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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Happy Friday, Everybody. I'm Holly Fry and I'm

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Speaker 1: Tracy Bee Wilson. We talked about playwright and theatrical producer

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Speaker 1: Augustin Daily this week. YEP. One of the things we

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Speaker 1: didn't talk a whole lot about was his brother, Joseph.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Francis is an interesting figure in the story because

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Speaker 1: he was in some instances kind of a business partner

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Speaker 1: of Augustine Daily. He went on to be a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote kind of what's considered one of the

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Speaker 1: definitive biographies of Augustine Daily, although it did not publish

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Speaker 1: in his lifetime. The manuscript was discovered completed after he

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Speaker 1: had passed, and so it didn't publish until nine seventeen,

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Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting. It makes sense to me

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Speaker 1: that Augustine Daily was so very litigious when you consider

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Speaker 1: that his brother was a lawyer and probably at the

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Speaker 1: ready to handle any case I want it. Yeah. But

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Speaker 1: something very interesting happened when Augustine Daily died, which is

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Speaker 1: that in his will he left that actor Aida Rhian,

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Speaker 1: who's I'm not confident on pronunciation. There, he left her

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Speaker 1: a fifth of his estate, and that will had been

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Speaker 1: made in eighteen ninety eight, and it was because she

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Speaker 1: had been with him for a long time, like he

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Speaker 1: considered her part of his success. And his brother Joseph

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Speaker 1: tried to get that will thrown out because he did

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Speaker 1: not want it to go outside of the family. Oh gay,

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Speaker 1: and it turned into a big legal battle. Aida got

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Speaker 1: her one fifth of the estate, and so she had

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Speaker 1: a part ownership in all of the existing daily theaters,

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Speaker 1: which the one in London actually went on for like

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Speaker 1: forty years under his name, and the others I don't

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Speaker 1: remember when they all closed down, but like so she

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Speaker 1: got a part of that business and that income, which

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Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. But it seemed surprising to me

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Speaker 1: that Joseph Francis was like, no, you can't have this.

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Speaker 1: You're an actor. I'm his brother, I should get everything. Yeah, Joe. No.

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Speaker 1: There is also if you happen to get a copy

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Speaker 1: or a reprint, that's usually available through reprints of that book.

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Speaker 1: It is also a product of its times, for there

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Speaker 1: are some very casual references to things like slavery that

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Speaker 1: are like very chill about the whole thing. When they're

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Speaker 1: talking about their early family and how they were in

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Speaker 1: Jamaica and how all of that worked. He tells a

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Speaker 1: very interesting story. There's no way to verify it that

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Speaker 1: their grandmother, their English grandmother, was very much it's a

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Speaker 1: white savior story of her. Basically like people who were enslaved,

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Speaker 1: allegedly would come to her for help and she would

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Speaker 1: advocate on their behalf and according to him, always always

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Speaker 1: came out successful. And I'm like, really though, yeah, in

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Speaker 1: a okay, but just not to take those sections with

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Speaker 1: a grain of salt. Should you go look at this biography?

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Speaker 1: It is also a very long biography. It's like, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it took me a little while to pick through it.

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Speaker 1: Tracy and I were discussing earlier how there are some

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Speaker 1: episodes that are just they're not difficult to write, but

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Speaker 1: they're hard to write, if that makes sense, Like just

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Speaker 1: you have all of the material, but getting it condensed

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Speaker 1: and into an outline becomes oddly difficulty. And that was

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Speaker 1: kind of the case of this, And part of it

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Speaker 1: was Joe's biography, which is so dense and in the

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Speaker 1: literary phrase style of the time, which isn't always clear

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Speaker 1: and direct, and you know, it's a reprint so it's

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Speaker 1: like basically a copy of a book that like a

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Speaker 1: photocopy that's been reprinted instead of retype set. So it

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Speaker 1: was like there were moments where I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's late, but should I just throw this out and

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Speaker 1: come back to it later because I'm losing my mind

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Speaker 1: trying to sussle. So if you're a big Augustine Daily

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Speaker 1: fan and I left something out, I'm sorry. There's a lot.

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Speaker 1: There is a lot, and it is covered in minute detail. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting though that the story of his children dying

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Speaker 1: is what we read about. It is almost entirely what's

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Speaker 1: in the book about it. Yeah, And I don't know

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Speaker 1: if it's just because it was such a painful family

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Speaker 1: memory that they didn't want to discuss it very much,

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Speaker 1: or if it really was just kind of a case

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Speaker 1: of like, well that's done. It's a strange one. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it mostly made me think about like how devastating

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Speaker 1: diph theory was. M So we have talked about on

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Speaker 1: the show before, but like two children in thirty minutes

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Speaker 1: is like I can't imagine. I cannot imagine. I'm not

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Speaker 1: a parent and I can't imagine it. So I'm sure

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Speaker 1: parents just feel like the heart paying at that, right.

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Speaker 1: And he does include the notes that Augustine wrote him,

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Speaker 1: like basically he was sending a messenger with news and

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Speaker 1: they're very brief, but like, even in their brevity, they're

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Speaker 1: incredibly melancholy. Yeah, which is very very sad if you

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Speaker 1: also go reading the plays of Augustine daily to turn

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Speaker 1: it around to a slightly more lighthearted note. When I

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Speaker 1: say melodrama, I'm not joking. Who. That is some stilted language. Yeah. Who.

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Speaker 1: When I saw that there had been a production of

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Speaker 1: Leah in twenty seventeen, my first thought was those poor actors. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: just because it has to be a lot to pick

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Speaker 1: through to find like the emotional thread that makes sense

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Speaker 1: in the modern mind to the modern audience. So it's

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Speaker 1: incredibly challenging to do melodrama. But he gave us the

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Speaker 1: mustache twirling villain over the railroad tracks. Somehow that that

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Speaker 1: has reminded me of being like a theater kid and

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Speaker 1: going to you know, the regional theater conferences and stuff

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Speaker 1: like that, and picking up the little little catalogs where

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Speaker 1: you could order scripts from and they're being a whole

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Speaker 1: whole category that was melodrama. Yeah, and I think that's

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Speaker 1: probably where I first heard Augustine Daily's name. Was like

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Speaker 1: in catalogs to buy scripts of melodrama, if you want

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Speaker 1: to state it. Yeah, I'm almost certain it would have

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Speaker 1: been the same for me, because I too was the theater.

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Speaker 1: I was all up in that competitive theater biz. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: bring me my superior rating or bring me death. Like

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Speaker 1: I was, I was very I felt ways about things. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and then I majored in college, so you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I um, when I was in you know, high school,

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Speaker 1: middle and high school age, I had the whole dream

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Speaker 1: of I was gonna gon, gonna go to New York

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Speaker 1: and be an actor. And by the time I got

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Speaker 1: to college, I understood that that was not my greatest skill,

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Speaker 1: which was not necessarily something I understood about myself in

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Speaker 1: the many years of elementary, middle and high school and

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Speaker 1: living for being in the play huh yeah, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: uh uh. But if it was fun, it was fun,

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Speaker 1: it was fun. Great. I just realized somewhere in college,

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Speaker 1: like when I started really auditioning for stuff professionally, I

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Speaker 1: just realized, like one, I did that thing where you

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Speaker 1: get a job to survive, and I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: surviving is nice. And then I was like, I don't

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Speaker 1: know that I have a thick enough skin to live

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Speaker 1: this way from home, term like I will, I will

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Speaker 1: succumb to all of my genetic predispositions for like addiction

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Speaker 1: and misery or sure. I did not pursue theater at

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Speaker 1: all when I was in college. Beyond, I was an

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Speaker 1: orientation leader and we had these skits that we did

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Speaker 1: during orientation, and I was always in the orientation skits.

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Speaker 1: But I did not do theater at all. I did major, though,

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Speaker 1: in literature and writing, which were two other great passions

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Speaker 1: of mine. So it was not like I gave up everything.

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Speaker 1: I was passionate about to go pursue something practical. I

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Speaker 1: got a degree in English, Yeah, that was my other

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Speaker 1: I was a double major. And then I had a

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Speaker 1: dance miner, which was basically like, how can I put

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Speaker 1: together an assemblage of things that make me look really unemployable? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because English on its own would have been fine. You

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Speaker 1: had the other two. There some potential employers that are

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Speaker 1: gonna be like for real. Yeah yeah. Anyway, Oh, Augustin Daley,

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Speaker 1: thank you for this trip down memory lane. I'm so glad.

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Speaker 1: I googled why our roller coasters called Montanerous in France.

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Speaker 1: Yes to this whole thing. Our listener in front of

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Speaker 1: the show, Greg, who has helped us set up some

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Speaker 1: of our headcount stuff five shows, had texted me about

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Speaker 1: it like a while years back. At this point it

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Speaker 1: was like, is Catherine the Great really connected to roller coasters?

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Speaker 1: You should do a show on that. I was like, hmmmm,

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Speaker 1: and I have never gotten to it, so I'm glad

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Speaker 1: you finally did. Yeah, we were talking about this because,

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Speaker 1: especially if one of us thinks that the other might

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Speaker 1: have an interest in something that we're looking at researching,

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Speaker 1: we'll kind of do a check in make sure we're

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Speaker 1: not about to accidentally show up to record with two

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Speaker 1: of the same episode. And way back a long time ago,

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Speaker 1: we were part of a website called how Stuff Works,

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Speaker 1: and one of the like the classic how stuff Works

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Speaker 1: articles was how roller coasters work, which had been then

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Speaker 1: used as an example of like, here's what we try

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Speaker 1: to do with our articles a whole lot. And I

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Speaker 1: think that had also led to you thinking that we

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Speaker 1: had already covered it on the show. I was confident

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Speaker 1: we had our hed done a roller coaster episode. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you had put me on the stand in court,

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Speaker 1: I would be like, yes, which just further proof that

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Speaker 1: memories are faulty. They are also like we haven't acknowledged it.

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Speaker 1: I mean we've sort of mentioned it in passing, but

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Speaker 1: like we didn't do anything special to mark the fact

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Speaker 1: that we have been doing this show for ten solid

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Speaker 1: years as hosts, Like the show is older, but like

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Speaker 1: we just had our tenth year as as hosts together,

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Speaker 1: and that, like we've each been doing an episode a

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Speaker 1: week for that whole time, and my brain doesn't retain

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Speaker 1: all of it by any stretch. And sometimes we'll get

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Speaker 1: emails from listeners about really old episodes and I will

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Speaker 1: be like, I don't I'm gonna have to do a

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Speaker 1: lot of refresh research this. And then I'll go look

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Speaker 1: and I'm like I wrote that and didn't remember. Uh

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Speaker 1: So anyway, So yeah, roller coaster? How do you feel

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Speaker 1: about roller coasters? Holly? I just had the most transcendental

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Speaker 1: roller coaster experience of my life recently. Yeah. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: had two lucky days in a row. I was in

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Speaker 1: Disney World and I had been lucky enough to get

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Speaker 1: invited by a Disney cast member to do the cast

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Speaker 1: member preview of the Neutron roller coaster that's there, which

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Speaker 1: is a duplicate of the one that's in Shanghai, and

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Speaker 1: that was lovely and super fun and beautiful. But then

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Speaker 1: the next day, finally we're a little slow to get

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Speaker 1: on this one. Brian and I got a virtual que

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Speaker 1: reservation for Guardians of the Galaxy Cosmic rewind. I had

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Speaker 1: been slightly nervous about it because somebody had told me like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: it spins you and tips you sideways and stuff, and

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, because I love roller coasters, but

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Speaker 1: like you, as I get older, I can't tolerate them

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Speaker 1: the way I always have. I need not have worried.

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Speaker 1: It's incredibly smooth. It's the most beautiful feeling I have

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Speaker 1: ever had in my life. It is like dancing in space.

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Speaker 1: And to top it all off, it's a dark ride

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Speaker 1: and they are playing very great nostalgic music, so like

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Speaker 1: ours was, you get to get a different track. It

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Speaker 1: shuffles up randomly and like so we're doing all of

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Speaker 1: this beautiful dancing in a black space thing. It's kind

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Speaker 1: of like if Space Mountain were like super high tech.

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Speaker 1: While Tears for Fears sings, everybody wants to rule the world.

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Speaker 1: And I literally wow, cried like an infant the whole time,

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Speaker 1: Like it was just so oddly moving. And it was

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Speaker 1: so moving that like later in the day when I

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Speaker 1: would think about it, I would burst into tears like

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Speaker 1: a new like fresh Like it was very, very an

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Speaker 1: oddly moving experience. It wasn't like I felt sad or

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Speaker 1: I mean, it was joyous, sure, but I couldn't even

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Speaker 1: understand exactly how it was targeting my emotional response at

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Speaker 1: that deep of a level. It was amazing. Highly recommend Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I do it every day in my life, can't there

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Speaker 1: There was there was a quote that came up in

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Speaker 1: the research for this, and I don't remember who said it,

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Speaker 1: but they said something to the effect of, you don't

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Speaker 1: need a degree in engineering to design a roller coaster,

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Speaker 1: you need a degree in psychology. And I was like,

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Speaker 1: I would argue both of those things would be great. Well,

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Speaker 1: you need the engineering degree to execute it for sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, um, But like there's a lot of writing

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Speaker 1: about sort of what makes roller coasters thrilling, um, And

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Speaker 1: that's that's what that was alluding to. You're so your

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Speaker 1: a description of that kind of makes me wonder I

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Speaker 1: have not been on a roller coaster. I've been on

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Speaker 1: other rides, but I have not been on a like

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Speaker 1: a roller coaster in many years. And part of the

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Speaker 1: reason for that has been like being more prone to

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Speaker 1: emotion sickness as I've gotten older. But then also I

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Speaker 1: just realized as you were talking, like a lot of

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Speaker 1: the roller coasters that I have written are roller coasters

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Speaker 1: that my i'd have been built before I was born, right, um,

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Speaker 1: and like the technology has evolved, like the um. One

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Speaker 1: of the one of the coasters that we mentioned was

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Speaker 1: the Lockness Monster, which like I've ridden the Lochness Monster.

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Speaker 1: There was a I think a suspended coaster because I

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Speaker 1: think it was one of the ones that would swing.

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Speaker 1: That was also in bush Gardens at that same time.

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Speaker 1: That was called the Big Bad Wolf, which is not

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Speaker 1: there anymore. Um, and that was like a that was

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Speaker 1: on uh you know, both of those had steel rails,

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Speaker 1: so um. Some of the other ones that I've ridden

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Speaker 1: were wooden roller coasters, and wooden roller coasters, by their

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Speaker 1: nature are are generally rougher to ride on knock you around, yes, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and like the that was part of why I was, like,

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Speaker 1: I don't think I need to do this anymore, because

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Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I had been riding on

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Speaker 1: them was that a lot of this was when I

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Speaker 1: was in my teens, right, and I didn't want my

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Speaker 1: peers to think I was afraid of doing it, you know,

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Speaker 1: um and like I and so I would do it,

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Speaker 1: and I did not enjoy the being knocked around part.

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Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know, what if, like what if

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Speaker 1: it was a something that's more like what Holly just described,

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Speaker 1: I wonder how I would feel about that. Yeah, that

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Speaker 1: smoothness is a game changer for me, because yeah, I

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Speaker 1: love them. I also am not one of those people

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Speaker 1: who loves the ones that like ratchet you up to

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Speaker 1: a shocking height and then drop you. Like that's a

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Speaker 1: little too much panic for me. Yeah, I don't even

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Speaker 1: know if it's like the physiological response of falling or

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Speaker 1: if it's just like all of the adrenaline and acid

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Speaker 1: tummy of panic all the way up that. I don't

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Speaker 1: know what happens after that. I'm just like, I didn't

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Speaker 1: have that much fun over the last whatever, however many

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Speaker 1: years of pandemic. There's just a part of me that's like,

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Speaker 1: I don't think I need to be scared for fun anymore. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I kind of would just rather not be scared. And

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Speaker 1: there's been a couple of like movies that have come

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Speaker 1: out that are really scary, and people have talked about

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Speaker 1: how incredibly good they are, and I'm like that that

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Speaker 1: does sound incredibly good, but also I don't think I

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Speaker 1: need to do that to myself. Yeah, so, I mean

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Speaker 1: there are some ways in which I like to engage

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Speaker 1: with fear, but I know my limits and I often

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Speaker 1: have that anxiety before I get on a new roller coaster,

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Speaker 1: but like I said, on this one, I need not

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Speaker 1: have because it was pure joy. Tron is also super

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Speaker 1: duper fun, and I mean, if you're into the Tron franchise, listen,

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Speaker 1: light cycles are great, So that's super fun. I I

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Speaker 1: remember so distinctly the first time I wrote a roller

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Speaker 1: coaster and I was just filled with wonder, which was

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Speaker 1: like at a fair and I think I was only

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Speaker 1: seven and I was with my dad and he was like,

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Speaker 1: is this something you want to do? And I was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, what is it like? And he's like, well,

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Speaker 1: you so we'll do the kiddie coaster and I was

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Speaker 1: just like sold. I was like yes, throw me around,

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Speaker 1: Let's do that forever. But I was seven, and I

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Speaker 1: didn't know that I would lose my ability to be

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Speaker 1: thrown around without discomfort. Sure, when I was a child,

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Speaker 1: we had a you know, a county fair every autumn,

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Speaker 1: and we always went as a family, and we were

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Speaker 1: not allowed to ride, Like we could ride the kiddie rides,

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Speaker 1: but we were not allowed to ride the big roller

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Speaker 1: coaster at the county fair because my mother was convinced

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Speaker 1: that we would immediately be killed. She did not trust

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Speaker 1: like the portable nature of any of those rides, and like, nope,

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Speaker 1: not doing it. You remind me that I wanted to mention,

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Speaker 1: you know, we talked about how hard it is to

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Speaker 1: get actual numbers on injuries and fatalities and roller coasters,

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Speaker 1: and one of the things that I think comes up

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Speaker 1: that causes part of that problem. And I know this

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Speaker 1: has been something that's reported several times where it's like

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Speaker 1: someone will ride a ride, it functions perfectly, there has

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Speaker 1: not been any accident, nothing has gone wrong, but they

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Speaker 1: have either knowingly or unknowingly gotten on that ride, like

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Speaker 1: with a heart condition or issue, and that has led

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Speaker 1: to either an illness or Yeah, haven forbid a loss

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Speaker 1: of life, and so I think that further makes it

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Speaker 1: difficult to really assess those numbers for amusement parks. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I originally was like, I should put in a part

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Speaker 1: in here that's about the big disasters. And when I

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Speaker 1: started looking at them, like in earlier eras when there

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Speaker 1: just wasn't a lot of safety equipment, or the safety

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Speaker 1: equipment that there was was like pretty rudimentary, like of

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Speaker 1: course people got hurt or killed on roller bass a

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Speaker 1: lot more. But then when it came to ones that

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Speaker 1: were more recently a lot of them, Like there occasionally

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Speaker 1: there would be one that was because of someone's next

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Speaker 1: agents or someone's or some you know, operator's lack of maintenance,

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Speaker 1: but really often it just seemed like such a random accident.

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Speaker 1: Then I was like, I don't feel like reading about

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Speaker 1: all of these random accidents, many of which were pretty tragic, Like,

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Speaker 1: I don't feel like that's adding to this episode meaningful way.

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Speaker 1: I can tell you that I do want a switchback

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Speaker 1: gravity pleasure railway shirt, okay, which also I think gets

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Speaker 1: listed with those words in different orders sometimes. Oh sure, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've seen it, gravity pleasure switchback railway. As long as

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Speaker 1: they're all there. I just want a shirt. Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: need to design a fun shirt, a retro souvenir T shirt. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I'm still very curious about like some of the things

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Speaker 1: that were authoritatively said about LaMarcus Thompson's reasons for making

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Speaker 1: roller coasters, and I was just like, I started like

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Speaker 1: trying to look for obituaries, like any kind of account

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Speaker 1: where somebody might have said something personal about him. I

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Speaker 1: was like, where are you getting this information about why

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Speaker 1: he decided to do this? But there were places also

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Speaker 1: that it was just like wrong. Like there was one

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Speaker 1: thing that I read that described one of the scenic

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Speaker 1: railways that he had built as being devoted to pictures

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Speaker 1: of Bible stories. But it's like, there are photos of

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Speaker 1: that railway and they were not Bible stories. And I

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Speaker 1: was just like, where is this information coming from. I

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Speaker 1: don't know, maybe he did have a Bible story railway

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Speaker 1: that was a different one, but like it was that

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Speaker 1: was not the one that was referenced there. So yeah, anyway,

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Speaker 1: this is a pretty fun one to research, in spite

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Speaker 1: of just the baffling and frustrating number of total contradictions

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Speaker 1: and things that were just straightforwardly stated in research. It

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Speaker 1: was pretty fun. So look at I love it. Now

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Speaker 1: I want to go ride a roller coaster. Okay, I

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Speaker 1: don't think I get to for another month and a half. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of the places that you go

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Speaker 1: operate year round. A lot of the places that are

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Speaker 1: closer to me are like seasonal in there, and they

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Speaker 1: have not opened for the season yet. So which is

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Speaker 1: when I stopped going? Right, totally makes sense. Nope, not visiting, man, No,

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Speaker 1: that's it is super busy. This is absolutely unrelated to anything.

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Speaker 1: But the last time that I went to Disney as

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Speaker 1: an adult was when we were in Orlando for podcast Movement. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I'm just gonna stay through

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Speaker 1: the weekend. I'm gonna go to Disney. I myself a

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Speaker 1: little trip, and then I just like, I don't I

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Speaker 1: forgot what summer was. And the first the first like

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Speaker 1: Friday and Saturday that I was there, it worked out okay,

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Speaker 1: But on Sunday it was so hot and so crowded

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Speaker 1: that I was just like, this was not how I

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Speaker 1: should of planned my life. Yeah. So anyway, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe you're going to go to an amusement park this weekend.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you're working at an amusement park this weekend. If

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Speaker 1: you're not having any amusement parks, I hope that's going

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Speaker 1: okay too. We'll be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow

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Speaker 1: and something brand new on Monday. Stuff you Missed in

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Speaker 1: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.