Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. As we
Speaker 1: have been saying a lot, because we're into it and
Speaker 1: it's exciting and we want you along with us. We
Speaker 1: are going to Paris this summer is so exciting. So
Speaker 1: in early June, we are jaunting off Paris UH to
Speaker 1: do a fun trip where we're gonna explore a lot
Speaker 1: of the places that were important during the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: And you two can come along with us. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you are interested in checking that out, you can go
Speaker 1: to our website missed in History dot com. Look at
Speaker 1: the menu bar at the top of the page. One
Speaker 1: of your options to click on says Paris trip exclamation
Speaker 1: point uh. And if you do that, you will be
Speaker 1: passed through to the website that will handle bookings. You
Speaker 1: can check it out see where all we're gonna go
Speaker 1: and the fun things we're gonna do. Uh. And if
Speaker 1: that is for you, you you can come this and we
Speaker 1: will all laugh and laugh and laugh. And like I've
Speaker 1: said before, I will cry at many things because I
Speaker 1: find things like museums in historical places, very moving. One
Speaker 1: of my friends has noted that a lot of pictures
Speaker 1: on the website where the bookings are happening are of food,
Speaker 1: and yes, we also plan to enjoy a whole lot
Speaker 1: of French food. Oh yes, I'm already like scouting out
Speaker 1: restaurants to take my husband on a date while we're there.
Speaker 1: So this is the second of a two parter about
Speaker 1: Gustava Fell. So I suggest you listen to the first
Speaker 1: one first before this, or this might feel abrupt and
Speaker 1: you may not appreciate the journey he went on to
Speaker 1: become the the iconic builder that he ended up being.
Speaker 1: And we talked, as I said in the part one,
Speaker 1: about Gestava Feld's early years, and that leads straight into
Speaker 1: today's show, in which we were going to talk about
Speaker 1: some of his most famous works. So just as a
Speaker 1: quick link up, as you'll recall if you listen to
Speaker 1: that first part. When we close that out, the employee
Speaker 1: that he had trusted to be his representative in Latin
Speaker 1: America and South America died. NFL had made the decision
Speaker 1: to completely pull out of his overseas business. As the
Speaker 1: Fell's work ended in South America, there were larger contracts
Speaker 1: coming in in Europe. First, in eighteen seventy five, Fel
Speaker 1: was tasked with creating a new terminus building for the
Speaker 1: Austrian Railways station at Pest, Hungary that's now Budapest. It
Speaker 1: was a three million franc project and the new building
Speaker 1: was constructed around the old one to avoid a service disruption.
Speaker 1: When the news station was nearing completion, the old one
Speaker 1: inside of it was demolished and then the last phase
Speaker 1: of construction was completed. One of the big stands that
Speaker 1: it Fell took in this design was asserting that the
Speaker 1: structural elements of the building should not be hidden, but
Speaker 1: should be incorporated into the design. He felt like his
Speaker 1: plans for the station quote carefully brought out the role
Speaker 1: in the nature of the various materials as clearly as possible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had ly championed iron work as an important structural
Speaker 1: material and he thought like, why are we hiding it?
Speaker 1: It's making our building stronger, or we could we could
Speaker 1: make this part of the design. Uh. And just a
Speaker 1: few months after the project for the station at Pest
Speaker 1: was contracted, a Fells firm one another large contract, this
Speaker 1: one in Portugal, and the competition for this bridge project
Speaker 1: for the Portuguese Railway Company had been fierce. Several other
Speaker 1: European companies had submitted proposals, and it would be a
Speaker 1: boon to whoever secured that contract. The design by it
Speaker 1: Fels partner too Phil Seig, which featured a large trust
Speaker 1: parabolic arch, was also the lowest bid and it gained
Speaker 1: the favor of the railroad with only minor modifications. It
Speaker 1: was built exactly to plan, which was incredibly demanding. Because
Speaker 1: of the river's conditions and the tight budget that they
Speaker 1: had proposed it, Fell and his team were able to
Speaker 1: cut costs, not by cutting corners, but by innovating. I
Speaker 1: Fel came up with a way to support the arch
Speaker 1: segments with cables building from each side inward, instead of
Speaker 1: having to build a scaffolding in the river, which would
Speaker 1: have driven up the expense. That bridge, the Maria Pia Bridge,
Speaker 1: was completed in less than two years and it still stands,
Speaker 1: although it's no longer in use, was made a National
Speaker 1: Monument of Portugal in Yeah, it's quite lovely. There's some
Speaker 1: great pictures of it online if you care to go looking.
Speaker 1: But though the project went well, there was some unease
Speaker 1: for Gustava fell. For one, he and Seig had started
Speaker 1: bickering over whether it fl could hire his brother in
Speaker 1: law again. He had hired his brother in law on
Speaker 1: a previous job, and he wanted to do so again
Speaker 1: and say Rigg wasn't into it. Uh. And for another,
Speaker 1: he seemed to really miss his family, and he actually
Speaker 1: asked his wife, Marguerite, and their youngest child to move
Speaker 1: to Portugal for the duration of the project. That was
Speaker 1: something he had never done before. But Marguerite got sick.
Speaker 1: She had experienced several bouts with pneumonia, and she became
Speaker 1: very ill while living in Portugal. She traveled back to
Speaker 1: Paris for treatment, but died in eighteen seventy seven at
Speaker 1: the age of thirty two before the bridge was finished.
Speaker 1: Gustave's sister, Marie and her husband Dr. Albert Hinok, who
Speaker 1: she married a year after her first husband died, helped
Speaker 1: him raise his children after Marguerite's death. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: the only tragedy that came his way in the late
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. His mother also died in February of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, so in the span of just a few months,
Speaker 1: he lost two of the most important people in his life.
Speaker 1: After the bridge was completed, Sarah wrote a paper about
Speaker 1: its success and presented it at the French Society of Engineers.
Speaker 1: While a Fell had been open about his part in
Speaker 1: the project as well as another engineer, once SARAHI seemed
Speaker 1: to want to take full credit for the successful bridge
Speaker 1: for himself, I Fell became really irritated. He wrote his
Speaker 1: own paper about the work, downplaying his partner's contribution. By
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy nine, the relationship between the two of them
Speaker 1: had completely so word and their partnership was ended. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that comes up a lot in
Speaker 1: sort of criticism of Gustava Fell. There are some questions
Speaker 1: about whether or not he was ever really very magnanimous
Speaker 1: about letting other people have their time in the spotlight
Speaker 1: on things they had collaborated on. So in this case
Speaker 1: it is a little bit like some people will point
Speaker 1: to this as a moment of like his his pride
Speaker 1: becoming the problem. But once the dust had settled from
Speaker 1: this disagreement, a Fell actually changed the name of his
Speaker 1: firm to company destabisiment if sareg actually attempted to get
Speaker 1: a portion of the company's assets, which he felt he
Speaker 1: was entitled to remember, he had put in a greater
Speaker 1: portion of capital when they first started the company, and
Speaker 1: he went after what he thought was his fair sharing
Speaker 1: court and this led to a legal battle that dragged
Speaker 1: on for twelve long years. Eventually, Sarah was granted a
Speaker 1: payment worth four times his initial investment with A Fell,
Speaker 1: but that was it uh in terms of how much
Speaker 1: the company had grown during that time. That seemed a
Speaker 1: little insulting and it was considered a loss. In the
Speaker 1: midst of this strife, it Fell was also involved in
Speaker 1: another legal matter, although this one was a lot less contentious.
Speaker 1: He had been going by it Fell, but his family
Speaker 1: name legally was still hyphenated, so in eighteen eighty Gustav
Speaker 1: legally had the family names changed from Bonchazen Fell to
Speaker 1: simply Fell. Yeah, when his great great grandfather had moved
Speaker 1: from Germany to France, he had done the hyphen nation
Speaker 1: on the name, and then they had really gone by
Speaker 1: a Fel for most of the time, so he was like,
Speaker 1: let's just strike that and this will be our legal name.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eighty fl began construction on the Viaduct of Garabee,
Speaker 1: and this was a massive structure. It actually had a
Speaker 1: similar design to the Maria Pia Bridge with a Trust
Speaker 1: parabolic arch, but this bridge was much larger, and at
Speaker 1: this point Gustava Fell had become so well respected that
Speaker 1: he was really the only engineer that was seriously considered
Speaker 1: for this channel lenging project. It was not put out
Speaker 1: to bids the way most projects would be. They literally
Speaker 1: were like, the only person who can build this is
Speaker 1: Gustava Fell. It was immediately after this contract was in
Speaker 1: place that a Fell formally and legally severed all of
Speaker 1: his ties with his former partners Serig. This was also
Speaker 1: a project that required pre setting the build site with
Speaker 1: essentially a many town for the workers because the bridge
Speaker 1: was in a pretty remote and undeveloped area. Because the
Speaker 1: build was expected to last for a few years, provisions
Speaker 1: had to be made for the workers to move with
Speaker 1: their families if they wanted. Everything from living spaces to
Speaker 1: retail stores that could provide the necessities to schools all
Speaker 1: had to be built for the construction on the bridge
Speaker 1: could even start, and as he had done throughout his career,
Speaker 1: Gustava Fell rose to meet these challenges. The viaduct, which
Speaker 1: included more than twenty six tons of iron in its
Speaker 1: construction and cost roughly three million francs. Was completed at
Speaker 1: the end of eight four. Accomplishing such a mass of
Speaker 1: goal made it Fell famous. He was already well known
Speaker 1: in construction, but this really kind of made him famous
Speaker 1: throughout the country and even in in throughout Europe. As
Speaker 1: you recall, this happened in Portugal, and it was sort
Speaker 1: of part of the reason that he got his nickname,
Speaker 1: which was the Magician du Feri or the iron Magician.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you'll also see this translated as the iron Wizard.
Speaker 1: I like that one better, but it's just me Iron Wizard.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It makes me picture him in a pointy
Speaker 1: hat with stars on it. Kind of uh, fantagious sty
Speaker 1: he's making little iron uh little iron Tory Fell there
Speaker 1: walking in in a row. Okay, we're about to talk
Speaker 1: about a famous structure that gestap it Fell contributed to
Speaker 1: that's here in the US. But first wee will take
Speaker 1: a quick break to hear about one of those sponsors.
Speaker 1: He was keeping this show going while Fels Firm continued
Speaker 1: to work steadily. The next high profile job that he
Speaker 1: worked on was actually the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the
Speaker 1: World that was the original title for that piece, even
Speaker 1: though we these days just called the Statue of Liberty.
Speaker 1: Eduard Rene Le Fabre had initiated the idea of a
Speaker 1: gift to the United States shortly after the Lincoln assassination
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty five, but this project took years to
Speaker 1: really get momentum uh and get to the point where
Speaker 1: they could send sculptor Frederic August Berteldi to the US
Speaker 1: to survey the possibilities and come up with a design.
Speaker 1: This statue is often cited as a gift of the
Speaker 1: French government to the United States, but it was actually
Speaker 1: not from the government. It was funded by private donors,
Speaker 1: the people of France, who all gave their money so
Speaker 1: that they could share this moment of of sort of
Speaker 1: brotherhood and support, the only exception being a fairly sizable
Speaker 1: donation from the city of Paris. Architect Eugene violet Le
Speaker 1: Duc initially started work on the engineering of the structure,
Speaker 1: and with his guidance, the head had been completed in
Speaker 1: time to be displayed at the eighteen seventy eight Exposition Universe,
Speaker 1: But Violet l Duke died in the fall of eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine and it was Gustave it Fell that was
Speaker 1: the replacement. It Fell developed a skeletal support plan for
Speaker 1: this massive sculpture and designed the stairwells within so the
Speaker 1: observation area would be easy to reach, and because the
Speaker 1: statute was going to be so very exposed when it
Speaker 1: was installed in New York, Fell took great care to
Speaker 1: plant with an eye towards stability, even inforceful wind gusts.
Speaker 1: So the copper sheeting that's used on it, each piece
Speaker 1: is anchored to the interior framework. None of those sheets
Speaker 1: are simply riveted to an adjacent sheet or sheets uh
Speaker 1: and none of the sheets are load bearing in any way.
Speaker 1: As we mentioned in our Emma Lazarous episode, there were
Speaker 1: some issues with putting together the financial capital on the
Speaker 1: U S side of things to complete the pedestal where
Speaker 1: Lady Liberty would eventually stand. As a consequence, the team
Speaker 1: working on the statue in France slowed down their production
Speaker 1: rate towards the end of the build, while the United
Speaker 1: States worked to raise the money to finish their construction.
Speaker 1: But eventually, everything, of course did come together, and just
Speaker 1: as he had done with a number of his projects
Speaker 1: that he had shipped to South America, Fell, along with
Speaker 1: berthel D and their teams, took the Statue of Liberty,
Speaker 1: which they had built in its entirety apart, breaking it
Speaker 1: down into three hundred and fifty component pieces for shipping,
Speaker 1: and then those pieces were packed into two hundred and
Speaker 1: fourteen custom crates loaded on a ship which left France
Speaker 1: on May eighty five. It took a little less than
Speaker 1: a month to make it to New York. That ship
Speaker 1: arrived on June seventeenth, and after months of unpacking an assembly,
Speaker 1: the statue was finally fully assembled in April eighteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: The dedication ceremony for it was held on October twenty
Speaker 1: of that same year. As Gstava Fell had been working
Speaker 1: on the iconic French gift to the United States, another
Speaker 1: project was starting to take root. In the early eighteen eighties,
Speaker 1: plans began for another Paris Exposition Universal, this time to
Speaker 1: align with the hundredth anniversary of the start of the
Speaker 1: French Revolution. By the time things really started to get
Speaker 1: organized for the event, it was already eighteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: so the clock was ticking for an eighteen eighty nine
Speaker 1: expo to be put together. Yeah, that's a little tight Yeah,
Speaker 1: people had been working on it up to that point,
Speaker 1: but they didn't really have all their pieces in place
Speaker 1: to be like, now we have a full planning committee,
Speaker 1: let's make this thing happen. And it sounds like ample
Speaker 1: time for something on a smaller scale, but not something
Speaker 1: as massive as these expositions were. Yeah, and exactly when
Speaker 1: the idea of a tower as the centerpiece of this
Speaker 1: show came into being is a little bit fuzzy. But
Speaker 1: in May eighty six, an announcement was published in the
Speaker 1: Government paper asking for submissions of ideas to build an
Speaker 1: iron tower for the X. There were specific needs included
Speaker 1: in this announcement. It had to be built on the
Speaker 1: Chendo Mao, and it had to be three hundred meters
Speaker 1: tall with a one twenty five square footprint, and all
Speaker 1: submissions had to be submitted within sixteen days of this announcement,
Speaker 1: so they only had two weeks in a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of change to get their designs made, drafted, and submitted.
Speaker 1: If those requirements seemed very very specific, it's because they were.
Speaker 1: They perfectly matched a design that it Fell had ready
Speaker 1: to go. Two of his engineers, Maurice cook Lan and
Speaker 1: Emil Newgate, had already been working on the tower design
Speaker 1: along with architects Defend Silvestra. Their earliest sketches of it
Speaker 1: date back to eighteen eighty four, two years before the
Speaker 1: Minister of Science and Industry published this call for submissions.
Speaker 1: It was absolutely no surprise that among the one hundred
Speaker 1: submissions for the tower contract was a design from a
Speaker 1: Fell's firm. Were actually more submissions than that. That was
Speaker 1: like the narrowed down these are the serious ones. After
Speaker 1: a month of analysis of these various proposals, it was
Speaker 1: determined that only a Fell's team had a workable design,
Speaker 1: and initially uh Gustava Fell himself had not been especially
Speaker 1: wowed with the ideas of Cookland and Neuguie, but he
Speaker 1: encouraged him to keep going Usially, yeah, sure, keep working
Speaker 1: on that, and once uh Sylvesta got involved, he kind
Speaker 1: of liked where it was headed. But as he realized
Speaker 1: what a feat this tower would be if it came
Speaker 1: to fruition, he actually bought out the patent rights from
Speaker 1: the other three men on the design, and in the
Speaker 1: terms of their deal, their names would always remain connected
Speaker 1: to the project because there was going to be some
Speaker 1: prestige if it got accepted and they would each get
Speaker 1: one percent of the estimated cost to build it. So, ultimately,
Speaker 1: in a move that could be interpreted as very astute
Speaker 1: or a very selfish or maybe both, I felt signed
Speaker 1: the contracts not as his company but on behalf of
Speaker 1: himself alone. Taking ownership in this way also gave f
Speaker 1: L rights to income from tower tourism long after the
Speaker 1: expo was over. He later asserted that he had only
Speaker 1: wanted to take ownership quotes to assume company responsibility for
Speaker 1: the enterprise and to devote to its realization efforts, which
Speaker 1: I certainly didn't believe at the time would be onerous.
Speaker 1: And it is true that had the men pursued submitting
Speaker 1: the designs on their own, they wouldn't have had the
Speaker 1: same means to build it if it had been accepted
Speaker 1: without the f L name and the associated resources that
Speaker 1: came with it. Yeah, this is another one of those
Speaker 1: times I mentioned in the first episode that he sometimes
Speaker 1: gets criticized as being kind of selfish, not very good
Speaker 1: about sharing credit, and wanting to kind of be the
Speaker 1: star of the show in regards to some of these projects. Uh,
Speaker 1: he claims that it was completely magnanimous. He really thought like, no,
Speaker 1: let me own it, and that way I will have
Speaker 1: all of the resources to build it, and I will
Speaker 1: take all the risk, and you're names will still be attached.
Speaker 1: But it's legally and financially all on me. But other
Speaker 1: people are like, no, dude, you wanted all the credit.
Speaker 1: Also in eight six, Gustav's eldest daughter, Claire, got married.
Speaker 1: She married a man named Adolph Salle, and this was
Speaker 1: actually a huge boon to their family because sal became
Speaker 1: one of a Fell's closest friends and collaborators, so he
Speaker 1: maintained that close knit family that he had had from
Speaker 1: the time he was a child. And one of those
Speaker 1: little tidbits that you hear a lot of times and like,
Speaker 1: uh fun facts about Paris kinds of articles on the internet.
Speaker 1: The design style for this tower was not greeted with
Speaker 1: universal enthusiasm. It was driven entirely by the needs of
Speaker 1: the structure. There was no attempts to cover up the
Speaker 1: iron work with masonry, and the lines of it were
Speaker 1: determined mathematically to be the angles and positions of supports
Speaker 1: required to sustain the desired height, which was to be
Speaker 1: the tallest building in the world. Yeah, there were also
Speaker 1: people like what is this tower for nothing? Just to
Speaker 1: begin good? And it seemed kind of wasteful and silly
Speaker 1: to some people to just build a tower for the
Speaker 1: sake of building a tall thing. But this idea to
Speaker 1: promote and showcase the materials of industrial modern design at
Speaker 1: the time deeply offended a lot of Paris's art community.
Speaker 1: A group called the Committee of three hundred, referencing the
Speaker 1: three hundreds of height for the proposed tower, actually submitted
Speaker 1: a petition to the Minister of Works condemning the design
Speaker 1: and insisting that it was going to mar the beauty
Speaker 1: of Paris if it were built a Fell's tower would
Speaker 1: they felt being affront to the very ideals of France,
Speaker 1: and they called it useless and a monstrosity. For his part,
Speaker 1: Gustav defended the tower and asserted that there was plenty
Speaker 1: of art and good design, and that there was no
Speaker 1: reason the French shouldn't become just as renowned for their
Speaker 1: engineering prowess as they had for their artistry and other fields.
Speaker 1: He famously argued that the pyramids at Giza were nothing
Speaker 1: more than artificial mountains, and yet they became some of
Speaker 1: the most revered structures on Earth. Yeah, that's another thing
Speaker 1: that people sometimes point to you and go, ma'am, that's
Speaker 1: some ego to be like, know, what I'm building is
Speaker 1: like the pyramids, you guys. Um. But he was right, uh,
Speaker 1: eventually so despite the detractors. Though construction did begin in
Speaker 1: January seven, and throughout the next two years of the
Speaker 1: build Fel and his critics continued to trade barbs even
Speaker 1: after it was completed. The complaints continued for a bit.
Speaker 1: Writer Guie de Montisson, who had been one of the
Speaker 1: men who spearheaded the petition committee, allegedly ate lunch in
Speaker 1: the restaurant at the base of the structure every day
Speaker 1: because he claimed that was the only place that he
Speaker 1: could eat where he would not be seeing a Fel's eyesore.
Speaker 1: You just have to see it the whole time you're
Speaker 1: going there. Well, he claimed that there was. He wasn't
Speaker 1: safe anywhere in Paris, Like everywhere he went he just
Speaker 1: saw this horrible thing he hated. So at least if
Speaker 1: he was in the horrible thing he hated, he wasn't
Speaker 1: looking at it. We will get to some of the
Speaker 1: specifics of the exposition and Universal Tower in just a minute,
Speaker 1: but first we will take a quick sponsor break. The effort,
Speaker 1: manpower and material needed to build the tower was of
Speaker 1: course startling. Like I said, this could be a whole
Speaker 1: episode on its own. We're kind of giving you the
Speaker 1: speedy version. But more than fifty engineers and designers had
Speaker 1: a hand in creating more than five thousand designed sketches
Speaker 1: that detailed every single aspect of the tower. A hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty workers at a Fell's factory at Levare manufactured
Speaker 1: the needed pieces, which were then carted to the Schende
Speaker 1: Mar and assembled by work site crews that ranged from
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty to three hundred men. Building on
Speaker 1: the lessons that it Fell learned while working on a
Speaker 1: statue of Liberty, he made sure that the tower for
Speaker 1: the Expo and universal could withstand wind. The Tory Fell
Speaker 1: can sway as much as six inches at the top
Speaker 1: and as does sind to handle that movement. Yet also
Speaker 1: you'll see a factoid sometimes that it bends slightly in
Speaker 1: the sun and it can just rebounds back from that.
Speaker 1: And one of the interesting aspects of how the tower
Speaker 1: was assembled, at least to me, was its riveting process.
Speaker 1: There's a great description of it on the torfl official
Speaker 1: website that describes it. I'm just going to read what
Speaker 1: they wrote because they'll do it better than if I
Speaker 1: try to parse it and rewrite it. And that reads
Speaker 1: quote first. The pieces were assembled in the factory using bolts,
Speaker 1: later to be replaced one by one with thermally assembled rivets,
Speaker 1: which contracted during cooling, thus ensuring a very tight fit.
Speaker 1: A team of four men was needed for each rivet assembled,
Speaker 1: one to heat it up, another to hold it in place,
Speaker 1: a third to shape the head, and a force to
Speaker 1: beat it with a sledge hammer. Only a third of
Speaker 1: the two point five million rivets used in the construction
Speaker 1: of the tower were inserted directly on site. When the
Speaker 1: tower was completed, it was an almost instant popular success.
Speaker 1: Almost two million people visit did the tower, which served
Speaker 1: as the gateway to the exposition, and for the first
Speaker 1: time the Exposition Universal made rather than lost money. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was always like not a not a profitable enterprise,
Speaker 1: Like they were basically putting it on to show off
Speaker 1: all of the many fabulous things that France could do.
Speaker 1: This was similarly a problem in other places that have
Speaker 1: had World's Fairs, but fundamentally they're kind of money pits.
Speaker 1: But this one so many people showed up just to
Speaker 1: see the tower that had been so controversial that they
Speaker 1: ended up making money. And as the public and indeed
Speaker 1: the world marveled at what Gustavo Fel had pulled off,
Speaker 1: criticism from the art community kind of died down. But
Speaker 1: fl found himself, unfortunately, in a whole other sort of trouble,
Speaker 1: right on the heels of his eighteen eighty nine exposition success.
Speaker 1: In eight seven, while working at his now famous tower,
Speaker 1: fl had agreed to build one of the locks in
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal that put him in business with Ferdinand
Speaker 1: de Lesseps, who we mentioned on the first part of
Speaker 1: this two parter. And by the way, for Bravo fans
Speaker 1: in the crowd, yes that's the same family. Yes, those
Speaker 1: of you that didn't get that ignored it's not important,
Speaker 1: but there is a Dela SEPs involved in one of
Speaker 1: the Bravo shows. Yes, related to Ferdinand. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: I said that, and I don't know. Uh So to
Speaker 1: set the stage on why this was a problem, we
Speaker 1: actually have to go back a little bit to eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine, when Della SEPs became president of the company
Speaker 1: Universal du Canal in eighteen eighty shares of that company
Speaker 1: were offered to the public as a way to drum
Speaker 1: up funding to build this canal, and delas EPs was
Speaker 1: hoping to once again find the success that he had
Speaker 1: achieved with the Suez Canal with this venture, which would
Speaker 1: excavate a ship canal along the narrow isthmus of Panama.
Speaker 1: But the whole enterprise was a huge and tragic failure.
Speaker 1: Dela SEPs had not managed things well. He had really
Speaker 1: not studied historical exploration of the area, which revealed it
Speaker 1: to be exceedingly unwelcoming. He also had only made personal
Speaker 1: visits to the area during the dry season and had
Speaker 1: no sense of the dangers of the rainy season. Twenty
Speaker 1: thousand men died while working on the canal, due primarily
Speaker 1: to malaria and yellow fever. Even as men were dying
Speaker 1: in large numbers in Panama, Delisps was recruiting new workers
Speaker 1: in France. Yes, so there was just some one ignorance,
Speaker 1: kind of willful ignorance in the mix, and to just
Speaker 1: some kind of gross behavior of like, ah, lots of
Speaker 1: people are dying, I better go get more guys and
Speaker 1: not really tell them how dangerous this whole thing is
Speaker 1: And in addition to that very tragic human cost, there
Speaker 1: was also a very real financial loss in the venture
Speaker 1: as well. Approximately two hundred and fifty million dollars it's
Speaker 1: about a half billion francs at the time were sunk
Speaker 1: into this ultimately failed project, and when it ran out
Speaker 1: of money, all of those investors who had contributed to
Speaker 1: the project were left with no way to get their
Speaker 1: money back. So there were some people who believed in this,
Speaker 1: spent their life savings to try to be part of it,
Speaker 1: and then we're left destitute. The whole enterprise became a
Speaker 1: huge scandal, and Gustava Fell was in the middle of it.
Speaker 1: He had initially been against the project, which de la
Speaker 1: SEPs had conceived without locks. It wasn't until the addition
Speaker 1: of a lock system that if L had gotten involved.
Speaker 1: And just like Ferdinand del SEPs and his son Charles,
Speaker 1: Gustava Fell was charged with fraud for his involvement in
Speaker 1: the mismanaged canal project, even though he had not been
Speaker 1: part of that business administration side in he was actually
Speaker 1: sentenced to two years in prison and he was also fined,
Speaker 1: but that verdict was overturned by a higher court. But
Speaker 1: even though at that point he had cleared his record,
Speaker 1: he just felt as though his name as a builder
Speaker 1: was tainted forever due to the extensive coverage that this
Speaker 1: whole scandal had gotten in the press for years. At
Speaker 1: that point, it Fell withdrew from his firm and it
Speaker 1: was renamed Lass Society Dick Construction leve Valois Parae. At
Speaker 1: that point, Maurice Coklan, one of the engineers who had
Speaker 1: originally conceived of the tower that made a Fel famous,
Speaker 1: took over as managing director of the company. But Gustava
Speaker 1: Fell did not retire to an idle life. He merely
Speaker 1: switched gears and began a second career in science. He
Speaker 1: started conducting his own research with the intention that he
Speaker 1: was going to share any of his findings freely, and
Speaker 1: in eight he started conducting experiments at his famed tower.
Speaker 1: As part of the construction agreement that it Fell had
Speaker 1: signed to build the tower, he paid for a significant
Speaker 1: amount of its cost, and in return he was entitled
Speaker 1: to money made from the visitors for twenty years. After that,
Speaker 1: the city government would take full possession of the structure,
Speaker 1: and the intent was that it would be taken down
Speaker 1: at that point. But by the late eighteen nineties the
Speaker 1: engineer turned research scientists had added an antenna to the
Speaker 1: tower and was running wireless telegraph experiments there. And as
Speaker 1: a consequence of this work, which was seen for its
Speaker 1: value immediately, particularly for milly Harry applications, the city extended
Speaker 1: the concession to a Fell to continue his work. So
Speaker 1: he basically retained that same agreement on the tower uh
Speaker 1: for a much longer period of time, and the tower,
Speaker 1: of course was never disassembled as had originally been planned,
Speaker 1: since we were talking about it, because we are going
Speaker 1: to go see it in a couple of months. In
Speaker 1: addition to the telegraph and radio transmissions, I Fell began
Speaker 1: investigating aerodynamics, which he had become fascinated by while working
Speaker 1: on the Statue of Liberty. He built a wind tunnel
Speaker 1: at the tower in nineteen o nine and an aero
Speaker 1: dynamics laboratory in nineteen twelve and another part of the
Speaker 1: city where he could do even larger wind tunnel experiments
Speaker 1: and in his lab at a toy a. Fel used
Speaker 1: model aircraft in his larger wind tunnel to study the
Speaker 1: optimal designs of things like propeller thrust and speed and
Speaker 1: angle of inclination and air resistance, and his work there
Speaker 1: also contributed to missile design and how bombs were released.
Speaker 1: His work directly impacted the aircraft that France used in
Speaker 1: the First World War and established new levels of knowledge
Speaker 1: in aircraft science. I have actually seen some people comment
Speaker 1: that he really should be just as well known for
Speaker 1: his work in aircraft engineering as he is for having
Speaker 1: built this iconic tower. But u that doesn't get talked
Speaker 1: about very often. But for all this work in the
Speaker 1: Smithsonian Institution awarded him the Langley Gold Medal. Just as
Speaker 1: he had been in engineering bridges and other structures, Fell
Speaker 1: was meticulous in his calculations and measurements in aerodynamics, which
Speaker 1: Alexander Graham Bell said, quote have given engineers the data
Speaker 1: for designing and constructing flying machines upon sound scientific principles.
Speaker 1: Fel designed a fighter plane in nineteen seventeen, and his designs,
Speaker 1: which he distributed without any renumeration, were used to build
Speaker 1: two prototypes by the company that would eventually evolve into
Speaker 1: Air France. Those designs were eventually abandoned, though in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty Gestava Fell actually retired uh he was in his
Speaker 1: eighties at that point. And he spent much of his
Speaker 1: time in the mansion that he had built for his
Speaker 1: entire family on the Rue Rebelais, and he wrote his
Speaker 1: memoirs during this time, but he did not have any
Speaker 1: intention to publish them. He just wanted the family to
Speaker 1: have a record of his life and work. And he
Speaker 1: had this very unique experience. We often talk about people
Speaker 1: not getting to know how important their work was while
Speaker 1: they were alive, but he had a sense while he
Speaker 1: was still alive of the impact that his work had
Speaker 1: had on the world. It Fell died on December nine
Speaker 1: at his home in his mansion. He was one. Twenty
Speaker 1: six years later, his bust was installed at the base
Speaker 1: of his iconic tower, and the Turife remained the tallest
Speaker 1: building in the world until nineteen thirty, and that was
Speaker 1: when the Chrysler Building in New York City was constructed.
Speaker 1: There have of course been other jockeying for positions of
Speaker 1: who was tallest. At one point there was an addition
Speaker 1: to the top of a Fell's tower which made it
Speaker 1: tallest again for a second. But now it's of course
Speaker 1: far behind many other impressive and slightly frightening things around
Speaker 1: the world. But I really was a little taken Aback.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize just how many kind of important structures
Speaker 1: he had built throughout Europe that have gotten you know,
Speaker 1: unless you're into engineering history or particularly his biography, people
Speaker 1: may not realize that a lot of the infrastructure of
Speaker 1: Europe is particularly you know, post industrial age he was
Speaker 1: involved in in some way. Yeah, fascinating cool and I
Speaker 1: kind of love him, even though he maybe had some
Speaker 1: problems sharing credit. But he clearly was also a genius,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate that he was very, very very obsessed
Speaker 1: with um making sure that all the numbers were correct.
Speaker 1: Like I I feel like at a time when people
Speaker 1: were just playing guessing games, trying to put things together
Speaker 1: and see if they worked, he was like, no, let's
Speaker 1: actually map all this out on paper and make sure
Speaker 1: the math is right. And he probably saved a lot
Speaker 1: of time in terms of like the development of architecture
Speaker 1: and engineering. Yeah, like for the world, not just for him. UM. Anyway,
Speaker 1: clearly I think he's cool. You have some cool listener mail.
Speaker 1: I do. Uh. This is from our listener Kaylee, who
Speaker 1: is writing us from Devon. I like that because I
Speaker 1: have a Devon rex cat that's maybe super nerdy and
Speaker 1: not Germane at all, but there it is. She is
Speaker 1: actually writing about sort of our Scaling Michael podcast. She said,
Speaker 1: I loved your podcast about Scaling Michaels, so I thought
Speaker 1: i'd send you a card from my favorite natural landmark
Speaker 1: in my area, Brent Tour. The pictured tour is not
Speaker 1: part of the more Land, but is the remnant of
Speaker 1: a volcano back when much of England was under a
Speaker 1: shallow sea. It's incredibly steep and offer stunning views all around.
Speaker 1: It's also incredibly blustery, sometimes so windy it is hard
Speaker 1: to talk perfect spot for a church. There are many
Speaker 1: stories about the struggle to build, say Michael's Church, which
Speaker 1: has a capacity of twenty, some involving the Devil and
Speaker 1: making the church sometimes be referred to as the Devil's Church.
Speaker 1: Brides used to have to be carried up the steep
Speaker 1: hill to their ceremony. But it is a beautiful church
Speaker 1: in a bizarre natural landmark, and I wanted to share
Speaker 1: it with you briefly. Thank you so much for the show,
Speaker 1: and hello from Devon Kaylee. That's a very cool story
Speaker 1: about a thing I did not really know about at all.
Speaker 1: So now I want to look that up and maybe
Speaker 1: will we'll see what happens. Uh. If you would like
Speaker 1: to write to us, you can do so at History
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find us on social media as missed in History and
Speaker 1: at the website missed in History dot com. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to subscribe to the podcast, that sounds like a
Speaker 1: grand idea to me, you can do that on the
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio app, at Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: are listening again. If you're interested and want to get
Speaker 1: information on our trip to Paris in June, you can
Speaker 1: do that at our website missed in History dot com.
Speaker 1: Click on the link in the menu bar that says
Speaker 1: Paris trip and you'll get all the info. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff
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