Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full 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. Parents want what's best for their kids, like
Speaker 1: a safe home, a good education, and the support they
Speaker 1: need to push them forward in life. And those parents
Speaker 1: expect their children to follow through to build themselves up
Speaker 1: using the foundation that was laid for them. Of course,
Speaker 1: some kids fall through the cracks. Kids like to Forest.
Speaker 1: DeForest was born in New York City on Christmas Day.
Speaker 1: His father, Belmont, was a successful surgeon, while his mother
Speaker 1: worked as a commercial illustrator and eventually the art director
Speaker 1: of a popular magazine. The family grew up on New
Speaker 1: York's Upper West Side. The Forest his parents and his
Speaker 1: two sisters. While his mother and father weren't as emotionally
Speaker 1: supportive as he might have liked, they made sure he
Speaker 1: was given everything he needed to succeed in life. If
Speaker 1: only he had shown any gratitude. The Forest wasn't a
Speaker 1: studious pupil. After bouncing from one private school to another,
Speaker 1: he was sent to Phillips Academy, a prestigious boarding school
Speaker 1: in Massachusetts. But it wasn't his grades that got him in.
Speaker 1: Someone in his family had pulled some strings in an
Speaker 1: effort to put the young troublemaker on a path toward Yale.
Speaker 1: But sometimes paths diverge, as they did for de Forest,
Speaker 1: who stopped attending the academy in nineteen eighteen. According to
Speaker 1: the stories, he was either expelled for shoving the headmaster
Speaker 1: into a pond, or he failed his way out. Regardless
Speaker 1: of the reason, it left a Forest with few other options.
Speaker 1: Instead of more school, he turned to one of his
Speaker 1: first loves, the open sea. The boating trips of his
Speaker 1: youth had instilled in him a passion for sailing, which
Speaker 1: he carried with him into the Navy when he was
Speaker 1: eighteen years old. His service during World War One brought
Speaker 1: him all over Europe, an experience that seemed to push
Speaker 1: his rebellious nature right out of him. He was described
Speaker 1: by his superiors as a model sailor, but once he
Speaker 1: returned home to America, his disdain for authority and lack
Speaker 1: of patience came back. He wasn't helped by the condition
Speaker 1: of his family, who had lost most of their money
Speaker 1: by investing poorly. The Forest had no funds to fall
Speaker 1: back on, so he did what he did best. He
Speaker 1: went his own way, seeking work wherever he could get it.
Speaker 1: He was an old friend from childhood who helped him
Speaker 1: rediscover another former passion of his from when he was younger,
Speaker 1: the arts. The Forest often liked to put on Little
Speaker 1: Place to entertain his family when they were visiting the
Speaker 1: lake House Upstates. His buddy, Bill Brady Jr. Had been
Speaker 1: working at his father's production company and gave the Forest
Speaker 1: a job as a stage manager on a play by
Speaker 1: Bill's sister, Alice. But the Forest still wasn't satisfied. He
Speaker 1: wanted to do more than run rehearsals and keep actors
Speaker 1: on cueue. DeForest wanted to write the plays. He wanted
Speaker 1: to direct and attach his name to projects in meaningful ways.
Speaker 1: Months after his first stage managing job, he was given
Speaker 1: the chance to show everyone what he was capable of,
Speaker 1: but not as a writer or a director. As an actor,
Speaker 1: DeForest cut his teeth in Alice Brady's nineteen one play
Speaker 1: called Drifting with a single line of dialogue. It wasn't much,
Speaker 1: but it was enough to plant a seed that would
Speaker 1: blossom into a brand new obsession for him. His parents,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, wouldn't approve of his new line
Speaker 1: of work. It felt actors were beneath them, but DeForest
Speaker 1: loved the admiration from his audiences. Critics were less kind.
Speaker 1: They gave his performances middling and sometimes unkind reviews, but
Speaker 1: he didn't let them get him down. He worked harder
Speaker 1: and got better. That was the kind of guy. He
Speaker 1: brought himself up to be a fighter, and that persona
Speaker 1: carried over into his performances as well. In he made
Speaker 1: the jump from the stage to the screen, taking on
Speaker 1: bit parts in short films. Before signing with Fox, de
Speaker 1: Forest debuted alongside another newcomer named Spencer Tracy. Tracy, also
Speaker 1: a former Broadway star, took a shine to the up
Speaker 1: and coming actor, and though they would only ever work
Speaker 1: together on one film, they spent huge amounts of time together,
Speaker 1: hanging out off screen and enjoying the not so occasional drink.
Speaker 1: Tracy liked the Forest so much he even gave him
Speaker 1: a nickname. It was a name de Forest would carry
Speaker 1: with him throughout his entire career, a name that would
Speaker 1: conjure a clear image that could only be described with
Speaker 1: a single word cool, a lit cigarette, a double breasted suit,
Speaker 1: a tipped fedora, his granite like voice tying it all together.
Speaker 1: The forest you see was his middle name. Tracy simply
Speaker 1: called him Bogey after a while, so did everyone else.
Speaker 1: But on movie posters in mark Keys, the man the
Speaker 1: world fell in love with would always be Humphrey Bogart.
Speaker 1: Many of the world's greatest inventions came about by accident.
Speaker 1: Richard James was developing springs to stabilize shipments at See
Speaker 1: when he accidentally dropped one. As it tumbled, he thought
Speaker 1: it would make a better toy than a tool, and
Speaker 1: thus the slinky was born. Silly Putty came about while
Speaker 1: an engineer named James Wright was trying to make a
Speaker 1: synthetic rubber during World War Two, and in n Earl
Speaker 1: Dixon and his wife Josephine also invented something by accident,
Speaker 1: mainly because she was so accident prone herself. Josephine spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time working around her New Jersey home
Speaker 1: while her husband was at the office. She cleaned, and
Speaker 1: she did the laundry, but she spent most of her
Speaker 1: time in the kitchen. Despite her best efforts, her meal
Speaker 1: preparations were undermined by her clumsiness. Josephine often found herself
Speaker 1: on the receiving end of burns and cuts while cooking
Speaker 1: throughout the day, but she powered through her injuries. At
Speaker 1: the time, there was no easy way for her to
Speaker 1: treat them herself. Her options were limited since she was
Speaker 1: on her own, and none of the methods she had
Speaker 1: protected her from infection. For example, a scrap of cloth
Speaker 1: wrapped around her cut finger wouldn't keep out dirt and
Speaker 1: often slipped as she worked around the house. Josephine eventually
Speaker 1: waited for her husband to return from work and ask
Speaker 1: him to tape individual strips of gauze to each wound.
Speaker 1: Gauze and medical tape were in great supply in the
Speaker 1: Dixon home. Earl worked for Johnson and Johnson as a
Speaker 1: cotton buyer. After several weeks of patching up his wife, however,
Speaker 1: he realized he needed to find a better way. Josephine
Speaker 1: had to be able to dress her scrapes and cuts
Speaker 1: on her own to keep them from getting infected, so
Speaker 1: Earle went to work literally Johnson and Johnson was already
Speaker 1: in the business of selling steriles urgical items to doctor's
Speaker 1: offices and hospitals, so he dipped into the supply closets
Speaker 1: and brought home surgical tape and antiseptic cotton gauze. To
Speaker 1: achieve his plan, he unwound a strip of tape eighteen
Speaker 1: inches long by three inches wide. Then he pressed a
Speaker 1: thin piece of gauze down the center of the tape
Speaker 1: and covered it with crinoline. Finally, Earl rolled the whole
Speaker 1: thing up and gave it to his wife. Now, when
Speaker 1: she injured herself in the kitchen, she could unroll the
Speaker 1: gauze tape combination, cut off as much as she needed,
Speaker 1: and covered the abrasion herself. And Josephine loved it. Even
Speaker 1: Earl was impressed with his impromptu solution, he thought it
Speaker 1: might be useful to the company as well, so he
Speaker 1: brought it to work the following day. His supervisor loved
Speaker 1: the idea and took it straight to James Wood Johnson,
Speaker 1: one of the founders. With a few minor tweaks, Johnson
Speaker 1: and Johnson soon put Dixon's invention in store shelves everywhere
Speaker 1: in nine Now clumsy customers could walk into any drug
Speaker 1: store and buy a roll of adhesive bandages for their
Speaker 1: own personal use. After a few years, though, it seemed
Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson might have overestimated demand for such product.
Speaker 1: Sales were rough in the first year, amounting to little
Speaker 1: more than three thousand dollars. The company started sending salesman
Speaker 1: on the road to pitch the bandages to pharmacists and
Speaker 1: doctors everywhere. Unfortunately, even that wasn't enough to increase sales.
Speaker 1: Johnson and Johnson went back to the drawing board. They
Speaker 1: understood the product needed to be easier to use, preferably
Speaker 1: without requiring scissors, so they had new machines created to
Speaker 1: mass produce smaller, individually wrapped bandages. In n the updated
Speaker 1: version of Earl Dixon's original invention went on sale and
Speaker 1: grew much more popular. Now all someone had to do
Speaker 1: was tug a small red string on the wrapper and
Speaker 1: pull out a single bandage, perfectly sized for the average
Speaker 1: cut or scrape. Customers love the new design and showed
Speaker 1: their appreciation with their wallets. Today, Earl's creation is sold
Speaker 1: in stores all over the world in all shapes, sizes,
Speaker 1: and colors. Dixon himself moved up within the company, eventually
Speaker 1: becoming a vice president and a member of the board
Speaker 1: of directors. In two thousands seventeen, he was inducted into
Speaker 1: the National Inventors Hall of Fame and his contribution the
Speaker 1: band aid I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
Speaker 1: winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series,
Speaker 1: and television show, and you can learn all about it
Speaker 1: over at the World of Lore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious. Yeah,