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Toil and Trouble · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
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  Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
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  Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
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  Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
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  Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. They say the apple never falls
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  Speaker 1: far from the tree. The implied meaning, I think is
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  Speaker 1: that kids tend to echo their parents. Maybe you hear
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  Speaker 1: your mother in the way you laugh, or perhaps you
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  Speaker 1: see your nose in the mirror every morning and are
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  Speaker 1: instantly reminded of your grandfather and his siblings. Look no
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  Speaker 1: further than Danny Harrison, son of Beatle George Harrison, or
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  Speaker 1: Ken Griffey Jr. His father, both of whom were popular
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  Speaker 1: prominent Major League Baseball players, And while Griffey Jr's son
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  Speaker 1: didn't follow his family into the same game, he ended
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  Speaker 1: up playing in the NFL. But the old adage isn't
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  Speaker 1: universally true. In fact, some kids fall pretty far from
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  Speaker 1: the parental tree, and William was one of them. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't all his fault, though. People are often a product
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  Speaker 1: of the times they live in. And William lived through
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  Speaker 1: some of the most tumultuous in history, the sort of
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  Speaker 1: turmoil that gives birth to a brand new sovereign nation.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, his parents weren't married when he was born
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  Speaker 1: around seventeen thirty, and much of his time was spent
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  Speaker 1: in the care of his mother. But William's father was
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  Speaker 1: right there making sure he had a good education and
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  Speaker 1: plenty of job opportunities, and at that time in the
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  Speaker 1: American colonies, there was plenty of growth to take advantage of.
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  Speaker 1: As a teen, he joined the Pennsylvania Provincial Troops, gaining
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  Speaker 1: a quick military experience during his service in King George's War.
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  Speaker 1: When he left, he had reached the rank of captain.
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  Speaker 1: Years later, in seventeen sixty two, William married a woman
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  Speaker 1: from England name Elizabeth, who he met while they're on
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  Speaker 1: a trip with his father, and with that his life
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be entering that stable period most adults hoped for.
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  Speaker 1: After the wedding, the new couple moved back to North America,
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  Speaker 1: settling in the colony of New Jersey, where he had
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  Speaker 1: been given a new job serving as the colony's royal governor. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was a big deal, and I imagined. William was
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  Speaker 1: pretty proud of that. He loved his English roots and
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  Speaker 1: had risen up the ranks of power pretty quickly. But
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  Speaker 1: I mentioned that he was the sort of apple that
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  Speaker 1: didn't fall close to the family tree, didn't I. You See,
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  Speaker 1: while William was utterly loyal to the Crown of England,
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  Speaker 1: his father was different. The seventeen seventies were full of
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  Speaker 1: rumors of impending war, a war that would pit the
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  Speaker 1: American colonies against their overbearing, unjust authorities across the Atlantic,
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  Speaker 1: and Williams father supported that uprising. In fact, the older
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  Speaker 1: and visited William many times to beg him to reconsider
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  Speaker 1: his military service would earn him top ranks in the
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  Speaker 1: American forces, he was sure of it, but William refused.
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  Speaker 1: His loyalties were to the king, and that was that.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't matter that every single one of his fellow
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  Speaker 1: colonial governors had already thrown their hats into the rebellion.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't matter that William's own son had sided with
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  Speaker 1: William's father, It didn't matter that troops were being assembled
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  Speaker 1: on both sides of the conflict. He was stubbornly committed
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  Speaker 1: to the Crown. Finally, in seventeen seventy six, colonial forces
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  Speaker 1: put him and Elizabeth under house arrest. She would die
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  Speaker 1: in custody, but he would stay there until seventeen seventy eight,
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  Speaker 1: when he was released in a prisoner exchange. But even
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  Speaker 1: the loss of his wife and his job wasn't enough
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  Speaker 1: to stop him. For the next few years, as the
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  Speaker 1: Revolutionary War raged on across the colonies, William worked as
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  Speaker 1: the leader of the American Loyalist movement, people actively working
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  Speaker 1: to defeat the Americans. He even encouraged guerilla warfare against
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  Speaker 1: rebel groups, hoping to earn favor with the crown by
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  Speaker 1: helping British forces. And he was vicious too. But we
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  Speaker 1: all know how the Revolutionary War was going to end, right,
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  Speaker 1: and by seventeen eighty two, Williams saw it coming. Admitting defeat,
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  Speaker 1: he boarded a ship and headed to London, leaving his
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  Speaker 1: life in America behind. He would die there three decades
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  Speaker 1: later in eighteen thirteen, and his father, well, dear old
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  Speaker 1: Dad cut William almost entirely out of his autobiography and
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  Speaker 1: his will And that was a big deal too. Why well,
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  Speaker 1: because all these years later, folks are still talking about
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  Speaker 1: William's father, while he's become something of an overlooked footnote,
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  Speaker 1: although how could he really compete with a father who
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  Speaker 1: was a famous writer, publisher, scientist, postmaster, inventor, political activist,
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  Speaker 1: and statesman, A man who seemed to alter the course
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  Speaker 1: of history with his printing press, and who who had
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  Speaker 1: the courage to stand in a lightning storm with a
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  Speaker 1: kite and a key. William's father, Benjamin Franklin. There's an
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  Speaker 1: old saying that goes behind every great man, there's a
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  Speaker 1: great woman. Women have been responsible for some of the
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  Speaker 1: most important achievements in history, only to have their contributions
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  Speaker 1: severely reduced or even erased by men. Charles Babbage, for example,
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  Speaker 1: was credited with creating the analytical engine, a precursor to
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  Speaker 1: the computer as we know today. However, it was a
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  Speaker 1: mathematician named Ada Lovelace who developed an algorithm for the
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  Speaker 1: device that could compute Bernouly numbers, and although the analytical
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  Speaker 1: Engine was never completed in her lifetime, lovelaces algorithm made
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  Speaker 1: her the world's first computer programmer, an achievement that wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: be recognized for over a century. Many were also demonized
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  Speaker 1: by the men who ruled over society, Not only were
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  Speaker 1: their efforts overshadowed, they were often tainted. Over time, men's
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  Speaker 1: accusations and beliefs colored women's contributions and their reputations in
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  Speaker 1: a negative light, and it's taken decades, sometimes even centuries,
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  Speaker 1: for corrections to be made. If at all want proof,
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  Speaker 1: look no further than medieval ale wives. Though today's beer
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  Speaker 1: industry is a male dominated field, beer was originally brewed
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  Speaker 1: by women. In ancient Babylon, women not only made the
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  Speaker 1: beloved beverage, but they sold it as well. It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: until beer's introduction into ancient Egypt when men eventually took
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  Speaker 1: over the trade. Meanwhile, in Europe, women run taverns and breweries.
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  Speaker 1: Flourished brewster has produced a drink called ale, which lacked
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  Speaker 1: the hops found in today's beer. In fact, it was
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  Speaker 1: a German nun named Hildegarde who suggested hops as an
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  Speaker 1: ingredient at all, thanks to its healing, bettering, and preserving
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  Speaker 1: properties sometime in the twelfth century. Yet, despite an increasingly
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  Speaker 1: male presence in the beer trade over the years, women
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  Speaker 1: still dominated. During the Middle Ages, they were called ale wives,
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  Speaker 1: and they sold their goods in crowded markets which were
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  Speaker 1: packed to the brim with thirsty customers, so in order
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  Speaker 1: to stand out among the crowds, the ale wives would
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  Speaker 1: don special clothing, namely tall, pointy hats. These hats were
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  Speaker 1: tall enough to be seen by anyone, even from several
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  Speaker 1: yards away. And of course they had to have beer
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  Speaker 1: to sell, which meant hauling it from the brewing location
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  Speaker 1: to the markets. But rather than stock individual bottles, ale
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  Speaker 1: wives transported their beer in large cauldrons, which allowed them
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  Speaker 1: to carry a lot more at one time, and those
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  Speaker 1: who sold beer out of their homes hung brooms above
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  Speaker 1: their front doors to indicate that they were open for business.
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  Speaker 1: Oh and one last detail. Vermin was also a major
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  Speaker 1: concern for brewers, as mice and other rodents would nibble
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  Speaker 1: on the grain used for brewing. To combat that threat,
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  Speaker 1: ale wives employed the use of cats to chase them away. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: these women owned businesses didn't last forever. Patriarchal society wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: let them, and as the Reformation spread across Europe, female
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  Speaker 1: brewers became the perfect scapegoats for Christianity, which labeled them
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  Speaker 1: as witches. It was theorized that as the Protestants and
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  Speaker 1: Catholic churches waged war against each other for supremacy. They
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  Speaker 1: campaigned among the public to increase their numbers, and there
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  Speaker 1: was no better way to boost recruitment than to offer
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  Speaker 1: protection against the biggest threat of all, the devil. Agents
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  Speaker 1: of the church accused women of using their cauldrons to
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  Speaker 1: brew potions, not beer, and those black hats they weren't
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  Speaker 1: really pest control, they said, they were the witches familiars,
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  Speaker 1: little demons in animal form that attended to a witch's
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  Speaker 1: every need. Eventually, women had no choice but to abandon
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  Speaker 1: the beer trade to save their lives. In the mid
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  Speaker 1: fifteen hundreds, one English town even passed a law prohibiting
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  Speaker 1: women between the ages of fourteen and forty from becoming
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  Speaker 1: ale wives. After all, if a woman was working, she
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  Speaker 1: was probably too busy to get married, let alone tend
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  Speaker 1: to her household in children. From that point forward, men
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  Speaker 1: rose to prominence as makers and sellers of beer, a
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  Speaker 1: tradition that has continued to this day. And the ale wives, well,
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  Speaker 1: they never truly outgrew their witchy accusations. Their pointy hats, broomsticks,
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  Speaker 1: cauldrons and cats all became cliches of witches, and we
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  Speaker 1: can still find them depicted that way in books, films,
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  Speaker 1: and television today, though some historians argue about the accuracy
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  Speaker 1: of such claims, it's hard not to see the link
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  Speaker 1: between the ale wives of old and the witches we
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  Speaker 1: know today. Regardless, it's clear that women invented the beer industry,
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  Speaker 1: only to have it taken away by men. It's like
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  Speaker 1: James Brown once saying, it's a man's world, but it
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't be nothing without a woman or a girl. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities 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,