Speaker 1: School of humans. Everyone's crying about eggs right now and
Speaker 1: how expensive they are. Really it's quite unfortunate. But something
Speaker 1: that seems to still be very cheap is uh, bananas.
Speaker 1: You guys have had these bananas before. Yeah, bananas are
Speaker 1: ubiquitous fruit in American culture, in the American diet, But
Speaker 1: if you gotta believe it, it wasn't always that way. Americans
Speaker 1: started eating bananas during the Civil War, but back then
Speaker 1: it was a luxury item. Shipping bananas to America was
Speaker 1: difficult without modern refrigeration. But then the future arrived, their
Speaker 1: improvements in shipping and logistics and refrigeration, and yes, don't
Speaker 1: worry slave like working conditions on banana farms and boil
Speaker 1: at the banana quickly became a staple in the American diet.
Speaker 1: People are like, bananas could never surpass apples as the
Speaker 1: produce of choice, and then the banana nears were like,
Speaker 1: hold my banana bread were coming for you. Apples, Yes,
Speaker 1: a banana near. That is somebody who does bananas for
Speaker 1: a living. A banana near. I made it up. Sorry,
Speaker 1: but the problem with bananas at the turn of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century in the United States was that we weren't
Speaker 1: really throwing things in trash cans yet, you know, a
Speaker 1: trash can that was still a newer invention. So people
Speaker 1: just like to throw their trash on the ground. And
Speaker 1: that's a problem with bananas because they're quite slippery. You
Speaker 1: know the comedic trope of someone slipping on a banana peel, Well,
Speaker 1: that came from real life, a tragic past, because people
Speaker 1: were quite literally slipping on banana appeals and hurting themselves
Speaker 1: on a regular basis back in the day. As slippery
Speaker 1: banana peals became a public health crisis, some folks are like, hmm,
Speaker 1: I could actually use this to my advantage. I could
Speaker 1: pretend to slip on a banana peel, fake an injury,
Speaker 1: and then sue the sidewalk. Well, really sue whoever owned
Speaker 1: the building that I was falling over in because it
Speaker 1: was sort of their responsibility to clean up the trash
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't fall. And thus, a woman who the
Speaker 1: newspapers would dub banana Anna, found her calling committing insurance fraud.
Speaker 1: You know, they say, if you do what you love,
Speaker 1: you'll never work a day in your life, and that
Speaker 1: was really the case for Anna. During these years, she
Speaker 1: found something she was really good at. She had an
Speaker 1: aptitude for what she would do is she would fake
Speaker 1: injuries that she got from falling, usually due to slipping
Speaker 1: on a banana peel. Then she would demand money for
Speaker 1: her injuries and get some cold hard cash. Cue the
Speaker 1: theme song, This is American Filth and I'm Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history.
Speaker 1: This week's episode Banana Anna's Banana Bamboozle, and by bamboozle,
Speaker 1: I mean fraud. Do do do do do do do
Speaker 1: do do do do. Who was this Banana Anna, Well,
Speaker 1: her name was Anna Sterla, and she was one tricky lady.
Speaker 1: At first, she just seemed like a woman who had
Speaker 1: a lot of bad luck or was perhaps the clumsiest
Speaker 1: woman in existence, which is saying a lot because women
Speaker 1: we all have very weak, dainty ankles and are defined
Speaker 1: by our physical weakness. Obviously, that was satire, by the way,
Speaker 1: Happy Women's History Month. Between nineteen oh six and nineteen ten, Stirla,
Speaker 1: who lived in New Jersey and New York City during
Speaker 1: those years, reported seventeen falling accidents while on the property
Speaker 1: of railroad and ferry companies and one time at a store,
Speaker 1: and after almost all of those accidents, she had a
Speaker 1: dreadful injury. Usually she'd get a hernia in her abdomen,
Speaker 1: and you had to take her word for it, because
Speaker 1: in the early twentieth century it was really hard for
Speaker 1: doctors to tell if you had one of those. What
Speaker 1: a convenient injury. The thing is, many of her accidents
Speaker 1: resulted from slipping on a banana peel. She didn't win
Speaker 1: all of her seventeen claims, but over those four years
Speaker 1: of falls she made about three thousand dollars. That's more
Speaker 1: than one hundred thousand dollars in today's money. Banana anna
Speaker 1: she was getting that dull or that potassium. Perhaps. According
Speaker 1: to the New York Times, her first fall happened in
Speaker 1: June nineteen oh six, and while she seemed to have
Speaker 1: the mind of a grifter already, this one might have
Speaker 1: been real, and it might have given her the idea
Speaker 1: to do the rest of her crimes. What happened was
Speaker 1: she was on a ferry boat from New York City
Speaker 1: to New Jersey, where she was living in a lodging house.
Speaker 1: While she was on board, one of the faery's air
Speaker 1: pumps broke me I do not know how boats work,
Speaker 1: but that's not a good thing. Take the New York
Speaker 1: Times's word for it. The fairy effectively stopped running, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately it was close to a peer. There was no
Speaker 1: time to break before a violent collision. On impact, Sterla
Speaker 1: was thrown across her seat and injured. This seems plausible
Speaker 1: that it happened for real. Other passengers also got injured,
Speaker 1: but Sterla she knew an opportunity when she saw one.
Speaker 1: She was rushed to the hospital diagnosed with an abdominal hernia.
Speaker 1: Where her injuries actually that bad, we don't know. But
Speaker 1: Sterla she was ready. She demanded five thousand dollars from
Speaker 1: the Faery company. The company compromised by paying her a thousand,
Speaker 1: which obviously means whenever you enter a negotiation, start very
Speaker 1: high getting a new job, demand a starting salary of
Speaker 1: one billion dollars. This is really good career advice that
Speaker 1: you should definitely listen to. So whether or not her
Speaker 1: injury was real, After that incident, Anna Sterla was off
Speaker 1: to the races, and by the races, I specifically mean
Speaker 1: the slip and fall insurance fraud races, Everyone's favorite race.
Speaker 1: Two months after that, Fery accident. Sterla was on a
Speaker 1: train on the Erie Railroad and she said she got
Speaker 1: injured when the train was backing up. The car she
Speaker 1: was in suddenly lurched and she was injured. And wow,
Speaker 1: they actually gave her some money for that. Wasn't that easy?
Speaker 1: And then two months after that event, she started incorporating
Speaker 1: her signature element, the banana. This time she was in
Speaker 1: New York City at a train station. She was walking
Speaker 1: up the stairs and oh no, she slipped on a
Speaker 1: banana peal and fell to the floor. Ugh, who put
Speaker 1: that there? Not me? Anna Sterla. She was taken to
Speaker 1: the hospital and stayed there overnight because she was overcome
Speaker 1: with pain from another abdominal hernia. Yes, the hernia was
Speaker 1: so serious that she was able to leave the next
Speaker 1: day completely fine. Incredible. She went back to that same
Speaker 1: train station right after leaving the hospital and she was
Speaker 1: on the stairs again when she slipped and fell a
Speaker 1: second time. Can you believe it? Two men came and
Speaker 1: assisted her, and oh my god, wouldn't you know? They
Speaker 1: found what it tripped up, miss Anna Sterla, a banana peal.
Speaker 1: She made a claim. The railroad company paid her five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, but Stla was like, hey, I also fell yesterday,
Speaker 1: so you should give me more money. I want a thousand,
Speaker 1: and then the railroad people were like, fuck that go away,
Speaker 1: we're not paying it show. So see, she didn't always
Speaker 1: get what she wanted, but she knew if she just
Speaker 1: did time and time again, she would get more money.
Speaker 1: Over the next few months, Banana Anna slipped and fell
Speaker 1: many more times and was obviously terribly injured after each fall.
Speaker 1: She fell at a station under the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company,
Speaker 1: on a ferry boat that was part of the Central
Speaker 1: Railroad of New Jersey, on the Philadelphia Reading Railroad, the
Speaker 1: Union Ferry Company, the New Haven Railroad, all from bananas,
Speaker 1: if you can believe it. And yeah, she always got
Speaker 1: an abdominal hernia. Yeah she got called Banana Anna, but
Speaker 1: she could also be Sterla Hernia. And you might wondering
Speaker 1: to yourself right now, how is she so convincing, Like,
Speaker 1: even though she didn't win all of her claims, why
Speaker 1: did she win any of them at all? Well? Anna
Speaker 1: Stirla was a middle aged, dopey looking woman who people
Speaker 1: would not expect to be a criminal mastermind. I mean,
Speaker 1: at least she was getting b pluses in criminal school.
Speaker 1: A retrospective about Banana Anna was in a newspaper called
Speaker 1: The News Messenger dated December second, nineteen twenty eight. It
Speaker 1: was written by Jay Wilson Ferguson, who, at the time
Speaker 1: that Banana Anna was doing her crimes, was an insurance
Speaker 1: adjuster and journalist. In fact, he worked at one of
Speaker 1: the insurance companies as she committed fraud against, and you
Speaker 1: seem to respect Anna's hustle even though his article had
Speaker 1: a lot of really delightful sexism running through it rampantly.
Speaker 1: In his article, he talked about why she was able
Speaker 1: to get away with so many scams. He wrote, demure
Speaker 1: and sedate, looking the part of a motherly housewife setting
Speaker 1: forth on a trip to visit her children in the
Speaker 1: country or to take a short vacation back home. The
Speaker 1: woman known as Banana Anna proved to be one of
Speaker 1: the greatest fake insurance claimants the nation has ever known.
Speaker 1: To investigators, she showed a wistful and benign side of
Speaker 1: her nature, and they suspected no deep intrigue. But beneath
Speaker 1: her motherly exterior there was a quick mind of a rat,
Speaker 1: and she could, if need be, show a perfect set
Speaker 1: of claws. It seems here that Jay Wilson Ferguson had
Speaker 1: had some bad run ins with rats, or perhaps he's
Speaker 1: mixing his metaphors. I personally have never thought of the
Speaker 1: claws of a rat, maybe of a cat. Usually rats
Speaker 1: it's less claws in more plague. But you know, he
Speaker 1: was writing the nineteen twenties. They spoke differently back then.
Speaker 1: But here's some of the good sexism. Ferguson said. The
Speaker 1: reason why she was so successful was because Anasterla had
Speaker 1: a quote aptness for acting, which is found in women
Speaker 1: more than men. Yes, women are better at lying than men.
Speaker 1: They are also always faking their pain ha ha ha.
Speaker 1: And you know another reason why she was being taken
Speaker 1: seriously was because a lot of people were actually suffering
Speaker 1: from banana related injuries. In the early twentieth century, in
Speaker 1: New York City, bananas were extremely popular. They were even
Speaker 1: sold on the street as a street food, So people
Speaker 1: they just get a banana and then they just throw
Speaker 1: the peel on the ground. This was even happening in
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty four. The New York Times reported that quote
Speaker 1: a wealthy merchant age seventy slipped on a banana peel
Speaker 1: in front of his home and broke his right leg
Speaker 1: near the hip. He is not expected to recover. Most
Speaker 1: of the injuries were broken hips, bones, hernias, but there
Speaker 1: were even a few deaths because of bananas. Another article
Speaker 1: from the New York Times had the headline banana peel
Speaker 1: causes death. What happened is there's a factory worker who
Speaker 1: had slipped on a banana and then that caused him
Speaker 1: to get hit by a truck. So yeah, it wasn't
Speaker 1: directly the banana peel, but the banana peel did indirectly
Speaker 1: cause his death. And the thing is people were also
Speaker 1: slipping on other types of trash like apple and orange peels,
Speaker 1: potato skins, but it was the banana that was the
Speaker 1: most slippery. You guys know the classic idiom. An apple
Speaker 1: a day keeps the doctor away and a banana could
Speaker 1: send you to your grave. Yes, that is the idiom.
Speaker 1: I did not just add that second part. And officials
Speaker 1: in New York City tried to take the banana epidemic seriously.
Speaker 1: There were penalties for people who threw the peels on
Speaker 1: the ground. Even Teddy Roosevelt was part of this conversation
Speaker 1: before he was the president. He was New York City's
Speaker 1: Chief of Police, and he gave a public speech talking
Speaker 1: about how dangerous bananas were. He was like the bad
Speaker 1: habits of the banana skin, with its tendency to toss
Speaker 1: people into the air and bring them down with terrific
Speaker 1: force on the hard pavement. Another reason Anna Stirla was
Speaker 1: so successful at her scheme was because of the time
Speaker 1: period she was operating in. She started doing her banana
Speaker 1: scam before the establishment of any se centralized fraud tracking organization.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if you guys can believe this,
Speaker 1: but as time passes, things change, and while she was
Speaker 1: doing her scams, they were actually local and federal groups
Speaker 1: being established to prevent fraud. They were called the Alliances
Speaker 1: against Accident Fraud. And what they would do again quoting
Speaker 1: the New York Times, is they would quote catalog names, addresses,
Speaker 1: and descriptions together with descriptions of the accident injuries of
Speaker 1: all claimants, and they would cover every accident in the
Speaker 1: United States, meaning they would notice if you were like, hey,
Speaker 1: I fell and tripped on a banana appeal on this
Speaker 1: one railroad, and then you went to another railroad and
Speaker 1: were like, I also tripped on a banan appeal here
Speaker 1: and then I was also on this ferry and also
Speaker 1: fell because a banana peal. These alliances would get that
Speaker 1: information and be like, methinks this woman has the worst
Speaker 1: luck of any woman, or methinks she's doing a little
Speaker 1: bit of fraud. And let's just say banana Anna was
Speaker 1: about to do a misstep. She was about to slip up,
Speaker 1: if you know what I'm saying, and this time not
Speaker 1: just on bananas. We'll be right back. After these soothing advertisements,
Speaker 1: Anna Sterla kept falling upstairs, downstairs, on trains, on ferries
Speaker 1: at a store, once constantly plagued by the banana peals
Speaker 1: that seemed to stalk her. And the thing is, even
Speaker 1: when she won her claim, insurance agents were often suspicious
Speaker 1: of her. During a few of her meetings, she gave
Speaker 1: a fake name, but then when they were actually about
Speaker 1: to cut the check, she'd be like, Wow, this is
Speaker 1: so silly of me, but could you actually write it
Speaker 1: out to Anna Stirla instead, that's my real name. I
Speaker 1: just didn't want my friends to worry about me if
Speaker 1: they found out. You know, pretty suss other people are
Speaker 1: onto her as well, Like she was on a train
Speaker 1: in Buffalo, New York. She was walking down the aisle
Speaker 1: of one of the cars and she fell forward. A
Speaker 1: man helped her to her feet and lo and behold.
Speaker 1: She said that he picked up a banana peal that
Speaker 1: was behind her. But this train company refused to give
Speaker 1: her any money. She remained determined. She called up a lawyer,
Speaker 1: but after hearing what she had to say, the lawyer
Speaker 1: refused to help her. He knew something was up, and
Speaker 1: then Anna Stla made a huge mistake. Banana Anna was
Speaker 1: at a train station in Philadelphia under the Pennsylvania Railroad system,
Speaker 1: and if you can believe it, as she was walking
Speaker 1: down some stairs, she slipped on a banana peel and
Speaker 1: fell again. She claimed that she had an abdominal hernia.
Speaker 1: But the thing is she had already made a claim
Speaker 1: against the Pennsylvania Railroad a couple years before for the
Speaker 1: exact same injury from the exact same scenario slipping on
Speaker 1: a banana. An insurance agent came to see her and
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, what's up with that banana Anna. She
Speaker 1: skid daddled from Philadelphia and they never heard from her again.
Speaker 1: She had a couple more banana related injuries in nineteen
Speaker 1: oh nine. But at this point she was already on
Speaker 1: the radar of the Alliance Against Accident Fraud in New
Speaker 1: York City, and they had already found out a lot
Speaker 1: of info. They had discovered that she had made seventeen
Speaker 1: acclaims about falling and getting injured, and eleven of those
Speaker 1: the reason she fell was because of mysteriously discarded banana peals.
Speaker 1: In totals, she had collected two thousand, nine hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty dollars without evidence. Her case was put in the
Speaker 1: hands of the District Attorney's office in New York in
Speaker 1: June nineteen oh nine. Banana Anna, her time doing her
Speaker 1: banana bamboozles was running out. Do you like this inspirational music? Guys?
Speaker 1: I want you to eat a banana for Banana Anna
Speaker 1: right now. A hustler, a grifter for women history months,
Speaker 1: women can do it all. And you remember that guy
Speaker 1: Jay Wilson Ferguson who wrote that retrospective about her. Well,
Speaker 1: when all that evidence had been collected about her, he
Speaker 1: actually followed Banana Anna around New York City to try
Speaker 1: to catch her in the act, and what he found
Speaker 1: was very dramatic. He discovered that Sterla was not acting alone.
Speaker 1: She had an accomplice, a bearded man. Here's how he
Speaker 1: described it, after he had followed Anna into a railroad station.
Speaker 1: My suspicions were first aroused when a bearded man who
Speaker 1: apparently never knew Anna existed, walked up to a station man. Say,
Speaker 1: old fellow. He counseled, you better watch your step. Somebody
Speaker 1: dropped a banana peece up the way there. He pointed
Speaker 1: up the platform. I just slipped on it. It's a
Speaker 1: good thing I didn't fall, or there might be a
Speaker 1: damage suit. The station man went up, looked over the platform,
Speaker 1: but found no banana peel. He returned to his post.
Speaker 1: About five minutes later, I heard a terrific scream with
Speaker 1: scores of others. I rushed forward, and there saw Anna
Speaker 1: in an apparently unconscious condition. Water water. Somebody shouted, stand back,
Speaker 1: give her air. Water was dashed into her face, and
Speaker 1: she soon was revived. The bearded man, who had told
Speaker 1: the station man of the banana peel was the one
Speaker 1: who helped her rise. Beneath her were the remains of
Speaker 1: a banana peal, Aha, said the bearded man. He picked
Speaker 1: the station man out of the crowd. See here sir,
Speaker 1: he commanded, there's the banana peel I was telling you
Speaker 1: about you, remember that? Sheepishly. The station man bowed his
Speaker 1: head in a gesture of admission. The bearded man turned
Speaker 1: to the injured woman. You have a pretty claim for damages,
Speaker 1: he said, raising his voice so all could hear a
Speaker 1: pretty case. That's awfully good of you, weakly stammered Anna,
Speaker 1: How how can I do this? That's easy, he replied,
Speaker 1: I'll appear as a witness. We'll take the names here
Speaker 1: of two or three others who saw the accident, and
Speaker 1: I know they'll be chivalrous enough to testify for a poor,
Speaker 1: defenseless woman. While Anna attempted to walk and made a
Speaker 1: successful failure of it, if you understand me, he was
Speaker 1: busy taking names. When he was through, he turned to Anna,
Speaker 1: Can you walk at all? He asked, I'm in great,
Speaker 1: great pain. She sobbed, tears streaming down her face. I
Speaker 1: then she collapsed again. A dozen persons aided her to
Speaker 1: stand again. The audience, by this time was thoroughly aroused.
Speaker 1: They cursed the station man in the guard for carelessness
Speaker 1: and negligence, and promised faithfully to aid her. The act
Speaker 1: was a polished affair all right, and I had seen enough.
Speaker 1: I decided I would take no action now, realizing she
Speaker 1: had a damaged suit pending against my company, so I
Speaker 1: strolled away. After this, Ferguson went back to his office
Speaker 1: and there he was like, yeah, I got her. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get her to sign a settlement form and then
Speaker 1: I'm gonna arrest her, because I guess insurance adjusters can
Speaker 1: do that, just arress people. He was able to find
Speaker 1: the name of the male accomplice as well well, because
Speaker 1: he had given it to the police when also turning
Speaker 1: in the names of the other witnesses. Ferguson started following
Speaker 1: him around as well, and he realized that the bearded
Speaker 1: man was visiting Sterla frequently. Ferguson stalked the pair until
Speaker 1: the man was making a house call. Then Ferguson barged in,
Speaker 1: telling Anna that the insurance company was ready to make
Speaker 1: a settlement. She signed it, and then Ferguson wrote quote
Speaker 1: a moment later, my detective had his revolver drawn, covering
Speaker 1: them both, and I went forward snapping the manacles on
Speaker 1: them again. He's an insurance adjuster. I don't think he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be the one who literally arrests people. But whatever,
Speaker 1: Sterla and her accomplice, the Bearded Man, were in a rage,
Speaker 1: according to Ferguson, But then he took them down the
Speaker 1: headquarters and they confessed, and Ferguson made a discovery about
Speaker 1: the bananas. He said, quote, we found two bananappels in
Speaker 1: the pocket of Sterla's skirts, carefully wrapped in oiled paper
Speaker 1: to keep them fairly fresh for use. After that, Banana
Speaker 1: Anna was sent to the Tombs aka the Manhattan Detention Center.
Speaker 1: What a nice nickname. She spent six months in jail
Speaker 1: awaiting trial. Many newspapers reported about the fallen fraud queen.
Speaker 1: The Herald News said, Banana Anna has fallen into the
Speaker 1: hands of the law. She must work in the future
Speaker 1: for a living, even though it may be in the workhouse.
Speaker 1: Her vocation has been swept from under her. No longer
Speaker 1: will the meek and lowly bananappealing furnish her with a livelihood.
Speaker 1: In November nineteen ten, Sterla pleaded guilty before I Judge
Speaker 1: in New York to the charge of grand larceny. She
Speaker 1: spent another six months in prison, and to our knowledge,
Speaker 1: she never slipped on a banana peel again. Every episode
Speaker 1: of American Filth we learn a lesson, and I think
Speaker 1: the lesson we learned this one is obvious, which is,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna commit fraud, do it against different companies.
Speaker 1: No repeats, That's right. American Filth teaches all of us
Speaker 1: how to be better criminals. Or maybe the lesson is, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you do what you love, you'll never work a
Speaker 1: day in your life. But you gotta stay vigilant because
Speaker 1: sometimes the things you love get taken away from you,
Speaker 1: especially if what you love to do is commit fraud.
Speaker 1: Cue the credits. American Filt is a production of School
Speaker 1: of Humans and iHeart Podcast. This episode was written, hosted
Speaker 1: and all of that jazz by me Gabby Watts. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Jesse Niswanger. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Elsie Crowley, Brandon Farr. Follow along with a pod on
Speaker 1: end Instagram at American Filth pod and also leave us
Speaker 1: a review, leave us some stars, and uh, go do
Speaker 1: some fraud. Why not see what happens? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we have better, you know, precautions in place now,
Speaker 1: but still, why not? Life is a nightmare? Go do
Speaker 1: some crime for legal purposes. I didn't just say that,
Speaker 1: but I will talk at you guys next time. Bye
Speaker 1: School of Humans.