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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production

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Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. You have

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Speaker 1: probably noticed that there's a name that pops up pretty

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Speaker 1: much anytime we're discussing photography in history, and that is Dgear.

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Speaker 1: We have referenced him and his Dagara types and the

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Speaker 1: invention of that many times on the show, and we

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Speaker 1: often use it as a reference point for when other

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Speaker 1: people are taking pictures and how far along they've come.

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Speaker 1: We're probably going to reference it again because he really

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Speaker 1: innovated and touched a lot of lives. But well before

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Speaker 1: he figured out how to capture images through a camera obscura,

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Speaker 1: he was an artist and an innovator and entertainment. So

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Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about all of that because

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Speaker 1: we've never covered him before, and of course we will

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Speaker 1: also talk about his work in photography. Is one of

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Speaker 1: those people that has come up so many times that

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Speaker 1: we had to have the conversation about whether we had

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Speaker 1: already done this episode. Yes, Tracy, are you sure we

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Speaker 1: have a covered to get I just looked through the

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Speaker 1: whole spreadsheet. Not in there, so He was born Louis

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Speaker 1: Jacques Monde Dagure on November eighteenth seven, about a hundred

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Speaker 1: and eighty kilometers west of Paris, in a town called

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Speaker 1: the Family, especially to Get's father, who was named Louis.

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Speaker 1: They were royalists in their politics, and Louis had a

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Speaker 1: sister who even was named after Marie Antoinette. That sister

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Speaker 1: was born in seventeen nine one. The senior Louis de

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Speaker 1: Guer worked as a court crier before the revolution, and

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Speaker 1: that was a civil service job, but as the French

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Speaker 1: Revolution really heated up, that job, of course went away

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Speaker 1: for a while. That meant that the family moved to Orleans,

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Speaker 1: where Louis Senior found work as a clerk in an estate,

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Speaker 1: and in seventeen nine d three, of course, Louis the

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Speaker 1: sixteenth was guillotined and the Reign of Terror began. Degere's

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Speaker 1: father was employed by Louis Philippe, the second Duke dor Leon,

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Speaker 1: who sided with the revolution, but he was of course

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Speaker 1: a cousin of the king, and he was eventually guillotined

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Speaker 1: for his association with the House of Bourbon. And though

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Speaker 1: Louis da Sr. Remained employed at the estate, this seems

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Speaker 1: to have pretty much meant that life in Orleans was

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Speaker 1: a little bit more somber than it had been when

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Speaker 1: the family first arrived there. There are some holes in

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Speaker 1: the story of de Gere's early life. Some of that

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Speaker 1: is just because it would have been unusual for just

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Speaker 1: a regular child's life to be well documented, but it's

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Speaker 1: also because of the period in which he was born.

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Speaker 1: So consider, for example, he would have still been basically

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Speaker 1: a baby, not even two years old, when the Bastille

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Speaker 1: was stormed in seventeen nine, so his whole childhood was

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Speaker 1: happening at a time when the monarchy was falling, revolution

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Speaker 1: was raging. That all would have been very difficult for

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Speaker 1: his royalist father, and it also would have meant that

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Speaker 1: a lot of just so called normal life was significantly disrupted.

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Speaker 1: So we know that Louis Dag was enrolled in public

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Speaker 1: school in Orleans, but due to those constantly shifting sands

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Speaker 1: of the French government, there were stretches, long stretches sometimes

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Speaker 1: where classes did not assemble, so Dag got something of

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Speaker 1: a patchwork education. But he spent that ample free time

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Speaker 1: that he was afforded by the gaps in school to

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Speaker 1: develop his natural talent, which was drawing. While Louis de

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Speaker 1: Gre's name is forever linked to photography, he really did

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Speaker 1: not start out on a career path that would suggest

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Speaker 1: that outcome. In eighteen hundred, Louis de ge drew a

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Speaker 1: portrait of his parents. This was sort of an audition.

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Speaker 1: The skill that he exhibited with this portrait led to

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Speaker 1: him being offered an apprenticeship, not exactly with an artist,

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Speaker 1: though it was with an architect. This was a stable

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Speaker 1: career path for an artistic thirteen year old in a

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Speaker 1: time when France really did not have that many stable

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Speaker 1: career paths. So for three years he dutifully works at

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Speaker 1: perfecting his ability to render the drawings of building structures.

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Speaker 1: That's something he seems to have really enjoyed. He loved

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Speaker 1: recreating true life detail in his drawing, and architectural drawings

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Speaker 1: were to him just another iteration of that. Now, as

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Speaker 1: a note, this is something that I stumbled across a

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Speaker 1: lot while researching this episode. You will sometimes see it

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Speaker 1: mentioned in biographical writeups of de Gere that he also

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Speaker 1: worked as a revenue officer during this early period of

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Speaker 1: his life, without much additional information about it, and it

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Speaker 1: kind of seems like this might actually be the result

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Speaker 1: of some confusion due to his name being the same

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Speaker 1: as his father's, and since we know that his father

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Speaker 1: did work as a clerk at an estate, that kind

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Speaker 1: of seems like the most likely scenario. When the younger

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Speaker 1: Louis de Gare finished his apprenticeship at the age of sixteen,

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Speaker 1: he didn't take the next step into architecture. Instead, he

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Speaker 1: went back to his love of art. He decided to

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Speaker 1: move to Paris to study painting and to try to

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Speaker 1: make a life as an artist. This was something that

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Speaker 1: his parents found terrifying. They had supported his artistic tendencies,

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Speaker 1: but there was just uncertainty and a lack of stability

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Speaker 1: in an art career, and then, on top of that,

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Speaker 1: they were also concerned that the young de Gere would

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Speaker 1: fall into a life of debauchery in Paris. Finally, after

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Speaker 1: a lot of discussion, they made an arrangement that was

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Speaker 1: agreeable to the parents, and the son alike Louise father

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Speaker 1: got him an apprenticeship in Paris with Ignacio Eugeno. Maria

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Speaker 1: Degatti and Degatti was born and tour in Italy in

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Speaker 1: seventeen fifty eight, and, like young Louis, de Gare. He

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Speaker 1: showed artistic proclivity from a very young age, and he

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Speaker 1: too had moved to Paris to pursue his art. Although

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Speaker 1: he and so when he was in his thirties, and

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Speaker 1: by the time his life met up with Digres, he

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Speaker 1: had become a renowned theatrical designer and a painter for

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Speaker 1: the Paris Opera, and de Gare moved in with him

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Speaker 1: as part of this apprenticeship deal. That was something his

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Speaker 1: parents insisted upon. This was a time in his life

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Speaker 1: when Louis de Gare lived a pretty enviable existence. He

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Speaker 1: was young, he was making connections in the Paris art scene,

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Speaker 1: and he made the most of that. There are stories

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Speaker 1: about how much fun he was at parties and how

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Speaker 1: he would go into such gatherings walking on his hands.

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Speaker 1: He loved Paris, and Paris loved him back. He was

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Speaker 1: really beloved among his peers. At one point he even

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Speaker 1: appeared on stage and a small role in the Paris Opera. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was one section of a biography about him I

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Speaker 1: was reading where it said that he knew how to

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Speaker 1: walk a tight rope, and that he may have learned

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Speaker 1: this when he was a young boy. Because festivals would

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Speaker 1: come through the area where they lived, and I'm like, yes,

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Speaker 1: but how did that come up while he's just hanging

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Speaker 1: out with his friends, Like, oh, would you like to

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Speaker 1: see me? What walk this tyrope that just happens to

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Speaker 1: be here at present? That's a little less clear, but

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Speaker 1: he had a lot of fun skills, it sounds like.

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Speaker 1: And just as he had spent three years as an

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Speaker 1: architect's apprentice, he spent three years under Degatti's tutelage before

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Speaker 1: deciding that he wanted to move on. And this was

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Speaker 1: a pretty natural progression because his next move was to

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Speaker 1: take on an assistant ship with another artist, and this

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Speaker 1: time it was Pierre Provost, famed panorama painter. Panoramas are

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Speaker 1: enormous paintings. They were mounted in circular rooms and intended

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Speaker 1: to be viewed from a central viewing platform. They had

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Speaker 1: made their debut in London in and then Paris had

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Speaker 1: quickly embraced this medium, and Provost really excelled at creating

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Speaker 1: deeply detailed vistas that captured the attention of visitors. He

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Speaker 1: didn't do all this on his own. He had a

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Speaker 1: team of assistants who worked with him, and that is

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Speaker 1: where Degare fit in In addition to being an apparently

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Speaker 1: delightful party guest, Dgre was also a really hard worker. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he did not ever shirk his work, and moreover, he

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Speaker 1: seemed to have an attitude of like I will learn

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Speaker 1: everything I can from my mentors. Uh. And he really

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Speaker 1: applied himself in every position he was in by all reports.

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Speaker 1: In eighteen ten, while Degare was still working for a

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Speaker 1: provost and he was twenty three at the time, he

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Speaker 1: married the twenty year old Louise Georgina Aerosmith. Her name

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Speaker 1: is English. That's because her parents were English, although she

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Speaker 1: was born and raised in France, and these two were

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Speaker 1: very much in love. This was a love match, and

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Speaker 1: when Louise's brother had a child out of wedlock, the

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Speaker 1: Digers raised her as their own daughter. Her name was

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Speaker 1: Marguerite Felicita. After almost ten years working under Provost, Degre

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Speaker 1: was offered and accepted a new job. That was chief

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Speaker 1: painter at the Theatre de l'ambigue Comique, and that job

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Speaker 1: to get elevated the production significantly. He didn't just create

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Speaker 1: backdrops that were far superior to what the theater had before,

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Speaker 1: he also introduced a new way to use them through

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Speaker 1: lighting design. He devised systems of lighting effects to create

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Speaker 1: convincing moonlight scenes, and when it came time to stage

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Speaker 1: the eruption of Mount Etna in a play titled La Belvedere,

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Speaker 1: the Gear created a sensation with his lighting design. This

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Speaker 1: spurred ticket sales for the theater. He became so recognized

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Speaker 1: as an asset for the theater that the Paris Opera

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Speaker 1: wanted to hire him, so for a couple of years

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Speaker 1: he was designing the scenery for both of those at

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Speaker 1: the same time. Yeah, this is such a striking development

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Speaker 1: because again, remember right like, they're doing all of this manually,

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Speaker 1: and at a time when it was like night has

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Speaker 1: fallen and all of the lights would be blown out

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Speaker 1: or all of the windows closed. He was like, no, no,

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Speaker 1: what if we find a way to do this subtly,

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Speaker 1: which is a complete shift. So all of this and

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Speaker 1: working for these two theater houses at the same time

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Speaker 1: kept Louis very busy, but he still had time to

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Speaker 1: think of new projects, and in eighteen twenty one he

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Speaker 1: partnered with an old friend and colleague who had worked

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Speaker 1: as an assistant to Pierre Prevost at the same time

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Speaker 1: that the Gear had That was a man named Charles

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Speaker 1: Marie Bouton and the two men had a plan to

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Speaker 1: launch a new entertainment venture that built on their knowledge

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Speaker 1: of panorama painting and incorporated the lighting expertise that the

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Speaker 1: Gear had acquired through his theater work. The two men

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Speaker 1: set up a limited stock company and they leased a

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Speaker 1: plot of land and they sold shares to investors to

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Speaker 1: fund their project. On July eleven, eight two, Bouton and

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Speaker 1: the Gear opened the Paris Diorama. This scenographic entertainment was

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Speaker 1: something completely new. That's who had to design a theater

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Speaker 1: to house and display what they're working on. It had

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Speaker 1: large scale images in common with the panorama, but it

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Speaker 1: offered entirely new spectacles for audiences to witness. And we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk more about what the diorama was and

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Speaker 1: how it was received in just a moment, but first

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Speaker 1: we'll pause for a quick sponsor break. So in the diorama,

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Speaker 1: scenes like landscapes and architectural views were painted in large

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Speaker 1: scale for audience viewing. But in this version they were

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Speaker 1: painted on linen so they would be translucent. Then lighting

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Speaker 1: effects were used to bring the painting seemingly to life

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Speaker 1: before the viewers eyes. This was again, remember before electrical

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Speaker 1: current was used in buildings by a number of decades,

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Speaker 1: so Degare had designed the theater to make use of

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Speaker 1: natural light. There were windows and skylights around the theater

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Speaker 1: that had shutters which could be operated manually to great effect.

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Speaker 1: To add to the illusion, there were sound effects. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: there would be an actor to fill out the image

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Speaker 1: in a three dimensional way. There wasn't any story in

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Speaker 1: play for these scenes. It was just the magical illusion

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Speaker 1: of feeling like you were sitting in a meadow by

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Speaker 1: a mountain side, or standing near a brook, or looking

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Speaker 1: out over the interior of Canterbury Cathedral from a high

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Speaker 1: up gallery. These scenes would last for ten or fifteen minutes,

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Speaker 1: and then a massive turntable would rotate the image away

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Speaker 1: and bring a second one interview that would be similarly

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Speaker 1: animated with light and other effects. Both the public and

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Speaker 1: critics really raved over the diorama. Some were said to

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Speaker 1: have been reluctant to except that they had been looking

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Speaker 1: at a two dimensional image that whole time. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: was allegedly one woman who like asked to be led

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Speaker 1: down the steps of the cathedral and they're like, they're

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Speaker 1: not there. Uh. In less than a year, the business

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Speaker 1: had made back the money that it had cost to

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Speaker 1: open it and to operate it, and it started to

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Speaker 1: turn a profit. The next obvious step was to open

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Speaker 1: a second location, and that second one was in Regent's Park, London.

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Speaker 1: Because this had been a proven success already in Paris,

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Speaker 1: Bouton and de Geer had no trouble finding investors for

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Speaker 1: their second theater, and when it opened it was covered

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Speaker 1: extensively in the British press. On Septembree, the Morning Chronicle

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Speaker 1: of London ran a story that was simply titled the Diorama.

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Speaker 1: It read quote, the diorama, which has long been an

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Speaker 1: object of wonder and delight at Paris, is at length

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Speaker 1: established in this metropolis. A spacious building has been expressly

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Speaker 1: constructed for this exhibition in that part of the new

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Speaker 1: Road which adjoins Portland Place, at an expense which is

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Speaker 1: said to have exceeded ten thousand pounds. And on Saturday

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Speaker 1: a select number of visitors was admitted to a private

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Speaker 1: inspection previous to it being opened to the public. On

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Speaker 1: this day. There was also an assurance in the right

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Speaker 1: up to potential visitors that this was death Aly, a

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Speaker 1: very different thing than the panoramas, which had been popular

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Speaker 1: in London for years. At that point, it read quote

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Speaker 1: the diorama differs in this respect from the panorama that,

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Speaker 1: instead of a circular view of the objects represented, the

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Speaker 1: whole picture is seen at once in perspective. But it

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Speaker 1: differs from it still more essentially in the extraordinary fidelity

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Speaker 1: with which the objects are depicted, and in the completeness

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Speaker 1: of the optical illusion. Later on, after describing pretty much

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Speaker 1: every corner of the theater in detail, the journalist writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: in the diorama, everything contributes to favor the illusion. The

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Speaker 1: skill of the artist is the first thing which strikes

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Speaker 1: us in the panorama and the last in the diorama.

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Speaker 1: Both de Guerre and Bouton were made nights in the

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Speaker 1: French Legion of Honor by Louis eighteenth. Many dioramas popped

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Speaker 1: up in Europe and in North America after their success

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Speaker 1: in Paris and in London. These were run by other

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00:14:56,680 --> 00:14:59,840
Speaker 1: operators who were hoping to cash in on the popularity

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00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:03,920
Speaker 1: of the medium, but the original partners kept developing shows

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Speaker 1: in only their two theaters, and while the diorama business

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00:15:08,040 --> 00:15:11,600
Speaker 1: was still growing, De Gear had begun to conduct experiments

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Speaker 1: in image capture. As early as eighteen twenty four, he

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Speaker 1: had set up a lab in the basement of the

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Speaker 1: Paris Diorama building so that he could pursue his fascination

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Speaker 1: with the field of photography, although it was of course

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Speaker 1: not called that yet. It didn't get that name until

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Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine. He just knew he was trying to

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Speaker 1: capture light and use it to replicate the imagery of

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Speaker 1: the world around him. He did not seem to know

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Speaker 1: that a lot of other men had already been doing

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Speaker 1: the same thing for quite a while with no real success.

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Speaker 1: It makes sense that after creating the Diorama, the gear

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Speaker 1: would feel driven to find a new level of realism

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00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 1: to keep audiences buying tickets. Part of his drive was

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Speaker 1: probably the realization that Bhutan wasn't really interested in staying

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Speaker 1: with the diorama long term. To gar knew the success

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Speaker 1: of the business was totally up to him. Additionally, the

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00:16:02,200 --> 00:16:05,360
Speaker 1: business had a lot of overhead. Every time a new

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00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:08,520
Speaker 1: scene was staged had to be created from scratch, and

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00:16:08,560 --> 00:16:12,520
Speaker 1: that was expensive. But if the gear didn't keep new

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00:16:12,600 --> 00:16:17,480
Speaker 1: images rotating in audiences would just stop coming. He eventually

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00:16:17,480 --> 00:16:20,240
Speaker 1: sold off his interest in the London location just to

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Speaker 1: keep his finances afloat, and according to friends and acquaintances,

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Speaker 1: none of whom were allowed to see what he was

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Speaker 1: up to. He was completely obsessed with his secret project.

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Speaker 1: His beloved wife Louise brought him food, but even she

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00:16:34,840 --> 00:16:38,520
Speaker 1: was not allowed into the lab. He sometimes, again according

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00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:41,640
Speaker 1: to friends, went for two to three days without leaving

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00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:46,040
Speaker 1: that lab, often foregoing sleep for unhealthy long stretches as

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00:16:46,040 --> 00:16:49,239
Speaker 1: he worked. He had been familiar with the camera obscura

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00:16:49,280 --> 00:16:52,960
Speaker 1: for a while. For a refresher, this is a dark chamber,

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Speaker 1: either a room or a box, that has a tiny

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Speaker 1: hole to allow light in. Through that hole, an image

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00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,920
Speaker 1: of whatever is outside of the chamber is projected onto

293
00:17:02,920 --> 00:17:07,359
Speaker 1: the opposite wall inverted. Camera obscura, which means dark chamber

294
00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,399
Speaker 1: in Latin, is a concept that's been around since antiquity,

295
00:17:10,480 --> 00:17:13,919
Speaker 1: so this was not a new technology when Degare was alive.

296
00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:18,040
Speaker 1: But he thought that somehow it could be used not

297
00:17:18,280 --> 00:17:22,320
Speaker 1: just to project images, but also to capture the light somehow.

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00:17:23,040 --> 00:17:26,919
Speaker 1: Because Degare didn't really document what he was doing, but

299
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Speaker 1: also he probably didn't really know what he was doing

300
00:17:30,280 --> 00:17:33,080
Speaker 1: to be able to put it into words, we don't

301
00:17:33,119 --> 00:17:35,640
Speaker 1: have a lot of information about how this whole thing

302
00:17:35,720 --> 00:17:39,200
Speaker 1: played out for him. There were certainly experiments being done

303
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:42,240
Speaker 1: by other men using chemistry to try to create images

304
00:17:42,240 --> 00:17:45,240
Speaker 1: with light, including the work of people like Jacques Charles,

305
00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:48,280
Speaker 1: who figured out that you could capture a person's silhouette

306
00:17:48,320 --> 00:17:51,680
Speaker 1: on paper by treating the paper with light sensitive chemicals

307
00:17:51,720 --> 00:17:55,320
Speaker 1: and then projecting the person's shadow onto it. But even

308
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:59,520
Speaker 1: Charles's images were temporary. The entire paper would eventually darken

309
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:03,199
Speaker 1: because it had been treated. The use of chemical processes

310
00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:06,679
Speaker 1: was also probably pretty challenging for de Gear thanks to

311
00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:10,080
Speaker 1: his inconsistent education in his early years. He really just

312
00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:14,000
Speaker 1: did not have a command of chemistry to start from.

313
00:18:14,040 --> 00:18:17,359
Speaker 1: But he did have access to optics expertise and the

314
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:22,480
Speaker 1: associated equipment thanks to his friend Charles Chevalier. The Chevalier

315
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:27,160
Speaker 1: family business was in producing various scientific equipment, including lenses,

316
00:18:27,240 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 1: so at least in that area the Gear had a

317
00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:34,160
Speaker 1: very steady supply. It was through Chevalier that made a

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00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:38,600
Speaker 1: crucial connection that would finally give him a breakthrough. Nissa

319
00:18:38,680 --> 00:18:42,800
Speaker 1: four Nips sent his cousin to Chevalier's shop to purchase

320
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:47,000
Speaker 1: a camera obscura. Nissa four Nips had been working on

321
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:51,160
Speaker 1: a process to create pictures using sunlight since the eighteen teens.

322
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:54,840
Speaker 1: He had used a camera to create a heliograph with

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00:18:54,880 --> 00:18:58,359
Speaker 1: bitumen on paper in eighteen six, but that had needed

324
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:03,840
Speaker 1: eight hours of exposure to work. Even with that eight hours,

325
00:19:03,840 --> 00:19:06,840
Speaker 1: it was kind of gauzy and faded in appearance, so

326
00:19:06,880 --> 00:19:10,240
Speaker 1: he was trying to improve on that. When he asked

327
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:15,840
Speaker 1: about a new camera Obscura, Charles Chevalier got NIPS address,

328
00:19:16,280 --> 00:19:19,120
Speaker 1: gave it to Louis de Gere, who in turn reached

329
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:22,640
Speaker 1: out to NIPS via a letter. Both of these men

330
00:19:22,880 --> 00:19:26,360
Speaker 1: were a bit cautious initially. De Gear did not want

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Speaker 1: to risk any potential business interest by giving away what

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00:19:29,359 --> 00:19:32,159
Speaker 1: he had been working on, and the EPs was not

333
00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:35,320
Speaker 1: entirely clear who the gear was or how he had

334
00:19:35,359 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 1: gotten his address, and this letter out of the blue

335
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 1: seemed kind of rude and suspicious to him. It was

336
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:43,399
Speaker 1: very forward. It would be like if a stranger called you,

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00:19:43,480 --> 00:19:45,560
Speaker 1: Tracy and went like, hey, can I have your research

338
00:19:45,640 --> 00:19:48,440
Speaker 1: log ins at the following three place? And you would

339
00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:52,080
Speaker 1: be like him, excuse considering my response when I get

340
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,920
Speaker 1: unsolicited PR pitches to a personal email address that I've

341
00:19:55,960 --> 00:20:01,479
Speaker 1: never publicized, I totally get this reaction, so the reply

342
00:20:01,600 --> 00:20:04,800
Speaker 1: that Nip sent was brief and it merely confirmed that, yes,

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00:20:05,119 --> 00:20:07,960
Speaker 1: he had been doing some experiments along the lines of

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00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:11,520
Speaker 1: what Digere was asking about. It took to Gere months

345
00:20:11,600 --> 00:20:15,000
Speaker 1: to reply, but when he did, he once again offended

346
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:19,120
Speaker 1: Nips by asking for a sample of his experiments. Nips

347
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:22,159
Speaker 1: knew that de Gare was the man behind the popular diorama,

348
00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:26,280
Speaker 1: so he started asking acquaintances in Paris if they knew him.

349
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:28,399
Speaker 1: He found that the Gair had a reputation in the

350
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:31,040
Speaker 1: art world for his talent and his work with light,

351
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,399
Speaker 1: but Nips still only wrote him a short reply without

352
00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:36,919
Speaker 1: a sample. He said that he thought they were on

353
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:41,119
Speaker 1: different paths. He's so polite he wouldn't leave it unanswered,

354
00:20:41,160 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: but he was kind of like, hey, go with God,

355
00:20:43,680 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 1: but I'm doing something else, whether out of genuine interest

356
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,280
Speaker 1: or just desperation. Degare wrote him once more, and this

357
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,520
Speaker 1: time he actually sent along a sample of his own work,

358
00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:00,240
Speaker 1: but he didn't know that Nieps had also reached sort

359
00:21:00,280 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 1: of breaking point where the family money was running out.

360
00:21:03,160 --> 00:21:05,639
Speaker 1: He had spent a lot on this effort, and he

361
00:21:05,760 --> 00:21:08,879
Speaker 1: too was hitting a dead end and not progressing any farther.

362
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:12,280
Speaker 1: He still thought the Gear might not be trustworthy, but

363
00:21:12,480 --> 00:21:15,439
Speaker 1: he did reach out with the suggestion that quote it

364
00:21:15,520 --> 00:21:18,679
Speaker 1: should be of mutual interest to reciprocate our efforts to

365
00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:23,520
Speaker 1: attain the goal, and he sent a sample which the

366
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:27,200
Speaker 1: gere sent him a pretty scathing critique of These two

367
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 1: men finally had a meeting in Paris in eight Understandably,

368
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:35,440
Speaker 1: they remained pretty tentative with one another. Each was concerned

369
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:39,000
Speaker 1: that he was lagging behind the other, but Niepp's described

370
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:41,760
Speaker 1: having a pretty great time with the Gear, who had

371
00:21:41,760 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: given him a tour of the diorama. There was another

372
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:48,160
Speaker 1: gap in their exchange due to the illness and death

373
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Speaker 1: of Nippe's brother Claude, but eventually the two of them

374
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:54,119
Speaker 1: were writing to one another with regularity. It was not

375
00:21:54,240 --> 00:21:57,720
Speaker 1: until autumn of eighteen nine that the two officially entered

376
00:21:57,760 --> 00:22:01,119
Speaker 1: into a partnership, which had a ten year contract. So

377
00:22:01,160 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some of the details of

378
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:06,800
Speaker 1: Nieps's progress in image capture after we first paused, and

379
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:08,919
Speaker 1: here from the sponsors to keep stuff he missed in

380
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:21,720
Speaker 1: history class going in his work, Niepp's had coated a

381
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:24,520
Speaker 1: paper with silver chloride to capture an image from his

382
00:22:24,560 --> 00:22:27,879
Speaker 1: studio window of the landscape outside. This was what he

383
00:22:27,920 --> 00:22:32,080
Speaker 1: called heliography. Eventually he made a more permanent image from

384
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:34,960
Speaker 1: that same window, this time on a pewter plate. He

385
00:22:35,000 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: wanted to make a printable plate, and he had also

386
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:41,320
Speaker 1: managed to reproduce an engraved portrait with his process and

387
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:45,199
Speaker 1: make two prints from it. Degare traveled to visit Niep's

388
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:47,560
Speaker 1: and learned about how he had progressed, and he took

389
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 1: all of the information he learned back to Paris so

390
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:52,760
Speaker 1: that he could do more experiments. But then in eighteen

391
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,639
Speaker 1: thirty everything got complicated. The diorama was in financial trouble,

392
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:01,360
Speaker 1: but Tom finally left the business entirely, and the July Revolution,

393
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:04,359
Speaker 1: in which Charles the tenth was deposed and King Louis

394
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: Philippe took on the throne took the throne. That left

395
00:23:07,320 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: France in a tense time when letters that talked about

396
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:15,719
Speaker 1: something like chemicals could easily be misconstrued as some kind

397
00:23:15,800 --> 00:23:21,160
Speaker 1: of revolutionary correspondence, so Digere and Nip stopped communicating. Things

398
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:24,280
Speaker 1: were so financially tenuous that Digere wrote to the crown

399
00:23:24,400 --> 00:23:27,000
Speaker 1: to ask for a promotion to officer in the Legion

400
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,480
Speaker 1: of honor. The thinking was that that would come with

401
00:23:29,520 --> 00:23:32,359
Speaker 1: a financial payment that would help to keep him from

402
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:35,320
Speaker 1: his own financial ruin. But in the time that he

403
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,720
Speaker 1: had free from working on the diorama, to try to

404
00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:41,800
Speaker 1: keep that going, the Gear learned Nipp's method of capturing images.

405
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: He wanted to see if he had any ideas for

406
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 1: how to move it forward. He and Nips were writing

407
00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:50,200
Speaker 1: to each other in codes so they could keep collaborating.

408
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,520
Speaker 1: This was really a frantic time. Degre declared bankruptcy in

409
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:58,440
Speaker 1: March of eighteen thirty two, but he and Nips kept working. Yeah.

410
00:23:58,440 --> 00:24:00,480
Speaker 1: Eventually they came up with a list to where they

411
00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:04,879
Speaker 1: gave chemicals number assignments, and they each had it so

412
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 1: they would just like use numbers in their letters, which

413
00:24:07,680 --> 00:24:14,000
Speaker 1: to me would look like a suspicious code. So Nieves

414
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 1: had used a bitumen coding that hardened when exposed to

415
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,879
Speaker 1: light for some of his experiments, and the Gear came

416
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,480
Speaker 1: up with a variation on that idea that used distilled

417
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 1: lavender oil to improve on the heliograph. That lavender oil

418
00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 1: left a white residue in areas of the image where

419
00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:32,639
Speaker 1: light had hit it, and that created an improved image

420
00:24:32,760 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: than they had had before that, the duo called a

421
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: fis autotype. This was an improvement, but it wasn't really

422
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:41,800
Speaker 1: a breakthrough, not at the level they needed, so they

423
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:45,680
Speaker 1: kept working. I like to think that the smelled really nice,

424
00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:49,679
Speaker 1: I hope, so if nothing else, they could say the

425
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: studio smelled beautiful. Yeah, so the Gear shifted his work

426
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,320
Speaker 1: back to using silver salts instead of a resin based

427
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:00,720
Speaker 1: image capture. There's an apocryphal story about how he got

428
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,200
Speaker 1: to his next breakthrough. In it, he had accidentally left

429
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,400
Speaker 1: a spoon on an iodized plate and then later realized

430
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:10,840
Speaker 1: that a perfect shadow of the spoon had been created

431
00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 1: on the plate when the light hit it. So he

432
00:25:13,440 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 1: started to purposefully sensitize the silver on the plates that

433
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: they were using. He did this with iodine fumes. The

434
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,360
Speaker 1: Gear is said to have shared this story verbally throughout

435
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: his life, but he never wrote it down. We don't

436
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: really know how accurate it is. Yeah, there's some questions

437
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 1: about how much that story may have changed in the tellings. Initially,

438
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: De Gear's work with iodine to sensitize plates did not

439
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: really return results, but he never got to share his

440
00:25:40,440 --> 00:25:44,679
Speaker 1: frustration about this with Niepps because Nissaford died suddenly in

441
00:25:44,760 --> 00:25:48,680
Speaker 1: July three after having a stroke, and this left to

442
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:52,600
Speaker 1: Gear without the scientific expertise of his collaborator. But once

443
00:25:52,640 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: again he was tenacious and he kept at the work,

444
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:58,959
Speaker 1: and an accident is again said to have given him

445
00:25:59,000 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 1: the next advancement it. De Gere is said to have

446
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 1: placed one of his polished silver coated plates into a

447
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: cupboard after having exposed it in a camera obscura. The

448
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: cupboard was a light proof chemical cupboard that was intended

449
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,760
Speaker 1: for storing exposed plates, but he noticed when he returned

450
00:26:16,840 --> 00:26:20,120
Speaker 1: to the place roughly half an hour later, the image

451
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 1: that he had exposed in the camera obscure had already developed.

452
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: A thermometer had broken in the cupboard, and Louis de

453
00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 1: get realized that mercury vapor was speeding the development. Yeah, again,

454
00:26:31,760 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 1: this is apocryphal, so in some versions of it you'll

455
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 1: see that he left it overnight, frustrated that it had

456
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 1: not initially developed. But regardless, this was a huge step forward.

457
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:45,359
Speaker 1: But the process was still not solid, and that is

458
00:26:45,400 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: mostly because the images themselves were not. Permanence of those

459
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:53,520
Speaker 1: images remained a problem. Those plates would just keep developing

460
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:55,879
Speaker 1: over time, and the image would be lost, so they

461
00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:00,159
Speaker 1: would just like keep having more details until they us

462
00:27:00,200 --> 00:27:04,119
Speaker 1: became a big blob. Eventually, de Gere figured that problem

463
00:27:04,160 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: out as well. It was merely a matter of stopping

464
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: the developing process by removing the excess silver iodide from

465
00:27:11,000 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: the plate. Geary used a salt solution of sodium thiosulfate

466
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 1: to do this. So the system for making what would

467
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,720
Speaker 1: be called a de Gara type was one polish a

468
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:26,120
Speaker 1: silver coated copper plate to sensitize the plate with iodine

469
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,080
Speaker 1: fumes and place it in a light tight plate. Three,

470
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: slide that plate into the camera obscura, and then slide

471
00:27:33,640 --> 00:27:37,879
Speaker 1: the light tight covering open. Four exposed that for some

472
00:27:38,000 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: number of minutes, and that was variable depending on the

473
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 1: light and the camera obscura and the concentration of the

474
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 1: chemicals were that were used. So this required some experience

475
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 1: and know how of the person who was who was

476
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:53,280
Speaker 1: trying to make the image. Step five developed the image

477
00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: in mercury vapor, and step six stop the development process

478
00:27:57,640 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 1: with a salt based solution. The first public mention of

479
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:05,160
Speaker 1: the Gear's work actually appeared in eighteen thirty five, several

480
00:28:05,280 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: years before like the Big release about it. That wasn't

481
00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: an article in the Journal des Artiste that was about

482
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:14,719
Speaker 1: new shows at the Diorama. It wasn't about image capture

483
00:28:14,760 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: at all. But at the end of the write up,

484
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:19,760
Speaker 1: which had no attribution as to its author and has

485
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:23,760
Speaker 1: even made some people question whether maybe Degare wrote this himself,

486
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:27,919
Speaker 1: there was the following paragraph quote he has discovered, we

487
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: are told the means of collecting on a plate prepared

488
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:34,760
Speaker 1: by him, the image produced by a camera obscura in

489
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: such a way that a portrait, a landscape, or any

490
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: view projected on this plate by an ordinary camera obscura

491
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 1: leaves its impression in light and shade, and this presents

492
00:28:44,920 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: the most perfect of all drawings. A preparation applied to

493
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 1: this image preserves it for an indefinite time. Physical science

494
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:57,400
Speaker 1: has perhaps never presented a wonder comparable to this one.

495
00:28:58,200 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: This was a considerable announcement it, but nothing much seems

496
00:29:01,920 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 1: to have been said about it for the entire year.

497
00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: But then architect Alphonse Eugene Hubert wrote a response that

498
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,160
Speaker 1: amounted to basically, I seriously doubt it. He had been

499
00:29:12,160 --> 00:29:16,240
Speaker 1: trying to capture camera obscure images as well, but had

500
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: not had any luck, so to him, it seemed highly

501
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 1: unlikely that de Gare, who did not have a scientific background,

502
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: could have managed it. By eight thirty seven, Degare had

503
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: tested and replicated his process enough times that it was

504
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 1: set he could always get consistent results. As with other

505
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 1: aspects of his work that we don't really know what

506
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 1: that process of testing and refinement was like. We have

507
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: no idea, truly no idea the manner in which he

508
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: arrived at realizing each step along the way was the

509
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:50,480
Speaker 1: correct one. We do know his process was different from

510
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: all of the other photographic processes that were in development

511
00:29:53,640 --> 00:29:57,240
Speaker 1: by other people that we're having problems. The Academy of

512
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: Sciences heard a presentation that laid out exactly how Degere's

513
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 1: process worked on January seventh, eighteen thirty nine. That lecture

514
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:09,280
Speaker 1: was not given by the gear but by Francois Arago.

515
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,760
Speaker 1: The get couldn't do it. He had felt ill, or

516
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: at least he claimed he did. We don't know he

517
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: at least he said he felt ill. He may have

518
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: had nerves, and that is why an astronomer first explained

519
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 1: photography at the Academy of Sciences. But to Gere had

520
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 1: decided to name this process after himself, of course, and

521
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:32,520
Speaker 1: that was something that really bothered Nicephor Nieppe's son Isidor,

522
00:30:32,560 --> 00:30:36,280
Speaker 1: who felt that his father should really be recognized. But

523
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:38,560
Speaker 1: to Get really thought that he had changed the approach

524
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: so much from the heliograph work that Niepps had done

525
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:45,240
Speaker 1: that the name shift was warranted, and in a revised

526
00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: version of the contract that he had originally agreed to

527
00:30:47,840 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: you with Nieppe's to Get offered his former partners family

528
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: financial rights to half of the money made from de

529
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 1: Gara typing and the promise that Niepps's name would always

530
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: be included informal and nown sns is adorney Epps signed

531
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:06,160
Speaker 1: this new deal. In terms of making money from this work,

532
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 1: Louis de get took an interesting approach. He knew from

533
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:12,920
Speaker 1: his experience with the diorama that imitators would pop up

534
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: as soon as he filed for a patent, and in

535
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:17,560
Speaker 1: France at the time, there was really not much that

536
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: could be done about it, so instead he sold it

537
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,960
Speaker 1: to the French government, and in turn, the French government

538
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: released it free to the world as a gift on

539
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: August nine, eighteen thirty nine. As part of the sale

540
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: to the government, the Garret had arranged for annual payments

541
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: to be made to both himself and Niepps's family. The

542
00:31:37,040 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: Garret got six thousand francs a year and Nip's Air's

543
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,720
Speaker 1: got four thousand. The gear did manage to patent his

544
00:31:43,840 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: process in England, Ireland and Scotland before the French government

545
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: released it, so he maintained his rights there and in

546
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: their colonies. Yeah, he did try for a while some

547
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: other business sort of plans to try to make money

548
00:31:58,800 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: off of this, but none of those were really working out,

549
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: which is why he sold it to the government. As

550
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: the dagaratype took on a life of its own and

551
00:32:06,200 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: the field of photography continued to advance through other inventors

552
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: improving upon it, degar retired again. He was financially set.

553
00:32:15,000 --> 00:32:17,280
Speaker 1: A fire destroyed a lot of his early work in

554
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine and he did not rebuild his burnt

555
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: studio after that. He did give some presentations and lessons

556
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,360
Speaker 1: on occasion, but according to most people, he was actually

557
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 1: kind of shy, particularly about talking about his achievement, and

558
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:32,960
Speaker 1: all he really wanted to do was go back to painting,

559
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: and he did a lot of that in his later years.

560
00:32:36,120 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 1: During the eighteen forties, he painted a number of huge

561
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: pieces for churches in Paris. Louis de Geer died of

562
00:32:42,960 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 1: a heart attack on July tenth, eighteen fifty one, at

563
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 1: his home in Risumron, just outside of Paris, and the

564
00:32:50,280 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: time between the announcement of the Dagara type and his death,

565
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:55,840
Speaker 1: other innovators had come up with new ways to capture

566
00:32:55,880 --> 00:33:00,000
Speaker 1: imagery with light. That included William Henry Fox Talbot, who

567
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: patented a paper negative process, the calotype. In eighteen forty one,

568
00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: the Garatt type studios opened in Europe and the United States,

569
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:12,120
Speaker 1: and to photography journals were launched. In the US they

570
00:33:12,120 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 1: were the Dagarian Art Journal and the Photographic Art Journal,

571
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: and then, immediately before his death, starting in May of

572
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty one, a d Garo type exhibition had been

573
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: mounted at the Great Exhibition of London, which is another

574
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: thing that comes up a lot um. Also, Hey, surprise,

575
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: this is the first of a sort of two parter

576
00:33:32,080 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: that we're doing on early photography. Uh. They are standalone episodes,

577
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:39,560
Speaker 1: but their linked thematically. And on an upcoming episode we

578
00:33:39,600 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: are going to discuss one of the people who took

579
00:33:41,920 --> 00:33:46,040
Speaker 1: to gears new technology and kind of ran with it. Oh,

580
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,600
Speaker 1: do Gear, do you have some listener mail before we

581
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: head out? I do. This is from our listener. I

582
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: don't know if she pronounces it Andrea or Andrea, so

583
00:33:55,240 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: either way, thank you who is writing about our Pranks episode? Right,

584
00:34:00,200 --> 00:34:02,520
Speaker 1: it's good afternoon. I've been listening to the podcast since

585
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: around and I was delighted to hear the Three Legendary

586
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: Pranks podcast, especially the spaghetti Harvest prank. Normally, I am

587
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: not a fan of pranks, since it seems most are

588
00:34:12,680 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: mean spirited and make an unsuspecting person a butt of

589
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: the joke. But I truly appreciate the pranks that are

590
00:34:18,120 --> 00:34:20,920
Speaker 1: meant to amuse a person and brighten their day. I

591
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:23,640
Speaker 1: teach middle school math. Okay, sidebar, thank you for being

592
00:34:23,640 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 1: an educator. That is a hard job already. Wow, what

593
00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: a time you've had, which she's going to talk about

594
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:30,319
Speaker 1: in the rest of her letter. She says, leading up

595
00:34:30,320 --> 00:34:33,760
Speaker 1: to April Fool's Day, I saw some discourse in various

596
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: teacher groups on Facebook about fun pranks to give a

597
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:39,680
Speaker 1: good laugh to students learning online and going through a

598
00:34:39,719 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 1: traumatic global event. One teacher posted that she had played

599
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,480
Speaker 1: the marshmallow farming video for her students in the past,

600
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: and they got a good laugh. This video is hilarious.

601
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: It is very similar to the Spaghetti Trees, except it

602
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 1: is a North Carolina farmer talking about how the wet

603
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: climate has created a problem where the marshmallows have melted

604
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,080
Speaker 1: and fallen off the trees, and it is similarly given

605
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:08,400
Speaker 1: with complete seriousness. It's great. In my class online update

606
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 1: for the day, on April fools Day twenty I posted

607
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:13,520
Speaker 1: an update telling my students they needed to watch the

608
00:35:13,560 --> 00:35:16,240
Speaker 1: marshmallow farming video and that there would be an ungraded

609
00:35:16,320 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 1: quiz to review into JR operations using the numbers in

610
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: the video. When they actually clicked through to the quiz,

611
00:35:23,600 --> 00:35:25,560
Speaker 1: I let students in on the joke and I asked

612
00:35:25,560 --> 00:35:27,840
Speaker 1: them not to spoil the joke for their friends, and

613
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 1: I wish them a joyful April Fools Day. The feedback

614
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: I got was perfect. Some of them got the joke

615
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:35,239
Speaker 1: right away and loved it. Others I had going for

616
00:35:35,280 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 1: a while, and yet others questioned my sanity until a

617
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 1: friend told them it was a joke. This year, on

618
00:35:41,239 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: April Fools Day, when I had all of my students

619
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 1: again for the next year of math, we fondly reminisced

620
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:50,280
Speaker 1: and had another laugh. Uh. Shelsa writes. Also another brief

621
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,480
Speaker 1: story related to your Alistair Crowley episode. I learned of

622
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,680
Speaker 1: Alistair Crowley in my late teens when I became a

623
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: huge fan of David Bowie. Bowie referred to the Golden

624
00:35:58,440 --> 00:36:01,279
Speaker 1: Dawn and Crowley in his lyrics for quicksand I was

625
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 1: excited to hear Bowie's name mentioned in the podcast. I

626
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,759
Speaker 1: am also including pictures of my black cat Natasha, my

627
00:36:07,840 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: tricolor Tabby Millie, I rescued from a cat horder on

628
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:13,960
Speaker 1: the last day of school, in my meanest and favorite

629
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: hen pecking at my toes, my dog Ziggy sitting on

630
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: the picnic table in our backyard while I read, and

631
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 1: my dog Daisy basking in the sun. I hope you

632
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: both have a wonderful holiday season full of light and blessings. Cheers. Oh.

633
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:27,840
Speaker 1: I love this email. One. I love it because it

634
00:36:27,840 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: gives the chance to thank educators too. That is a

635
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: great way to pull prank that is fun and joyful.

636
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:40,320
Speaker 1: And three, that marshmallow video is funny. I haven't to

637
00:36:40,360 --> 00:36:44,280
Speaker 1: do it later. It's very very funny, and I love

638
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 1: love this collection of beautiful creatures, and I do understand

639
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:51,520
Speaker 1: loving the meanest animals the most. I don't know what

640
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 1: it is, there's something in my heart I do the

641
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: same thing. So thank you, thank you, because this was

642
00:36:56,280 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 1: an absolutely oh and she says Andrea. Um, so yeah,

643
00:37:00,680 --> 00:37:04,600
Speaker 1: that's Andrea. I said it wrong every time. I only

644
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:07,640
Speaker 1: just noticed the phonetics at the very end. I've done

645
00:37:07,680 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 1: this exact same thing with reading listener mail before. Yes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The problem is that I read it from their email

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Speaker 1: address at the top, and then when I scrolled down

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00:37:19,960 --> 00:37:23,600
Speaker 1: and see the thing, my brain goes, oh whoops. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: and my apologies. I've read the whole email, including that note,

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00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:30,560
Speaker 1: but then I have recorded a whole podcast episode and

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Speaker 1: the note is not in my mind anymore. That is

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Speaker 1: precisely what has just taken place. So thank you Andrea

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00:37:37,600 --> 00:37:39,960
Speaker 1: for writing us that, because it was absolutely a delight.

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00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:42,319
Speaker 1: If you would like to write to us and give

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00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 1: me the chance to mess up the pronunciation of your name,

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00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: you can do that at History podcast at iHeart radio

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00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: dot com. Please forgive me if I do it. You

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00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 1: can also touch based on the podcast on social media

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00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: at mist in History, and if you have not subscribed.

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00:37:57,440 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 1: You can do that on the I heart Radio app

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00:37:59,360 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: or anywhere you get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in

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00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:09,960
Speaker 1: History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For

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00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:12,719
Speaker 1: more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart

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Speaker 1: radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your

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Speaker 1: favorite shows. H