Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Some people are destined for greatness from the beginning.
Speaker 1: They either spend their lives working towards a specific goal,
Speaker 1: or they are born with the privilege they need to ascend. Others,
Speaker 1: like William Shakespeare once said, have greatness thrust upon them.
Speaker 1: Take Susannah for example. She was born in eighteen sixty
Speaker 1: to a humble family of Ohio farmers, but her parents
Speaker 1: eventually moved the family to Silver Lake, Kansas when she
Speaker 1: was about twelve. Susannah was smart, too, very smart. She
Speaker 1: had taken several college level classes while still in high school,
Speaker 1: allowing her to skip her freshman year at Kansas State
Speaker 1: Agricultural College and become a sophomore, and it was during
Speaker 1: her time there when she met the man she would
Speaker 1: one day marry, Louis Psalter. Louis had come from an
Speaker 1: important political family in Kansas and was working on getting
Speaker 1: his degree in law. Sadly, Susannah had no choice but
Speaker 1: to drop out of college several weeks before graduation after
Speaker 1: coming down with the serious illness. She and Louis got
Speaker 1: married after she finished school, and together they moved to
Speaker 1: the brand new city of Argonia, Kansas. It was so
Speaker 1: new that Susannah not only gave birth to their first
Speaker 1: child there, but also to the first baby born in town.
Speaker 1: Susannah made waves in other ways as well. She joined
Speaker 1: the Women's Christian Temperance Union and evangelical organization dedicated to
Speaker 1: helping women and girls through the adoption of social moral
Speaker 1: policy reforms. Two areas of intense focus for the group
Speaker 1: where pro ambition and women's suffrage. Though not everyone agreed
Speaker 1: with their beliefs or their tactics, the group worked tirelessly
Speaker 1: to get women the right to vote. Susannah also carried
Speaker 1: her passion for the group's work to the Prohibition Party,
Speaker 1: where she advocated for the legal abolition of alcohol, believing
Speaker 1: it to be the foundation of society's ills. Amidst all
Speaker 1: her activism, though Susannah and Lewis continued to grow their
Speaker 1: family as well as its political cash Argonia was incorporated
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty five, and her father was elected shortly
Speaker 1: after as its first mayor. Her husband joined him as
Speaker 1: city clerk. Two years later, women in Kansas were given
Speaker 1: the right to vote, but only in municipal elections. The
Speaker 1: Women's Christian Temperance Union was thrilled. A few men in town.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, we're not. The time had come
Speaker 1: to elect a new mayor, and for the first time anywhere,
Speaker 1: a woman was on the ballot. Susanna Assaulter had suddenly
Speaker 1: become a player in local politics, much to the surprise
Speaker 1: of everyone. On election day, she found herself with the
Speaker 1: full support of the w c t U and the
Speaker 1: local Republican Party, all of whom voted for her. Those
Speaker 1: votes were then counted that night. Susannah, the farm girl
Speaker 1: from Ohio had just made history as the first female
Speaker 1: mayor in the United States and possibly in the world.
Speaker 1: There was just one problem. She had no idea she
Speaker 1: was even running. At the time, it was not a
Speaker 1: requirement for the full list of candidates to be published
Speaker 1: ahead of time. The w c t U had even
Speaker 1: backed a completely different person in the race until it
Speaker 1: found out about Susannah's candidacy. It turns out that several
Speaker 1: men in town had put her on the ballot as
Speaker 1: a joke, expecting her to lose. They had wanted to
Speaker 1: send a message to all other women with dreams of
Speaker 1: going into politics, don't Instead, their little prank backfired. Upon
Speaker 1: discovering the last minute edition, the city officials asked Susannah
Speaker 1: if she would accept the position if elected. She agreed
Speaker 1: to serve pending the outcome of the election. The Women's
Speaker 1: Christian Temperance Union immediately pulled their endorsements of their original
Speaker 1: candidate to support her instead. Not much happened in the
Speaker 1: years Susannah Salter served as mayor of Argonia. The rest
Speaker 1: of the country, however, made her single term a perpetual
Speaker 1: top story. Papers from places as far away as Sweden
Speaker 1: wrote about how wonderfully she dressed and how surprised they
Speaker 1: were at the skillful way she conducted herself in office. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: journalism today hasn't changed much when it comes to covering
Speaker 1: women in positions of power. But one thing's for sure.
Speaker 1: If you're going to pull a prank, you better make
Speaker 1: sure it doesn't push back. Everyone's looking for a quick fix,
Speaker 1: a pill or a potion to cure what ails them.
Speaker 1: The ancient Egyptians made medicines from willow and fig worked
Speaker 1: was a plant used across the UK to treat leg wounds. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: not all remedies were so helpful or natural. In Europe
Speaker 1: during the Middle Ages, entertainers traveling from town to town
Speaker 1: would often find themselves with nowhere to perform. Theaters might
Speaker 1: be shut down, so live performances, such as circuses or
Speaker 1: those that were put on by acting troops, had to
Speaker 1: find other ways to make ends meet. Many pivoted to
Speaker 1: selling cure alls to the crowd. These medicine shows would
Speaker 1: roll into town, glass bottles rattling in the backs of
Speaker 1: their wagons. Those with the knack for salesmanship would hawk
Speaker 1: miracle elixirs, which promised everything from hairy growth to curing sianica.
Speaker 1: As the practice matured and made its way to America,
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs got bolder and more creative. Perhaps the most famous
Speaker 1: of them was snake oil liniments. It was said to
Speaker 1: cure anyone who drank it of rheumatism, toothaches, spraying, and frostbite,
Speaker 1: among countless other ailments. In reality, these concoctions were made
Speaker 1: with drugs like opium, cocaine, and alcohol. They didn't cure anything,
Speaker 1: and in many cases made a person feel even worse.
Speaker 1: As a result. It gave rise to a brand new term,
Speaker 1: the snake oil salesman, a moniker that has come to
Speaker 1: describe anyone peddling fake medicines to hapless buyers. But one
Speaker 1: man claimed to have found a miracle herb in his travels.
Speaker 1: His name was Thomas Harriet, an English astronomer and translator
Speaker 1: who graduated from Oxford University in the late sixteenth century.
Speaker 1: Harriet had studied maritime navigation, focusing on how to traverse
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean in order to reach the New World
Speaker 1: using the stars as a guide. He also had a
Speaker 1: passion for languages, specifically those of the indigenous tribes of America.
Speaker 1: In fact, with the help of two members of the
Speaker 1: Roanoke tribe, he was able to translate their Carolina Algonquin language.
Speaker 1: They had come to England from Roanoke Island off the
Speaker 1: cost of North Carolina at the request of Sir Walter Riley.
Speaker 1: Riley had asked them to describe the area and what
Speaker 1: future explorers would face once they arrived. In the early
Speaker 1: fifteen eighties, Riley had begun preparations for another expedition to Roanoke,
Speaker 1: and he needed help. He turned to Harriet, who came
Speaker 1: on board Riley's team as a math tutor, navigational expert, accountant,
Speaker 1: and a translator. Harriet made the journey in five He
Speaker 1: wrote about his experiences on the island a few years later,
Speaker 1: describing the miraculous herb he had encountered, called upp a Walk.
Speaker 1: He titled his essay A Brief and True Report on
Speaker 1: the newfound Land of Virginia. According to Harriet, up a walk,
Speaker 1: when breathed in by the Roanoke tribes members cleansed their bodies.
Speaker 1: It opened their pores and purged their airways of mucus,
Speaker 1: preventing them from catching diseases. The Roanoke also believed their
Speaker 1: gods favored the herb. They would dry it out and
Speaker 1: grind it into a fine powder before tossing it into
Speaker 1: the air, hoping to appeal is the deities watching over them.
Speaker 1: If a storm approached the island, the tribe members would
Speaker 1: throw the upp a Walk in the air and the water,
Speaker 1: then hold hands, chant and dance to pacify the gods
Speaker 1: they believed were responsible. But the most common practice regarding
Speaker 1: upp a walk was in burning it and inhaling the smoke.
Speaker 1: The roanoke had crafted pipes out of clay through which
Speaker 1: they would let the smoke flow throughout their bodies. It
Speaker 1: seemed to make them superhumanly healthy, which intrigued the English settlers,
Speaker 1: who had traveled such a long way and only grown sicker.
Speaker 1: It took roughly another century, but by sevent hundred the
Speaker 1: herb Thomas Harriet had praised so poetically in his correspondence
Speaker 1: became a major cash crop for Europe. It then found
Speaker 1: its way to places like Cuba and the Caribbean, where
Speaker 1: it's spurred entire industries. Lots of people still enjoy up
Speaker 1: a walk today, but we're far more aware of the
Speaker 1: hazards it can pose. It doesn't make our skin clearer
Speaker 1: or fend off diseases. In fact, it tends to make
Speaker 1: us worse. Harriets himself died from cancer, which many historians
Speaker 1: believe he contracted from over using it, the miracle cure
Speaker 1: he had fallen in love with tobacco. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts. Or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye