WEBVTT - Part Two: The Tramp Printers: Union Vagabonds 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:02.759 Hello, and welcome to you. Cool people did cool stuff 0:00:02.759 --> 0:00:04.520 the podcast. I gave up trying to come up with 0:00:04.559 --> 0:00:09.360 clever ways to introduce Like months ago, I'm your host, 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:11.560 Margaret Kildroy. Every week I tell you about rebels and 0:00:11.600 --> 0:00:13.840 weirdos and all the folks in history that I think 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:18.120 are cool or at least interesting, like Caitlin Durante, who 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.480 isn't in history? Is more like in the room right now, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:29.560 virtual room the present. Yeah. And I am a president, yeah, 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.879 and I am a presidents Wow. What am I saying? 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:38.879 I'm tired? No? Yeah, probably and soon we'll be president. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:45.560 How are you? Caitlin Durante? Who are your president? Caitlin Durante? Um? 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:50.600 How am I? I'm good? I'm not spitting up blood still, 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:55.760 so I've done a good job. I am. Did you 0:00:55.800 --> 0:01:00.480 also ask who are you? Yes? Okay, okay, us wanted 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:04.160 to check you know, I'm a person. I'm just a 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:10.839 person out here living in the world. Great, just the person. 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:15.320 And we also have our Sophie with us, whose name 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:23.040 is Sophie. Hi, Sophie, I'm okay, living life excellent. Ian 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.720 as our audio engineer on Woman Rode or three Music. 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.959 This week we're talking about tramp printers, and we're grouchy 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.240 because they're in a union that's racist, even though a 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:35.039 lot of them are fighting against that racism. And I 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:37.160 don't know when they won, and someone will tell me, 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:40.240 and I'll be happy that they tell me. Anyway, go 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:46.040 listen to part one, both of you, Sophie and Kalin. Okay, bye, okay, 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.120 see you and we are back okay, And now that 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:52.160 you all listen to part one, we can talk about 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.600 part two. So our apprentice has just become a journeyman 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:01.160 and joined the International Typographical Union. The word journeyman and 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.360 craft unions and gills and ship is literal. It's like 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:11.320 wandering journey man, person who goes on journeys. And this 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:13.600 was seen as an important part of becoming good at 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.680 any given trade. How can you be the master of 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:17.160 a trade if you haven't been in a ton of 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.079 different shops in different places that do things differently, right, 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:24.120 M And I find that really interesting, And it's like, well, 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.520 I spent my twenties wandering. Of course I find this interesting. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.680 So printers were expected to travel. Some caught the bug 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.760 and stayed traveling and became tramps. Some learned some skills 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.040 and then settled down and joined the Home Guard, choosing 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.040 a pension and stability over flexibility and freedom. What would 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:49.639 you all pick? WHOA I would? I would probably journey 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:54.480 for a while. Actually, I would probably just do what 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.880 I do now, which is like journey some of the time, 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.280 and then have a home base that I return to 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:03.639 and stay. Yeah, you know, fair majority of the time. 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.480 But then I'd be like, I'm bored, I need to 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:12.959 go to Amsterdam and look at graffiti. Good call back, 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.600 thank you. Yeah, you learned about that by going back 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:20.079 and listening to part one, so I appreciate that. Yes, 0:03:21.680 --> 0:03:23.280 So I don't know if that's an option to just 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:29.560 be part time journeyman, part time sitting around or I 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:32.160 bet you could do it. And that is how comedy works, right, 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.800 you finish your apprenticeship? Yes? What time did you start 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.960 your apprenticeship? And how much piss was involved? I was, 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:43.520 I was the age of twelve as well as this 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:50.640 standard the comedy god a piss Yeah yeah, they used 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:58.840 they used to clean the stage. Yeah, clean your mouth 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:03.120 after bad jokes exactly. Yeah. Some people like here's a bar, 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:06.160 so clean out your mouth, but comedians do it with 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:11.080 their own pp and uh yeah, And so I was 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:17.120 an apprentice for like probably three to four years and 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:25.720 then um, then I became a Yeah I just want 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:30.200 to comedy. Yeah it's good. Yeah, thanks, I'll be here 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:34.440 all night. And where as I came in the side door. Okay. 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.320 So the system has a lot of advantages, right this 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.600 like journeyman system, the tramp system, all of that. If 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.000 workers went on strike in one place, they could go 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.640 find other jobs while they were on strike somewhere, and 0:04:51.600 --> 0:04:54.840 you know, you go wander away. And so strike funds 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:56.800 don't need to be quite so large as they might 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.719 need to be otherwise because the workers are as reliant 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:05.760 upon the one individual income. It also meant that itinerant 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:08.360 workers were always available to support any other labor action 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:12.239 that needed bodies and it it's stitched together a social 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.200 framework of the union as well, because there are always 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.160 people in your shop, whether they traveled or not, with 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.040 stories and news from elsewhere. Whether you travel or not, right, 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:23.440 there's always going to be people showing up with news 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:26.400 and showing up with different stories and different way that 0:05:26.480 --> 0:05:29.520 things that things are being done in different places. It 0:05:29.600 --> 0:05:31.280 also is kind of the main way that the home 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:33.200 guard would get a chance to take days off because 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:37.400 nineteenth century not famously good for working conditions. Mm hmm. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.159 And I'm very biased about this because I sort of 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.200 spent my early twenties living a tramp activist life where 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.520 a whole bunch of us would go and travel around 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.600 to wherever any given political struggle that like needed support 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.320 needed people show up, and then like would go wander on. 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:58.719 And I think that inter weaving a traveling culture of 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.520 tramps with folks who stay put and keep things consistent 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:03.760 is a very good way to build a strong social 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.000 movement as compared to like often it's presented this as 0:06:07.040 --> 0:06:10.800 this dichotomy, right where like, no, everyone must stay put 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:14.479 and do hard activist work and never go anywhere, or 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.560 all that matters is wandering around freely or whatever you know, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.000 I don't know I and and just to I like 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:25.320 it because it's both individualistic and community minded at once, Like, 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.080 because the printers are free spirited roamers, right, and they 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:32.080 do whatever they want in a community built, community maintained 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:37.000 system of solidarity that they participate in and uphold um. 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.919 And I feel like we're always presented with this idea 0:06:39.000 --> 0:06:41.320 that like doing what's good for the individuals, like counter 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.320 what's good for the community, and I just think it's 0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:48.559 a shitty dichotomy that we should avoid whenever possible. Um, 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:53.000 that's my little philosophical aside. I agree, thanks, I can't 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:58.960 be doing good work when I'm tired and hungry, Yeah, totally, 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.080 and like going off and experiencing your best life and 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:07.360 seeing the world and all that stuff, like, I mean whatever. Anyway, Yeah, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:09.920 And the way that people would see the world in 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:11.720 this context is that they would tramp. This was not 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.320 a like high class way of travel. Specifically, most of 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:17.240 them rode the rails, most of them road freight trains 0:07:17.280 --> 0:07:21.720 in classic American hobo form, and but they travel however, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.320 they could. Some never left the big cities that they 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:26.560 were in, and they would like tramp by streetcar from 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:29.800 job to job. Uh. There was a whole crew called 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.600 the Missouri River Pirates who rode rafts around the Missouri River, 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:35.680 and they would like just catch catfish all day and 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:38.520 be bobos and then like show up and print for 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:41.080 a while, get a paycheck, go drink the paycheck, go 0:07:41.160 --> 0:07:45.600 back to catching catfish. Others caught rides on freighters and 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:48.800 worked literally all over the world, not necessarily directly through 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.440 the union, but operating the same kind of concept just 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.120 showing up and being a printer because it is a 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:59.000 skilled it is a complicated skilled job that isn't demand 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.600 all over the world because there's one form of technology 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.600 that is now being used all over the world about 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.240 how to print. I started by like hyping out the 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:10.040 list of places that American and Canadian tramp printers would 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:13.520 end up. But I stopped because the only continent that 0:08:13.520 --> 0:08:18.000 I didn't include with Antarctica on the list. And they're 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.720 a wild bunch. They sleep in barns, they sleep on 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.000 the floor of the printer's office where they're working. They 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.920 would go drink the pub dry, they'd smuggle booze into work, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.200 and they'd have like fancy, like weird tricks where they'd 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:33.080 be like, oh, this is my medicine, and they'd like 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.840 have died all of their alcohol, like funny colors and 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:42.040 ship okay, And they weren't a not all of them 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:43.800 are the same. Some of them are totally sober, right, 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:47.120 But they had this reputation that they overall earned of 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:50.600 being rowdy and drunk and was still really good at 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:54.720 their jobs. And they also had a reputation for being 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:58.200 incredibly well read and literate for remembering the most odd 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.360 and arcane texts, and they would like stay up late 0:09:01.679 --> 0:09:04.240 and hang out and swap stories not just of like 0:09:05.400 --> 0:09:08.400 I don't know, drinking and wandering, but also opinions about 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.200 politics and poetry and literature and like all of the 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:16.520 like fancy stuff that these poor people shouldn't be talking about, right, 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:19.240 And they a lot of them spoke a ton of 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:23.600 languages and would quote all kinds of like famous fancy people. 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.040 They would like stay up late talking to the editor. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:28.920 They'd stay up late at the bar, or they'd stay 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.600 up late in hobo jungles, which is um I literally 0:09:32.600 --> 0:09:34.959 no idea how common this type of terminology is, Like 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.160 do you know what a hobo jungle is? No, when 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.319 you're writing freight trains, which should just continue to self 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.560 insert as much as possible in order so that everyone 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:48.120 thinks I'm cool. My granddad wrote freight road freight trains 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:50.080 in the Great Depression, and then I wrote freight trains 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.160 in the early aughts. I wasn't very good at it. 0:09:53.200 --> 0:09:54.760 I have no idea how good my granddad was, and 0:09:54.800 --> 0:09:57.400 never talked to him about it before he died. But 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:01.720 so hobo jungles still exist. It is the place where 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:04.520 everyone sleeps and hangs out while they're waiting to catch 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:09.600 a freight train. And they're basically like encampments, and they're 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:12.200 often in little patches of trees next to train tracks, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:16.120 near the near the yard, near the train yard. And 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.199 whoever is there. They might cook together. They might share 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:22.680 food and drink and coffee and cigarettes. Um. They might 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.920 tell terrible jokes. They also like getting people getting a 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:27.800 fights and stuff too. It's not like perfect in utopian, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.880 but it's like interesting, right, and a lot of share camaraderie. 0:10:31.360 --> 0:10:35.439 M One historian Paul Fisher, talking about the tramp printers said, 0:10:36.200 --> 0:10:39.040 he said, mr to no man, expected no man to 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.240 accord him the same title. Had he been more democratic, 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.000 he would have been an anarchist because it wasn't necessarily 0:10:45.080 --> 0:10:48.080 a political position that they were like this. You know. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.600 John Edward Hicks, who was a tramp printer himself, said 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.920 that a tramp printer didn't own anything, never expected to, 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:57.000 and wouldn't have known what to do with it if 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:00.480 he had. Like there's one story I read about a 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.280 tramp printer like wins a bar in a card game 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.360 against the bar owner, and so then he just makes 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.000 all them drinks free for everyone all night, and then 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:13.160 he gives the bar back to the bar owner because 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:15.560 he's like, oh, I don't want to bar fucking tramp, 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:20.080 I want to travel. UM. I like that story. Yeah, 0:11:21.440 --> 0:11:23.920 And the only tools they traveled with was a Union card, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.200 the card the travelers card that said I'm in good 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.080 standing with the Union, I pay my dues, I know 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.600 how to print UM, a makeup rule, which is like 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.080 a tiny little metal ruler that they used to separate 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.600 lines of type and line gauges of various lengths. These 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.880 were like the personal tools that they carried. Everything else 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:45.360 is supplied at the job. They also brought with them quadrats, 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:48.680 which are little squared pieces of type that are used 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:52.079 for spacing, and each one had a mark called a 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.599 nick on one side, and they would basically gamble. Is 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:59.120 just it's basically hot dice like hobos today and by 0:11:59.120 --> 0:12:01.559 today I mean twenty years go. And I was hanging 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:03.719 out moral folks who did this. I would play a 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:05.440 game called hot dice all the time. We just have 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:08.880 six sided dice and you play this nonsensical game. And 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:12.079 so the tramp printers would roll their quads, and whoever 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.880 had most of their quads land nick side up would win. 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.480 Sometimes they'd win like who's buying the beer later? You know? 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.520 Sometimes it was like who gets the nice or the 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.240 loser buys the beer? And sometimes would be like who 0:12:25.280 --> 0:12:27.200 gets the nice job in the office today and who 0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:29.240 gets the shitty job? I feel like this is like 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:32.600 kind of their rock paper scissors, right. They were like, 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:36.280 all right, who has the piss job and who has 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:39.040 just got a clean with piss today? Yeah, and that 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.440 was the winner because that was the best job. And 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:44.480 a journalist at the time referred to them as broke 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:49.040 poets with no coins but scraps of poetry in their pockets, 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.120 which they would get drunk and recite. Franklin M. White, 0:12:53.200 --> 0:12:56.400 a printer, said that they quote sprinkled knowledge and literacy 0:12:56.440 --> 0:12:59.600 as enthusiastically as Johnny spread his apple seed. I have 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.160 met aunt printers who could recite Shakespeare, Wild Chaucer, Gibbon, 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:05.120 and then et cetera. A bunch of other names I 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.040 actually don't even recognize because I don't know all the 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:10.800 nineteen century names. And okay, what have you ever played 0:13:10.840 --> 0:13:15.800 dungeons and dragons? I have not Okay, well it sounds 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:20.240 like something I would do, but I haven't, Sophie. Yes, 0:13:21.440 --> 0:13:23.720 I would say that these are basically they're they're dungeons 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:29.320 and dragons, bards. There's a class in Paddington to format 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:34.880 for Caitlin. Okay, so there's a bear in Paddington and 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:39.280 there's some movies based on him, and probably in the 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.280 first one he's mostly in one place. In the second 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:47.560 when he travels around, I'm like, surely, I mean there, look, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:49.440 so it works with home alone and a bunch of 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:57.600 others and five third act of Paddington two takes place 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:04.000 on a steam train. Alright, yeah, traveling circus train if 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.720 you will. And um, there's and and there's a lot 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:13.880 of hijinks. All right. Is there one character who travels 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:19.960 all the time and reads poetry? Um? Can we make 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:26.160 one up? Yes, that would be Paddington's cousin, Jobbo, the hobo. 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:34.440 I was gonna say, Baddington is better and so yeah, 0:14:34.480 --> 0:14:39.520 that's yes. So it's just like Baddington from Paddington too. Yeah, 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.360 that's the best way to for everyone out there to understand. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.960 Thank you. Some bars they would show up and they'd 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:50.960 pull out their measuring stick, Okay, they pull out their 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.440 their measuring stick, they put it on the bar, and 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:56.560 the bar keep would let them a stranger open a 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.920 tab because they were also known for paying their fucking tab. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:03.480 They were good for it. And there was like a 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.600 pool hall in Chicago called Jack O'Brien's that let tramps 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:16.240 sleep on the pool tables. I know, that's funny. Get 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.640 you get the jokes. I don't get. Brian of the 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:25.160 Daily Zeyegeist, Oh yeah, is that guy's pool table? Yeah? Yeah, 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.680 another vampire who Actually I don't know the means of 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:32.280 Jack's immortality. Vampism is always the first one that comes 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:39.320 to mind. It works, I get it. He's a vampire. Sure, vampire, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:44.240 sure yeah. And let hobos tramp printers sleep on the 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:47.200 pool tables or under the pool tables if people wanted 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:49.960 to play um. I like the idea of going into 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.000 the pool hall and like someone's like fine, and it's 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.400 like someone who's better at a job than I'll ever 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:56.720 be at mine is just sleeping on the pool table, 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.040 and it's like fine, and it just starts sleeping underneath 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:05.240 the pool table, like playpool. Pretty cool, Like all good tramps, Caitlin, 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:11.920 They did lots of crime. M yes, now we're talking. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:17.120 Some of it was printing related crime, specifically counterfeiting with 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:20.600 something that I was gonna say like plagiarism or probably 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:22.560 that too. To be honest, there's a lot of like 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:25.360 ways that people made money in early printing, just by 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.760 being like, oh, yeah, no, I'm authorized to sell this 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:36.400 best selling book by Twilight from me Margaret I wrote it, 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:46.000 or Lord, that's my book for you. It's about vom pors. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:52.080 So anyway, okay, So they played plagiarized money m hmm. 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:55.360 And other times they just did regular crime, like stealing 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.040 stuff to sell it, or pretending they were priests and 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.560 giving speeches and then passing the hat. It was another 0:17:01.560 --> 0:17:05.200 way that they would make money. One tramp printer, actually 0:17:05.240 --> 0:17:07.600 several tramp printers did this, but one tramp printer whose 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.879 name I got did this. When tramp printer was Magnificent 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:15.000 Maureen of the Flying Trapeeze. Because eventually she quit typeset 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:19.720 into join the circus. There was a legendary king of 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.679 the tramp printers, Peter bartlet Lee, and legendary in this 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.000 way that like traveling cultures, and I think like lots 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:30.399 of subcultures do this where someone's like legendary only within 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:35.920 this circle, right, Like I doubt this was a household 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.479 name to any degree, but at any you know, jungle 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:41.879 or whatever, you probably knew people who had knew of 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.680 Peter bartlet Lee, who wore a tailcoat and a wide 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:47.800 brimmed hat. Who would want who wandered the country looking 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.040 for his lost wife because he had served in the 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.320 Union Army and he came home to find no trace 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:55.480 of his wife. He probably sucked and she just took off, 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.680 but whatever, and he spent the rest of his life 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:02.399 wandering before he eid in Nebraska, buried under a stone 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:08.200 that reads and thus we die still searching. Oh that's sad, 0:18:08.640 --> 0:18:14.160 you know. Another tramp printer was the Duke of Wellington. 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.600 He spent the nineteen twenties trampion in Arizona. He was 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.040 like the youngest son of some estate in England, right 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:27.000 called Wellington's, and he was the youngest son. So imagine 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:29.720 his surprise when basically like all of his older brothers 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:32.200 and his dad die and they like call him home 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:33.880 and like are like, you gotta go be the Duke 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:38.040 of Wellington now. So it goes home and the estates 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:40.879 in terrible shape. And so we kind of just like 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.800 Bucks off right back to the US to keep tramp 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.960 printing because he's like this, I like it more. And 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:49.360 then there were a whole bunch of other like fake 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.960 nobility around as well, like people being like I'm the 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:55.880 Prince of Wales or whatever, you know, just because they're 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:02.480 like whatever. Okay, Yeah, that's the Sophie taking a hard 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.600 stance against the Prince of Wales. Yeah, what do you 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.520 have against Wales? Nothing? I have the fact that they 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.720 have to have a prince that isn't actually from Whales, 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:14.600 that is the Prince of Wales that is now the 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:22.680 King of England named Um and he's despicable, and I'm done. 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.520 But I got it. It felt good. It felt really good. 0:19:25.960 --> 0:19:32.439 You know who else is lying is advertized, you know 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.200 who has a monetary incentive to lie, but obviously isn't 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:40.600 lying to you, dear listener. It's the podcast, the products 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:48.359 and services that support this podcast. And we are back 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.159 and we're talking about how Margaret forgot that the King 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:56.800 of England was the Prince of Wales. You forgot, but 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.560 I didn't even know in the first place. I don't 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:05.280 understand and appreciate people are or where they're from. So well, 0:20:05.280 --> 0:20:09.720 do you want to hear about Muskogee Red, Yeah, I do. Well. 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.000 He was legendary in that same hobo way where you're 0:20:12.000 --> 0:20:15.760 like legendary only amongst the tramps. He was. He was 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:18.600 legendary for just being an old hobo who went everywhere, 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:23.320 did everything, always drunk spent. People were like, he's worked 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:27.080 in every printer's office in the West, and he's been 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:31.119 in every jail in the West. One time, apparently he 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.200 burned down the jail he was in because he didn't 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:38.399 want to be in it anymore. Oh yeah, And another 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.000 time someone thought they found him dead, and a paper 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.640 he had worked on before wrote a touching obituary about 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:46.200 how he'd been found dead with half a bottle of 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.000 whiskey because they really liked him, and they're like, oh, 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:53.399 poor guy died, we'll write this obituary. Muskogee read shows 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.800 up whole in the copy of the obituary and he's like, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.640 you know, this is touching, but I'm clearly not dead 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:02.560 and you should have known it wasn't me because the 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:06.880 bottle was only half empty. Mm hmmm, because he because 0:21:06.880 --> 0:21:10.440 he drank a lot. I know exactly. Um I love 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.560 that like so many just different like things are, Like, 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:18.400 I'm a person's legendary because they can consume toxins, so 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:24.080 many toxins. I've never seen that person without toxins. That's 0:21:24.119 --> 0:21:27.600 the legacy I want to leave behind. Yeah, which toxin 0:21:29.280 --> 0:21:34.399 you know? I'm I'm partial to whiskey myself. Um, I 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.040 like a good tequila as well. Yeah, and don't forget 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:42.639 about white claws, the most refreshing toxin of them all. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:47.000 White glads are unfair and how not like alcohol they are. 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:57.720 It's actually like, yeah, I know so, m hmm. The 0:21:57.760 --> 0:22:00.440 I t U wasn't the only union with trump workers. 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:03.600 This whole concept, the journeyman system and also like even 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.119 just like the travelers card where people could go around 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:09.119 and work in any union shop they wanted, was actually 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:12.000 like fairly common throughout the nineteenth century. I start reading 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:15.840 this whole book that's about why that's bad, Um, because 0:22:15.880 --> 0:22:21.440 it's something something Marxism, something, something undermining solidarity in the 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:24.679 working class, something something, And I was really annoyed buy it, 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.200 so I didn't read it. That doesn't really make me 0:22:28.240 --> 0:22:31.639 sound like a very good, trustworthy source. I read departs 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:36.680 about it about the international typographer typographical union. Okay, that's important, 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:38.560 but a lot of different unions would have this kind 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:42.119 of system. The Cigar Makers Union was another notoriously tramp 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:45.720 heavy union, and it's also a strong union that a 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:47.560 lot of union leaders came out of. Which is my 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:49.640 counter argument of that book that I can't really argue 0:22:49.640 --> 0:22:54.280 against because I didn't finish, is that, yeah, Samuel Gompers 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:57.200 came out of the Cigar Makers Union, and like, he's 0:22:57.200 --> 0:23:00.280 a union leader guy. But the I t was one 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:04.560 of the most itinerant work unions in the eighties, something 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:07.600 like eight thousand printers. Any given year, we're tramping around 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:11.280 by two more than six of the union took a 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:16.080 traveling card. So eighteen thousand people that year were like 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:20.480 tramp printers because there's just so much print work available, Okay, 0:23:20.480 --> 0:23:22.520 And so it's also worth pointing out as far as 0:23:22.520 --> 0:23:25.840 I can tell, and this number would fluctuate constantly, but 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:28.560 most of the time in the nineteenth century, it seems 0:23:28.560 --> 0:23:32.520 like the I t U was doing about of the 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:36.160 paid printing in the US. So this wasn't like all 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:38.800 of the printing, and I think that that even I'm 0:23:38.800 --> 0:23:40.640 sure they wanted to be wider than that. I'm glad 0:23:40.640 --> 0:23:44.480 they didn't get wider than that because they were fucking racist, right. 0:23:45.440 --> 0:23:48.680 And but yeah, so this wasn't like all printers, right, 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:52.080 this wasn't like the thing that every printer was doing. However, 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.359 it was a specific system, um that should have been 0:23:55.359 --> 0:23:58.679 cooler than it was. So are they going to like 0:23:59.520 --> 0:24:02.880 just work get like a new They tramp for a bit, 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:05.800 they show up in town, and then what do they do. 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:07.639 They go to a newspaper, They go to like a 0:24:07.680 --> 0:24:11.359 publishing house for like terature, like what what kind of 0:24:11.680 --> 0:24:13.960 So I think basically anywhere, but I think in the 0:24:14.000 --> 0:24:16.000 newspapers were like where it was in the most in 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:18.480 demand because it was like the fastest turnaround. It was 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:20.720 like every day you're doing a new thing. There actually 0:24:20.800 --> 0:24:25.639 used to be more newspapers per city than there are now. Hm. 0:24:26.400 --> 0:24:28.800 And because it was like so easy to do. And 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:30.840 what you would do is you have your traveler's card, 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:32.879 which you actually have to apply for. It's not just 0:24:32.920 --> 0:24:34.480 like once you're in the Union you can just wander 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:37.119