Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy be Wilson, and I
Speaker 1: apologize upfront because any listeners are going to be hearing
Speaker 1: about this for the next couple of months. We're going
Speaker 1: to Paris. It's true. Uh, if you want to get
Speaker 1: in on that trip, because listeners can come with us, Uh,
Speaker 1: you just go to our website. There is an option
Speaker 1: in the menu bar at the top of the page
Speaker 1: that says Paris trip exclamation point because of excitement, and
Speaker 1: then that will give you all the details on booking.
Speaker 1: Because we are going on this Paris trip in June,
Speaker 1: and I have a little bit of the rabies about
Speaker 1: France topics. So, uh, you're getting a two parter on
Speaker 1: a French topic this week because I'm very excited and
Speaker 1: it is the thing we will visit, at least I
Speaker 1: will visit for sure when we are there. Literally only
Speaker 1: everyone everyone has heard of what we call in the
Speaker 1: US the Eiffel Tower actually fell, But that's a whole
Speaker 1: other thing. Uh. That one structure itself and its construction
Speaker 1: could easily be the subject of multiple episodes because there's
Speaker 1: a whole fascinating story, particularly from the engineering and building standpoint.
Speaker 1: Uh there, But the engineer it is named for, Gustava Fell,
Speaker 1: contributed a great deal more to the world than that
Speaker 1: one iconic structure. So we will talk about the building
Speaker 1: of the turf l but we won't cover it in
Speaker 1: complete exhaustive detail. And Gustava Fell's early life actually showed
Speaker 1: no indication that he was going to end up famous
Speaker 1: for his engineering work, and his later life actually went
Speaker 1: in a totally different direction, and his expertise in iron
Speaker 1: work was sought for projects throughout Europe and South America.
Speaker 1: He also worked on one of the most iconic structures
Speaker 1: in the United States as well, And his career is
Speaker 1: interesting to me because it's mostly an impressive series of
Speaker 1: successes except for one colossal scandal. Like I feel like
Speaker 1: often when we talk about somebody who has become iconic historically,
Speaker 1: it's like we're revealing all of the struggle and all
Speaker 1: of the mistakes they made along the way. And in
Speaker 1: this case, it's kind of like, yeah, he did that,
Speaker 1: and it was on time and under budget, and also
Speaker 1: that other one was on time and under budget, and
Speaker 1: also this one was on time and under budget because
Speaker 1: he was very exacting. So this is a little bit different,
Speaker 1: uh than the I messed up a lot and then
Speaker 1: I made a great thing. It's more like I made
Speaker 1: a lot of great stuff. People just only remember one.
Speaker 1: I was very competent. Yes, I was extraordinarily good at
Speaker 1: what I did. Uh. And we will talk about some
Speaker 1: criticisms of him as well. But in the first part
Speaker 1: of this two parter, we're going to talk about his
Speaker 1: early family life and how he eventually found himself working
Speaker 1: with what we're very modern materials for the time. He
Speaker 1: kind of stumbled into it. Uh. And then in the
Speaker 1: second part, which will be the next episode, we will
Speaker 1: delve into some of his most famous projects, as well
Speaker 1: as the surprising turn that his efforts took in his
Speaker 1: eight years. Alexandra Gustave I Fell was born December fifteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two. His family was originally from Germany. His
Speaker 1: great great grandfather had moved to Paris in the early
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, and the family trade was tapestry weaving up
Speaker 1: until Alexandra Bunkauzenfel, who was Gustav's father, went into military
Speaker 1: service instead of becoming a weaver. The elder Alexandra married
Speaker 1: Gustave's mother, Katherine Melanie Munus, in the fall of eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty four while he was stationed in Dijon that's roughly
Speaker 1: two hundred miles southeast of Paris. Gustav had two sisters
Speaker 1: born after him. There were Marie, who was born in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four and Lure born in eighteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: And Catherine was not a woman who married and had
Speaker 1: kids and then stayed home to raise them. She was
Speaker 1: a little unique for her time. She was actually an
Speaker 1: entrepreneur with a very astute business instinct, and not long
Speaker 1: after she became a mother, she decided that she would
Speaker 1: take her family's business, which was charcoal, and expanded. She
Speaker 1: arraigned for her company to become the distributor of coal
Speaker 1: from more minds throughout France than they already had, in
Speaker 1: order to capitalize on the growing need for coal in industry.
Speaker 1: So both parents had very busy careers, but the family
Speaker 1: was very close. Gustave and his mother especially were close.
Speaker 1: But Catherine and Alexandra also prioritize their children, all of
Speaker 1: their children and offered them an example of a dedicated
Speaker 1: work ethic and a marriage of equals. When Catherine's coal
Speaker 1: business started to grow really quickly, Alexandra left his civil
Speaker 1: administrator job to go work with her, and together they
Speaker 1: built a pretty nice fortune for the family. Eventually they
Speaker 1: moved into a brewery business and they kept doing well there,
Speaker 1: But they were also seen as outsiders in high society.
Speaker 1: I was really dominated by old money families who had
Speaker 1: been wealthy for generations, so their new money just didn't
Speaker 1: have the same shine to it. Yeah, they did not
Speaker 1: have clout in high society circles. And they were actually
Speaker 1: running that brewery. They had just made a big investment
Speaker 1: in it after they sold their their coal company. I
Speaker 1: should also mention that you'll often see that Gustav and
Speaker 1: his sisters were raised largely by their grandmother on his
Speaker 1: mother's side, which she They did stay with her the
Speaker 1: majority of the time, but both Catherine and Alexander made
Speaker 1: a point to always go home and spend time with
Speaker 1: their children and be with them as much as they
Speaker 1: could be. Gaustav also became close with his chemist uncle
Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste Mora, who ran a large distillery, and Molarat's
Speaker 1: friend Michel Pray, also an industrial chemist who made a
Speaker 1: name for himself in mineral mining, and these two men
Speaker 1: were pretty highly influential in the development of the Fails worldview.
Speaker 1: Both believed basically in questioning everything. His uncle was particularly
Speaker 1: anti royalist, and both thought that you should question things,
Speaker 1: both philosophically and scientifically. Gustav found school to be really challenging.
Speaker 1: It was boring at best and excruciating at worst, but
Speaker 1: two of his teachers really ignited a love of learning
Speaker 1: for him when he got to be a teenager. He
Speaker 1: had a literature teacher named Monsieur Clements and a history
Speaker 1: teacher named Monsieur de Jardines, and their entry into his
Speaker 1: education really inspired him to continue it. They helped him
Speaker 1: get caught up on his work, which he had follen
Speaker 1: behind on by meaning I saw one estimate that he
Speaker 1: was like a year behind his peers because he had
Speaker 1: just stopped bothering. Yeah. They also helped him gain admission
Speaker 1: and to the College Santa barb in Paris, which they
Speaker 1: hope would lead him to getting entry into a cold
Speaker 1: polytechnique to finish up his education. And the youngfl had
Speaker 1: traveled to Paris from Dijon for the first time when
Speaker 1: he was twelve and During that trip, which he took
Speaker 1: with his mother, he really fell in love with the city.
Speaker 1: But even though he had seemed entirely excited as a
Speaker 1: slightly older young man to attend school there, he pretty
Speaker 1: quickly became homesick. After he started at college, stab he
Speaker 1: eventually found amusements in seeking out opportunities, for example, to
Speaker 1: dance with young ladies. He made a note that he
Speaker 1: preferred nancing with English girls rather than French girls because
Speaker 1: he found them less reserved, and he also would attend
Speaker 1: the occasional seance. So he wasn't really focusing on his studies. Uh,
Speaker 1: he didn't get really passionate about his education. He kind
Speaker 1: of sat right in the middle of his class achievement wise.
Speaker 1: After his second year, his performance on his exams hadn't
Speaker 1: been good enough to get him entry into a coal polytechnique,
Speaker 1: so instead he went to a close said trial. He
Speaker 1: didn't seem very dismayed by this change of plans, and
Speaker 1: the need to go to a less prestigious school didn't
Speaker 1: seem to phase him all that much. He wasn't focused
Speaker 1: on engineering or metallurgy in his studies. Those are things
Speaker 1: that you might expect of the man who would become
Speaker 1: known for building these massive iron structures. When it came
Speaker 1: time to select a concentration, he went into chemistry, probably
Speaker 1: thinking he might eventually take over his uncle's business, although
Speaker 1: due to a politically generated falling out in the family
Speaker 1: that never really happened. No. As I said, his uncle
Speaker 1: was very outspoken and like to question everything, and that
Speaker 1: cost him problem with other members of the family. Gustav
Speaker 1: graduated from a concentral in eighteen fifty five, and while
Speaker 1: he had focused on chemistry and actually had really done
Speaker 1: pretty well in those studies, for a change, he also
Speaker 1: had a pretty well rounded education. Eighteen fifty five was
Speaker 1: also the year that f l asked his mother for
Speaker 1: a season past the Exhibition Universal in Paris. London's Great
Speaker 1: Exhibition of eighteen fifty one, which has come up on
Speaker 1: this podcast a number of times before, including Joseph Paxton's
Speaker 1: Crystal Palace, had been a massive success, and the French
Speaker 1: were eager to outdo it, in part because they felt
Speaker 1: that they had invented the idea of having these sort
Speaker 1: of world's fairs, and that the British had stolen the
Speaker 1: concept from them and then acted as though it was
Speaker 1: their own. But in any case, Paris in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: five was alive with this desire to show off the
Speaker 1: best and the brightest in the newly constructed Palais de
Speaker 1: Landes three on the Chancels. In fact, the Exposition Universal
Speaker 1: had really carved out a different space from the London
Speaker 1: Expo in terms of national identity and areas of expertise.
Speaker 1: So as the animosity waned and Britain and France started
Speaker 1: building a more cordial relationship, which was cemented by Queen
Speaker 1: Victoria's visit to the Prisian Expo, the French started focusing
Speaker 1: more on showcasing their taste for design and art instead
Speaker 1: of making a real run at trying to shame Britain's
Speaker 1: more industrial and manufacturing focused show that had happened four
Speaker 1: years prior. And Gustave Fel was on hand to see
Speaker 1: and explore all of this. And while that experience must
Speaker 1: have been enthralling and very exciting, young Gustav eventually had
Speaker 1: to figure out a career path, and we will get
Speaker 1: to that right after we first pause for a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Since the plan to take over his uncle's
Speaker 1: distillery was no longer in place by the time he
Speaker 1: graduated from school, fl took a foundry apprenticeship with his
Speaker 1: brother in law, Joseph Colin, and this was not a
Speaker 1: paying position. So while i Fel used the opportunity to
Speaker 1: learn as much as he could about iron founding, he
Speaker 1: also started looking for a permanent job with an income immediately.
Speaker 1: The next year, eighteen fifty six, it Fell visited the
Speaker 1: offices and workshop of Charles Nipvou in the eighth Arrondissement
Speaker 1: as one of a series of visits that he made
Speaker 1: to inquire after work. This was a pretty fortuitous visit
Speaker 1: because Nippoo was already at the forefront of the railway industry.
Speaker 1: He designed both tracks and engines, and he offered Gustavo
Speaker 1: Felt a job. I Fell would work as the private
Speaker 1: secretary and would get an on the job education and
Speaker 1: engineering and material science while he was at it. At
Speaker 1: the same time, it Fell took economics classes through a
Speaker 1: Sunday program at Ecode. Means, yeah, the ecodeman was basically
Speaker 1: letting him have a private tutorship and getting full course
Speaker 1: credit for it so that he could continue his work.
Speaker 1: And it is kind of funny to me, this is
Speaker 1: sort of that cases somebody just stumbling into what ends
Speaker 1: up being the thing that defines them, because he was
Speaker 1: visiting a lot of different offices and places along the
Speaker 1: way when he happened to meet with Neva and just
Speaker 1: kind of struck his moment. But this all seems ideal,
Speaker 1: but Nava was in some serious financial trouble after a
Speaker 1: really expensive project that he had been working on had
Speaker 1: gone completely awry, and one day Neva just didn't show
Speaker 1: up at the office and for two weeks he was
Speaker 1: missing and the businesses bills and management went completely unattended.
Speaker 1: NFL was actually afraid that his new boss had killed himself.
Speaker 1: There were some clues that have fell had put together
Speaker 1: and really feared for this man's life, but in reality
Speaker 1: he seems to have had a nervous breakdown, and after
Speaker 1: he returned to work, Gustav actually stayed with Neva to
Speaker 1: help him close up the business, even though he knew
Speaker 1: he was not going to get paid for these efforts because,
Speaker 1: as we said, deep financial trouble. But Nava did find
Speaker 1: a Fl a new job at a company de Chemin
Speaker 1: de Faire de Luest that's the Western Railway Company, and
Speaker 1: this was not the end of his relationship though with Nibva.
Speaker 1: Gustav earned a hundred and twenty five francs a month
Speaker 1: in his new position and worked with the chief engineer
Speaker 1: as the company kept expanding its considerable railway holdings. That
Speaker 1: chief engineer was Eugene flesh At, who was an innovator
Speaker 1: in the use of sheet metal iron work. At this point,
Speaker 1: iron as an architectural material was still pretty new in France,
Speaker 1: and Fleshat had been a significant contributor in the slow
Speaker 1: acceptance in France. England was a bit ahead of France
Speaker 1: and incorporating iron into construction and had been experimenting with
Speaker 1: it all the way back in the seventeen hundreds. Yet
Speaker 1: some of that was economic, like it was just expensive
Speaker 1: to start experimenting with this new material and France did
Speaker 1: not have the money or interest in spending the money
Speaker 1: to do that. And also some of it was aesthetic.
Speaker 1: They weren't really ready to adopt this new thing yet.
Speaker 1: That will come up in Part two as well. But
Speaker 1: with the railway, fl designed his first structure. It was
Speaker 1: a bridge seventy two eat uh that's just short of
Speaker 1: twenty two that would be constructed with cast iron and
Speaker 1: sheet iron, and this design was approved for construction for
Speaker 1: the Saint Germain railway. At the same time, Nippo was
Speaker 1: working to sell off his company, which he had never
Speaker 1: really been good at running. He wanted to sell it
Speaker 1: to a larger firm that would pay him to continue
Speaker 1: to do engineering and design work without having to worry
Speaker 1: about all the administrative tasks that he just couldn't get
Speaker 1: a handle on trying to run his own business. He
Speaker 1: sold to a Belgian company and not only got the
Speaker 1: position he wanted, but also arranged for Gestava Fel to
Speaker 1: be given a senior position in the French office as
Speaker 1: head of research, which paid two in fifty francs a month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a big jump for him. That doubled his income.
Speaker 1: He went from being like an entry level employee to
Speaker 1: a senior employee at a different company. It was a
Speaker 1: nice way of saying thank you for sticking with me
Speaker 1: in that whole messy business. A while back, uh And
Speaker 1: with the new Belgian company, Nevo secured a high profile project.
Speaker 1: This is a bridge over the guard on the river
Speaker 1: at Bordeaux that would link to previously separated rail systems
Speaker 1: and Charles nabva entrusted a fell with the metal assembly.
Speaker 1: He ran the entire side of that operation, and this
Speaker 1: was no small ask because the project was huge and
Speaker 1: it had only a twenty four month window for completion.
Speaker 1: The project didn't just involve the iron bridge. Before the
Speaker 1: construction could even start, it Fell had to set up
Speaker 1: workshops and a temporary service bridge at the site so
Speaker 1: that the iron work could be assembled there before it
Speaker 1: was installed. But it Fell managed all of this and
Speaker 1: the bridge work itself very efficiently. He used hydraulic pile driving,
Speaker 1: which is a really new technique, to drive hollow caissons
Speaker 1: into the riverbed that could serve as workspaces during construction.
Speaker 1: And as a side note, Casson disease decompression sickness, characterized
Speaker 1: by the formation of gas bubbles in the body when
Speaker 1: a person moves quickly from a high pressure environment to
Speaker 1: a lower pressure environment, is in fact named for this
Speaker 1: con ruction technique, because these cassans would be pressurized so
Speaker 1: that people could work in them underwater and then they
Speaker 1: would go back to regular top side without really any
Speaker 1: transition time. Uh. But there is no record of any
Speaker 1: such illness happening on a Fell's Bordeaux Bridge project. The
Speaker 1: only injury on record took place when a riveter fell
Speaker 1: into the river during construction, and Gustavo Fell jumped into
Speaker 1: the water to rescue the worker, and then he instituted
Speaker 1: a series of new safety measures immediately after the whole
Speaker 1: thing was done, including uh, the men always had to
Speaker 1: be tethered with a rope if they were riveting up
Speaker 1: on the bridge. And it should be noted though, that
Speaker 1: the laborer who fell was actually believed to have been
Speaker 1: intoxicated at the time of the accident. So while of
Speaker 1: course they needed all these safety measures, he was not
Speaker 1: being safe on the job to begin with. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason that it Fell was so efficient was that
Speaker 1: he was very precise and his design and calculations. While
Speaker 1: other engineers were developing designs through trial and error, he
Speaker 1: was doing really meticulous math before the project started to
Speaker 1: make sure that his ideas were structurally sound. This bridge
Speaker 1: was a success, and it led to it Fell's promotion
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty to Engineer General. He was given a
Speaker 1: salary of nine thousand francs a year, plus a five
Speaker 1: percent share of the profits on any of his projects.
Speaker 1: He could also not be dismissed with less than a
Speaker 1: year's notice. Yeah, that's a sweet deal and at this point,
Speaker 1: Gustava Fel was successful, he was stable, and he was
Speaker 1: in his late twenties, and what he really really wanted
Speaker 1: was a family of his own. And he had dated
Speaker 1: a number of women, and he even tried to become
Speaker 1: engaged to one of the young ladies that he had dated,
Speaker 1: but her family did not think he was of high
Speaker 1: enough social standing. That's kind of his what we talked
Speaker 1: about a moment ago with his parents being very successful
Speaker 1: but never quite being accepted by the wealthier high society
Speaker 1: kind of coming back to bite him. But he reunited
Speaker 1: with a young woman from his hometown of Dijon that
Speaker 1: he had known since childhood, and there he finally found
Speaker 1: his match. Stav married Marie Goudlay on July eighteen sixty two. Marie,
Speaker 1: who went by Marguerite, was the granddaughter of one of
Speaker 1: the fl family business partners, so blending the two families
Speaker 1: is a pretty natural fit. The two of them went
Speaker 1: on to have five children. The first was a daughter
Speaker 1: named Claire, who was born in eighteen sixty three, which
Speaker 1: was the year after their wedding. Yes, she uh one
Speaker 1: thing that I read suggested that she had just started
Speaker 1: going by Marguerite to make things easier since his mother
Speaker 1: was a marie and so they would be easy to
Speaker 1: to differentiate when people were speaking about them. And this
Speaker 1: marriage was a happy one, but unfortunately a series of
Speaker 1: problems unfolded NFL's life soon after the wedding. While he
Speaker 1: had been promoted again by the company, it quickly became
Speaker 1: a parent that there were some serious problems with finances
Speaker 1: and the business was not stable anymore, and he knew
Speaker 1: he had to get out, and so after putting together
Speaker 1: a few independent projects and some consulting tracks, he decided
Speaker 1: he would just set out on his own and go
Speaker 1: into business for himself. At the same time, he and
Speaker 1: his new bride took on the full time care of
Speaker 1: Gustav's sister, Lore, who had some serious health problems. She
Speaker 1: died in the summer of eighteen sixty four, and Gustav,
Speaker 1: who really doated on both of his sisters, grieved very deeply.
Speaker 1: So he was in the midst of personal and professional
Speaker 1: upheaval as he and Marguerite were starting their family. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: that move, though, to work for himself, proved to be
Speaker 1: a really good one. In the spring of the following year,
Speaker 1: a Fel traveled to Egypt, as part of a lucrative
Speaker 1: government contract he had gotten in which he was managing
Speaker 1: the manufacturer of a large order of locomotives like several
Speaker 1: dozen engines. While touring northern Africa, he visited the Suez
Speaker 1: Canal construction site and he made the acquaintance of Ferdinand
Speaker 1: de la Sepps, whose company was building it delas EPs,
Speaker 1: and Gustav's business relationship with him would later be the
Speaker 1: cause of a great deal of trouble for a fl
Speaker 1: but that is going to come up in the second
Speaker 1: part of its episode. When the French government decided to
Speaker 1: host another expo in eighteen sixty seven, Gustav Fell hoped
Speaker 1: to be involved in construction of the main hall, but
Speaker 1: while he had been working on a lot of projects,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a workshop of his own, so there
Speaker 1: wasn't any way that he could capture a big contract
Speaker 1: for this exhibition. Instead, he served as an assistant to
Speaker 1: Jean Baptiste Kruntz, who was the director of works and designed,
Speaker 1: among other things, the arch girders for one of the galleries,
Speaker 1: which established the mathematical design rules of all wrought iron
Speaker 1: construction going forward. Yeah, he was working really constantly on
Speaker 1: a lot of projects, and as we had said, he
Speaker 1: was very, very careful and meticulous with his math, and
Speaker 1: he really set down a lot of the rules that
Speaker 1: builders used going forward from that point. And while his
Speaker 1: work on the exhibition was productive, even before the show opened,
Speaker 1: gustav had begun looking for a place to set up
Speaker 1: his own iron work so that he would not lose
Speaker 1: out on future opportunities. In late eighteen sixty six, he
Speaker 1: had secured a location in northern Paris to do just that,
Speaker 1: and he began advertising his availability to design and build
Speaker 1: projects from boilers to reservoirs. We will talk about his
Speaker 1: early days offering full engineering and construction services and just
Speaker 1: a moment, but we're going to pause before we do
Speaker 1: and have a sponsor break. It was not an easy
Speaker 1: run for Gustavo Fell getting his business off the ground.
Speaker 1: While he did get a fair amount of work, it
Speaker 1: was all relatively small contracts. He built things like small
Speaker 1: bridges and gas works and even the iron framework for
Speaker 1: a synagogue, but large scale projects were at least initially
Speaker 1: few and far between. In October sixty eight, Gustava Fell
Speaker 1: started a partnership with another ico, Central Alum, to form
Speaker 1: the firm Gustavo fell a company. His partner too feel
Speaker 1: Sawig was the junior partner, although he fronted a lot
Speaker 1: more money than it failed it. Their initial contract was
Speaker 1: for five years and was renewed when it expired. Nfl
Speaker 1: continued to work really steadily throughout the end of the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties and basically established himself as the authority on
Speaker 1: iron bridge and railway construction. And during this time he
Speaker 1: developed many of the standards in both design and construction
Speaker 1: processes that remained in place for decades. But he really
Speaker 1: wanted to move beyond primarily building bridges and start working
Speaker 1: on buildings. But as he looked into expanding his skills
Speaker 1: into grander efforts, his actual work became more scarce. As
Speaker 1: the eighteen sixties near their end, there was unrest in
Speaker 1: France as Napoleon the Third was facing growing resentment after
Speaker 1: making a number of bad moves that left France without
Speaker 1: many allies in the period leading up to the Franco
Speaker 1: Prussian War. Yeah, that's the very, very very quick and
Speaker 1: dirty version of for a fl. He was more concerned
Speaker 1: with his business and its health than he really seemed
Speaker 1: to be with politics. But he became a sergeant in
Speaker 1: the National Guard, and he sent Marguerite and their children
Speaker 1: away from Paris when things got a little bit dicey
Speaker 1: during the uprising, But mostly he was just really irritated
Speaker 1: that he couldn't get to his work because parts of
Speaker 1: the city were closed off. While this trouble in France
Speaker 1: was playing out, it Fell sought out work outside of
Speaker 1: the country to try to keep his business afloat. He
Speaker 1: sent one of his associates to South America to work
Speaker 1: on deals there, and continued to drum up projects in
Speaker 1: Europe and Northern Africa. The South American efforts were very successful,
Speaker 1: and it Fells firm was soon building railways and churches
Speaker 1: and government buildings. Working abroad when his firm was responsible
Speaker 1: for the entire projects start to finish, rather than serving
Speaker 1: as a consultant, came with its own challenges. So, for example,
Speaker 1: what would happen if something was wrong with the assembly
Speaker 1: once they got it on site. It was not feasible
Speaker 1: to expect a job to halt in Peru, for example,
Speaker 1: so that a part could be cast in France and
Speaker 1: then shipped over the Atlantic. So for those South American contracts,
Speaker 1: Gustava Fell would first build the structure at his iron
Speaker 1: works in Le Pere in the northwest section of Paris
Speaker 1: to make sure they were perfect, and then those structures
Speaker 1: would be taken apart and shipped in pieces to their
Speaker 1: final destination, where those pieces were reassembled. But in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy three, this lucrative avenue of his business ended when
Speaker 1: his Latin American business manager, Monsieur li Liever died. He
Speaker 1: had been the one man that fel had really trusted
Speaker 1: the handle contracts overseas, and without him, he knew it
Speaker 1: was just not going to work. Yeah, he felt like
Speaker 1: he could not possibly train someone up to be able
Speaker 1: to do the things that Lillievre was doing, and also
Speaker 1: he could not build up the level of trust that
Speaker 1: he had had with that man. So he thought it
Speaker 1: was better to just shutter that part of his business.
Speaker 1: And this is kind of a downer place to leave things,
Speaker 1: but we are going to end part one here so
Speaker 1: that we can keep some of his most famous efforts
Speaker 1: together in part two. And I also just kind of
Speaker 1: wanted to do it as like a juxtaposition, because once
Speaker 1: he it's into this second part of his life, it's
Speaker 1: all really like success, success, success, Whereas I wanted to
Speaker 1: kind of keep this one separate because it's it's a
Speaker 1: little bit of foundering and figuring things out that he
Speaker 1: was doing as a young man, and I like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that good old Gustav Fel. Uh. Do you have some
Speaker 1: listener mail for us? I do? I do? I do.
Speaker 1: One is from our listener Tracy, who writes, Dear Tracy
Speaker 1: and Holley, I'm a longtime listener who shares your love
Speaker 1: of postcards, so I thought I would send you one
Speaker 1: from Maui. So I'm just gonna be honest right now.
Speaker 1: I read this because I'm selfish and I love Hawaii,
Speaker 1: and it made me think of tropical things when it's
Speaker 1: very cold outs. But Tracy goes on to say I
Speaker 1: adore your show. I learned so much and appreciate how
Speaker 1: accessible you make complicated historical stories. She also apparently likes
Speaker 1: the way I laugh, which I appreciate not everyone does. Uh.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Tracy, this is beautiful and it
Speaker 1: makes me want to go to Hawaii as soon as possible. Uh.
Speaker 1: We also have another one from our listener, Stacy. I
Speaker 1: did not mean to do only rhyming people's names on
Speaker 1: our listener mail segment. Stacy writes, Dear Tracy and Holly,
Speaker 1: Greetings from the Antarctic Peninsula. My wife and I are
Speaker 1: on a ten day excursion to Antarctica, and I have
Speaker 1: always wanted to send you a postcard, so here it is.
Speaker 1: I love your show and I listen as I drive
Speaker 1: to and from work. Keep up the great work, Stacy,
Speaker 1: and it's a lovely picture from Antarctica, which I UH
Speaker 1: also feel a strange affinity for because one of my
Speaker 1: dearest friends spent a significant amount of time they're doing
Speaker 1: scientific research. So thank you, thank you, thank you to
Speaker 1: both Tracy and Stacy for sending us postcards. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us, that is easy as pie.
Speaker 1: You can do it at History podcast at house to
Speaker 1: Works dot com. You can also find us pretty much
Speaker 1: everywhere on social media as missed in History UH and
Speaker 1: you can go to our website, which is missed in
Speaker 1: History dot com and see every episode of the show
Speaker 1: that has ever existed, as well as show notes on
Speaker 1: any of the ones that Tracy and I have worked
Speaker 1: on together. And if you would like to subscribe to
Speaker 1: the podcast that sounds great, you can do that on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app at Apple Podcasts and pretty
Speaker 1: much anywhere you at your podcast. For more on this
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: m