Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 4

 

(Follow me down the rabbit hole as I look up references to obscure things that pique my interest.)

  Will Sommers

Another real-life character introduced to me by an episode of "Horrible Histories" is Will or William Sommers.  Sommers was a long-time court jester of King Henry VIII, and it was often said that Sommers was the only person in the English court who could get away with criticizing the King or telling him the truth without obfuscation and flattery.  

Little is known about Sommers.  He was first mentioned in 1535, said to have been presented to the king in 1525, and he died in 1560.  He is thought to have been a "natural fool" rather than an "artificial fool."  There were two varieties of jesters.  "Natural fools" had some sort of mental or physical disability that became a part of their character.  Of course, times and sensibilities were different then, and the life of a fool was thought to have been better than that person's life would have been outside of the court.  Artificial fools were relatively "normal," but they often mimicked disability and used that along with their wit, physical comedy, or musical talents to entertain the court.

Sommers is said to have clashed with some of  Henry's closest advisors, including Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell, and even angering Henry himself, but Cromwell wrote that Sommers had a shrewd wit and often pointed out extravagances and follies of the court to the king using jokes.

Battle of the Crater

This is another rabbit hole journey inspired by the British TV show "Horrible Histories,"  a story I'm sure most Civil War historians well know, but I've never been a great military historian, usually bored by details of battles. The Battle of the Crater stands out though.

The Battle of the Crater took place on Jul 30, 1864, part of the siege of Petersburg, Virginia.  Confederate General Robert E. Lee's attempt to take Petersburg had been thwarted by Union General Ulysses Grant, and the siege began.  Lee's forces built elaborate trenches and fortifications which made it impossible for Union troops to gain an offensive advantage.  Union Lt. Col. Henry Pleasants went to General Ambrose Burnside with a radical idea. Many of Pleasants' men were Pennsylvania miners as civilians, and he proposed building a tunnel underneath Confederate fortifications, placing, and detonating explosives.  Burnside agreed.  The tunnel was dug, and the explosion opened up a hole 170 feet by 120 feet and 30 feet deep;  278 Confederate soldiers were killed.  The plan was for a Union charge to follow immediately, but the charge was a fiasco.  Union soldiers became confused, with many running into the crater and getting trapped.  Confederate troops regained their senses much quicker than anticipated and lined up around the crater firing downward onto the Union troops, making it a slaughter.  A Confederate general called it a "turkey shoot." Union casualties ended up being 2.5 times higher than Confederate casualties. Many of those killed were soldiers of a division of the US Colored troops who were shot down by the Confederates even as they tried to surrender.  It was one of the most embarrassing defeats Union forces suffered in the Civil War, and Burnside and a couple of other commanders lost their commands as a result.

Turnspit Dogs

(From British TV show "QI")  

The Turnspit Dog is an extinct breed of short-legged, long-bodied dogs that was bred specifically to run in wheels connected to spits in British kitchens in order to keep roasting meat rotating.  It is thought to have been related to terriers or corgis, but so little was thought of the breed that detailed records weren't kept.  They were used from the 1500s into the early 1800s, when new inventions made their use redundant.  The breed then became extinct. 

Kitchens often alternated the dogs in shifts as they tired out.  Even Sundays weren't days of rest for Turnspits, as they were often taken to church to be used as feet warmers.

Rupert Holmes, Pina Coladas, and Timothy

Rolling Stone Magazine now seems to be solely in the business of generating lists of songs and artists designed to generate debate and social media buzz.  One recent list was of the "Ten Worst Songs of the 1970s," and "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" by Rupert Holmes appears on that list.  Holmes, born David Goldstein in 1947, comes from an accomplished musical family and has had a notable career in Broadway and pop music, including a couple of Tony Awards to his credit.  His 1979 hit "Escape" was not his first taste of pop notoriety however.

In 1970, Holmes was a member of a group called "The Buoys."  The band signed a one-single only contract with Scepter Records, but the record company made it plain that it would do nothing to promote the song. Holmes had a brainstorm:  why don't we put out a single that is so controversial that it generates its own free publicity and drives sales?  So, naturally, he sat down a wrote a song about cannibalism.  "Timothy" tells the song of three miners who are trapped by a cave-in.  When reached by rescuers, only two of the three men, Joe and the unnamed singer of the song, have survived.  Timothy's fate is never explicitly stated, but there are definite tongue-in-cheek (pun intended) implications that he was eaten by the survivors.  

Despite media outrage and attempts by some radio stations to ban the song, it climbed the charts, reaching #17 on Billboard's chart and #13 on the Cashbox chart in the US, and #9 in Canada. It became "The Buoys'" most successful song.

Vladimir Nabokov and Butterflies

You might know the name Vladimir Nabokov.  Nabokov was an acclaimed Russian-born novelist (1899-1977), probably most famous for his novels Lolita and Pale Fire, considered by many to rank highly among the greatest works of 20th century literature.  I've never been interested in reading his work, but I was well aware of him.  However, I had no idea, until recently watching the British panel quiz show "QI," that he was also one of the world's most highly regarded lepidopterists (butterfly experts) and that butterflies are important symbolically in his writing and as a common motif.  

Nabokov was born to a very wealthy and prominent Russian noble family, forced to flee during the Revolution.  He began writing and became a professor of Russian literature, living and teaching in various places in Europe and the US.  He arrived at Cornell University in 1948, where one of his students was future Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In the early 1940s, he had volunteered as an entomologist at the Museum of Natural History, having already developed his interest in butterflies. While teaching at Wellesley College, he served as the de facto curator of lepidoptery at Harvard's Museum of Zoology.  He wrote and pursued butterflies when he wasn't teaching.  Following Lolita's success, he gave up teaching for writing and for butterflies.  He published several scientific papers on lepidoptery, and his work was highly influential in butterfly taxonomy.  His specialty was "sexing" butterflies.  He never bought into the idea that species could be distinguished by chromosomes, and followed the traditional lepidopterist means of distinguishing by genitalia.  He spent 6-7 hours a day, 7 days a week, bent over a microscope examining butterfly genitalia, causing permanent damage to his eyesight.  Harvard still owns his cabinet of blue butterfly male genitalia, while the bulk of his butterfly collection is in a museum in Switzerland.

Madalena

I was introduced to the story of  Madalena in the book On Savage Shores, an account of a little discussed part of history, the 16th century travels, voluntary and involuntary, of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Americans to Europe.  

One of those travelers was called Madalena by the Spanish; we don't know her indigenous name.  Madalena was member of the Tocobaga society of Tampa Bay.   The Tocobaga were one of numerous Florida peoples at the time of Spanish contact.  Within 150 years of contact, almost none of these peoples existed due to disease, murder, and enslavement.  During the 1700s, the survivors coalesced with remains of northern groups forced south by Europeans and formed the Seminoles.

Madalena was captured by Hernando de Soto during his 1539 rampage across Florida and the southeastern US before his death at the Mississippi River.  She was sent to the Florida Panhandle to become a slave in the home of Soto's wife, Isabel de Bobadilla. There she scrubbed pans, fetched water, and did whatever else was needed from a slave or servant living in that household.

Footnote As Bobadilla's criada (servant), Madalena traveled with the young widow to Seville, where her mistress pursued a lawsuit to save her dowry from her deceased husband's business partner. After the widow's death, Madalena drifted back to Havana, perhaps in the company of a fellow servant from the same household. There she drew the attention of the Dominican friar Luis Cáncer, a close collaborator of Bartolomé de Las Casas and the leader of the mission that would bring her home. Madalena knew Cáncer for only a brief time, but he placed a great deal of his hope for his mission on her. She taught him basic phrases in her language and made the world of local politics legible to him. After he helped her lead her own Christian ritual on a Florida beach, she disappeared from the written record.  We have no clue what happened to her. 

Madalena greeting Cancer in Havana

Gonzalo Guerrero

I was introduced to the story of  Gonzalo Guerrero in the book On Savage Shores, an account of a little discussed part of history, the 16th century travels, voluntary and involuntary, of hundreds of thousands of indigenous Americans to Europe.  

Guerrero was a Spanish sailor who was shipwrecked in 1511 off the coast of Jamaica, along with 15 other sailors.  The marooned men fashioned a raft and set sail, landing on a beach on the Yucatan Peninsula 13 days later, where they were immediately captured by Mayan warriors.  Some of the men were killed, and the others, Guerrero included,  were enslaved.  Guerrero became the property of the local governor, and he demonstrated great military  prowess, earning a high rank as a commanding officer, but remaining in the service of the governor.  In the process, he fully assimilated into Mayan culture and married a high-born Mayan woman, perhaps a daughter of the governor, and he fathered and raised some of the first mestizo (mixed European and Native American ancestry) children in the Americas.

When Cortes landed in Mexico in 1519, he immediately heard of a couple of Spaniards living amongst the indigenous and sent messengers to find them and invite them to join his expedition. Guerrero refused, citing his allegiance to his family and to his Mayan lord.  Over the next 13-17 years, Guerrero led Mayan warriors in battle against Spanish forces, successfully defending his home city and defeating the conquistadors in several engagements.  Accounts differ on the year, either 1532 or 1536, but they agree on Guerrero's demise;  his nude and tattooed body was found among the Mayan dead after a battle. While there are questions and discrepancies in the story of Guerrero's life, he has become a folk hero in Mexico and Central America, appearing as character in literature and popular culture and the subject of paintings and monuments. 

Down the Rabbit Hole, Part 3

The Euthanasia Coaster

The British comedy panel show "QI" introduced me to the "Euthanasia Coaster." As I understand it, this was purely devised as a "thought experiment" or "art piece" with no plans for reality. I think the best I could do is to copy part of the Wikipedia entry here:

The Euthanasia Coaster is a hypothetical steel roller coaster designed as a euthanasia device to kill its passengers. The concept was conceived in 2010 and made into a scale model by Lithuanian artist Julijonas Urbonas, a PhD candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. Urbonas, who has experience as an amusement park employee, stated that the goal of his concept roller coaster is to take lives "with elegance and euphoria".  As for practical applications of his design, Urbonas mentioned "euthanasia" or "execution".  John Allen, who served as president of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, inspired Urbonas with his description of the "ultimate" roller coaster as one that "sends out 24 people and they all come back dead".

The concept design of the layout begins with a steep-angled lift that takes riders up 500 metres (1,600 ft) to the top,  a climb that takes a few minutes to reach allowing the user to contemplate their life.   For comparison, the tallest roller coaster in the world is Kingda Ka at 139 m (456 ft). From there, the user may exit the coaster. If they do not, they would have some time to say their last words and press a button to continue to a 500 m (1,600 ft) drop which would take the train to 360 kilometres per hour (220 mph; 100 m/s), close to its terminal velocity, before flattening out and speeding into the first of its seven slightly clothoid inversions.  Each inversion would have a smaller diameter than the one before in order to maintain the lethal 10 g to passengers while the train loses speed. After a sharp right-hand turn, the train would enter a straight, where unloading of corpses and loading of new passengers could take place.

Waterloo Teeth

George Washington never had wooden teeth.  I repeat:  GEORGE WASHINGTON NEVER HAD WOODEN TEETH.  Washington had only one tooth in his mouth when he became President in 1789, and he had false teeth made from ivory and human teeth, purchased from some of his slaves.  False teeth date back to at least 700 BC when the Etruscans made dentures out of human and animal teeth held together with gold wire.  Ivory and natural teeth became the standard material for false teeth until the early 1700s when porcelain was used, but porcelain teeth were too fragile and didn't really catch on until the mid 1800s when improvements had been made.  

In the first half of the 1800s, denture makers found a treasure of raw materials thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte.  Following the 1815 battle of Waterloo, scavengers and looters descended on the battlefield,  brandishing pliers, and the yanked out thousands and thousands of teeth from the mouths of the dead soldiers.  For the next forty years, these teeth were polished, shaped, and matched into dentures.  Today, they are called "Waterloo teeth," but that phrase was not used at the time; perhaps their wearers did not know their origin.  The human teeth would be set into ivory bases because human molars would have been too difficult and time-consuming to secure on the battlefield.  The practice of using human teeth declined after 1850 with improvements in porcelain quality and the development of rubber "vulcanite" to replace the ivory bases.

Actual Waterloo Teeth from the British Dental Association's Museum and a set made of teeth and ivory

Jack and Jill Parties (Jack and Jill of America)

In an episode of "Julia," Max's great series about Julia Child, the mother of one of the characters hosts a Jack and Jill party at her home. That was a new phrase for me --- but then what do I know about parties? --- so I looked it up.

It turns out that the phrase "Jack and Jill party" has, in recent years, come to refer to a party with male and female guests, especially a bridal shower or a party designed to raise money for the guests of honor couple.  

However, there are other connotations, and I found that it was difficult to nail down an origin story.  One source says that the concept began in Canada where the parties were also called stag and doe, buck and doe, or hen and stag parties where admission was charged and cash gifts given to provide some funds to an engaged or newly married couple as they plan their wedding or start their marriage.  

Another source states that "Jack and Jill party" was 1980s slang for a sex party which welcomed gay men and lesbians to participate.

Then, I found the reference which I think is closer to the scene in Julia.  In 1938 in Philadelphia, Marion Stubbs Thomas organized 21 black mothers and formed an organization called Jack and Jill of America.  The organization's intent was, and is, to provide social and cultural education and opportunities to stimulate  growth and leadership in children, especially urban black children.  They offer education programs and make philanthropic donations to various organizations.  Today, there are 230 chapters across the country with about 40,000 members.  

Franz Reichelt

The British historical sketch comedy show "Horrible Histories" features a recurring segment called "Stupid Deaths."  One episode introduced me to the French tailor (of Austro-Hungarian birth) Franz Reichelt (1878-1912).  Reichelt became a successful tailor and dressmaker, but he became obsessed with the idea of creating a safety suit for pilots that would convert into a parachute allowing them to survive a fall should it become necessary.  The successful inventor of a reliable device was bound to receive great fame and financial rewards.  After perfecting his design, he decided to test it from the nearest high point, so he started petitioning the authorities to allow trial runs from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  He apparently told them that he planned to use dummies, and they finally granted him permission.  On February 4, 1912, Reichelt arrived and took the plunge himself, falling 187 feet to his death. 

Alexander Girard and the International Folk Art Museum

The great long-running PBS show "Craft in America" recently had an episode focused on the International Folk Art Museum and Festival in Santa Fe New Mexico.  The museum opened in 1953 and is recognized as the world's collection of international folk art.  The museum acquired a huge part of its  permanent collection in 1978 when Alexander Girard and his wife donated their personal collection, which now occupies an entire wing.

Girard (1907-1993) was born to an American mother and French-Italian father in New York City, but he was raised in Florence Italy.  After studying architecture in London and Rome, he opened design studios in New York and then Detroit.  He became well known as a designer on his own, and then he built a remarkable career designing textiles for mid-century furniture designers like Herman Miller and Charles and Ray Eames.  Along with his fortune, he and his wife acquired a large collection of folk art, textiles, and toys from around the world.  

It was a great episode of "Craft in America," and the museum is definitely now on our bucket list of destinations.

Rolex POW Watches

Many of the companies and name brands that we know so well today played major roles in World War II, contributing hugely in financial and material means, on both sides.  Many Swiss companies remained neutral and dealt with both sides, but the Rolex Watch company stood out by firmly supporting the Allied side.  I never knew any of this until a Rolex POW (prisoner of war) watch showed up on an episode of "Antiques Roadshow."

During WWII, many Swiss watchmakers sold watches in bulk to the militaries on both sides of the conflict.  Rolex did not; they chose to sell to Allied officers being held in German POW camps, and they sold them with the caveat that they needn't worry about paying for the watches until after the war was over.

The company that became Rolex was founded in 1904 by Hans Wilsdorf and his brother in law as Wilsdorf & Davis.  Wilsdorf had moved to England from his native Germany.  Rolex became very successful and profitable until WWII when war made business and exporting difficult.  Wilsdaorf realized that he, quite literally, had a captive market next door in Germany, and he started marketing Rolex watches to Allied, mostly British, officers in POW camps.  He forged a relationship with the International Red Cross, also based in Switzerland, the humanitarian organization allowed by both sides to inspect and to distribute mail, food, clothing, and other necessities to POWs, and the Red Cross took orders and delivered the watches.  Rolex advertised in POW camp publications - yes, those existed - and always touted that payment should not be a concern.  The Germans allowed the transactions even though they often confiscated watches when prisoners arrived; it's not clear why Rolex was allowed.  Thousands of men acquired Rolex watches, and there are stories of these watches being used in the planning of escapes, most famously the 1944 mass escape from Stalag Luft III which was fictionalized in the film "The Great Escape."  In 2022, a Rolex worn by one of the real-life escapees was auctioned off for $189,000 (second picture below). It specifically was used to calculate the time required to move through the tunnels and the timing of the German patrols.

Pearl Hart

Pearl Hart is another name that caught my attention on an episode of the British history sketch comedy series "Horrible Histories."  And her story is quite interesting.

Pearl Taylor (1871-1955) was born to religious and affluent parents in Ontario, Canada, and she received an excellent education.  In boarding school, she grew enamored with a young man named Hart, described as a rake, drunkard, and gambler.  The two had a tumultuous relationship, separating often but having two children who were raised by Pearl's mother.  During one of their good periods, the couple attended the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago.  While Hart worked as a midway barker, Pearl became fascinated by the cowboys and cowboy life demonstrated by Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.  When the fair ended, Pearl left Hart again and headed west, supporting herself, and her alcohol, morphine, and cigar habits, through cooking, singing, and prostitution. In 1899 Arizona, when her attempt at gold mining didn't pan out, and she got word that her mother was seriously ill, she and her mining partner decided to rob a stagecoach, one of the last recorded stagecoach robberies in US history.  Upon their arrest, her gender won her notoriety and sympathy, and the jury acquitted her.  However, the government immediately won convictions on charges of tampering with the US mail.  She served a couple of years in prison before being pardoned by the Arizona governor.  She then took the stage briefly to describe her experiences and worked briefly in Buffalo Bill's show.  Then, she largely disappears from public life, living quietly under different names and with different husbands until her death in 1955.