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Speaker 1: Hey there, history fans, we're taking the day off, but

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Speaker 1: don't worry. We've got plenty of classic shows to tide

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Speaker 1: you over. Please enjoy these flashback episodes from the TDI

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Speaker 1: HC Vault. Hello, and welcome to This Day in History Class,

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Speaker 1: a show that discovers something new about history every day

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Speaker 1: of the week. I'm Gabe Lucier and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at the creation of a European instrument that

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Speaker 1: wasn't widely embraced until it revolutionized the American music scene

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Speaker 1: almost a century later. The day was June twenty eighth,

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty six. Belgian musician and inventor Adolph sax secured

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Speaker 1: the patent for a brand new instrument, the saxophone. That

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Speaker 1: actually makes the saxophone quite unique, as the majority of

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Speaker 1: music instruments can't be traced back to a single individual.

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Speaker 1: As its name implies, though, the saxophone was the work

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Speaker 1: of just one person. Antoine Joseph Adolph Sachs was born

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Speaker 1: on November sixth, eighteen fourteen, in the city of Dinon

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Speaker 1: in present day Belgium. His early life was defined by

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Speaker 1: a series of bizarre mishaps in which the accident prone

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Speaker 1: child almost lost his life on multiple occasions. This included

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Speaker 1: being hit on the head by a cobblestone, swallowing a needle,

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Speaker 1: falling down a flight of stairs, almost drowning in a river,

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Speaker 1: almost suffocating from varnish fumes, falling onto a hot frying pan,

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Speaker 1: and accidentally drinking acid which he had mistaken for milk.

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Speaker 1: Sax was the subject of so many calamities that his

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Speaker 1: neighbors took to calling him the ghost. His parents, Charles

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Speaker 1: and Marie, were worried he might not make it to adulthood.

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Speaker 1: They endeavored to make the most of whatever time they

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Speaker 1: had with their son by sharing their own interests and

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Speaker 1: passions with him. Both of them were instrument designers who

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Speaker 1: had worked together on many notable improvements to the French horn.

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Speaker 1: Sachs took up the family business at an early age,

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Speaker 1: designing and crafting two flutes and a clarinet by the

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Speaker 1: age of fifteen. He later studied both of those instruments,

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Speaker 1: as well as singing at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty eight, Sas received his first patent for

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Speaker 1: a new design of the bass clarinet. Four years later,

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Speaker 1: he moved to Paris, and switched his focus to creating

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Speaker 1: entirely new instruments rather than just making improvements to ones

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Speaker 1: that already existed. His first invention was an instrument called

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Speaker 1: the sax horn, a type of bugle that became a

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Speaker 1: staple of military bands and later inspired what we now

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Speaker 1: know as the flugelhorn. Sax's next idea was to craft

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Speaker 1: an instrument that straddled the line between woodwind and brass.

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Speaker 1: He wanted something that was relatively easy to play, like

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Speaker 1: his trusty clarinet, but with the rich sound and volume

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Speaker 1: of a brass instrument like a french horn or trumpet.

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Speaker 1: Sax spent several years developing the initial design in his

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Speaker 1: Paris workshop. His earliest prototypes were crafted from wood, but

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Speaker 1: he quickly switched to brass instead. The saxophone is still

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Speaker 1: classified as a woodwind today because its sound is produced

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Speaker 1: with its wooden single reed instead of with a metal

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Speaker 1: cup shaped mouthpiece like those found on brass instruments. In

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty six, the inventor filed fourteen different patents for

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Speaker 1: the saxophone. The designs varied in size and tonal range,

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Speaker 1: but they all shared the same defining features From the

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Speaker 1: woodwind family. The saxophone borrowed its single reed and large,

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Speaker 1: easy to finger keys from the brass family. It inherited

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Speaker 1: its familiar curved metal body and the music amplifying bell

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Speaker 1: at its tip. Four of Sax's original designs were quickly

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Speaker 1: adopted by military bands in both France and England. These

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Speaker 1: were what's known as the SATB quartet of saxophones, that's soprano, alto, tenor,

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Speaker 1: and baritone. The success of the instrument landed Sax a

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Speaker 1: job teaching a new saxophone course at the illustrious Paris Conservatory.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty six, Sax's twenty year patent expired, and

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Speaker 1: other manufacturers began selling their own modified designs. Sax spent

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Speaker 1: decades in court trying to win back control of his

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Speaker 1: creation and beat back his competitors. The costly legal battles

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Speaker 1: never went his way, though, and Sax wound up declaring

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Speaker 1: bankruptcy three times. He died in Paris completely broke, in

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four. A few years earlier, in eighteen eighty eight,

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Speaker 1: an instrument maker in Indiana became the first to produce

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Speaker 1: saxophones in the United States, just like in Europe. The

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Speaker 1: American military was the primary customer in those early days. However,

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Speaker 1: by the early nineteen hundreds, the saxophone became a standard

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Speaker 1: feature of vaudeville acts and ragtime bands across the country,

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Speaker 1: paving the way for its future use in dance music

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Speaker 1: and jazz. The instrument finally got the widespread recognition it

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Speaker 1: deserved in the early nineteen twenties. That's when jazz pioneers

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Speaker 1: like New Orleans clarinet player Sidney Boschet realized the saxophone's

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Speaker 1: full potential. Baschet was often drowned out by his bandmate's

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Speaker 1: louder instruments, so he tried out a soprano saxophone and

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Speaker 1: was blown away by the results. Other players in the

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Speaker 1: jazz world took notice as well, and pretty soon the

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Speaker 1: instrument became synonymous with the growing genre. It was later

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Speaker 1: incorporated into pop and rock and roll music as well,

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Speaker 1: including by artists like Bill Withers, The Rolling Stones, Billy Joel,

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Speaker 1: and Pink Floyd. Ironically, and snobbishly, those connections to popular

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Speaker 1: music led many in the world of classical music to

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Speaker 1: dismiss the saxophone as a gaudy, low brow instrument. As

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Speaker 1: a result, it doesn't feature very often in orchestras. That's

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Speaker 1: a shame too, as the instrument offers a distinct sound

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Speaker 1: compared to many staples of the orchestra. Classical concert goers

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Speaker 1: may be missing out then, but for those of us

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Speaker 1: willing to slummet with jazz, pop and rock add off,

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Speaker 1: Sax's greatest invention will always have a place on the stage.

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Speaker 1: I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now know a little

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Speaker 1: more about music history today than you did yesterday. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to keep up with the show, consider following

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Speaker 1: us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI HC Show.

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Speaker 1: You can also rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or you can write to me directly at this Day

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Speaker 1: at iHeartMedia dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing

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Speaker 1: the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see you

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Speaker 1: back here again tomorrow for another Day in History Class. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to This Day in History Class, a show

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Speaker 1: that tallies the gains and losses of everyday history. I'm

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Speaker 1: Gabe Lucier, and today we're talking about the broken promise

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Speaker 1: of the Freedman's Bank. It was founded to give newly

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Speaker 1: freed black Americans a fighting chants in the free labor

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Speaker 1: economy of the reconstruction era, but the bank's eventual and

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Speaker 1: avoidable collect apps left black families less financially secure than ever.

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Speaker 1: The day was June twenty eighth, eighteen seventy four, all

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Speaker 1: branches of the Freedmen's Bank closed their doors for good.

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Speaker 1: The Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company, more commonly known as

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Speaker 1: the Freedman's Bank, was established in eighteen sixty five on

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Speaker 1: the same day the Freedmen's Bureau was created. During its

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Speaker 1: nine years in business, the bank provided financial services to

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Speaker 1: tens of thousands of formerly enslaved black Americans. At its peak,

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Speaker 1: the bank operated thirty seven branches in seventeen states, including

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Speaker 1: every former slave holding state, as well as in Washington,

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Speaker 1: d c. By its fifth year, nearly all of those

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Speaker 1: local branches were run entirely by African Americans. However, the

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Speaker 1: bank's upper management and board of trustees remained all white

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Speaker 1: and all male for most of the institution's brief existence.

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Speaker 1: With hardly any government oversight. The directors funneled their depositors'

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Speaker 1: money into a series of increasingly bad investments and risky

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Speaker 1: speculative ventures. By eighteen seventy four. Their gross mismanagement had

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Speaker 1: taken its toll on the bank, and a collapse seemed imminent.

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Speaker 1: There was a last ditch effort to save the bank

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Speaker 1: by installing Frederick Douglass as its new president, but the

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Speaker 1: damage was too far gone. Accounts differ on whether the

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Speaker 1: official closing was June twenty eighth or June twenty ninth,

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Speaker 1: but by early July one thing was clear for certain.

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Speaker 1: The Freedmen's Bank had failed. The need for a bank

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Speaker 1: for freed black people first became apparent during the American

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Speaker 1: Civil War. By eighteen sixty two, any black Americans had

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Speaker 1: found employment in Union garrisons, and while they were paid

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Speaker 1: for their work, they were often denied access to conventional banks,

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Speaker 1: making it all but impossible to accumulate any real savings.

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Speaker 1: As a result, some black soldiers simply spent their pay

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Speaker 1: as quickly as they received it, while others lost their

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Speaker 1: earnings to white swindlers who promised to invest it on

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Speaker 1: their behalf. As the war went on, northern abolitionists and

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Speaker 1: sympathetic army officers began calling for the creation of a

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Speaker 1: Freedman's Bank, a place for black soldiers and freedom seekers

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Speaker 1: to safely deposit their money. Eventually, a few small banks

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Speaker 1: were established for that purpose across the South, but the

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Speaker 1: services they offered were nowhere near as robust or reliable

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Speaker 1: as those found at white banks. Deposit records, for example,

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Speaker 1: were frequently misplaced, making it difficult for customers to recover

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Speaker 1: their funds. There was also little to no communication between

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Speaker 1: the banks, which once again made it harder to access funds.

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Speaker 1: In early eighteen sixty five, as the war was drawing

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Speaker 1: to a close, two prominent white men began advocating for

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Speaker 1: the creation of a centralized black bank. They were John W. Alvert,

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Speaker 1: a congregational minister and abolitionist, and Anson M. Sperry, a

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Speaker 1: paymaster for the U. S. Army. Their calls to action,

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Speaker 1: along with those of Senator Charles Sumner, ultimately convinced Congress

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Speaker 1: to create a single institution under which all black deposits

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Speaker 1: would be managed. The legislation incorporating the Freedman's Bank was

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Speaker 1: passed on March third, eighteen sixty five, and signed into

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Speaker 1: law by President Lincoln shortly after. At first, the Freedman's

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Speaker 1: Bank was just as bare bones as its predecessors in

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Speaker 1: terms of service customers could make deposits, but that was

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Speaker 1: about it. There were no loans available, and depositors had

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Speaker 1: no say in the stocks or bonds in which their

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Speaker 1: money would be invested. The bank essentially functioned as a

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Speaker 1: kind of co op, with each depositor owning a share

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Speaker 1: of the bank's assets in proportion to the amount they deposited.

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Speaker 1: Customers could open an account with as little as one nickel,

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Speaker 1: and would then earn interest on deposits of one dollar

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Speaker 1: or more. Most individual accounts were small, ranging from five

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Speaker 1: to fifty dollars on average, but collectively the Freedmen's Bank

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Speaker 1: grew to hold millions of dollars, the combined wealth of

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Speaker 1: upwards of one hundred thousand customers. Many of them opened

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Speaker 1: accounts with the first paychecks they'd ever received in their lives.

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Speaker 1: Free from bondage, they now earned a living as farmers, cooks, nurses, barbers,

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Speaker 1: and carpenters, and with a bank to secure the fruits

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Speaker 1: of their labor, they were able to develop responsible financial habits,

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Speaker 1: save up for major purchases, and build a cushion to

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Speaker 1: protect against ex economic uncertainties. The Freedmen's Bank thrived during

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Speaker 1: its first few years and had a profoundly positive effect

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Speaker 1: on its customers. Recent studies have shown that the bank's

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Speaker 1: account holders were more likely to be literate, educated, and

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Speaker 1: employed than Black Americans of the era who did not

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Speaker 1: bank at Friedman's. They also had higher incomes and owned

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Speaker 1: more real estate. As the years went by, Freedman's opened

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Speaker 1: dozens of branches in southern cities with large black populations,

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Speaker 1: and there's evidence that just living near a branch could

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Speaker 1: have an uplifting effect on a community. Sadly, despite that

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Speaker 1: strong start, the Freedmen's Bank showed signs of trouble as

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Speaker 1: early as eighteen sixty seven. That's the year the bank's

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Speaker 1: headquarters was moved from New York City to Washington, d C.

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Speaker 1: A grand new building was built there at the southeast

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Speaker 1: corner of Lafayette Square, where the Treasury Annex stands today.

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Speaker 1: The lavish bank headquarters cost more than two hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to construct and furnish, the equivalent of more than

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Speaker 1: four million dollars in today's money. It was a questionable

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Speaker 1: expense for an institution that was still finding its footing,

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Speaker 1: but the bank likely would have still survived if not

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Speaker 1: for the reckless actions of its government appointed trustees. Although

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Speaker 1: it had been founded as a savings bank first and foremost,

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Speaker 1: many of the bank's deposits were ultimately used for high

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Speaker 1: risk investments in railroad companies and real estate, most of

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Speaker 1: which didn't pay off. To make matters worse, the trustees

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Speaker 1: started allowing the First National Bank to offload its liabilities

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Speaker 1: onto the Freedmen's Bank books, essentially sticking black customers with

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Speaker 1: the debt of a white bank. Those decisions proved terrible

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Speaker 1: for the bottom line of both the bank and its customers,

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Speaker 1: but the largest damage was done in eighteen seventy. That's

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Speaker 1: when the board made an amendment to the Freedman's Charter,

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Speaker 1: changing its loan and invent vestment policy so that it

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Speaker 1: no longer had to invest deposits only in government backed securities.

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Speaker 1: The revision allowed the board to take even greater risks

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Speaker 1: with the positor's hard earned money, a fact which customers

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Speaker 1: were kept in the dark about, as they were never

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Speaker 1: notified that the charter had been changed. The black writer

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Speaker 1: and abolitionist Frederick Douglass later commented on the bank's decline,

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Speaker 1: lamenting that it had become quote the black man's cow,

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Speaker 1: but the white man's milk. Many factors contributed to the

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Speaker 1: bank's eventual collapse, but one of the biggest was the

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Speaker 1: lack of government oversight. Government officials were supposed to keep

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Speaker 1: an eye on the Freedmen's Bank, but they didn't, enabling

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Speaker 1: the trustees to run amok in their absence. In eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy three, Congress responded to rumors of the bank's impending

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Speaker 1: insolvency by sending the Comptroller of Currency to review the

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Speaker 1: bank's books, but by then it was already too late.

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Speaker 1: A financial crisis known as the Panic of eighteen seventy

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Speaker 1: three was the final nail in the bank's coffin real

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Speaker 1: estate prices plummeted, borrowers defaulted on loans, and depositors demanded

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Speaker 1: their money back. By spring of eighteen seventy four, the

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Speaker 1: Freedmen's Bank was hanging by a thread. Its coffers were

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Speaker 1: virtually empty, and customer confidence was at an all time low.

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Speaker 1: In March of that year, the bank's white trustees resigned

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Speaker 1: and its longtime president, John Alverd stepped down. In an

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Speaker 1: effort to rebuild trust, the government convinced Frederick Douglas to

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Speaker 1: take over as the bank's president. He invested more than

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Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars of his own money in the bank,

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Speaker 1: but most account holders remained distrustful of the tarnished institution.

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Speaker 1: Before taking the job, Douglas hadn't known just how bad

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Speaker 1: the bank's situation was, but once he found out, he

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Speaker 1: compared his new position to being quote married to a corpse.

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Speaker 1: Things were so dire that only six weeks after taking

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Speaker 1: the job, Douglas recommended that Congress shut down the bank. Ultimately,

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Speaker 1: the Freedman's Bank collapsed on its own, with many depositors

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Speaker 1: losing their life savings in the process. The bank's assets

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Speaker 1: were not backed by the federal government, and Congress initially

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Speaker 1: refused to reimburse account holders. In the blink of an eye,

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Speaker 1: more than sixty thousand depositors lost a combined total of

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Speaker 1: over three million dollars, the equivalent in purchasing power to

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Speaker 1: about eighty million dollars today. Many of those impacted by

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Speaker 1: the bank's closing continued to petition Congress for compensation. The

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Speaker 1: process dragged on for years, and in the end, most

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Speaker 1: depositors recouped only a fraction of what they had lost,

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Speaker 1: while some received nothing at all. The Freedman's Bank had

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Speaker 1: started as a venture with great promise and admirable intent,

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Speaker 1: but due to gross mismanagement and outright fraud, it became

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Speaker 1: yet another harm inflicted on the Black community. The bank's

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Speaker 1: closing shattered a generation's hopes for economic advancement and has

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Speaker 1: since been linked to a legacy of distrust toward the

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Speaker 1: banking system among Black Americans. The painful effects of the

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Speaker 1: bank's closing are still with us today, but so too

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Speaker 1: is the hope it represented at its founding, the belief

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Speaker 1: that every American needs and deserves financial security, regardless of

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Speaker 1: their background, because, as former President Obama once said, a

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Speaker 1: country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do well and

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Speaker 1: a growing many barely make it. I'm Gabe Lucia and

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Speaker 1: hopefully you now know a little more about history today

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Speaker 1: than you did yesterday. You can learn even more about

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Speaker 1: history by following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at

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Speaker 1: TDI HC Show, and if you have any fear feedback

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Speaker 1: you'd like to share, feel free to send it my

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Speaker 1: way by writing to this Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays and Ben Hackett for producing the show,

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Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. I'll see you back

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Speaker 1: here again tomorrow for another day in history class.