Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: The passage of time is inevitable, and the longer we live,
Speaker 1: the more disconnected from the past we become. We forget
Speaker 1: about the things that we used to enjoy as children,
Speaker 1: and we tuck away the parts of us that don't
Speaker 1: fit in with who we are now. Those pieces of
Speaker 1: us get boxed up or buried, sometimes literally. I'm sure
Speaker 1: most of us remember burying a time capsule at our
Speaker 1: school or as part of a town ceremony to unearthed
Speaker 1: in the decades to come. It's fun to think about
Speaker 1: what will our future selves and those who come after
Speaker 1: us think about the music we listen to or the
Speaker 1: books we read. What will people think about our generation.
Speaker 1: The thing is, for hundreds of years, people all over
Speaker 1: the world didn't bury time capsules. They left behind something else,
Speaker 1: something that doesn't need to be dug up to be found.
Speaker 1: Although it might require the use of a sledgehammer. Since
Speaker 1: about the thirteen hundreds, at least, according to archaeologist's findings,
Speaker 1: people have been hiding shoes within their homes, not in
Speaker 1: closets or under beds. These shoes have been found in
Speaker 1: much harder to reach places, like inside walls and chimneys.
Speaker 1: The practice is known as concealment, which is why researchers
Speaker 1: referred to these as concealed shoes, the earliest example being
Speaker 1: one that was discovered in the choir stalls of Winchester
Speaker 1: Cathedral in thirteen oh eight. The reasons for their concealment vary,
Speaker 1: but almost all of them have to do with superstitions
Speaker 1: and fervent beliefs in the spirit world. It was believed
Speaker 1: that a shit shoe that had been worn for a
Speaker 1: very long time would have permanent scars from its owners,
Speaker 1: things like scuff marks, a footprint on the inside, and
Speaker 1: marred leather that signified that the shoe was practically an
Speaker 1: extension of its wearer. In other words, it contained their
Speaker 1: spiritual essence, and that essence was necessary in keeping evil
Speaker 1: spirits and witches from getting inside their house. That's why
Speaker 1: so many shoes were hidden over doorways or stashed inside chimneys.
Speaker 1: Complicating things, though, is that a significant number of children's
Speaker 1: shoes have also been found within the walls of homes
Speaker 1: across the globe, including Europe and Canada. This footwear was
Speaker 1: most likely placed there for one of several reasons. It
Speaker 1: could have been a method of encouraging fertility in the
Speaker 1: home of a husband and wife trying to conceive. This
Speaker 1: isn't too different from the practice of tying shoes to
Speaker 1: the bumper of a newlywed couple's car, and according to
Speaker 1: one archaeologist, women living in Lancashire County, England used to
Speaker 1: put on the shoes of a woman who had recently
Speaker 1: given birth in hopes of jumpstarting the conception process for themselves.
Speaker 1: Kid's shoes may also have been placed in a home's
Speaker 1: walls to protect the children that were already living there,
Speaker 1: similar to the adult shoes that were meant to keep
Speaker 1: witchcraft away. Sadly, the presence of a child's shoe might
Speaker 1: have signified a memorial to one who was lost to
Speaker 1: disease or injury as well. Russians believed a home that
Speaker 1: had a certain kind of boot or shoe under the
Speaker 1: stove might lure a domovoi or a domestic spirit meant
Speaker 1: to protect the home and the people within it. In Northampton, England,
Speaker 1: there is a facility where many of these shoes have
Speaker 1: been collected and cataloged. It's called the Northampton Museum and
Speaker 1: Art Gallery and it is home to over fifteen thousand
Speaker 1: pairs of shoes. About two thousand of them have been
Speaker 1: recovered from inside various buildings. The practice of hiding shoes
Speaker 1: in walls ended for many during the twentieth century, although
Speaker 1: it's still done on occasion. For example, a pair of
Speaker 1: high legg boots made by the shoe company Norvik was
Speaker 1: built into the foundation of the factory they had constructed
Speaker 1: in nineteen six four, and in nineteen ninety one an
Speaker 1: old shoe was discovered behind the paneling of an English
Speaker 1: mansion called Nebworth House. It was replaced with the shoe
Speaker 1: of an estate worker instead. Shoes have been found inside workhouses, colleges, townhouses,
Speaker 1: cottages and even hospitals, and not just in England either
Speaker 1: Australia and the United States are also on the list.
Speaker 1: So the next time you plan on renovating that kitchen
Speaker 1: or adding another room to your house, keep an eye
Speaker 1: out for shoes and your walls, and maybe leave them be.
Speaker 1: They were put there for a reason, and you don't
Speaker 1: want to find out why. If you ask people to
Speaker 1: name twentieth century psychologists, they're likely to say Sigmund Freud
Speaker 1: or Carl Jung. Maybe someone will even suggest Jean Piaget,
Speaker 1: and sure, each of them remembered for certain things, ranging
Speaker 1: from thoughtful to controversial. But when it comes to behavioral science,
Speaker 1: be up. Skinner stands out from the crowd. You see,
Speaker 1: he believed that free will had little to do with
Speaker 1: why humans and animals do the things they do. He
Speaker 1: theorized that actions were the result of environmental conditioning, and
Speaker 1: to say that Skinner was a bit quirky would be
Speaker 1: an understatement. He initially wanted to be a writer, but
Speaker 1: became frustrated with literary agents, even with the mentorship of
Speaker 1: Robert Frost at his side. Then his life changed. One day,
Speaker 1: while working at a bookstore. Along the rows of books,
Speaker 1: he came across the works of Pavlov and decided to
Speaker 1: enter Harvard's psychology graduate program. Mental health professionals and animal
Speaker 1: trainers know the brilliant psychologist by his extensive work in
Speaker 1: operant conditioning, a method of using rewards and consequences to
Speaker 1: get a preferred behavior. He used pigeons to demonstrate that.
Speaker 1: To teach the birds to spin in a circle, Skinner
Speaker 1: offered food for the slightest movement in the desired direct
Speaker 1: Before long, the pigeons learned a full spin in a
Speaker 1: direction earned them even higher rewards, and no movement equaled
Speaker 1: no payoff. Over time, Skinner taught them to play ping pong,
Speaker 1: much to the amusement of his peers and the general public.
Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, the military used operant conditioning to train the
Speaker 1: birds to guide missiles during World War II by sitting
Speaker 1: inside the missile and tapping on a glass screen to navigate. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: radar was in development and Project Pigeon, as it was dubbed,
Speaker 1: was very short lived. To demonstrate the experiment in a
Speaker 1: controlled environment, though, Skinner placed a hungry rat in a box.
Speaker 1: While trying to climb out of the box, the rodent
Speaker 1: pressed a lever that dispensed food. You guessed it that
Speaker 1: rat learned to pull the lever. And while you might
Speaker 1: be thinking that this works for, say, stopping your dog
Speaker 1: from jumping on guests or teaching pigeons to spin in circles.
Speaker 1: Teachers and mental health professionals have used the technique with
Speaker 1: plenty of success on people. Operant conditioning has also influenced
Speaker 1: how parents raise their children. Skinner argued that kids learn
Speaker 1: from consequences. Both positive and negative. Actions followed by a
Speaker 1: positive response were likely to be repeated. He called this
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement. He also invented a teaching machine. The device
Speaker 1: gave students immediate feedback on math problems. Eventually it evolved
Speaker 1: to offer incremental responses to help develop student's knowledge before
Speaker 1: advancing to some more challenging idea. Throughout his career, Skinner
Speaker 1: wrote over twenty books at almost two hundred articles on
Speaker 1: behavioral and experimental psychology. All told, he received several accolades,
Speaker 1: including the Humanist of the Year in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen ninety, the American Psychological Association gave him
Speaker 1: the Outstanding Lifetime Contribution to Psychology Award. Skinner's methods might
Speaker 1: seem a bit odd, especially the ping pong experiment, but
Speaker 1: today pigeons have been taught a wide range of tasks,
Speaker 1: including spotting cancer. Even still, critics scoff that Skinner's beliefs
Speaker 1: on behavioral training. They claimed that rewards given during operant
Speaker 1: conditioning were nothing more than bribery. But maybe his most
Speaker 1: controversial invention came when his daughter was born. Skinner created
Speaker 1: a climate and humidity controlled crib enclosure. Unfortunately, his idea
Speaker 1: of regulating the temperature through the linen like surface of
Speaker 1: this air crib didn't receive much support from the market.
Speaker 1: Although this crib was only used at night, some critics
Speaker 1: considered it to be an inhumane and experimental approach to
Speaker 1: child rearing. The reaction must have stung in his mind.
Speaker 1: The crib was a way for Skinner to keep his
Speaker 1: daughter from becoming too warm or too cool during the night,
Speaker 1: and just like his quirky but effective method of behavioral
Speaker 1: science experiments, Skinner found humor in the crib, even finding
Speaker 1: a clever name for it. He called the invention the
Speaker 1: air conditioner, and that's air with an he. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided to of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: stuff works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.