WEBVTT - O. Henry 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.920 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.320 I'm Tracy V. Wilson, and I'm Holly Fry. When I 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:21.000 was a kid growing up in North Carolina, anytime we 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.440 had an Oh Henry short story to read an English class, 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:29.120 which was definitely more than once, the teacher would point 0:00:29.200 --> 0:00:33.680 out that he was from Greensboro. I didn't live in Greensboro, 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:36.440 but that was not too too far from where we lived, 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.760 so it was just this kind of point of pride. 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:45.280 So I was totally surprised recently when I stumbled over 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.319 a passing reference to Oh Henry. I think it might 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:52.640 have been while I was researching the Joshua Slocum episode, 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.720 Like it was just something that came about randomly while 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:01.840 researching something else, this passing reference to how Oh Henry 0:01:01.920 --> 0:01:06.080 at that time had just gotten back from Honduras, where 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:11.160 he had fled to avoid prosecution for embezzlement, and I 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.680 was like, excuse me, what, Oh Henry did? What? Now? 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:21.520 My English teachers never said anything about this. So since 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:25.920 one of Oh Henry's most famous short stories is Gift 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.560 of the Magi, which is all about Christmas, and gift 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:32.720 giving during hard times, and he also wrote some other 0:01:32.959 --> 0:01:36.319 lesser known Christmas stories as well. I thought that he 0:01:36.400 --> 0:01:40.600 might make an interesting addition to our Winter holiday catalog 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:44.880 this year. Oh Henry was born William Sydney Porter on 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:49.680 September sixty two in Greensboro, North Carolina, just a couple 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:51.600 of years before the end of the U. S. Civil War. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.920 His parents, Algernon Sydney and Mary Virginia Swain. Porter spelled 0:01:56.920 --> 0:02:00.480 his middle name Sydney s I d N E. Why, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.000 and he changed the eye to a hy later in 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:08.160 his life. In eighteen sixty five, William's mother died of tuberculosis, 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.280 and his newborn baby brother also died not long after that. 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:16.720 And this seems to have just really deeply affected Algernon Porter. 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:20.240 I mean, that's not surprising, but this effect on him 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.160 was really profound. He was a doctor, but in the 0:02:23.240 --> 0:02:26.400 years after this happened, he started to really struggle with 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.040 alcohol abuse, and he spent more and more of his 0:02:29.160 --> 0:02:34.359 time not practicing medicine but trying to invent things, including 0:02:34.440 --> 0:02:38.440 a perpetual motion machine that he seemed absolutely sure that 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:41.680 he could get working. People described this as just a 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:46.480 true fixation as Aldrenon's medical practice crumbled, william and his 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.000 older brother were placed in the care of their grandmother, 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:53.200 Ruth Porter and their aunt, Evelina Porter. Evelina was known 0:02:53.240 --> 0:02:56.760 as Lena, and she ran a small school called Miss Lena's. 0:02:57.480 --> 0:03:01.160 Williams started attending this school in eighteen sixty seven, and 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.480 although he was an avid reader, his time at his 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.400 aunt's school would be his only formal education. He left 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.000 at fifteen to start working so he could help support 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:13.000 the family. In eighteen seventy nine, he got a job 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.640 at his uncle's drug store, W. C. Portering Company, and 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.840 he started out as a bookkeeper, but over time he 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.480 started getting experience in the pharmacy. In eighteen eighty one, 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.120 he became part of the first group of druggists to 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.920 be licensed by the state of North Carolina after the 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:34.120 state passed its first law requiring licensure. In addition to 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:36.600 his work at the pharmacy, Porter used his time at 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:39.440 the drug store to observe people and to hear and 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.080 tell stories, and he developed a reputation as a practical joker. 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:47.160 He also drew cartoons and caricatures and started writing short 0:03:47.240 --> 0:03:50.360 vignettes about the people he met at the store. He 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.080 also developed a chronic cough, and given that his mother 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:57.640 and brother had both died of tuberculosis, people started to 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:01.760 worry about his health. In eight eight two, Dr James Hall, 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:04.440 one of the regulars at the store, invited Porter to 0:04:04.560 --> 0:04:07.840 accompany the Hall family to Texas, where they bought a ranch. 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.280 The idea was that the Texas climate might be better 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.320 for his lungs. Porter spent the next couple of years 0:04:15.360 --> 0:04:18.800 working on a sheep ranch in Catulla, Texas, but ranch 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.400 life was a little too remote for him, so in 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.960 eighteen eighty four he moved to Austin, where he worked 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:27.360 at a series of assorted jobs, including another stint as 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:30.760 a pharmacist, that time at Morley drug Store. In his 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.520 free time, he joined the Hill City Quartet, where he 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:36.800 sang as a tenor and he learned Spanish and reportedly 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:41.040 memorized a dictionary. In eighteen eighty five, then twenty three 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:44.359 year old Porter met seventeen year old athel Sts Roach. 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:48.520 Two years later, in July of eighteen eighty seven, they eloped. 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.160 Also in eighteen eighty seven, Porter put his drawing skills 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:56.760 to work as a draftsman at the Texas General Land Office. 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.600 In eighteen eighty eight, his wife gave birth to a 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:03.720 baby boy, who sadly died as a newborn. The Porters 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.919 had a daughter named Margaret about a year later, but 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.600 Porter's presence in their lives was a little erratic. He 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.520 had spent his first years in Austin as a bachelor, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.600 and after becoming a husband and a father, he still 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.000 seemed to want to spend his time carousing and socializing. 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:23.480 He said that this worked as inspiration for his writing. 0:05:24.120 --> 0:05:29.320 He also started making his own absinthe uh new time 0:05:29.320 --> 0:05:35.000 travel destinations included the absent part for Holly as a 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:40.920 holiday treat, hooray a gift for me. In one Porter 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.320 got a job at the first National Bank of Austin 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.800 when the family moved into the home that would eventually 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.520 become the O. Henry Museum. He had kept writing and 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.719 drawing during all of this In he started his own 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:58.599 publication called The Rolling Stone. This paper satirized local people 0:05:58.640 --> 0:06:01.080 in events, and it became pretty popular with more than 0:06:01.120 --> 0:06:05.239 one thousand subscribers when Austin's population was only about fifteen 0:06:05.240 --> 0:06:08.240 thousand people. But Porter could not get it to turn 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.680 a profit and it folded within a year. Also in 0:06:13.040 --> 0:06:17.360 Federal Bank Examiner B. F. Gray inspected the books at 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.440 First National Bank of Austin and found some problems, including 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.760 discrepancies totaling more than four thousand, seven hundred dollars. Porter's 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.920 work as a teller made him the prime suspect. In general, 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.719 the way that the bank was handling money was incredibly sloppy. 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:38.240 Often no one balanced the books at the end of 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.640 the day. Bank officers liked to lend themselves money from 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.719 the registers, sometimes leaving an IOU but sometimes not, and 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.240 random people would fill in for the tellers when they 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:51.000 were at lunch or on another break. So with all 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:53.799 of that in mind, at first a grand jury found 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.159 that there just wasn't enough evidence to indict anybody, but 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:01.159 Gray pushed for additional scrutiny at the bank that led 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:05.279 to the discovery of other suspicious transactions and another thousand 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:09.600 or so dollars of missing funds. After that discovery, William 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:14.120 Sidney Porter was indicted for embezzling. By this point, though 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:17.000 he had already resigned from the position at the bank, 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:19.600 he had not been worked in there for several months, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:22.680 and he had moved to Houston after being offered a 0:07:22.760 --> 0:07:26.080 job at the Houston Post. Porter's trial date was set 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:30.440 for July seven, and on July six, he boarded a 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:34.080 train bound for Austin, but he only made about fifty 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.400 miles of that journey. In Hampstead, Texas, he left the 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.400 train and instead boarded another one bound for New Orleans, Louisiana. 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.480 If Porter ever explained to anybody what he was thinking 0:07:46.880 --> 0:07:50.920 or why he decided to jump bail, they kept that 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:55.800 information to themselves. Given how haphazard the bank's bookkeeping had been, 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:58.800 There's been some suggestion that he probably would have been 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:02.320 acquitted if he had stood trial in like he was 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:05.920 supposed to. It's possible that he was afraid that the 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.800 bank's management was going to make him into a scapegoat, 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:11.640 or that he was just in crisis mode and really 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:15.120 not thinking clearly. Really, though, this whole stretch of his 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:18.440 story gets pretty murky, and we'll talk about that after 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:28.440 we pause for a sponsor break. At some point after 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:32.120 getting to New Orleans, William Sidney Porter boarded a ship 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:37.240 bound for Hunduras, possibly because Honduras had no extradition treaty 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.000 with the United States. According to al Jennings, when Porter 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.119 got to under US, he stayed in the US consulate 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:47.440 in tru Hillo, which is on the country's northeastern coast. 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:52.040 You can't exactly call Jennings a reliable source, though he 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:55.040 had been an attorney in Oklahoma. Before he and his 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.920 brother Frank decided they would become outlaws. They tried to 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.160 rob trains, which they were not particularly good at. At 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.680 one point, they tried to dynamite open a safe, but 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:08.000 instead blew the baggage car and everything in it to smithereens. 0:09:08.480 --> 0:09:10.640 I feel like there are a number of those stories 0:09:10.679 --> 0:09:14.040 in the train robbing era of the United States in particular. Yeah, 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:15.960 as I was writing that, I was like, have we 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.360 talked about this train robbing on the show? Because it 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:22.480 sounds very familiar. Yes. Eventually they made their way to 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:26.800 Central America, according to the book that Jennings published in 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.240 two which was called Through the Shadows with Oh Henry 0:09:31.440 --> 0:09:34.280 Porter and the Jennings brothers met in Trhio, and then 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.679 they got involved in a Fourth of July shoot out 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:40.520 the next day, and then they had to flee by 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:44.120 boat before taking a wandering trek to San Francisco by 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:47.079 way of Mexico City. At one point in this book, 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:50.000 Jennings describes a plan to rob a bank in San 0:09:50.040 --> 0:09:52.839 Antonio so that he can afford to buy a ranch. 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.600 He insists that Porter has quote neither recklessness nor the 0:09:57.640 --> 0:10:00.839 sang fuad of a lawbreaker, but tries to get him 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:05.360 involved anyway. After firing jennings gun into the ground by accident, 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:08.200 Porter says, quote, I think I would be a hindrance 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:15.080 on this financial undertaking. When Jennings suggests that Porter might 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.720 just hold the horses while everyone else robs the bank, 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:20.360 Porter says he doesn't think that he could even do that, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.960 and soon the men part ways. That's all a little 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.959 far fetched, especially since Porter headed for New Orleans on 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.719 July six, meaning that he could not have already been 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:33.520 in Honduras for that July fourth gunfight. Porter had been 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:35.840 on the run for about six months when he got 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.640 word that his wife was seriously ill. She had started 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:42.160 business school with the hope of being able to support 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:45.800 herself and their daughter, but she had tuberculosis like so 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:47.959 many other people in the story, and it suddenly got 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.840 much worse. Porter decided to return to the United States, 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:54.480 knowing that when he did, he would have to stand trial. 0:10:55.120 --> 0:10:58.880 Federal Prosecutor R. U. Culberson seems to have viewed Porter 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.160 with some sympathy. Initially, Culburson hadn't thought the case against 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.800 him was even worth pursuing, but Gray had been insistent 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:10.719 about it. Culberson allowed the court proceedings to be postponed 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.800 until after Ethel Porter's death on July seven, at the 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:21.720 age of twenty nine. Porter's trial started on February. The 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.120 original charges had been narrowed down to three. They covered 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.559 an amount of money just shy of six hundred dollars. 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:32.280 On February seventeenth, the jury found Porter guilty on all 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:36.280 three counts. There is still some debate about all of this, though, 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:40.120 as we said earlier, the bank's bookkeeping was frankly a mess. 0:11:40.720 --> 0:11:43.360 One of the charges was related to a transaction that 0:11:43.400 --> 0:11:48.240 had happened on November twelve, which was months after Porter 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.720 left the bank and moved to Houston. Documentation of the 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:56.240 trial itself is also sketchy, but Porter reportedly seemed detached 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:59.320 from the whole thing and barely even participated in his 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:02.240 own defense. Yeah, in this place in time, it was 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:05.600 not common to just fully transcribe the entire trial, so 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.720 there's no transcript of it. But that's how he's been described. 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.240 So interpretations of all this run along kind of a 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:17.240 big spectrum. At one end, Porter embezzled from the bank, 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.400 possibly to try to get money to fund the Rolling Stone, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.680 and then his trial was handled fairly. Then at the 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.320 other end, either he took the blame for other bank 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:31.320 employees actions, or he was doing the same things that 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.520 they were doing, but it was the only one who 0:12:33.559 --> 0:12:36.760 got charged with a crime because of it. One of 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.280 his friends, John Maxie, later said he thought that Porter 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.560 did take the money but intended to pay it back, 0:12:44.520 --> 0:12:47.439 just like everybody else at the bank who kept helping 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:52.120 themselves to unofficial loans. I just can't even imagine. Yeah, 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.240 if you work at a bank today, you definitely cannot 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.320 just take some money over the out of the till 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:59.760 and leave a little note there. I just need this overnight. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:03.600 I swear I'm gonna bring it back tomorrow outside of court. 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:07.000 Porter maintained his innocence in a letter to his mother. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.520 He wrote, quote, I am absolutely innocent of wrongdoing in 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.320 that bank matter. I care not so much for the 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.840 opinion of the general public, but I would have a 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:18.360 few of my friends still believe there is good in me. 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.280 In a letter to J. L. Watson, business manager at 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.160 the Houston Post, he said, quote, I want to state 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:28.360 to you that the charges against me are not only unfounded, 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.400 but are I think the work of spite as well. 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.400 Porter was sentenced to five years in prison, and he 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:42.000 started his incarceration at Ohio State Penitentiary on. He was 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:47.920 profoundly ashamed about this. He desperately wanted to shield his daughter, Margaret, 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:50.640 who at the time was eight years old, from the 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.440 truth about what had happened. He got his mother in 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.680 law to agree to send Margaret to live on a 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.319 relative's farm in Tennessee, to like just keep her out 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:02.640 of the public eye and away from gossip. He was 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.360 nearly despondent when his sentence started, and he used his 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:08.520 letters to Margaret as a way to try to keep 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:13.280 himself going. Also incarcerated with him was Dunt Dun dune 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.280 Al Jennings, who had been sentenced to life in prison 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:20.840 in conjunction with the train robbery that we talked about earlier. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.920 Later on, he would be pardoned by President Theodore Roosevelt. 0:14:25.360 --> 0:14:28.720 Whether jennings account of their earlier time together is true, 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:32.680 it does seem that they were friends while incarcerated. Theo 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:36.080 Henry story holding up a train starts with a note 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:39.080 that it's the words of an outlaw in the Southwest, 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:44.200 which was probably Al Jennings. Both Porter and Jennings described 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:48.600 conditions at the prison as deeply inhumane, and letters to 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:52.560 his in laws, Porter wrote about outbreaks of typhus, measles, 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:57.040 and tuberculosis, as well as frequent suicides among the incarcerated men. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:02.720 He also described overcrowding, frequent beatings, and rancid and rotten food. 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:07.480 At the same time, Porter was treated relatively leniently, becoming 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.160 the overnight pharmacist at the prisons hospital. He was also 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.120 credited with saving the warden's life after he was given 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.000 an accidental overdose of Fowler Solution, which was an arsenic 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:22.200 compound that was used as a general tonic. Porter reportedly 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:25.040 mixed something in the pharmacy that acted as an antidote. 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:29.120 If I had to guess, I would say it was charcoal. Eventually, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.880 Porter was given a clerical position working for the prison steward, 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:35.920 which allowed him to leave the prison unaccompanied and to 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:39.120 be housed outside of it. He and other men in 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:43.240 similar situations formed what they called the Recluse Club. I 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:48.040 should have just asked you about the arsenic antidote, because 0:15:48.080 --> 0:15:50.720 I forgot that You've just been working on an entire 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:59.960 podcast about poisoners, which is like arsenic poison so gradual. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:03.880 While he was incarcerated, Porter got onto a better emotional 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.800 footing and he started to write more. He always used 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.920 a pen name, and then he passed his stories through 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:14.840 a series of intermediaries before they were sent into publishers 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.960 to try to conceal his identity and his connection to 0:16:18.000 --> 0:16:21.280 the prison. This was when he published under the name 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.040 oh Henry for the first time. That was Whistling Dick's 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:31.600 Christmas Stocking, which appeared under that byline in McClure's. At first, 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.680 Porter was using several pen names, and it's not clear 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.400 why he eventually stuck with Oh Henry, or even where 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:41.960 that name came from. Biographers cite all kinds of possibilities. 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.240 Maybe it came from the United States Dispensary, which listed 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:51.640 a French pharmacist named Etienne Ossian Henry Are. Or maybe 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.120 the family had a cat named Henry and they would 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.560 call it by saying, oh Henry. Yeah. You can find 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:04.160 many biographers authoritatively and confidently saying completely different contradictory stories. 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:06.240 I feel like that cat one, and I want to 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.760 be like, I hope you're wearing comfortable shoes, because that 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:14.280 seems like a long walk. Porter was released from prison 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.040 with time off for good behavior on July nine, o one. 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.399 He was too ashamed to go back to Texas, so 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.880 he went to Pittsburgh. That's where his mother in law 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:26.800 had moved with his daughter. He stayed with them for 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:29.520 a while and he got a job at a newspaper, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.480 but eventually he moved into a boarding house. Although he 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:36.439 said this was because he had to keep erratic hours 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.439 for his job and he didn't want to disturb everybody, 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.399 it also just seems like he wanted some space. He 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:44.800 impresses me as a man that just like just didn't 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.840 really want to be tied down. Ever, I think family 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.439 life probably did not agree with his disposition. Uh. In 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.000 the spring of nineteen o two, Porter moved to New 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:56.600 York City, and when he got there, he started going 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.840 by Oh Henry all the time, not just as a byeline. 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:02.040 And we'll talk about that a little bit more after 0:18:02.080 --> 0:18:13.680 we have a sponsor break. Oh Henry loved New York City. 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.920 He seemed endlessly curious about its neighborhoods and the people 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.920 who lived in them. He loved to talk to people 0:18:20.960 --> 0:18:25.280 about their lives, with those conversations informing his short stories, 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.600 and as has always been the case, he loved to socialize, 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.240 especially with women. One of his favorite pastimes was to 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.280 meet a young women working in a shop somewhere, treat 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:39.080 her to dinner, and then find out all about her life, 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:42.600 with tidbits of those lives making their way into his writing. 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:45.680 For his first couple of years in New York, most 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.520 of oh Henry's stories were mostly set in the Southwest 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.480 and Central America. His novel Cabbages and Kings came out 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.320 in nineteen o four, although he described it not as 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.160 a novel but as quote a few of my South 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.240 American stories strung on a read. Cabbages and Kings is 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:05.760 set in a fictitious country called the Republic of Anchuria, 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.119 but it is very clearly based on his time in Honduras. 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:12.560 Before long, though New York City became a major focus 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:15.719 of oh Henry's writing. In nineteen o five and nineteen 0:19:15.720 --> 0:19:17.840 o six, he wrote more than a hundred and ten 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:20.920 news stories and about nine percent of them were set 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:23.920 in New York. That is more than two stories a week, 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.440 and at some points, Oh, Henry's output went even beyond that. 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:30.480 In nineteen o three, he signed a contract with The 0:19:30.520 --> 0:19:33.000 New York World to write a story every week for 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:37.280 one hundred dollars each. This contract was not exclusive, though, 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:41.639 and he wrote for other publications, including Harper's, Ainslie's, and McClure's. 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:44.840 At some points he was writing a short story every 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.960 single day, and these were not necessarily all day projects. 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:51.880 The Gift of the Magi, which is probably his most 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.359 famous work today, reportedly went from idea to finished work 0:19:56.720 --> 0:19:59.760 in about two hours because he forgot that he hit 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.159 a need to write a Christmas story for the New 0:20:02.240 --> 0:20:09.600 York Sunday World. Yeah. I love it that speed, though, 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.600 I mean, that's a lot of writing. It's so much. 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:17.800 I mean, short stories are not easy necessarily to write. 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.840 They were for him. Uh. That speed that he put 0:20:22.880 --> 0:20:25.560 to great use for a long time started to decline 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:30.040 by seven though, as he developed serrhosis and diabetes. On 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:32.720 November twenty of that year, at the age of forty five. 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.520 He also got married again to thirty nine year old 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:39.560 Sarah Lindsay Coleman, They had known each other in North Carolina, 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:41.919 and Sarah's mother had written to tell her that her 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:43.960 old friend will had been making a living as a 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:48.000 writer in New York. They reconnected through letters, and after 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.320 they married, Sarah moved to New York to be with him. 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.240 He had really tried to keep anyone from finding out 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:57.640 that short story writer oh Henry and Convicted and besler 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:01.800 William Sidney Porter were the same person, including his daughter Margaret, 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:04.359 who apparently only found out about all of this after 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.960 his death, But he told Sarah the entire story before 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.359 they got married. Was marriage had some ups and downs, 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.560 though Sarah kept trying to get him to give up 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:17.840 some of his drinking and carousing so that he could 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:21.920 she hoped, live a longer and healthier life. Eventually, though, 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.080 she became disillusioned enough with this that she went back 0:21:25.119 --> 0:21:29.840 to western North Carolina. As his health deteriorated, she convinced 0:21:29.880 --> 0:21:33.000 him to travel there for several months in nineteen ten, 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.040 and while he spent some time in a sanitarium, he 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:42.399 just found like the Asheville and surrounding area atmosphere to 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:45.400 be way too quiet. He missed the bustle of New York, 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.600 and he did not stay in North Carolina for long. 0:21:48.000 --> 0:21:51.719 Oh Henry died of cirrhosis complicated by diabetes and an 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.760 enlarged heart on June five, nineteen ten, at the age 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.440 of forty seven. Sarah had heard that he was seriously 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.520 ill and had been on her way to New York 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:04.240 when he died. His last words were reportedly said to 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.359 the night nurse after she turned off the lights in 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:09.760 his room. Turn on the light, I'm afraid to go 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.480 home in the dark. Sarah brought his body back to 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.359 North Carolina, where he was buried in Riverside Cemetery in Asheville. 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:22.200 When his daughter, Margaret died of tuberculosis in she was 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.640 cremated and her ashes were buried at his feet. Oh 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.679 Henry had been prolific and widely read, but it was 0:22:28.720 --> 0:22:32.800 really after his death at his popularity skyrocketed. His fame 0:22:32.840 --> 0:22:36.640 spread internationally during World War One as American soldiers took 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:40.600 his work to Europe. As one reviewer described it, quote, 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:43.760 oh Henry was our greatest literary discovery during the war. 0:22:44.080 --> 0:22:48.199 He was medicinal. He distracted us from intolerable things. His 0:22:48.359 --> 0:22:53.280 name is as familiar as Kipling, Conan Doyle, or Jacobs. 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:56.440 That's just in case she did not know W. W. Jacob's, 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:59.720 author of the short story The Monkey's Paw. Yeah, I 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:04.200 felt like Kipling and Conan Doyle are still well known 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:07.200 enough to not need to clarify, but not necessarily Jacob's 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.560 Jacob's merits and merits in a side. Oh Henry's stories 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:15.440 were published as collections, and one soldier described how anytime 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:17.960 someone got one in a package from home, it would 0:23:17.960 --> 0:23:21.119 be torn into its component story so that several people 0:23:21.160 --> 0:23:25.679 could read at once. Porter's skill was also recognized by 0:23:25.720 --> 0:23:29.400 other writers. J. M. Barry wrote a letter to Sarah 0:23:29.400 --> 0:23:31.879 Coleman Porter that read, in part quote, I have just 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.440 been reading some of your late husband's books and I'm captivated. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.480 If I had discovered him before his death, I should 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.760 have considered a trip to the United States well worthwhile 0:23:41.880 --> 0:23:45.720 to make his acquaintance. As for why his works were 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:49.960 so popular, Oh Henry playbood language, writing short stories that 0:23:50.000 --> 0:23:53.080 packed in a lot of irony, dark humor, wit, and 0:23:53.160 --> 0:23:56.360 word play. Most of the time, all of this came 0:23:56.400 --> 0:23:59.080 together in some kind of twist ending brought about by 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:03.600 a coincidence or crossed wires or a missed connection. This 0:24:03.720 --> 0:24:07.439 kind of ending became synonymous with oh Henry. Often, the 0:24:07.480 --> 0:24:11.480 main characters were working people, poor people, vagabonds, people down 0:24:11.480 --> 0:24:15.359 on their luck, people that readers, especially white readers, often 0:24:15.359 --> 0:24:20.400 identified with His entry in the Dictionary of American Biography 0:24:20.520 --> 0:24:23.280 dating back to the thirties describes it this way, quote 0:24:23.720 --> 0:24:27.040 His stories do not indicate a preference for great virtues 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:30.920 or high intelligence or distinguished persons. They do not show 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:36.520 him preferring wit to dulness, beauty to plainness, industry to idleness, 0:24:36.560 --> 0:24:40.600