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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Holly, here a little heads up before we get into this week's behind the scenes. This episode is one in which Tracy and I talk about TSA screening at the Atlanta Airport, and this was recorded before the current DHS shutdown, which has of course led to drastically prolonged security wait times at airports around the country. So just keep that in mind as you listen to us talk about how easy breezy it can sometimes be to go through security right now, obviously it is much harder for everyone. I hope you're all taking care of yourselves. Welcome to stuff you missed in History Class A production of iHeartRadio. Hello and Happy Friday and Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about Richard Peters this week, Yes, and I said that I would talk about the thing I understand I think about Richard Peters. All right, you were going to psychoanalyze him, a thing we don't normally do a lot of, No, but I have a kinship here because all of the things that any write up about him, and especially if you've ever seen the Oakland presentations about him, where a character comes out as him and talks about him. They're all very focused on how driven he was as a businessman and how like he was always chasing money, which can make him sound like shallow and greedy. But I know exactly what's going on in his head. Yeah, he is rebelling against his dad. Yeah, his entire life, his entire approach to everything is about saying never me. When he thinks about the way his father operated and how many times he missed up financially, I guarantee that was what he was driving, right, that's like a hundred percent. I understand this rebellious life very deeply because I'm the same way. I'm always like happen. Ninety percent of my personality is about rejecting, you know, things I grew up with. So ure, I one hundred percent understand exactly. I had this thing that was making me very frustrated because it was so hard to pin down his thoughts regarding the institution of slavery, because he never says anything about it openly. There are times when he, you know, engages slave labor, right, although he is not the only person like that's like a company standard that was going on during some of these things, and certainly his grandfather we mentioned, you know, had indentured servants, so there had to have been part of him that was just accustomed to similar concepts. But I was literally like, this can't be that. There is literally nothing solid about his position on this issue other than YO, my fellow Southerners, don't do this. Don't go into this war. If you love slavery, you're gonna lose it anyway, so don't do this. There's nothing about him that ever comments on the morality of it other than saying the rest of the world already thinks this is absolutely wrong. And I thought I was going nuts. I was like, what am I missing? And then I was looking at another biography about him that was like similarly frustrated, and I was like, Okay, the time researching and writing this and you couldn't find anything. I think I have turned over all the rocks and there's not some secret rsive somewhere that I would have access to. So that is frustrating about him. He certainly benefited from it in some ways, Like I said, was very open that he knew that it was wrong. The world thought it was wrong, but not like his personal and I think sometimes he gets very kind of whitewashed in tellings about Atlanta history because they're like he didn't want and it's like, well, I mean the scales, dude seemed to lean that way in some ways, but also like you cannot forget this other stuff that went on, right, So he's a little tricky in that regard. His thing that we referred to a couple times as his memoir, which is really a biography of him written by a relative when he was in his seventies, that starts out with a very long I mean, it's basically like an interview with him. It's just him telling, like talking through his life story, which ends very abruptly at leaving Atlanta during the Civil War, Like I didn't even find anything that was specific about how he got out. Oh yeah, just like I was running all over the city trying to check on all the railroads. You know, people kept telling me to leave or that there were Yankees coming and that it was not going to be you know, we knew that fires had started. Boy, I barely made it out of there. And then it's like the relative that's writing it kind of picks up there and is like and then he was really tired. And then they tell the rest of his story through letters, and it's kind of funny his correspondence back and forth with people. It is kind of funny in that regard. But I like having his point of view because he was very funny and telling his stories. And like I said, it's very obvious that he had disdain for his father. He would never say anything like my father was really stupid or blah blah blah. But he would be like, well, we lost everything and then we got it again, and then we lost it again and we got it again. And then at one point my dad mailed me ten dollars and I mailed it back to him because he told me he was super flush. And then the next time I saw him, he was talking about how he had nothing. So that kept happening, Like it's just yeah, it's just very interesting. He, like I said, had many witty anecdotes, but one of them that I liked was him talking about the first time he went to Atlanta, which was in eighteen forty four. And the thing that I love is actually what he says about somebody else that was on the trip with him. He says, quote, it was after dark when we arrived and Judge King unfortunately fell in a well which was being dug. What it was only ten feet deep, and we soon pulled him out, but he was highly disgusted and for years would not buy Atlanta real estate. That's amazing. I love that this person was just mad at all of Atlanta because he sell it a well. It's reminding me of how decades ago I had a boyfriend who broke up with me, and my impression of what had happened was that he had left me for somebody he was hanging out with in Charlotte, and then I just had a vendetta against the whole city of Charlotte for years. Afterward. I was like, nope, I'm not going there, not going to visit there. I hate it, not anybody from there. Uh uh yeah, that's fair similar except you fell in a well. I just love that, love it. He also apparently had all of these maxims he would tell his children and his grandchildren. Okay, and some of them are very like obvious things you know about just like you know, being smart and you know, treating people fairly blah blah blahh okay. I loved this one that was included in that account, which was if the weather be wet, don't fret. If the weather be cold, don't scold. But with the weather that's sent learned to be content. Ohkay. And I'm like that's actually that's actually pretty good advice, just like it's like, you get what you get and don't be upset it is. It's great, which I feel like he was very good at and I think that's part of why he was so good business because he can see like, Okay, this is a mess. How can we deal with this in a way that will ultimately not be a mess for me and make me a ton of money? Like that flower mill where he's like, well, flower mill is not gonna go. I can't keep I cannot keep trying to make this happen because it's right. And his explanation for that other mill that was selling flour below cost was that the person that owned it had an iron works that needed fast cash. Oh so he was willing Yeah, it's like the lost leader for the iron works. He was willing to lose out over here so that he could actually keep this other thing going, which is interesting, but yeah, where he's like what can I do here? I know I'll just sell these things and make a huge profitence, and he did astonishing. There are many other things about the city that are attributed to him and his family, like Ivy Hall, which is now owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design, was built by his son Edward in eighteen eighty three, when Richard was still alive. You know, they're just like a kajillion little things like that. I still just like, looking at a map of downtown Atlanta, I'm like, in midtown, I'm like, he owned all of this. It reminds me a little bit of when we talked about Levi Strauss and oh yeah, bought so much real estate in San Francisco, right, and the prices went way up, and I can do that. I also want to talk about Oakland Cemetery because I love it. Yeah, Oakland is unique because it's one of the few places in Atlanta that was not destroyed in the Civil War, right, and it was founded before that, of course, so it offers, you know, a lot of history that would have would have been lost. One of the things that I read while I was prepping this, and I think I knew this from before, was that the last lots that were sold at Oakland were sold in eighteen eighty eight, but they were sold old and purchased by families in large numbers, so they are still doing. Yeah, active burials of family members descended from those people who purchased those lots. Yeah, one hundred and fifty years almost later, right, wild Yeah, many years ago, we were talking about Oakland Cemetery and an event of some sort that had happened had been that we had gone to one or both of us had gone to it. Oh, I know exactly what you were much talking about, because I was going to talk about it too, and someone in the comments was so upset, Yes, at the idea of a cemetery being used as a public green space when that was what cemeteries like this were created to do, to be both a place for the burial of the dead but also a public green space. Yes, I can tell you exactly the specifics of what they were mad about, Okay, because I don't remember that detail. It was a five K. It was a five K called run like Hell. So when Atlanta had tornadoes, I don't remember what year that was, there was a lot of damage at Oakland. And Oakland is a cemetery that does not have its own like internal upkeep maintenance, fun so that group that we mentioned at the end of the episode, the Historic Oakland Foundation, basically does a variety of things so that they can raise money to do this. And after that tornado, someone on in the foundation came up with this idea of what if we had a five K that goes through the cemetery and in the surrounding neighborhoods. And I was like, I'm all in. This is exactly my flavor of five K and I ran it for several years, and we had posted a picture of me from that race on our Facebook page, and that's what somebody got really irate about. And I think they had it in their heads that we were just like racing over graves, when in fact, there's like a whole paved path area through that that's quite wide and easily traversible. But also like, if they don't do things like that, that cemetery falls apart right right like, and they do lots of great stuff there. They do like a big picnic there every year where people show up an amazing historical costume. I went to that a number of times. They do I forget the name of it. They do like a bruise in the tombs thing, which you're not actually in the tombs, but like they'll do like a beer night there where they have local vendors come out and do crawdouts and stuff. They do so many great things, and a lot of it is great for the community. It keeps the history of the space alive because they do have people that come out and talk about the people who are buried there and the important history of it. And also you know, just all of these pieces of Atlanta history in the community history that I always think about that person that got really mad, and I'm like, I'm sorry you got mad, but I think you've missed understood. Yeah. Well, and I think they were upset because they were like if my family member was being buried and there was a road race going by, I would be really upset. Yeah, I see that point of view. Ideally, a family would not plan their loved ones burial during the five K like there would be some communication there exactly. There is you know, cross comparison of calendars. And I know you can't always plan. You know, you can't plan when a loved one is going to die, right you will need funeral services, but you could still you know, work with the schedule to make it all happen. Yeah, well, and it happens all the time. People whose family members are being buried at Oakland know that that that it is both a burial space and a green space where things like this happen. Like, yeah, just a community space part of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. I feel like so many people I know love Oakland. It's one of their favorite places in Atlanta. Yeah. I remember when that tornado happened. I don't remember if I was still living there, That's my memory on the timeline is vague, but I remember when that happened and how there were a lot of like monuments that had been toppled and had to be repaired. You absolutely were, yeah, absolutely were still living here. Yes, because that was before I think you and I were doing this podcast, oh so long ago. I'm pretty sure I could be wrong, but I think I think, yeah, that was rough, if I'm remembering correctly. At one of the events that I went to at Oakland, there was somebody who did a one person show, I've Gone with the Wind. Yeah, yeah, I think it was so funny. Yeah, just great, just great. I yeah it I love it. Listen, we don't talk about Atlanta history very much. No, we have a lot more Massachusetts crap from me, and it does tickle me to no end that all of the things that people talk about is quintessential Atlanta. Many of them were instituted by a dude from Philadelphia. Yeah, I did not know that at all. That does tickle me a little, like, yeah, guess what I did. Also want to mention, I like how tickled you are by whatever it is? Well, because I don't even know how to talk about it without it's so absurd that it's funny to me and I have to air quotes this. The grid of it, it's a mess, right. There are parts of downtown and Midtown that have some grid to them, but there's also some cockamamy stuff going on just goes through randomly. Part of that is my understanding I have a fact checked this is that some of it was like this was a cowpath and then we paved it and now it is a road, right, which is not all that unusual in various places, But in a city that grew as big as Atlanta did, it's kind of unusual that they would be retained as roads and not restructured to make the infrastructure more square. But that just like every time I was reading something that said he named the north to South roads this, and I'm like, well, they're kind of north. They're all meandery at times. Yeah, And I didn't even delve into because does this get you When people talk about Peachtree h and they go which one? There are so many and there are so many, But if you live in Atlanta and someone says it's on Peachtree, you know which one they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for anybody that's outside the city, I understand that when you encounter in your directions in your GPS Peachtree Place, Peachtree Circle, Patree Terraces, et cetera. It's all frustrating and confusing. But if you say Peachtree Road, there's the one road that they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also just want to have a little bit of love for Hartsfield Jacks at the International Airport. I love that airport because I feel like the Atlanta Airport gets a lot of grief from travelers, and I understand it. It is a delta hub. It is very big, so if you have to go from one terminal to another, it might be a long way. If you have a connection, Yes, it is very busy. The security lines can be very long. I've just said a lot of downsides to the Atlanta Airport, But I love how big it is. I love how spacious a lot of it is. I love the plane train that takes you to all the different terminals, or you can walk through the tunnel and look at all the beautiful art that's down there if you have time, and all the historical displays. If you have time, if you want something to eat and it's not in the terminal that you're in, and you have a lot of time, you can go to the other terminal and get back. It is not a problem. I used to go to the International terminal routinely and have my dinner there because it was bright and pretty and brand new, and then I would go to wherever my actual airplane was taking off. Yeah. It also has like full size stores, yeah, yeah, like that are not the little Kiosky style or even like I call them pocket stores, like those little, you know, mini ones that are like a tiny bodega of makeup, but like full size. Yeah. I used to use a lot of products from the body Shop, and there was a full sized body shop store in the International terminal, and I would go when I was traveling somewhere I would go. I would go through security. I would go on my little shopping trip, the body shop, buy all my stuff. I've told a friend of mine the story, and she was like, can we discuss how you're traveling for work so much that you are buying your personal care products at the airport. Yeah, but that way you don't have to pack stuff. Yeah, it's already through security. You could just have it. It's the best, the best, the best. Yeah. I mean I listen, I'm at the airport all the time. M hm. So I'm very familiar with and comfortable with it. I am like that almost obnoxious person that will help confuse travelers. Sure where, I'm like, where do you actually need to go? Because I can see on your face that you are befuddled and overwhelmed. Huh. Listen. Have I snuck some people through the sky priority security lane when they look desperate? Yes? I have, Yes, I have. Because you know, like it it can be it can be a little dicey. Yeah. When Patrick and I were dating one time, I dropped him off at the Atlanta Airport and the security line had wound all the way through the windy path. Yeah, and all the way out through the atrium and all the way out farther out. It was the longest I've ever seen it, and I was like, I don't love this, but I still love that airport. It has, in my opinion, gotten better because they have multiple security checkpoints now correct, so it's not all wadding up in one place. And I just feel like they're doing a better job of flow management for the most part. If you're there at a peak time when it's busy, you're still going to wait for a bit. But also, again, I fly a lot, so I'm met a lot of airports, and I know that there are security people that can be brusket every airport, but I also feel like in Atlanta, I have a lot of great experiences with security in Atlanta where they've been extraordinarily nice to me, you know, super cool. Yeah. I have done whatever they could to make something easier. I've seen them helping other travelers that are super were confused. Yeah. Yeah. Also when those people were not getting paid and were still doing their job, they were so nice. I would have been biting every person that walked through and they were lovely. Yeah. And if you thank them, one guy thought was gonna cry because he just was like clearly so overwhelmed and stressed. Yeah. Anyway, when I moved to Massachusetts, I did so via the Atlanta airport, and I had to go through airport security with two laptops and a cat and my rollerboard, and because of how everything was packed, I had to take both laptops out of the roller board. And then when you are traveling with an animal, you have to take the animal out and you have to walk through the thing. So I'm walking with this cat, and two things happened. One is a random other passenger corralled all of my stuff for me while I was being swabbed for explosive resident on my cat. And then also there was another TSA agent beyond the one who was like, I'm holding my cat and like getting my hands swabbed for explosive residue in this other TSA agent was like, please let that woman go. That cat is terrified. And I think had I been at a different airport, I would have had a way harder time. Yeah, my understanding, And I haven't tested this and I haven't double checked it, but I saw someone talking about it recently that if you are traveling with a pet in Atlanta and possibly other airports, you can say, I have a pet, can we do a private screening ring? Oh? Nice? This was also that way, yeah right right, years before this would have been an option where they will take you to a different room that is closed off so you don't have to worry about how nice my cat freaked out and jumped out of my arms and now I don't know where it is in the airport. They might have instituted that after some pets got lost in Atlanta, right, So I know there are some options like that. You just had to talk to a security supervisor, usually an ask nice, but yeah there. I love the Atlanta Airport. If you're going to the Atlanta Airport and you want to know where the best place is to eat our man, hit me up. I know, I'm all mm hmm. Cat Corus got a great, great restaurant there on the on the a con course, some good shrimp and grits and a great cocktail program. Love it in any case, listen, I love my city. I love Atlanta. We talked about Elizabeth Bulhame in chemistry this week. Yes, uh, I enjoy finding random name mentions and books and going and figuring out if that was the real person. If I'm reading a work of fiction. Yeah, what happens in nonfiction too, obviously, Like I'll be reading a book about something and a random historical person will be named as having been connected somehow. There were other folks, and these last couple of books in the Edinburgh Night series I noted as potential topics who were just mentioned as side mentions at one point in the book. We may come to those at some point later. Elizabeth Fulham, though, I found her fascinating. Yeah, even though we know basically nothing. Yeah, I have so many questions. Yeah, tell me some of your questions. Did any of this I mean, because you know, I'm a textile girly. Yeah, and I die a lot of my own fabric because I like customized stuff. Did she use any of it for anything? Yeah? I don't know. So I wear the clothes made of the purple fabric with goldflets in it. Where are they? Yeah? So I read the whole her preface, her introduction, and then I sort of read parts of the experimental sections because it is a fairly long book. And it reached a point where I was like, reading every single one of these experiments is not going to add more to the episode. Yeah, so it's possible that she talked about using fabric for something at some point and that I just didn't read it in the parts of the book that I read. Because it's also very interesting to me that she was working mostly with silk because silk is, Yeah, this sounds a little counterintuitive for people that have not worked with it. Silk is a little easier to die than most other fabrics because it just like slorps up pigment really fast. So it's interesting that she was working mostly with that. And I am I would be curious if there were any like if she ever did a comparison of like I did the exact same thing with a linen and with a silk and here, because I mean, if you do the same die bath with those two fabrics, they're going to look quite different, right, even if you have, like, you know, a really incredible high quality pigment. So that's all fascinating to me. I also couldn't help but think the whole time that if she lived today, she would feel like a kid in a candy store, because you can go to your local craft store and they're just aisles of dying options. You can get fabric die in the grocery store. Yeah, for heaven's sakes, there are entire online forums of people just sharing tips about die, how do you die, how to achieve a particular die if you're trying to replicate one specific garment and people have formulas that they share, And I'm like, she would she would cry with joy. She would cry with joy, or she would be like, you're all doing it wrong, you lazy, lazy prop Other people did all the work. I don't know. I also think she really would have enjoyed like today's world of science communication that's really accessible to the general public. Ye Like, like we said, we don't really know if she went to any of the public lectures you didn't have to be enrolled as a student. She may have, she may not have. Those sorts of things definitely would have been less accessible for women, even if they were open to the public at the time. But if she were living today in a world where you can go to YouTube and there are a ton of different people like explaining things or showing, you know, showing their process for doing an experiment or for dyeing something or for doing a craft, like all of that stuff. There's just a much broader world of information access. Yeah that, you know, as long as she had access to a computer and an Internet connection, she would be able to get to Yeah. I think she would have been very into. Imagine how wowed she would be just studying the ways different cultures have used dye and pigment textiles, you know, like techniques like batique would just blow her mind, like, no, we're gonna put a wax resist on this first, and then right, we're going to do that whole process been working on Like, yeah, I just think she would be wowed by it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I wonder what she was like as a person. I also wonder what her relationship with her husband was like, because there's that part in the preface that makes it sound like when she was like I have this idea that he was dismissive. Was he dismissive because he was underestimating her? Was he dismissive because of what he had learned about chemistry that just made him think it wouldn't work? Like which, right? But exactly was like how much was he encouraging her and how much was he more tolerating her? Don't really know, right? Or did he just lack the imagination to envision what she was talking about. Yeah, which is not that sounds like a criticism of him, but like that's a thing that people come up against all the time when they're like, I have an idea and it's just so unique that people cannot cannot really perceive or see or imagine what that would look like. So they're like, I don't think so, I don't think that's possible. Yeah. I imagine that her maps with gold cities and silver rivers must have been really beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she would put those maps on a fabric and then use that fabric for a gown. I love it. I love it, Like I literally my brain just keeps clicking through all the things that she would be wowed by, like textile medium that you can mix with paints so that you can paint directly on fabric and it won't get crispy, it will still have the flow of fabric. That would blow her mind. No, you can just use gold paint, babe. It's easy it so you don't have to do any chemical processing. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that was kind of amused by and also annoyed by was the review of her book in the Gentleman's magazine because of its being like, wow, we really thought this must be a disguised feminist screed, clearly written by Mary Wolstoncraft or somebody, and wow, it turns out to me about science. And I was like, did somebody send you a copy of the book that didn't have the preface in it? Because some of her preface? I feel like, would annoy whoever wrote this review? Right? Yeah? No? Or did you just skip over the preface and go write people? Do some people do do that? Yeah? Yeah? How many prefaces have we read on the show that start out with the like some variation of the phrase no one reads prefaces. But it's important to me to say this. I mean I can think of several. So yeah. I'm also thinking about the acknowledgments at the end of books, where it seems like the author is just taking for granted that nobody's going to read that part. Yeah. Yeah, Anyway, I am very curious if in some you know, church parish records somewhere we know more about her, or some very local source of information, if there's more details that we could find. I think a lot of other people that we have been talking about on the show before from you know, somewhere in the British and Irish Isles. The fact that we don't that there wasn't a civil registration when they were living was not as big of a deal because they were a more prominent person and they had families that were keeping up with that information or other people writing about them is shortly after or during their lives that like recorded a lot of that information. We just don't have that for her, and so it's a person with basically no biography for us to talk about on the show. Oh Elizabeth, I love her. Next episode is not about anyone named Elizabeth. I don't believe you. I don't know what's happening after that may may not be an Elizabeth, but after that is Unearthed, so at least it will not be named Elizabeth, though there could be an Elizabeth within it. I would say there are good odds of someone named Elizabeth in some way coming up during Unearthed, either as a subject or a researcher. Great totally possible, Great totally possible. This edition of on Earthed is all about Elizabeth. The first. We're only going to have Queen Elizabeth unearthings, nothing else, So whatever's happening on your weekend, I hope it is great. If there is something that has sparked your curiosity, I hope so much that you get to indulge that curiosity over the weekend, because that can bring so much joy and fulfillment into life. If you are just having to keep your head down and keep going this weekend, I hope that is going as well as possible. We will be back on Monday with something brand new, and tomorrow we'll have a Saturday classic. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Holly, here a little heads up before we get into this week's behind the scenes. This episode is one in which Tracy and I talk about TSA screening at the Atlanta Airport, and this was recorded before the current DHS shutdown, which has of course led to drastically prolonged security wait times at airports around the country. So just keep that in mind as you listen to us talk about how easy breezy it can sometimes be to go through security right now, obviously it is much harder for everyone. I hope you're all taking care of yourselves. Welcome to stuff you missed in History Class A production of iHeartRadio. Hello and Happy Friday and Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about Richard Peters this week, Yes, and I said that I would talk about the thing I understand I think about Richard Peters. All right, you were going to psychoanalyze him, a thing we don't normally do a lot of, No, but I have a kinship here because all of the things that any write up about him, and especially if you've ever seen the Oakland presentations about him, where a character comes out as him and talks about him. They're all very focused on how driven he was as a businessman and how like he was always chasing money, which can make him sound like shallow and greedy. But I know exactly what's going on in his head. Yeah, he is rebelling against his dad. Yeah, his entire life, his entire approach to everything is about saying never me. When he thinks about the way his father operated and how many times he missed up financially, I guarantee that was what he was driving, right, that's like a hundred percent. I understand this rebellious life very deeply because I'm the same way. I'm always like happen. Ninety percent of my personality is about rejecting, you know, things I grew up with. So ure, I one hundred percent understand exactly. I had this thing that was making me very frustrated because it was so hard to pin down his thoughts regarding the institution of slavery, because he never says anything about it openly. There are times when he, you know, engages slave labor, right, although he is not the only person like that's like a company standard that was going on during some of these things, and certainly his grandfather we mentioned, you know, had indentured servants, so there had to have been part of him that was just accustomed to similar concepts. But I was literally like, this can't be that. There is literally nothing solid about his position on this issue other than YO, my fellow Southerners, don't do this. Don't go into this war. If you love slavery, you're gonna lose it anyway, so don't do this. There's nothing about him that ever comments on the morality of it other than saying the rest of the world already thinks this is absolutely wrong. And I thought I was going nuts. I was like, what am I missing? And then I was looking at another biography about him that was like similarly frustrated, and I was like, Okay, the time researching and writing this and you couldn't find anything. I think I have turned over all the rocks and there's not some secret rsive somewhere that I would have access to. So that is frustrating about him. He certainly benefited from it in some ways, Like I said, was very open that he knew that it was wrong. The world thought it was wrong, but not like his personal and I think sometimes he gets very kind of whitewashed in tellings about Atlanta history because they're like he didn't want and it's like, well, I mean the scales, dude seemed to lean that way in some ways, but also like you cannot forget this other stuff that went on, right, So he's a little tricky in that regard. His thing that we referred to a couple times as his memoir, which is really a biography of him written by a relative when he was in his seventies, that starts out with a very long I mean, it's basically like an interview with him. It's just him telling, like talking through his life story, which ends very abruptly at leaving Atlanta during the Civil War, Like I didn't even find anything that was specific about how he got out. Oh yeah, just like I was running all over the city trying to check on all the railroads. You know, people kept telling me to leave or that there were Yankees coming and that it was not going to be you know, we knew that fires had started. Boy, I barely made it out of there. And then it's like the relative that's writing it kind of picks up there and is like and then he was really tired. And then they tell the rest of his story through letters, and it's kind of funny his correspondence back and forth with people. It is kind of funny in that regard. But I like having his point of view because he was very funny and telling his stories. And like I said, it's very obvious that he had disdain for his father. He would never say anything like my father was really stupid or blah blah blah. But he would be like, well, we lost everything and then we got it again, and then we lost it again and we got it again. And then at one point my dad mailed me ten dollars and I mailed it back to him because he told me he was super flush. And then the next time I saw him, he was talking about how he had nothing. So that kept happening, Like it's just yeah, it's just very interesting. He, like I said, had many witty anecdotes, but one of them that I liked was him talking about the first time he went to Atlanta, which was in eighteen forty four. And the thing that I love is actually what he says about somebody else that was on the trip with him. He says, quote, it was after dark when we arrived and Judge King unfortunately fell in a well which was being dug. What it was only ten feet deep, and we soon pulled him out, but he was highly disgusted and for years would not buy Atlanta real estate. That's amazing. I love that this person was just mad at all of Atlanta because he sell it a well. It's reminding me of how decades ago I had a boyfriend who broke up with me, and my impression of what had happened was that he had left me for somebody he was hanging out with in Charlotte, and then I just had a vendetta against the whole city of Charlotte for years. Afterward. I was like, nope, I'm not going there, not going to visit there. I hate it, not anybody from there. Uh uh yeah, that's fair similar except you fell in a well. I just love that, love it. He also apparently had all of these maxims he would tell his children and his grandchildren. Okay, and some of them are very like obvious things you know about just like you know, being smart and you know, treating people fairly blah blah blahh okay. I loved this one that was included in that account, which was if the weather be wet, don't fret. If the weather be cold, don't scold. But with the weather that's sent learned to be content. Ohkay. And I'm like that's actually that's actually pretty good advice, just like it's like, you get what you get and don't be upset it is. It's great, which I feel like he was very good at and I think that's part of why he was so good business because he can see like, Okay, this is a mess. How can we deal with this in a way that will ultimately not be a mess for me and make me a ton of money? Like that flower mill where he's like, well, flower mill is not gonna go. I can't keep I cannot keep trying to make this happen because it's right. And his explanation for that other mill that was selling flour below cost was that the person that owned it had an iron works that needed fast cash. Oh so he was willing Yeah, it's like the lost leader for the iron works. He was willing to lose out over here so that he could actually keep this other thing going, which is interesting, but yeah, where he's like what can I do here? I know I'll just sell these things and make a huge profitence, and he did astonishing. There are many other things about the city that are attributed to him and his family, like Ivy Hall, which is now owned by the Savannah College of Art and Design, was built by his son Edward in eighteen eighty three, when Richard was still alive. You know, they're just like a kajillion little things like that. I still just like, looking at a map of downtown Atlanta, I'm like, in midtown, I'm like, he owned all of this. It reminds me a little bit of when we talked about Levi Strauss and oh yeah, bought so much real estate in San Francisco, right, and the prices went way up, and I can do that. I also want to talk about Oakland Cemetery because I love it. Yeah, Oakland is unique because it's one of the few places in Atlanta that was not destroyed in the Civil War, right, and it was founded before that, of course, so it offers, you know, a lot of history that would have would have been lost. One of the things that I read while I was prepping this, and I think I knew this from before, was that the last lots that were sold at Oakland were sold in eighteen eighty eight, but they were sold old and purchased by families in large numbers, so they are still doing. Yeah, active burials of family members descended from those people who purchased those lots. Yeah, one hundred and fifty years almost later, right, wild Yeah, many years ago, we were talking about Oakland Cemetery and an event of some sort that had happened had been that we had gone to one or both of us had gone to it. Oh, I know exactly what you were much talking about, because I was going to talk about it too, and someone in the comments was so upset, Yes, at the idea of a cemetery being used as a public green space when that was what cemeteries like this were created to do, to be both a place for the burial of the dead but also a public green space. Yes, I can tell you exactly the specifics of what they were mad about, Okay, because I don't remember that detail. It was a five K. It was a five K called run like Hell. So when Atlanta had tornadoes, I don't remember what year that was, there was a lot of damage at Oakland. And Oakland is a cemetery that does not have its own like internal upkeep maintenance, fun so that group that we mentioned at the end of the episode, the Historic Oakland Foundation, basically does a variety of things so that they can raise money to do this. And after that tornado, someone on in the foundation came up with this idea of what if we had a five K that goes through the cemetery and in the surrounding neighborhoods. And I was like, I'm all in. This is exactly my flavor of five K and I ran it for several years, and we had posted a picture of me from that race on our Facebook page, and that's what somebody got really irate about. And I think they had it in their heads that we were just like racing over graves, when in fact, there's like a whole paved path area through that that's quite wide and easily traversible. But also like, if they don't do things like that, that cemetery falls apart right right like, and they do lots of great stuff there. They do like a big picnic there every year where people show up an amazing historical costume. I went to that a number of times. They do I forget the name of it. They do like a bruise in the tombs thing, which you're not actually in the tombs, but like they'll do like a beer night there where they have local vendors come out and do crawdouts and stuff. They do so many great things, and a lot of it is great for the community. It keeps the history of the space alive because they do have people that come out and talk about the people who are buried there and the important history of it. And also you know, just all of these pieces of Atlanta history in the community history that I always think about that person that got really mad, and I'm like, I'm sorry you got mad, but I think you've missed understood. Yeah. Well, and I think they were upset because they were like if my family member was being buried and there was a road race going by, I would be really upset. Yeah, I see that point of view. Ideally, a family would not plan their loved ones burial during the five K like there would be some communication there exactly. There is you know, cross comparison of calendars. And I know you can't always plan. You know, you can't plan when a loved one is going to die, right you will need funeral services, but you could still you know, work with the schedule to make it all happen. Yeah, well, and it happens all the time. People whose family members are being buried at Oakland know that that that it is both a burial space and a green space where things like this happen. Like, yeah, just a community space part of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's beautiful. I feel like so many people I know love Oakland. It's one of their favorite places in Atlanta. Yeah. I remember when that tornado happened. I don't remember if I was still living there, That's my memory on the timeline is vague, but I remember when that happened and how there were a lot of like monuments that had been toppled and had to be repaired. You absolutely were, yeah, absolutely were still living here. Yes, because that was before I think you and I were doing this podcast, oh so long ago. I'm pretty sure I could be wrong, but I think I think, yeah, that was rough, if I'm remembering correctly. At one of the events that I went to at Oakland, there was somebody who did a one person show, I've Gone with the Wind. Yeah, yeah, I think it was so funny. Yeah, just great, just great. I yeah it I love it. Listen, we don't talk about Atlanta history very much. No, we have a lot more Massachusetts crap from me, and it does tickle me to no end that all of the things that people talk about is quintessential Atlanta. Many of them were instituted by a dude from Philadelphia. Yeah, I did not know that at all. That does tickle me a little, like, yeah, guess what I did. Also want to mention, I like how tickled you are by whatever it is? Well, because I don't even know how to talk about it without it's so absurd that it's funny to me and I have to air quotes this. The grid of it, it's a mess, right. There are parts of downtown and Midtown that have some grid to them, but there's also some cockamamy stuff going on just goes through randomly. Part of that is my understanding I have a fact checked this is that some of it was like this was a cowpath and then we paved it and now it is a road, right, which is not all that unusual in various places, But in a city that grew as big as Atlanta did, it's kind of unusual that they would be retained as roads and not restructured to make the infrastructure more square. But that just like every time I was reading something that said he named the north to South roads this, and I'm like, well, they're kind of north. They're all meandery at times. Yeah, And I didn't even delve into because does this get you When people talk about Peachtree h and they go which one? There are so many and there are so many, But if you live in Atlanta and someone says it's on Peachtree, you know which one they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So for anybody that's outside the city, I understand that when you encounter in your directions in your GPS Peachtree Place, Peachtree Circle, Patree Terraces, et cetera. It's all frustrating and confusing. But if you say Peachtree Road, there's the one road that they mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I also just want to have a little bit of love for Hartsfield Jacks at the International Airport. I love that airport because I feel like the Atlanta Airport gets a lot of grief from travelers, and I understand it. It is a delta hub. It is very big, so if you have to go from one terminal to another, it might be a long way. If you have a connection, Yes, it is very busy. The security lines can be very long. I've just said a lot of downsides to the Atlanta Airport, But I love how big it is. I love how spacious a lot of it is. I love the plane train that takes you to all the different terminals, or you can walk through the tunnel and look at all the beautiful art that's down there if you have time, and all the historical displays. If you have time, if you want something to eat and it's not in the terminal that you're in, and you have a lot of time, you can go to the other terminal and get back. It is not a problem. I used to go to the International terminal routinely and have my dinner there because it was bright and pretty and brand new, and then I would go to wherever my actual airplane was taking off. Yeah. It also has like full size stores, yeah, yeah, like that are not the little Kiosky style or even like I call them pocket stores, like those little, you know, mini ones that are like a tiny bodega of makeup, but like full size. Yeah. I used to use a lot of products from the body Shop, and there was a full sized body shop store in the International terminal, and I would go when I was traveling somewhere I would go. I would go through security. I would go on my little shopping trip, the body shop, buy all my stuff. I've told a friend of mine the story, and she was like, can we discuss how you're traveling for work so much that you are buying your personal care products at the airport. Yeah, but that way you don't have to pack stuff. Yeah, it's already through security. You could just have it. It's the best, the best, the best. Yeah. I mean I listen, I'm at the airport all the time. M hm. So I'm very familiar with and comfortable with it. I am like that almost obnoxious person that will help confuse travelers. Sure where, I'm like, where do you actually need to go? Because I can see on your face that you are befuddled and overwhelmed. Huh. Listen. Have I snuck some people through the sky priority security lane when they look desperate? Yes? I have, Yes, I have. Because you know, like it it can be it can be a little dicey. Yeah. When Patrick and I were dating one time, I dropped him off at the Atlanta Airport and the security line had wound all the way through the windy path. Yeah, and all the way out through the atrium and all the way out farther out. It was the longest I've ever seen it, and I was like, I don't love this, but I still love that airport. It has, in my opinion, gotten better because they have multiple security checkpoints now correct, so it's not all wadding up in one place. And I just feel like they're doing a better job of flow management for the most part. If you're there at a peak time when it's busy, you're still going to wait for a bit. But also, again, I fly a lot, so I'm met a lot of airports, and I know that there are security people that can be brusket every airport, but I also feel like in Atlanta, I have a lot of great experiences with security in Atlanta where they've been extraordinarily nice to me, you know, super cool. Yeah. I have done whatever they could to make something easier. I've seen them helping other travelers that are super were confused. Yeah. Yeah. Also when those people were not getting paid and were still doing their job, they were so nice. I would have been biting every person that walked through and they were lovely. Yeah. And if you thank them, one guy thought was gonna cry because he just was like clearly so overwhelmed and stressed. Yeah. Anyway, when I moved to Massachusetts, I did so via the Atlanta airport, and I had to go through airport security with two laptops and a cat and my rollerboard, and because of how everything was packed, I had to take both laptops out of the roller board. And then when you are traveling with an animal, you have to take the animal out and you have to walk through the thing. So I'm walking with this cat, and two things happened. One is a random other passenger corralled all of my stuff for me while I was being swabbed for explosive resident on my cat. And then also there was another TSA agent beyond the one who was like, I'm holding my cat and like getting my hands swabbed for explosive residue in this other TSA agent was like, please let that woman go. That cat is terrified. And I think had I been at a different airport, I would have had a way harder time. Yeah, my understanding, And I haven't tested this and I haven't double checked it, but I saw someone talking about it recently that if you are traveling with a pet in Atlanta and possibly other airports, you can say, I have a pet, can we do a private screening ring? Oh? Nice? This was also that way, yeah right right, years before this would have been an option where they will take you to a different room that is closed off so you don't have to worry about how nice my cat freaked out and jumped out of my arms and now I don't know where it is in the airport. They might have instituted that after some pets got lost in Atlanta, right, So I know there are some options like that. You just had to talk to a security supervisor, usually an ask nice, but yeah there. I love the Atlanta Airport. If you're going to the Atlanta Airport and you want to know where the best place is to eat our man, hit me up. I know, I'm all mm hmm. Cat Corus got a great, great restaurant there on the on the a con course, some good shrimp and grits and a great cocktail program. Love it in any case, listen, I love my city. I love Atlanta. We talked about Elizabeth Bulhame in chemistry this week. Yes, uh, I enjoy finding random name mentions and books and going and figuring out if that was the real person. If I'm reading a work of fiction. Yeah, what happens in nonfiction too, obviously, Like I'll be reading a book about something and a random historical person will be named as having been connected somehow. There were other folks, and these last couple of books in the Edinburgh Night series I noted as potential topics who were just mentioned as side mentions at one point in the book. We may come to those at some point later. Elizabeth Fulham, though, I found her fascinating. Yeah, even though we know basically nothing. Yeah, I have so many questions. Yeah, tell me some of your questions. Did any of this I mean, because you know, I'm a textile girly. Yeah, and I die a lot of my own fabric because I like customized stuff. Did she use any of it for anything? Yeah? I don't know. So I wear the clothes made of the purple fabric with goldflets in it. Where are they? Yeah? So I read the whole her preface, her introduction, and then I sort of read parts of the experimental sections because it is a fairly long book. And it reached a point where I was like, reading every single one of these experiments is not going to add more to the episode. Yeah, so it's possible that she talked about using fabric for something at some point and that I just didn't read it in the parts of the book that I read. Because it's also very interesting to me that she was working mostly with silk because silk is, Yeah, this sounds a little counterintuitive for people that have not worked with it. Silk is a little easier to die than most other fabrics because it just like slorps up pigment really fast. So it's interesting that she was working mostly with that. And I am I would be curious if there were any like if she ever did a comparison of like I did the exact same thing with a linen and with a silk and here, because I mean, if you do the same die bath with those two fabrics, they're going to look quite different, right, even if you have, like, you know, a really incredible high quality pigment. So that's all fascinating to me. I also couldn't help but think the whole time that if she lived today, she would feel like a kid in a candy store, because you can go to your local craft store and they're just aisles of dying options. You can get fabric die in the grocery store. Yeah, for heaven's sakes, there are entire online forums of people just sharing tips about die, how do you die, how to achieve a particular die if you're trying to replicate one specific garment and people have formulas that they share, And I'm like, she would she would cry with joy. She would cry with joy, or she would be like, you're all doing it wrong, you lazy, lazy prop Other people did all the work. I don't know. I also think she really would have enjoyed like today's world of science communication that's really accessible to the general public. Ye Like, like we said, we don't really know if she went to any of the public lectures you didn't have to be enrolled as a student. She may have, she may not have. Those sorts of things definitely would have been less accessible for women, even if they were open to the public at the time. But if she were living today in a world where you can go to YouTube and there are a ton of different people like explaining things or showing, you know, showing their process for doing an experiment or for dyeing something or for doing a craft, like all of that stuff. There's just a much broader world of information access. Yeah that, you know, as long as she had access to a computer and an Internet connection, she would be able to get to Yeah. I think she would have been very into. Imagine how wowed she would be just studying the ways different cultures have used dye and pigment textiles, you know, like techniques like batique would just blow her mind, like, no, we're gonna put a wax resist on this first, and then right, we're going to do that whole process been working on Like, yeah, I just think she would be wowed by it. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, I wonder what she was like as a person. I also wonder what her relationship with her husband was like, because there's that part in the preface that makes it sound like when she was like I have this idea that he was dismissive. Was he dismissive because he was underestimating her? Was he dismissive because of what he had learned about chemistry that just made him think it wouldn't work? Like which, right? But exactly was like how much was he encouraging her and how much was he more tolerating her? Don't really know, right? Or did he just lack the imagination to envision what she was talking about. Yeah, which is not that sounds like a criticism of him, but like that's a thing that people come up against all the time when they're like, I have an idea and it's just so unique that people cannot cannot really perceive or see or imagine what that would look like. So they're like, I don't think so, I don't think that's possible. Yeah. I imagine that her maps with gold cities and silver rivers must have been really beautiful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she would put those maps on a fabric and then use that fabric for a gown. I love it. I love it, Like I literally my brain just keeps clicking through all the things that she would be wowed by, like textile medium that you can mix with paints so that you can paint directly on fabric and it won't get crispy, it will still have the flow of fabric. That would blow her mind. No, you can just use gold paint, babe. It's easy it so you don't have to do any chemical processing. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that was kind of amused by and also annoyed by was the review of her book in the Gentleman's magazine because of its being like, wow, we really thought this must be a disguised feminist screed, clearly written by Mary Wolstoncraft or somebody, and wow, it turns out to me about science. And I was like, did somebody send you a copy of the book that didn't have the preface in it? Because some of her preface? I feel like, would annoy whoever wrote this review? Right? Yeah? No? Or did you just skip over the preface and go write people? Do some people do do that? Yeah? Yeah? How many prefaces have we read on the show that start out with the like some variation of the phrase no one reads prefaces. But it's important to me to say this. I mean I can think of several. So yeah. I'm also thinking about the acknowledgments at the end of books, where it seems like the author is just taking for granted that nobody's going to read that part. Yeah. Yeah, Anyway, I am very curious if in some you know, church parish records somewhere we know more about her, or some very local source of information, if there's more details that we could find. I think a lot of other people that we have been talking about on the show before from you know, somewhere in the British and Irish Isles. The fact that we don't that there wasn't a civil registration when they were living was not as big of a deal because they were a more prominent person and they had families that were keeping up with that information or other people writing about them is shortly after or during their lives that like recorded a lot of that information. We just don't have that for her, and so it's a person with basically no biography for us to talk about on the show. Oh Elizabeth, I love her. Next episode is not about anyone named Elizabeth. I don't believe you. I don't know what's happening after that may may not be an Elizabeth, but after that is Unearthed, so at least it will not be named Elizabeth, though there could be an Elizabeth within it. I would say there are good odds of someone named Elizabeth in some way coming up during Unearthed, either as a subject or a researcher. Great totally possible, Great totally possible. This edition of on Earthed is all about Elizabeth. The first. We're only going to have Queen Elizabeth unearthings, nothing else, So whatever's happening on your weekend, I hope it is great. If there is something that has sparked your curiosity, I hope so much that you get to indulge that curiosity over the weekend, because that can bring so much joy and fulfillment into life. If you are just having to keep your head down and keep going this weekend, I hope that is going as well as possible. We will be back on Monday with something brand new, and tomorrow we'll have a Saturday classic. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
