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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

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Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Hey, guess what this

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Speaker 1: episode is thanks to the Atlanta Airport. So funny to me,

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Speaker 1: sort of, I think I have also had Atlanta Airport

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Speaker 1: episode ideas. Listen, the Atlanta Airport has a lot of

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Speaker 1: art and history exhibits in various places. Some of them

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Speaker 1: are wonderful and really beautifully curated. Some of the sky

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Speaker 1: clubs have really good art exhibits. There's just a lot

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Speaker 1: of good stuff going on in the Atlanta Airport. Listen.

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Speaker 1: It's my hub. But I also like it. So I

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Speaker 1: wrote Richard Peters down as a topic years and years

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Speaker 1: and years ago. And then recently I was walking through

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Speaker 1: the airport because I don't want to take plane train,

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Speaker 1: so I'll walk from Concourse to Concourse, and I walked

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Speaker 1: through the exhibit on the history of Atlanta, and I

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, yeah, he is again, there he is.

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Speaker 1: Richard Peters is really interesting for a few ways, not

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Speaker 1: just because he really is responsible for a lot of

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Speaker 1: institutions that kind of make up the identity of the

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Speaker 1: city of Atlanta. Although he is responsible for those things,

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Speaker 1: he's interesting to me because he has this really unique

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Speaker 1: position regarding the US Civil War that we will talk about.

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Speaker 1: He's also interesting for all of that other stuff. I

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Speaker 1: also have some theories about him and why he was

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Speaker 1: the person he was that are for behind the scenes.

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Speaker 1: So get ready for me to psychoanalyze a person without

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Speaker 1: any skill in that arena. But I see you, Richard Peters.

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Speaker 1: I know what you're doing. He is sometimes called the

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Speaker 1: father of Atlanta. You could argue that one way or

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Speaker 1: the other, but he really was responsible for a lot

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Speaker 1: of things. He worked in railroads, he developed a lot

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Speaker 1: of the firsts of Atlanta in terms of like transportation

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Speaker 1: and various other institutions. And he was really hugely influential

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Speaker 1: in the city's rebuilding efforts following the Civil War. So

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Speaker 1: that's who we're talking about today. Richard Peters was born

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Speaker 1: on November tenth, eighteen ten, in not anywhere in Georgia

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Speaker 1: or even the South. Nope, Nope, Germantown, Pennsylvania, which is

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Speaker 1: now a suburb of Philadelphia. His father, Ralph Peters, was

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Speaker 1: a merchant but lost his whole fortune on bad deals.

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Speaker 1: His mother, Catherine Cunningham, was of Irish descent, and Peters

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Speaker 1: noted in his autobiography that that spelling of his mother's

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Speaker 1: family name changed multiple times, including to basically look like Cunningham,

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Speaker 1: very English spelling, but also in a much more Irish

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Speaker 1: spelling that has the middle letters as in y nngh,

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Speaker 1: not the configuration that you might exc back to see

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Speaker 1: for Cunningham her father. So, Richard's grandfather worked in shipping

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Speaker 1: and did pretty well until Privateers captured his entire fleet

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Speaker 1: because of Ralph Peters's business faltering, Richard's grandfather, Judge Richard Peters,

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Speaker 1: supported the family just almost entirely financially. Judge Peters was

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Speaker 1: very closely tied to the beginning of the United States

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Speaker 1: as a country, and was appointed judge of the United

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Speaker 1: States District Court for the District of Pennsylvania in seventeen

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Speaker 1: ninety two by George Washington. Richard had numerous siblings. There

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Speaker 1: were four brothers, Ralph, John, William, and Edward, and then

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Speaker 1: four sisters, Sally, Ann, Mary, and Nelly. When Richard was five,

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Speaker 1: he was enrolled in public school. He changed schools when

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Speaker 1: he was seven and the family moved to Belmont Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: Not long after that move, Richard, who loved looking out

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Speaker 1: the upstairs windows of their new home at the view

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Speaker 1: of the city of Philadelphia, night fell from one of

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Speaker 1: those windows and he broke his arm, and that injury

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Speaker 1: actually bothered him for the rest of his life. He

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Speaker 1: later said of it quote, it was badly set by

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Speaker 1: doctor Chapman afterwards, the celebrated surgeon of Philadelphia, and has

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Speaker 1: been crooked at the elbow to this day. That was

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Speaker 1: a statement he gave in his seventies last stayed mad

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Speaker 1: about it. The family's time in Belmont went poorly financially

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Speaker 1: as well. Richard's father, Ralph, started a dairy there to

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Speaker 1: make butter and to sell milk. Neither of those things

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Speaker 1: went well. Soon Richard's grandfather had become so frustrated with

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Speaker 1: Ralph that the family had to move away to the country,

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Speaker 1: where Judge Peters gave his son a job managing undeveloped land.

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Speaker 1: The family kept moving around a lot, as Ralph Peters

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Speaker 1: seemed to just make one bad decision after another. Richard's

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Speaker 1: education continued, although it was disjointed because of all of

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Speaker 1: these changes in schools. He was very at math, but

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Speaker 1: did so poorly in Latin that it resulted in what

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Speaker 1: he said was the only thrashing he ever received from

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Speaker 1: his father. Yeah, that thrashing sounded quite bad in the

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Speaker 1: description I read. In Richard's early teens, it was decided

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Speaker 1: that he was going to go to Philadelphia to be

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Speaker 1: enrolled in private school. This was going to be paid

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Speaker 1: for by his paternal grandfather, and he was going to

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Speaker 1: live with his maternal grandfather in the city while he

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Speaker 1: attended classes. Peter later described this transition in his life

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Speaker 1: this way. Quote, A family council had been held when

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Speaker 1: it was decided that I was becoming too fond of

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Speaker 1: the wild country life, and that I had some talent

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Speaker 1: in me worthy of being cultivated. Therefore, they captured me

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Speaker 1: and took me off in their carriage. And he mentions

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Speaker 1: being captured and characterizing it that way because when he

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Speaker 1: got an inkling that this plan was happening, he actually

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Speaker 1: ran away from home into the woods. One of the

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Speaker 1: interesting asides that comes up in Peters's account of his

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Speaker 1: youth is his reference to some of the men who

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Speaker 1: worked for his grandfather. Peters quote the old gardener Henry,

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Speaker 1: who was deaf as a post in the Fanner a

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Speaker 1: man of seventy were Hessians. They were called Redemptionists and

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Speaker 1: had been made prisoners during the Revolutionary War. Grandfather bought

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Speaker 1: them under the agreement that they should redeem themselves by

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Speaker 1: their labor. So during the Revolutionary War, an estimated quarter

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Speaker 1: of the troops who fought for Britain were Germans who

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Speaker 1: had been hired or forced into service to bolster Britain's numbers.

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Speaker 1: We have an episode on these Hessian soldiers in the archive,

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Speaker 1: but it is from twenty thirteen, so so long ago

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Speaker 1: that it's not even in all the players. Now. These

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Speaker 1: Hessian soldiers were known for their skill, but they often

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Speaker 1: bore the brunt of blame for the British losses. Some

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Speaker 1: of them deserted during the war, but a lot of others,

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Speaker 1: including ones who had been prisoners of war, stayed in

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Speaker 1: North America after the war or was over, in part

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Speaker 1: because they did not have a clear way back to Europe.

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Speaker 1: So it seems that Peter's benefited from this misfortune by

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Speaker 1: using some of these displaced Germans as indentured servants. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I want to mention that because other ways that labor

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Speaker 1: is used in kind of dicey and questionable manners comes

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Speaker 1: up later. And also we don't have a firm sense

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Speaker 1: of where Richard Peters stood on all of this, but

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about it some more if it were not

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Speaker 1: already sort of obvious from just the pieces we've relayed.

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Speaker 1: When Richard Peters shared stories about his father, they were

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Speaker 1: not exactly glowing. He very clearly blamed his father, Ralph,

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Speaker 1: for the misfortunes of the family, and specifically for the

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Speaker 1: impact that it had on his education. He recounted the

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Speaker 1: end of his time in private school in Philadelphia this

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Speaker 1: way quote. At the close of my two years of

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Speaker 1: schooling in the city, for which grandfather became very tired

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Speaker 1: of paying, I returned to the Bradford County farm for

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Speaker 1: a year. It was at this time Judge Peters needed

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Speaker 1: one thousand acres of land to my father in trust

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Speaker 1: for me to provide for my college education. But through

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Speaker 1: carelessness and neglect, the deed was not recorded and the

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Speaker 1: land was sold for taxes without having done me the

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Speaker 1: good that was intended. The first income Richard had was

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Speaker 1: through the production of maple sugar from trees on the

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Speaker 1: family property during that year after private school, with the

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Speaker 1: help of one of the hired hands. He did everything

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Speaker 1: from making the troughs to draining and collecting the sap

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Speaker 1: and boiling the sap down. He made twelve dollars and

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Speaker 1: he said of it quote, it was the first money

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Speaker 1: I had ever made. I was very proud of it.

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Speaker 1: He also credited that year with preparing him for his career,

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Speaker 1: writing quote, the country life and healthful exercise prepared me

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Speaker 1: well to make a success. Subsequently as a civil engineer.

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Speaker 1: My rugged constitution was formed there, and I could outwalk

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Speaker 1: and outwork any of the assistant engineers when in the field,

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Speaker 1: and my services were always in demand. And the way

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Speaker 1: he became interested in that career was really accidental. We're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about that and more after a sponsor break.

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Speaker 1: When Richard Peters was selling his maple sugar in Tiwanda, Pennsylvania,

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Speaker 1: he ran into an old schoolmate who told him that

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Speaker 1: he was making a dollar fifty a day to work

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Speaker 1: as a rodman on a survey team. Peters did not

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Speaker 1: think this former classmate was very smart, so he thought, well,

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Speaker 1: if he can make that much money, I can make

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Speaker 1: more if I get into that area of work. And

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Speaker 1: then soon thanks to his family connections, Richard had a

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Speaker 1: meeting with architect William Strickland to try to get into

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Speaker 1: something in that arena, but Richard's handwriting was quite poor,

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Speaker 1: and Strickland told him to take a year to study drawing,

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Speaker 1: mathematics and writing and then come back and talk to

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Speaker 1: him again. Peters enrolled at the Franklin Institute and after

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Speaker 1: a year and a half of study there, he met

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Speaker 1: with Strickland once again, and this time he was given

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Speaker 1: a job making the working drawings of various projects that

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Speaker 1: the firm was working on, but Peters realized that he

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Speaker 1: didn't really have the talent to make it as an architect.

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Speaker 1: He talks about like comparing himself to other people who

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Speaker 1: he thought were not that educated, who could just whip

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Speaker 1: out these beautiful drawings much faster than him, and he

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Speaker 1: kind of realized, like, this isn't a great spot for me.

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Speaker 1: So he asked Strickland if he could move into a

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Speaker 1: civil engineering role, which he did, but he left that

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Speaker 1: after six months because he didn't feel like at the

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Speaker 1: architecture firm he was really learning as much as he could,

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Speaker 1: and he thought he could learn the job much better

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Speaker 1: if he was in a different position elsewhere. The next

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Speaker 1: position Peters was able to get once again through family connections,

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Speaker 1: was working on a survey as a rodman, collecting measurements

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Speaker 1: for what would become the Camden and Amboy Railway. This

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Speaker 1: actually ties back to our recent episode on George Stevenson

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Speaker 1: in the early days of railways. Peters notes that quote

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Speaker 1: as one location was made in the years eighteen thirty

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Speaker 1: and eighteen thirty one, before it had been ascertained positively

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Speaker 1: that locomotives could be employed. To advantage the line of

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Speaker 1: road was constructed for horsepower, with six hundred foot curves

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Speaker 1: put in wherever one hundred dollars could be saved. Peters

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Speaker 1: was eventually promoted and put in charge of a viaduct

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Speaker 1: along the line in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. This is different from

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Speaker 1: the current Coastville Viaduct, which was built in nineteen oh two. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is a historical viaduct. I didn't want anybody to

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Speaker 1: be confused. In late eighteen thirty four, that project was

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Speaker 1: completed and Richard Peters returned to Philadelphia, and there he

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Speaker 1: spent his entire savings, as he put it, quote paying

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Speaker 1: my board and frolicking with the boys. But he also

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Speaker 1: had the good fortune to have a new job turn

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Speaker 1: up just as his money ran out, and this was

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Speaker 1: to take him away from Pennsylvania and into the South,

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Speaker 1: as he was hired to work as chief engineer on

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Speaker 1: the Georgia Railroad that was planned to run between Augusta

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Speaker 1: and Athens, Georgia. This was one of those roads that

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Speaker 1: we also discussed in our George Stevenson episode that was

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Speaker 1: to be a road that was a road as we

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Speaker 1: would think of a road that also had a reel

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Speaker 1: running on it, literally a railroad, so that horse carts

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Speaker 1: or locomotives could use it as needed. Before he went,

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Speaker 1: he spent a week visiting his mother and siblings, and

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Speaker 1: then he headed to Georgia to start work. Because he

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Speaker 1: had used up all of his money, he did have

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Speaker 1: to sell some things and he had to get a

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Speaker 1: loan from a relative to make the trip, but once

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Speaker 1: he arrived he got in advance on his salary and

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Speaker 1: then he paid that money back immediately. The trip to

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Speaker 1: Georgia started in February eighteen thirty five, during a brutal winter.

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Speaker 1: Peters traveled by steamer to Charleston and then from there

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Speaker 1: by rail to Augusta. That winner was one of the

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Speaker 1: coldest ever on record for a lot of the South.

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Speaker 1: It destroyed most of the citrus groves in Florida. So

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Speaker 1: even once Peter got some more southern parts of the country,

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Speaker 1: there was just really no relief from this cold. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It was literally like one of the worst moments in

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Speaker 1: human history that you could pick to make a trip

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Speaker 1: like this given the technology of the day. But once

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Speaker 1: he got to work on the railroad, it became very

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Speaker 1: apparent that his knowledge base was a lot more expansive

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Speaker 1: than other engineers on the project, and Peters was promoted

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Speaker 1: to principal assistant to the railroad superintendent. In eighteen thirty seven,

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Speaker 1: he was promoted again, this time to the role of superintendent,

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Speaker 1: and he got that news while he was in a

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Speaker 1: survey camp in Greensboro, Georgia, and he had to immediately

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Speaker 1: leave and make his way to his new office in Augusta.

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Speaker 1: Because his pay had increased dramatically, Peters was able to

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Speaker 1: start building wealth through investment. He bought a lot of

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Speaker 1: stock in the company, purchased a sawmill, and also bought

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Speaker 1: tracts of land that had pine growing on them. He

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Speaker 1: was conscientious enough to be very careful never to let

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Speaker 1: his personal investments and his work cross over. He would

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Speaker 1: never make a business deal with any company that had

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Speaker 1: any ties to his lumber business. During these years, Peters

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Speaker 1: was also pretty inventive. He came up with a rudimentary

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Speaker 1: headlight system for train engines. This is completely low tech,

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Speaker 1: but it's also kind of ingenious. He installed a wooden

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Speaker 1: shelf over the smokestack of the engine, and the shelf

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Speaker 1: held a tray of sand, and on top of the

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Speaker 1: sand they would put pine knots that were burned, and

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Speaker 1: those burning pine knots would create light. So I'm presuming

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Speaker 1: this is not so much about throwing light ahead all

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Speaker 1: that much as letting people know there's a train coming,

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Speaker 1: because I can't imagine that's really that illuminating to the

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Speaker 1: surrounding area. But that was it, And this was really

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Speaker 1: an necessity for the Georgia Line because it was the

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Speaker 1: first railroad to run at night. Peters later reported that

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Speaker 1: they had fewer accidents at night than they did during

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Speaker 1: the daytime. This may have been because of illumination, but

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Speaker 1: it was also likely because there were no other trains

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Speaker 1: running then. By eighteen forty five, Peters was ready to

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Speaker 1: focus entirely on his entrepreneurial interests and resigned from the

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Speaker 1: railroad to run a stage coach that ran from Madison, Georgia,

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Speaker 1: to Montgomery, Alabama. This was not a business that he

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Speaker 1: started from scratch. The railroad company had established it and

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Speaker 1: he purchased it. He was also not the sole owner

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Speaker 1: of the business. He and the rest of the owners

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00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:42,480
Speaker 1: made a lot of money, and he mentioned that traffic

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Speaker 1: and profits increased significantly during the Mexican American War, which

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00:15:46,440 --> 00:15:51,040
Speaker 1: started in eighteen forty six. Once the railroad had been completed, though,

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Speaker 1: this stage line started running exclusively in Alabama between Montgomery

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Speaker 1: and Mobile, and Peters was back in the railroad superintendent position.

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Speaker 1: His stage line became a carrier for the US mail

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Speaker 1: and remained so until the start of the Civil War.

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Speaker 1: Also in eighteen forty six, as the Georgia Railroad was completed,

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Speaker 1: it ended in the city of Marthasville. That city had

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Speaker 1: been named by Charles Garnett, a civil engineer. It had

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Speaker 1: been named in honor of the daughter of Governor Wilson Lumpkin,

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Speaker 1: who served as governor of Georgia from eighteen thirty one

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Speaker 1: to eighteen thirty five. Before that, when it was really

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Speaker 1: just a railroad construction site, it was called Terminus, but

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Speaker 1: Marthasville was apparently just too long a name for the railroad.

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Speaker 1: According to Peters quote, when the Georgia Road was completed

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Speaker 1: to this terminus, I consulted our chief engineer, mister J.

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Speaker 1: Edgar Thompson about changing the name of Marthasville because it

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Speaker 1: was so long to write. After several letters on the subject,

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00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:55,280
Speaker 1: he proposed the name Atlanta to designate the terminus of

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Speaker 1: the Western and Atlantic Road. This he referred to in

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Speaker 1: his letter thus Atlantic masculine, Atlanta feminin, a coined word,

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00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:08,280
Speaker 1: but well adapted. I accepted it at once and issued

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00:17:08,320 --> 00:17:12,320
Speaker 1: circulars by the thousand for distribution throughout the country from

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Speaker 1: Augusta to Tennessee, stating the fact of the completion of

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Speaker 1: the Georgia Railroad, giving the rates a freight and passage,

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00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:22,399
Speaker 1: the passenger rate being five cents a mile, the freight

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00:17:22,480 --> 00:17:26,959
Speaker 1: fifty cents per hundred pounds. The headlines read completion of

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Speaker 1: the Georgia Railroad from Augusta to Atlanta. The name gave

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Speaker 1: universal satisfaction except to my friend Garnett, who was very

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Speaker 1: much annoyed. But he could not overcome the popular move,

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Speaker 1: and at the next meeting of the legislature, a charter

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Speaker 1: was granted to Atlanta. So two railroad guys just decided

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Speaker 1: to change the city's name for the sake of brevity

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Speaker 1: and keeping railroad logs, and that works. I love that

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Speaker 1: they're like, between the two of us, we're just gonna

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00:17:56,200 --> 00:17:58,399
Speaker 1: do this right. We're just gonna rename it. If we

301
00:17:58,440 --> 00:18:03,760
Speaker 1: put out enough flyers, everybody will leave it. As superintendent

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Speaker 1: of the Georgia Railroad, Peters was often required in Atlanta

303
00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:11,360
Speaker 1: for business, and while there he boarded with doctor Joseph Thompson,

304
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Speaker 1: and Richard fell in love with Thompson's daughter, Mary Jane.

305
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Speaker 1: They got married on February eighteenth, eighteen forty eight, and

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Speaker 1: moved into a home in Atlanta on the corner of

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Speaker 1: Mitchell and forsythe In his memoir, Peters says that he

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Speaker 1: quote never had any reason to regret my choice, and

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Speaker 1: talks about what a wonderful wife she had been, how

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Speaker 1: their family together is one that he's proud of. The

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Speaker 1: couple had seven children who lived to adulthood, Richard, Nellie, Ralph, Edward,

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Speaker 1: Catherine Quintard, and may As well as two children who

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Speaker 1: died when they were babies, Joseph and Stephen. Yeah. Also,

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Speaker 1: I feel compelled to say that we reference his memoir

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Speaker 1: a couple times. It's it's not an official memoir in

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Speaker 1: the traditional sense. It's recorded a recorded oral history that

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00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,200
Speaker 1: one of his relatives did was and he was getting

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00:19:04,280 --> 00:19:07,160
Speaker 1: up in age, so it's like his memoir, but it's

319
00:19:07,200 --> 00:19:10,320
Speaker 1: definitely dictated to someone else, just in case there's confusion.

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Speaker 1: The year before he married Mary Jane, Richard invested in

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Speaker 1: the Atlanta area the same way that he had done

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Speaker 1: in other places. He purchased a farm north of the

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Speaker 1: city where he bred livestock, and he also purchased additional

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Speaker 1: property adjacent to his home in the city so that

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00:19:26,080 --> 00:19:30,120
Speaker 1: he could graze cows there. In his recollections about his life,

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00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:32,880
Speaker 1: Peters is always really quick to point out how much

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00:19:32,920 --> 00:19:35,560
Speaker 1: he purchased plots of land for and then how much

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00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:38,479
Speaker 1: he later sold them for, to illustrate how much they

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00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,560
Speaker 1: appreciated in value, perhaps bolster the fact that he was

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00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:46,040
Speaker 1: very smart and savvy. Unlike his father, Richard was really

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Speaker 1: good at identifying investments that would eventually pay off. Even

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00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,399
Speaker 1: his livestock breeding was done with an eye towards making money.

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Speaker 1: His animals routinely won prizes and he was able to

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Speaker 1: sell them for very high prices to others. He also

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00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,720
Speaker 1: had his own horticultural program on the farm, where he

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00:20:04,800 --> 00:20:08,119
Speaker 1: developed new varieties of plants, again with a mind toward money,

337
00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:11,640
Speaker 1: because he wanted to be able to sell seed. Horticulture

338
00:20:11,680 --> 00:20:14,600
Speaker 1: was something he would talk about for decades because he

339
00:20:14,680 --> 00:20:17,879
Speaker 1: worried that Southern farmers were not being savvy and they

340
00:20:17,880 --> 00:20:21,560
Speaker 1: were just not diverse enough in their crops. Cotton was,

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00:20:21,600 --> 00:20:24,679
Speaker 1: of course, a huge driver for the Southern economy, and

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00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:28,879
Speaker 1: Peters was always encouraging growers to try other crops. He

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00:20:29,040 --> 00:20:31,880
Speaker 1: himself refused to grow cotton because he felt like if

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00:20:31,920 --> 00:20:35,119
Speaker 1: cotton failed for any reason, it would just paralyze a

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00:20:35,160 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 1: lot of finances throughout the region. But not all of

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00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: his efforts were successful Right out of the gate. He

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00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:44,600
Speaker 1: opened a flour mill in eighteen fifty six, which was

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00:20:44,640 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 1: the first steam powered factory in the city, but it

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00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:51,800
Speaker 1: could not compete with another mill, Atawa Mill, which was

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00:20:51,840 --> 00:20:55,520
Speaker 1: selling its flour at a really low rate, allegedly less

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00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:01,000
Speaker 1: than cost. But Peters, who initially lost twenty thousand dollars

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00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 1: in this mill was savvy enough to find a way

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00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 1: out of it that was also a benefit to him.

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00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,280
Speaker 1: He explained it plainly this way quote. I held the

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00:21:09,320 --> 00:21:12,760
Speaker 1: mill for a year or two, and finally sold the engines,

356
00:21:12,760 --> 00:21:15,679
Speaker 1: at more than their cost for gold, to the Confederate

357
00:21:15,760 --> 00:21:19,840
Speaker 1: Government for their powder mills. At Augusta. The lot upon

358
00:21:19,920 --> 00:21:23,359
Speaker 1: which the mill stood, costing six hundred dollars, was sold

359
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:27,360
Speaker 1: to the Georgia Railroad and Banking Company for twenty thousand dollars,

360
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Speaker 1: thus paying my losses in the mill, the other stockholders

361
00:21:30,960 --> 00:21:34,120
Speaker 1: having sold out their interest to me, and the end

362
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:37,439
Speaker 1: this venture proved very profitable, as I had bought in

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Speaker 1: order to secure firewood to run the engine, four hundred

364
00:21:41,440 --> 00:21:45,200
Speaker 1: acres of land on Peachtree Street, paying for it five

365
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:49,159
Speaker 1: dollars an acre. Portions of this land have been sold

366
00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:54,159
Speaker 1: for one to two thousand dollars an acre. That land

367
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:57,800
Speaker 1: is what makes up the area downtown today from Third

368
00:21:57,880 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 1: Street to Eighth Street, so that the land that the

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00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: Fox Theater and Georgia Tecker now built on, yeah among

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00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: other mainstays of Atlanta. The hotel I used to stay

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00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,960
Speaker 1: at when I would come down there, and the office

372
00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 1: was in a different place yeah, all right. There, we

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Speaker 1: will talk about the Civil War and Atlanta after it burned,

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00:22:21,600 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: after we take a break to hear from the sponsors

375
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Speaker 1: that keep the show going. Being in Atlanta in the

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00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:38,679
Speaker 1: eighteen fifties meant that Richard Peters was right in the

377
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,439
Speaker 1: thick of the growing conflict that would lead to the

378
00:22:41,520 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 1: US Civil War. And he was in this rather unique

379
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,679
Speaker 1: position because while he had grown up in the North,

380
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:51,120
Speaker 1: he had made his home in the South. In his writing,

381
00:22:51,440 --> 00:22:55,040
Speaker 1: he doesn't take a clear stance on the issue of slavery,

382
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:59,040
Speaker 1: although he does seem to understand it as a problem.

383
00:22:59,520 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: It is all so known that he did sometimes use

384
00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:06,440
Speaker 1: hired enslaved labor, paying their enslavers on his railroad projects,

385
00:23:06,720 --> 00:23:09,679
Speaker 1: as he found that cheaper than hiring white men to

386
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 1: do that work. So he definitely benefited from the system

387
00:23:12,840 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: of enslavement. But here's how he described his Civil War experience,

388
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: which really frames a lot of it in ways that

389
00:23:19,640 --> 00:23:23,399
Speaker 1: are not commonly mentioned. This really jumped out to me

390
00:23:23,440 --> 00:23:27,000
Speaker 1: as an interesting point of view on it. Quote in

391
00:23:27,040 --> 00:23:30,080
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty to sixty one, I took an active part

392
00:23:30,359 --> 00:23:33,919
Speaker 1: in trying to prevent the secession movement. My opposition to

393
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 1: the measure being based on the fact that failure and

394
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: the blotting out of slavery would be the result. Very

395
00:23:39,880 --> 00:23:42,639
Speaker 1: few of the Southern people were conscious of the power

396
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,680
Speaker 1: of the North. They had been kept in perfect ignorance

397
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: by politicians and were not aware that the whole civilized

398
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:54,919
Speaker 1: world opposed slavery, more especially the English nation. My lifetime

399
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: old friend, Judge John P. King of Augusta, was a

400
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: union Man at the start and at the end. He

401
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: prophesied the failure of the Southern cause and wrote daily

402
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: able articles against se session. A large majority of the

403
00:24:08,840 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 1: thoughtful people of Georgia agreed with his views and were

404
00:24:12,160 --> 00:24:14,840
Speaker 1: union men, but the hot heads of the South carried

405
00:24:14,880 --> 00:24:19,080
Speaker 1: their point, South Carolina taking the lead by bombarding Fort Sumter,

406
00:24:19,560 --> 00:24:22,320
Speaker 1: thus forcing the other Southern states to fall in line.

407
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 1: From this time to the end, I never again altered

408
00:24:25,920 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: my opinions of the ultimate result, but tried to shave

409
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: my course so as to save our property. When the

410
00:24:31,840 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: crash came. Peters wanted to save what was his and

411
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 1: make money, and to that end he worked with what

412
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,680
Speaker 1: he called a blockading scheme to work with the Confederate

413
00:24:42,720 --> 00:24:47,679
Speaker 1: government to help supply cotton coffee and other supplies. He

414
00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:51,679
Speaker 1: along with his partners, founded two shipping companies with ships

415
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:55,240
Speaker 1: that just ran the Union blockades, and they did well,

416
00:24:55,680 --> 00:25:00,800
Speaker 1: even though some of their ships were lost. Unsurprisingly, estimated

417
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: that the venture had made quote something like three million

418
00:25:04,520 --> 00:25:08,440
Speaker 1: dollars by the time the war ended. He also noted

419
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 1: that the huge shipping venture had meant that his family

420
00:25:11,920 --> 00:25:14,440
Speaker 1: and those of the other investors in the blockade running

421
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 1: business had a lot of supplies that a lot of

422
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: other people did not. According to Peters, they shared those

423
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 1: supplies with other families who were not as lucky, and

424
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:29,199
Speaker 1: Mary Jane routinely ran supplies to the hospitals. As General

425
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: Sherman neared Atlanta, Richard's family got out on the last

426
00:25:32,359 --> 00:25:35,960
Speaker 1: train to Augusta, although he initially stayed behind to keep

427
00:25:35,960 --> 00:25:39,000
Speaker 1: an eye on the railroads. He has some interesting stories

428
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: about like trying to run to various places in the

429
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: city and being told like you got to get out

430
00:25:43,400 --> 00:25:45,720
Speaker 1: of here. He did manage to get out of the

431
00:25:45,760 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: city as it was captured, and he described this as

432
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: a narrow escape that was at the end of eighteen

433
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:55,439
Speaker 1: sixty four. The family remained in Augusta until the end

434
00:25:55,480 --> 00:25:59,160
Speaker 1: of the war. The following spring, when Peters returned to Atlanta,

435
00:25:59,240 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 1: he looked at all the destruction and he immediately started

436
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:05,560
Speaker 1: planning ways to rebuild. He started working on repairing and

437
00:26:05,600 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: rebuilding the Georgia Railroad first, so that there would be

438
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,679
Speaker 1: a way to get supplies into the city and a

439
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: way that benefited him financially as well. I think that

440
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: that destruction goes way beyond like just the fallout of

441
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:26,439
Speaker 1: a conflict, if folks are not aware, like Sherman ordered

442
00:26:26,440 --> 00:26:29,800
Speaker 1: the destruction of anything the Confederates could use. So it

443
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:34,400
Speaker 1: was like the industrial district had been completely destroyed, the

444
00:26:34,520 --> 00:26:36,920
Speaker 1: railroad tracks had been torn up, there had been a

445
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: huge fire that had spread like way beyond any of that.

446
00:26:40,440 --> 00:26:45,400
Speaker 1: So it was immense, an immense amount of destruction. In

447
00:26:45,440 --> 00:26:49,359
Speaker 1: April of eighteen sixty seven, Union General John Pope was

448
00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: made governor of the Third Military District That was one

449
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: of five regional entities established by the Union military to

450
00:26:57,040 --> 00:27:01,200
Speaker 1: oversee the post war activities in the South. The headquarters

451
00:27:01,200 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: for the Third, which was tasked with overseeing Georgia, Florida,

452
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:08,400
Speaker 1: and Alabama, was in Atlanta. Peter saw this as an

453
00:27:08,400 --> 00:27:12,840
Speaker 1: opportunity and encouraged other citizens to join him in welcoming

454
00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,800
Speaker 1: the general to Atlanta. He was very clearly in favor

455
00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:20,959
Speaker 1: of reconciliation with the North and with the country's leadership.

456
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:25,400
Speaker 1: He understood that just bucking against the North after losing

457
00:27:25,440 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 1: the war would hurt the city and the state and

458
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 1: the whole region. Although of course not everybody agreed with

459
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:35,239
Speaker 1: him or did that. Yeah, there were apparently some very

460
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: heated discussions about, uh, what the heck are you doing, dude.

461
00:27:39,800 --> 00:27:42,800
Speaker 1: This move to welcome the head of the Third's military

462
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,920
Speaker 1: district not only gave Peters though the benefit of Pope's

463
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 1: favor because he led this delegation to welcome him, it

464
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,320
Speaker 1: also meant that he was able to influence state matters

465
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:56,560
Speaker 1: through that favor. Since eighteen oh seven, the town of

466
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,679
Speaker 1: Millageville had been Georgia's state capital, but when it was

467
00:27:59,720 --> 00:28:03,959
Speaker 1: time for a state constitutional convention, under Pope's command, that

468
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,600
Speaker 1: convention was held in Atlanta. This has been described as

469
00:28:07,640 --> 00:28:12,119
Speaker 1: being a problem of Millageville innkeepers not allowing black delegates

470
00:28:12,119 --> 00:28:15,560
Speaker 1: to stay there. It has also been attributed to Richard

471
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: Peters and other businessmen in his circle convincing Pope that

472
00:28:19,359 --> 00:28:23,440
Speaker 1: Atlanta was more central. Both geographically and as the seat

473
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:27,280
Speaker 1: of industry. By the spring of eighteen sixty eight, after

474
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,680
Speaker 1: city officials had made their case, Atlanta became the new

475
00:28:30,760 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: capital of Georgia. Peters served briefly on the city council

476
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: so that he could help guide the city through reconstruction,

477
00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: and Peters once again did not waste any time identifying

478
00:28:42,840 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: how he could help the city grow and how he

479
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: could make money in the process. He started to subdivide

480
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: the huge tracts of land he had purchased and created

481
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: neighborhoods and streets. A lot of the streets in the

482
00:28:54,800 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: city today, like Juniper, Myrtle, and Cyprus, were named by him.

483
00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,160
Speaker 1: These were the name that he gave to streets that

484
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: ran north and south. More or less, Peachtree Road had

485
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:08,600
Speaker 1: already been named, and so these tree names were in

486
00:29:08,680 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: keeping with that theme, although he did also include penn

487
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: Avenue as a nod to his home state. The streets

488
00:29:15,840 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: that ran east to west were given numbers. Over time,

489
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: these subdivisions were sold off for huge sums of money,

490
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 1: far more Peters would happily point out than what he

491
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: had paid for that land initially, but some of it

492
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: he also gave away. He donated several acres for the

493
00:29:32,520 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: founding of the new school in eighteen eighty five, called

494
00:29:35,360 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: the Georgia School of Technology, which today is better known

495
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:42,680
Speaker 1: as Georgia Tech. Peters also developed a lot of businesses

496
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: that have continued to be part of the identity of

497
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 1: Atlanta right up to the present day. He established a

498
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: trolley company in the city, the Atlanta Street Railway Company.

499
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: There are some people who will sort of say, like,

500
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 1: this is the pre pre pre pre precursor to our

501
00:29:56,480 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: current mass transit system. That seems like a kind of

502
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: a long walk to me. Then make the case that

503
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: was though the first public transport in the city. He

504
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,520
Speaker 1: also worked to build a hotel that would be worthy

505
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: to host any visiting dignitary or government official. He built

506
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,440
Speaker 1: the first professional baseball field in the city. It had

507
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: a policy that I think they charged twenty five cents

508
00:30:20,000 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: for men, and women could come in for free. It's

509
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,479
Speaker 1: really interesting to me when you read this list of

510
00:30:25,520 --> 00:30:28,080
Speaker 1: things that he built and developed, both in terms of

511
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 1: infrastructure and businesses, that a Northerner was so deeply crucial

512
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: to the rebuilding and economic success of Atlanta after the

513
00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:38,240
Speaker 1: Civil War, and all of the things that a lot

514
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: of people will be like, this is Southern culture from

515
00:30:43,080 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 1: Philadelphia of my friends. Yeah, especially since he was a

516
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: Northerner who was already there, rather than someone who after

517
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: the fact is like, let me come down there, see

518
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: what I can do. In eighteen eighty one, after more

519
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,160
Speaker 1: than thirty years in the home they had shared from

520
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,840
Speaker 1: the beginning of their marriage and where they raised their children,

521
00:31:03,120 --> 00:31:06,200
Speaker 1: Richard and Mary Jane moved into a newly built home

522
00:31:06,320 --> 00:31:10,240
Speaker 1: on Peachtree Street between Fourth and Fifth that's not standing today.

523
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 1: It was later torn down. Yeah. I think Atlanta History

524
00:31:13,640 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: Center is where I saw it. They have a photograph

525
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: of it, and it's quite beautiful. It's like this beautiful

526
00:31:19,280 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: Victorian situation that just looks gorgeous. In his seventies, Richard

527
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,280
Speaker 1: Peters was still making business deals. A write up in

528
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: the Atlanta Journal from April first, eighteen eighty four, mentions

529
00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: that he sold one hundred and ninety eight acres to

530
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: developer H. I. Kimball, noting that that was the largest

531
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: sale of one body of land ever made in the city.

532
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: On July twenty sixth, eighteen eighty eight, seventy seven year

533
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 1: old Peters wrote a will It's not clear if there

534
00:31:48,880 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: was a previous will that this replaced, but it was timely.

535
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:56,440
Speaker 1: He died the following year, on February sixth, eighteen eighty nine,

536
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: and his will was very brief and very clear. Jane

537
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:02,600
Speaker 1: was to get the house, and after any debts had

538
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:05,680
Speaker 1: been settled, what remained of the nearly one million dollar

539
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:08,880
Speaker 1: estate was to be split evenly among his wife and children.

540
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: He was buried in Oakland Cemetery and you can visit

541
00:32:12,400 --> 00:32:15,560
Speaker 1: his grave there. Sometimes he also appears as a character

542
00:32:16,080 --> 00:32:19,239
Speaker 1: to talk about his life at special events hosted by

543
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: the Historic Oakland Foundation. I shar did love going to

544
00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: those back when I lived in Atlanta. Oakland is great. Yeah,

545
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: Richard Peter's fascinating dude. So much to talk about on Friday,

546
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,840
Speaker 1: But right now I'm going to talk about coffee, Okay,

547
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 1: because I never tire of talking about coffee. This is

548
00:32:38,680 --> 00:32:41,719
Speaker 1: from our listener, Gary, who writes Dear Holly and Tracy,

549
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: I listened to your Melita episode today while doing yard work.

550
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: Spring is breaking out here in Oregon this week, although

551
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 1: we haven't had much of a winter. Thanks for this episode.

552
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: I had no idea that Melita products were named after

553
00:32:54,000 --> 00:32:56,360
Speaker 1: a real person. And while I was sad to hear

554
00:32:56,400 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: of the company's ties to the Nazi regime, I also

555
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,000
Speaker 1: grew up driving Vulga wagons and I'm sure using many

556
00:33:02,040 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: other products made by companies with complicated histories. Well before

557
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: the end of the podcast, I was craving a cup

558
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:11,600
Speaker 1: of coffee, but that is nothing unusual for me. My mom,

559
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,560
Speaker 1: born in nineteen twenty two to immigrant parents from Norway

560
00:33:14,600 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: and Denmark, introduced me to coffee early, at about age five.

561
00:33:18,360 --> 00:33:22,400
Speaker 1: As near as I can recall me too, I've been

562
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:24,960
Speaker 1: a huge coffee fan all my life and always drink

563
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:27,200
Speaker 1: it black. I don't do that. I grew up drinking

564
00:33:27,240 --> 00:33:30,320
Speaker 1: Folgers from an electric cornerwear percolator, which I had learned

565
00:33:30,320 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 1: how to operate by the age of ten or so.

566
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,280
Speaker 1: I don't remember if it was before or after the percolator,

567
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:38,360
Speaker 1: but my mom also used a stovetop corneringwear drip, a

568
00:33:38,400 --> 00:33:40,960
Speaker 1: later coffee pot that had a metal compartment for the

569
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:44,320
Speaker 1: grounds between the ceramic pot below and a glass globe

570
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,120
Speaker 1: above into which you'd pour the hot water, which dripped

571
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: down over the grounds via a small holed sieve. You

572
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 1: can find these in a Google image search. I remember those.

573
00:33:52,560 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: I used to like watching them do the little Perkley Parkley.

574
00:33:56,280 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: I arrived at the University of Oregon just in time

575
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:02,080
Speaker 1: for the flowering of what known as second wave coffee

576
00:34:02,120 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen seventies, when Eugene was one of

577
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: the epicenters of West Coast coffee culture, along with the

578
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:11,640
Speaker 1: Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle. My favorite hangout was on

579
00:34:11,680 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 1: the second floor of the Smeed, an old downtown hotel

580
00:34:14,680 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: that had been converted into a bunch of counterculture cafes

581
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,200
Speaker 1: and businesses. Here you could get pour over coffee made

582
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:24,880
Speaker 1: in single cup melita China cones with fresh ground country

583
00:34:24,880 --> 00:34:28,880
Speaker 1: origin coffee in white melita filters. The coffee had exotic

584
00:34:28,960 --> 00:34:33,560
Speaker 1: names like Mocha Java, Mocha Java, Sumatra, and Ethiopia, as

585
00:34:33,560 --> 00:34:37,279
Speaker 1: well as Columbia, Brazil, and some Central American countries. You

586
00:34:37,320 --> 00:34:40,479
Speaker 1: could also buy your own cones, filters and coffees whole

587
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: bean or ground. No more Folgers for me. When third

588
00:34:44,280 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: wave coffee came along in the two thousands, again centered

589
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:51,279
Speaker 1: in the Northwest, I enthusiastically jumped on that bandwagon. I've

590
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: pretty much made my own coffee a cup at a

591
00:34:53,360 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: time with cones, and filters since the seventies, although there

592
00:34:56,520 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: were a few years when I either lived where fresh

593
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: beans weren't available or I could didn't afford them. These days,

594
00:35:01,960 --> 00:35:04,919
Speaker 1: I use unbleached filters instead of the white ones. I'm

595
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:06,520
Speaker 1: now lucky enough to live in a town where there

596
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,720
Speaker 1: are several small roasters that sell fair trade coffee beans

597
00:35:09,719 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: from individual farmers throughout the world's coffee growing regions. Over

598
00:35:13,680 --> 00:35:16,160
Speaker 1: the past decades, there have been periods when health issues

599
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: meant I can only drink decaf and sometimes couldn't drink

600
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 1: coffee at all, but those seem to be resolved for

601
00:35:21,280 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: the moment, although I do limit myself to one big

602
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 1: mug in the morning, with an occasional decalf in the evening.

603
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:30,040
Speaker 1: I have lately been watching a Danish via PBS show

604
00:35:30,080 --> 00:35:33,880
Speaker 1: called Seaside Hotel and reading the Swedish Police Procedural books

605
00:35:33,880 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: by Henning Mankel and get a huge kick out of

606
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 1: how much coffee my fellow Scandinavians drink. Every time someone

607
00:35:39,760 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: enters a room, they're offered a cup of coffee, which

608
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: they almost always accept. I get it. Here's for my

609
00:35:45,400 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: pet tacks. Here is Juno wondering why I'm pulling weeds

610
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:52,440
Speaker 1: instead of petting her. Juno looks like a standard poodle

611
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: or a poodle mix in a puppy clip and is

612
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: the cutests. I would kiss that snout thirty seven times

613
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: a day minimum. I loved all of this coffee talk

614
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: because for Season's one, I just say it brings back

615
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:09,120
Speaker 1: a lot of good memories. As a kid of the seventies,

616
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:11,239
Speaker 1: I just remember watching my parents make coffee in a

617
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:14,440
Speaker 1: variety of ways, and I love all of it too.

618
00:36:15,080 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 1: I influenced myself because after our Melita episode, I bought

619
00:36:19,200 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 1: a Melita porcelain drip and then I'm still making my

620
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 1: French Press in the morning. Uh huh. But I can

621
00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,200
Speaker 1: make a Melita cup fast while I wait for my

622
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 1: French Press to that that's funny because I'm a junkie.

623
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, it makes it that much quicker that

624
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 1: I have a cup of coffee in my hand. And

625
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: then I'm not like sitting there in the kitchen like

626
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: white knuckling the countertop watching the French Press try to

627
00:36:46,080 --> 00:36:49,239
Speaker 1: like finish its stuff upright because it doesn't care about

628
00:36:49,320 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 1: me or time. No, it's French Press, even though it's

629
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 1: our two D two it's really cute. Anyway. I love this.

630
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:57,520
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for writing this email. I love

631
00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:59,879
Speaker 1: talking about coffee. As I said, I'm not a kind

632
00:36:59,880 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 1: of I just love it all. But I understand the

633
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:06,120
Speaker 1: move from Folgers to all of the good stuff, and

634
00:37:06,160 --> 00:37:09,160
Speaker 1: I feel like I lived in the Pacific Northwestern I

635
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:11,880
Speaker 1: was a kid. My siblings have lived there, and my

636
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,000
Speaker 1: oldest sister is the one that actually did start when

637
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: she would come and visit my parents, introducing me to

638
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:21,640
Speaker 1: all of the coffee culture that had come from there.

639
00:37:21,680 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: And that's really where I became an addict. Yeah, do

640
00:37:26,760 --> 00:37:29,120
Speaker 1: not wish to see treatment. If you would like to

641
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:30,760
Speaker 1: write to us, you can do so at a history

642
00:37:30,800 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. We also have all of

643
00:37:34,320 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: our show notes available at mistonhistory dot com in case

644
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: you want to look up any of the sources we

645
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 1: have used. If you would like to subscribe to the podcast,

646
00:37:43,840 --> 00:37:46,440
Speaker 1: you can do that on the iHeartRadio app or anywhere

647
00:37:46,480 --> 00:37:54,400
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in

648
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,