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Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

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Speaker 1: Fry and I'm trac Even Wilson. And Uh. We recently

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Speaker 1: talked about the Compton's Cafeteria riots. Uh, and this is

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Speaker 1: kind of a little bit of a dovetail on that,

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Speaker 1: but we're time traveling backwards. We talked about in that episode,

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Speaker 1: how you know a lot of people point the Stonewall

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Speaker 1: riots as the beginning of the LGBT rights movement in

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Speaker 1: the US, but of course there were things going on

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Speaker 1: before that, as that episode on the Cafeteria Riot pointed out,

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Speaker 1: and even before that, and they were certainly gay people

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Speaker 1: here long before that. Uh. And there were, in fact

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Speaker 1: LGBT rights organizations trying to pop up, probably much earlier

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Speaker 1: than you suspect. And today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: the man who started, ever so briefly, the first such

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Speaker 1: organization in the US, at least the first that we

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Speaker 1: know of, and that took place more than four decades

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Speaker 1: before Stonewall. So just a heads up on this one,

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Speaker 1: particularly if you're listening with younger listeners. Uh. We are

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Speaker 1: going to talk a little bit about some legal issues

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Speaker 1: that came up involving specific sex acts. So just keep

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Speaker 1: that in mind as you listen to this one. Maybe

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Speaker 1: preview it if you think your your younger listeners might

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Speaker 1: not be ready for that. But right out of the gate,

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Speaker 1: I feel like we have to mention that today's subject,

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Speaker 1: who is Henry Gerber, can be a little bit of

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Speaker 1: a difficult character in LGBT history. While he definitely wanted

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Speaker 1: to push back against anti gay legislation, he was not

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Speaker 1: so open to bisexuals. He was not particularly accepting of

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Speaker 1: lesbians or basically any of the people we would put

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Speaker 1: under the LGBT umbrella today that we're not gay men. Um.

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Speaker 1: He was an introvert. He was very serious man. Some

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Speaker 1: people describe him as curmudgeon le or cantankerous, uh, not

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Speaker 1: really a charmer, and he would often down his nose

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Speaker 1: even at other gay men, uh, saying that they were

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Speaker 1: too frivolous and that they were not forward thinking enough

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Speaker 1: about the place of the gay man in society. But

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Speaker 1: at the same time, he really spearheaded this important that

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Speaker 1: often overlooked effort to improve the rights of gay citizens

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Speaker 1: and secure some sort of safety for them. So we're

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Speaker 1: talking about Henry Gilbert today, keep in mind he's a

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Speaker 1: little bit tricky in some ways. He was born as

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Speaker 1: If Henry Dittmar. On j eighteen. He and his family

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Speaker 1: left their home in Bavaria to set out for the

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Speaker 1: United States, and they arrived at Ellis Island in nine thirteen.

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Speaker 1: At that point, Henry was twenty one, and once they

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Speaker 1: had been processed by immigration officials, the family moved to Chicago,

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Speaker 1: where they were hoping to join the significant German population there.

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Speaker 1: Henry got a job pretty quickly working at Montgomery Ward

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Speaker 1: in the mail order department. As it's probably obvious at

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Speaker 1: this point, Gerber was gay, and a lot of the

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Speaker 1: articles about him indicate that being homosexual got him institutionalized briefly,

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Speaker 1: although the accounts aren't entirely clear about exactly when this happened. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's one that, um we mentioned this a lot in

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Speaker 1: our are very in some of our episodes that there

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Speaker 1: are some portions of history and usually it's the further

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Speaker 1: back you go that it becomes the harder to actually

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Speaker 1: find substantiated information. And he's very tricky in this regard.

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Speaker 1: Outside of military records, a lot of what we have

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Speaker 1: is kind of word of mouth and his retailing and

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Speaker 1: some other retellings that have happened along the way, So

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Speaker 1: some of the details get a little mushy meshy um.

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Speaker 1: But what we do know is that Henry enlisted in

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Army on January nineteen fourteen, and it's

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Speaker 1: believed that just after this is when he changed his

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Speaker 1: name from uh Joseph Henry Dittmar to Henry Gerber, although

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Speaker 1: this is an other part where there's some haziness around

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Speaker 1: the historical record and when he stopped using his birth

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Speaker 1: name and switched to Gerber. Ditmar actually still appears on

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Speaker 1: a nineteen seventeen draft card, although at that point Henry

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Speaker 1: claimed exemption on that card as a conscientious objector, and

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Speaker 1: it's possible that he purposely uh shifted the name back

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Speaker 1: to his original Bavarian name in an effort to create

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Speaker 1: some paperwork confusion over his status. That's purely speculation. I

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Speaker 1: don't know based on what I've seen, and I haven't

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Speaker 1: seen the actual card, if that was a pre printed

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Speaker 1: card or if it's something he wrote in um. But

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Speaker 1: eventually we do know that his military records cross referenced

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Speaker 1: both names, both Ditmar and Gerber, during the early part

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Speaker 1: of World War One, he was labeled as an enemy

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Speaker 1: alien and he was taken to an interment camp. Really,

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Speaker 1: sensationalist stories in the press and in gossip circles about

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Speaker 1: German spies in the United States caused a lot of

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Speaker 1: German immigrants to be looked upon with suspicion, and he

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Speaker 1: was no exception. After the war was over, Gerber re

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Speaker 1: enlisted at the end of nineteen nineteen and he worked

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Speaker 1: for the military as a printer and a proof reader.

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Speaker 1: And he was shipped to Coblin's Germany as part of

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Army of Occupation in nineteen twenty and

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Speaker 1: there he worked on the Amarock News, which is a

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Speaker 1: daily paper that was published to keep American soldiers that

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Speaker 1: were stationed abroad, particularly in Germany, informed and entertained, and

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Speaker 1: it published everything from poems and short stories to the

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Speaker 1: latest sports scores. While he was in Germany serving as

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Speaker 1: a United States soldier, Garber was exposed to back country's

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Speaker 1: homosexual emancipation movement and as also to the Scientific Humanitarian

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Speaker 1: Committee that was a critical part of that movement. Uh

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Speaker 1: and I'll give a little background on the German homosexual

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Speaker 1: emancipation movements, and we're also going to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about Magnus Hirschfield, who was also mentioned in the

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Speaker 1: Compton's Cafeteria episode. So the criminal Code in Germany was

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Speaker 1: amended in eighteen seventy one with the inclusion of what

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Speaker 1: is called paragraph one seventy five, and that piece of

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Speaker 1: legislation made it illegal for men to engage in sexual

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Speaker 1: acts with one another. Twenty six years after paragraph one

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Speaker 1: seventy five was adopted into law, the Scientific Humanitarian Community

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Speaker 1: was founded in Berlin by Magnus Hirshfield. One of the

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Speaker 1: huge achievements of Hirshfield's life was the deconstruction of homosexuality

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Speaker 1: from a biological perspective, sort of moving it away from

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Speaker 1: being defined as a pathology and with a scientific approach

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Speaker 1: to the issue of homosexuality, the Scientific Humanitarian Committee was

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Speaker 1: making some progress towards LGBT rights, and they were making

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Speaker 1: that progress right up until Hitler's rise and the Nazi

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Speaker 1: Party's persecution of any perceived sexual deviance. Yeah, the Nazi

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Speaker 1: Party actually burned down Magnus Hirshfield's Institute for for Research

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Speaker 1: into Sexuality. Like that's that's sort of been alluded to

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Speaker 1: in a couple of episodes that we have talked about

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Speaker 1: that have been the subject, and we've never gone into

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Speaker 1: a lot of detail, but yeah, the Nazi Party destroyed

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Speaker 1: his facility and all the research. That wasn't it. And

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Speaker 1: uh that we're just giving you kind of the brief

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Speaker 1: and quick on that to kind of contextualize what happens

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Speaker 1: next when Gerber returns to the US. We're going to

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Speaker 1: talk about that influence after his time in Germany and

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Speaker 1: his exposure to the homosexual emancipation movement, But first we're

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Speaker 1: going to have a quick word from a sponsor. By

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Speaker 1: the time Gerber returned to the US, he was well

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Speaker 1: acquainted with the homosexual emancipation movement. He had spent his

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Speaker 1: time in Germany reading magazines and other literature about the

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Speaker 1: movement and also getting to know its leaders. He would

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Speaker 1: kind of travel around Germany and go to lectures and

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Speaker 1: and really immerse himself in this whole ideology to learn

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Speaker 1: about it. And he thought, if Germany could have this

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Speaker 1: growing and and thriving for the time homosexual culture that

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Speaker 1: was willing to speak out for rights, why couldn't we

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Speaker 1: have that in the US. So one of the things

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Speaker 1: about the United States was that there was just a

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Speaker 1: lack of uniformity in legislation across the country regarding sex.

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Speaker 1: It had created a really tangled mess, and that was

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Speaker 1: facing anyone who wanted to work towards the cause of rights.

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Speaker 1: Being labeled as immoral in his home country for being

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Speaker 1: homosexual just really seemed to be an incredible injustice to

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Speaker 1: gerber Yeah, and I have to wonder about sort of

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Speaker 1: the duality of it in terms of his home country.

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Speaker 1: I put that word in the notes, and he considered

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Speaker 1: the US his home country, even though he had come

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Speaker 1: from Bavaria. And so it's kind of interesting that he

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Speaker 1: then went back to Germany and saw them kind of

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Speaker 1: working towards this progressive idea of rights, and then he

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Speaker 1: went to his chosen home where he just did not

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Speaker 1: have that same kind of um social movement going on.

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Speaker 1: This is kind of fascinating from that perspective. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: when he returned to Chicago in nine after his three

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Speaker 1: years in Germany, he started working as an employee at

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Speaker 1: the US Postal Service, and he saw that Chicago had

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Speaker 1: this growing gay subculture, which was secret in most areas

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Speaker 1: of the city but fairly open in the Bohemian neighborhood

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Speaker 1: of Tower Town, which is in the Near North Side area,

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Speaker 1: and as he saw the gay and lesbian community growing,

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Speaker 1: he wanted to create a way to protect these people's rights.

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Speaker 1: Inspired by what he had seen in Germany, he launched

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Speaker 1: his own plan to create an organization that would mimic

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Speaker 1: the ones that were involved in Germany's emancipation movement. He

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Speaker 1: knew that he could not do it alone, but it

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Speaker 1: was really difficult to find other people who were willing

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Speaker 1: to take the risks that were inherent and participating in

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Speaker 1: this kind of mission. He tried to network with other activists,

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Speaker 1: including birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, but he never managed

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Speaker 1: to forge any alliances. His efforts to reach out to

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Speaker 1: the game and he knew of in business UH in

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Speaker 1: Chicago were met pretty coldly at best. Prominent business people

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Speaker 1: were just not willing to risk their jobs and families

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Speaker 1: to fight for what they thought was definitely a losing cause. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's if it's not completely clear. At this point, pretty

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Speaker 1: much all these people were closeteds um outside of Tower Town,

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Speaker 1: like nobody knew that any of these people were gay.

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Speaker 1: UH and after a year of searching for allies, Gerber

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Speaker 1: and six other men that he had managed to round

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Speaker 1: up founded Chicago's Society for Human Rights in nine four,

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Speaker 1: applying for a charter to incorporate the group on December

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Speaker 1: tenth of that year, and it was the first gay

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Speaker 1: rights organization in the United States. The Society of Human

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Speaker 1: Rights published a newsletter called Friendship and Freedom, which circulated

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Speaker 1: to all of its members. It was a pretty small

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Speaker 1: group and not many people wanted literature that might out

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Speaker 1: them to show up in their mailboxes. Postal inspectors cooperated

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Speaker 1: with law enforcement and would report suspicious materials. At this point,

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Speaker 1: pretty much all of this would have been considered a scene. Yes,

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Speaker 1: all pretty much illegal. Uh. Nonetheless, Gerbert continued his work,

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Speaker 1: and the mission of the society was to educate the

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Speaker 1: heterosexual community about homosexuality and to reform the laws that

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Speaker 1: made homosexuality criminal. But they had to be very very

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Speaker 1: careful about this. The charter for the group relaid this

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Speaker 1: purpose this way quote to promote and protect the interests

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Speaker 1: of people who, by reasons of mental and physical abnormalities,

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Speaker 1: are abused and hindered in the legal pursuit of happiness,

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Speaker 1: which is guaranteed them by the Declaration of Independence. And

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Speaker 1: to combat the public prejudices against them by dissemination of factors.

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Speaker 1: According to modern science, among intellectuals of mature age, the

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Speaker 1: society stands only for law and order. It is in

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Speaker 1: harmony with any and all general laws in so far

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Speaker 1: as they protect the rights of others, and does in

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Speaker 1: no manner recommend any acts and violation of present laws,

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Speaker 1: nor advocate in any manner inimical to public welfare. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You probably noticed that there is no mention there of

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Speaker 1: homosexuality or gay Remember this was still a time when

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Speaker 1: it was absolutely illegal to be gay thanks to sodomy laws. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In Illinois, there were precedent cases that established oral sex

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Speaker 1: as sodomy under the letter of the law, including one

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Speaker 1: which judicially categorized fellatio as a crime against nature. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This was not a time that it would have been

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Speaker 1: safe for an organization intended to decriminalize homosexuality to be

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Speaker 1: out and proud about it. They had to be very

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Speaker 1: very careful and kind of work in incremental, very slow steps. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: their work did not last very long at all. Just

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Speaker 1: eight months after it was founded and with only two

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Speaker 1: issues of Friendship and Freedom having been published, everything came

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Speaker 1: to a crashing halt. In July, the wife of one

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Speaker 1: of the co founders reported her husband to a social

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Speaker 1: worker after the couple's daughter said she had seen her

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Speaker 1: father and other men performing seances and other strange behavior.

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Speaker 1: The social workers she spoke with contacted police, and soon

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Speaker 1: thereafter the Society for Human Rights, which was headquartered in

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Speaker 1: Gerber's home, was rated. Gerber was arrested for deviant behavior.

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Speaker 1: His typewriter, his diaries, and other papers were seized, and

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Speaker 1: at this point in time, Illinois sodomy law stipulated a

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Speaker 1: minimum one year prison term for anyone found guilty, with

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Speaker 1: a maximum sentence of ten years, so this was quite

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Speaker 1: a serious situation. Gerber always insisted that the story of

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Speaker 1: his colleagues' behavior, as reported by his life and related

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Speaker 1: the papers, was fabricated, But because the accused husband, al manager,

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Speaker 1: was confessed to being bisexual during police screening, no one

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Speaker 1: cared that the facts of the news weren't entirely accurate. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this also came as a surprise to Gerber. He

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Speaker 1: had not even known, according to what I read that

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Speaker 1: the members of his group, that any of them were married.

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Speaker 1: So when this turned up and there was a wife

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Speaker 1: that had reported one of them. Remember, he wasn't really

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Speaker 1: that keen on bisexual, So this was a really kind

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Speaker 1: of weird and awkward situation in addition to being dangerous

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Speaker 1: and kind of a powder keg uh. Gerber was held

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Speaker 1: by the police for several days. He was allowed a

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Speaker 1: phone call the morning after his arrest, which he used

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Speaker 1: to call work and explain his absence, and his supervisor

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Speaker 1: kind of tried to help him out. He wrote up

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Speaker 1: the situation as absent on leave in an effort to

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Speaker 1: cover for Gerber. Henry endured three trials with his colleagues.

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Speaker 1: The only evidence against him that was supposed to prove

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Speaker 1: that he was homosexual was a powder puff that was

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Speaker 1: allegedly found in his room. He yeah, that's widely believed

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Speaker 1: to have been planted. Remember, he was not, by any

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Speaker 1: accounts I have read, a cross dresser. He wasn't. He

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Speaker 1: didn't dabble in jen any sort of alternate gender expression.

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Speaker 1: So this powder puff, it's very jarring. In the record,

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Speaker 1: it seems very weird and out of place. However, the

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Speaker 1: charges against him were eventually dropped, and that happened when

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Speaker 1: a judge realized this was during this third trial that

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Speaker 1: Gerber had been arrested without a warrant, but unfortunately, he

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Speaker 1: had spent his entire savings up to this point, particularly

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Speaker 1: on this third trial, hiring an attorney so that he

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Speaker 1: could try to sort of save himself from this miss

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Speaker 1: The raid and the trials had been reported by the news,

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Speaker 1: with the Chicago Examiner running a story about it under

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Speaker 1: the headline strange sex cult exposed. So even though he

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Speaker 1: had been released and the charges were dropped, he was

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Speaker 1: still fired from his postal job in the wake of

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Speaker 1: the of the incident for a quote conduct unbecoming a

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Speaker 1: postal worker. Additionally, all records of the Society for Human

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Speaker 1: Rights and their Friendship and Freedom newsletter that had been

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Speaker 1: seized in the raid were destroyed, and for decades this

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Speaker 1: important aspect of LGBT history was basically erased. There are

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Speaker 1: no surviving copies of the Friendship and Freedom newsletter. A

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Speaker 1: review of it was reprinted in the book Paris Gay,

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Speaker 1: which came out in one and the review describes the

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Speaker 1: newsletter as moral and says that it included a poem

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Speaker 1: by Walt Whitman and as an essay about Oscar Wilde's

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Speaker 1: practice of wearing a green carnation in his lapel. It's

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Speaker 1: long been rumored, but not ever confirmed, that Wild in

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Speaker 1: his social circle would wear green carnations as a secret

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Speaker 1: symbol of homosexuality. Yes, so that's how that essay would

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Speaker 1: have appeared in the newsletter. UM And in just a moment,

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk about Henry's life after the raid

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Speaker 1: and subsequent trials and how that put an end to

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Speaker 1: the Society for Human Rights. But first we're gonna take

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Speaker 1: a brief word from a sponsor. After all of these

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Speaker 1: things that we've talked about, Henry Garber was in need

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Speaker 1: of a fresh start, and he chose to move to

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Speaker 1: New York City. In nine seven, he re enlisted with

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Speaker 1: the U. S. Army, and then he would serve for

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Speaker 1: seventeen years. He's also said to have been frustrated at

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Speaker 1: this point with the lack of activism within what he

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Speaker 1: called the Dorian crowd. He was also really exasperated at

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Speaker 1: his precip said that other gay men were too willing

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Speaker 1: to accept the commonly held belief that homosexuality was a

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Speaker 1: mental illness, and people were seemingly willing to accept a

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Speaker 1: life of clandestine meetings in a state of fearfulness. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So he basically kind of kept on the download after this,

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Speaker 1: but he did continue to write. So throughout the thirties,

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Speaker 1: Gerber wrote articles for gay magazines. He used a pen name,

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Speaker 1: and he also managed a correspondence club which was called Contacts,

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Speaker 1: which would eventually become a communications network for gay men

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Speaker 1: in the US. And he also wrote an essay called

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Speaker 1: in Defense of Homosexuality which was published in The Modern Thinker,

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Speaker 1: and he wrote that under the pseudonym paras Ex. In

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Speaker 1: thirty four, he even wrote an anti Hitler paper openly

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Speaker 1: criticizing Hitler's treatment of homosexuals, Yeah, which was kind of

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Speaker 1: bold and a little bit dangerous, even written under a

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Speaker 1: pen name. Um. Then a few years down the road,

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Speaker 1: there was a man named man who Old Boy Frank,

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Speaker 1: and he was a gay activist in California, and he

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Speaker 1: reached out to Henry Gerber in nineteen forties. He was

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Speaker 1: hoping to get some assistance in creating a new movement

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Speaker 1: to fight the oppression of homosexuals. And while Gerber was

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Speaker 1: glad to help out through his writing, he did not

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Speaker 1: want to attach his real name to the effort and

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Speaker 1: take a real pivotal role. He just did not want

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Speaker 1: to risk losing everything again. Throughout his military career, he

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Speaker 1: dealt with harassment. He was blackmailed and beaten. His quarters

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Speaker 1: at Governor's Island were searched by Army investigators in February

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Speaker 1: nineteen forty two. They found no illegal materials or evidence

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Speaker 1: of illegal behavior, but just the same he was held

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Speaker 1: in the guard house for several weeks after the search.

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Speaker 1: He was honorably discharged in nineteen forty five. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty a new gay rights organization formed called the Matachine Society.

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Speaker 1: We referenced that in the earlier episode about the Comptence

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Speaker 1: Cafeteria riot. UH. In nineteen fifty two, this group began

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Speaker 1: publishing the first gay and lesbian national newsletter, which was

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Speaker 1: called One, and when Gerber found out about One, he

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Speaker 1: actually wrote to the magazine with an account of his

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Speaker 1: efforts to start the Society for Human Rights and his

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Speaker 1: you know, attempts to get a previous newsletter out called

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Speaker 1: Friendship and Freedom. In nineteen fifty eight, One was part

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Speaker 1: of a First Amendment case heard by the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court. This case was incredibly important because it eventually

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Speaker 1: led to the ruling that publishing homosexual content did not

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Speaker 1: mean a publication was inherently obscene. Yeah. Prior to that,

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Speaker 1: if you even said, or you know, suggested that two

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Speaker 1: men might care for one another romantically, it was pretty

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Speaker 1: much obscenity. Whereas this drew that boundary of like, no,

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Speaker 1: that's not automatically obscene, you guys. Uh. Years later, in

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three one, the magazine actually ran a full

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Speaker 1: story about Gerber's efforts, uh, and the work that he

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Speaker 1: was doing in the nineteenth twenties, and it kind of

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Speaker 1: reintroduced his part in the LGBT rights movement into record.

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Speaker 1: In his retirement years, Henry Gerber moved to the U. S.

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Speaker 1: Soldiers and Airmen's Home in Washington, d C. He died

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Speaker 1: there on December thirty one, nineteen seventy two, from pneumonia.

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Speaker 1: He was eighty years old. In posthumously, of course, Henry

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Speaker 1: was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame,

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Speaker 1: and in February of the house at seventeen ten North

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Speaker 1: Crily Court in Chicago, which is where Gerber lived when

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Speaker 1: he founded the Society for Human Rights, was nominated as

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Speaker 1: a National Historic Landmark. The National Historic Landmarks Committee unanimously

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Speaker 1: approved the nomination. The next step in the process was

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Speaker 1: for it to go to the National Park Service Advisory

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Speaker 1: Board in May. We have not yet been able to

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Speaker 1: find any information about how that went. Since they we

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Speaker 1: are recording this literally immediately after the conclusion of May,

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Speaker 1: they have not published their notes yet. Today we're June second,

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Speaker 1: I think that we're recording. So if it's approved by

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Speaker 1: the Advisory Board, the nomination would then move to the

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Speaker 1: Secretary of the Interior for final approval. So yeah, his

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Speaker 1: home may become a National Historic Landmark. It looks like

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Speaker 1: it's on track for that to happen, but you never

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Speaker 1: know what will happen in the process, so that's something

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Speaker 1: to look forward to. We may have an update soon,

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Speaker 1: which would be exciting. So yeah, that's the story of

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Speaker 1: Henry Gerber. He is tricky. He's one of those people

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Speaker 1: that he comes up for a long time. He was

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Speaker 1: written about and sort of like, here's the the lgbtwo

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Speaker 1: rights activists you have never heard of. But even so,

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Speaker 1: as we mentioned in the episode, there are some blank

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Speaker 1: spots in there that are not always entirely clear, and

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Speaker 1: and because he's maybe not the most sort of charming character,

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Speaker 1: I think he gets overlooked anyway. Yeah. Well, and some

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Speaker 1: of his uh, prejudices like continue to exist today, Like

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Speaker 1: there is still a lot of anti bisexual sentiment um,

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Speaker 1: and like a general trend of kind of assuming anyone

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Speaker 1: who has a relationship with a person of the same

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Speaker 1: sex is gay or lesbian and that bisexuality is not

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Speaker 1: a thing. Like there's a lot of those ideas continued

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Speaker 1: to crop up today years and years later after his death.

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Speaker 1: So it's that's not a I didn't go away, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, within any community, there is always fracturing,

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Speaker 1: and he was you know, kind of one of the

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Speaker 1: first people that that exemplifies some of that going on.

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Speaker 1: And it's not it's easy to go, oh, well, that's

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Speaker 1: how it was in the twenties, which again I always

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Speaker 1: just feel like we have to pause and go this

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Speaker 1: was something he was working on in the nineteen so

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Speaker 1: much earlier than we really think about this movement um.

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Speaker 1: But a lot of those those issues still echo today.

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Speaker 1: So it's kind of an interesting touchstone and and we

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Speaker 1: can kind of see the mirror of that continue you

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Speaker 1: But do you also have listener mail, I do. It's

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00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:07,640
Speaker 1: on a completely different topic. Uh, this is from our listener, Adam,

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Speaker 1: and he says, Holly and Tracy, much like the rest

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Speaker 1: of your listeners, I have started listening to your podcast

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Speaker 1: to and from work each day. I have downloaded onto

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00:23:14,480 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: my phone a whole bunch of podcasts to listen to,

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00:23:16,400 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: for which I am very entertained and enlightened. My wife

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00:23:19,119 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 1: calls you guys my girlfriends jokingly. Of course, Oh, Adam,

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00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:26,719
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want that anyway, He goes on. Almost two

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Speaker 1: years ago, I bought a nineteen sixteen Ford Model T

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Speaker 1: and have since restored the car. Enclosed as a photo

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00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:34,879
Speaker 1: of the car. Holy smokes, it is gorgeous. That is

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00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:37,639
Speaker 1: my commentary. Uh. Since restoring the car, my wife and

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Speaker 1: I have enjoyed the car immensely, and we try to

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Speaker 1: go to as many Model T tours as we can

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Speaker 1: fit into our busy lives. While on the tours, they

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Speaker 1: usually have a banquet and encourage you to wear period attire.

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Speaker 1: We have not a clue what men and women wore

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Speaker 1: in that period in time. All I know is that

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Speaker 1: short sleeves were not in fashion yet. I just listened

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Speaker 1: to a podcast of Holly and Sarah on underwear and

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Speaker 1: learned that Holly is very much into fashion, so this

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Speaker 1: question is geared more towards Holly. What did the average

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Speaker 1: person we're in nineteen sixteen? We have seen photos of

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Speaker 1: men in suits and women in extravagant gowns. But for

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Speaker 1: the most part, the person who bought a model t

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Speaker 1: was not a very well off person. I personally, personally

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Speaker 1: believe they were just average working individuals. Where can we

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Speaker 1: see some of these fashion photos with your experience, Holly?

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Speaker 1: Are there places you can find these clothes and our

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00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,240
Speaker 1: clothing patterns that can be purchased as my mother in

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Speaker 1: law is very good with a sewing machine. Okay, Adam,

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Speaker 1: here's my first piece of advice. Google do an image

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Speaker 1: search on Google for nineteen sixteen. Don't specify nineteen sixteen

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Speaker 1: clothing because that often does turn up your fashion stuff.

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Speaker 1: If you just google nineteen sixteen, the images that will

431
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,560
Speaker 1: come up, you'll get a lot more general, real life

432
00:24:48,800 --> 00:24:54,199
Speaker 1: working individuals. I will say overall, Um, the club, some

433
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:56,240
Speaker 1: of the clothing is going to look formal. That isn't

434
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:58,400
Speaker 1: that's sort of casual clothing, just because I think we're

435
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:02,520
Speaker 1: so used to a level of informality that period close

436
00:25:02,600 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: Even the more middle and even lower class just looks

437
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: fancier to us. But uh, that's my first piece of advice,

438
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: And I would kind of go through the images that

439
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: you like the most and find the things you like

440
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,159
Speaker 1: and notice sort of what's going on with the suits

441
00:25:15,160 --> 00:25:17,359
Speaker 1: for men and and what you do and do not like,

442
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:21,120
Speaker 1: and uh, ditto for your wife kind of to figure

443
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: out what she doesn't doesn't like. And then I will

444
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:26,400
Speaker 1: give you three places that you can go for patterns

445
00:25:26,440 --> 00:25:28,359
Speaker 1: that I really like. They're more than these, These are

446
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 1: just the ones that I think might hit the time

447
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: period you're looking for the best. Um. The first is

448
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,600
Speaker 1: Reconstructing History dot com. They have a section that is

449
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 1: labeled as Downton Abbey because it kind of spans that.

450
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:42,840
Speaker 1: A lot of the Victorian clothing pattern sites that I

451
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:45,199
Speaker 1: like kind of stopped at nine or a little bit

452
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: after that, so they're not going to quite get into there,

453
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:50,960
Speaker 1: but this one does. Another good one is past Patterns

454
00:25:51,040 --> 00:25:55,200
Speaker 1: dot Com. And uh, the third one is Sensibility dot Com.

455
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: The company has actually sense and sensibility patterns and they

456
00:25:58,080 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: all have some pretty interesting stuff that you can look at.

457
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 1: So what I would do is I would get your

458
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: inspiration pictures from online and then kind of look through

459
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: these patterns and see which one is line up most

460
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:10,639
Speaker 1: closely with that, and then work with your mother in

461
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: law to kind of put together something that resembles it.

462
00:26:13,040 --> 00:26:15,359
Speaker 1: That's how I would go about it. And I'm a

463
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 1: little bit jealous of your awesome car. So you would

464
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:22,359
Speaker 1: like to write to us and uh show off your

465
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: pictures of your awesome car. You can do that at

466
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 1: History podcast at how stuff works dot com. You can

467
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:30,359
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash missed

468
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:33,439
Speaker 1: in History, on Twitter at misst in history at misston

469
00:26:33,520 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: history dot tumbler dot com, and on pinterest dot com

470
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 1: slash mist in History. You can visit our spreadshirt store

471
00:26:40,359 --> 00:26:42,680
Speaker 1: at missed in History dot spreadshirt dot com if you

472
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,520
Speaker 1: would like some stuff you missed in history class shirts

473
00:26:45,800 --> 00:26:49,199
Speaker 1: or took bangs or phonecases or other goodies. Uh. And

474
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 1: if you would like to visit our parents site, you

475
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:52,880
Speaker 1: can do so. That is House of Works dot com.

476
00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:55,439
Speaker 1: Or you can go to missed in History dot com

477
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:58,239
Speaker 1: and check out our archive of previous episodes as well

478
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: as show notes for any of the episodes. Frezy and

479
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 1: I have been on the podcast and the occasional other

480
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:05,679
Speaker 1: additional goody and we hope you do. Visit us at

481
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 1: Mr hisstory dot com and at outst works dot com

482
00:27:12,520 --> 00:27:14,920
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

483
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:28,120
Speaker 1: that how stuff Works dot com mmmm