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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: History Stuff. That's Audible podcast dot com slash history Stuff. Hello,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Deblin and Chuck Reporting

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Speaker 1: and I'm Sara Dowdy. And if you've listened to this

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Speaker 1: podcast for a little while, you've probably heard us refer

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Speaker 1: to something called spiritualism. A lot of the historical figures

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Speaker 1: we discuss were spiritualists. Which basically means that they believed

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Speaker 1: that people who have physically died continue to exist in

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Speaker 1: a kind of spirit world. Furthermore, the spiritualists also believe

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Speaker 1: that people who have passed onto the spirit world can

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Speaker 1: and do continue to communicate with us in the material world,

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Speaker 1: usually through special people called mediums. So even if you

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Speaker 1: haven't heard of spiritualists, you've probably heard of mediums from

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Speaker 1: TV shows and movies. Yeah, they're pretty common in in

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Speaker 1: pop culture. But we should also mention that adherents of

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Speaker 1: this philosophy or this religion differ quite a bit in

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Speaker 1: their exact beliefs or their worldview. But you know, we

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Speaker 1: we give you the gist here. You have the basic understanding.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of high profile people throughout history were

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Speaker 1: actually spiritualists, and we've talked about some of them before.

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Speaker 1: March podcast subject Victoria Woodhall was one of her famous

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Speaker 1: pre political career and even made her living as a

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Speaker 1: medium for a while. Another one of our favorites, a

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Speaker 1: guy who just pops up in podcast after podcast, Arthur

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Speaker 1: Conan Doyle was famously a spiritualist and even wrote about it.

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Speaker 1: But what is known as the modern spiritualist movement, the

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Speaker 1: one that took place in the US um in the

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Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds or so, wasn't launched by celebrity or

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Speaker 1: an influential religious leader of some kind. It was actually

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Speaker 1: kicked off by two regular little girls, Margaret and Catherine Fox.

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Speaker 1: Margaret and Catherine Fox, they were also known as Maggie

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Speaker 1: and Kate or Kathy more casually. They were born in

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three and eighteen thirty seven, respectively. Their parents

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Speaker 1: were John and Margaret Fox, a couple who had four

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Speaker 1: children together and then separated for a time because of

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Speaker 1: John's alcoholism. So when John got his act together and

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Speaker 1: was working as a respectable blacksmith again, they got back

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Speaker 1: together and had kind of their second brood of children,

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Speaker 1: of which Maggie and Kate were apart. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to tell you a little bit about these sisters lives

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Speaker 1: and their involvement in launching spiritualism. But to do so,

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Speaker 1: we have to give you a little ghost story first.

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Speaker 1: So in the winter of eighteen forty seven eighty eight,

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Speaker 1: the Foxes moved. They moved to the hamlet of Hydesville,

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Speaker 1: New York, which is about twenty miles west of Rochester,

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Speaker 1: and they're in Hydesville John and Margaret rented a house

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Speaker 1: for them and their younger kids, Maggie and Kate, who

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Speaker 1: are about fourteen and eleven years old at the time.

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Speaker 1: But this house was not your ordinary rental. It came

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Speaker 1: with a little bit of a reputation. It was said

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Speaker 1: around town to be haunted, so things started to suggest

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Speaker 1: that maybe that was a case pretty quickly. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: things went fine for a little while, and then around

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Speaker 1: March of eighteen forty eight, the Foxes started to hear

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Speaker 1: these strange sounds around the house at night, deepy knocking noises,

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Speaker 1: thumps on the ceiling, bumps on the walls and doors,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes the wrapping sounds were violent enough to shake

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Speaker 1: the furniture. So not just the little mouth scurring through

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Speaker 1: the walls or something. Yeah, really creepy stuff. The girls, though,

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Speaker 1: didn't seem to be that bothered by it, strangely enough,

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Speaker 1: but their mother, Margaret, who was very superstitious, was. She

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Speaker 1: lost sleep over it. They checked the house, they didn't

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Speaker 1: find anything amiss, and then on March thirty one, Margaret

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Speaker 1: was so tired and just needed some rest. She tried

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Speaker 1: to get her family to get to go to bed early.

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Speaker 1: When it was barely dark, but the rapping noises started

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Speaker 1: again when they were getting into bed, so she got

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Speaker 1: up and she took a look around, and when she

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Speaker 1: made it to the girl's room, Kate was looking into

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Speaker 1: the darkness and she bravely called out, Mr Splitfoot, do

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Speaker 1: as I do, and then she proceeded to snap her

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Speaker 1: fingers in a way that mimiced the noises that they

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Speaker 1: had heard. But the strange thing happened next. When Kate

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Speaker 1: finished this call out to Mr split Foot, those sounds

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Speaker 1: from somewhere in the house imitated her. And then Maggie

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Speaker 1: clapped her hands four times, so it answered back yes.

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Speaker 1: And according to most accounts, Kate then said, oh, mother,

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Speaker 1: I know what it is. Tomorrow is April Fool's Day

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Speaker 1: and someone is trying to fool us. So, uh, it

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Speaker 1: sounds a little suspicious but also a little cool at

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Speaker 1: this point intriguing. Yeah, And Margaret wasn't buying Kate's explanation.

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Speaker 1: She decided, Hey, my kids are talking to these noises,

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Speaker 1: these strange whatever they are as Mr split Foot. So

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Speaker 1: she decided, I'm going to try to chat with this

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Speaker 1: eerie thing myself. So she said count to ten, and

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Speaker 1: it made ten noises, and then she asked whatever was

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Speaker 1: making the noise to wrap out the ages of all

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Speaker 1: of her children successively, and it did so correctly, pausing

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Speaker 1: between each one long enough to set each child's age

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Speaker 1: apart all the way through Kate's age, and then even

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Speaker 1: weirder after that, there was a longer pause and then

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Speaker 1: three more raps, and those corresponded to the age of

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Speaker 1: the Fox's child who had died in infancy. So by

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Speaker 1: this point Margaret thinks that she's dealing with something real,

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Speaker 1: and she asked this thing um if it was a

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Speaker 1: human being making the noise, and her question was met

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Speaker 1: by total silence, no wraps, and then she asked was

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Speaker 1: it a spirit? And if so, manifest itself by making

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Speaker 1: two sounds. Margaret then just started asking lots of other

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Speaker 1: questions because she's thinking, all right, it is a spirit.

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Speaker 1: And she later, by the way, relayed these questions, these

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Speaker 1: original statements in a published work, and she started asking

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Speaker 1: it was it an injured spirit? Was it injured in

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Speaker 1: this house? And then more questions like was the person

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Speaker 1: living who had injured it? Now we're getting into kind

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Speaker 1: of TV territory. Yeah, So she went on that way

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Speaker 1: for a while, and then she decided, I gotta show

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Speaker 1: this to people, so she started inviting the neighbors over

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Speaker 1: to check out this phenomenon too. So that night about

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Speaker 1: a dozen neighbors had come over and become convinced of

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Speaker 1: the spirit's presence in the same way by asking questions

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Speaker 1: that it answered correctly with an appropriate number of raps.

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Speaker 1: They asked questions like the number of kids they had

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Speaker 1: in the ages of the kids, similar things to what

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Speaker 1: Margaret had asked, and eventually by asking yes, no, and

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Speaker 1: nu miracle questions. They later also came up with a

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Speaker 1: code system, by the way, so that the raps could

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Speaker 1: actually spell out words to some more detailed questions, perhaps right.

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Speaker 1: And they found out from this line of questioning the

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Speaker 1: details of the spirit story it had been a thirty

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Speaker 1: one year old Hudler, a father of five, who was

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Speaker 1: brutally murdered in the home's basement like a couple of

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Speaker 1: years two to five years prior long earlier. So to

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Speaker 1: test the truth of the story, which by this point

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Speaker 1: you know they have, these could hard facts to work with,

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Speaker 1: the neighbors decided that they would excavate the home seller,

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Speaker 1: but unfortunately, heavy spring rains got on the way and

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Speaker 1: filled up the excavation pit and delayed the project for

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Speaker 1: many weeks. But still, even without that proof or or

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Speaker 1: the neighbors actually getting to look for something, rumors about

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Speaker 1: the haunting in the Foxes home started to spread far

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Speaker 1: and wide, and hundreds of people, some of them skeptics

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Speaker 1: of course, some of them believers, would flock to Hidesville

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Speaker 1: over the next few weeks to check it out for themselves,

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Speaker 1: at least try to evaluate for themselves what was going on.

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Speaker 1: And during that time, the spirit seemed to become bolder

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Speaker 1: rather than these regular light wraps that started producing louder noises,

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Speaker 1: even ones that mimicked death struggle when it was telling

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Speaker 1: the story of how it died um and people began

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Speaker 1: to notice that Maggie and Kate were always around when

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Speaker 1: those spirit noises were going on. Skeptics, of course wondered

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Speaker 1: if the girls were somehow the source of the noises,

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Speaker 1: but others began to see them as the mediums through

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Speaker 1: which the spirits communicated, and this had a couple of

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Speaker 1: different effects for the girl. Some people in the neighborhood

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Speaker 1: regarded them with all because of this, as kind of

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Speaker 1: definely inspired or chosen individuals, and others thought of them

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Speaker 1: as unholy, perhaps even witches. So once word of the

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Speaker 1: Hidsville haunting started to get around, Maggie and Kate's oldest

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Speaker 1: sister and Leah fox Fish, showed up in town went

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Speaker 1: to visit the girls, and Leah, at this point was divorced.

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Speaker 1: She lived in Rochester. She taught music lessons to support

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Speaker 1: herself and her daughter, but after she learned about her

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Speaker 1: younger sister's roles as local mediums pretty prominent local mediums

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Speaker 1: by this point, she took Kate back to Rochester with her,

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Speaker 1: and apparently Maggie and Margaret soon followed along, and they

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Speaker 1: weren't the only ones who made this family move though.

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Speaker 1: Apparently the spirits also followed the girls to Rochester and

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Speaker 1: started haunting their home there. But it wasn't really like

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Speaker 1: they were trying to escape from them, no, not at all. Actually,

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Speaker 1: according to an article by Nancy Reuben Stewart in American History,

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Speaker 1: Leah claimed in her memoir that the ghost had followed

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Speaker 1: them to Rochester and quote so disturbed her household that

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Speaker 1: she was forced to move. But apparently Leah's next home

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Speaker 1: was actually next to a cemetery which is kind of

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Speaker 1: a weird place to move if you want to get

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Speaker 1: away from ghosts, as Stewart points out, maybe like you're

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Speaker 1: looking for new work, actually, and maybe that's actually probably

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Speaker 1: a smart thing to do, now that we think of it.

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Speaker 1: But the spirits continued to hang around the sisters, and

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Speaker 1: in fact, they became more energetic, and soon Lea decided

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Speaker 1: it was time to share them with other people. So

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Speaker 1: they started holding seances in Rochester or Maggie and Kate

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Speaker 1: conducted them, and Leah set herself up as the interpreter

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Speaker 1: of the wraps. She was kind of the impresario of

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Speaker 1: the whole thing. So here's how they worked the seances.

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Speaker 1: That is, the guests would arrive, they'd sit around a

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Speaker 1: table and say a prayer and then sing. Then they'd

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Speaker 1: hold hands and sit for a while in silence until

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Speaker 1: eventually Maggie or Kate would fall into a trance. Then

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Speaker 1: the rapping noises would begin, and people loved going to

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Speaker 1: these demands for the fances grew. Even people like congressmen

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Speaker 1: and judges, prominent folks in the community wanted to take part,

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Speaker 1: and they eventually became known as the Rochester Rappings, which

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Speaker 1: a little different than what it really is. But then

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Speaker 1: in November of eighty nine, Leah made a big announcement.

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Speaker 1: She said that the Spirits it wasn't enough to just

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Speaker 1: keep doing these dances. The Spirits wanted them to go

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Speaker 1: public to publicize spiritualism, and so they rented out Corinthian Hall,

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Speaker 1: which was the largest auditorium in Rochester, and charged in

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Speaker 1: mission for the very first time cents ahead to those

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Speaker 1: who wanted to hear the wraps in person. And Leah

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Speaker 1: and Maggie Kate was away at the time, I think

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Speaker 1: visiting someone visiting a friend. I think appeared on the

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Speaker 1: stage at this huge Corinthian Hall four nights in a

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Speaker 1: row that month, and they weren't really met with a

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Speaker 1: enthusiastic crowd though. There were a lot of skeptics and

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Speaker 1: a pretty hostile crowd in fact, jeering and um. A

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Speaker 1: lot of the people in the audience just thought that

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Speaker 1: they were coming to see the Sisters exposed and frauds,

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Speaker 1: and they didn't know how Leah and Maggie would try

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Speaker 1: to keep it up four nights in a row in

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Speaker 1: this in this huge venue. So for three days during

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Speaker 1: the stretch of four performances, Maggie and Leah agreed to

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Speaker 1: submit to investigations by different committees that were actually chosen

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Speaker 1: by the previous night's audiences. According to an art called

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Speaker 1: by Barbara M. Weisberg in American Heritage, they were basically

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Speaker 1: man handled during these episodes. Their feet were held, they

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Speaker 1: were placed in different positions. They were made to stand

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Speaker 1: on glass plates with their skirts tied tightly around their ankles.

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Speaker 1: A committee of women even took the sisters into a

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Speaker 1: room and disrobed them to examine them and their clothing

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Speaker 1: to see what was causing these rapping sounds. So the

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Speaker 1: rapping sounds did keep going as those examinations were taking place,

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Speaker 1: so the committees ended up acquitting the sisters of any

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Speaker 1: sort of fraud. They all were convinced. This, however, did

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Speaker 1: not help persuade the angry mob that showed up on

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Speaker 1: the fourth night. Maggie and Leah actually needed a police

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Speaker 1: escort to get out of there safely, but their star

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Speaker 1: and modern spiritualism was officially born. Yeah. I mean, this

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Speaker 1: seems like it would have only added to their fame

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Speaker 1: around town and make people want to go out and

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Speaker 1: see them. Both the detractors and the porters but there

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Speaker 1: were a lot of factors that actually helps spiritualism catch

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Speaker 1: on quickly. There was a recent bestselling book called The

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Speaker 1: Divine Principles of Nature by seer Andrew Jackson Davis, and

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Speaker 1: that was based in turn on the writings of the

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century philosopher and former podcast subject Emmanuel Swedenburgh. And Um,

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Speaker 1: these writings seem to predict the opening of communication with

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Speaker 1: the spiritual world, so gave people some something concrete to

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Speaker 1: look at. It was good timing. It was very good timing. Um.

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Speaker 1: There was also popular interest in mesmerism and that might

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Speaker 1: have helped paved the way, and we talked about that

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Speaker 1: for last year's Halloween podcasts. And another aspect which we've

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Speaker 1: kind of in a strange way, talked about two in

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Speaker 1: the Victoria Woodhull podcasts. Spiritualism also supported reforms such as

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Speaker 1: abolition and women's suffrage, which we're really gaining steam at

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Speaker 1: the time. And then one final thing going on at

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Speaker 1: the time, or one extra thing relating to new technology

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Speaker 1: and science. The telegraph had become a central metaphor for spiritualism.

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Speaker 1: Mediums were like a spiritual telegraph in a way. So

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Speaker 1: you have this great concrete thing not just the book

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Speaker 1: to look at, but um, a scientific a piece of

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Speaker 1: technology to compare something that seemed really abstract too. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they could look at it and say, hey, if you

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Speaker 1: can talk in an instant to someone in a different city,

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Speaker 1: why can't you talk to someone in the spirit world

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Speaker 1: so easily. So there was a lot going on. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and obviously bringing a lot of past podcast material together.

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Speaker 1: So by eighteen fifty four, according to spiritualist estimates, the

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Speaker 1: movement had somewhere from one to two million followers in

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Speaker 1: the US. And as the movement grew, the spectacles just

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Speaker 1: got more and more complicated. It wasn't just simple knocking

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Speaker 1: or wrapping noises anymore. There were phosphorescent glimmering clouds around people,

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Speaker 1: levitating furniture, heavenly music, and something called spirit writing, which

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Speaker 1: occurred when a medium was in a trance and then

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Speaker 1: the spirit would try to communicate through her. She would

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Speaker 1: actually write on a piece of paper or something a

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Speaker 1: little more from her spirit, sophisticated than the rapping alphabet system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was definitely a more elaborate way to get your

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Speaker 1: messages information across quickly that way. Yeah, But the Fox

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Speaker 1: Sisters were only getting more and more famous in all

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Speaker 1: of this too. They went to New York City they

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Speaker 1: conducted really lucrative seances for some well known folks there. Um.

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Speaker 1: One famous seance included the New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley,

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Speaker 1: who was a big, big proponent of the Sisters. Um.

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Speaker 1: It also included William Cullen, Bryant, George Ripley, George Bancroft,

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Speaker 1: and James Ventimore Cooper too yea, and according to Weisberg's article,

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Speaker 1: Cooper blessed the Fox Sisters on his deathbed for having

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Speaker 1: prepared him for quote this hour. I mean, that's a

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Speaker 1: pretty good customer testimony, all I'd say it is. And

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Speaker 1: of course, though as spiritualism as popularity grew, skeptics grew

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Speaker 1: more vocal about it too, and some of the points

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Speaker 1: they raised were really funny. I mean, if you think

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Speaker 1: about it, some of the things they brought up were like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: if your spirit in the spirit world, why are you

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Speaker 1: spending all your time knocking or why yeah, or levitating

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Speaker 1: furniture and moving it around. I mean, wouldn't you find

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Speaker 1: a better way to communicate or you know, something else

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Speaker 1: to do with your time, so as you might imagine

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Speaker 1: a lot of mediums were exposed as frauds during this time,

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Speaker 1: and debunkers kept trying to expose the Sisters the Fox

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Speaker 1: Sisters as well. There were a couple of theories put

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Speaker 1: out there as to how they could be pulling this off.

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Speaker 1: One was something called to ology. So just to explain this,

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Speaker 1: some people thought that the sisters had been making the

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Speaker 1: rapping sounds by cracking their toes, which Doublina and I

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Speaker 1: have had a thorough conversation of this, and I'm just cures.

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Speaker 1: I mean, does anybody out there? Is anyone out there

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Speaker 1: really able to crack their toes to a super loud

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Speaker 1: volume like an ace audience hall would be able to

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Speaker 1: hear it enough to make it sound like wrapping on

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Speaker 1: walls or floors, because we do not have that power. Yes,

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Speaker 1: thank goodness. But there was another theory too, which sounds

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Speaker 1: a little more believable to me. It came from a

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Speaker 1: trio of doctors in Buffalo. They said that the rapping

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Speaker 1: noises sounded just like noises produced to the knee joints.

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Speaker 1: So the Fox Sisters allowed them to test this theory

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Speaker 1: in one and the doctors considered the test of success

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Speaker 1: when the sister's knees were restricted, no wraps occurred. So

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Speaker 1: the sisters claimed though that the environment was just too

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Speaker 1: hostile for the spirits and that's why they didn't show

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Speaker 1: up during this test. But regardless, it didn't hurt their popularity. Again,

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Speaker 1: it's it's any publicity is is sort of good publicity

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Speaker 1: for these sisters. And as successful as Maggie and Kate

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Speaker 1: though were as medium, they didn't fair though all in

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Speaker 1: their personal lives and the eighteen fifties, Maggie became involved

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Speaker 1: to some extent with a very well renowned famous Arctic

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Speaker 1: explorer named Dr Elisha Kent Kane, and there's not a

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Speaker 1: whole lot of evidence about their relationship, but what evidence

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Speaker 1: there is suggests that there was some connection between them.

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Speaker 1: They were very likely in love, but because of her profession,

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Speaker 1: he didn't really see her as a proper prospect. He

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Speaker 1: thought that she was fraud probably, and he tried to

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Speaker 1: transform her to make her somebody who he could be

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Speaker 1: with a more suitable match. She lived with his family

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Speaker 1: for a little while to get an education, but ultimately

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Speaker 1: he would not publicly claim a connection with her. So

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Speaker 1: that's kind of a sad life story. There for for

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Speaker 1: Maggie it is, and after his death in eighteen fifty seven,

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Speaker 1: Maggie said that they had been secretly married or maybe

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Speaker 1: common law married, it differs depending on which where she

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Speaker 1: look at and he. She also said that he left

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Speaker 1: her a small inheritance, but his family really fought this,

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Speaker 1: and she ended up publishing a book of letters from

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Speaker 1: him to her later, but we're not really sure to

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Speaker 1: what extent she edited that or how accurate they are.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty eight, though, she did follow Kane's wishes

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Speaker 1: and retired and converted to Roman Catholicism. Maggie's older sister, Leah,

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Speaker 1: retired the same year. She married her third husband, who

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Speaker 1: was a wealthy businessman and a spiritualist conveniently enough around

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Speaker 1: this time and really just didn't need money from seances anymore.

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Speaker 1: And then Kate continued to stay in the scene to

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Speaker 1: be visible in the movement for several more years after

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Speaker 1: her sisters had both retired, but in the eighteen sixties

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Speaker 1: both she and Maggie began to succomb more and more

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Speaker 1: to their problems with alcoholism, and eventually Kate moved to

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Speaker 1: England in eighteen seventy one, hoping to be that addiction,

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Speaker 1: and it was able to for for a time at

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Speaker 1: least yep. She married wealthy barrister and spiritualist Henry D.

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Speaker 1: Jenkin and had two kids with him, But when Jenkin

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Speaker 1: died in the early eighteen eighties, she lost her battle

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Speaker 1: with alcoholism and ended up moving back to the States

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Speaker 1: as her condition just continued to worsen. But the Fox

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Speaker 1: sisters did have one more big moment. Their less big

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Speaker 1: moment in the Spotlight really occurred in October. At that time,

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Speaker 1: Leah tried to have Kate's children taken away because of

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Speaker 1: her alcoholism, and so in her defense, Maggie kind of

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Speaker 1: decided to lash out. Before an audience at New York's

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Speaker 1: Academy of Music, Maggie confessed that the sister's communication with

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Speaker 1: the spirits had been a hoax, and removing her right shoe,

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Speaker 1: she confirmed that to ology theory that we told you

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Speaker 1: about earlier by creating sharp raps with the first joint

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Speaker 1: of her big toe. And she basically said the whole

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Speaker 1: thing started as the girls trying to play a prank

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Speaker 1: on their superstitious mom way back in Hydesville and ended

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Speaker 1: with Leah turning them into her own money making tools,

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Speaker 1: asking them how how they did it essentially a year later,

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Speaker 1: though Maggie were cant at this confession, she said that

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Speaker 1: she had been pressured into it by powerful people because

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Speaker 1: she needed the money. Both she and Kate tried to

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Speaker 1: continue holding seances to make money, even though Kate also

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Speaker 1: tried to confess over the years and prove that it

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Speaker 1: had been a hoax, and then would go back now

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Speaker 1: and again to be in a medium. But neither of

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Speaker 1: them were as successful as they had been earlier in

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Speaker 1: their career. They spent their last years in poverty, and

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Speaker 1: Leah died in eighteen ninety, Kate in eight and finally

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Speaker 1: Maggie in eighteen ninete. And by that point spiritualism had

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Speaker 1: already started to wane in the United States, but it's

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Speaker 1: popularity was still growing elsewhere, and it still is, of

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Speaker 1: course around today. The Fox sisters are still credited with

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Speaker 1: launching the modern spiritualist movement, although there are probably a

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Speaker 1: variety of opinions out there about their actual ability to

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Speaker 1: commune with spirits. We do have one last note, though,

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Speaker 1: we we like to leave you on a spooking note

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Speaker 1: for a Halloween podcast. Yes, of course, uh it's a

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Speaker 1: note that relates to that variety of opinions about their

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Speaker 1: actual ability to communicate. So remember that original communication of

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Speaker 1: theirs with the Spirit of the Peddler. Well, when the

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Speaker 1: water did finally drain out of that excavation pit in

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Speaker 1: the cellar in eighty some partial remains were found, some

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Speaker 1: hair and a few bones. Of course, skeptics at the

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Speaker 1: time thought that it was a plant, but according to

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Speaker 1: Weisberg's article, in the early nineteen hundreds, a skeleton was

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Speaker 1: found behind the cellar wall, and experts later estimated that

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Speaker 1: it had been there for about fifty years, so right

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Speaker 1: around the time that the spirit told the sisters it

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Speaker 1: had been murdered. Something to think about. So we're not

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Speaker 1: going to give our opinion on it either way, but

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Speaker 1: we'll just leave you guys with that. Move on to

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Speaker 1: listener mail. So we have an email here from John

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Speaker 1: and Kara, and they say, dear to Blin and Sarah,

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Speaker 1: my daughter high school sophomore, and I never missed an

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Speaker 1: episode of the podcast. She always asks if there's a

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Speaker 1: new episode when she gets in the car after school.

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Speaker 1: When at the beginning of the Radium Girls podcast, you

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Speaker 1: mentioned us Radium in Orange New Jersey. I told her

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Speaker 1: that I could fill in the end of the story

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Speaker 1: if you two didn't carry the story forward enough. I

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Speaker 1: grew up in a neighboring town to Orange called glen Ridge.

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Speaker 1: In the early to mid nineteen eighties, my old neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: together with the neighborhoods and a few other nearby towns,

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Speaker 1: was declared a super fund site due to radium contamination

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Speaker 1: in the soil, and US radium was one of the sources.

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Speaker 1: But the park behind our old house we moved from

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Speaker 1: that neighborhood to another in glen Ridge a few years prior,

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Speaker 1: was one of the prime sites designated for clean up.

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Speaker 1: It was surreal to seamen and has matt suits excavating

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00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,359
Speaker 1: the top few feet of soil from the park and

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00:24:51,400 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: sealing it in steel drums for disposal. All the neighborhood

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Speaker 1: kids played on that soil. The high school marching band

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Speaker 1: and soccer teams practiced on it. Little leagues spent many

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Speaker 1: summers on it. In addition, many houses were designated for remediation.

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Speaker 1: Some only had to have their yards stuck up, others

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00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 1: had to be supported on steel beams, while entire basements

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Speaker 1: were removed and backfilled. I believe a couple were even demolished. Today,

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood is back to normal. The park has been

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00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: restored and its facilities upgraded from the dusty ball fields

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00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 1: I remember. I'm not aware that the area was ever

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Speaker 1: recognized for having an unusual cancer cluster, so we seem

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00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,119
Speaker 1: to have avoided the worst case scenario. Here are a

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00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,359
Speaker 1: couple of websites that carry the story of US Radium

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00:25:31,359 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: and the Radium Girls late twentieth century. And he included that,

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00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:36,480
Speaker 1: so maybe we couldn't put that on our Facebook page

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00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 1: or something for people to check out. Well, I thought

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00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:41,240
Speaker 1: it was interesting too to hear about a super fun fight.

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00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:43,760
Speaker 1: I guess I'm used to thinking of them as the

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00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:47,359
Speaker 1: old factory site or the old field or something. But

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00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: to hear about a super fun site that is a

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00:25:50,840 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 1: whole town and you have your house lifted up, their

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00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:59,040
Speaker 1: basement can be cleaned, that was pretty pretty remarkable. So

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00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: thank you John for telling us about that little connection

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00:26:03,400 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: to your childhood, and to care for always listening after school.

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00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: If you'd like to share any of your own personal

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00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:13,000
Speaker 1: connections to podcasts we've done, or suggests an idea to us,

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00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:15,879
Speaker 1: please email us at History Podcast at how stuff works

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00:26:15,920 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can look us up on Facebook

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00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: or on Twitter at Myston History. And if you're planning

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00:26:21,480 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: a little Halloween tour perhaps of haunted houses, we do

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00:26:24,920 --> 00:26:28,280
Speaker 1: have an article for you called five Real Life Haunted

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00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:31,200
Speaker 1: Houses and you can look for it on our home

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00:26:31,280 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 1: page by searching for real life Haunted Houses at www

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00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:44,200
Speaker 1: dot how stuff works dot com. This podcast is brought

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00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:46,920
Speaker 1: to you by Audible dot com, the Internet's leading provider

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00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: of audio books, with more than eighty five thousand downloadable

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Speaker 1: titles across all types of literature and featuring audio versions

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00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:56,400
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461
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:58,600
Speaker 1: today and get a free audio book of your choice,

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00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: go to Audible podcast us dot com, slash history Stuff.

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00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:07,400
Speaker 1: That's Audible podcast dot com slash history stuff. The House

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00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: Stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it today

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00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:11,160
Speaker 1: on iTunes