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Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio

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Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,

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Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these

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Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for

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Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Not

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Speaker 1: everyone likes receiving mail, at least not when it has

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Speaker 1: things like preapproved or final notice printed on the front

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Speaker 1: of the envelope. About receiving a handwritten letter or a postcard.

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Speaker 1: In an age of email and text messages, a few

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Speaker 1: things feel that special unless you lived in Coleford in Gloucestershire, England,

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Speaker 1: during the Christmas of nineteen twenty three. While the residents

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Speaker 1: were opening holiday cards from loved ones, there was something

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Speaker 1: else to into their mailboxes. Postcards. But these weren't quickly

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Speaker 1: dashed off scribblings from friends in exotic locations. They had

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Speaker 1: come from one anonymous source, a person living rights under

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Speaker 1: their noses. On these postcards, the sender had written offensive messages.

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Speaker 1: Some even included obscene images. According to an article in

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Speaker 1: the Daily British Wig printed at the time, these postcards

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Speaker 1: were described as an I quote full of the most

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Speaker 1: horrible vulgar coarseness. They'd been arriving since July of that

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Speaker 1: year and were so grotesque in nature no paper would

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Speaker 1: print what was actually written on any of them. So

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Speaker 1: how was the culprit found if the postcards had been

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Speaker 1: sent anonymously? Well, the halfpenny stamps that were used to

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Speaker 1: mail them had been marked by a post office official

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Speaker 1: in invisible ink. They were then handed to another employee

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Speaker 1: with the instruction to only sell them to one person,

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Speaker 1: a middle aged, unmarried woman from Coulford named Diana Langham.

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Speaker 1: Was it her marital status that had tipped off the authority,

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Speaker 1: or perhaps her behavior toward her neighbors, We're not sure,

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Speaker 1: but on December third, Miss Langham purchased twelve of the

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Speaker 1: marked stamps, followed by four more a few days later.

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Speaker 1: The trap was set. Around the tenth of December, a

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Speaker 1: bank cashier named Charles Saunders received a postcard in the

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Speaker 1: mail bearing a halfpenny stamp. The message was laden with vulgarities,

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Speaker 1: and the card was given to the police for analysis.

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Speaker 1: Low and behold the postage board these secrets invisible mark.

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Speaker 1: It was enough to have a detective, Sergeant Giles from

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Speaker 1: Scotland Yard follow Miss Langham around town. He tailed her

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Speaker 1: throughout Colford, observing her movements, and after some time he

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Speaker 1: finally saw what he'd been looking for. It was poking

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Speaker 1: out of her pocket a postcard. On December thirteenth, Langham

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Speaker 1: traveled to the local market place, presumably to do some

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Speaker 1: holiday shopping, when the police closed in on her. She

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Speaker 1: was taken into custody in front of many of her

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Speaker 1: friends and neighbors, no doubt sending them into a frenzy

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Speaker 1: of whispers and gossip. One witness heard Langham tell the

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Speaker 1: police I know nothing about the postcards. She may not have,

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Speaker 1: but her victims sure did. Charles Saunders had received thirty

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Speaker 1: two of them, and almost all of them had been

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Speaker 1: sent directly to the bank where he worked. Two postcards

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Speaker 1: had been addressed to his wife, while another man, Stanley Roberts,

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Speaker 1: got four of seeing postcards as well as one letter.

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Speaker 1: Langham was charged with sending indecent postal communications and was

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Speaker 1: brought to the Coulford Police Court the next day. Predictably,

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Speaker 1: she pled not guilty to the charges. She said as

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Speaker 1: much to the sergeant the day before. It seems that

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Speaker 1: no matter how much evidence they had, Miss Langham refused

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Speaker 1: to confess to her crimes. The police even conducted a

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Speaker 1: search of her home and found more postcards like the

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Speaker 1: one sent to mister Saunders and his wife. There was

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Speaker 1: also a blotting paper bearing some of the words that

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Speaker 1: had appeared on the other finished products. And with that

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Speaker 1: Miss Langham was remanded into custody and taken off the

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Speaker 1: card of prison, a holding facility for women some distance away.

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Speaker 1: On December twenty first, she stood before a special court

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Speaker 1: held back in Coleford. If she was found guilty by

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Speaker 1: the magistrates, she would be ordered to pay a fine

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Speaker 1: of ten pounds, but if she was ordered to stand trial,

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Speaker 1: she faced up to a year in prison. What nobody

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Speaker 1: could figure out, though, including Langham's own lawyer, was why

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Speaker 1: why had she sent these vile missives at all? Well,

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Speaker 1: it should come as no shock that her actions were

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Speaker 1: blamed by the men of the court on a strange

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Speaker 1: mental and nervous condition, the aka menopause. She eventually changed

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Speaker 1: her plea to guilty and apologized for her actions, swearing

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Speaker 1: never to repeat them in the future, and by swearing,

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Speaker 1: I mean promising, not actually swearing. The judge, appreciative of

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Speaker 1: her change of heart and for not putting everyone through

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Speaker 1: the hassle of a trial, only sentenced her to six

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Speaker 1: months incarceration. After her release, Miss Langa moved in with

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Speaker 1: her sister and brother in law in Somerset. She lived

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Speaker 1: to be eighty two, finally passing away in the mid

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and although she had left behind a will

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Speaker 1: detailing how her assets were to be divided, she never

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Speaker 1: told anyone what they really wanted to know. In total,

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Speaker 1: Diane Langham had sent forty two communications, thirty two of

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Speaker 1: them had gone to mister Saunders, and nobody ever found out. Why.

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Speaker 1: If you ever go shopping looking for a particular item,

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Speaker 1: you might find yourself facing cheap imitations instead. From designer

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Speaker 1: handbags to consumer electronics, it's easy to fall for a

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Speaker 1: seller scam. What we want is the actual product, the

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Speaker 1: genuine article. One man knew the value of the product

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Speaker 1: that he made, and because of his engineering talent, so

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Speaker 1: did everyone else. Born in eighteen forty four in Ontario,

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Speaker 1: it seemed Elijah was destined to work on the railroad.

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Speaker 1: His parents, George and Mildred had fled Kentucky on the

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Speaker 1: underground railroad in the mid eighteen thirties. They ended across

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Speaker 1: the border in Canada, where they gave birth to Elijah.

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Speaker 1: Along with ten of his eleven siblings, he grew up

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Speaker 1: during a time when schools and Upper Canada were still segregated.

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Speaker 1: He received his education from black schools in Colchester Township. Then,

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Speaker 1: when he was fifteen, Elijah traveled to Scotland. He attended

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Speaker 1: the University of Edinburgh, where he studied to become a

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Speaker 1: mechanical engineer. Eventually he returned to his family in eighteen

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Speaker 1: sixty six, but they were no longer in Ontario. George,

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Speaker 1: Mildred and his siblings had left Canada for Michigan several

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Speaker 1: years prior, where they could remain free. By now, the

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Speaker 1: Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished, but Elijah

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Speaker 1: still faced an uphill battle. No one would hire him

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Speaker 1: as an engineer because he was black, so he decided

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Speaker 1: to put his dreams on the back of burner in

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Speaker 1: favor of gainful employment with the Michigan Central Railroad. They

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Speaker 1: hired him as a fireman, and oiler his job was

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Speaker 1: to keep parts of the train well oiled so that

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Speaker 1: it could function efficiently. When the train was stopped, Elijah

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Speaker 1: would apply oil to the axels and bearings. Then he

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Speaker 1: would shovel coal to keep the fire burning hot for

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Speaker 1: the next leg of the journey. But the job was

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Speaker 1: strenuous and wasteful. After all, he used a lot of

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Speaker 1: oil and energy to keep the trains lubricated. He believed

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Speaker 1: that a better method was possible, one that would allow

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Speaker 1: the train to be oiled while still in motion, reducing

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Speaker 1: the need for extra stops and starts on each trip,

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Speaker 1: and so Elijah put his engineering mind to work. He

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Speaker 1: developed a device called an automatic lubricator, designed to be

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Speaker 1: used on steam locomotives and ships. The automatic lubricator used

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Speaker 1: gravity to supply oil to the necessary parts from a

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Speaker 1: central cup or reservoir. It was also called the lubricating

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Speaker 1: cup or lubricating oil cup, and he had it patented

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Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two. It became a hit with engineers

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Speaker 1: and railroad companies all over. Now they could keep the

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Speaker 1: trains running for longer periods of time. Several years later,

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Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty two, Elijah moved to Detroit, Michigan. He

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Speaker 1: began consulting with various engineering firms, sharing his knowledge and expertise.

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Speaker 1: He continued to improve the automatic lubricator and file additional

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Speaker 1: patents through his life, but that one device wasn't his

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Speaker 1: only contribution to the world. Elijah also invented a portable

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Speaker 1: ironing board to help his wife when pressing clothes, and

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Speaker 1: he came up with an automatic lawn sprinkler to make

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Speaker 1: watering his lawn easier. He eventually started his own manufacturing

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Speaker 1: company in nineteen twenty, but there was one more thing

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Speaker 1: Elijah was responsible for, and it happened by accident. After

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Speaker 1: his automatic lubricator hit the market, other cheaper versions soon followed.

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Speaker 1: Railroad engineers had been burned by wasting their money on

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Speaker 1: poorly made knockoffs, and so they started asking for Elijah's

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Speaker 1: product by name, more specifically by his last name McCoy.

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Speaker 1: They wanted, as they called it, the real McCoy system,

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Speaker 1: which is why today when someone says that something is

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Speaker 1: the real McCoy, they're saying it's a genuine item and

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Speaker 1: not some cheap knockoff. Elijah McCoy had grown up the

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Speaker 1: child of enslaved people, to become one of the most

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Speaker 1: successful and influential businessmen of the nineteenth century. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenau authored an amendment

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Speaker 1: to the Patent Reform Act of twenty eleven in support

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Speaker 1: of Elijah. The amendment designated the first satellite office of

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Speaker 1: the US Patent and Trademark Office in his name. The

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Speaker 1: Elijah Jay McCoy United States Patent and Trademark Office Facility

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Speaker 1: opened in July of twenty twelve. There's no other office

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Speaker 1: like it. It is, as you know, the real McCoy.

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Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.

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Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership

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Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show

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Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,

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Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over the world

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Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.

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Speaker 1: M