1 00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:09,240 Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. 2 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:16,239 Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a 3 00:00:16,320 --> 00:00:19,840 Speaker 1: show that proves there's more than one way to make history. 4 00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:24,080 Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Luesier, and in this episode, we're talking about 5 00:00:24,079 --> 00:00:26,639 Speaker 1: a private joke that went a little too far and 6 00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:30,200 Speaker 1: wound up snowballing into one of the most successful media 7 00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:39,800 Speaker 1: hoaxes of the entire twentieth century. The day was December 8 00:00:39,840 --> 00:00:46,320 Speaker 1: twenty eighth, nineteen seventeen. Baltimore journalist Henry L. Menkin published 9 00:00:46,360 --> 00:00:50,839 Speaker 1: a faux history of the bathtub titled A Neglected Anniversary. 10 00:00:51,680 --> 00:00:54,600 Speaker 1: The article first appeared in the New York Evening Mail, 11 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:58,000 Speaker 1: and it lamented the fact that Americans had neglected to 12 00:00:58,080 --> 00:01:02,040 Speaker 1: celebrate a recent milestone in the history of plumbing, the 13 00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:06,200 Speaker 1: seventy fifth anniversary of the invention of the modern bathtub. 14 00:01:07,080 --> 00:01:10,280 Speaker 1: According to Mencin, the tub had been the brainchild of 15 00:01:10,319 --> 00:01:15,000 Speaker 1: a Cincinnati cotton dealer named Adam Thompson. Made of mahogany 16 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:18,080 Speaker 1: and lined with lead, the peculiar vessel was said to 17 00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:20,720 Speaker 1: have been introduced by Thompson to his guests at a 18 00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:25,479 Speaker 1: Christmas party on December twentieth, eighteen forty two that meant 19 00:01:25,520 --> 00:01:30,440 Speaker 1: that in December nineteen seventeen, the bathtub's diamond anniversary had 20 00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:36,039 Speaker 1: just come and gone unnoticed. Mencn bemoaned the country's failed observance, 21 00:01:36,319 --> 00:01:39,840 Speaker 1: noting that quote, not a plumber fired a salute or 22 00:01:39,920 --> 00:01:43,240 Speaker 1: hung out a flag, not a governor proclaimed a day 23 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:47,600 Speaker 1: of prayer. The journalist then attempted to write that great 24 00:01:47,720 --> 00:01:52,080 Speaker 1: wrong by offering a detailed history of the bathtub in America. 25 00:01:52,600 --> 00:01:56,600 Speaker 1: He explained that when bathtubs first arrived on US shores 26 00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,680 Speaker 1: in the eighteen forties, they became the subject of bitter 27 00:01:59,680 --> 00:02:05,400 Speaker 1: con Pundits branded the bathtub as a decadent, undemocratic invention, 28 00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:09,000 Speaker 1: while those within the medical establishment warned of the health 29 00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:13,639 Speaker 1: risk posed by bathing regularly. According to Mencan, the bad 30 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:16,960 Speaker 1: press had such an ill effect on the public's perception 31 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:20,760 Speaker 1: of bathtubs that some cities tried to ban them altogether. 32 00:02:21,360 --> 00:02:25,000 Speaker 1: It wasn't until eighteen fifty one that the bathtub became 33 00:02:25,080 --> 00:02:29,520 Speaker 1: widely accepted, a change which Mencan attributed to President Millard 34 00:02:29,520 --> 00:02:33,840 Speaker 1: Fillmore installing one in the White House. H. L. Menkin's 35 00:02:33,880 --> 00:02:37,919 Speaker 1: colorful history of the bathtub quickly became the accepted version 36 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:42,480 Speaker 1: of events. Cincinnati even started billing itself as the birthplace 37 00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,519 Speaker 1: of the American bathtub. In the years that followed, dozens 38 00:02:46,560 --> 00:02:51,800 Speaker 1: of newspapers reprinted the article. Then medical journals and encyclopedias 39 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:55,120 Speaker 1: began to cite it as well. Eventually it was even 40 00:02:55,200 --> 00:02:59,200 Speaker 1: referred to by politicians on the floor of Congress. The 41 00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:03,840 Speaker 1: problem was nothing in Menkin's article was actually true. The 42 00:03:03,840 --> 00:03:08,520 Speaker 1: modern bathtub was not invented in Cincinnati the nineteenth century. 43 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:13,320 Speaker 1: Americans didn't believe that bathing was unhealthy. It also wasn't 44 00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:17,639 Speaker 1: true that cities had outlawed bathtubs, nor that Millard Fillmore 45 00:03:17,680 --> 00:03:21,200 Speaker 1: had introduced the first tub to the White House. In reality, 46 00:03:21,440 --> 00:03:25,120 Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson had one installed there in eighteen thirty four, 47 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,160 Speaker 1: eight years before Menkin claimed the bathtub was even invented. 48 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:33,440 Speaker 1: The author later claimed his apocryphal account was all a 49 00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:36,720 Speaker 1: joke and that he never dreamed people would take it seriously. 50 00:03:37,200 --> 00:03:40,200 Speaker 1: As he put it, quote, my motive was simply to 51 00:03:40,240 --> 00:03:45,200 Speaker 1: have some harmless fun in war days. However, that wasn't 52 00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:48,880 Speaker 1: the whole truth. Although Mencin certainly got a kick out 53 00:03:48,880 --> 00:03:51,440 Speaker 1: of the article, he didn't intend for the public to 54 00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:54,000 Speaker 1: be in on the joke. He had written it as 55 00:03:54,040 --> 00:03:57,360 Speaker 1: a deliberate hoax meant to test the gullibility of both 56 00:03:57,360 --> 00:04:01,400 Speaker 1: his readers and his fellow journalists. Mencken had lost his 57 00:04:01,520 --> 00:04:04,880 Speaker 1: faith in society's ability to tell the difference between fact 58 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:08,120 Speaker 1: and fiction, and his made up article was a cynical 59 00:04:08,160 --> 00:04:12,920 Speaker 1: way of confirming that suspicion H. L. Mencken had personal 60 00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:16,760 Speaker 1: and professional reasons to doubt the public's powers of discernment. 61 00:04:17,200 --> 00:04:19,800 Speaker 1: During the build up to the First World War, anti 62 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,520 Speaker 1: German propaganda had begun to dominate the news, and while 63 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:27,240 Speaker 1: Mencken didn't agree with Germany's politics, he bristled at the 64 00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:31,680 Speaker 1: outright lies being spread about the German people. One thing 65 00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:35,880 Speaker 1: he found particularly galling was the common portrayal of Germans 66 00:04:35,880 --> 00:04:41,040 Speaker 1: as vicious barbarians, including the unchallenged claim that they gleefully 67 00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:46,680 Speaker 1: bayoneted Belgian babies for sport. Mencken was already an established 68 00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:49,919 Speaker 1: newspaperman by the time World War One broke out, but 69 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:53,240 Speaker 1: because of his support for German culture, he was basically 70 00:04:53,279 --> 00:04:58,120 Speaker 1: blackballed from political reporting during the war. In late nineteen sixteen, 71 00:04:58,320 --> 00:05:00,960 Speaker 1: he was finally hired to travel as a reporter to 72 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:04,680 Speaker 1: the Eastern Front to cover the hostilities. His goal was 73 00:05:04,720 --> 00:05:07,240 Speaker 1: to bring a more balanced perspective on the war to 74 00:05:07,320 --> 00:05:11,160 Speaker 1: American newspapers, But once he got back home, he discovered 75 00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:14,440 Speaker 1: that the majority of his dispatches had not been published 76 00:05:14,440 --> 00:05:17,839 Speaker 1: as agreed. The American public had already bought into the 77 00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,240 Speaker 1: idea that every German citizen was a cold blooded killer, 78 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:26,320 Speaker 1: and publishers didn't dare print anything to the contrary. America's 79 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:30,320 Speaker 1: one sided approach to wartime reporting forced Menken to turn 80 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,000 Speaker 1: to non political writing in order to make a living. 81 00:05:33,640 --> 00:05:37,560 Speaker 1: In nineteen seventeen, he released a collection of literary criticism, 82 00:05:37,800 --> 00:05:40,520 Speaker 1: and in nineteen eighteen he wrote a book on women's 83 00:05:40,520 --> 00:05:44,400 Speaker 1: standing in society called In Defense of Women. But in 84 00:05:44,480 --> 00:05:48,159 Speaker 1: between those two projects, he decided to vent his frustration 85 00:05:48,279 --> 00:05:51,640 Speaker 1: about having his political views suppressed by pulling a prank 86 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:56,320 Speaker 1: on readers and editors alike. A Neglected Anniversary was a 87 00:05:56,360 --> 00:06:00,320 Speaker 1: somewhat spiteful private joke intended to prove to Menke and 88 00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:04,080 Speaker 1: his friends that the American public would gladly accept lies 89 00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:08,719 Speaker 1: as truth so long as they were appealing to their imaginations, emotions, 90 00:06:08,960 --> 00:06:13,680 Speaker 1: or preconceived beliefs. The article was accepted as conventional wisdom, 91 00:06:13,839 --> 00:06:17,080 Speaker 1: both because Mencn was a respected journalist, and because he 92 00:06:17,120 --> 00:06:21,040 Speaker 1: had so convincingly supported his fanciful claims with made up 93 00:06:21,080 --> 00:06:27,279 Speaker 1: citations and imaginary statistics which all sounded real. Unfortunately, the 94 00:06:27,360 --> 00:06:30,680 Speaker 1: story caught on better than the author ever could have expected. 95 00:06:31,040 --> 00:06:34,760 Speaker 1: In eight years after its initial publication, Menkin decided it 96 00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:38,440 Speaker 1: was finally time to set the record straight. He confessed 97 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:41,000 Speaker 1: the truth in a follow up article for the Chicago 98 00:06:41,080 --> 00:06:46,039 Speaker 1: Tribune titled Melancholy Reflections. All I care to do today, 99 00:06:46,279 --> 00:06:49,320 Speaker 1: he wrote, is to reiterate, in the most solemn and 100 00:06:49,400 --> 00:06:54,360 Speaker 1: awful terms, that my history of the bathtub was pure Buncombe. 101 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:56,800 Speaker 1: If there were any facts in it, they got there 102 00:06:56,920 --> 00:07:00,800 Speaker 1: accidentally and against my design. But today the tale is 103 00:07:00,839 --> 00:07:06,160 Speaker 1: in the Encyclopedias. History said a great American soothsayer is Bunk. 104 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:12,200 Speaker 1: Mencn's expose didn't stop the spread of his phony bathtub history. 105 00:07:12,720 --> 00:07:15,920 Speaker 1: In fact, many people thought his confession was the hoax 106 00:07:16,120 --> 00:07:20,200 Speaker 1: and continued to believe the original article. The journalists published 107 00:07:20,200 --> 00:07:24,080 Speaker 1: several more articles disavowing his hoax, but by that point 108 00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,640 Speaker 1: the myth had already taken on a life of its own, 109 00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:30,200 Speaker 1: and no amount of explanation or correction could stop it. 110 00:07:30,960 --> 00:07:35,480 Speaker 1: Even today, more than a century later, Otherwise reputable sources 111 00:07:35,640 --> 00:07:39,320 Speaker 1: still sometimes repeat the made up history of Millard Fillmore 112 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:43,840 Speaker 1: and the First White House bathtub. H. L. Menkin's bathtub 113 00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:48,480 Speaker 1: hoax demonstrated a little too effectively how quickly and easily 114 00:07:48,640 --> 00:07:51,679 Speaker 1: a lie can be embraced as truth. In the age 115 00:07:51,680 --> 00:07:55,720 Speaker 1: of social media, AI and cable news, that lesson feels 116 00:07:55,760 --> 00:07:59,840 Speaker 1: more relevant than ever. But thankfully, even though false facts 117 00:08:00,080 --> 00:08:03,880 Speaker 1: outspread faster and more pervasively thanks to the Internet, the 118 00:08:03,920 --> 00:08:06,640 Speaker 1: way to guard against them is still much the same. 119 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:11,000 Speaker 1: Don't assume that something is accurate just because it appeals 120 00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,600 Speaker 1: to you. For as Menkin wrote in nineteen twenty six, 121 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:18,360 Speaker 1: what ails the truth is that it is mainly uncomfortable 122 00:08:18,600 --> 00:08:22,560 Speaker 1: and often dull. The human mind seeks something more amusing 123 00:08:22,800 --> 00:08:26,480 Speaker 1: and more caressing, and so into our most solemn and 124 00:08:26,600 --> 00:08:31,080 Speaker 1: serious reflections fictions enter, and three times out of four 125 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:38,120 Speaker 1: they quickly crowd out all the facts. I'm Gabe Lusier 126 00:08:38,400 --> 00:08:41,480 Speaker 1: and hopefully you now know a little more about history 127 00:08:41,559 --> 00:08:45,760 Speaker 1: today than you did yesterday. If you enjoyed today's episode, 128 00:08:45,920 --> 00:08:49,960 Speaker 1: consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI 129 00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:54,400 Speaker 1: HC Show. Also, if you have any feedback you'd like 130 00:08:54,480 --> 00:08:57,040 Speaker 1: to share, feel free to pass it along by writing 131 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:01,320 Speaker 1: to this day at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler 132 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:03,880 Speaker 1: Mays for producing the show, and thank you for listening. 133 00:09:04,280 --> 00:09:07,240 Speaker 1: I'll see you back here again tomorrow for another day 134 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:08,640 Speaker 1: in history class