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. It was eight seventy and New York City
Speaker 1: was experiencing growing pains. The roads and streets had been
Speaker 1: built for the occasional coach, carriage, writer, and foot traffic,
Speaker 1: not the seven hundred thousand residents. With the influx of
Speaker 1: people moving in droves from other countries and various corners
Speaker 1: of America, the streets were pretty much as they are today.
Speaker 1: Packed To a aviate congestion, the city employed street cars
Speaker 1: and omnibuses drawn by draft horses in teams of six.
Speaker 1: Even then, traffic moved at a crawl. Horses balked or
Speaker 1: spooked with the noise and crowds, and carriages broke down.
Speaker 1: A smell of leather and horses and manure was overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Tired and frustrated people's tempers grew thin. Fights began to
Speaker 1: break out, and then one cold February morning, New York
Speaker 1: had a subway system, as in overnight you see. Alfred
Speaker 1: Eale Beach and a team of men worked while the
Speaker 1: city slept. Over a two month period, they tunneled underground,
Speaker 1: carving out a three twelve foot section between Broadway and
Speaker 1: Warren Streets. Men above ground loaded up carts of dirt
Speaker 1: while others unloaded equipment. It wasn't that no one heard
Speaker 1: the carriages, but everyone thought that construction was for an
Speaker 1: underground mail and package delivery system. At least that's what
Speaker 1: Beach applied for. The design called for pneumatic tubes to
Speaker 1: move parcels between the two streets, use in the power
Speaker 1: of air pressure, much like those canisters at bank drive throughs,
Speaker 1: just on a larger scale. While the city approved the plans,
Speaker 1: that wasn't what the inventor and crew ever intended on constructing.
Speaker 1: Sure that design was exactly as proposed, but the railway
Speaker 1: tube was built to seat people, not packages. Was it
Speaker 1: a loophole? Sure, but Beach knew his real plan would
Speaker 1: have been turned down. His biggest opposition was Senator William
Speaker 1: boss Tweed, who also headed up a group of less
Speaker 1: than scrupulous investors called the Tweed ring The Senator and
Speaker 1: his gang were counting on becoming rich from creating an
Speaker 1: elevated railway system, and an underground version would be in
Speaker 1: direct competition. After the tunnel was complete, Beach informed the newspapers,
Speaker 1: and when over four hundred thousand excited and dismayed New
Speaker 1: Yorkers arrived at the entrance, he was there to meet them.
Speaker 1: The grand opening was nothing short of a gala event.
Speaker 1: The station had been decorated with a grand piano, brightly
Speaker 1: lit chandeliers, a fountain stocked with goldfish, and find furniture
Speaker 1: for the waiting commuters. Although there was only one shuttle car,
Speaker 1: people lined up for a cent fair. Within a week,
Speaker 1: ten thousand fares had been sold. Beach assured the public
Speaker 1: that a future version could whisk twenty passengers to Central
Speaker 1: Park in under five minutes, and the crowd rejoiced. While
Speaker 1: the public was enamored with the subway system, the city
Speaker 1: officials were not. The station had been built right under
Speaker 1: their noses, directly across from City Hall. Officials discussed sealing
Speaker 1: the tunnel, while others called for tossing the inventor in jail. Enraged,
Speaker 1: Tweed spent the next three years blocking plans to extend
Speaker 1: the subways route from Battery Park to the Bronx. Despite
Speaker 1: the Senator and his gang's efforts, though, Beach surprisingly prevailed,
Speaker 1: although the venture never got past the planning stage. When
Speaker 1: the financial crisis known as the Panic of eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: three hit, it left the project without further funding. At
Speaker 1: the same time, Tweed and his associates were found guilty
Speaker 1: of odd and embezzling money from the city. The Senator
Speaker 1: was sentenced to prison, where he died in eighteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: With his nemesis gone, Beach tried to revitalize his dream
Speaker 1: by raising funds from wealthy associates, but they shunned him.
Speaker 1: Now almost penniless from years of lobbying, he was just
Speaker 1: another inventor begging for money. To them, the idea of
Speaker 1: an entire city traveling underground was absurd. After that, Beach
Speaker 1: slipped into depression and obscurity. By the time he passed
Speaker 1: away in eighteen ninety six, he and his pneumatic railroad
Speaker 1: had been long forgotten. Later, though, New York revisited the
Speaker 1: idea of a subway. In nineteen twelve, a construction crew
Speaker 1: uncovered the original tunnel. Today, a plaque now hangs at
Speaker 1: the station, acknowledging Beach as the father of the modern
Speaker 1: day subway. Oh and that original line between Broadway and
Speaker 1: Warren is part of the larger system transporting over five
Speaker 1: million people a day. Inventors are typically refer two as visionaries,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes that's true, but they're always seems to be
Speaker 1: opposition to progress, spurred on by individuals suffering from a
Speaker 1: case of tunnel vision. A good book can fill us
Speaker 1: with all kinds of emotions. Uh steamy romance might have
Speaker 1: us feeling amorous toward a partner. A spy thriller can
Speaker 1: send our adrenaline into overdrive. And if we're reading a
Speaker 1: little known book by Robert Kenzie, we might want to
Speaker 1: have a will prepared. Kenzie was born in Delhi, New York.
Speaker 1: In eight When he was three years old, his family
Speaker 1: up and moved halfway across the country to Lenaway County, Michigan,
Speaker 1: where they put down roots. Kenzie started attending Oberlin College
Speaker 1: in Ohio at the age of seventeen, working his way
Speaker 1: toward a medical degree from the University of Michigan. He
Speaker 1: had the honor of graduating among the very first class
Speaker 1: of the university's new Medical College in eighteen fifty one.
Speaker 1: He stayed in Michigan after graduation, practicing medicine until his
Speaker 1: services were called upon during the Civil War. He served
Speaker 1: as a surgeon in the Union's twelfth Michigan Infantry for
Speaker 1: just one year, after which he returned to civilian life
Speaker 1: due to illness. Unable to continue his medical practice, he
Speaker 1: turned to teaching, becoming a professor at Michigan Agricultural College
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three. Even though he'd stopped practicing, Kenzie
Speaker 1: still took his Hippocratic oath seriously, especially the do no
Speaker 1: harm part. He served on the Michigan State Board of Health,
Speaker 1: the American Public Health Association, and numerous other committees as well.
Speaker 1: He was partly responsible for a state law requiring all
Speaker 1: commercial fertilizers to be inspected, as well as the creation
Speaker 1: of a Food and Dairy Commission. Robert Kenzie might have
Speaker 1: only served for a year in the Civil War, but
Speaker 1: when it came to keeping people safe, he never left
Speaker 1: the front lines. He also fancied himself something of an author.
Speaker 1: In eighteen seventy four, he published a book. Only one
Speaker 1: hundred copies were ever made, but It was said that
Speaker 1: anyone who spent too much time flipping through its pages
Speaker 1: would fall ill and may in some cases die. It
Speaker 1: was quite a turn for Ketzie, who had been beloved
Speaker 1: by his students and neighbors for keeping them safe. However,
Speaker 1: he didn't write the book to hurt anyone. In fact,
Speaker 1: he hardly wrote it at all. Except for the title
Speaker 1: page and the preface, there were almost no words anywhere
Speaker 1: else between its covers. Instead, it was comprised of eighty
Speaker 1: six wallpaper samples, each with a different color or pattern.
Speaker 1: Kenzie had published his book titled Shadows from the Walls
Speaker 1: of Death as a warning. The wallpaper of the time
Speaker 1: was often dyed with colors made by mixing elements such
Speaker 1: as copper with another substance, arsenic. By the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 1: roughly fifty six percent of wallpaper sold in the United
Speaker 1: States was made with arsenic, and it wasn't as though
Speaker 1: Americans did know how dangerous it was. Over the ocean.
Speaker 1: In Victorian England, impatient errors were known to sprinkle what
Speaker 1: they called inheritance powder in a drink before serving it
Speaker 1: to an older family member sitting on a vast fortune.
Speaker 1: In the US, though manufacturers didn't think their wallpapers were
Speaker 1: that dangerous since people wouldn't be ingesting them. They just
Speaker 1: didn't count on homeowners inhaling poisonous particles that had flaked
Speaker 1: off and were now floating in the air. Kenzie wrote
Speaker 1: about women in the home who would become sick, only
Speaker 1: to retreat to their bedrooms and feel even worse, not
Speaker 1: knowing that what was killing them was all around them.
Speaker 1: He called it an air loaded with the breath of death.
Speaker 1: To get his message across, Kenzie sent every copy of
Speaker 1: his book to public libraries all over Michigan, along with
Speaker 1: a note, do not let children touch it. Many librarians
Speaker 1: didn't want his Death Book on their shelves, so they
Speaker 1: disposed of them permanently. Only four copies still exist today.
Speaker 1: One is kept by the University of Michigan, while another
Speaker 1: is boxed up in m s u's Special Collections department.
Speaker 1: Each page is held in a plastic sleeve to prevent
Speaker 1: microscopic flex from contaminating the air when the book is handled.
Speaker 1: Those who do touch it with gloves, of course, are
Speaker 1: advised not to lick their fingers when they turned the page.
Speaker 1: Harvard Medical School has a third copy, while The last
Speaker 1: is owned by the National Library of Medicine, which went
Speaker 1: through the arduous process of digitizing it for public use.
Speaker 1: Archivists who scanned the pages were required to wear hazmat suits,
Speaker 1: dust masks, and nitral gloves while they were in close
Speaker 1: proximity to the book. Thanks to the National Library of Medicine,
Speaker 1: people all over the world can now safely read a
Speaker 1: book that was so dangerous it was nearly wiped from existence.
Speaker 1: Now I'd call that a page turner. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,