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SMNTY Classics: Unearthing Mary Anning and Women in Fossils · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Smitha and all someome stuff.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: I never told you a prediction of iHeart Radio, and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: welcome to another classic. We are bringing back a favor
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of mine about Mary Anning and fossils. Yes, because perhaps
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: because of this episode, I get a lot of updates
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: about when new fossils are found, and there's actually been
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: some interesting recent developments. So I love that this is
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: still something where we're getting new information. There's also been
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: some recent discovery of new species. That's cool.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: People.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Oh it's like oh new people.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so they found a young girl fossils. Oh my,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: I think she was like fourteen.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: Yes, so the work is ongoing. The work is ongoing,
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: and I'm really interested in it, and this was a
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: fun one that to research, So please enjoy this classic episode.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and what come of stuff?
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I never told you a production of iHeartRadio. And today
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited because we're going to be talking about dinosaurs.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: A little bit, dinosaurs, Dina Salles.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: And palegontology because, as I mentioned, it is the it's
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, so i'd be the thirtieth an of
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: her of Jurassic Park, which I loved as a kid,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Which is funny because you went on the Daily Zeitgeist
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and talked about it.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, because it's one of the host's favorite movie as well.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: But he gets real serious. Yeah, so what we discovered.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: I really liked the movie too. I still have the
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: story about the fact that, yes, I played first chair
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: trombone to this in the band, and I had an
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: amazing solo.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Nice. Yeah, we played it in ban two. I did
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: not have an amazing solo though, so sorry one up
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: you want after me on that one? That's all right?
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Trombone?
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: It gets it, does it?
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: I mean if you listen like between like it's all
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: the horns, you played the horns though, right you went
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: Did you play.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: Uh, clarinet mainly? But I did. I did play some horns,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: but mostly clarinet.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, that's brief. So yeah, essentially yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a beautiful song. Oh, beautiful score.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: It's very memorable. I think everyone played it. I think
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: everybody played this song.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I think so so. I did love that movie. I
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it was one of the first memories I have of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: getting in trouble is that I snuck in to see
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: it that night. I had a nightmare that a raptor
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: came and killed me.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Four How did you win theater by your.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It was walkable? Walkable?
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Did you run away? Questions?
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: What it was? This is you know? No, I just walked.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Down the theater by yourself.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Nobody. Well, that was the issue I got in troublesome.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, you snuck away.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: I snuck away. Wow. I had to fess up when
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I was so scared and like, what did you dream about?
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Who are you into this movie? I am so how
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: did you have money? There are so many questions?
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Oh I had I was a saver, even very young.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I was a saper.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Like when you told me you were snuck into a movie,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I assumed you were like eight or nine. Wow.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: But that was also when movie tickets cost like two
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: three bucks.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I guess so.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I mean I was a teenager in this point, like
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Jurassic Park was new.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: That's when we played the music.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: So when you were saying you played it in the band,
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: I just which I shouldn't because I am significantly elser
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: than you. But in my head that was the math.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: And then you said that, I was like wait what
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: my wow?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: The band conductor he had a son who was younger
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: than me, and he loved like like we played Phantom
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Menace soundtrack when it came out because his son loved it,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: like I think it was a lot of John Williams
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: stuff that his son really really likes. But yeah, no,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I got in big trouble because I was too scared
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to lie about it, to lie about the raptor.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Coming to kill me, so chipping like it's on the TV.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: No, I don't. I wasn't that good of a liar yet,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: I ever though not really know. Oh I haven't quite
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: mastered that.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: One scary scary dinosaurs.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it scared me, but I loved it like I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: I loved it. And it's funny because I've watched it
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: so much, even as young, young kid, I remember, like,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: it's interesting the different parts that scared me, Like the
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: parts that scared me then are like the least scary
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: the scary parts to me now. And we actually we
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: talked about that in a movie Crush, where Chuck was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: saying he's seeing that with his daughter too, Like what
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you're afraid of changes as you get older.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Right, I'm afraid of the ride today.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh that's a good ride.
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I still don't like it that trenosaurs rocks that comes out, yes,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: right before you drown petrified. What I didn't know that
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: was going to happen because I have this thing with
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: like giant things sleeping at me that's too close to me.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Not a fan.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like every friend I've taken on that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: ride has been mad at me afterwards.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: So we didn't take me on that right. Someone else
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: took me on my right okay.
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: First, and because I was in California my senior year,
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that I was afraid of that until
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: I came around like rise like that, and I was like,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: oh no, I'm scared of these things. I'm just in
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: my mind they're going to come to life and kill
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: me and take me out. But like yeah, and that's
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: the first time I discovered the popping out of the waterfall.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I was like, what the and then like losing my mind.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like never doing this again.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah yep. And then I came along and and.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: I did it.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, I'm now aware, and I did not
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: it in the front. I will mess it in the
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: back and I will toss it to the sides if
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: I can help it.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: That sounds like there's no.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, when I sit in the middle hole like with people,
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: I'm not touching the size Hello, going to grab me?
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: You know that's fair enough. You know what works for you?
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Got it?
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: There's would be real bad around dinosaurs in real life,
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: but I would never survive.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: No, I wouldn't either. No, there is a new ride
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: at Universe of the Velocit coaster. I'm very excited to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: write it. But it does not seem like you're worst thing.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: As long as as I jump at me would go
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: that like come out they okay, So absolutely not.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: But I I'll report back after I write it, okay,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: because I think it's it goes. It's a fast roller coasters.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: I think I was okay, well it was fast.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I think I'll be concentrating on the fide that I'm
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: gonna die that way.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Fun. It's so fun, isn't it. Yes? But my family
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: loved Drastic Park too, and my older brother like he
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: he had the Drastic Park sheets, he had the toys
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and sometimes I got to play with them, including like
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: the like egg, the velociraptor egg and the t rex
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: that make the sound, and he moved it. So I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: really loved it, and I loved Ellie Sattler. I did
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: not know. I did not know she was so young
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: when they filmed that, but I loved her. She was
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the one of the first costumes I went to at
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: jack and Con was as her, and she does have
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: some interesting I remember being young and she's got that
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: whole line like women inherit the Earth, and I was like, oh, okay,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: So she was a big I meant to do it
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: before we came here, and now I don't have time
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: because it's a mess. But I have my Jurassic Park.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I collected Jurassic Park cards and I had a whole
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: section that was just her and it has like a
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: really cute Maybe I'll take a picture and post it
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: on social that's a really cute illustration on it about
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: how much I loved Jurassic Park.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: So I was a very big fan. I read the books.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: The books are very different, and I saw an argument recently.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: One of the reasons this has been on my mind.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure if I ever would have realized this
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: was the anniversary at all, that so many outlets are
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: posting about it. I was getting a lot of updates
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: about it. One of the arguments people are having is
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: in the book Sean Hammond is a villain. He's like,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: clearly a villain gets killed by the comfy sources, and
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: they were making the argument that it should have been
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: that way instead of like he made him very likable
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: in the movie, even though kind of what he did
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: was pretty.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Not good, not good, very rich, not lie.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: It's kind of along the lines of like going to
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: charge to the Titanic.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: The rich people like you have too much money, maybe
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: you want to reconsider this, right, right?
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: And then it's it is kind of hilarious and kind
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: of frustrating. But a lot of the articles that I
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: was reading was like this should not have been a
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: franchised because then like everyone, you're like, you did this again.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Oh and you did it again, and then you did.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Three more times? What is happening? And you did it
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: with a kid?
• 9:54
  Speaker 4: What?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: There is a really great after Jurassic World came out
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: a really great dry article from a park planner and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: he was just pointing out all of the like things
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that were wrong, and it's done in like good humor.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It's not done in but I really enjoyed it. So
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I wonder if it's still around you can see our
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: previous Women in Science episodes. We just reran Women in Archaeology,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: Women in Space NASA, which congrats to Sallyaride forty years
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: since going to space, and was mentioned in the Last
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: of Us which I Love, Women in Shark Science, which
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: we've also mentioned recently. A lot of the themes are
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: very frustratingly similar about like what is going on right
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: now in the world of these sciences for women. We're
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: going to talk about that at the end, but we're
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: going to start with a woman named Mary Anning. So
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: we're just going to do kind of showcase her because
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: she made a lot of strides, a lot of first
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: in paleontology that we know of, because it says we
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: know first can be complicated in what gets reported, which
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: we are going to talk about, and then look at
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: what's going on at large today. So Mary Anning was
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: a fossil hunter pioneer at a time when the field
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: of sciences was outright hostile to women. She was kept
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: out of conferences, her discoveries were published under the name
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: of men. Often. There are books and movies about her,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: including the twenty twenty fictionalized lesbian romance Ammonite which I
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: had not heard of, so briefly. She was born along
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: what is called the Jurassic Coast of southwestern England, so
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: named because there are fossils still being discovered there. It's
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: a UNESCO World Heritage Site now in seventeen ninety nine.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Her family was Protestant. They were religious dissimpers who separated
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: from the Church of England. They were very poor. Her
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: father made cabinets but also collected fossils. Of her nine
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: or ten siblings. Only she and her older brother made
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: it into adulthood. And there is a legend that during
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: a storm while she was an infant, a friend of
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the family retreated with her two children under a tree
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: or two children under a tree, and a lightning strike
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: killed everyone but Mary, which is quite a story.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I felt like, this is like like going along the
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: lines of the bit at the beginning.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Scientists. But this little story Parloo, it doesn't know.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I felt that too, Samath, that you are not alone.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Okay, we watched too many movies, yea.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: So by five or six she was helping her father
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: gathered fossils, which was incredibly, incredibly rare for a girl
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: at this time. He taught her how to search for
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: fossils on the beach, how to clean them, and they
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: would display them and sometimes sell them in his shop.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: It was the norm for girls in her area not
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: to receive any formal education, but she knew how to
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: read and taught herself about geology and anatomy. Her father
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: died suddenly in eighteen ten, and Mary's older brother Joseph,
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: took over the shop while her mother encouraged Mary to
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: sell her fies to help them make money.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the popular theory is that he died he
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: had tuberculosis and he fell off the cliffs while they
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: were collecting fossils.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: So yeah, it was pretty all very sad.
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: But I'm like, this is really dark English, like historically
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: it is.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It is, and it's not gonna get too much better. Well, well,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: the area she lived in Lime Regis was packed with
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: ammonites and bellum nites, and when locals were being guided
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: towards vacationing locally during the Napoleonic Wars, many people flocked
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: to this area in this beach, and collecting fossils sort
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: of became posh, like it was something you'd come back from,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: like a souvenir from this trip, like Oh look what
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I found, So it kind of grew in popularity.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: Joseph happened to discover a fossil of an odd looking
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: skull in eighteen twelve, married, then twelve years old, went
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: about uncovering the whole thing, revealing a skeleton of five
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: point two meters in length about fifteen feet. It took
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: her months, and the whole town.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: Knew about it.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Speculating she found the remains of a monster. Scientist thought
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: it was a crocodile, which, yes, it is a monster.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Oh true, crocodiles terrify me. For quick context here, like
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: very quick. Most people at the time believed that unrecognizable
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: fossils like this were those of creatures that migrated from
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: somewhere far away. The father of paleontology, Jors Cuvier, had
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: only recently put forth the idea of extinction. Darwin's origin
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: of the species was almost five decades off, so basically
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: no one knew what the heck it was or what
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: was going on here, but they were like, probably from
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: somewhere far away. Four years scientists debated the origins of
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the fossil, eventually calling it Ichthiosaurus or fish lizard, though
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: it was neither fish nor lizard. Nowadays we know this
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: creature was living two hundred and one to one hundred
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: and ninety four million years ago. Wow. Yeah.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: So in the eighteen twenties, a friend of the family
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: and fossil collector named Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Burch auctioned off
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: his fossil collections to raise money for the family, explaining
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: they shouldn't live in poverty when they quote found almost
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: all the fine things which have been submitted to scientific investigation,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: and he donated the proceeds to them.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: This was not the last of Mary's controversial discoveries either.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty three, she was the first to discover
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the whole skeleton of a Plesiosaurus. It was so unlike
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: anything people had ever seen that rumors that it was
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: fake spread like wildfire. Cuvier himself stepped in allegend that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: it could not be real. It was this whole thing.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: There was a special meeting called at the Geological Society
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of London where they debated back and forth, and eventually
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Coulder backtracked and admitted he was wrong and said that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: it was quote the most amazing creature ever discovered. Mary
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was not invited to defend her herself, though to any
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of this further, the scientific community at large was wary
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of her, an avoidant of recognizing her work, in spite
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of her growing reputation for finding fossils. On many occasions,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: male scientists would buy the fossil she discovered and cleaned
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and even identified sometimes and take credit for the discovery
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: without mentioning her at all, even when writing about it,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: including her ichtheisaur find. The Geological Society wouldn't let her in,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and in fact, it didn't allow any women in their
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: ranks until nineteen oh four. Mary found a fossil of
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: a creature with wings in eighteen twenty eight, a pterodactyl.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Once again, word traveled quickly about her find Around this time,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: she also was a trailblazer in the study of coppro
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: lights or fossilized poop. She has a lot of first
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: we're not going to go over all of them, but
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: she has quite a few, and she'd make these detailed
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: drawings and descriptions of her findings to not just the poop,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: all of them. Eventually, she made enough money to buy
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a house with a storefront to sell fossils, and spent
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a lot of her time fossil hunting, even in dangerous conditions.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: For instance, a rock fall almost killed her and did
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: kill her dog in eighteen thirty three.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: Oh no, so here's a quote from the time printed
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: in the Bristol Mirror. This persevering female has for years
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: gone daily in search of fossil remains of importance at
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: every tide, for many miles under the hanging cliffs at Lime,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: whose fallen masses are her immediate object, as they alone
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: contain these valuable relics of a former world, which must
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: be snatched at the moment of their fall, at the
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: continual risk of being crushed by the half suspended fragments
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: that they leave behind, or be left to be destroyed
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: by the returning tide. To her exertion. We owe nearly
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: all the five speci months of Easauri are the great collections.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: She did have a reputation. People called her the geological
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Lioness and the palaeontology princess.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: I like the lion I do do.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Throughout all of this, she continued to sell fossils, helping
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: grow the public interest in fossils to the point museums
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: were struggling to meet demand. Her discoveries inspired her friend,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: geologist Henri de la Besch to paint Dirya Antikrier, a
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: more ancient Dorset, which he sold to raise money for Mary,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: who was still struggling financially. In this painting, if you
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: look it up, it's pretty intense number one. But it
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: was also the start of kind of like this, this
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: sort of painting of fossils or artistic displays of fossils.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he sold it to raise money for Mary,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: who's still struggling financially. Yes, it was the first pictorial
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: art based on fossil evidence, and they were all her
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: discoveries that he was depicting. Discoveries also inspired the eighteen
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: forty novel The Great Sea Dragons by Thomas Hawkins. It
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: was a geologist. Still many did not believe that a woman,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: and especially a lower class woman, could possibly possess the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: skills to make these discoveries.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: So here's an eighteen twenty four letter from the Lady
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: Harriet Sylvester about Mary.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Quote.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: The extraordinary thing in this young woman is that she
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: has made herself so thoroughly acquainted with the science that
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: the moment she finds any bones, she knows to what
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: tribe they belong. She fixes the bones on a frame
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: with seamen, and then makes drawings and has them engraved.
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: It is certainly a wonderful instance of divine favor that
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: this poor ignorant girl should be so blessed for by
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: reading an application, she has arrived at that degree of
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: knowledge as to be in the habit of writing and
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: talking with professors and other clever men on the subject,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: and they all acknowledge that she understands more of the
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: science than anyone else in this kingdom.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: How nice? Kind of insulting?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially because like that divine hands bit is
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: kind of implying like God granted her this gift and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: it's not hers and she was really a religious woman,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: but through this work she did not she did not
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: believe in the Bible's timeline of like when earth was
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: created in all of that, and that got her in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: some hot water with some folks. But Yeah, when I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: was reading this, so I was kind of like interesting, Okay, interesting,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But as as this lady was saying, they weren't just
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: buying her fossils which she had to sell to make
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: ends meet and taking the credit. They traveled to learn
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: from her too, here's a letter from a friend of hers.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: According to her account, these men of learning have sucked
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: her brains and made a great deal by publishing works
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: of which she furnished the contents, while she derived none
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of the advantages. And then here's another quote from National Geographic.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: An inanimate French Nata Missed unjustly accused her of fraud.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: The world has used me so unkindly, she wrote a friend,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: I fear it has made me suspicious of all mankind.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Gideon Mantel, a physician and fossil hunter himself, who visited
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: her quote dirty Little Shop in eighteen thirty two, churlishly
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: called her a prim, pedantic, vinegar looking thin female.
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: Right girl? Looking? Is that that sour face?
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I am?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: I guess she just wasn't smiling enough for him.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Oh so, here's a quote from eighteen thirty seven from
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: a German explorer. We had the pleasure of making the
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: acquaintance of the princess of paleontology, Miss Anning. She is
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: a strong, energetic spinster of about twenty eight years of age,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: tenned and masculine in expression.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: She was thirty eight, so she was good.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I died laughing when I read that energetic spinster of
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: twenty eight. I do think that maybe the word was
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: used here as more being single, but in our modern
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: day connotation, I feel like as a much more like older.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: Also, but you are Spencer if you're not married by
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: the age of seventeen sixteen, I guess, yeah, yeah.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: But from my modern understanding, when I read that, I
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: laughed so right and then with.
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: My entire line like masculine and then affords us also
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: an insult.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: We know and during this point in time.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: Anning died at the age of forty seven of breast
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: cancer in eighteen forty seven. She never married or had children.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Dayla Bash broke the society's members only rule to read
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: her eulogy at a meeting quote, I cannot close this
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: notice of our losses by death without adverting to that
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: of one who, though not placed among even the easier
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: class of society, but one who had to earn her
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: daily bread by her labor, yet contributed by her talents
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and untiring researches, and no small degree to our knowledge.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And yeah, many of her discoveries are now on display
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: at the Natural History Museum of London. She has a
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: children's book. She has a couple of documentaries I think
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: about her, and a couple of books, so she's got
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: some recognition now. But when I was thinking about it,
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: when I was reading about it, in a lot of ways,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: we haven't come that far. And we're still having this
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: fight about credit and museums now, especially when it comes
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: to people of color. That is still ongoing and centuries later. Yeah,
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: many struggle to name five famous women scientists, which is
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: actually a statistic. I'm not just making that up. That
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: is a thing from a Smithsonian article quote. Women today
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: make up nearly half of student members in organizations like
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, but Ohio University Paleontologists catin
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: early notes less than one quarter of professional men. People
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: with staff jobs like curator or professor are women. Their
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: reasons ranged from subtle discrimination to direct sexual harassment, but
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: they are all interrelated. From the classroom to the field.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Women are still trying to dig out from the attitude
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: that paleontology is a boys club. And the article went
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: on with this quote, it's only in the past few
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: years that the true extent of harassment in scientific field
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: work has come to light. So in the best data
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: we have comes from the anthropologists Katherine Clancy and colleagues,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: who in twenty fourteen reported that in a survey of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: six hundred and sixty six field scientists across disciplines, sixty
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: four percent said they had faced some form of sexual
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: harassment in the field, and over twenty percent had been
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: sexually assaulted. The pattern was clear. Victims were of lower
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: professional rank than their harassers, many of whom felt that
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: they were in no position to report their abusers. Women
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: trainees were the primary targets of abuse the researchers found,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: while their perpetrators were predominantly senior to them professionally within
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the research team, and many reported that they felt they
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: got no justice after reporting and in fact have been punished,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: which is what we talked about in our Shark Science episode, Yes,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Women in Shark Science. And here's another quote from that
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: article about tropes. The public image of paleontologists as Indiana
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Jones type characters doesn't help any. Through decades of science popularization,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: were left with the image of a paleontologist as a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: scruffy white man and a cowboy hat. Paleontologists such as
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Jack Horner and Bob Becker have even served as the
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: inspiration for characters in Jurassic Park movies, standing in as
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: stereotypical paleo's who represent the entire field in the minds
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of the public. Just funny because I always think of Elly,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: but point is correct. But yes, documentaries on dinosaurs also
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: have been called out for featuring zero women, zero people
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of color. We talked about that again in that Shark
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: Science episode about Shark Week. So in light of that,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: there are some women's specific conferences. There are conferences for
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: people of color specifically LGBTQ plus conferences in this field
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: where it's more about finding camaraderie, community and working to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: build like organizations where they can get more people in
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: this field and we can talk about these issues. So
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that's good to see. It is unfortunate that this is
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: where we are in twenty twenty three, but it is
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: good to see. And I would love if listeners, if
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you have been to anything like this, if you have
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: any thoughts on this. I know we have some people
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: who work it's not the same thing, but who work
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: in museums or curating in one way or the other,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: so that would be cool. Just let us know. You
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: can email us at Stephania Moms stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter, am most a podcast,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I've Never Told You.
• 26:53
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• 26:56
  Speaker 1: We have a book. You can pre order it at
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: stuff you Should Read Books dot com. You can also
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: pre ordered at Audible. Thanks as always to our super
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our contributor Joey.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Steffan Never Told You is projection of iHeartRadio. For more
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