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Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is

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Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,

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Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,

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Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Holidays tend to evolve the longer they are celebrated.

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Speaker 1: What we know is Christmas today started centuries ago as

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Speaker 1: other separate holidays. Europeans celebrated the winter Solstice, while the

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Speaker 1: Germanic people celebrated Yule pagan festival held towards the end

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Speaker 1: of December, and the ancient Romans honored Saturn, the god

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Speaker 1: of agriculture, every December with their Saturnalia festival event. The

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Speaker 1: aspects of these winter celebrations were borrowed and blended into

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Speaker 1: one holiday, celebrating the Birth of Jesus on December. As

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Speaker 1: times change, so to do our traditions. But even some

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Speaker 1: newer holidays have undergone significant shifts over the years. In fact,

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Speaker 1: in America, one of the most important days of the

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Speaker 1: year for getting together with friends and family also used

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Speaker 1: to be the most mischievous It originated in New York

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Speaker 1: City around eighteen sixty three, a new national holiday had

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Speaker 1: just been established by President Abraham Lincoln, and it gave

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Speaker 1: children all over the country some much needed time off

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Speaker 1: from school. In New York, where impoverished immigrant children were

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Speaker 1: often left to their own devices, that meant time to

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Speaker 1: goof around. You see, these kids would wear costumes, often

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Speaker 1: dressing up like hoboes and tattered clothes, fake mustaches, and

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Speaker 1: even wigs. Then they would go around the city knocking

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Speaker 1: on doors asking neighbors for treats, and they weren't just

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Speaker 1: after candy either. Any food item was acceptable. Apples, vegetables, cake,

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Speaker 1: and in some cases small toys were happily taken as

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Speaker 1: trophies for their efforts. As the years went on, their

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Speaker 1: costumes became more elaborate. Masks bought from local stores were introduced,

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Speaker 1: as were new themes for their costumes. Some kids dressed

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Speaker 1: up as business workers, while others were made to look

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Speaker 1: like animals. They also didn't shy away from raiding their

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Speaker 1: mother's closets for inspiration. Old dresses and shoes became prime

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Speaker 1: costume materials for both boys and girls looking to go

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Speaker 1: all out on the most fun day of the year.

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Speaker 1: But the most part the children who participated did so

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Speaker 1: without incidents, but there were many who went beyond simply

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Speaker 1: asking for goodies. They would throw handfuls of flower or

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Speaker 1: confetti at people on the streets, or sit on the

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Speaker 1: fenders of cars driving by to catch a quick ride

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Speaker 1: up the block. The more dangerous children weren't above damaging

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Speaker 1: property either, especially if they had been denied food or

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Speaker 1: money while at someone's door, and it wasn't uncommon to

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Speaker 1: see a bonfire in the middle of the street, kids

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Speaker 1: laughing and tossing wooden scraps into its roaring flames. This

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Speaker 1: tradition carried on through the eighteen hundreds and well into

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Speaker 1: the early part of the twentieth century as a holiday

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Speaker 1: called Ragamuffin Day. Eventually, so many Ragamuffin Day revelers were

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Speaker 1: participating that their march through the streets became known as

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Speaker 1: the Ragamuffin Parade. Adults would come out of their homes

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Speaker 1: to stand on the sidelines and watch the kids walk by,

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Speaker 1: admiring their funny and often unique costumes. Of course, not

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Speaker 1: everyone loved Ragamuffin Day. In the nineteen thirties, for example,

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Speaker 1: the New York Times started running hit pieces on the

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Speaker 1: yearly pastime as the Great Depression raged on. It seemed

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Speaker 1: in poor taste for children to mock the homeless and

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Speaker 1: the less fortunate by dressing up and begging for food

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Speaker 1: from people who didn't have any to share, and the

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Speaker 1: smear campaign worked. By the mid nineteen fifties, Ragamuffin Day

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Speaker 1: had run its course. But not to worry. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: a race for good. We just celebrate it differently now

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Speaker 1: as the Thanksgiving That's right, Ragamuffin Day started as a

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Speaker 1: result of the Thanksgiving holiday. Outside of New York, it

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Speaker 1: was known as Thanksgiving Masking and the parade, with its

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Speaker 1: silly costumes and crowds of people. Well, that was overtaken

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Speaker 1: by the department store Macy's as their annual Thanksgiving Day parade.

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Speaker 1: But Ragamuffin Day wasn't gone forever. In the nineteen forties,

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Speaker 1: the concept of wearing a costume and asking neighbors for

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Speaker 1: treats was rolled into a different celebration held one month earlier, Halloween.

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Speaker 1: The Greek philosopher hero Clidas often is quoted as saying

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Speaker 1: change is the only constant in life, and he's right

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Speaker 1: holidays change all the time, but dressing up and begging

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Speaker 1: for candy from strangers, well, I hope that never goes

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Speaker 1: out of style. We call them the Founding Fathers because

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Speaker 1: without them, America wouldn't be quite America. In the seventeen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: they united the Thirteen Colonies in a revolt against Britain's

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Speaker 1: oppressive King George. During the Revolutionary War, We're familiar with

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Speaker 1: one of the most famous, a general who lost more

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Speaker 1: battles than he won, but was successful in leading his

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Speaker 1: men across the Potomac. That man was George Washington, the

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Speaker 1: first President of the United States. There were others, of course,

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Speaker 1: depending on which list you read, there are seven, maybe

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Speaker 1: eight who make the list over fifty six if you

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Speaker 1: add every signature on the Declaration of Independence, though there's

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Speaker 1: an odd fact Washington, John j James Madison, and Alexander

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Speaker 1: Hamilton's did not sign the Declaration of Independence in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy six. Of course, an additional three other documents helped

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Speaker 1: create the United States. The Treaty of Alliance in seventeen

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Speaker 1: seventy eight, the Treaty of Peace between England, France and

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Speaker 1: the US in seventeen eighty two and the Constitution in

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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty seven. Regardless of many founding fathers you choose

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Speaker 1: to consider, they worked together to create a new government.

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Speaker 1: I suppose you'd say that there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: firsts that came from that list. One sat on a

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Speaker 1: committee of five that helped draft the Declaration of Independence.

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Speaker 1: Only one member signed all four documents that helped form

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Speaker 1: the nation. Many were highly educated, coming from Harvard, Yale,

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Speaker 1: and Oxford, but only one held honorary degrees from all

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Speaker 1: three schools despite having only two years of formal education.

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Speaker 1: There were the inventors in the bunch too. Mozart once

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Speaker 1: wrote music for a glass harmonica, one of the men

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Speaker 1: created after noticing performers using glasses to create a musical sound.

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Speaker 1: A particularly talented founding father also played the violin, the harp,

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Speaker 1: and the guitar. There were writers as well as artists.

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Speaker 1: At just sixteen, one founding father wrote a popular newspaper

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Speaker 1: column under a pseudonym as a widowed woman. The columns

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Speaker 1: became so popular that he received several marriage proposals from

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Speaker 1: Boston's most eligible batchler's before confessing his identity. Then there's

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Speaker 1: the Avid Swimmer who once swam London's Thames, believing that

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Speaker 1: all children should learn to swim. He later started a

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Speaker 1: swimming school, and because of this he was posthumously inducted

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Speaker 1: into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. The very first

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Speaker 1: United States postmaster was also a founding father, as was

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Speaker 1: the ambassador to France, dubbed America's renaissance man. There was

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Speaker 1: the fashion trend setter whose fur hats spawned a fashion

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Speaker 1: trend overseas. America's first celebrity also signed the Declaration of Independence.

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Speaker 1: Whenever he visited Europe, he had no shortage of female

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Speaker 1: admirers who followed him everywhere. That one public appearance, his

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Speaker 1: fans placed a crown of laurels on his head and

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Speaker 1: kissed each cheek. In France, the French National Assembly declared

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Speaker 1: a day of morning when one founding father passed away.

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Speaker 1: Today there's a statue of him in Yorktown Square. Count

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Speaker 1: Mirabeu said that he was able to restrain thunderbolts and tyrants.

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Speaker 1: There were abolitionists too. One kept fighting against slavery until

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Speaker 1: his death, even including a provision in his will that

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Speaker 1: his son and daughter wouldn't receive a penny of their

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Speaker 1: inheritance if they ever kept slaves. And speaking of wills,

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Speaker 1: consider the gift left by one founding father to Boston

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Speaker 1: and Philadelphia. He left the city's two thousand pounds sterling

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Speaker 1: with an unusual request. The money had to stay in

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Speaker 1: a trust fund for one hundred years and used only

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Speaker 1: to provide loans to local tradesmen. That money became worth

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Speaker 1: millions by That's a lot of amazing history, But the

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Speaker 1: most amazing part it was all the work of just

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Speaker 1: one founding father, not many. A man everyone's heard of

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Speaker 1: but knows so little about, Benjamin Franklin. I hope you've

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Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe

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Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the

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Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosity Cities podcast dot com. The show

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Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,

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

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Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World

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