WEBVTT - IDKMYDE: Alice Parker 

0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.200
<v Speaker 1>On today's episode. If I didn't know, maybe you didn't either.

0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:07.360
<v Speaker 1>We are bringing that heat literally because I want to

0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:10.600
<v Speaker 1>introduce to you someone who doesn't get nearly enough credit,

0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:15.200
<v Speaker 1>Alice H. Parker. Don't know her, well you should because

0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:17.720
<v Speaker 1>if you enjoyed not freezing your butt off every winter,

0:00:18.120 --> 0:00:21.680
<v Speaker 1>she's the reason for it. I didn't know, Maybe you didn't.

0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:29.240
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know. Maybe I didn't know. Maybe I didn't know.

0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.159
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know. I didn't know. Alice Parker was this

0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.720
<v Speaker 1>brilliant black woman born way back in eighteen ninety five,

0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:41.320
<v Speaker 1>so already, you know, life wasn't handing out participation trophies

0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:43.559
<v Speaker 1>to folks like her. But Alice looked around at how

0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.479
<v Speaker 1>people were heating their homes using wood and cold and thought,

0:00:48.320 --> 0:00:52.360
<v Speaker 1>this is trash. I mean, imagine chopping wood and freezing

0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.160
<v Speaker 1>cold weather just so you cannot freeze in your house.

0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.240
<v Speaker 1>Alice had the genius idea of using natural gas for

0:01:00.320 --> 0:01:03.520
<v Speaker 1>central heating. Hey, right, She basically said, what do we

0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.560
<v Speaker 1>stopped pretending we're on the Oregon Trail and brought some

0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.520
<v Speaker 1>twentieth century energy to the situation. How about that? Anybody

0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:11.960
<v Speaker 1>in agreement with that? And she didn't just dream it up.

0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.600
<v Speaker 1>She didn't just talk about it. She patented the design

0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.880
<v Speaker 1>in nineteen nineteen. That's like inventing wildfire before anybody had

0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:22.280
<v Speaker 1>ever seen a computer. And be clear, her design wasn't perfect,

0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:25.199
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't what we used today, but it was revolutionary.

0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.520
<v Speaker 1>It laid the groundwork for modern central heating systems. Without Alice,

0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:31.320
<v Speaker 1>a lot of us will still be huddled up around

0:01:31.360 --> 0:01:34.240
<v Speaker 1>space heaters arguing about who gets to stand the closest

0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.959
<v Speaker 1>or them kerosene heaters and go to school smell like

0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.479
<v Speaker 1>Pumpy Levin And let's be real, there's only so many

0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:42.000
<v Speaker 1>toes you can lose the frostbite before you start saying,

0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:45.399
<v Speaker 1>maybe there's a better way, y'all. Now here's the kicker.

0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:48.720
<v Speaker 1>Why don't we know her name? Why are you today,

0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.480
<v Speaker 1>years old, just finding out about Alice Parker And she

0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.600
<v Speaker 1>did this over one hundred years ago, barely a footnote

0:01:54.600 --> 0:01:58.120
<v Speaker 1>in history. Meanwhile, Thomas Edison farts out of light bulb

0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.560
<v Speaker 1>and we all act like he invented the sun and

0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.000
<v Speaker 1>he didn't even invent the light bulb. But that's a

0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:07.440
<v Speaker 1>whole nother conversation for a whole another episode. It's wild

0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.240
<v Speaker 1>how black women like Alice were out here quietly saving

0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.000
<v Speaker 1>the world while getting none of the credit. But her

0:02:13.000 --> 0:02:15.400
<v Speaker 1>story should inspire us. She didn't let the fact that

0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:17.960
<v Speaker 1>she was a black woman in nineteen nineteen, when the

0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:21.760
<v Speaker 1>world wasn't exactly rooting for her stop her. She had

0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:24.160
<v Speaker 1>an idea and she made it happen. So the next

0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:27.560
<v Speaker 1>time you cozy in your warm house, remember Alice Parker.

0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.919
<v Speaker 1>She's the reason you're not out chopping wood like a lumberjack.

0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.200
<v Speaker 1>And if that's not worth a round of applause, or

0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:35.959
<v Speaker 1>at least a thermostat adjustment in her honor, I don't

0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.200
<v Speaker 1>know what it is. Thank you, Alice Parker, for making

0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.840
<v Speaker 1>winter survivable and for proven that sometimes the warmest ideas

0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.560
<v Speaker 1>come from the coldest challenges. And I didn't know. Maybe

0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:50.280
<v Speaker 1>you didn't either, I didn't know.