WEBVTT - A-Peeling 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.440 Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 0:00:07.480 --> 0:00:14.440 iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.440 the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:22.159 of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:28.880 waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.920 In nineteen seventeen, a young woman named Molly Maggia strolled 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:42.600 into a factory in New Jersey for her first day 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:45.760 of work. Two of her sisters worked in the same factory, 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:47.960 and as she looked around the room, she saw them 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:52.040 sitting together at a workbench. Molly smiled and waved, excited 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.880 to join them. A supervisor walked Molly through the long 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.600 rows of work benches, where more than one hundred young 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:01.880 women were hunched over with brushes in their hands. Their 0:01:01.960 --> 0:01:04.360 job was to paint the numbers onto the dials of 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:09.839 watchfaces with a special luminous paint called undark. Molly sat 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:12.399 down at her seat and gazed into the small bowl 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:16.119 of yellowish paint, which glimmered and glowed like a magical potion. 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.800 Molly had never seen anything like it. Her supervisor showed 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:25.399 her the proper technique lip dip paint. She was supposed 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:28.440 to shape the brush into a fine point with her lips, 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:31.360 dip it in the paint, and then paint the numbers 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:34.360 on the watch dial. Molly frowned and asked if the 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.679 paint was safe to consume, and the supervisor said yes, 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:42.040 it was all natural and completely harmless. During their lunch break, 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.720 Molly sat with her sisters who were painting each other's 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:48.160 nails with the undark paint to make them glow. Across 0:01:48.200 --> 0:01:51.160 the room, she saw other workers painting designs onto their 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.200 faces and clothing. They were laughing and smiling and shimmering 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.000 like they were lit from within. Molly decided that the 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:02.120 hesitation she had felt was unnecess A substance this beautiful 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.160 and popular couldn't be dangerous. But after working at the 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.919 factory for a few years, Molly woke up one morning 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.760 with a terrible toothache. She called in sick to work 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:14.160 and went to the dentist. He pulled out one of 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.480 her teeth and sent her away, but the pain didn't 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:20.600 go away. Over the next few months, Molly went back 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:23.840 to the dentist again and again. Her teeth were rotting 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.440 and falling out one by one, and even more alarmingly, 0:02:27.560 --> 0:02:30.880 the empty sockets weren't healing after the teeth were removed. 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.399 They were turning into painful, bleeding ulcers. And then one day, 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.280 when the dentist lightly pried open Molly's jaw to get 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:41.600 a better look at her teeth, her entire jawbone crumbled 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.640 and broke off into his hand. The dentist was aghast. 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:48.600 He had no idea what was wrong with Molly, and 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:50.760 there was nothing he could do to help her pain. 0:02:51.680 --> 0:02:54.800 Molly spent the next few months bedridden, barely able to 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:58.119 eat or speak. Her sisters brought her word that other 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.160 workers at the factory were falling in as well. Their 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:06.200 jaws were rotting, their spines collapsed, their pregnancies ended in miscarriage. 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.760 No one knew what was happening. The factory owners insisted 0:03:09.800 --> 0:03:12.000 that it was just a coincidence and that it had 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.680 nothing to do with the undark paint, but the workers 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.240 were starting to doubt the paint was really as safe 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.240 as they claimed. That fall Molly died of a hemorrhage 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.000 at the age of twenty five. Over the coming years, 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:28.359 dozens of other dial painters became sick, including Molly's sisters, 0:03:28.560 --> 0:03:31.680 who joined with other workers to file a lawsuits against 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.560 the factory. As part of the lawsuit, Molly's body was 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.840 exhumed for an autopsy, and what it revealed was that 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:44.160 Molly's bones were radioactive. You see the undark paint glowed 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:48.800 because it contained radium, a radioactive substance that's highly toxic 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.760 to human beings. The owners of the Dial factory had 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.840 tried to cover up the harmful effects of radium, even 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.160 as their healthy young workers dropped dead from it. Over time, 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.480 the workers Bega came known as the Radium Girls, and 0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:05.320 although there was nothing that could be done to save them, 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.400 their deaths led to the creation of several new health 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.320 and safety regulations for workers, including the creation of the 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.760 Occupational Safety and Health Administration otherwise known to us today 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:33.359 as OSHA. You see them in every grocery store produce 0:04:33.400 --> 0:04:37.560 aisle today, the humble banana, the Cavendish banana, to be 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:39.920 more precise. But if you were to get into a 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.800 time machine and go back to the late nineteenth century, 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:45.360 that is not the banana that you would find at 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:50.240 the market, and the reason why is a curious tale. 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.480 Back then, the banana that everyone bought was the gross Michelle. 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.120 It had been introduced to the Americas in the late 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.520 nineteenth century, and due to its flavor, thick skin, and 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:03.599 resilientllians when being shipped, it quickly became top banana. It 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.000 fueled the growth of many Central American countries and grew 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:11.479 the profits of the massive fruit corporations, including United Fruit Company, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:13.800 which led to the rise of the concept that we 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:17.200 know today as the banana republic. It's a phrase that 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:20.919 we often hear an unstable country whose economy rests on 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.360 a single resource, which then gets exploited by powerful foreign agents. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.039 In this case, those foreign agents were United Fruit and 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:33.000 its competitors. You see, the gross Michelle needed land in 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:35.800 the tropics, and lots of it, and not just for 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.719 the massive banana plantations where the fruit would be grown, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.080 but also for railways and ports so that the perishable 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.400 Gross Michelle could get to market as quickly as possible. 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.280 United Fruit was able to secure land grants in exchange 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.279 for building its own railways, but only those that would 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.479 serve its own interests. Locals were frequently left out in 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:57.799 the cold, and as more and more of the country's 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.600 resources were sucked up by the company, there would be, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:05.440 in turn more political unrest, and to protect United Fruits business, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.520 the United States government would help topple governments who pushed back, 0:06:09.839 --> 0:06:13.839 installing corrupt military dictatorships that were much more friendly to 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:19.000 American interests, all to sell a banana. Very quickly, the 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:22.240 health of a nation's economy became entirely reliant on the 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.799 health of the banana plantations, which left local populations vulnerable 0:06:26.839 --> 0:06:29.640 to markets that had little to do with themselves, and 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:33.640 United Fruits focus on growing the grossmychelle above all other 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:37.960 varieties would eventually lead to disaster. You see, in order 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.760 to have consistent quality of seedless fruit, the bananas weren't 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.640 grown from seed, but instead cloned. And because every cloned 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:50.880 plant was identical, every grossmychell had the exact same vulnerabilities. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.800 And so when a soil born fungus exploded onto the 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:57.920 scene in the nineteen twenties and thirties, it tore through 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.720 the tropics, massacring the grosser mishell as it went. How well, 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:06.440 this fungus caused Panama disease, which blocked the plant's ability 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.400 to absorb and distribute water, and so entire plantations became 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:14.520 rotting banana graveyards, and by the nineteen fifties, the grossmychell 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.560 was unable to continue as the corporate crop that it 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.840 had been for so long. After some search, the industry 0:07:20.880 --> 0:07:24.480 found a new champion, the cavendish, which had a natural 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:28.040 resistance to the fungus, and so farmers pivoted quickly to 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:32.000 the new variety, which proved incredibly successful. Just like the 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.480 grossbyshell before, it was a resilient breed and it could 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.160 make that long journey from the farm to the grocer 0:07:38.280 --> 0:07:41.480 with minimal damage. But most importantly, it could grow in 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.920 the same soil that had become toxic for its predecessor, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:47.720 and along the way it's become the banana that we 0:07:47.760 --> 0:07:50.920 all recognize today, and it accounts for ninety nine percent 0:07:51.080 --> 0:07:54.240 of the banana trade, which, as you can probably guess, 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.119 is a major problem. You see, the industry didn't solve 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.360 its fungus problem by replacing one monoculture with another. It's 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.560 only really putting off the inevitable because just like the 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.040 grossby shell, the cavendish is a clone. Every single one 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.920 of the bananas on the market shelves today share the 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.000 exact same genes and so all it would take is 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.600 a single disease to wipe out the Cavendish, and that 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.119 disease has already appeared in the form of tropical race four, 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.640 which is a particularly nasty form of the same fungus 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.080 that took down the grossmy shell. It's more aggressive and 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.440 it can live in the soil far longer, lasting even decades. 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.800 And since it's appeared, it has spread like wildfire through 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:40.720 Asia and Australia. In twenty nineteen, it finally made it 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.920 to the Americas, the hearts of the banana export industry, 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.679 and it's proving nearly impossible to contain naturally. The industry 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:52.480 is trying to fight back using genetic engineering. It's attempting 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:55.800 to take resistant genes from wild bananas and insert them 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.480 into the cavendish genome, offering a glimmer of hope. There's 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.400 also the possibility of other varieties hitting store shelves, although 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:07.160 many aren't as hardy or as flavorful as the Cavendish, 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:11.640 And so the new fungus continues its relentless spread, leaving 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.840 our familiar bananas fate hanging in the balance. Twice now 0:09:15.920 --> 0:09:19.400 we've been shown the dangers of monoculture. We can meet 0:09:19.400 --> 0:09:23.600 it in the moment through diversification or science, or face 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:26.960 losing one of our everyday staples. And as far as 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:34.600 I'm concerned, only one of those options sounds appealing. I 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.280 hope you enjoyed today's guided tour through the Cabinet of Curiosities. 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.920 This show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:44.920 with iHeart Podcasts, researched and written by the Grim and 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:48.440 Mild team, and produced by Jesse Funk. Learn more about 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:50.720 the show and the people who make it over at 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.960 Grimandmild dot com slash Curiosities. You'll also find a link 0:09:55.000 --> 0:09:58.480 to the official Cabinet of Curiosity's hardcover book, available in 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.160 bookstores and online, as well as ebook and audiobook. And 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.840 if you're looking for an ad free option, consider joining 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.840 our Patreon. It's all the same stories, but without the 0:10:07.920 --> 0:10:11.319 interruption for a small monthly fee. Learn more and sign 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:15.760 up over at patreon dot com, slash Grimandmild, and until 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:17.880 next time, stay curious.