Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,
Speaker 1: and if history is an open book, all of these
Speaker 1: amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for
Speaker 1: us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Not
Speaker 1: everyone likes receiving mail, at least not when it has
Speaker 1: things like preapproved or final notice printed on the front
Speaker 1: of the envelope. About receiving a handwritten letter or a postcard.
Speaker 1: In an age of email and text messages, a few
Speaker 1: things feel that special unless you lived in Coleford in Gloucestershire, England,
Speaker 1: during the Christmas of nineteen twenty three. While the residents
Speaker 1: were opening holiday cards from loved ones, there was something
Speaker 1: else to into their mailboxes. Postcards. But these weren't quickly
Speaker 1: dashed off scribblings from friends in exotic locations. They had
Speaker 1: come from one anonymous source, a person living rights under
Speaker 1: their noses. On these postcards, the sender had written offensive messages.
Speaker 1: Some even included obscene images. According to an article in
Speaker 1: the Daily British Wig printed at the time, these postcards
Speaker 1: were described as an I quote full of the most
Speaker 1: horrible vulgar coarseness. They'd been arriving since July of that
Speaker 1: year and were so grotesque in nature no paper would
Speaker 1: print what was actually written on any of them. So
Speaker 1: how was the culprit found if the postcards had been
Speaker 1: sent anonymously? Well, the halfpenny stamps that were used to
Speaker 1: mail them had been marked by a post office official
Speaker 1: in invisible ink. They were then handed to another employee
Speaker 1: with the instruction to only sell them to one person,
Speaker 1: a middle aged, unmarried woman from Coulford named Diana Langham.
Speaker 1: Was it her marital status that had tipped off the authority,
Speaker 1: or perhaps her behavior toward her neighbors, We're not sure,
Speaker 1: but on December third, Miss Langham purchased twelve of the
Speaker 1: marked stamps, followed by four more a few days later.
Speaker 1: The trap was set. Around the tenth of December, a
Speaker 1: bank cashier named Charles Saunders received a postcard in the
Speaker 1: mail bearing a halfpenny stamp. The message was laden with vulgarities,
Speaker 1: and the card was given to the police for analysis.
Speaker 1: Low and behold the postage board these secrets invisible mark.
Speaker 1: It was enough to have a detective, Sergeant Giles from
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard follow Miss Langham around town. He tailed her
Speaker 1: throughout Colford, observing her movements, and after some time he
Speaker 1: finally saw what he'd been looking for. It was poking
Speaker 1: out of her pocket a postcard. On December thirteenth, Langham
Speaker 1: traveled to the local market place, presumably to do some
Speaker 1: holiday shopping, when the police closed in on her. She
Speaker 1: was taken into custody in front of many of her
Speaker 1: friends and neighbors, no doubt sending them into a frenzy
Speaker 1: of whispers and gossip. One witness heard Langham tell the
Speaker 1: police I know nothing about the postcards. She may not have,
Speaker 1: but her victims sure did. Charles Saunders had received thirty
Speaker 1: two of them, and almost all of them had been
Speaker 1: sent directly to the bank where he worked. Two postcards
Speaker 1: had been addressed to his wife, while another man, Stanley Roberts,
Speaker 1: got four of seeing postcards as well as one letter.
Speaker 1: Langham was charged with sending indecent postal communications and was
Speaker 1: brought to the Coulford Police Court the next day. Predictably,
Speaker 1: she pled not guilty to the charges. She said as
Speaker 1: much to the sergeant the day before. It seems that
Speaker 1: no matter how much evidence they had, Miss Langham refused
Speaker 1: to confess to her crimes. The police even conducted a
Speaker 1: search of her home and found more postcards like the
Speaker 1: one sent to mister Saunders and his wife. There was
Speaker 1: also a blotting paper bearing some of the words that
Speaker 1: had appeared on the other finished products. And with that
Speaker 1: Miss Langham was remanded into custody and taken off the
Speaker 1: card of prison, a holding facility for women some distance away.
Speaker 1: On December twenty first, she stood before a special court
Speaker 1: held back in Coleford. If she was found guilty by
Speaker 1: the magistrates, she would be ordered to pay a fine
Speaker 1: of ten pounds, but if she was ordered to stand trial,
Speaker 1: she faced up to a year in prison. What nobody
Speaker 1: could figure out, though, including Langham's own lawyer, was why
Speaker 1: why had she sent these vile missives at all? Well,
Speaker 1: it should come as no shock that her actions were
Speaker 1: blamed by the men of the court on a strange
Speaker 1: mental and nervous condition, the aka menopause. She eventually changed
Speaker 1: her plea to guilty and apologized for her actions, swearing
Speaker 1: never to repeat them in the future, and by swearing,
Speaker 1: I mean promising, not actually swearing. The judge, appreciative of
Speaker 1: her change of heart and for not putting everyone through
Speaker 1: the hassle of a trial, only sentenced her to six
Speaker 1: months incarceration. After her release, Miss Langa moved in with
Speaker 1: her sister and brother in law in Somerset. She lived
Speaker 1: to be eighty two, finally passing away in the mid
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties, and although she had left behind a will
Speaker 1: detailing how her assets were to be divided, she never
Speaker 1: told anyone what they really wanted to know. In total,
Speaker 1: Diane Langham had sent forty two communications, thirty two of
Speaker 1: them had gone to mister Saunders, and nobody ever found out. Why.
Speaker 1: If you ever go shopping looking for a particular item,
Speaker 1: you might find yourself facing cheap imitations instead. From designer
Speaker 1: handbags to consumer electronics, it's easy to fall for a
Speaker 1: seller scam. What we want is the actual product, the
Speaker 1: genuine article. One man knew the value of the product
Speaker 1: that he made, and because of his engineering talent, so
Speaker 1: did everyone else. Born in eighteen forty four in Ontario,
Speaker 1: it seemed Elijah was destined to work on the railroad.
Speaker 1: His parents, George and Mildred had fled Kentucky on the
Speaker 1: underground railroad in the mid eighteen thirties. They ended across
Speaker 1: the border in Canada, where they gave birth to Elijah.
Speaker 1: Along with ten of his eleven siblings, he grew up
Speaker 1: during a time when schools and Upper Canada were still segregated.
Speaker 1: He received his education from black schools in Colchester Township. Then,
Speaker 1: when he was fifteen, Elijah traveled to Scotland. He attended
Speaker 1: the University of Edinburgh, where he studied to become a
Speaker 1: mechanical engineer. Eventually he returned to his family in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty six, but they were no longer in Ontario. George,
Speaker 1: Mildred and his siblings had left Canada for Michigan several
Speaker 1: years prior, where they could remain free. By now, the
Speaker 1: Civil War had ended and slavery was abolished, but Elijah
Speaker 1: still faced an uphill battle. No one would hire him
Speaker 1: as an engineer because he was black, so he decided
Speaker 1: to put his dreams on the back of burner in
Speaker 1: favor of gainful employment with the Michigan Central Railroad. They
Speaker 1: hired him as a fireman, and oiler his job was
Speaker 1: to keep parts of the train well oiled so that
Speaker 1: it could function efficiently. When the train was stopped, Elijah
Speaker 1: would apply oil to the axels and bearings. Then he
Speaker 1: would shovel coal to keep the fire burning hot for
Speaker 1: the next leg of the journey. But the job was
Speaker 1: strenuous and wasteful. After all, he used a lot of
Speaker 1: oil and energy to keep the trains lubricated. He believed
Speaker 1: that a better method was possible, one that would allow
Speaker 1: the train to be oiled while still in motion, reducing
Speaker 1: the need for extra stops and starts on each trip,
Speaker 1: and so Elijah put his engineering mind to work. He
Speaker 1: developed a device called an automatic lubricator, designed to be
Speaker 1: used on steam locomotives and ships. The automatic lubricator used
Speaker 1: gravity to supply oil to the necessary parts from a
Speaker 1: central cup or reservoir. It was also called the lubricating
Speaker 1: cup or lubricating oil cup, and he had it patented
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy two. It became a hit with engineers
Speaker 1: and railroad companies all over. Now they could keep the
Speaker 1: trains running for longer periods of time. Several years later,
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty two, Elijah moved to Detroit, Michigan. He
Speaker 1: began consulting with various engineering firms, sharing his knowledge and expertise.
Speaker 1: He continued to improve the automatic lubricator and file additional
Speaker 1: patents through his life, but that one device wasn't his
Speaker 1: only contribution to the world. Elijah also invented a portable
Speaker 1: ironing board to help his wife when pressing clothes, and
Speaker 1: he came up with an automatic lawn sprinkler to make
Speaker 1: watering his lawn easier. He eventually started his own manufacturing
Speaker 1: company in nineteen twenty, but there was one more thing
Speaker 1: Elijah was responsible for, and it happened by accident. After
Speaker 1: his automatic lubricator hit the market, other cheaper versions soon followed.
Speaker 1: Railroad engineers had been burned by wasting their money on
Speaker 1: poorly made knockoffs, and so they started asking for Elijah's
Speaker 1: product by name, more specifically by his last name McCoy.
Speaker 1: They wanted, as they called it, the real McCoy system,
Speaker 1: which is why today when someone says that something is
Speaker 1: the real McCoy, they're saying it's a genuine item and
Speaker 1: not some cheap knockoff. Elijah McCoy had grown up the
Speaker 1: child of enslaved people, to become one of the most
Speaker 1: successful and influential businessmen of the nineteenth century. In fact,
Speaker 1: in twenty eleven, Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenau authored an amendment
Speaker 1: to the Patent Reform Act of twenty eleven in support
Speaker 1: of Elijah. The amendment designated the first satellite office of
Speaker 1: the US Patent and Trademark Office in his name. The
Speaker 1: Elijah Jay McCoy United States Patent and Trademark Office Facility
Speaker 1: opened in July of twenty twelve. There's no other office
Speaker 1: like it. It is, as you know, the real McCoy.
Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mank in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over the world
Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Speaker 1: M