speaker 1: describes factory conditions, including all of the supposed infractions that
Speaker 1: workers get charged fines for, including the ones I mentioned
Speaker 1: a minute ago, but also things like quote one girl
Speaker 1: was fined for letting the web twist round a machine
Speaker 1: in the endeavor to save her fingers from being cut,
Speaker 1: and she was sharply told to take care of the
Speaker 1: machine quote never mind your fingers. Another who carried out
Speaker 1: the instructions and law to finger thereby was left unsupported
Speaker 1: when she was helpless. The wage covers the duty of
Speaker 1: submitting to an occasional blow from the foreman, one who
Speaker 1: appears to be a gentleman of variable temper and quote
Speaker 1: clouds them quote when he is mad. Bissan also describes
Speaker 1: this unbelievable episode I was getting so mad just reading
Speaker 1: about it, where the factory owner, Mr Theodore Bryant wanted
Speaker 1: to build a statue in honor of a Mr Gladstone.
Speaker 1: She doesn't say exactly who this is, and I'm not positive,
Speaker 1: but I think it probably refers to the British politician
Speaker 1: William Ewart Gladstone, who had been the Prime Minister of
Speaker 1: the UK several times in the late eighteen hundreds, and
Speaker 1: so the owner he likes this public figure, probably this politician.
Speaker 1: He wants to fund the creation of this statue and
Speaker 1: his honor and quote in order that his work girls
Speaker 1: might have the privilege of contributing. He stopped one shilling
Speaker 1: each out of their wages, and further deprived them of
Speaker 1: a half day's work by closing the factory quote giving
Speaker 1: them a holiday. Oh my god. You know we mentioned
Speaker 1: Dickens earlier, and it's amazing how you know it's as
Speaker 1: poorly as we perceive Ebenezer Scrooge prior to his m
Speaker 1: his his great change, Like Scrooge is nowhere near as
Speaker 1: bad as this guy is sounding. No, at least because
Speaker 1: because Scrooge at least got to like be mean to
Speaker 1: your face, like you got to fully acknowledge, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: my boss is mean, and he like knows he's mean.
Speaker 1: This guy is like, wouldn't you love the privilege of
Speaker 1: contributing to this statue that I want to build an
Speaker 1: honor of a politician. Well, I'll just dock your pay
Speaker 1: so that you can contribute. That's just that's that's unimaginable,
Speaker 1: And according to Pissan, this leads to some of the
Speaker 1: workers gathering as the statue is unveiled, bringing bricks with
Speaker 1: them and pelting it at it's unveiling, and then intentionally
Speaker 1: cutting themselves and smearing their blood on the marble. Because
Speaker 1: the statue they believe was paid for by their blood.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, my goodness. I don't know if there's
Speaker 1: a movie about this, but there should be absolutely, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is dramatic. And then at the end Bissant encourages
Speaker 1: a boycott of Bryant and May matches. No, no big
Speaker 1: surprise there. She's like, you know, we're gonna make them pay,
Speaker 1: and she writes, quote, Oh, if we had but a
Speaker 1: people's Dante to make a special circle in the inferno
Speaker 1: for those who live on this misery and suck the
Speaker 1: wealth out of the starvation of helpless girls. Failing a
Speaker 1: poet to hold up their conduct to the execration of
Speaker 1: posterity enshrined in deathless verse, let us strive to touch
Speaker 1: their consciences i e. Their pockets, and let us at
Speaker 1: least avoid being quote partakers of their sins by abstaining
Speaker 1: from using their commodities. Yeah, and this is this is
Speaker 1: ultimately why we need We do need laws and regulations
Speaker 1: in place to make sure that you know, the certain
Speaker 1: a certain threshold is reached and maintained by companies like this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, even with laws and regulations in place, employers
Speaker 1: can be infuriating sometimes, but like you know, without any leash,
Speaker 1: without without laws and regulations to try and circumvent like
Speaker 1: like this, this is the level that the waters fall too.
Speaker 1: So obviously the bosses did not love this article that
Speaker 1: she published, and so it led to a series of
Speaker 1: retaliatory actions by the factory bosses, which in turn led
Speaker 1: to a strike of more than four hundred women and
Speaker 1: girls who worked in the factories, and eventually it was resolved.
Speaker 1: The strikers negotiated a list of demands from the owners,
Speaker 1: but still it wasn't until almost two decades later that
Speaker 1: white phosphorus was made illegal for match manufacturing in the
Speaker 1: UK and was according to Best basically taxed out of
Speaker 1: business practicality in the United States. So, like she said,
Speaker 1: they put a punitive tax on it that made it
Speaker 1: not feasible to use white phosphorus anymore. Again, kind of
Speaker 1: speaking to their their conscious right in their pocketbooks. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the conscience and the pockets Now another huge change. Perhaps
Speaker 1: one of the more important changes here came via the
Speaker 1: discovery of a morphous or red phosphorus in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: five by Austrian chemist anton Of von Schroeter I Gotta
Speaker 1: admit it made me think about Star Trek. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like so like red matter, yeah and the stuff.
Speaker 1: It sounds like an alternative sci fi version of something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean in a sense it's it's pretty interesting. Basically,
Speaker 1: red phosphorus is obtained through the heat treatment of white
Speaker 1: phosphorus in a sealed, lightless environment, which is a detail
Speaker 1: I love because that makes me think back to white
Speaker 1: phosphorus is alchemical origins. You know, it sounds like something
Speaker 1: from the world of alchemy that it must be brewed, Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, away from the light of the sun, in
Speaker 1: the darkness in the pit of my layer. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: red phosphorus is comparatively non toxic and does not spontaneously combust. Uh.
Speaker 1: Swedish chemist jons Jacob Brazelius saw the potential for match
Speaker 1: is and an author Albright, developed a means of mass
Speaker 1: producing red phosphorus by eighteen fifty one, and this would
Speaker 1: pave the way for what we come to know as
Speaker 1: the safety match. Well, maybe we should take a quick
Speaker 1: break and then we come back. We can explore the
Speaker 1: safety match. Alright, we're back. So at this point we
Speaker 1: have friction matches that no longer depend on a toxic poison.
Speaker 1: But there was another risk factor with the friction match,
Speaker 1: and this is this one is I think exemplified by
Speaker 1: the cool images you might have seen a various villains
Speaker 1: striking matches on say the brick wall of an alley
Speaker 1: and then lighting their smoke or their belt buckle, or
Speaker 1: with their fingernails the shoe on the shoe. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good cartoon character move. Yeah, and it's it's there's
Speaker 1: it's something magical about It's like I can summon fire
Speaker 1: out of the very rocks, out of the space between
Speaker 1: my fingernails, etcetera. Striking a match on a part of
Speaker 1: your body is kind of like the people who like
Speaker 1: to open bottles with their teeth. Yeah, this raises an
Speaker 1: interesting side question. I forget what it was, but there
Speaker 1: was some time in the past several months where I
Speaker 1: caught my son attempting to open something with his teeth
Speaker 1: and I had to say, I was like, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And I had to bring myself down and
Speaker 1: not because then I realized, have I asked myself, have
Speaker 1: I ever said don't use your teeth to open something? Like?
Speaker 1: I don't think I had. Um, it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: like to what extent the using of our teeth to
Speaker 1: open things and to perform various tasks is kind of
Speaker 1: ingrained in us, and you know we you know, if
Speaker 1: not for a parental voice telling us, no, you don't
Speaker 1: need to do that, or if not for life lessons
Speaker 1: that show you that the dangers of trying to open
Speaker 1: too many bottles with your teeth, that we would just
Speaker 1: depend on them. Maybe I am just weak willed by nature,
Speaker 1: but I am not a tooth opener. I do not
Speaker 1: have it in my d na to put my teeth
Speaker 1: on that random thing. I do not, at least not.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I did when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: but I certainly don't now, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I was kind of like horrified when I when
Speaker 1: I caught my son trying to open something with his teeth.
Speaker 1: Though I do remember thinking this is hilarious in retrospect
Speaker 1: that when I was a kid and I saw other
Speaker 1: kids doing that, you know, they open the coke bottle
Speaker 1: with their teeth or whatever, I remember thinking, wow, that
Speaker 1: person is really brave. Of course, now we know they
Speaker 1: just didn't have a responsible adult in their life to
Speaker 1: yell at them. That's a guy can depend on alright, So,
Speaker 1: um so yeah, these strike anywhere matches that uh that
Speaker 1: that that's just strike off of a wall or a
Speaker 1: boot or what have you. Uh So, if a match
Speaker 1: head can ignite via friction like this, then it can
Speaker 1: potentially obtain that friction not only um you know, on purpose,
Speaker 1: but you know, when you're striking it, but also accidentally
Speaker 1: by striking against, among other things, their match heads. And
Speaker 1: of course this would not be an issue if you
Speaker 1: only carried a single match at a time, or you
Speaker 1: kept individual matches stored inside of friction proof storage cylinders
Speaker 1: or something, but that's hardly practical. Matches frequently come in boxes,
Speaker 1: and you do not want an entire box of matches
Speaker 1: suddenly igniting in your carriage and your home and your satchel,
Speaker 1: on a ship or you know, wherever you happen to
Speaker 1: be carrying them. Usually bad when your cargo spontaneously catches fire.
Speaker 1: Yes right, yeah, nobody, nobody needs that. So the answer
Speaker 1: to all this is going to be the Safety match,
Speaker 1: and it is going to merge out of Sweden. So
Speaker 1: Sweden was really big in the match game at the time.
Speaker 1: This is where Alexander Lagerman would bring the first automated
Speaker 1: match fabricator online in eighteen sixty four, and the resulting
Speaker 1: high speed production would lead to the invention of the
Speaker 1: match book by American Joshua Pussee in the eighteen nineties.
Speaker 1: But before all of this, the idea emerged that the
Speaker 1: red phosphorus necessary to the match striking could be placed elsewhere,
Speaker 1: not in the head of the match, but in a
Speaker 1: special strike plate on the side of the box. So
Speaker 1: you'd be like taking the phosphorus and the sulfur away
Speaker 1: from each other, and you don't just get to hang
Speaker 1: out in the same room. We'll put you together when
Speaker 1: it's time, all right. And so this brings me back
Speaker 1: to again to my childhood of playing with matches, watching
Speaker 1: cool villains and cowboys and whatnot, strike matches off of
Speaker 1: just random things. And I remember trying to do this,
Speaker 1: you know, with a safety match, and and I remember
Speaker 1: my disappointment at not being able to carry this out.
Speaker 1: Did you think it was a problem with the matches
Speaker 1: or did you think it was a problem with yourself?
Speaker 1: I well, you know, once you've destroyed half a box
Speaker 1: of matches trying to look cool, you realize, well, maybe
Speaker 1: it's not me hit as the matches. Maybe there's something
Speaker 1: different about these matches. Uh, and and that is indeed
Speaker 1: the case. So yeah, the idea is to take that
Speaker 1: red phosphorus and put it in that strike plate, so
Speaker 1: the match head contains like paraffin or sulfur while the
Speaker 1: red the red phosphorus is again in the strike plate
Speaker 1: along with something like powdered glass to help create the friction. Now,
Speaker 1: Swedish chemist Gustav Erik Posh is credited with first devising
Speaker 1: this technique, but he wasn't able to fully realize it.
Speaker 1: I believe I was reading that he was having trouble
Speaker 1: getting the you know, the chemical just right. He couldn't
Speaker 1: he couldn't make it happen. The idea was there, uh,
Speaker 1: and he had that he was on to the right track,
Speaker 1: but he just couldn't make it work in a consistent manner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've usually seen credit given to somebody named Johan Lundstrom. Yes,
Speaker 1: this would be the Lundstrom brothers, John and Carl, who
Speaker 1: improved on these designs and then they introduced the safety
Speaker 1: match to the market in the late eighteen fifties. Now
Speaker 1: strike anywhere matches are still available. I mean that's where
Speaker 1: the cowboys and the villains were getting them. Obviously, some
Speaker 1: of my cooler friends had them when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: and they these would you know, generally contain say, phosphorus
Speaker 1: sesquist sulfide instead of white phosphorus. But there have been
Speaker 1: journal articles about poisoning's mostly I was finding them from
Speaker 1: the first half of the twentieth century concerning match and
Speaker 1: max matchbox dermatitis from the use of such matches. They
Speaker 1: even made mention of tooth loosening as well, so again
Speaker 1: it seems like there were still some health concerns with
Speaker 1: with with these this variety of phosphorus match Now, of course,
Speaker 1: the the evolution of the match doesn't stop there. We
Speaker 1: eventually get the match book, which comes online, and then
Speaker 1: the matchbook becomes of course very popular for advertising first
Speaker 1: or spreading propaganda, especially in the age of smoking, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the how you have your handy light,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't be. In addition to the
Speaker 1: lighter technology, they're mainly useful for writing a clue in
Speaker 1: in a detective story, yes, and then forgetting about it,
Speaker 1: losing the match book or you wind up murdered and
Speaker 1: someone else reads your matchbook. You also have the incense match,
Speaker 1: where something else is added to the chemistry of the
Speaker 1: match head in order to produce a more pleasing aroma.
Speaker 1: You also have varying match book designs. I was looking
Speaker 1: around it at just some of the different designs you
Speaker 1: can get nowadays from major match manufacturers. One that I
Speaker 1: remember encountering pretty early in my life was the popular
Speaker 1: lipstick box. So it's a little more like a little casket.
Speaker 1: I mean, match boxes are always going to be caskets
Speaker 1: for dolls and action figures and occasionally actual animals, but
Speaker 1: this one is more slender. Uh. So they're a huge
Speaker 1: variety of different box designs. You also see long fireplace matches,
Speaker 1: right because because sometimes you need to get the fire
Speaker 1: further in to say, you know, the logs of a
Speaker 1: of a fireplace that have been prepared. Also, there's the
Speaker 1: subject of waterproof matches, and you can you can also
Speaker 1: make waterproof matches using a variety of different recipes to
Speaker 1: treat normal safety matches. But it also seems that nothing
Speaker 1: quite beats keeping your matches as dry as possible through
Speaker 1: other means such as waterproof cylinders. But then again, they're
Speaker 1: gonna be situations where you're trying to use matches uh
Speaker 1: in say, very moist or rainy conditions, and that's where
Speaker 1: the necessity comes into play. But then also some of
Speaker 1: these environments will call for stronger burning matches, such as
Speaker 1: lifeboat matches, which are just a variety that are going
Speaker 1: to ignite and burn, you know, brighter and stronger uh at,
Speaker 1: you know, higher temperature. Man, this history of matches has
Speaker 1: proven so much more interesting than I might have guessed.
Speaker 1: We got to see the iceman, we got two muskets,
Speaker 1: we got to uh nineteenth century labor conditions, We've got
Speaker 1: to crazy medical misadventures. This has been all over the place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had we had alchemists, we had plenty of the elder,
Speaker 1: we had Emily Dickinson, um we ebonez are Scrooge popped up.
Speaker 1: You really couldn't ask for a better journey through human
Speaker 1: techno history. It's been fun. But maybe we gotta put
Speaker 1: out the light we do. It's burning a little too
Speaker 1: close to our fingertips. It is time to just go
Speaker 1: ahead and blow it out and uh stomp it under
Speaker 1: our feet. But we will be back with future episodes
Speaker 1: of Invention where we will continue this journey through techno history,
Speaker 1: exploring the various inventions and innovations that changed the way
Speaker 1: we live and and ultimately what we are in the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes, you can
Speaker 1: head on over to invention pod dot com and that
Speaker 1: will probably shoot you over to the I Heart listing
Speaker 1: for our show. Well it we've been having some issues today.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, well just this morning. I think those are
Speaker 1: sorted out. It should point you in the right direction.
Speaker 1: If not, you can just go to the the I
Speaker 1: heart page. Look us up, find us there, subscribe, rate
Speaker 1: and review, and wherever you get the podcast, because it's
Speaker 1: available everywhere, just make sure that you subscribe, that you
Speaker 1: rate the you review. These are the things that help
Speaker 1: us out huge Thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just
Speaker 1: to say hello, you can email us at contact at
Speaker 1: invention pod dot com. Invention is production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio because the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows,