WEBVTT - Acting Out 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.396 Pushkin Hey Revisions History listeners, Malcolm here. Before we get started, 0:00:22.556 --> 0:00:25.196 I wanted to update you on a few things. First thing, 0:00:25.796 --> 0:00:31.236 this August twenty fourth, the Revisionist History season begins in earnest, 0:00:31.836 --> 0:00:35.356 eight old school episodes in a row, the little narrative 0:00:35.476 --> 0:00:39.116 jewel boxes you've come to love. We've been feeding you 0:00:39.196 --> 0:00:41.596 a little bits and pieces so far this season, but 0:00:41.756 --> 0:00:44.556 this is the main event. The heart of it is 0:00:44.556 --> 0:00:46.996 a six part series on guns and violence that I 0:00:47.036 --> 0:00:52.076 think is my favorite thing we've ever done. Weird, moving, funny, heartbreaking. 0:00:52.556 --> 0:00:56.236 So mark your calendar's August twenty fourth is when it 0:00:56.276 --> 0:00:58.836 all happens. And by the way, if you want to 0:00:58.876 --> 0:01:01.716 get that whole mini series early and binge it all 0:01:01.756 --> 0:01:04.796 at once without ads, you can just by becoming a 0:01:04.836 --> 0:01:08.596 Pushkin Plus subscriber. In fact, just six ninety nine a 0:01:08.636 --> 0:01:11.676 month or thirty nine ninety nine a year gets you 0:01:11.956 --> 0:01:16.316 every one of the Pushkin shows early and adfree. Just 0:01:16.356 --> 0:01:19.156 go to the Revisionist History show page in Apple Podcasts 0:01:19.556 --> 0:01:24.316 or Pushkin dot fm, slash plus to sign up. And 0:01:24.356 --> 0:01:27.276 one naice thing, speaking of things you should binge, the 0:01:27.356 --> 0:01:31.956 latest season of our true crime masterpiece Lost Hills has dropped. 0:01:32.116 --> 0:01:35.316 The new season explores a legacy of Malibu's dark prints. 0:01:35.716 --> 0:01:39.516 Mickey Dora. Mickey was a surfer known for his style, grace, 0:01:39.556 --> 0:01:42.916 and aggression who ruled the Malibu Beaches from the nineteen 0:01:42.956 --> 0:01:47.276 fifties to the nineteen seventies. Celebrated for his rebellious spirit, 0:01:47.596 --> 0:01:50.156 he was also a con man who led the FBI 0:01:50.196 --> 0:01:52.996 on a seven year man hunt around the world. Believe me, 0:01:53.316 --> 0:01:55.836 this is a show worth a listen, So sign up 0:01:55.876 --> 0:01:58.236 for Pushkin Plus and you can binge this one too. 0:02:01.836 --> 0:02:04.436 A couple weeks ago, one of my producers, Ben at 0:02:04.436 --> 0:02:07.596 Afh Haffrey, came by the office because he had a 0:02:07.676 --> 0:02:11.996 story to tell me. Ben, Welcome to Hudson, New York. 0:02:12.076 --> 0:02:14.036 Thank you for having me in Hudson, New York. 0:02:15.036 --> 0:02:17.396 Ben just took over writing and hosting a Pushkin show 0:02:17.396 --> 0:02:20.156 I love called The Last Archive, a show about the 0:02:20.196 --> 0:02:23.356 history of truth. Jill Lapour used to host it. Ben's 0:02:23.356 --> 0:02:26.116 worked on it since the beginning. He's always digging around 0:02:26.156 --> 0:02:28.556 in the stacks of some old library, and one day 0:02:28.636 --> 0:02:31.636 last summer he was in the medical history archives at 0:02:31.636 --> 0:02:34.956 Harvard where he found a story that blew his mind. 0:02:36.116 --> 0:02:38.196 Okay, I want to play you some tape. 0:02:38.396 --> 0:02:42.596 Okay, go ahead, Ella, welcome back to Dallas. I'm marvelous. 0:02:42.756 --> 0:02:45.236 Oh, thank you, and it's a pleasure to be back 0:02:45.276 --> 0:02:45.796 here again. 0:02:46.476 --> 0:02:48.636 Do you recognize that voice? 0:02:48.916 --> 0:02:50.116 I no, tell me. 0:02:50.516 --> 0:02:54.796 That is the voice of Eliphantzterle and she's being interviewed 0:02:54.796 --> 0:02:57.636 in the eighties and Dallas, and she's about to tell 0:02:58.116 --> 0:03:00.036 this big story about how she got famous. It's a 0:03:00.076 --> 0:03:01.996 story she tells all the time, like an amateur knight 0:03:01.996 --> 0:03:04.316 at the Apollo Theater when she sings and everyone realizes 0:03:04.316 --> 0:03:07.036 she's got an amazing voice. But I want to play 0:03:07.116 --> 0:03:08.716 you this tape because I want to show you what 0:03:08.756 --> 0:03:11.236 happened when she tells it in this particular instance. 0:03:11.236 --> 0:03:15.236 Okay, Ella, as you look back on your life, here 0:03:15.316 --> 0:03:20.676 was a child from an orphanage and now, no, no, 0:03:20.756 --> 0:03:23.356 somebody wrote that up. Where did that get come? 0:03:23.556 --> 0:03:27.116 I had well, that was a publicity thing long time ago. 0:03:27.236 --> 0:03:30.436 But I have family, and I had family then. But 0:03:30.596 --> 0:03:34.516 my mother had died, and I guess that's why they 0:03:34.636 --> 0:03:37.676 used that. Mind that I was an awphoran, but I 0:03:37.716 --> 0:03:38.356 had family. 0:03:38.996 --> 0:03:40.716 At what age were you when your mother died? 0:03:41.476 --> 0:03:46.756 I was fifteen, about fifteen, because from there we went 0:03:46.796 --> 0:03:47.996 to the amateur contest. 0:03:50.276 --> 0:03:52.636 I was about fifteen, because from there we went to 0:03:52.636 --> 0:03:57.556 the amateur contest. It's not a lie, but she's skipping 0:03:57.636 --> 0:04:00.836 two years of her life, about two years, and she 0:04:00.956 --> 0:04:02.876 always skips these two years of her life when she 0:04:02.916 --> 0:04:06.196 tells this story. And what I want to do today 0:04:06.476 --> 0:04:08.596 is tell you a story about what happens in those 0:04:08.636 --> 0:04:12.076 two years, because it's a story not just about Elip Fitzgerald, 0:04:12.316 --> 0:04:14.876 but kind of crazily a story about the invention of 0:04:14.916 --> 0:04:18.956 this whole realm of social science that she is kind 0:04:18.956 --> 0:04:21.636 of bound up in that I think you'll be interested in, 0:04:21.676 --> 0:04:23.956 not just because it's a very you kind of thing, 0:04:24.116 --> 0:04:26.996 but also because it's a story that takes place half 0:04:27.036 --> 0:04:28.396 a mile from where we're sitting right now. 0:04:28.436 --> 0:04:34.476 Wow, welcome to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked 0:04:34.516 --> 0:04:37.756 and misunderstood. Today in the show, Ben tells me about 0:04:37.796 --> 0:04:41.516 the forgotten origins of social network theory and the missing 0:04:41.636 --> 0:04:47.356 chapter in Ella Fitzgerald's life. It's absolutely Banana's story. Just 0:04:47.396 --> 0:04:49.036 so you know, I'd read a little bit of Ben's 0:04:49.076 --> 0:04:51.876 research before we had this conversation, so I'm a little 0:04:51.876 --> 0:04:54.956 ahead of you, but still just wait, do you see 0:04:55.316 --> 0:04:58.956 how Ella Fitzgerald fits into this whole thing. Before we 0:04:58.996 --> 0:05:01.916 get to her, we have to meet the experimenter, a 0:05:01.996 --> 0:05:12.076 doctor from halfway around the world. Wait, so back up 0:05:12.076 --> 0:05:16.436 for a second. So we begin with this man Jacob. 0:05:16.476 --> 0:05:19.036 What's his middle name, Jacob Levy Marino. 0:05:19.116 --> 0:05:21.996 Jacob Levy Marino. Who is He's Austrian. 0:05:22.836 --> 0:05:24.636 He always claimed that he was born on a boat 0:05:24.636 --> 0:05:25.276 in the Black Sea. 0:05:26.196 --> 0:05:31.516 I was born on the boat the Black Sea, and 0:05:31.556 --> 0:05:33.756 I'll be traveling from one part of the world to 0:05:33.956 --> 0:05:36.276 the others and to find myself. 0:05:37.236 --> 0:05:39.196 Actually, he was just born in eighteen eighty nine in 0:05:39.236 --> 0:05:42.516 Bucharest to a fifteen and a half year old mother 0:05:43.036 --> 0:05:46.996 who had married a traveling salesman father and lived in 0:05:46.996 --> 0:05:49.556 Bucharest I think for the first five or six years 0:05:49.556 --> 0:05:51.756 of his life before moving to Austria. 0:05:52.236 --> 0:05:58.356 He's basically lower middle class Jewish immigrant living in Vienna, 0:05:58.396 --> 0:06:01.476 and yet he ends up getting a pretty serious education. 0:06:01.876 --> 0:06:03.956 Yeah, So he goes to school at the University of Vienna. 0:06:03.996 --> 0:06:07.236 He's studying to be a physician. He becomes really interested 0:06:07.436 --> 0:06:11.516 in psychiatry. He was noted on campus for walking around 0:06:11.596 --> 0:06:13.996 in a long green cloak and letting his beard grow 0:06:13.996 --> 0:06:15.276 in a way that no one else is letting in 0:06:15.316 --> 0:06:17.316 their beard grow and he never wear a hat. So 0:06:17.356 --> 0:06:20.236 he's just sort of striking larger than life figure on campus, 0:06:20.236 --> 0:06:22.596 which is kind of like it's always been the thing 0:06:22.636 --> 0:06:24.876 with him since he was a kid, like this. This story. 0:06:24.956 --> 0:06:27.436 His mother always told this story that one day she 0:06:27.516 --> 0:06:29.556 was holding him on the street and a woman was 0:06:29.556 --> 0:06:32.316 walking by and pointed at him and said, one day 0:06:32.356 --> 0:06:34.436 that boy will become a very great man. People will 0:06:34.436 --> 0:06:36.636 come from all over the world to see him. And 0:06:36.716 --> 0:06:39.836 so he had this kind of like self described megalomania 0:06:40.396 --> 0:06:44.956 and literally would play god as a child, which is 0:06:44.956 --> 0:06:47.356 a thing he continued to do for his whole life. 0:06:47.956 --> 0:06:51.476 So he's part of the intellectual scene in Vienna. Yeah, 0:06:51.516 --> 0:06:53.396 and then makes his way to the United States. 0:06:54.356 --> 0:06:56.876 Yes, so he makes his way to the United States 0:06:56.876 --> 0:07:01.756 after World War One, and you know, psychodrama at this 0:07:01.796 --> 0:07:03.196 point is sort of his big idea. 0:07:03.316 --> 0:07:06.796 Well, wait to find psychodrama is doing. 0:07:06.836 --> 0:07:08.796 So it's like, you have a problem you want to 0:07:08.796 --> 0:07:11.516 work through the common way of working through that problem 0:07:11.636 --> 0:07:13.716 is to go to a psychoanalyst office and lie down 0:07:13.756 --> 0:07:16.596 on the couch and just talk about your problem. He thought, 0:07:16.956 --> 0:07:19.316 you have a problem, you bring it to the stage 0:07:19.876 --> 0:07:22.836 and you act out whatever problem you're having, and you 0:07:23.196 --> 0:07:26.196 have this kind of dynamic way of engaging with the 0:07:26.236 --> 0:07:29.636 issues you were facing, and then that would help you 0:07:29.716 --> 0:07:32.836 either have a catharsist and break through it or just 0:07:32.916 --> 0:07:35.836 like reimagine your own role within the problems you were 0:07:35.876 --> 0:07:38.756 having such that you no longer have them. So what 0:07:38.836 --> 0:07:42.996 he's really interested in is creative spontaneity. He thinks of 0:07:43.116 --> 0:07:45.876 children as a model. He did a lot of tutoring 0:07:45.916 --> 0:07:49.796 when he was in medical school, and he basically felt 0:07:49.836 --> 0:07:53.036 like the creative spontaneity kids have is a thing he 0:07:53.076 --> 0:07:55.676 wanted to give to everybody, like you can when you're 0:07:55.716 --> 0:07:58.636 like watch a group of kids playing, which he did 0:07:58.676 --> 0:08:00.636 a lot when he was a tutor, they just kind 0:08:00.676 --> 0:08:03.156 of like pick up roles immediately. And he'd see these 0:08:03.196 --> 0:08:05.596 groups of kids, you know, like, how does everyone decide 0:08:05.596 --> 0:08:08.156 all of a sudden they're playing cops and robbers or 0:08:08.236 --> 0:08:11.116 just sort of lock into some sort of performance and 0:08:11.156 --> 0:08:15.036 communicate it in an almost unspoken, instantaneous way. That sort 0:08:15.076 --> 0:08:18.796 of self creative freedom was a thing that he thought 0:08:18.996 --> 0:08:23.836 everybody should have. So his therapeutic theater stuff is really 0:08:23.836 --> 0:08:26.116 an attempt to figure out how does that work. Where 0:08:26.156 --> 0:08:28.556 does that spark come from? What are the dynamics between 0:08:28.556 --> 0:08:31.676 these people? What's a systematic way to think about those 0:08:31.756 --> 0:08:35.756 dynamics that promotes this kind of spontaneous interaction between them. 0:08:36.316 --> 0:08:42.076 That preoccupation of his is where social network analysis comes from, 0:08:42.356 --> 0:08:44.796 is basically like how can I study a group and 0:08:44.836 --> 0:08:47.356 figure out how the ideas are moving within the group 0:08:47.516 --> 0:08:50.036 and make it sort of rigorous in a way. He's 0:08:50.076 --> 0:08:52.756 really preoccupied with this question what goes on with a 0:08:52.796 --> 0:08:57.156 group of people because he's stuck between psychoanalysis, which is 0:08:57.156 --> 0:09:00.796 all about the individual and the self, and a lot 0:09:00.836 --> 0:09:03.236 of the social sciences in the nineteen twenties, which are 0:09:03.276 --> 0:09:07.436 these kind of big static numbers like averages or like 0:09:07.476 --> 0:09:09.276 the sort of information you get from a poll. 0:09:09.556 --> 0:09:13.276 So his principal objection to psychoanalysis is the fact that 0:09:13.956 --> 0:09:17.356 it's too focused on the individual on it self. Yeah, 0:09:17.476 --> 0:09:19.716 it seemsus maybe it seems it seems like it would 0:09:19.716 --> 0:09:22.276 seemed decadent to him to lie on a couch and 0:09:22.316 --> 0:09:23.596 talk about yourself endlessly. 0:09:23.916 --> 0:09:25.996 Well, yeah, he used to talk about this all the time. 0:09:26.436 --> 0:09:28.076 That's did people who go on the couch for six 0:09:28.116 --> 0:09:31.756 eight years, spending twenty thousand dollars and so for us, 0:09:31.876 --> 0:09:34.116 and then they come to us, and what do we do? 0:09:34.156 --> 0:09:36.076 We let him act out the problem as it is 0:09:36.436 --> 0:09:37.396 on the Reality lib. 0:09:39.036 --> 0:09:40.916 That tape is from where Cooper Union. 0:09:41.076 --> 0:09:41.836 He's giving a talk. 0:09:41.956 --> 0:09:45.796 Yeah, it's like nineteen sixty something, so it's later in life, 0:09:45.916 --> 0:09:47.196 so he never really got over it. 0:09:47.276 --> 0:09:50.036 Yeah, so let's talk a little about the how does 0:09:50.076 --> 0:09:53.116 he what is this big experiment at how does he 0:09:53.156 --> 0:09:53.956 come to conduct it? 0:09:54.396 --> 0:09:59.556 So basically, he's he's in New York. He's got this 0:09:59.756 --> 0:10:03.036 improv theater that like the critics all hate at Carnegie Hall. 0:10:03.596 --> 0:10:07.676 And one day a Columbia graduate student in sociology named 0:10:07.676 --> 0:10:13.556 Helen Hall Jennings come to the improv theater and somehow 0:10:13.876 --> 0:10:16.796 they identify that they're both really interested in this question 0:10:16.876 --> 0:10:21.716 of rigorously figuring out the way groups work. And Moreno, 0:10:21.836 --> 0:10:23.636 as you can tell, is sort of like all over 0:10:23.676 --> 0:10:28.676 the place and wasn't a super focused or rigorous person, 0:10:28.756 --> 0:10:31.436 but had just a crazy number of ideas that were 0:10:31.476 --> 0:10:35.396 really pretty insightful. And what Helen Hall Jennings had was 0:10:35.676 --> 0:10:40.876 an extremely rigorous math background and also connections. And when 0:10:40.916 --> 0:10:42.996 they sort of figured out that they had this thing 0:10:43.036 --> 0:10:46.316 income and this interest they began working with each other, 0:10:46.396 --> 0:10:50.636 and so they begin to work up a science for 0:10:50.796 --> 0:10:53.556 mapping the way groups work. So they begin to go 0:10:53.556 --> 0:10:56.036 to classrooms. It was like a Brooklyn public school. They 0:10:56.076 --> 0:10:58.316 go to where they ask all the kids, like who 0:10:58.316 --> 0:11:00.476 do you most want to sit next to? And then 0:11:00.516 --> 0:11:03.796 they start creating diagrams of like how successfully integrated the classroom. 0:11:03.836 --> 0:11:05.396 It's like, are people sitting next to the kids they 0:11:05.436 --> 0:11:07.916 want to sit next to? They go to sing Sing prison, 0:11:08.556 --> 0:11:11.076 but the thing is like they're kind of fiddling around 0:11:11.076 --> 0:11:13.876 the edges, like these are small experiments and what they 0:11:13.876 --> 0:11:17.796 need is a really big experiment. And they kind of 0:11:18.276 --> 0:11:23.276 luck into meeting this woman named Fanny French Morse, who's 0:11:23.316 --> 0:11:26.676 the superintendent of the New York State Training School for Girls, 0:11:27.036 --> 0:11:30.996 which is women's reformatory located half a mile from here. Like, 0:11:31.076 --> 0:11:33.276 go out the door, turn right, walk down the street, 0:11:33.316 --> 0:11:34.356 and we'd be there. 0:11:34.796 --> 0:11:36.476 I mean, I go running up to that place all 0:11:36.516 --> 0:11:38.556 the time. It's a prison, now. 0:11:38.596 --> 0:11:41.036 Yeah, I mean it's a place that really creeps me out. 0:11:41.196 --> 0:11:45.956 But the history of reformatories and the juvenile justice system, 0:11:46.036 --> 0:11:48.556 that's one of the big accomplishments of the progressive era 0:11:49.116 --> 0:11:52.276 is this idea we should not be treating kids who 0:11:52.276 --> 0:11:54.756 commit crimes the way we treat adults who commit crimes, 0:11:55.156 --> 0:11:58.636 because on some level people thought kids can change more 0:11:58.636 --> 0:12:01.076 than adults can. So rather than like locking them in 0:12:01.076 --> 0:12:04.716 a prison in a city with a bunch of adult criminals, 0:12:05.156 --> 0:12:07.556 they should have a different court system. They could be 0:12:07.636 --> 0:12:09.796 charged for different things. Like a lot of young girls 0:12:09.796 --> 0:12:13.516 were sent to reform schools just for being incorrigible or ungovernable, 0:12:13.876 --> 0:12:16.596 but they were sent to these places that were always 0:12:16.596 --> 0:12:19.836 in bucolic settings that were meant to take them out 0:12:19.876 --> 0:12:22.436 of contaminated cities and put them in places where they 0:12:22.476 --> 0:12:25.996 could become better versions of themselves. And so if Fanny 0:12:26.036 --> 0:12:29.196 frenchmore s runds the Hudson One, and it's always on 0:12:29.236 --> 0:12:31.876 the cusp of being a prison or a school, and 0:12:31.916 --> 0:12:33.836 so it's constantly a need of being reformed because it 0:12:33.836 --> 0:12:35.836 gets too strict or it gets too punitive, and they 0:12:35.836 --> 0:12:40.036 need to make it more re educative instead. And she's 0:12:40.076 --> 0:12:45.796 this lifelong progressive reformer who takes over the training school 0:12:45.916 --> 0:12:49.276 when it's become basically a prison, and she's kind of 0:12:49.276 --> 0:12:51.116 like a legend in this field. The first night she 0:12:51.156 --> 0:12:53.036 takes over, she makes a huge pile on the lawn 0:12:53.156 --> 0:12:55.756 of all of the straight jackets and the restraining sheets 0:12:55.756 --> 0:12:57.996 and the prison uniforms, and she lights it on fire. 0:12:58.596 --> 0:13:01.396 So she's this firebrand reformer who's really trying to do 0:13:01.476 --> 0:13:05.196 something at this school. She introduces art, she buys a farm, 0:13:05.276 --> 0:13:08.396 she gets all these antiques that the girls start reworking, 0:13:09.156 --> 0:13:12.316 trying to give them an aesthetic education. But notably, the 0:13:12.396 --> 0:13:15.316 thing that the training school really does is it's a 0:13:15.396 --> 0:13:18.716 miniature version of society. So if any French, Morris invites 0:13:18.996 --> 0:13:22.516 jail Moreno and Helen Hall Jennings to the school, which 0:13:22.556 --> 0:13:25.636 is thrilling to them because it's a totally closed environment. 0:13:25.716 --> 0:13:30.476 That's this microcosm of society with five hundred girls who 0:13:31.076 --> 0:13:34.276 are arranged in brick cottages with nice lattice work trim. 0:13:34.756 --> 0:13:39.996 So jail Moreno moves to Hudson with Helen Hall Jennings. 0:13:39.596 --> 0:13:43.356 And he goes for it because he's living. Is he 0:13:43.396 --> 0:13:46.116 at this point well known, what's his level. 0:13:45.916 --> 0:13:48.156 Of He's becoming better known. But he is a person 0:13:48.196 --> 0:13:51.356 who wants to be operating on the biggest scale possible, 0:13:51.876 --> 0:13:54.716 and this scale of experiment is an opportunity for him 0:13:54.716 --> 0:13:58.276 to do that. So I think he sees it as 0:13:58.276 --> 0:13:58.956 a big break. 0:13:59.156 --> 0:14:03.276 So the European genius Meglomaniac and his brilliant data minded 0:14:03.316 --> 0:14:07.476 research partner get on the train from Manhattan, come up 0:14:07.516 --> 0:14:12.916 two hours to Hudson to conduct one of the first 0:14:14.276 --> 0:14:18.076 and most dramatic experiments of his kind ever. 0:14:18.796 --> 0:14:20.676 Right, Yeah, that's exactly right. 0:14:20.596 --> 0:14:27.476 An attempt to understand the social dynamics of a girl's 0:14:27.516 --> 0:14:30.716 prison reform school. There are five hundred girls in this school. 0:14:30.796 --> 0:14:31.876 Roughly five hundred girls. 0:14:31.996 --> 0:14:35.156 Yeah, So he descends on the school, he and Helen 0:14:35.196 --> 0:14:37.436 hel Jennings and what do they do. 0:14:38.156 --> 0:14:41.156 So the first thing they do is they hand out 0:14:41.236 --> 0:14:45.316 questionnaires to all the girls. That's say, you know, choose 0:14:45.556 --> 0:14:48.596 the top five girls in this community that you want 0:14:48.636 --> 0:14:52.116 to live with and now and tell us why, and 0:14:52.156 --> 0:14:54.436 then choose the five girls that you absolutely do not 0:14:54.476 --> 0:14:57.996 want to live with. And so it's kind of reading 0:14:57.996 --> 0:15:00.876 his account of this, it's like really dense. I mean, 0:15:00.876 --> 0:15:02.716 he doesn't really write in English very well at this 0:15:02.716 --> 0:15:05.276 point in his life, and there's a ton of data, 0:15:05.556 --> 0:15:08.116 but you get these kind of reprints of the things 0:15:08.116 --> 0:15:10.676 that the girls say. So we actually had an actress 0:15:10.876 --> 0:15:12.276 read one of them out, and this is One of 0:15:12.316 --> 0:15:16.116 the comments in the questionnaire Dee, I want in my 0:15:16.236 --> 0:15:18.796 cottage because I feel towards her, like she is my 0:15:18.876 --> 0:15:22.236 little sister I never had any and I like to 0:15:22.236 --> 0:15:22.956 take care of her. 0:15:23.916 --> 0:15:26.676 Mostly she's just a lonesome little child you. 0:15:26.716 --> 0:15:27.716 Just have to be fond of. 0:15:28.836 --> 0:15:31.396 So they like gather all these questionnaires from the girls 0:15:31.556 --> 0:15:33.796 about how they feel about each other, and then they 0:15:33.836 --> 0:15:36.556 begin to calculate from that, you know, where are their 0:15:36.636 --> 0:15:40.596 mutual attractions, where does everyone hate each other? And like 0:15:40.756 --> 0:15:43.556 to what degree do these cottage groupings even make sense? 0:15:43.596 --> 0:15:45.316 And they want to start putting a number to that. 0:15:45.916 --> 0:15:48.556 But it's not just the questionnaires. They begin to do 0:15:48.596 --> 0:15:50.996 a lot of observing of the girls, like watching them 0:15:51.036 --> 0:15:53.156 work in the steam laundry, watching them make rugs, or 0:15:53.196 --> 0:15:57.196 like shine up antiques, and that becomes data too, And 0:15:57.276 --> 0:15:59.636 all of this is used in service of figuring out 0:15:59.956 --> 0:16:02.996 who's isolated in the community, who's rejected by the community, 0:16:03.036 --> 0:16:07.036 who's beloved by the community. But they're observing everything they're collecting, 0:16:07.076 --> 0:16:09.996 like Marina at one point says, they collect ten thousand 0:16:09.996 --> 0:16:14.076 pages of data. And one of the things about this 0:16:14.156 --> 0:16:17.156 new science is you have that much data and you 0:16:17.196 --> 0:16:20.156 can't conceive of it all like it's before computers. There's 0:16:20.196 --> 0:16:24.156 no way to really understand what that all means except 0:16:24.156 --> 0:16:27.396 for a map, and that is the critical thing that 0:16:27.436 --> 0:16:32.236 they do is create these really intricate maps of what 0:16:32.276 --> 0:16:35.716 the community looks like. So like this this map right 0:16:35.716 --> 0:16:39.396 here is the entire community of the school. 0:16:40.516 --> 0:16:43.596 Oh wow, it looks like a looks like a giant 0:16:43.636 --> 0:16:54.316 spider's web. Yeah, And he has nodes one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, twelve, thirteen. 0:16:55.036 --> 0:16:57.316 Is each one of these nodes a group of girls 0:16:57.396 --> 0:16:58.236 or a single girl? 0:16:58.276 --> 0:17:00.436 Each one of those big circles is a cottage? 0:17:00.716 --> 0:17:00.836 Oh? 0:17:00.956 --> 0:17:04.356 I see, Oh I see no, But I've been putting 0:17:04.396 --> 0:17:07.916 any further. Do we believe these maps? Say, do we 0:17:07.916 --> 0:17:11.436 think he is actually act? You're accurately capturing the patterns 0:17:11.476 --> 0:17:14.076 of relationships and influence within the community. 0:17:14.716 --> 0:17:17.996 I think he misses a lot. And also there's this 0:17:18.076 --> 0:17:20.716 kind of forced thing about it, like none of these 0:17:20.716 --> 0:17:22.876 girls are consenting to it, Like who knows about if 0:17:22.916 --> 0:17:25.876 they're telling him the truth? But I think that there 0:17:25.996 --> 0:17:29.836 is genuine insight there. And one of the reasons is 0:17:30.796 --> 0:17:34.036 there's this thing that happens. It starts on the Halloween 0:17:34.116 --> 0:17:37.556 night of nineteen thirty two, there's a party in one 0:17:37.596 --> 0:17:43.236 of the cottages and somebody creates a distraction and two 0:17:43.316 --> 0:17:45.876 of the girls, Ruth and Marie, run away from the cottage. 0:17:47.436 --> 0:17:50.116 And then something really weird happens, Like, over a total 0:17:50.156 --> 0:17:53.876 of fourteen days, fourteen girls run away. It's kind of 0:17:53.876 --> 0:17:57.356 this chain reaction. Nobody really understands why it's happening, but 0:17:57.476 --> 0:18:00.716 it's like a runaway rate that's thirty times higher than normal. 0:18:00.876 --> 0:18:04.076 And this happens after Marine has collected a lot of 0:18:04.116 --> 0:18:04.796 his data. 0:18:04.996 --> 0:18:10.916 He has an outbreak essentially of girls who are who 0:18:10.996 --> 0:18:14.396 get this idea to flee, to run away. Yeah, and 0:18:14.436 --> 0:18:17.276 he's trying to trace was he trying to trying to 0:18:17.316 --> 0:18:19.796 trace the source of the outbreak or to see how 0:18:19.796 --> 0:18:23.996 the idea of running away had traveled through the community. 0:18:24.116 --> 0:18:25.876 Yeah, he's trying to see how the idea of running 0:18:25.916 --> 0:18:28.276 away travels through the community. Which is this kind of 0:18:28.876 --> 0:18:31.116 you know, you talk about this a lot, this idea 0:18:31.116 --> 0:18:33.996 of an idea being contagious. He posits that there's not 0:18:34.196 --> 0:18:37.076 some central reason why the girls are running away. 0:18:37.356 --> 0:18:41.076 Yeah, and so is he saying that his hypothesis would 0:18:41.116 --> 0:18:45.596 be the group who run away are all linked, are 0:18:45.596 --> 0:18:48.356 intimately linked according to his network analysis. 0:18:48.476 --> 0:18:53.076 Yes, so that's his explanation, and so he and Jennings 0:18:53.116 --> 0:18:55.356 go to their maps and try and figure out if 0:18:55.356 --> 0:18:57.596 it's true. What his theory is that there's some way 0:18:57.636 --> 0:19:00.316 that this impulse to run away is traveling through the 0:19:00.396 --> 0:19:04.396 network of girls, and he and Jennings trace this in 0:19:04.436 --> 0:19:07.996 the map and then call it proof that networks exist. 0:19:08.436 --> 0:19:11.036 And one of the rea he's confident in it is 0:19:11.076 --> 0:19:14.676 because then based on those same questionnaires about who likes whom, 0:19:14.756 --> 0:19:18.196 who doesn't like whom, he rearranges the cottages and over 0:19:18.236 --> 0:19:21.756 the next some period of months, the number of runaways 0:19:21.916 --> 0:19:25.836 dwindles pretty radically. And so the thought is that's the 0:19:25.916 --> 0:19:29.236 evidence that this is in some way meaningful, is that 0:19:29.316 --> 0:19:31.116 the rearrangement seems to work. 0:19:31.196 --> 0:19:34.076 This whole thing is started by two girls. Yeah, what 0:19:34.116 --> 0:19:37.356 does network theory tell us about those who originate the epidemic? 0:19:37.676 --> 0:19:39.636 Were they socially influential girls? 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:43.716 So no, they're actually like pretty isolated girls. So this 0:19:43.996 --> 0:19:46.996 is like a map of them. That's one of those 0:19:47.036 --> 0:19:49.876 is Ruth, and one of those is Marie. And basically, 0:19:49.956 --> 0:19:53.636 like red lines are are lines of attraction, Black lines 0:19:53.676 --> 0:19:57.276 are lines of rejection, and so they're really close. They 0:19:57.316 --> 0:19:59.436 dislike the same people, they like the same people. They 0:19:59.436 --> 0:20:02.116 really like each other. But on the broader map, not 0:20:02.156 --> 0:20:04.556 a lot of lines of influence run towards them, except for, 0:20:04.636 --> 0:20:06.996 you know, a couple significant ones that connect them to 0:20:07.036 --> 0:20:08.876 the people who then begin to run away next. 0:20:10.516 --> 0:20:14.276 Oh, I see, so they Our first observation is the 0:20:14.316 --> 0:20:18.356 two who begin the epidemic are closely bound to each 0:20:18.396 --> 0:20:20.996 other but isolated from everyone else. So there's a little 0:20:21.076 --> 0:20:24.476 social there's not a lot of glue holding them in place. 0:20:24.596 --> 0:20:27.916 Yeah, it's not like the most popular girls in the 0:20:27.956 --> 0:20:31.636 reformatory runaway and then everyone follows suit. But like with 0:20:31.716 --> 0:20:34.516 all of this stuff, it's there's only so much he's seeing, 0:20:34.516 --> 0:20:36.596 and there's only so much he's allowing himself to say. 0:20:36.676 --> 0:20:39.436 And they also have this agenda of proving that their 0:20:39.476 --> 0:20:42.396 science works. Their account is the only account we have 0:20:43.076 --> 0:20:45.916 of what actually happened and how successful their stuff was. 0:20:46.556 --> 0:20:47.876 But so this is his explanation. 0:20:48.196 --> 0:20:50.596 But he's got this big idea, and he and Jennings 0:20:50.596 --> 0:20:53.436 have the evidence he thinks proves it. How does he 0:20:53.476 --> 0:20:54.276 get the word out? 0:20:54.796 --> 0:20:57.276 Actually, the first place, he publishes as results it's kind 0:20:57.276 --> 0:21:00.476 of like a science fair. Is this big physicians conference 0:21:00.516 --> 0:21:03.316 that happens at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan. I think 0:21:03.356 --> 0:21:06.396 it happens on like April second, nineteen thirty three. He 0:21:06.476 --> 0:21:08.236 goes to the waldorfath story, he takes the train down 0:21:08.236 --> 0:21:10.276 from Hudson, goes the water for his storia. They put 0:21:10.276 --> 0:21:12.996 the maps on the walls and it's kind of a 0:21:12.996 --> 0:21:14.836 big deal. Like The New York Times writes a story 0:21:14.876 --> 0:21:18.156 that says, like emotions mapped by new geography. He calls 0:21:18.196 --> 0:21:21.236 it psychological geography. He's riding high. He says he's going 0:21:21.276 --> 0:21:22.756 to make a map of all the emotions in New 0:21:22.836 --> 0:21:27.596 York City. And that's the first place he publishes it. 0:21:27.836 --> 0:21:30.076 But then he goes back to the school. And it's 0:21:30.116 --> 0:21:32.276 a year after that the book comes out called Who 0:21:32.276 --> 0:21:35.036