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Oof! A Lot of Baby Gear was Absolutely Ridiculous · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome back to the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you,
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  Speaker 2: as always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it
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  Speaker 2: for the shiny, beautiful baby boy of our podcast. Super
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  Speaker 2: producer mister Max Williams.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna be able to bounce back from that one.
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  Speaker 3: I can't give you a retort. I'm just baby, you
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  Speaker 3: should be able to bounce back.
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  Speaker 2: He's just blushing.
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  Speaker 3: He's blushing. I think it's cherubic downright. Cherubic is the word.
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  Speaker 2: That's old brown. I'm Ben Bullen. We are super excited, folks,
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  Speaker 2: uh to talk about a category of invention that's going
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  Speaker 2: to be familiar to a lot of our ridiculous historians
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  Speaker 2: in the crowd. Congratulations to all the new parents tuning in.
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  Speaker 2: Hope you get some sleep here and there. We understand
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  Speaker 2: that's a struggle. But Noel, when when you were a
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  Speaker 2: new parent with your child, you and your partner doubtlessly
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  Speaker 2: had to do this whole rigmarole about getting advice on
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  Speaker 2: raising a baby. Probably had to keep buying clothing or
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  Speaker 2: getting hand me downs as the kid just kept kept growing.
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  Speaker 2: Did you go to baby showers. Did you all have
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  Speaker 2: a baby shower?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, we did, and I've been to maybe one.
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  Speaker 4: But i'll tell you, Ben, I say this not in
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  Speaker 4: any kind of like derogatory way, but that time in
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  Speaker 4: my life was so stressful that I have largely like
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  Speaker 4: men in black behind, erased it from my But one
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  Speaker 4: thing I do remember, Ben distinctly, is the snot sucker.
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  Speaker 2: Ah.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, Edge, I didn't know it was branded.
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  Speaker 4: But as our wonderful research associate Wren pointed out, she
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  Speaker 4: recently discovered some of these things in attending a baby
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  Speaker 4: shower for her sister who recently had a little one,
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  Speaker 4: and mentioned this idea of nasal congestion for the tykes. Well,
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  Speaker 4: the answer to that is the snot sucker, and she
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  Speaker 4: spelled it out the capital snot capital sucker capital s
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  Speaker 4: connected right up to snot. And I just always thought
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  Speaker 4: that was a pro pejorative. But it is in fact
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  Speaker 4: a rubber bulb that you stick into the baby's nose
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  Speaker 4: and you squeeze it and it sucks the snot right
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  Speaker 4: out of it.
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  Speaker 3: She describes it as a slurpy straw for snot. Not
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  Speaker 3: quite how I remember it. Yeah, some of them look
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  Speaker 3: like bulbs.
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  Speaker 2: They look like the top of a turkey baster.
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  Speaker 3: That's the one that I had.
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  Speaker 4: Maybe things have come a long way since my time
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  Speaker 4: as a new parent. But she also mentions if your
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  Speaker 4: baby is sassy and gassy, there's something for that too.
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  Speaker 4: She should have been in baby product advertising. Colic is
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  Speaker 4: no match for Windy the gas passer with an eye,
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  Speaker 4: which may sound like a character from amany python film,
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  Speaker 4: specifically fully Grail, but it is actually a sort of
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  Speaker 4: an alien looking fart hose that's packaged up to look cutesy.
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  Speaker 3: It's pretty gross.
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  Speaker 4: And yet, you know, a comfort to new parents because
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  Speaker 4: manacious exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it shows us the parents will do
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  Speaker 2: anything to ensure that their newest addition to the family
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  Speaker 2: is safe, healthy, is comfortable. And you know, there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of well
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  Speaker 2: intentioned I'll say it, well intentioned hogwashed and it can
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  Speaker 2: be challenging when you're a parent. You're already, especially in
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  Speaker 2: the United States, you're already paying a lot of money
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  Speaker 2: for various unexpected expenses. So it can be stressful, as
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  Speaker 2: we said, to have a bunch of people coming out
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  Speaker 2: of the woodwork and saying, I know this thing is
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  Speaker 2: fifty to one hundred and fifty or more dollars, but
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  Speaker 2: you absolutely must have.
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  Speaker 3: It for sure.
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  Speaker 4: And I mean marketers know that they have parents kind
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  Speaker 4: of by the jimmies. As you say, Ben, they are
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  Speaker 4: in fact a captive audience in terms of like, they
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  Speaker 4: gotta have some of this stuff, whether it's their version
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  Speaker 4: or another version, things like car seats. We're going to
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  Speaker 4: get into the history of that. But it occuraged to
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  Speaker 4: Ren in going to her sister's baby shower and seeing
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  Speaker 4: all of these new fangled products targeted parents who want
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  Speaker 4: nothing but to do right by their new babies, that
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  Speaker 4: this likely has been the case since the dawn of time.
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  Speaker 3: However, parents of yesteryear.
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  Speaker 4: Relied on a lot of anecdotal advice from generations past
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  Speaker 4: than science to care for their little ones, which resulted
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  Speaker 4: in some admittedly creative, possibly ridiculous remedies for you know,
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  Speaker 4: taking care of little ones.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and Wren, we can't thank you enough for
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  Speaker 2: this perspective and this excellent research, and we want to
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  Speaker 2: represent you accurately to our fellow ridiculous historians. You like
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  Speaker 2: some of us in the crowd. Tonight did end up
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  Speaker 2: on the receiving end of some of these inventions, particularly
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  Speaker 2: those human leashes that attached to a child's back. And
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  Speaker 2: this is the beginning of the ridiculous history of baby gear.
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  Speaker 2: We got to get to one real quick. No, this
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  Speaker 2: reminds me of an episode I did years ago for
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  Speaker 2: my very first official podcast, kar Stuff. Not the most
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  Speaker 2: creative name, but it was a fun show. We hope
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  Speaker 2: you tune in. No'll produced a lot of it. We
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  Speaker 2: all know about car seats for babies. Now they're necessity.
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  Speaker 2: There are tons of variations or brands out there, But
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  Speaker 2: during the early nineteen hundreds, before automobiles were ubiquitous, the
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  Speaker 2: car itself was a luxury item for the rich, the
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  Speaker 2: decayed aristocracy, you know, the one percenters of the Gilded Age.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't until the Model T came out that the
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  Speaker 2: automobile became increasingly mass produced and democratized.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and in doing so, I mean, we know that
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  Speaker 4: safety was not exactly the prime selling point for some
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  Speaker 4: of these early automobiles, and in order to make it
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  Speaker 4: safer for children, they needed a little bit of modification.
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  Speaker 4: So nineteen thirties did, of course bring it a little
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  Speaker 4: bit of a hiccup known as the Great Depression to
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  Speaker 4: your point, but nothing great about it, which means that
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  Speaker 4: a lot of the less fortunate folks in the United
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  Speaker 4: States were more concerned with feeding their families than getting
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  Speaker 4: the latest car. However, after World War Two, much like
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  Speaker 4: the soft served craze that we talked about in the
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  Speaker 4: last episode, the country was rescued from economic peril and
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  Speaker 4: it gave folks some new options once they settled back
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  Speaker 4: in after returning from the war. Families, mothers, fathers needed
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  Speaker 4: larger vehicles to transport themselves and of course they're growing
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  Speaker 4: heard of children and their groceries, of course, to and
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  Speaker 4: from their home.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, because grocery stores were also modernizing at this point, folks,
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  Speaker 2: the days of the counter service are falling, falling into obscurity.
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  Speaker 2: And now we've got the supermarket, which is entirely designed
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  Speaker 2: to make it easier and more tempting to buy more
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  Speaker 2: and more stuff. So you need room in your car.
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  Speaker 3: Well.
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  Speaker 4: And like we said, Ben, while safety wasn't exactly top
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  Speaker 4: of mind for the design of the first model TS,
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  Speaker 4: neither was its top of mind with the design of
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  Speaker 4: the first car seats that were invented during the nineteen
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  Speaker 4: thirties by.
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  Speaker 3: The Bunny Bear Company. What is he man? Is he
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  Speaker 3: a bunny or is he a bear? He needs to
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  Speaker 3: make up his mind.
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  Speaker 4: It looked like something you might see in a sanatorium,
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  Speaker 4: some sort of torture device. It was designed, however, for
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  Speaker 4: the fun of the tyke, not for safety. It was
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  Speaker 4: made from wood and fabric, and it was designed to
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  Speaker 4: quote elevate children so they could see their surroundings during
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  Speaker 4: car rides.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it also did something that we see time
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  Speaker 2: and time again in children's toys. It allows you, the
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  Speaker 2: tyke or the brood of the family, to emulate the
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  Speaker 2: activities of adults, of your parents, of other grown people
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  Speaker 2: you've encountered. That's why children's kitchen toys are so ubiquitous
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  Speaker 2: even now. That's why this car seat would include stuff
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  Speaker 2: like a dummy steering wheel and maybe some you know,
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  Speaker 2: pretend buttons you could push. It does look like the
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  Speaker 2: first model, which came out in nineteen thirty three from
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  Speaker 2: Buddy Bear. It looks like one of those bring your
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  Speaker 2: own lawn chairs that you would have at a concert
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  Speaker 2: or a picnic.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, but from hell right right.
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  Speaker 2: But it's canvas. It's got several straps to keep the
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  Speaker 2: tike in and it has an elongated rack at the
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  Speaker 2: bottom ending with a wooden bar that is probably too
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  Speaker 2: far for the average kid's feet to reach. I hope
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  Speaker 2: based on this image that Wren gave us, but it
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  Speaker 2: I think it most likely was meant to securate it grace.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, but it also seems like in the
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  Speaker 4: event of a crash, it would just be I don't know.
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  Speaker 4: Rend pointed this out actually in the name of the
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  Speaker 4: section car Seats aka the Artist formerly known as Little
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  Speaker 4: Baby death Trap. And this big old hunk of chunk
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  Speaker 4: of wood would likely become a deadly projectile in.
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  Speaker 2: The car, just like those steering wheels that were so
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  Speaker 2: popular in the forties and fifties that had the torpedo
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  Speaker 2: design pointing at the drivers.
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  Speaker 3: Oh did yeah? Final destination? Anybody come on?
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  Speaker 2: And in the nineteen forties a bunch of French guys
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  Speaker 2: agreed with me and Noel here a company called ben
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  Speaker 2: Hall fol decided that the current baby car seat models
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  Speaker 2: that they were seeing were probably uncomfortable for kiddos. There
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  Speaker 2: were also a pain in the keyster to install. They
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  Speaker 2: made a new kind of baby car seat. It hooks
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  Speaker 2: over the front passenger seat, the shotgun seat. Yep, babies
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  Speaker 2: are still sitting in the front at this period of time,
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  Speaker 2: and then you had a single strap across the waist.
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  Speaker 2: Now this is totally in opposition to modern safety standards
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  Speaker 2: because as we know, you're not supposed to put a
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  Speaker 2: baby car seat in the front of the car because
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  Speaker 2: airbags could really harm a child. But people liked being
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  Speaker 2: able to see their kid next to them again, riding
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  Speaker 2: shotgun as they.
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  Speaker 4: Drive, and they like where like a little baby Maggie's
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  Speaker 4: got their own little hack Hawk with marsh.
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  Speaker 2: It pops out. Yeah, and they also loved how easy
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  Speaker 2: it was to install this. But if you look at
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  Speaker 2: a picture of this French baby seat, what you'll see
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  Speaker 2: is that the kid is strapped in at the top
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  Speaker 2: of the seat, but the seat go down far enough
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  Speaker 2: to put them on the actual car seat. They're just
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  Speaker 2: hanging out, kind of like an extreme mountaineer who straps
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  Speaker 2: themselves to the side of a rock face to sleep.
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  Speaker 4: Yes, definitely, and it's equally treacherous just so, and we
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  Speaker 4: know if we fast forward again, every company is aware
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  Speaker 4: there's a huge market for this.
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  Speaker 2: Parents will do anything they can for their children, so
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  Speaker 2: car seat technology continues to innovate. Go to nineteen sixty two,
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  Speaker 2: we see the Jena car seat. I am doing the
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  Speaker 2: forest gumbaccent, but it is spelled jee inay.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's the only way to say it.
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  Speaker 4: Ben Frankly, this one would be the first model on
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  Speaker 4: the market designed for backseat use, and it did have
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  Speaker 4: safety in mind, so good on them. Moving on, we're
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  Speaker 4: going to get into to the idea of you know, bassinets, cradles.
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  Speaker 4: They don't really call them cradles as much anymore, play pins.
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  Speaker 4: All of that is another category of baby gear, maybe
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  Speaker 4: exactly like a crate for your baby. The first automatic cradles,
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  Speaker 4: however colloquial all know as rockers, were created and patented
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  Speaker 4: by a master mechanic and the serial tinkerer named John
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  Speaker 4: Boulcolt in eighteen ninety seven. He used a clockwork mechanism
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  Speaker 4: to automatically kind of swing the basinet to help lull
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  Speaker 4: the baby to sleep. It was born out of a
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  Speaker 4: request from his wife, who, being exhausted as a new mother,
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  Speaker 4: dreamt of a machine that could rock her baby to
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  Speaker 4: sleep so that she could focus on her household chores.
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  Speaker 3: I you know, I think really according to Bulkan, Yes, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: According to the official story. But I'm with Ready here.
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  Speaker 2: I think it was probably more realistically. Boo called spouse saying,
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  Speaker 2: why do I have to stay up and rock the
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  Speaker 2: kid to sleep? Like, when is it your turn?
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  Speaker 3: Dude? And so he's busy tinkering, right, He's like.
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  Speaker 2: I'm a serial tinkerer. He got to work and he
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  Speaker 2: was literally investigating this in his garage over in Stevens Point, Wisconsin.
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  Speaker 2: And this research he was doing while he was not
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  Speaker 2: rocking the baby, by the way, led him to patent
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  Speaker 2: the first automated cradle. You can see pictures of this online.
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  Speaker 2: You would not have considered it automatic by twenty twenty
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  Speaker 2: six standards because you had to if your parent, you
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  Speaker 2: have to hand crank the cradle to start the rocking motion.
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  Speaker 2: You're powering up a spring and then the spring slowly,
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  Speaker 2: you know, expands over time, creating that rocking sensation. Still
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  Speaker 2: is way better than having to sit there for hours.
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  Speaker 2: Just back for sure.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And like a lot of these types of things.
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  Speaker 4: His original company name was Mega Dry if descriptive. It
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  Speaker 4: was the automatic cradle manufacturing company. It did see some
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  Speaker 4: pretty early success, and so you figured that was a
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  Speaker 4: good que two rebrand. There's something a little more pleasant
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  Speaker 4: the Lullaby Furniture Corporation.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So, by nineteen thirty, the company sold three additional products.
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  Speaker 4: They had bassinets, a three and one high share slash rocker,
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  Speaker 4: and a go kart for children that seems super safe,
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  Speaker 4: as well as something called the Flivver Flyver.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, let's call it the fliver because of the CVS,
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  Speaker 2: or we could call it the Fliur if we want
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: to shut out as the shitch. To be clear, that
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  Speaker 2: go kart folks is not the go kart you're thinking
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  Speaker 2: of from Andretti's or something like that. It's it's just
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  Speaker 2: something they could sit in.
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  Speaker 3: That has wheels.
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  Speaker 4: Got it so more like a power wheel minus the
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  Speaker 4: power Yeah, yeah, just so.
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  Speaker 2: And by the end of nineteen thirty, the Lullaby Furniture
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  Speaker 2: Corporation is just mad cap with success. They're gross assets
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  Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty are two hundred and seventeen thousand, two
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: hundred and twelve dollars and fourteen cents, which means it's
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: time for our inflation calculator.
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  Speaker 3: Oh can we beep? Can we boop?
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: We must we mustop with deep there.
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  Speaker 2: We are, so a little bit north of two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and seventy thousand dollars in nineteen thirty thanks to inflation,
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  Speaker 2: is now in twenty twenty six four million, two hundred
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  Speaker 2: and forty two one hundred thousand, ten dollars and sixty
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  Speaker 2: three cents.
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  Speaker 3: Nice one. Heck, yeah it is right.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, still modest by today's standards, but they're on
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  Speaker 4: the way up. As his success grew, bull Colt had
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  Speaker 4: his share of competitors, of course, entering the market, including
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: an inventor named Luther P. Jones who came up with
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  Speaker 4: this spended baby hammock situation which could self rock for
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: up to two hours after being wound. Sorry, I got
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: to jumped the gun on this one. This was the
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  Speaker 4: clock mechanism. So like a wristwatch that you wind and
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  Speaker 4: it has power reserve, you wind this up and then
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  Speaker 4: it will it will essentially rock itself for up to
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  Speaker 4: two hours with that stored energy. So, judging from the
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  Speaker 4: illustrations that we have here, that ren provided it was
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: pretty high up and the mechanism on top, you probably
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: would have had to have like some kind of step
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: ladder at the very least, if not a full a
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: frame ladder to get to Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And also this is clearly for people who are a
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: little bit more well to do big time. This thing
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: is do you know what I mean? Like there you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: can see the design clearly. It is definitely going to
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: dominate whatever room you put it in, just on an
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: interior decoration rate. So you probably need to afford your
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: own specific room in your domicile for this. And then
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  Speaker 2: you know at some point you'd have to have somebody
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: service the machine, right.
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  Speaker 4: Oh, clearly it's that level of machine and the ad
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  Speaker 4: illustration it says at the bottom, don't waste time rocking
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: yo baby's cradle. Let theimoto rock it for you. And
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  Speaker 4: when baby wakes he can watch the wheels go round.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we know that bullcult soldiered on despite this
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: emerging competition. In nineteen thirty six, this guy buys an
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: island expressly for the purposes of logging hardwood. A few
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: years later, as to historians, you will remember, World War
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Two began because Germany invaded Poland, which meant that the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: Lullaby Corporation, like so many other Allied businesses, shifted to
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: the war effort, and so instead of building baby cradles,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: now or flivvers. They ended up providing Allied countries the
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: raw materials that would later be used to build mosquito
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: bomber airplanes.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, and they were nicknamed wooden wonders. These airplanes, which
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: I hadn't heard of before the to Havel the land
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: d H ninety eight mosquito bomber airplanes, to be precise,
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  Speaker 4: could reach a top speed of four hundred miles per
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  Speaker 4: hour while carrying around four thousand pounds worth of explosives.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely, yet, is this is gonna sound kind of crazy
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  Speaker 2: when we're saying that these are, you know, wooden planes,
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  Speaker 2: But that's that's where the technology was at the time.
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  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: We know a lot about what is it, the HH
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: Huntley or the HS Hunting. The wooden submarines was also
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: a thing.
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, wood is a great way to start
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: building something. It's also real flammable. It's also really it's
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: not perfect, but it's a great way to start ed
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: for sure. So yeah, over time, the wars come and go.
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  Speaker 2: The Lullaby Company has several name changes, ownership back and forth.
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  Speaker 2: Eventually Lullaby ends their business, but they don't do that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: until nineteen ninety five. So good on you, lullaby. I
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: think we've got time for one more we really wanted
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: to talk about. This is crazy, Nola Max. This reminds
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: me of an infamous viral photo from years and years
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: ago where the controversial legendary musician Michael Jackson held his
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: baby out a lot out of a wimbo style, Simba style,
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: lion king style to a bunch of reporters. And I
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: think he wanted it to be a wholesome moment. Look
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: at my child, look at what I had wrought. But
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: the reporters and the paparazzi immediately said, what the heck
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: are you doing? Hold it a child out the window?
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Well, bet he clearly wanted it to get fresh air
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: required to renew and purify the baby's blood, because those
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: who sleep out of doors are stronger children. Man, he
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: must have been reading.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: He must have been reading Luther Emmett Holtz eighteen ninety
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: four book The Care and Feeding of Children, which made
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: these very claims. That is delightful. That name alone is
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: worth the price of admission. That is talking about them
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: like their marmots or something.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: And doctor Holt is a qualified pediatrician.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Tay, I really loved kids, the care and feeding your children.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also a it's still a practice in parts
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: of northern Europe to bundle a baby up and leave
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: them outdoors in the cold.
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: Sure, so they will die of exposure because they were
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: born the wrong sex or something. For their Viking tribe,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: that's crazy.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: It's to renew and purify the blood, just like dogholes.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: I see, if you sleep outdoors, you're a stronger child.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: It does occur to me, Ben, and it probably occurred
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: to the inventor Ernest J. Henry Pattent did the first
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: window crib in nineteen nineteen. That not only was this
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: maybe something that parents might glom onto because of the
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Holt Book, but parents living in small apartments or tenement
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: buildings in New York City for example, or Chicago places
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: like that, you know, they might not have had much room,
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: so they take advantage of having like a little cage
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: that hangs out the window exactly. Because again these are practical.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these are not the super well to do people
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: who can dedicate an entire room in a nursery. Often
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: they can't dedicate an entire room to individual bedroom for
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: their older kids. So a lot of these folks during
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: the second wave of the Industrial Revolution, leave their homes
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: in rural areas of the country to seek a job
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: opportunity in the big city. And this is compounded by
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: a lot of immigration at the time, mostly from Europe
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: at this point in US history, and those folks automatically
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: go to cities because typically they're going to have a
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: community that pre exists of people who are from their
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: home country. This means that real estate goes through the roof.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: If you live in a major city at this time,
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: like your Chicago's or your New York's, you were probably
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: living in an apartment. You are probably, as you said,
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: no super super squeezed for any kind of space. You're
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: living in a tenement, right, you might share a bathroom
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: with an entire floor of people. I gotta say it.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: The photo that Red has attached here of an actual
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: window crib. It looks like chicken wire. But the baby
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: looks happy, confused. The baby doesn't look angry.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: I don't think it looks angry. It doesn't look looks
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: a little bewildered in the mall. It's actually kind of
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: a creepy photo, Ben, because the mother's facing away and
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: the way the lighting is it almost looks like she
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: has no face or something like. It's a little bit
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: of a It looks like an art piece, like a
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: disturbing dystopian art piece, because I keep saying the cage,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: because that's what it looks like. It is essentially a
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: cage like enclosure hanging out the window god knows how
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: many stories up. And they looked at this as not
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: only a way of saving space, but potentially in the
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: cities of a way of providing their children with fresh air. However,
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: during the Industrial Revolution and the Second Wave, the air
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: weren't so fresh, right. Yeah, we have to remember the
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: EPA wouldn't be established the Environmental Protection Agency until nineteen seventy,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: and we don't know how long it's going to be
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: able to stick around the modern day. So a lot
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: of these folks, and these are all very well ent parents,
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: a lot of these folks in the city. They want
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: fresh air for their kiddos, but they are not aware
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: of the invisible dangers in polluted city air. We're talking
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: about toxic byproducts made by the smelting of metal, chromium, arsenic, benzene, lead,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: all the nasty stuff in a terrible cocktail. And when
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: they were purchasing these window cribs, which were relatively affordable
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: by design, they were actually putting their kids, especially like
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: the higher you get as well, they were putting their
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: kids in the front lines in the atmospheric trenches of
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: stuff that history and health studies have conclusively proven is very,
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: very bad for humans for sure. So it is in
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: fact they wonder that any of our grandparents survived long
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: enough to have our parents and allow us to you know,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: enjoy our own resh air.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is wild.
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: A lot of these inventions, as Bren points out, could
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: be categorized as dumb, bad, and even deadly. And there
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: are of course plenty more where that came from. We're
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: going to talk about just a few more here at
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: the end and then save some for a future Tangents
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: and Trivia episode.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So the window caage, just so you know, folks,
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: mounted just like a window based air conditioning unit, still
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: very common in cities across the planet, so that's kind
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: of its legacy. We talked about how our buddy Johnny B.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: Buckolt was an inventor or what you called a serial tinker.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: Ren.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about one of the other things he invented.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: He made an automatic cow milker, which is very unpleasant
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: for the cows. I imagine it latches onto the cows
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: utters and it uses a lot of them. The spring
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: mechanisms that he pioneered for the automatic cradle, you squeeze
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: the utter and get the milk out. He called it
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: the Western milky machine. It was super unpopular with cows
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: at being diplomatic.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: For sure, and that didn't really take off because farmers
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: didn't want to freak their cows out lest they kicked
• 27:15
  Speaker 4: the farmers in the teeth. That pollution, though, Ben, we
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: were talking about in American cities was so bad from
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: the late eighteen hundreds through nineteen twenties that carbon emissions
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: actually coated birds in soot, changing the colors of their feathers.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: And to this day, scientists observe birds to gauge the
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: severity of pollution and other environmental factors that could negatively
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: impact human health. Ben, we've talked about this on stuff
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: that I want you to know. Another way scientists to
• 27:44
  Speaker 4: use animals to test for environmental contaminants is at nuclear
• 27:51
  Speaker 4: super fun sites like at Savannah River site near where
• 27:55
  Speaker 4: we live here in Atlanta, Georgia, where Legacy nuclear waste
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: from the creation of nuclear warheads was stored and disposed of,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: contaminating the groundwater and buried in these open pits, and
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: so scientists there as part of I believe the Army
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Corps of Engineers test wildlife on a regular basis with
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: Geiger counters. They tag them and then find them and
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: then test them to make sure that the decontamination processes
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: are going well.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And further, folks, here's another look. This is my favorite
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: example of how crazy the pollution was during the Industrial Revolution.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: If you go over to England, you see that the
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: soot was so widespread it actually caused the population of
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: peppered moths to shift their colors. As a species, they
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: used to be pale and speckled, and because the air
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: in their natural environment got so dark and sooty, they
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: began to become dark black. For so it actually changed
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: the color of some animals. This is nuts, And you
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: also shouted out stuff they don't want you to know.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: This is a great thing for anybody who's interested in
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: some of the darker sides of pollution. In a previous
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: episode on Her sister show, we talk about the idea
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: of lead creating serial killers. So check out a book
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: called Murderland published twenty twenty five, wherein the author Caroline
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: Fraser talks about the pollution related to smelting and how
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: it could have been the cause of the Pacific Northwest
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: serial killer explosion during the nineteen seventies.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: We talked about this stuff that I want you to
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: know very recently. Yeah, and do.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Check out that episode, folks. We know it's a little
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: bit of a dark turn for a show about baby gear,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: but we hope you enjoyed it well.
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: But Ben, this also kind of ties into the notion
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: that pollution from smelting could have led to the downfall
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: of the Roman Empire because of you know, environmental contaminants
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: that led to cognitive decline.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, good call.
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: And also check out our earlier Ridiculous History episode on
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: the fall of the Roman Empire as well as the
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: fall of the Ottoman Empire. And while you're on the internet,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: why not give us a nice little rating on your
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: podcast platform of choice and stay tuned for our upcoming episodes.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Absolutely please do.
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: You can find us on Apple Podcasts, where the reviews
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: really go a long way to helping people discover the show.
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: We're also on Spotify and anywhere else you get your podcast. Ben,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: this was a fun one, man, a little on the
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: shorter side, but absolutely delightful.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, big, big thanks to our super producer Max the
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: Bouncing baby Boy Williams Bouncing Bleshing baby Boy Williams. Big
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track, as well
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: as Doctor Rachel Big Spinach Lance and aj Bahamas Jacobs.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: Thanks again to Wren for doing the research on this episode.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Will look forward to hearing more from her in the
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: not too distant.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: Future as well.
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: Christopher Hasiotis and Eaves Jeffco Thanks to them here in spirit,
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: and Ben, thanks to you man.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: This was a fun one and.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: A hearty goo goo gaga to all our young ridiculous
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: historians tuning in.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.