Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Sometimes all it takes for a fresh perspective is a
Speaker 1: change in scenery, and it doesn't have to be a
Speaker 1: cross country migration to gain that enlightenment either. They can
Speaker 1: be as simple as stepping into a warm shower or
Speaker 1: going for a drive around town that unlocks our subconscience.
Speaker 1: For John Patterson, though, he did need to get out
Speaker 1: of state, far from the hustle and bustle of the
Speaker 1: city to the much quieter countryside, but he had a
Speaker 1: good reason. He thought he was dying. John was born
Speaker 1: in Orange, New Jersey, in eighteen thirty. He was one
Speaker 1: of twelve children, and his father made a living as
Speaker 1: a hat maker. He apprenticed under his dad, who started
Speaker 1: teaching him everything that he knew until his son got
Speaker 1: some troubling news. He had been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Now,
Speaker 1: back then, tuberculosis was a death sentence for many, and
Speaker 1: John's doctor even predicted that he would die quickly from
Speaker 1: the disease. Being in his twenties and seeing the writing
Speaker 1: on the wall, he decided to leave his family behind
Speaker 1: and travel out west. Hopefully the fresh country air and
Speaker 1: constant sunshine would help alleviate some of his symptoms. Plus,
Speaker 1: he was a young man in need of one last
Speaker 1: adventure before fate struck him down, and so John started
Speaker 1: in Missouri, where he found work at a local brickyard.
Speaker 1: It wasn't hat making, but it was honest work, and
Speaker 1: he soon climbed the latter to partial owner of the factory. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: his luck came crumbling down when a river flood carried
Speaker 1: his dreams and his money out to see. But not
Speaker 1: to worry, a new endeavor was waiting for him out west.
Speaker 1: People were flocking to places like California and Colorado in
Speaker 1: search of gold, and John wasn't about to miss out.
Speaker 1: He traveled to Pike's Peak, Colorado, to hopefully strike it
Speaker 1: rich and return home healthy and wealthy. But he noticed
Speaker 1: a problem with everyone's headwar It was terrible. The de
Speaker 1: facto standard hat that people wore was a coonskin cap,
Speaker 1: much like Davy Crockett, was famous for wearing Sure it
Speaker 1: was warm, a nice feature for gold diggers in the
Speaker 1: Colorado Mountains, but that was all about it had going
Speaker 1: on for it. These hats did not hold up well
Speaker 1: in the rain, and they often smelled horrible. They also
Speaker 1: picked up fleas, and they didn't protect the wearer from
Speaker 1: the harsh western sun. So John, having been a hatter
Speaker 1: and the son of a hatter himself, knew that there
Speaker 1: had to be a better way, and so he got
Speaker 1: to work. He fashioned his new headwear from waterproof felt
Speaker 1: and designed it with a tall, rounded crown as well
Speaker 1: as a much wider brim. One person remarked it kept
Speaker 1: the sun out of your eyes and off your neck.
Speaker 1: It was like an umbrella. And not only that, but
Speaker 1: some people decided that they could use the brim of
Speaker 1: the hat as a fan to either keep the wearer
Speaker 1: cool or even help start fires. John called his creation
Speaker 1: the Boss of the Plains, and it became a sensation,
Speaker 1: so much so that he eventually returned back to the
Speaker 1: East Coast to start his own company. He settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: a stone's throw from his home state of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: And got to work manufacturing his new popular hats. The
Speaker 1: Boss of the Planes was only the first. Next came
Speaker 1: the Carlsbad, which featured a priest down the center of
Speaker 1: the crown. These two designs came to embody the image
Speaker 1: of the cowboy wrangling cattle in jeans and a wide
Speaker 1: brimmed hat. But John wasn't content changing the face of
Speaker 1: Western clothing. He also wanted to set his company apart
Speaker 1: from others in his industry in ways that benefited his workers,
Speaker 1: especially because people who worked in the hat trade often
Speaker 1: job hopped from one place to another, so he gave
Speaker 1: them benefit such as a building and loan program to
Speaker 1: help them buy their own homes. He built a special
Speaker 1: hospital for workers and their families, and he ran a
Speaker 1: softball league that held games during work hours so that
Speaker 1: employees could go blow off some steam on Wednesday afternoons.
Speaker 1: And to make sure his customers knew when they were
Speaker 1: wearing his hats that they were made by his company
Speaker 1: as opposed to cheap knockoffs, he had his full name
Speaker 1: embossed in gold on every headband, John B. Stetson. The
Speaker 1: name Stetson didn't just come to describe a hat made
Speaker 1: by one company. It came to define the style of
Speaker 1: the hat itself, because if it weren't for John Stetson
Speaker 1: and his Western adventure, the world might never have gotten
Speaker 1: the cowboy hat. According to the old adage, the clothes
Speaker 1: make the man. In other words, people are judged by
Speaker 1: what they wear. If you want to be taken seriously
Speaker 1: at a bank, for example, you might want to put
Speaker 1: on a suit or some sort of businesswar leave the
Speaker 1: shorts and the T shirt at home. But Jewles didn't
Speaker 1: work at a bank. His occupation was a bit more unusual,
Speaker 1: and his contribution to the world left very little to
Speaker 1: the imagination. Jewles was born in to Lose, France, in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty eight. Despite his father being a gymnastics teacher
Speaker 1: and local swimming pool owner, Jewles decided to pursue a
Speaker 1: much different line of work. As he got older, he
Speaker 1: wanted to become a lawyer. He attended university, earned his
Speaker 1: degree and even passed his legal exams, doing all the
Speaker 1: necessary work to practice law in France. But then something changed.
Speaker 1: He started developing other interests, more acrobatic interests. He liked
Speaker 1: working out at his father's gym, where he gained a
Speaker 1: lot of skill on the rings and the parallel bars.
Speaker 1: One day he hung a bar from the gymnasium ceiling
Speaker 1: by a pair of ropes. The result was a parallel
Speaker 1: bar that could swing over his father's pool. This new
Speaker 1: invention would eventually come to be known as a trap ease.
Speaker 1: Jewels law career was over before it had even started.
Speaker 1: There was no way that he could sit at a
Speaker 1: desk all day in an uncomfortable suit when he could
Speaker 1: instead fly through the air with the greatest of ease.
Speaker 1: If that line sounds familiar, that's because it comes from
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixty seven song The Daring young Man on
Speaker 1: the Flying Trapeze by George Laybourne, a song written about Jewels.
Speaker 1: At the height of his popularity, you see, he became
Speaker 1: quite the celebrity after joining the SIRC Napoleon, where he
Speaker 1: debuted his flying trapeze routine on November twelfth of eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. But that wasn't the only thing he showed off.
Speaker 1: He also wore a relatively unknown piece of clothing that
Speaker 1: allowed him a wide range of motion, which he called
Speaker 1: a mayo. It was a sleeveless, tight fitting one piece
Speaker 1: that covered his legs down to his mid thigh as
Speaker 1: well as his mid section. A deep u in the
Speaker 1: front highlighted his chest while his muscular arms could move
Speaker 1: without hinderance, and it was cinched in the middle with
Speaker 1: a tight belt ring. In his first performance, Jewles jumped
Speaker 1: from one trapeze to another and executed a somersault in
Speaker 1: mid air, and most daring of all, he did it
Speaker 1: all without the aid of a safety net below him.
Speaker 1: Back then, all he had to break his fall were mattresses,
Speaker 1: which were arranged on the ground under his performance area.
Speaker 1: Everyone from the audience to his fellow circus performers couldn't
Speaker 1: believe their eyes. Jeweles had seemingly done the impossible, and
Speaker 1: two years later he took his show on the road
Speaker 1: to London, where he performed at the Alhambra Music Hall.
Speaker 1: His death defying feats earn him a massive salary about
Speaker 1: five thousand pounds a week by today's standards, but they
Speaker 1: didn't have him performing on a stage or in a
Speaker 1: special area of the arena. He flew from trapeze to
Speaker 1: trapeze directly over the heads of people eating their meals below.
Speaker 1: Jeweles became a rising star in London, where he ended
Speaker 1: up spending a lot of time over the next several years,
Speaker 1: but he didn't know that he was not long for
Speaker 1: this world, and sadly, he passed away of an infectious
Speaker 1: disease in eighteen seventy, when he was only twenty eight
Speaker 1: years old. Historians believe it was possibly smallpox. But don't
Speaker 1: be too sad. What Jewels contributed to the world is
Speaker 1: still around today, and I'm not just talking about his song.
Speaker 1: The trapeze, for example, is still used in circus performances now,
Speaker 1: but so is his special performance garment. It took a
Speaker 1: number of years before his name became synonymous with it,
Speaker 1: but pretty soon many other professions adopted his skin tight
Speaker 1: outfit for their own purposes. The materials have certainly changed,
Speaker 1: but its basic form and purpose have remained consistent. From
Speaker 1: ballet dancers to aerobics instructors, to gymnasts and everyone else,
Speaker 1: the special clothing worn by Jules Leotard is still a
Speaker 1: popular option for athletes all over the world. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities Podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.