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Where do Lemonade Stands Come From? · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:31
Speaker 1: for tuning in. The rumors are true. It is summer one.
0:37
Speaker 1: And when you when you think of summer, you know
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Speaker 1: here in the US, there are certain things that come
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Speaker 1: to mind. One of those things is the traditional image
0:48
Speaker 1: of the enterprising kid opening the lemonade stand. Hi, I'm Ben.
0:53
Speaker 1: That's our super producer Max Williams. And hey, hey, I
0:58
Speaker 1: gotta ask you, no, do you ever have a lemonade stand? No?
1:02
Speaker 1: I didn't, but I mean, you know, I think the
1:04
Speaker 1: classic image that pops into one's head it has to
1:07
Speaker 1: be made of very hastily assembled planks, you know, that
1:12
Speaker 1: are like nailed together very precariously, and that could collapse
1:15
Speaker 1: at any moment. Of course, that certainly isn't the modern
1:18
Speaker 1: lemonade stand. It's probably more of like a card table situation,
1:21
Speaker 1: perhaps like a piece of paper taped to the front
1:24
Speaker 1: that says lemonade. You know, what's the inflation rate on lemonade?
1:27
Speaker 1: What does a glass of lemonade go for in modern times?
1:31
Speaker 1: Dollar two dollars? Uh? You know it's interesting you ask,
1:34
Speaker 1: because I think for I'm sure the price has changed
1:39
Speaker 1: when kids are doing it over time, but I also
1:43
Speaker 1: imagine you can make quite a hefty profit from lemonade
1:47
Speaker 1: because the recipe is simple. It's lemons, water and then sugar. Right. Yeah,
1:55
Speaker 1: but you know, I feel like people need a little
1:59
Speaker 1: more of these days. You got your basil lemonades, it
2:02
Speaker 1: got your raspberry lemonades, you know, blueberry limits. I feel
2:05
Speaker 1: like kids these days got to take it a step further.
2:08
Speaker 1: If you've read basil lemonade, by the way, it's it's
2:10
Speaker 1: a weird one, but I dig it. I've made basil lemonade. Uh.
2:14
Speaker 1: I went through a heavy lemonade phase a few years
2:17
Speaker 1: ago that lasted for about a year. And that's where
2:19
Speaker 1: I learned from an old dear friend the secret of
2:22
Speaker 1: using a gove a nectar in pictus of sugar. It's
2:26
Speaker 1: secret super super smooth, and I myself had when I
2:31
Speaker 1: was a kid, I did make a lemonade stand, but
2:34
Speaker 1: I had all kinds of at all kinds of hustles,
2:36
Speaker 1: and most of the most of the people in my
2:40
Speaker 1: neighborhood who were who were by now our lemonade was
2:43
Speaker 1: because it was a group effort. Most of those folks
2:46
Speaker 1: were like the folks who frequent lemonade stands whenever they
2:51
Speaker 1: see them. They just wanted to reward some kids for
2:54
Speaker 1: being go getters, you know what I mean. So, if
2:56
Speaker 1: I'm honest with you, I feel like a lot of
2:58
Speaker 1: people bought our lemonade and may didn't drink it. Our
3:01
Speaker 1: prices were competitive to I'll admit that I appreciate that.
3:05
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that you're right Ben about the
3:07
Speaker 1: idea of the classic American lemonades, Dan, it almost represents
3:12
Speaker 1: the entrepreneurial spirit of this country, you know, And it
3:16
Speaker 1: honestly has its roots in that, and especially specifically, one
3:20
Speaker 1: of the most famous young enterprising lemonade uh lads was
3:25
Speaker 1: a young immigrant. And we will get to that in
3:28
Speaker 1: due time. But first of all, I want to ask, Ben,
3:30
Speaker 1: do you know what a citron is? I only just
3:33
Speaker 1: recently kind of put together the image of what this
3:36
Speaker 1: fruit is and the name. Yeah, it's It can be
3:39
Speaker 1: confusing because citron is a kind of tree that bears
3:44
Speaker 1: fruit that look They look a lot like lemons, but
3:49
Speaker 1: they have some they have some important differences. The two
3:52
Speaker 1: biggest differences are if I recall correctly that the citron
3:58
Speaker 1: is more fragrant, and it's a little bit less acidic.
4:01
Speaker 1: I want to say, is that correct? I think that's right. Um.
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Speaker 1: It's definitely a barlier looking fruit too. It's got all
4:07
Speaker 1: these kind of wrinkles and ripples on the skin, and
4:10
Speaker 1: the rind is a lot thicker and more hearty, let
4:14
Speaker 1: us say, but it is kind of the o g
4:17
Speaker 1: citrus fruit. And it's something that you would even see
4:20
Speaker 1: in like ancient Roman murals, right um. And and and
4:25
Speaker 1: easy to confuse for lemons because lemons probably originated in
4:30
Speaker 1: India or China or somewhere in that neck of the
4:34
Speaker 1: global woods, as you would say, ben um. But you know,
4:36
Speaker 1: we do see images of lemons or lemon like citrus
4:39
Speaker 1: fruits and some of these Roman murals as well. And
4:42
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing because the lemon on its own
4:46
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's kind of like what do you
4:48
Speaker 1: do with it? It's so sour, it's I know, some
4:51
Speaker 1: people enjoy probably sucking on a lemon, as Tommy York
4:54
Speaker 1: would say, but in general they work best when you
4:57
Speaker 1: pair them with other things, whether it should be a
5:00
Speaker 1: cocktail or using it to kind of like, um, add
5:03
Speaker 1: a little acidity to a dish or adding a heck
5:07
Speaker 1: of a lot of sugar and making what has become
5:10
Speaker 1: known as lemonade. Yeah, yeah, it's it's actually it's an
5:14
Speaker 1: ancient practice. We know relatively little about the origin other
5:19
Speaker 1: than things we can piece together, like the fact that
5:22
Speaker 1: the earliest proven human cultivation of the lemon tree was
5:28
Speaker 1: probably in medieval Arabia. So that's where if we were
5:32
Speaker 1: saying lemonade, like actual lemonade instead of you know, citronade
5:36
Speaker 1: or whatever, that's where this occurred. And you know, I
5:40
Speaker 1: was searching for the phrase for this snol. It's Norman
5:43
Speaker 1: Rockwell esque here in the US, the idea of the
5:47
Speaker 1: lemonade stand. I also want to give a shout out
5:50
Speaker 1: to h some of the sources we're gonna be using today,
5:54
Speaker 1: and a very special shout out to our two part
5:56
Speaker 1: series on pink lemonade. Uh. All I remember is the
6:00
Speaker 1: second when the Rise of the clown paths. Yeah, check
6:04
Speaker 1: that out. Please do check it out. But just that's
6:06
Speaker 1: gonna something along the lines of that story is going
6:09
Speaker 1: to come around and today's story as well. Yeah, and
6:12
Speaker 1: we're doing this with the help of History Extra dot com.
6:17
Speaker 1: We've got some great mental Floss articles as well. One
6:21
Speaker 1: of these that stood out especially was Greg Jenner's who
6:25
Speaker 1: invented lemonade. So we're going to be pulling from these
6:29
Speaker 1: and a few other fantastic sources. We may even run
6:33
Speaker 1: into a couple of recipes for lemonade, no promises. We'll
6:37
Speaker 1: see where the day takes us. And in a stunning,
6:40
Speaker 1: um sort of full circle type situation, I think we've
6:43
Speaker 1: got a couple of house stuff works articles on here
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Speaker 1: as well from the from the good old Days. And
6:48
Speaker 1: one of my favorites too is the Battle against Lemonade
6:51
Speaker 1: stand Crackdowns Three Arrests on Lemonade Freedom Day by Alexander A.
6:57
Speaker 1: Bad Santos from the Atlantic. We'll just tease it with
7:00
Speaker 1: that title and then we'll get to it in due time.
7:03
Speaker 1: But you're right then, I mean, the practice of making
7:06
Speaker 1: a sweetened citrus based drink goes back to I believe
7:10
Speaker 1: ancient Egypts during the Crusades at the very least, if
7:15
Speaker 1: not earlier. Right, we know that's when um, a lot
7:18
Speaker 1: of Europeans may have encountered this, and you know, people
7:22
Speaker 1: were trying to figure out what goes well with lemon
7:26
Speaker 1: for a long time. They had a couple of things
7:29
Speaker 1: that we may look back on as missteps. Perhaps one
7:33
Speaker 1: of the best is, as Jennera mentions in Tudor, England,
7:38
Speaker 1: when lemon juice was used for a drink that we
7:42
Speaker 1: wouldn't recognize lemon ad today. It was called water Imperial.
7:47
Speaker 1: It was a cordial and uh, you know, so it's
7:51
Speaker 1: as you can tell, it's got lemon juice, it's got water.
7:53
Speaker 1: It's also got cream of tartar, and people drink less
7:57
Speaker 1: because they've felt it at a curative effect. What is
8:00
Speaker 1: cream of tartar is supposed to do? I've seen that
8:02
Speaker 1: in the spice rack section of the grocery store, but
8:06
Speaker 1: I've never quite fully understood what you're supposed to use
8:08
Speaker 1: it for. Uh, it is usually the main use I
8:13
Speaker 1: know for it today is to stabilize whipped egg whites,
8:18
Speaker 1: and then it can also stop sugar from crystallizing. But
8:22
Speaker 1: stiff peaks, stiff peinks, so like the it's one of
8:28
Speaker 1: those things. Honestly, you know, I cooked a lot, we
8:30
Speaker 1: both cooked pretty frequently. Cream of tartar is one of
8:33
Speaker 1: those things that I've just had and maybe used once
8:37
Speaker 1: a year or something. I'm never I'm never having. Oh, no,
8:41
Speaker 1: we've got to get to the store before it closes.
8:43
Speaker 1: I'm almost a cream of tartar moments. Nothing to do
8:46
Speaker 1: with tartar sauce. I imagine completely separate things or or now,
8:51
Speaker 1: uh funny enough separate things. Tartar sauce doesn't have any
8:55
Speaker 1: cream of tartar. Instead, Tartar sauce is named after the
8:59
Speaker 1: tar Her family, and it's basically gend up mayonnaise. It's
9:03
Speaker 1: just mayonnaise with like pickle chunks in it, like mayon
9:06
Speaker 1: aids and relish mixed together. Is essentially what tartars and
9:10
Speaker 1: I like it. I don't really like those things separately,
9:12
Speaker 1: but I do like a good McDonald's fish filet sandwich,
9:15
Speaker 1: excuse me, filet o fish sandwich every now and again.
9:19
Speaker 1: So so yeah, uh, everybody has their own taste, and
9:25
Speaker 1: some people were with some people were honestly digging water imperials.
9:30
Speaker 1: But along the way, by the mid sixteen hundreds, various
9:36
Speaker 1: people in London and elsewhere had started using sweet lemon
9:42
Speaker 1: juice mixed with honey and water as a beverage. And
9:46
Speaker 1: they but they didn't necessarily make it on their home soil.
9:50
Speaker 1: They imported it from France and by six hundred. France,
9:54
Speaker 1: there was this huge um. I guess we would call
9:58
Speaker 1: them pop up stores. ROW mean lemonaders, right or lemon
10:03
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. I don't know. I wish Casey Pegram was
10:06
Speaker 1: here tell us out with that, but yeah, Lemonators would
10:08
Speaker 1: probably be the Americanized pronunciation, and lemon ideas because it's
10:13
Speaker 1: spelled l I m O n A d i e
10:16
Speaker 1: r s. Sounds like a little more of the Francophone pronunciation.
10:20
Speaker 1: There's a really great mental philost article called the Surprisingly
10:23
Speaker 1: Disgusting History of Lemonade Stands, which is a good tease.
10:28
Speaker 1: And if you've heard the Pink Lemonade episode, I think
10:30
Speaker 1: you know what we're inching towards. But you're right, it was.
10:33
Speaker 1: It was even taking a step further, right, because I mean,
10:36
Speaker 1: France is where the whole cabaret scene kind of really
10:39
Speaker 1: started to take off, and you know, the Mulan Rouge
10:41
Speaker 1: and all of that stuff with burlesque dancers and just
10:44
Speaker 1: all of this kind of showmanship. And you would see
10:47
Speaker 1: boozy versions of these sold in some of these uh,
10:51
Speaker 1: these cabaret theaters. Yeah, a light refreshing drink that also
10:57
Speaker 1: gives you a light arguably refreshing is and uh this
11:03
Speaker 1: they did sell more than just just this like predecessor
11:08
Speaker 1: of Mike's Hard lemonade. But they got known for this
11:12
Speaker 1: because it was a popular like novelty drink, and it
11:15
Speaker 1: became it became so popular that eventually everybody who sold
11:20
Speaker 1: it was able to get together and start a union
11:25
Speaker 1: called the name would translate to the Company of Lemonade Deers.
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Speaker 1: And this is coming from Carrie Tatro in our own
11:34
Speaker 1: House of Works article Fastening History of Lemonade. Yeah, and
11:38
Speaker 1: and then there's another mention that article about I believe something.
11:40
Speaker 1: We've also done an episode on how it might have
11:43
Speaker 1: been part of a list I can't remember, um, but
11:45
Speaker 1: a list episode. But it was the idea that Parisians,
11:50
Speaker 1: at least they believed helped fend off the plague because
11:54
Speaker 1: of all of the lemons that they were consuming, uh
11:57
Speaker 1: in in this lemonade, because it was like a dose
12:00
Speaker 1: of vitamin C that supposedly gave you ammuno boost kind
12:04
Speaker 1: of you know, which is still definitely a thing that
12:06
Speaker 1: we know vitamins C to do. It turns out that
12:09
Speaker 1: it was more the fact that lemon peels have a
12:12
Speaker 1: substance in it that can kill flea larva and also
12:16
Speaker 1: adult fleas. So the more lemonade people drank, the more
12:20
Speaker 1: of these discarded lemon peels were around, the more the
12:23
Speaker 1: rats eighth lemon peels, and they ingested this chemical called
12:26
Speaker 1: lemon eine that killed the fleas and their eggs. So
12:30
Speaker 1: it wasn't that it was giving them some kind of
12:31
Speaker 1: magical immuno boost, even though it does a little bit,
12:34
Speaker 1: certainly not enough to fend off the bubonic plague. It
12:37
Speaker 1: was more that it was killing the source of the plague,
12:39
Speaker 1: which was those uh, those fleas. Yeah. And it's interesting
12:43
Speaker 1: because the idea of citrus fruit as curative in any case,
12:49
Speaker 1: it's it's a long held belief in this part of
12:52
Speaker 1: the world, even though it wasn't until what about seventeen
12:57
Speaker 1: fifty three or so when Jane Lend from the Royal
13:01
Speaker 1: Navy figured out that you could treat scurvy with citrus.
13:05
Speaker 1: The point is they were onto something. Yes, they didn't
13:08
Speaker 1: know quite what it was yet, right exactly, and so
13:11
Speaker 1: then we have things like, um, you know, fast forward
13:15
Speaker 1: a little while, we have the addition of fizziness and
13:20
Speaker 1: the in seventeen sixty seven, and then that goes all
13:25
Speaker 1: the way back to Schwepps if you remember the fizzy
13:28
Speaker 1: drink that's still around to day. Swept started in seventeen ninety.
13:34
Speaker 1: Eventually we get to what we call the era of
13:40
Speaker 1: lemonade stands. By the eighteen thirties, fizzy lemonade from Schwebbs
13:45
Speaker 1: was pretty available around Europe, and so you wouldn't see
13:49
Speaker 1: as many European lemonade stands. But if we go to
13:54
Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, we see that lemonade has made its
13:59
Speaker 1: way across as the Atlantic to what we recognize as
14:04
Speaker 1: the United States today. Yeah, throughout the eighteen hundreds, UM,
14:14
Speaker 1: we started to see more references, if a little bit
14:19
Speaker 1: few and far between, in you know, news reporting. Right.
14:22
Speaker 1: For example, the New York Times has mentioned of a
14:26
Speaker 1: lemonade stand at a quote Ladies fair that took place
14:30
Speaker 1: in October of eighteen thirty nine, pulling some of these
14:34
Speaker 1: stats and details from that Mental Floss article once again, UM,
14:39
Speaker 1: including one mentioning eighteen fifty three when a woman um
14:43
Speaker 1: supposedly was operating a lemonade stand in Cincinnati. And hey,
14:47
Speaker 1: this is also kind of like a very close connection
14:50
Speaker 1: to our episode on Mashers and Wolf whistles. Right. Um,
14:54
Speaker 1: this woman running the stand in Cincinnati really stuck it
14:58
Speaker 1: to these two men that were kind of cat calling her,
15:01
Speaker 1: and she actually tore one of their coat tails off.
15:05
Speaker 1: She's referred to them as a rowdy, which is definitely
15:08
Speaker 1: seems like a progenitor of the masher. Uh. Then we
15:11
Speaker 1: have one in eighteen seventy three Cornell University where a
15:15
Speaker 1: young student was using a lemonade stand to help pay
15:19
Speaker 1: college tuition in the student hall by setting up his
15:23
Speaker 1: own independently operated lemonade stand in the in the student hall. Yeah,
15:28
Speaker 1: and I fellow ridiculous historians, you will notice something interesting
15:32
Speaker 1: with those two examples. It's part of a larger pattern.
15:35
Speaker 1: While we associate lemonade stands largely with children today, when
15:41
Speaker 1: it when it first came into vogue in the US,
15:43
Speaker 1: it was very much an adult business, and it was
15:47
Speaker 1: it was a serious one and had the support at
15:49
Speaker 1: times of teetotalers, people who abstaining from alcohol and don't
15:53
Speaker 1: want anyone else drinking booze. And they they would say
15:57
Speaker 1: lemonade is a great alternative to a cold beer. And
16:02
Speaker 1: ever since The New York Times first referenced lemonade being
16:07
Speaker 1: sold in Wisconsin in eighteen seventy nine, we saw lemonade
16:12
Speaker 1: stands popping up like everywhere around New York City. Starbucks
16:17
Speaker 1: had nothing on them. There was cell cups of lemonade
16:20
Speaker 1: for a nickel each. And eventually, as heat waves came on,
16:27
Speaker 1: people found that these lemonade stands were starting to out
16:30
Speaker 1: sell bars and soda fountains because they had almost zero overhead.
16:37
Speaker 1: You know, they didn't have to pay property taxes, they
16:39
Speaker 1: didn't have to pay building fees or you know, upkeeper
16:42
Speaker 1: maintenance for a building, and they were able to pass
16:46
Speaker 1: those savings on as the old business saying goes to
16:49
Speaker 1: the consumer. So if you went to a store and
16:52
Speaker 1: you went to a bar or whatever, and you said, hey,
16:55
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a glass eliminade, it might be as
16:58
Speaker 1: much as fifteen cents. But if you went outside and
17:01
Speaker 1: just found somebody with a lemonade stand, uh, then they
17:04
Speaker 1: would have it for five cents. Uh No, No, what
17:07
Speaker 1: dates yet on whether or not you got to keep
17:09
Speaker 1: the cup. That probably varied place to place. Yeah, totally.
17:12
Speaker 1: I mean that's the thing that probably would come a
17:14
Speaker 1: little later in terms of like really upping it, upping
17:17
Speaker 1: their game with like a commemorative cup that you could
17:19
Speaker 1: take with you. But this whole idea of selling low
17:23
Speaker 1: overhead refreshments is certainly something as American as apple pie
17:28
Speaker 1: or lemonade um. But we have an example of this
17:33
Speaker 1: kind of disgusting history of lemonade um. If you'll recall
17:37
Speaker 1: in the pink Lemonade episode, there were a couple of
17:39
Speaker 1: competing theories as to where the pink lemonade come from
17:42
Speaker 1: came from, and one of them involved I believe it
17:45
Speaker 1: was a circus where the lemonade seller ran out of
17:50
Speaker 1: fresh water and so instead used the water that the
17:55
Speaker 1: clowns and acrobats were using to rinse their tights. Uh
17:59
Speaker 1: and be because the clowns had red tights or pants
18:03
Speaker 1: that die colored the water um pink. And then obviously
18:08
Speaker 1: the sugar and the lemons were added in, which probably
18:11
Speaker 1: cuts the uh the putrid nous of that clown pants water,
18:16
Speaker 1: but still can't imagine it tasted particularly refreshing. So we
18:20
Speaker 1: have a similar case of this. I can't quite remember
18:23
Speaker 1: what year that story took place, but this one was
18:26
Speaker 1: in the eighteen sixties in New York, when, of course
18:29
Speaker 1: immigrants were making their way to this country. Through Ellis
18:32
Speaker 1: Island on New York and people were looking to make
18:36
Speaker 1: a buck off of these weary travelers. Right. Yeah, So
18:40
Speaker 1: instead of buying you know, fresh lemons, a good quantity
18:46
Speaker 1: of sugar and then makes you know, you know, with
18:48
Speaker 1: clean potable water instead, uh, these unscrupulous folks would fill
18:55
Speaker 1: up whatever dirty container they had with water, lasses and vinegar,
19:01
Speaker 1: and then to make it appear like it was a
19:06
Speaker 1: little bit closer to lemonade, they would take sliced leftover
19:10
Speaker 1: lemon rinds and and sprinkle them across this the top.
19:13
Speaker 1: So for some this is interesting because it means that
19:16
Speaker 1: for some early immigrants to the country, the literally the
19:22
Speaker 1: first thing they tried in their new homeland would have
19:26
Speaker 1: been this terrible vinegar sugar water. But lucky, luckily, that's luckily.
19:32
Speaker 1: That's um just one bad example, and there are plenty
19:36
Speaker 1: of other very scrupulous lemonade dealers. If you if you
19:41
Speaker 1: ever sold lemonade as a kid, which you know now
19:45
Speaker 1: is kind of acute, relatively archaic thing I could I
19:47
Speaker 1: could argue you might be interested to know that you
19:50
Speaker 1: owe a lot of your inspiration to a kid named
19:56
Speaker 1: Edward bok Bokay. He is the first American child that
20:02
Speaker 1: we know of so far to have sold lemonade and uh.
20:06
Speaker 1: And he also was an immigrant. He came over from
20:11
Speaker 1: the Netherlands, right, yeah, that's right. Back in particular when
20:14
Speaker 1: when he was hanging out um near his home in Brooklyn,
20:18
Speaker 1: he would go towards Coney Island, which has changed some,
20:23
Speaker 1: but there's still some lovely charming qualities of Coney Island
20:26
Speaker 1: that are probably very much the same as they were
20:28
Speaker 1: in Box day. And he noticed that some of the wealthier,
20:31
Speaker 1: you know folks were riding around these horse drawn carriages
20:35
Speaker 1: and that the men would make the children and the
20:39
Speaker 1: women wait in the hot summer sun, you know, inside
20:42
Speaker 1: these carriages while they would go inside to get a
20:45
Speaker 1: cocktail or you know, a highball or whatever at the
20:48
Speaker 1: cigar shop. And he thought this was odd. He found
20:52
Speaker 1: this little unusual and was like, you know what'm I
20:55
Speaker 1: bet you they're thirsty. And so he looked at this
20:58
Speaker 1: as an end to make a little cash. So he
21:00
Speaker 1: got himself a pail, a bucket, not a filthy one
21:04
Speaker 1: like the folks that were targeting, you know, people like
21:07
Speaker 1: Bok at the at Ls Island at the port. And
21:09
Speaker 1: he attached three like hooks to the side and three glasses,
21:14
Speaker 1: and he would fill the bucket up. And when the
21:16
Speaker 1: horses stopped and the men went out, he would offer
21:19
Speaker 1: the women and children, uh, glasses of cold ice water,
21:24
Speaker 1: um for one cent a glass. Uh. So what are
21:28
Speaker 1: we talking here, Ben? This is in the eighteen seventies.
21:32
Speaker 1: What is a penny in eighteen seventies dollars amount to today?
21:35
Speaker 1: That should help us determine the inflation for what maybe
21:38
Speaker 1: a good price for a glass of lemonade would be today?
21:42
Speaker 1: Can I get a booph you do? Actually, until let's
21:46
Speaker 1: let's put a slight pause on fleation calculator. Uh, it
21:49
Speaker 1: will will rerework some of the metrics. That's all right
21:53
Speaker 1: with everybody. Let's we know that he made thirty cents total,
21:57
Speaker 1: right for every paler page. So, uh, he went through
22:02
Speaker 1: a lot of pails thirty cents in eighteen seventy. Now
22:07
Speaker 1: let's run it. It is worth about six dollars and
22:16
Speaker 1: sixteen cents today. That's a kind of inflation. But he's like,
22:20
Speaker 1: you know, he's he could make a pretty a pretty
22:24
Speaker 1: hefty amount of cash, especially for a kid. I know.
22:26
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of a bummer that we don't
22:28
Speaker 1: quite know how many, what size these glasses were, and
22:31
Speaker 1: what size the bucket was. That would probably help us
22:33
Speaker 1: a little bit more inflation math, But I think that
22:36
Speaker 1: gets us about where we need to be. You can
22:37
Speaker 1: imagine if he was working his butt off, he could
22:40
Speaker 1: probably go through quite a few pails in a day,
22:43
Speaker 1: right true, especially on like a Saturday when it's hot out.
22:47
Speaker 1: He you know, he had his head in the game.
22:50
Speaker 1: He's a smart kid. But he had a lot of
22:53
Speaker 1: people following his lead, and soon he was not the
22:57
Speaker 1: only water boy at the at the spot. And so
23:02
Speaker 1: as these competitors started eating into his turf and his profits,
23:06
Speaker 1: he decided he was going to do something a little different,
23:09
Speaker 1: and he began selling a version of lemonade, just squeezing
23:13
Speaker 1: lemon juice into the water, adding sugar to make it palatable.
23:17
Speaker 1: And then he would sell this for three cents of glass.
23:20
Speaker 1: Oh now we're talking so now we're talking like nineties
23:24
Speaker 1: cents for every pale yes of of this. This this
23:29
Speaker 1: delicious beverage. What do you think he got the idea? Ben?
23:31
Speaker 1: Do you think he was like getting inspiration from somewhere.
23:34
Speaker 1: Surely he wasn't aware of the ancient Egyptians or or
23:37
Speaker 1: the lemonade craze in France. A kid of his age
23:41
Speaker 1: where I wonder where he got the idea. He probably
23:43
Speaker 1: saw it around. He probably saw the other people were
23:46
Speaker 1: doing it, and they just weren't doing it at the
23:49
Speaker 1: spot that he thought would be a great place to
23:52
Speaker 1: sell it. So again, very smart kid. Also becomes a
23:56
Speaker 1: celebrity of sorts in the US at the time. He
24:00
Speaker 1: even he even gets to do a little bit of
24:05
Speaker 1: work with Ladies Home Journal, And then later there's a
24:09
Speaker 1: biography published of him in n One called the Americanization
24:14
Speaker 1: of Edward Back. That's right, and he even himself wrote
24:18
Speaker 1: a book that want to pull its surprise again. Fantastic
24:21
Speaker 1: article on mental flaws by Jake Rawson, surprisingly discussing history
24:25
Speaker 1: of lemonade. Stands highly recommend reading the whole thing. But
24:28
Speaker 1: he his this story right. It really struck a chord
24:32
Speaker 1: in the zeitgeist of the time, right, and it really
24:35
Speaker 1: became that's sort of when I think the public consciousness
24:39
Speaker 1: maybe shifted more from these you know, unscrupulous adults trying
24:45
Speaker 1: to put one over on people, or you know, they
24:47
Speaker 1: were obviously we're proper lemonadiers and all that, but it
24:50
Speaker 1: became much more of like a thing associated with youngsters
24:53
Speaker 1: that were like trying to hustle and um, you know,
24:56
Speaker 1: lift themselves up by their bootstraps. But it really did
24:58
Speaker 1: kind of inject itself into popular culture by the nineteen thirties, right, yeah, yeah,
25:04
Speaker 1: it really, it really began to be a part of
25:07
Speaker 1: the American zeitgeist. And now we we enter a part
25:11
Speaker 1: of the story that reminds me of that scene with
25:15
Speaker 1: the banker from Mary Poppins, the fathers, like penny compounding,
25:21
Speaker 1: tourists and all that stuff. Because these these lemonade stands,
25:26
Speaker 1: having one began to be seen as this sort of
25:29
Speaker 1: wholesome lesson in the power of capitalism and free enterprise.
25:35
Speaker 1: So if your kid wanted like a penny farthing I'm
25:40
Speaker 1: making up, But if your kid wanted something whatever their
25:43
Speaker 1: version of the the Elmo or the Hottest Christmas toy was,
25:47
Speaker 1: then what you would do as a parent is take
25:50
Speaker 1: that as a learning opportunity, a quote unquote teachable moment,
25:54
Speaker 1: and you would say, well, with just a little bit
25:56
Speaker 1: of investment, I may not help you buy you know,
26:00
Speaker 1: of this hoop and stick that you want, but I
26:02
Speaker 1: will help pay for some lemons and get some sugar
26:07
Speaker 1: from you know, the kitchen, and you can learn how
26:11
Speaker 1: business works. And so it's kind of a cool experience, right,
26:15
Speaker 1: It's experiential learning. If your kid you learn the importance
26:18
Speaker 1: of accounting profits and loss, and then you also learned
26:22
Speaker 1: the importance of location the whole now I think about it,
26:26
Speaker 1: you learned a ton of stuff. You also learned the
26:28
Speaker 1: importance of word of mouth, right, absolutely, And I mean
26:31
Speaker 1: you're right, Ben, All of that stuff, I think would
26:32
Speaker 1: probably also be considered sort of at the very least
26:36
Speaker 1: part of the American zeitgeist, but also kind of the
26:39
Speaker 1: impetus that led to its inclusion. And a lot of
26:41
Speaker 1: pop culture tropes, right that we know and love. One
26:45
Speaker 1: of the earliest examples would be in the Marx Brothers
26:48
Speaker 1: film Duck Soup that came out in nineteen thirty three.
26:51
Speaker 1: Um and and another great source that we used for
26:53
Speaker 1: this as an NPR piece called America's Attack on Lemonade
26:58
Speaker 1: stands by Linton Weeks. Um. And in this film Duck
27:03
Speaker 1: Soup from thirty three, you've got Harpo Marx who kind
27:06
Speaker 1: of gets into a beef. He's a peanut salesman. He's
27:10
Speaker 1: got a cart and next to him is Edgar Kennedy
27:12
Speaker 1: who is selling lemonade this lemonade stand, and uh, you know,
27:16
Speaker 1: hilarity ensues when Kennedy starts to harass Harpo. And by
27:21
Speaker 1: the way, Harpo was the Mark's brother that didn't speak um,
27:24
Speaker 1: but he would do all kinds of physical sight gags.
27:26
Speaker 1: And this one he rolls his pant legs up and
27:29
Speaker 1: sticks his bare feet into Kennedy's lemonade dispenser. This week
27:33
Speaker 1: really makes me think of the pink lemonade clown pants story. Um.
27:36
Speaker 1: But then you start getting you know again, these are adults,
27:38
Speaker 1: admittedly they're like man children. But a few years later
27:42
Speaker 1: you've got the Little Rascals Gang Our Gang um in
27:46
Speaker 1: an episode called the Lucky Corner Yep, yep. That is
27:50
Speaker 1: a short film in which the Our Gang kids, the
27:53
Speaker 1: Little Rascals set up a lemonade stand. Competition takes over.
27:59
Speaker 1: They are cutting corners, lemonade gets spewed all over the place,
28:05
Speaker 1: and uh, eventually, you know, hilarity with a heavy emphasis
28:09
Speaker 1: on physical comedy ensues. There's there are more and more
28:15
Speaker 1: and more cases of lemonade stands popping up in fiction
28:20
Speaker 1: and in art. There is a lemonade stand in a
28:23
Speaker 1: famous Norman Rockwell illustration from nineteen fifty five. Anybody remembers
28:29
Speaker 1: the Andy Griffith show, which they you know that you know?
28:33
Speaker 1: Of course, Opie had his own lemonade stand in the
28:37
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties and he was selling his lemonade. See this
28:40
Speaker 1: is where they Hollywood Ice did. He was selling his
28:43
Speaker 1: lemonade for just two cents. And this kid in New York,
28:48
Speaker 1: decades and decades of decades of decades ago, is selling
28:50
Speaker 1: it for you know, five cents. I I just I
28:53
Speaker 1: feel like they they may be glossed over the economic sense. Well,
28:59
Speaker 1: this isn't Mayberry dollars, so I think that the inflation
29:02
Speaker 1: rate is different. Yeah, Mayberry is sort of a magical
29:06
Speaker 1: place where lemonade only cost you two cents of glass. Um,
29:11
Speaker 1: can we get a lightning storm, little ominous thunder on
29:16
Speaker 1: the stories taking a turn? It is about to take
29:19
Speaker 1: a pretty dark turn. We're into the forties now, and boy,
29:30
Speaker 1: oh boy, we talked about how lemonade helped cure the plague,
29:34
Speaker 1: or helped eliminate the vermin that infestation that caused the plague,
29:39
Speaker 1: or that carried the plague. These rats that carried the
29:42
Speaker 1: flea larva that lead to more fleas that spread that
29:46
Speaker 1: horrible disease. In the forties, we have another you can
29:50
Speaker 1: call it a plague at the very least, a pandemic
29:53
Speaker 1: in the form of polio, an incredibly communicable disease that
29:59
Speaker 1: affected children um at an alarming rate. Yeah. So, as
30:05
Speaker 1: more people are creating lemonade stands, and as the sale
30:10
Speaker 1: of lemon and lemon products becomes more commercialized, more mass produced,
30:16
Speaker 1: you're gonna see some kids starting to use frozen lemon
30:20
Speaker 1: juice concentrate or lemonade concentrate, or even store bought lemonade.
30:24
Speaker 1: They're selling for a markup and then adding sweetener, bottled water.
30:28
Speaker 1: They're experimenting with other flavors, like we talked about with agave,
30:32
Speaker 1: or like we talked about with basil, blueberry, and so on,
30:34
Speaker 1: because you can flavor, you can add any number of
30:37
Speaker 1: flavors to lemonade. But in a suburb of Chicago in
30:42
Speaker 1: the summer of a young woman who was not named
30:47
Speaker 1: in this in the story apparently started selling lemonade as
30:53
Speaker 1: you would in a little makeshift stand just outside of
30:56
Speaker 1: our house, and after a period of weeks the health
31:00
Speaker 1: department of the local county came a calling because it
31:05
Speaker 1: turned out that she had been having people reuse their glasses.
31:11
Speaker 1: She had been rinsing them after after the customers returned
31:15
Speaker 1: it to her. Then that gave her polio. And that
31:19
Speaker 1: was just the beginning of the problem. Yeah, a bunch
31:22
Speaker 1: of her friends got it too. I mean, again, this
31:24
Speaker 1: is like very very contagious. You can get it from
31:28
Speaker 1: just you know, sharing a glasses somebody. And I think
31:30
Speaker 1: this pointed out too. I'm sure that others were doing this,
31:34
Speaker 1: you know. I mean the original story we have about
31:36
Speaker 1: the young boy from the Netherlands, he only had three
31:39
Speaker 1: glasses total, so I mean, and if he was selling
31:42
Speaker 1: the water, I don't think he had anything to rinse
31:44
Speaker 1: it with. So, I mean, the origins of these lemonade
31:47
Speaker 1: stands is in and of itself kind of unsanitary. So
31:51
Speaker 1: this really just pointed that out in a big way.
31:54
Speaker 1: And they're then led to this crackdown on lemonade stance
31:59
Speaker 1: UNSANC and lemonade stands unum licensed I guess selling of lemonade, right, yeah, exactly.
32:06
Speaker 1: And this so this investigation finds that four of her
32:12
Speaker 1: friends around her age should also contracted polio. And then
32:17
Speaker 1: additionally they found seven people are asymptomatic carriers, meaning they
32:22
Speaker 1: had it but they didn't show signs of having it.
32:25
Speaker 1: And this, no, this is what really let people know
32:29
Speaker 1: just how easily this virus could spread and how long
32:33
Speaker 1: you could carry it before showing any signs. Luckily, luckily,
32:38
Speaker 1: there is a character who comes into play to save
32:40
Speaker 1: the day. By nineteen fifty four, the one and only
32:43
Speaker 1: Jonas salt Is vaccine for polio was about to become
32:47
Speaker 1: widely available. Wow, that's ten years before a vaccine. We
32:52
Speaker 1: should really think our lucky stars, shouldn't we that we
32:55
Speaker 1: have a giant pharmaceutical conglomerates working on our behalf for
33:00
Speaker 1: surely no monetary gain, right right then? Yeah, no comments there.
33:05
Speaker 1: So this is this is strange because you know, the
33:10
Speaker 1: world comes together, the US comes together at least to
33:13
Speaker 1: endorsed fundraisers to cover treatment for polio. The March of
33:17
Speaker 1: Dimes begins, and now people start selling lemonade to support
33:23
Speaker 1: the fight against polio. It's very strange, very strange Bedfellows
33:27
Speaker 1: history makes Yeah, it really really is. But you know,
33:30
Speaker 1: at the same time, this is really really interesting that
33:34
Speaker 1: image endures, right, of like the entrepreneurial spirit of the
33:39
Speaker 1: United States, and like you know, the fact that this
33:41
Speaker 1: the story about Edward Buck, which surely the way it
33:45
Speaker 1: was elevated and lifted up. You know, there was some
33:48
Speaker 1: subs slightly I would say, um, propagandistic, you know, intense
33:53
Speaker 1: behind that, like ah, this young immigrant lift himself up
33:56
Speaker 1: by his bootstraps, you know, selling lemonade. And so it
33:59
Speaker 1: was absolutely like part of the identity of the United
34:03
Speaker 1: States as this like melting pop It's land of opportunity, which,
34:06
Speaker 1: as we know, oftentimes that is just an image, you know.
34:09
Speaker 1: I mean, it certainly is a land of opportunity for
34:12
Speaker 1: certain folks, but not not for everybody. Um, and a
34:15
Speaker 1: lot of times getting ahead in that way requires some
34:18
Speaker 1: aggressive tactics, more so than just being a clever lad
34:22
Speaker 1: selling lemonade on the street. Yeah, And I want to
34:25
Speaker 1: I want to give a special anti shout out to
34:28
Speaker 1: the people who are they're doing the right thing but
34:31
Speaker 1: still feel a little bit like Disney villains to me,
34:34
Speaker 1: the folks who have slapped kids with lemonade stands with
34:39
Speaker 1: fines because they need to comply with health and safety
34:43
Speaker 1: regulations or they haven't gotten a permit according to local law.
34:48
Speaker 1: In fact, right now as we record, it is illegal
34:52
Speaker 1: to have a lemonade stand without a permit in thirty
34:55
Speaker 1: six states in the nation. Yeah, this even at the
35:00
Speaker 1: protests something a lot of folks may have never heard of.
35:03
Speaker 1: Lemonade Freedom Day. Lemonade Freedom Day. And also I think
35:06
Speaker 1: everyone knows probably the most popular canned and powdered and
35:11
Speaker 1: I think even there's a version of it that comes
35:12
Speaker 1: out of a soda fountain lemonade that's available today is
35:15
Speaker 1: from the Country Time, which was probably is owned by
35:18
Speaker 1: Coca Cola. Now I'm not quite sure, but there was
35:20
Speaker 1: a time where it was probably a very folksy small
35:23
Speaker 1: company um that got in the game early. But they
35:27
Speaker 1: have in pledged sixty thou dollars in grants to help
35:33
Speaker 1: some of these kids, these oppressed kids pay these fines
35:37
Speaker 1: related to their lemonade stand. But I mean, I don't know.
35:40
Speaker 1: In the times of COVID might be a slight different
35:43
Speaker 1: direction in pr for this one. Yeah, yeah, it's true.
35:47
Speaker 1: And you know, fun fact, I just checked on air
35:50
Speaker 1: Country Time my friend is owned by Craft Foods. I
35:54
Speaker 1: didn't see that one coming, but I guess it makes sense.
35:57
Speaker 1: And before before we head out today, First, thank you
36:01
Speaker 1: for tuning into the strange history of lemonade stands. We
36:05
Speaker 1: wanted to add something special to today's show. And no,
36:08
Speaker 1: we have a special guest today, don't we as someone
36:12
Speaker 1: it's not the quister, because we're both very happy to
36:15
Speaker 1: hear from this person. We sure are. We are going
36:17
Speaker 1: to hear from an actual human child who is cringing
36:22
Speaker 1: so hard right now. Can you hear the cringe? That's
36:25
Speaker 1: the sound of her teeth literally gritting together. She's just
36:29
Speaker 1: shaking her head up and down. I can't tell if
36:30
Speaker 1: that's a yes or no. The ladies and gentlemen, Eden Brown,
36:35
Speaker 1: my child, Hello, Hi, Hi, Eden, Hi. We have to
36:39
Speaker 1: ask you a couple of quick questions. That's very important.
36:42
Speaker 1: We need the inside scoop from what the what the
36:45
Speaker 1: kids are saying these days. How do you feel about
36:48
Speaker 1: the the idea of the lemonade stand as it relates
36:50
Speaker 1: to American entrepreneurial ship. I'm scared of lemonade stands? Why
36:55
Speaker 1: because of polio? No? No, because the children are gross?
37:00
Speaker 1: Well then okay, that's good. So so it's it's less
37:04
Speaker 1: about the lemonade itself eaten and more about the purveyors
37:09
Speaker 1: of it. Huh, the kids creep you out? They probably
37:12
Speaker 1: I feel like they're like sticking their fingers in the lemonade.
37:16
Speaker 1: Why do you think that? Do you just think kids
37:18
Speaker 1: are just something you do? Well? Why do you have
37:21
Speaker 1: such a negative opinion of your fellow kids because because
37:24
Speaker 1: they're gross? Well, okay, but I need more, I need
37:28
Speaker 1: I need more. I'm I'm I am a sanitary child,
37:33
Speaker 1: unlike my fellow my fellow children. Okay, so you're a
37:36
Speaker 1: bit of a neat freak, you're a bit of a germophobe.
37:39
Speaker 1: That's understoodable. I mean, especially coming through we've been through
37:42
Speaker 1: right in the last year, literally living through a situation
37:45
Speaker 1: where you're like, hey, if you don't wash your hands,
37:47
Speaker 1: you might die. And you know what's funny eating is
37:52
Speaker 1: I've first off, I totally I totally see your point.
37:55
Speaker 1: It's funny to me is if you saw a lemonade
37:57
Speaker 1: stand where someone had had a special announcement where they said,
38:02
Speaker 1: you know, uh, Max's lemonade stad guaranteed we don't put
38:08
Speaker 1: our fingers in it. That would just make me more uncomfortable.
38:11
Speaker 1: What about you? Yeah, that that sounds I wouldn't I
38:15
Speaker 1: wouldn't trust it. Wait a minute, are you saying you
38:19
Speaker 1: don't trust advertisement? You need to you to eat, confirm,
38:23
Speaker 1: but verify. Perhaps, Yeah, most advertisements just don't like, like
38:30
Speaker 1: food advertisements. I don't know, they just they just gross
38:34
Speaker 1: me out. So how do you feel about in general,
38:37
Speaker 1: like food products. Do you feel like they're mainly safe
38:41
Speaker 1: if they say they're safe, or do you not even
38:42
Speaker 1: trust like the f d A. How far does this go? Eating?
38:45
Speaker 1: How far does this go? I mean I don't trust.
38:48
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't trust like fast food restaurants
38:53
Speaker 1: or thing things that are made by children, so exclusively
38:57
Speaker 1: distrust of children. I got yeah, okay, yeah, no, I
39:01
Speaker 1: I get it. Uh you know, for instance, I would
39:04
Speaker 1: like it's weird if it's you know, your your friends children,
39:08
Speaker 1: or if it's people that you're friends with and they say, hey,
39:11
Speaker 1: the kid made some cookies or something, then you feel
39:14
Speaker 1: kind of obligated to take it. But uh, like, I
39:17
Speaker 1: don't think anybody would drive a car or riding a
39:19
Speaker 1: car that was made by you know, a six year old? Right, yes, yes,
39:25
Speaker 1: all right, Well Dan, do you have anything to add?
39:28
Speaker 1: Um m, I said it already, But lemonade stand are
39:33
Speaker 1: scary and don't trust them due noted words from the
39:38
Speaker 1: mouths of Babes Babes the Expert as well and big
39:44
Speaker 1: big special thanks to the one and only Eden Brown,
39:48
Speaker 1: Thanks to Max Williams and Casey Pegram, and thanks of
39:53
Speaker 1: course to Jonathan Strickland, a k a. The Lemonade bandit
39:59
Speaker 1: ak quiz stir Yep, you've been replaced by a child.
40:02
Speaker 1: Let's start giving him nicknames and never explain them to him,
40:05
Speaker 1: because do you think he listens to the episodes? I
40:07
Speaker 1: don't know he's in. He's in the group sometimes the
40:09
Speaker 1: Facebook group the Ridiculous Historians, which we often forget to
40:13
Speaker 1: mention to people. By the way, Ben, I want to
40:16
Speaker 1: point out that this this email address that we supposedly
40:19
Speaker 1: have what is it again? It should be ridiculous at
40:22
Speaker 1: I Heart Media, But we've been getting mixed reports about
40:24
Speaker 1: we've been getting mixed I got a mixed report today
40:26
Speaker 1: from a lovely listener that reached out on Instagram and
40:29
Speaker 1: said they had a bounce back, but it looked like
40:30
Speaker 1: they were sending it to iHeart Radio. So make sure
40:33
Speaker 1: you send those to Ridiculous at I heart media dot com.
40:37
Speaker 1: And if you still having problems let us know. But
40:40
Speaker 1: you can also reach us elsewhere on the internet, can't you. Yes,
40:44
Speaker 1: absolutely you can find us, as we said on our
40:46
Speaker 1: Facebook page, Ridiculous Historians. You can also give us a
40:51
Speaker 1: shout odd Instagram. As always, we can't wait to hear
40:55
Speaker 1: from you, and stay tuned for our next episode UH,
41:00
Speaker 1: which we are tentatively titling The Underground Duke. See Nice
41:04
Speaker 1: Time Fox. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
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