Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. It is
Speaker 1: time for six Impossible episodes. Our last few six Impossibles
Speaker 1: have had a running theme. We had a set of
Speaker 1: six stories that were about frontline heroism from soldiers and spies,
Speaker 1: and before that we had six episodes that sound a
Speaker 1: lot like episodes we had already done. Before that, there
Speaker 1: were six stories that might have been apocryphal, maybe not.
Speaker 1: And so today we once again have six short stories.
Speaker 1: As these things go, but this time it's kind of
Speaker 1: a hodgepodge. These are all frequent requests, several of them
Speaker 1: very heavily requested, and we're going to talk about them
Speaker 1: all in one go. Um, they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of thematic commonality among one another except the fact that
Speaker 1: people have asked us to talk about them. And just
Speaker 1: a quick note that a couple of these are quite violent,
Speaker 1: and the first one includes a couple of brief mentions
Speaker 1: of rape and sexual assault. So first up in July
Speaker 1: of this year, which we are recording in, we got
Speaker 1: a whole lot of requests via email and social media
Speaker 1: to do a podcast about Olive Yang. Yang died on
Speaker 1: July thirteenth at the age of ninety, and their obituary
Speaker 1: got a lot of attention. Yang was born Yang Kin
Speaker 1: sue In and what was then British Burma and is
Speaker 1: now more commonly known as Myan mar This was in
Speaker 1: the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, that's our region along
Speaker 1: the border of jan Mart, Laos and Thailand, was a
Speaker 1: major supplier in the global opium trade for a lot
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Yang was descended from the royal
Speaker 1: house of the Shan state of ko Lang, but the
Speaker 1: family fled the region during Japanese invasions in World War Two.
Speaker 1: Yang defied gender expectations and was described as a tomboy,
Speaker 1: wearing boy's clothes and carrying guns, and having no desire
Speaker 1: at all to marry or become a mother. In their
Speaker 1: later years, Olive, whose native language has no gendered pronouns uh,
Speaker 1: what asked to be called Uncle Yang. And all of
Speaker 1: this together is why for this episode we are going
Speaker 1: with the pronoun they when we reference Olive. In spite
Speaker 1: of their protests, Yang was forced into an arranged marriage
Speaker 1: with a younger cousin. Yang's mother died before the wedding
Speaker 1: day and their father was in very ill health, But
Speaker 1: the wedding went on as planned, and Yang then left
Speaker 1: with this unwanted duty of providing an air refused to
Speaker 1: do it, reportedly throwing a chamber pot at the groom
Speaker 1: on their wedding night. Yang's son Jipou was ultimately conceived
Speaker 1: through marital rape. Even before Gepoo was born, Yang had
Speaker 1: already left the family and fallen in with bandits and
Speaker 1: opium traders. With a reputation Asian for a fiery temper
Speaker 1: and always being armed, they wound up being offered the
Speaker 1: command of an army of three hundred men. On the
Speaker 1: way in a take command, Yang's caravan encountered some drunken
Speaker 1: officers trying to extort bribes, so Yang kidnapped the officers
Speaker 1: and brought them along the rest of the way to
Speaker 1: the outpost. This ruffled some feathers. Yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of I'm gonna do what I want, and then people
Speaker 1: being like, okay, that was maybe maybe that that is
Speaker 1: going to raise some eyebrows. After gp was born in
Speaker 1: the one, Yang left him with a wet nurse he
Speaker 1: went on to be raised by a series of uncles.
Speaker 1: Yang then turned their attention to developing the trade routes
Speaker 1: that would turn the region into the world's largest supplier
Speaker 1: of opium for a time, commanding a fighting force of
Speaker 1: up to a thousand men and developing a reputation for
Speaker 1: being particularly fierce. During the Cold War, the United States
Speaker 1: wanted to influence policy and military outcomes in parts of
Speaker 1: the war world where it wasn't really supposed to be operating,
Speaker 1: and this was especially true when it came to attempts
Speaker 1: to stop or roll back the spread of communism. Without
Speaker 1: the ability to publicly intervene, the United States instead turned
Speaker 1: to a number of covert programs to try to achieve
Speaker 1: the same end. One of these was codenamed Operation Paper,
Speaker 1: in which the CIA funded and armed various militias, most
Speaker 1: of them involved in opium trafficking. These forces included remnants
Speaker 1: of the Chinese Nationalist Army Cooman Tang or KMT, which
Speaker 1: had been defeated by Mao Zedong in nineteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: Some of the KMT were under Yang's command. Yang's troops
Speaker 1: were on the receiving end of these covert air drops
Speaker 1: at least once. In nineteen fifty two, Yang's force crossed
Speaker 1: the border into Thailand illegally to retrieve weapons that had
Speaker 1: been dropped by an unmarked CIA owned aircraft. The government
Speaker 1: of what was then Burma complained to the UN General Assembly.
Speaker 1: Yang was later arrested sentenced to five years in prison.
Speaker 1: A couple of years after being released, Yang took over
Speaker 1: the former army of their elder brother, who had advocated
Speaker 1: his role in the Shan government, and thus became the
Speaker 1: region's de facto leader. In nineteen sixty three, Yang was
Speaker 1: captured again and spent more than six years in prison,
Speaker 1: much of it in solitary confinement. They later reported to
Speaker 1: relatives that they were repeatedly tortured and sexually abused while
Speaker 1: behind bars. After their second release from prison, Yang found
Speaker 1: that one of their lieutenants, Losing Han, had essentially taken
Speaker 1: over the opium trade that Yang had built. Losing Han
Speaker 1: wound up being a far more notorious name in the
Speaker 1: opium trade than Yang did, at least until more recently.
Speaker 1: Following some news coverage, Yang described themselves as a lesbian,
Speaker 1: and their relationships were often the fodder of gossip columns
Speaker 1: and tabloids. Including a reported relationship with actress Wah Wah
Speaker 1: Win Schui in ten Win Schwi did nine that really
Speaker 1: lationship in spite of having lived in a house that
Speaker 1: Yang owned and giving the interview in question in a
Speaker 1: rebuilt house that sat on the same property. Not all
Speaker 1: of Yang's life was so notorious or sensationalized. Though later
Speaker 1: on their active time and the opium trade was essentially over,
Speaker 1: but Yang still had really extensive connections within all of
Speaker 1: these criminal organizations, which led to their being recruited to
Speaker 1: try to negotiate peace agreements with those organizations on behalf
Speaker 1: of the government. So obviously there is a lot going
Speaker 1: on here. Al of Yang is a fascinating and complicated
Speaker 1: character who was connected to the opium trade, international dispute,
Speaker 1: and covert CIA programs. Me and mar has been in
Speaker 1: the news a lot over the last few years, but
Speaker 1: for a range of reasons, its history hasn't really been
Speaker 1: covered on our show. So it's not surprising at all
Speaker 1: that people asked for more. But here's the thing about
Speaker 1: trying to make a whole episode about all of Yang.
Speaker 1: In terms of what's available in English, pretty much all
Speaker 1: of this information goes back to reporting done by Gabrielle Poluke,
Speaker 1: which was picked up and redistributed by the World from
Speaker 1: p r I. Other outlets that picked it up from
Speaker 1: there either go back to Poluke's reporting or to Poluke
Speaker 1: herself in interviews. So it's clear from all of this
Speaker 1: reporting that other information about al of Yeng exists, but
Speaker 1: most of that isn't really information that we can get
Speaker 1: to as an English speaking podcast on the other side
Speaker 1: of the world. And Poluke is reportedly working on a
Speaker 1: book according to the Washington Post, about all of this,
Speaker 1: and we would absolutely read that. We absolutely want that's
Speaker 1: going to be a running theme in this show. There
Speaker 1: are going to be several people who if there were
Speaker 1: you know, uh and uh maybe not official, but if
Speaker 1: there were a comprehensive biography on their life, then probably
Speaker 1: we could do a complete episode. And they are all
Speaker 1: biographies that I would jump on the opportunity to read.
Speaker 1: Next up, we have another request that came in from
Speaker 1: a lot of people thanks to the Internet, and that
Speaker 1: was the nineteen seventeen Silent Parade, which was also the
Speaker 1: subject of a Google Doodle, which is what led so
Speaker 1: many people to ask about it. The Silent Parade, known
Speaker 1: at the time as the Negro Silent Protest Parade was
Speaker 1: a protest that took place on July seventeen on Fifth
Speaker 1: Avenue in New York City. The n double a CP
Speaker 1: organized this protest in response to Jim Crow Laws, ongoing
Speaker 1: lynchings and a riot in East St. Louis in which
Speaker 1: a white mob had killed more than one hundred black
Speaker 1: residents and destroyed the homes of about six thousand more.
Speaker 1: The riot had taken place over July one through the third,
Speaker 1: and that had been sparked in part by striking white
Speaker 1: workers resentment that black strikebreakers were replacing them at a
Speaker 1: box site processing plants. So taken from the letter that
Speaker 1: was distributed in advance of the march, sort of as
Speaker 1: instructions quote, we marched because, by the grace of God
Speaker 1: and the force of truth, the dangerous hampering walls of
Speaker 1: prejudice and inhuman injustices must fall. We marched because we
Speaker 1: want to make impossible a repetition of way go Memphis
Speaker 1: and East St. Louis by rousing the conscience of the
Speaker 1: country and bring the murderers of our brothers, sisters, and
Speaker 1: innocent children to justice. We marched because we deem it
Speaker 1: a crime to be silenced in the face of such
Speaker 1: barbaric acts. So that goes on with all of the
Speaker 1: reasons that they are marching, and they also gets into
Speaker 1: procedures for the march. And then the letter ended quote
Speaker 1: Yours in righteous indignation, Reverend Chaz Martin, Secretary. A list
Speaker 1: of mottoes, first signs and banners was distributed in advance
Speaker 1: of the march as well, including make America Safe for democracy, Mothers,
Speaker 1: do lynchers go to Heaven, two hundred thousand black men
Speaker 1: fought for your liberty in the Civil War, and Tracy's
Speaker 1: favorite pray for the Lady Macbeth's of East St. Louis. Uh.
Speaker 1: There have been a couple of different interpretations that have
Speaker 1: been circulated for that last one, one being that it
Speaker 1: referenced the white women of St. Louis who had egged
Speaker 1: on the mob. So about ten thousand people, all of
Speaker 1: them black, partici the pated in the silent March. The
Speaker 1: organizers went first, and then children and then women who
Speaker 1: were all dressed in white, followed by all the men
Speaker 1: who were in dark suits. The protesters included W. E. B.
Speaker 1: Du Bois and James Walton Johnson, James Weldon Johnson later
Speaker 1: wrote about it and his autobiography, saying, quote, the streets
Speaker 1: of New York have witnessed many strange sites, but I
Speaker 1: judge never one stranger than this. Among the watchers were
Speaker 1: those with tears in their eyes. This was certainly an
Speaker 1: important event in civil rights history. It was one of
Speaker 1: the first, if not the first, non violent mass protest
Speaker 1: against racism and racist violence. And the fact that all
Speaker 1: the marchers were black was also important. At this point,
Speaker 1: most civil rights organizations and activities were integrated, in part
Speaker 1: because the idea was so contentious that seeing white people
Speaker 1: involved made it somewhat more palatable to other white people.
Speaker 1: Having white people involved also offered at least some degree
Speaker 1: of protection, Like there are so many stories about violence
Speaker 1: during the civil rights movement, and this is a little
Speaker 1: bit earlier than what a lot of people think of
Speaker 1: as the movement. Um, So it wasn't a guarantee of safety,
Speaker 1: but it was like a slight measure of safety sometimes.
Speaker 1: So it's likely that there's enough information about this march,
Speaker 1: and archives are special collections to make it into a
Speaker 1: whole episode. But in terms of what's publicly available to
Speaker 1: us right now, that's the overview and we're gonna have
Speaker 1: some more stories, but first we're gonna pause for a
Speaker 1: little sponsor break. Next up on our list. We have
Speaker 1: gotten several requests for the Massacre of Glencoe, including from
Speaker 1: Haga and Neil Ramona, ros Leia Megan, and almost certainly others,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these came in around the time
Speaker 1: of the Game of Thrones episode The Reigns of Castomir,
Speaker 1: which also led to requests for another historical event known
Speaker 1: as the Black Dinner. The Glencoe Massacre was one of
Speaker 1: many bloody events in Scottish history that followed in the
Speaker 1: wake of the Glorious Revolution. We talked more about the
Speaker 1: Glorious Revolution in our podcast on the Jacobite Rising of
Speaker 1: seventy five, and we will link to that in the
Speaker 1: show notes, but very briefly, King James the seventh of
Speaker 1: Scotland and second of England was Catholic, and when he
Speaker 1: had a son, James Francis Edward Stewart, Protestants became concerned
Speaker 1: about having another Catholic in the line of succession. So
Speaker 1: Protestants in Scotland and elsewhere had hoped that James would
Speaker 1: die without an heir and then be succeeded by a
Speaker 1: Protestant monarch. With that no longer a possibility, some prominent
Speaker 1: Protestants got in touch with William of Orange and basically
Speaker 1: invited him and his army to come to England and
Speaker 1: take over. So he did, and William and his wife
Speaker 1: Mary became monarchs in sixteen eighty nine. Obviously, that's very
Speaker 1: highly condensed. That's the speed round version. A number of
Speaker 1: Scottish clans remained loyal to King James into the House
Speaker 1: of Stewart for both political and religious reasons. This was
Speaker 1: the basis for the Jacobite movement that we cover in
Speaker 1: that previous episode and just f y I also makes
Speaker 1: up the first chunk of the Outlander TV show and books.
Speaker 1: The new monarchs, William and Mary, recognizing the threat that
Speaker 1: that the Jacobites posed both to their reign and to
Speaker 1: the overall stability of the kingdom, tried to secure the
Speaker 1: Scottish clans loyalty. It took a very stick and carrot approach.
Speaker 1: They offered an indemnity to the clans that agreed to
Speaker 1: sign an oath of allegiance to them, while authorizing attacks
Speaker 1: against the clans that didn't. As time went on, though
Speaker 1: the focus got a lot more heavily on the stick
Speaker 1: than on the carrot. This deadline for signing this oath
Speaker 1: of allegiance was January one of six, and this presented
Speaker 1: a number of logistical problems. Most clan chiefs needed to
Speaker 1: travel somewhere to sign the oath in the presence of
Speaker 1: a magistrate or sheriff, and winter in Scotland made that
Speaker 1: rather difficult. Also, many of the clans had already sworn
Speaker 1: an oath to James Stewart and they couldn't sign another
Speaker 1: one until they were released from that first oath, and
Speaker 1: that didn't happen until mid December. So a number of factors,
Speaker 1: including travel, weather and the magistrate not actually being present
Speaker 1: when they got there, Captain McDonald's of glen Coe from
Speaker 1: meeting the January first deadline. Alistair McLean, chief of the clan,
Speaker 1: arrived in time to do the signing, but he couldn't
Speaker 1: actually do it until January six. Alistair McLean was not
Speaker 1: the only chief in the area who missed the deadline,
Speaker 1: but for whatever reason, he was the only one who
Speaker 1: was not included in an indemnity that was issued for
Speaker 1: everyone who had Instead. McLean and the McDonald's of glen
Speaker 1: co were subject to punishment by the quote utmost extremity
Speaker 1: of the law. It may have just been an oversight
Speaker 1: or an intentional effort to make an example of the
Speaker 1: McDonald's of glen Cove for having been publicly loyal to
Speaker 1: the Stewarts, but the elements of that are still unclear. Regardless,
Speaker 1: and early February, soldiers arrived at glen Coe seeking shelter.
Speaker 1: They reported that they had been assigned to Fort will Um,
Speaker 1: which was not too far away, only to find that
Speaker 1: the fort was already past capacity. So the soldiers were
Speaker 1: billeted in the McDonald's homes, and then on February thirteenth,
Speaker 1: starting at about five in the morning, the soldiers, along
Speaker 1: with others who joined them from Fort William, massacred members
Speaker 1: of the McDonald plan there in their homes. Alistair McLaine
Speaker 1: was the first to be killed, while he was rising
Speaker 1: from his bed by soldiers who were his guests. About
Speaker 1: thirty eight people were killed in the massacre on the thirteenth,
Speaker 1: but since the soldiers also burned people's homes, many more
Speaker 1: died of exposure. After the actual conflict was over three
Speaker 1: years later, a Scottish Parliamentary Commission described it as quote
Speaker 1: murder under trust. The Campbell clan has long taken the
Speaker 1: blame for having orchestrated and executed this whole thing. There
Speaker 1: was certainly a long standing feud between the Campbells and
Speaker 1: the McDonald's, and the Campbells were heavily represented among the
Speaker 1: military units that committed the massacre. But the Jacobite backdown
Speaker 1: was really a much bigger issue than the Campbell McDonald feud.
Speaker 1: The Campbells might have, and some would say definitely did,
Speaker 1: taken the opportunity to exact some kind of justice after
Speaker 1: years of skirmishes and cattle raids, but it was really
Speaker 1: William and Mary who put such a sharp focus on
Speaker 1: rooting out the Jacobites in the first place. We didn't
Speaker 1: do a full episode about this one, largely because the
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones episode that prompted so many requests came
Speaker 1: out in at which point you couldn't turn around without
Speaker 1: running into an article about the Glencoe massacre, so ours
Speaker 1: kind of would have been redundant, And after that it
Speaker 1: started to feel like the moment had really passed. That
Speaker 1: was even more true after we did our show on
Speaker 1: the Jacobite rising of since it covers so much of
Speaker 1: the same territory. The Black Dinner, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: which is the other thing that everyone asked us to
Speaker 1: talk about in response to this Game of Thrones episode
Speaker 1: that's often summed up as a paragraph, so we are
Speaker 1: going to include it. This kind of a bonus seventh
Speaker 1: Impossible episode. In four team forty, sixteen year old William,
Speaker 1: Earl of Douglas and his younger brother David were invited
Speaker 1: to visit King James the Second of Scotland, who was
Speaker 1: then ten, at Edinburgh Castle. So yes, this is a
Speaker 1: completely different King James and the one we were talking
Speaker 1: about earlier in this segment. After being served the head
Speaker 1: of a black bull, which was a symbol of death,
Speaker 1: the two boys were taken out into the yard, given
Speaker 1: a mock trial, convicted of treason, and beheaded. All of
Speaker 1: this connects to an ongoing power struggle between the monarch
Speaker 1: and the Douglas clan. At this point really more like
Speaker 1: the monarch's advisors because the monarch himself was only ten
Speaker 1: uh So basically the idea was that they were trying
Speaker 1: to check the Douglas influence. But the whole story is
Speaker 1: really full of said to have and may have been,
Speaker 1: and it's really not clear who arranged this or what
Speaker 1: their endgame was. Now to completely change gears, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: we're like so completely, so get ready because if you
Speaker 1: may have a bump as we grind through the um.
Speaker 1: Next up, Marian Downs, who is known as the mother
Speaker 1: of pediatric audiology and requested most recently by Lee and Megan.
Speaker 1: Unlike so many other doctors we've talked about on the show,
Speaker 1: Downs didn't spend her whole life planning to go into medicine.
Speaker 1: She dropped out of college in the nineteen thirties to
Speaker 1: get married and have children, which was really common among
Speaker 1: female undergraduates at the time. Once her children got a
Speaker 1: little older, though, she decided she wanted to go back
Speaker 1: to school. And this was right after the end of
Speaker 1: World War Two, when colleges and universities were flooded with
Speaker 1: returning soldiers pursuing an education under the g I Bill.
Speaker 1: So when Downs went to register for classes at the
Speaker 1: University of Denver, she picked a course of study by
Speaker 1: finding the shortest line, and that line was for speech
Speaker 1: pathology and audiology. Now didn't really know what that was
Speaker 1: when she enrolled but she really excelled at it, and
Speaker 1: she's known today for her pioneering work in infant hearing screenings.
Speaker 1: I love when someone just sort of stumbles a degree
Speaker 1: and exactly what happened has doubled into the short line
Speaker 1: of greatness. Uh. In terms of the brain, a person's
Speaker 1: language ability develops a lot in their first two years
Speaker 1: of life, regardless of whether that language is verbal or
Speaker 1: non verbal. And when Down started practicing, most children didn't
Speaker 1: really get their hearing checked until they were three or
Speaker 1: four years old, and even then that was usually because
Speaker 1: the child's parent was concerned that perhaps their speech was delayed.
Speaker 1: And Downs thought this was a huge disservice, that missing
Speaker 1: out on those early years of language development was actually
Speaker 1: setting people up for lifelong trouble with all aspects of communication,
Speaker 1: including reading, and she was, of course right. So she
Speaker 1: started testing children's hearing while they were still babies and
Speaker 1: fitting them with hearing aids when they were as young
Speaker 1: as a year old if they needed one. She encountered
Speaker 1: a lot of resistance to this, in addition to everything
Speaker 1: that comes along with being one of very few women
Speaker 1: in a male dominated field. Other doctor insisted that a
Speaker 1: child's brain wasn't ready to handle a hearing aid until
Speaker 1: age three or four, and that her work was damaging.
Speaker 1: From a neurology perspective, Downs was right. Her naysayers were
Speaker 1: wrong that that just refusing to fit children with hearing
Speaker 1: aids meant that the people who were hard of hearing
Speaker 1: and with a little support could learn to, you know,
Speaker 1: listen and speak, like just denying that brain development time
Speaker 1: for a couple of years meant that the brain development
Speaker 1: wasn't happening at all. In nineteen sixty three, Down started
Speaker 1: the first systematic infant hearing screening program in Denver, Colorado. Today,
Speaker 1: percent of children born at hospitals and birthing centers in
Speaker 1: the United States have their hearing tested as soon as
Speaker 1: they are born, maybe not literally the delivery room, but
Speaker 1: before they leave the hospital or birthing center, they have
Speaker 1: a screening. So these tests, of course, are very different
Speaker 1: today than they were in the sixties. When Downs was
Speaker 1: creating her testing protocol, she was using a device to
Speaker 1: play specific sounds and then observing babies responses to them.
Speaker 1: So some of the cues that she was looking for
Speaker 1: could be really subtle, especially in newborns. There were things
Speaker 1: like blinking or widening, their eyes are moving a little bit,
Speaker 1: so you have to be really good at observation. Today,
Speaker 1: the screening is usually use a device that plays a
Speaker 1: tone into the ear and then measures basically the echo
Speaker 1: from the inner ear. That's a bit of a simplification,
Speaker 1: but it's an analogy. Another test which is often done
Speaker 1: if that first one UH suggests that the child might
Speaker 1: have hearing loss, that one measures like the actual brain
Speaker 1: stem response to sounds using little sort of electrode attachments.
Speaker 1: And today there's also some debate about what the best
Speaker 1: strategy should be for deaf and heart of hearing babies,
Speaker 1: But at this point there is a lot of evidence
Speaker 1: backing up the fact that there needs to be some
Speaker 1: kind of strategy. Children who don't begin to learn language
Speaker 1: in their first months of life really miss out on
Speaker 1: critical brain development and the effects of that missing space
Speaker 1: are lifelong. Yeah, there's a whole a hole at this
Speaker 1: point body of research about everything from you know, the
Speaker 1: ability to comprehend language to be able to express themselves,
Speaker 1: to children who don't begin to learn some sort of language,
Speaker 1: either verbal or nonverbal, having trouble reading and not being
Speaker 1: able to to read well. For basically the rest of
Speaker 1: their life. So in addition to her work as a doctor,
Speaker 1: Downs was also a teacher. She published nearly a hundred
Speaker 1: books and articles on audiology during her career. Towards the
Speaker 1: end of her life, she also wrote shut Up and
Speaker 1: Live You know How, a ninety three year old skuide
Speaker 1: to living to her rifled age. I kind of want
Speaker 1: to read it now. Uh. Downs died on November at
Speaker 1: the age of one hundred, having made a lot of
Speaker 1: advances in the world of audiology while also surviving a
Speaker 1: plane crash, traveling all over the world, playing tennis, skiing,
Speaker 1: and narrowly avoiding being blown up by a grenade during
Speaker 1: the Vietnam War. It is clear that she was both
Speaker 1: a medical trailblazer and a character or and somebody that
Speaker 1: chooses her life course based on the like for it.
Speaker 1: But there's more medical than personal information available about her
Speaker 1: at this point. So maybe someday someone will write her
Speaker 1: biography and we would certainly read that book as well. Ye,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take another quick sponsor break before we talk
Speaker 1: about our last two impossible episodes. For our last two segments,
Speaker 1: we're going to start with one that came in as
Speaker 1: either a post or a comment on our Facebook page,
Speaker 1: and I didn't immediately write down who said it, which
Speaker 1: sadly means that's now lost forever. Facebook comments and posts
Speaker 1: are the hardest things to try to track down later on.
Speaker 1: So thank you whoever asked us to talk about Lena Himmelstein,
Speaker 1: who was the founder of Lane Bryant. Himmelstein was born
Speaker 1: in a stettle in Lithuania. Her parents died when she
Speaker 1: was young, and she was raised by her grandparents. She
Speaker 1: immigrated to the and In States when she was sixteen,
Speaker 1: joining her older sister Anna, and the two of them
Speaker 1: worked in a sweatshop. Haimilstein married a jeweler named David
Speaker 1: Bryant in They had a son together, who they named Rafael,
Speaker 1: but David died not long after Rafael's birth. Widowed and
Speaker 1: without a source of income, Hamilstein returned to sewing, this
Speaker 1: time opening a dress shop where she focused on making
Speaker 1: expensive dresses and lingerie, which were euphemistically called bridal sets.
Speaker 1: In seven a customer asked her to design a maternity dress,
Speaker 1: and this was at the time a new concept in
Speaker 1: American fashion. People generally wore their regular clothes during pregnancy,
Speaker 1: letting out the seams or adding extra material to make
Speaker 1: more room because they're belly swelled and they needed different
Speaker 1: garments fits During very advanced pregnancy. When this was not practical,
Speaker 1: people who could afford to typically just stayed at home.
Speaker 1: But a lot of people couldn't afford to just stay
Speaker 1: home while pregnant, and there was this huge unmet need
Speaker 1: for a practical, modest, comfortable maternity garment that was appropriate
Speaker 1: to be warned to work. So Haimilstein's first design was
Speaker 1: a simple adjustable dress that used pleats and elastic to
Speaker 1: expand as needed, and it was an immediate success. When
Speaker 1: she realized how much demand there was for maturity clothing,
Speaker 1: Haimilstein branched out into more designs, using elastic and flared
Speaker 1: skirts and draw strings, sashes and ties to try to
Speaker 1: fashion dresses that were comfortable, expandable, and often also concealing.
Speaker 1: Many of them were designed to still be wearable, sometimes
Speaker 1: with a little bit of alteration after the baby was born.
Speaker 1: This concealment of pregnancy was actually a really big deal.
Speaker 1: In the first decades of Himilstein's business, people who could
Speaker 1: afford it replaced their regular coursets with maternity coursets which
Speaker 1: were designed to both support the figure and conceal the
Speaker 1: appearance of pregnancy, and you can actually buy these at
Speaker 1: a number of retailers, including Lane Bryant. As I was
Speaker 1: looking to see if I can find a picture of her,
Speaker 1: or like a good historical picture of a of an
Speaker 1: old storefront or something, I kept finding all of these
Speaker 1: maternity corset ads and they were all on scans of
Speaker 1: newspaper pages, and there would be three or four other
Speaker 1: maternity corset ads right around there. So maternity course it's
Speaker 1: hot item at the time. In two Himilstein remarried Lithuanian
Speaker 1: American mechanical engineer Albert Malson. They eventually had three children together.
Speaker 1: Milson started working on the financial and logistical side of
Speaker 1: the business, helping it to expand, and the business incorporated
Speaker 1: as Lane Bryant Incorporated in nineteen sixteen, when she had
Speaker 1: opened her first bank account for the business. Back in
Speaker 1: those earlier days of that first dress shop, her name
Speaker 1: had been Lena Bryant, but the bank misspelled it as
Speaker 1: Lane and the name just stuck. So was she going
Speaker 1: by that name? Nope, Nope, I don't think she personally
Speaker 1: was going by the name, but it was just the
Speaker 1: business name. But yeah that when the bank misspelled it
Speaker 1: on her her business account, that definitely stuck for the
Speaker 1: business name Gotcha. Sales grew rapidly, from fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to five million dollars between nineteen o nine and ninety three.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventeen, she also branched out from Eternity, where
Speaker 1: in two plus sized clothing, this time after having measured
Speaker 1: thousands of women and found that they all generally fit
Speaker 1: into one of three body types, so she made clothing
Speaker 1: in larger sizes for each of those types. By nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, lane Bryant had more than a hundred stores,
Speaker 1: and this was in spite of cultural taboos that had
Speaker 1: prevented Hamilstein herself from being able to advertise in the
Speaker 1: earliest years of the business. Most of her early advertising
Speaker 1: was done through word of mouth, and most of her
Speaker 1: sales came from mail order catalogs. Even so, for decades,
Speaker 1: most of the women in lane Bryant's advertisements were very slender.
Speaker 1: None of them were visibly pregnant. They were basically like
Speaker 1: people like like women in little little dresses with little
Speaker 1: tiny waists, being like yes, you can expand the stress
Speaker 1: quite a lot. Well, and that's one of those things
Speaker 1: that's even carried through into the modern era. Only in
Speaker 1: the fairly recent era in plus sized catalogs have models
Speaker 1: been anything over like a twelve. So it's changing now,
Speaker 1: but slowly, but but happening. Yes. In addition to designing
Speaker 1: and selling clothing for populations that were not really being
Speaker 1: served by the fashion industry, Lena Hamilstein was also on
Speaker 1: the forefront of labor rights for retail employees. During her
Speaker 1: time at the company's helm, employees received reimbursements for medical care,
Speaker 1: along with pensions, life insurance, disability coverage, and profit sharing.
Speaker 1: She was also a philanthropist, donating to the Hebrew Immigrant
Speaker 1: Aid Society and the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies,
Speaker 1: among others. Hamilstein died on September nineteen fifty one, at
Speaker 1: which point Lane Bryant was the largest plus sized clothing
Speaker 1: retailer in the United States. And in today's running theme,
Speaker 1: if someone wrote a full biography of Lena Haimilstein, I
Speaker 1: would read that for sure. Uh, and now once again
Speaker 1: another gear change. Uh. We're gonna go out on a
Speaker 1: much later note. Courtesy of our listener Mike, and that
Speaker 1: is the Great Wyndham Frog Fight of seventeen fifty four.
Speaker 1: At least it's lighter if you're not especially uh soft
Speaker 1: on frogs or really love okay, if you if you
Speaker 1: like frogs a lot, or just animals in general. Not
Speaker 1: so much of a lighter story. But it is really weird.
Speaker 1: So things weren't going too well in Wyndham, Connecticut in
Speaker 1: the summer of seventeen fifty four. The French and Indian
Speaker 1: War has started that May, and the region had also
Speaker 1: been beset by rout and then on one particularly muggy
Speaker 1: night in June, I did not find anywhere that specified
Speaker 1: what night in June specifically, residents were arra find out
Speaker 1: of their beds by a horrible, inexplicable cacophony. People heard
Speaker 1: all kinds of shouts among the clamor and they sounded
Speaker 1: like calls for rum or gin, or the names of
Speaker 1: the town's militia leaders, or the names of the people listening,
Speaker 1: or war cries from an invading army, or the trumpets
Speaker 1: on Judgment Day. Sometimes people call it the frog Fright
Speaker 1: because it was so very frightening. There was just so
Speaker 1: much noise. Some of the local militia did take up
Speaker 1: arms and fire into the darkness, but that had little effect.
Speaker 1: By morning, though the sound had died down. After dawn,
Speaker 1: the residents of Wyndham left their homes to find hundreds
Speaker 1: of bull frogs belly up all over the place, and
Speaker 1: they eventually concluded that they had been fighting over the
Speaker 1: last remnant of water in a nearly dry pond, and
Speaker 1: that those frogs fighting had caused all of this noise.
Speaker 1: We're also taking with a grain of salt how many
Speaker 1: frog they're really were, because we only have the accounts
Speaker 1: of people who were frightened out of their wits. Uh
Speaker 1: So this became a weirdly popular story. In the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: The town put a frog on its official seal. There
Speaker 1: were poems and ballads and even an operetta written about it.
Speaker 1: The Windham Bank even issued money with a pair of frogs,
Speaker 1: one living in one dead, with the living one kind
Speaker 1: of like lording over the dead one in a position
Speaker 1: of victory in the lower right corner. Today Wyndham is
Speaker 1: known as Willomantic, and there's a bridge over the Willomantic
Speaker 1: River has giant bronze frog sculptures on it. So that's
Speaker 1: basically the whole story why that's why we're not doing
Speaker 1: a whole episode on it. It's very weird, but there
Speaker 1: there's just not not a lot more there. I like
Speaker 1: how it's like the frog spooked us real bad and
Speaker 1: now it's our town identity. Exactly what happened? Do you
Speaker 1: have some listener mails? Sure you? Uh? And this is
Speaker 1: from Kara and it goes back all the way back
Speaker 1: to our Her Nana's Versus Texas episode which was earlier
Speaker 1: this fall, and Kara says, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I
Speaker 1: love the show. I listened on my way to work,
Speaker 1: and I love finding out new and interesting things on
Speaker 1: my commute. I had honestly thought I would never have
Speaker 1: a reason to write in about an episode because I
Speaker 1: thought that my life and experience did not particularly intersect
Speaker 1: with history. But then I heard your episode on Her
Speaker 1: Nanda's Versus Texas. I was delighted to hear a brief
Speaker 1: reference to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. I'm a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and after graduating from law school, I clerked for a
Speaker 1: judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. A clerkship
Speaker 1: is a one or two year position where a generally
Speaker 1: newly graduated lawyer assists a judge by reviewing petitions, doing research,
Speaker 1: advising the judge, and helping to draft a pit unions.
Speaker 1: My time with this little known court was very interesting
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad for the experience. I still fondly
Speaker 1: remember eating my lunch on a bench outside the Texas
Speaker 1: State Capital nearly every day when looking at the beautiful
Speaker 1: flowers that are planted there. Here's a bit of legal trivia.
Speaker 1: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals is one of only
Speaker 1: two high courts that exclusively here's criminal cases in Texas.
Speaker 1: The Texas Supreme Court Here's only civil that is, non
Speaker 1: criminal cases, while the Court of Criminal Appeals is at
Speaker 1: the same level as the Texas Supreme Court, Here's only
Speaker 1: criminal cases. This explains why Hernandez appealed directly from the
Speaker 1: c c A to the U. S. Supreme Court and
Speaker 1: did not go to the Texas Supreme Court. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then it follows with a plug for an episode idea
Speaker 1: and then kerasas thanks for all you do, Kara, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Kara. I am so glad that uh
Speaker 1: that we had got this email, because I was actually
Speaker 1: curious about why the case had gone from the Texas
Speaker 1: Court of Criminal Appeal, which just by its name suggests
Speaker 1: that it is an appeals court that would probably be
Speaker 1: like a rung below a Supreme court. Um why I
Speaker 1: had gone directly from that to the U. S. Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: So I was very glad to learn that reason, which
Speaker 1: is one of those like details that I did not
Speaker 1: look up at the time because it was not completely
Speaker 1: pertinent to what we're talking about. So thank you so
Speaker 1: much Kieff for writing in. Also feel free to write
Speaker 1: in just to say hello. We love those emails too. Yes, indeed,
Speaker 1: if you would like to write to us about this
Speaker 1: or any other podcast where History podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. We're also on Facebook and uh, Twitter
Speaker 1: and Pinterest and Instagram, all of those at Missed in
Speaker 1: History is our name there, UH you can come to
Speaker 1: our website, which is missed in History dot com and
Speaker 1: you will find the show notes to all the episodes
Speaker 1: that Holly and I have done together in a searchable
Speaker 1: archive of all the episodes. Ever, so come and see
Speaker 1: us at missed History dot com. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stop works dot com.