Latest / Ridiculous History / Kate Warne, the Pinkerton Detective Who Saved Abe Lincoln, Part 1: The Origin Story

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Kate Warne, the Pinkerton Detective Who Saved Abe Lincoln, Part 1: The Origin Story · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
0:27
Speaker 1: welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Uh, the quarantine continues, but
0:36
Speaker 1: so does this little show we call Ridiculous History. Hi.
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm Ben. Hi, I'm no Ben. How's your core? Oh man,
0:43
Speaker 1: my my my core at the core? Yes, my core
0:47
Speaker 1: at the core is pretty great right now, I'm having
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm having a cool time. I'm actually maybe taking it
0:53
Speaker 1: off the grid road trip next week. Um, so I'll
0:57
Speaker 1: update on that. How about you that core approved? Are
0:59
Speaker 1: you doing it within your pod? Is that? Is that
1:01
Speaker 1: just like you're kind of moving your core pod mobile
1:03
Speaker 1: and then you're still gonna social distance from within your
1:06
Speaker 1: your your mobile pod. Sorry, I'm using all these terms.
1:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll make it out of the car. Actually,
1:13
Speaker 1: I just love road trips. You guys, know you and
1:16
Speaker 1: super producer Casey pegram Uh know that I have that
1:21
Speaker 1: US map with concentric circles around how long it takes
1:25
Speaker 1: to drive somewhere and back. So this is weird, But
1:28
Speaker 1: I might just drive to the ocean and then turn around.
1:31
Speaker 1: Just admire the view from in the car as soon
1:32
Speaker 1: as you hit the ocean. Don't keep going no, no,
1:35
Speaker 1: don't look Okay, yeah that was so what about you?
1:39
Speaker 1: What about you? Uh? It's good. I just as I
1:42
Speaker 1: may have mentioned on the show before, I just moved
1:44
Speaker 1: and I just got my first couch in the mail, which,
1:48
Speaker 1: like it comes in two boxes. So when I get
1:50
Speaker 1: done with this, I get to put together a couch,
1:52
Speaker 1: and super producer Paul Decan Mission Control on our previous
1:56
Speaker 1: recording session for Stuff that Don't Want you to Know,
1:58
Speaker 1: told me I likely will only have to screw on
2:00
Speaker 1: the legs. So I'm looking forward to a simple, uh
2:05
Speaker 1: furniture assembly followed by lounging on my new couch, which
2:08
Speaker 1: will make my home complete. The Life of Riley a
2:11
Speaker 1: phrase I don't know the etymology of, but you should
2:14
Speaker 1: do an episode about it. Etymology for the people. What's
2:17
Speaker 1: the different we have? Idiomatic for the people, we should
2:20
Speaker 1: do an offshoot called etymology for the people who are
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Speaker 1: not here to talk about etymology or idioms. We're here
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Speaker 1: to talk about badass women. That's right. That's right, Noel.
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Speaker 1: We are going to explore the life of one of
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Speaker 1: the coolest, most badass people that you and I have
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Speaker 1: learned about recently. Her name is Kate Warren. She is
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Speaker 1: a female Pinkerton detective. When our story takes place today. However,
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Speaker 1: Noel Casey, ridiculous historians. We are not delving into this
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Speaker 1: story alone. We have some help. We have someone classing
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Speaker 1: up our show today. We have with us one of
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Speaker 1: our friends and pure podcasters, Joe Piazza, best selling author,
3:04
Speaker 1: award winning journalists, the host of Committed, as well as
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Speaker 1: the host of Fierce, a podcast that is all about
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Speaker 1: amazing badass women throughout history. Joe, thank you so much
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Speaker 1: for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me.
3:19
Speaker 1: But I've got to say, I guess I have to
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Speaker 1: leave now because I thought I was coming for an
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Speaker 1: episode on idioms and etymology, So oh next time. No, No, Well,
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Speaker 1: these are ongoing series. You are always this is We
3:28
Speaker 1: have an open door policy, kind of like comedy Bang
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Speaker 1: bang um, so you are always welcome to join us
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Speaker 1: talk about idioms and etymology. And that's not to say
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Speaker 1: that those things won't come up in today's conversation. But yeah,
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Speaker 1: I said badass women, not badass woman. We'll get to
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Speaker 1: the woman of today's episode, but tell us a little
3:43
Speaker 1: bit about Fierce. There's the eight part series that you're
3:46
Speaker 1: doing in connection with the Tribeca Film Festival, and I've
3:49
Speaker 1: been hearing about it for a while now and it's
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Speaker 1: so excited to see it coming out in the world. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's great. We finally just released the eighth episode, and
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Speaker 1: like you said, it is in conjunction with the tribe
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Speaker 1: Eca Film Festival. It's actually the Tribeca Film Festival's first
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Speaker 1: big produced narrative podcast. And we spent more than a
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Speaker 1: year doing eight episodes about badass women that history has forgotten,
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Speaker 1: women that have not made it in your history books,
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Speaker 1: probably because a lot of men wrote a lot of history.
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Speaker 1: And they're all just they're they're really incredible, each one.
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Speaker 1: Working with Tribeca, you know, they made it a mini documentary,
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Speaker 1: so each one feels so rich and such such incredible
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Speaker 1: storytelling has gone into it that we just we love
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Speaker 1: all of these episodes so much and we want to
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Speaker 1: we want we want to take a page from your book, Joe,
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Speaker 1: and we've asked you on the show today with us
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Speaker 1: to help us explore the life of Kate Warren. Now,
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Speaker 1: you know our earlier conversations off air as we were
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Speaker 1: gearing up towards today's episode, we're kicking around a couple
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Speaker 1: of ideas of a person that we wanted to learn
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Speaker 1: more about, and you already knew. I think we were talking.
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Speaker 1: One of the first things you said is we were saying, so,
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Speaker 1: have you have you heard of Kate Warden? You were like, yes, yes,
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Speaker 1: I have, Yes. And there's also and we had such
5:08
Speaker 1: good phone conversations when we're gearing up for this episode,
5:11
Speaker 1: because there's just no there's no shortage of great women
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Speaker 1: that history has forgotten. But I'm I've been so obsessed
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Speaker 1: with Kate Warren. I think that her story ken and
5:21
Speaker 1: should be a television series, a movie. I mean, it
5:25
Speaker 1: is just it is ready made for the screen. And
5:28
Speaker 1: so maybe you know, from our lips to Hollywood's ears,
5:32
Speaker 1: someone will finally give her her cinematic do I really
5:35
Speaker 1: hope so? And you're right. It does have all of
5:37
Speaker 1: the kind of twists and turns of a really great film.
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Speaker 1: But it starts in uh, well it well, actually it starts,
5:44
Speaker 1: you know, when Kate Warren was born, But really the
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Speaker 1: story begins in eighteen fifty six when um she walks
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Speaker 1: into the detective office of Alan Pinkerton. At the time,
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Speaker 1: it was just kind of like a one off, Like
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Speaker 1: we know, the Pinkerton Detective Agency became a thing worthy
5:59
Speaker 1: episode odes and episodes unto itself and with some really
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Speaker 1: problematic history that we'll get into a little later as
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Speaker 1: it kind of evolved. But he immediately assumes kind of
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Speaker 1: a grizzled old dude, he was a Scottish immigrant who
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Speaker 1: founded this detective agency after being a policeman um in Chicago.
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Speaker 1: And he sees this plucky, young, attractive female walking into
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Speaker 1: his office and immediately assume she's there to apply for
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Speaker 1: secretarial work. And he's like, sorry, honey, we got no
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Speaker 1: openings in that department. She's like, excuse me, I'm actually
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Speaker 1: here to become a detective. It's so funny too. In
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Speaker 1: every account that we have, and we don't have that
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Speaker 1: many accounts about Kate Warren, but in every account we
6:39
Speaker 1: do have, most of them written by Pinkerton or by
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Speaker 1: Pinkerton's other other p i s, they always make sure
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Speaker 1: to note how pretty she is. So I just want
6:48
Speaker 1: to take note of that when we when we go
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Speaker 1: through her descriptions, it's it's always she was attractive, she
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Speaker 1: was a comely young woman, and I'm I'm curious what
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Speaker 1: would have happened if like kind of a you know,
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Speaker 1: homely born looking earl walks into that office and it's like,
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Speaker 1: I want to be one of your detectives. They've been like,
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Speaker 1: h not pretty enough. That's so funny that you say that, Ben,
7:07
Speaker 1: I want to throw this. Do you remember we did
7:09
Speaker 1: an episode on another badass woman, uh, Marm Mandelbaum, who
7:13
Speaker 1: was like this crime boss in New York City and
7:16
Speaker 1: she was an immigrants herself, and on the flip side
7:19
Speaker 1: of that, all the accounts about her remarked on how
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Speaker 1: ugly she was. Yeah, that's that's that's an interesting case
7:28
Speaker 1: because in Marm's case too, Uh, this is a little
7:31
Speaker 1: bit of me just freestyle interpreting what those guys were writing.
7:35
Speaker 1: In Marm's case, I read a lot of what they
7:38
Speaker 1: were writing as uh, maybe fear disguised as mockery because
7:43
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure she could. I'm pretty sure she could
7:45
Speaker 1: take all of them in a fight. But there's the
7:48
Speaker 1: thing here, there's this constant thread, which unfortunately continues in
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Speaker 1: society today of underestimating women and having this weird dichotomy
7:58
Speaker 1: that um, a lot of frankly, a lot of dudes
8:01
Speaker 1: practice where they thought, Okay, this individual can not be
8:06
Speaker 1: both attractive and intelligent, they can only choose one. And uh,
8:10
Speaker 1: you know, and why aren't you married Kate Warren? Well,
8:13
Speaker 1: I'm a widow, she said, which will explore I think
8:16
Speaker 1: a little bit further. Um, I want to go back
8:19
Speaker 1: to one point you made, Joe, which is uh fascinating
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Speaker 1: to me. There is enduring mystery of Kate Warren. So, Hollywood,
8:28
Speaker 1: if you're listening, this might give you some latitude in
8:30
Speaker 1: your adaptation. Use it wisely. Uh, like we know, you know, know,
8:34
Speaker 1: you said. The story, I guess officially starts when she
8:37
Speaker 1: was born, but we only really know the year that
8:40
Speaker 1: she was born in eighteen thirty three, and even now
8:43
Speaker 1: before she started working with Pinkerton, we don't know. We
8:47
Speaker 1: still don't know very much about her. We know she
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Speaker 1: was very young when she came to this office. She
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Speaker 1: was only I believe twenty three years old, and she
8:55
Speaker 1: had to kind of prove herself in a number of ways.
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Speaker 1: She had to she had to um go above and
9:03
Speaker 1: beyond what a starting p I would normally do just
9:06
Speaker 1: to get the respect that was probably accorded to dude
9:09
Speaker 1: p I s From like day one, but first and
9:11
Speaker 1: foremost her selling point was I can do things that
9:14
Speaker 1: du p I s can't do. I can get places
9:16
Speaker 1: that they can't get, and make deals and negotiate and
9:19
Speaker 1: find out secrets that men just couldn't find out. And
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Speaker 1: that's totally fair. I mean she and that's what she
9:25
Speaker 1: said to Pinkerton when she walked into his office. She's like,
9:28
Speaker 1: your male p I s can't just walk up to
9:31
Speaker 1: a woman and convince a woman to divulge her quote
9:35
Speaker 1: unquote womanly secrets. It actually brings back I talked to
9:39
Speaker 1: a lot of women police officers. I've been working on
9:41
Speaker 1: another project about lady cops, and lady cops will tell you,
9:45
Speaker 1: and even in this day and age, that they can
9:47
Speaker 1: walk into a situation and immediately diffuse it just by
9:51
Speaker 1: the fact that they have feminine energy as opposed to
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Speaker 1: male energy, which is, you know, just butting heads and
9:55
Speaker 1: testosterone in a room. A woman can happens to be
9:59
Speaker 1: able to calm someone own and can bring out things
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Speaker 1: in people that men can't. And so Kate, Kate, she
10:06
Speaker 1: was so smart. She was not just smart as a
10:08
Speaker 1: p I, but she had such people skills because she
10:11
Speaker 1: knew what she had to tell Pinkerton to get that job,
10:14
Speaker 1: and she knew she had to tell him, I have
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Speaker 1: a unique skill that you do not have, and you
10:18
Speaker 1: can only have it if you hire me and bring
10:20
Speaker 1: me on as an equal to some of these men. Absolutely, yes,
10:23
Speaker 1: like a hundred hundred percents. Here, I would say that
10:27
Speaker 1: her interpersonal brilliance, even as we'll see it, extends to
10:31
Speaker 1: a bit of social engineering. Uh. We'll give you the
10:36
Speaker 1: broad set of circumstances here in the narrative, then we'll
10:39
Speaker 1: dive in. Because Kay Warren is not just famous for
10:43
Speaker 1: being uh, the first female private detective in America. She's famous,
10:49
Speaker 1: perhaps best known today for one case in particular, uh,
10:54
Speaker 1: involving none other than Abraham Lincoln. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln,
10:58
Speaker 1: the President. On the off chance you were thinking getting
11:00
Speaker 1: about some other guy named Abraham Lincoln, I'm sure he's
11:02
Speaker 1: out there, But the one we're talking about was president
11:05
Speaker 1: of the United States. She helped prevent an assassination against him.
11:11
Speaker 1: This this takes place with a lot of twist and turns, um,
11:15
Speaker 1: But I think maybe we work towards there by. I
11:20
Speaker 1: don't know, why should we start with what little we
11:22
Speaker 1: do know about her early life. Yeah, I think that's
11:25
Speaker 1: exactly the right way to handle this. We don't want
11:27
Speaker 1: to spoil any of our big Hollywood moments here since
11:30
Speaker 1: we were trying to set this up Hollywood, we want
11:31
Speaker 1: you to be listening so that you you buy this
11:33
Speaker 1: property or whatever do you have to buy. It is
11:35
Speaker 1: public domain. They could probably do with it whatever they want,
11:37
Speaker 1: but it's true they do have some leeway because we
11:39
Speaker 1: don't know a whole heck of a lot about her
11:42
Speaker 1: early life. What we do know is that she was
11:45
Speaker 1: born in Aaron, New York in eighteen thirty or eighteen
11:49
Speaker 1: thirty three, depends on where who you asked. It's a
11:52
Speaker 1: pretty widespread there, uh. And she came from like a
11:55
Speaker 1: I don't know, let's call it a lower in the
11:57
Speaker 1: middle class family. Again where we're working in kind of
12:00
Speaker 1: ranges here. Um, she was not educated to the fullest
12:05
Speaker 1: extent um. She wanted to become an actress. She actually
12:09
Speaker 1: kind of makes sense considering that later she became kind
12:12
Speaker 1: of known for these disguises and from being able to
12:15
Speaker 1: kind of ingratiate yourself, and as we know from cop
12:17
Speaker 1: movies of working undercover, there's a lot of acting chops
12:21
Speaker 1: that go into that to kind of, you know, maintain
12:23
Speaker 1: that character so that that all checks out. Um. But
12:25
Speaker 1: they didn't really support it. Uh, so she gave up
12:29
Speaker 1: on pursuing acting. Um. And she always described herself as
12:34
Speaker 1: a widow. And Joe, you had a really interesting point
12:36
Speaker 1: about this. Uh, there's some reports that her husband died
12:40
Speaker 1: in a car accident, but I kind of like your
12:43
Speaker 1: theory better. Yeah, well, we don't know anything about her husband.
12:46
Speaker 1: She just she pronounced herself a widow, describes herself as
12:49
Speaker 1: a widow. There's no records of it. And I think
12:52
Speaker 1: that at the time as a or twenty six year
12:55
Speaker 1: old woman, and you know, it could be any of those. Uh.
12:58
Speaker 1: It was a lot more respectable to be a widow
13:00
Speaker 1: to have had a husband than just to be a
13:03
Speaker 1: woman who didn't want to be in a marriage. She
13:05
Speaker 1: didn't want to be married, who wanted to be free
13:07
Speaker 1: to live her life the way she wanted to live it.
13:09
Speaker 1: So by saying that you had a husband who was
13:12
Speaker 1: out of the picture, I think it gave her a
13:14
Speaker 1: lot more freedom of movement around the world. I think
13:18
Speaker 1: that's such a brilliant point. I mean, both the point
13:22
Speaker 1: about acting and then also the point about you know, Joe,
13:27
Speaker 1: when when we think about it, it's kind of like
13:30
Speaker 1: she's always undercover at that point, you know, she's got
13:33
Speaker 1: this cover story, this deceased husband. As as you said,
13:38
Speaker 1: no it does seem that her her story begins right
13:43
Speaker 1: or enters. It's it's big ticket act when she goes
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Speaker 1: into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency there in Chicago and says,
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Speaker 1: I want to be a detective, like you said, Joe.
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Speaker 1: She she lays it out. She says, I can do
13:57
Speaker 1: things your other detectives can't. Um, you'd be lucky to
14:01
Speaker 1: have me, basically, and luckily Alan Pinkerton was smart enough
14:07
Speaker 1: to agree. But maybe we can talk a little bit again.
14:11
Speaker 1: You know, you could do an entire series on Pinkerton, Um,
14:14
Speaker 1: but maybe we could talk a little bit about what
14:17
Speaker 1: Pinkerton is. I think a lot of UM fans of
14:20
Speaker 1: film and fiction have run into mensions of Pinkerton, and
14:25
Speaker 1: sometimes they're surprised to learn it was a real thing.
14:28
Speaker 1: As you said, Noel, in the eighteen fifties, Allan Pinkerton,
14:32
Speaker 1: Scottish immigrant, opened this detective agency, and the reputation of
14:38
Speaker 1: this spread pretty quickly because everybody began to understand that Pinkerton,
14:44
Speaker 1: for one reason or another, could get some things done
14:47
Speaker 1: that law enforcement could not write. Yeah, and whether you know,
14:53
Speaker 1: and and honestly, it's it's kind of a by any
14:55
Speaker 1: means necessary situation, especially when we start to see there
15:00
Speaker 1: later evolution into like strike breaking and much more politically
15:05
Speaker 1: motivated uh nastiness. Um, and that's not what today's episode
15:10
Speaker 1: is about. This is about. And that also, to be fair,
15:12
Speaker 1: was the post Alan Pinkerton period where his son's kind
15:16
Speaker 1: of dismantled a lot of the early more reputable services
15:19
Speaker 1: that they provided and became much more this kind of
15:21
Speaker 1: like goon squad for like big business. But that's an
15:25
Speaker 1: episode into itself. Uh. First of all, it's gotta point
15:27
Speaker 1: out Pinkerton by far the superior Wheezer album. Um, fight me,
15:31
Speaker 1: It's fine, It's way better than the Blue album. I
15:35
Speaker 1: Will I Will Die on this Hill. What do you
15:37
Speaker 1: think of research, Casey Pegram Pinkerton or Blue album? No,
15:40
Speaker 1: definitely Pinkerton, although I'm not like a huge Weezer fan,
15:42
Speaker 1: but um, of those two, I would go Pinkerton. Yeah,
15:45
Speaker 1: got it, Casey on the case, I can't believe you're
15:48
Speaker 1: not gonna ask Joe or me. You gotta ask everybody.
15:50
Speaker 1: Casey is our cultural and lays on. Okay, I gotta
15:53
Speaker 1: he's gotta have some things that are just for him.
15:55
Speaker 1: I feel like I already chimed in. No, I'm I'm
15:57
Speaker 1: fully team Pinkerton out. Think we're all teamed Pinkerton because
16:02
Speaker 1: we're decent human beings, you know what I mean. Okay,
16:08
Speaker 1: Rivers is listening. He's gonna be so mad. He loves
16:10
Speaker 1: the Blue album. Rivers only listens to his demos anything else.
16:16
Speaker 1: That's an odd guy. For a while, Rivers was following
16:19
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, which was probably an accident. But but
16:22
Speaker 1: maybe we maybe we can get this Pinkerton love to
16:25
Speaker 1: him somehow can we get we need to get make
16:27
Speaker 1: them make another Pinkerton. Rivers like, he's like, he's so
16:31
Speaker 1: tired of hearing that. Look, guys, I'm an artist. I
16:34
Speaker 1: follow my my bliss. That's what I'm gonna I'm gonna
16:36
Speaker 1: do what I'm gonna do. Okay, whether it's pork and
16:38
Speaker 1: Beans or Island in the Sun, not even the suns
16:41
Speaker 1: of Fine Song, We're not here to talk about Rivers Cuomo, though,
16:44
Speaker 1: we're here to talk about the original Pinkerton. I first
16:52
Speaker 1: heard of Pinkerton as a detective agency in the show Deadwood,
16:55
Speaker 1: and by that time they're already kind of the bad
16:57
Speaker 1: guys because they're working for her. US two is like
17:00
Speaker 1: this terrible oil magnate, kind of conglomo, you know, villain,
17:06
Speaker 1: and they're you know, trying to rob people of their
17:08
Speaker 1: claims to oil and gold rather not goil and all
17:11
Speaker 1: that stuff. But before that they really were just good
17:14
Speaker 1: old fashioned detectives. They would solve cases, things like crimes
17:18
Speaker 1: that the people had stolen money. They would figure out who,
17:21
Speaker 1: you know, where they had put it, and they would
17:23
Speaker 1: use subterfuge and like you know, often deception, but they
17:26
Speaker 1: would get the job done in ways that regular law enforcement,
17:29
Speaker 1: to your point, Bend just couldn't quite do. Um and
17:31
Speaker 1: it just really spread like wildfire. There were so good
17:34
Speaker 1: at gathering intelligence they actually became sort of the template
17:38
Speaker 1: for like the Secret Service and a lot of really
17:41
Speaker 1: high level law enforcement like the FBI. So I'm gonna
17:46
Speaker 1: try not to continually be pointing out what I think
17:49
Speaker 1: you're very clearly awesome moments that should go in the
17:52
Speaker 1: film or the series, you know, if we adapted for streaming,
17:56
Speaker 1: uh to this point, to this point that you made, Joe,
18:00
Speaker 1: is this amazing moment. This is one of the things
18:02
Speaker 1: that we do know for sure about Kate Warren. When
18:05
Speaker 1: she goes into the Pinkerton office. Uh, the guy does
18:08
Speaker 1: assume that she's there for secretarial work, and she so
18:11
Speaker 1: quickly corrects him and says, you have placed an ad
18:15
Speaker 1: looking for new hires. I came to be hired as
18:19
Speaker 1: a private detective. Uh. And then you know, as you
18:22
Speaker 1: mentioned before, Joe, she's saying, I can do so many
18:25
Speaker 1: things that you can't do. I think she also pointed
18:28
Speaker 1: out that she can take advantage of the fact that
18:32
Speaker 1: a lot of men tend to try to brag around her,
18:35
Speaker 1: so she can kind of tease out secrets that they
18:39
Speaker 1: otherwise shut down about. I love it. I mean she
18:41
Speaker 1: walked in and she used the fact that Pinkerton underestimated
18:44
Speaker 1: her from the second she walked in the door, right,
18:46
Speaker 1: She's like, you just thought I was a secretary. You
18:48
Speaker 1: underestimated me the second you looked at my pretty face
18:52
Speaker 1: and used that and said, everyone's gonna underestimate me. Every
18:56
Speaker 1: man that I talked to is going to underestimate me,
18:57
Speaker 1: and so of course they're going to divulge their secrets.
19:00
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm going to be able to infiltrate their
19:02
Speaker 1: networks because people ignore women, people underestimate women, and that's
19:06
Speaker 1: when a detective can can get the good stuff. It's
19:09
Speaker 1: a really good pitch, I'll tell you. And he went
19:13
Speaker 1: for it. He bought it. He's like, okay, yep, so
19:15
Speaker 1: well reluctantly, because although he was a smart guy, he
19:20
Speaker 1: was still, you know, he was still very much an
19:22
Speaker 1: adherent to the misogyny of the time, right because he said, okay,
19:27
Speaker 1: all right, okay, Warren, if that is your real name,
19:30
Speaker 1: you got me on that one. Well played, but I'm
19:32
Speaker 1: not wholly convinced. He specifically said it is not the
19:36
Speaker 1: custom to employ women detectives. I'm that's not his real voice.
19:41
Speaker 1: I just can't do a respectable Scottish accent, so just
19:44
Speaker 1: picture the Scottish accent. But that's what he said. And
19:48
Speaker 1: it actually took her several meetings with this guy before
19:52
Speaker 1: he finally acceded and hired her. He would go on
19:57
Speaker 1: to say that he was one of the best employee
20:00
Speaker 1: he's he ever worked with. Yeah, I don't know. The
20:02
Speaker 1: lower version of it is more fun to me that
20:05
Speaker 1: he hired her on site. But yeah, I guess it
20:07
Speaker 1: does make sense that she had to kind of convince
20:09
Speaker 1: him a little further. But it's true. I mean, he
20:12
Speaker 1: bragged about her, uh to the day he died, and
20:15
Speaker 1: then in his book and he even I think wrote
20:17
Speaker 1: her in to the thank you's in his book about
20:20
Speaker 1: his kind of story career. But um, yeah, let's talk
20:23
Speaker 1: about kind of her early days and how she sort
20:25
Speaker 1: of started getting uh some attraction as, let's be honest,
20:30
Speaker 1: the country's first female private investigator. What's so interesting to
20:36
Speaker 1: me is just how taken with her Pinkerton seems and
20:39
Speaker 1: the way it took him a while for him to
20:41
Speaker 1: come over to team Kate. Oh. And I also want
20:44
Speaker 1: to say, in terms of her being an actress and
20:47
Speaker 1: having all these covers, isn't Kate Warren just like the
20:50
Speaker 1: perfect stage name? Like I feel like it might not
20:53
Speaker 1: be her real name. It's a little bit too perfect. Yeah,
20:58
Speaker 1: and it's also pretty adapt boll. I heard she would
21:00
Speaker 1: go by like Kitty Warren or Cat Warner. I'm picturing
21:05
Speaker 1: it in her fake southern accent she later puts on
21:08
Speaker 1: in some of her other in some of her capers,
21:09
Speaker 1: and it's like, hello, I'm Catherine Warren right, like she can.
21:13
Speaker 1: That name can be adapted to anything. But Pinkerton really
21:17
Speaker 1: did gush over her. I mean one of one of
21:20
Speaker 1: the things he said about her was quote she was
21:22
Speaker 1: a brilliant conversationalist and when so disposed, could be quite vivacious. Okay,
21:29
Speaker 1: what does he mean in this context? Is that just
21:32
Speaker 1: mean like, I'm sorry, my mind is going to like
21:35
Speaker 1: you know again, Like in his original description of her,
21:38
Speaker 1: he referred to her as slender with fiery eyes and
21:42
Speaker 1: a delicacy of movement. Vivacious, doesn't that just mean like
21:46
Speaker 1: full of spirit? Kind of? It's just like he's always
21:49
Speaker 1: so surprised, right, it's like, oh my god, look the
21:51
Speaker 1: woman can walk and talk and she's brilliant. It's true. Yeah,
21:56
Speaker 1: vivacious really just means very energetic, lively or animated. Um.
22:03
Speaker 1: But in this case, and I think in the time
22:06
Speaker 1: that this guy's writing, vivacious as a word is is
22:10
Speaker 1: pretty much used to describe women that people think are attractive.
22:16
Speaker 1: And it goes back to your point, Joe, about how
22:19
Speaker 1: so many of the people writing who were men are
22:22
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, she did these amazing things and also vivacious.
22:28
Speaker 1: Am I right, and now they look kind of I
22:31
Speaker 1: think the focus on that is kind of my opic. Uh,
22:35
Speaker 1: and it makes it makes them uh, I don't know.
22:37
Speaker 1: It makes it clear to me who the most intelligent
22:41
Speaker 1: Pinkerton agent was, and it was it was probably Kate Warren,
22:46
Speaker 1: probably Kate Warren. Um, do you guys want to I
22:49
Speaker 1: kind of want to jump to some of our cases
22:50
Speaker 1: because some of her early cases were really good, and
22:54
Speaker 1: in these early cases, she proved that her skill set
22:57
Speaker 1: was completely unique to the Pinkerton Agency at time, or
23:00
Speaker 1: skill set as a woman, and also her skill set
23:02
Speaker 1: as just a smart freaking human being, Like you know,
23:05
Speaker 1: she's like, yeah, someone she she was also just clearly
23:08
Speaker 1: incredibly intelligent and incredibly emotionally intelligent because she was able
23:12
Speaker 1: to get these people to open up to her. So
23:15
Speaker 1: the case that I really like is the one where
23:17
Speaker 1: she made friends with the wife of a suspected murderer
23:21
Speaker 1: to try to get the evidence against him. Yeah, that's so,
23:25
Speaker 1: that's so weird and such a brilliant way to approach this,
23:30
Speaker 1: because you know, you would think that standard operating procedure
23:33
Speaker 1: for the Pinkerton folks would be just to go directly
23:37
Speaker 1: to like the social network of the suspected murderer, right,
23:42
Speaker 1: and then come down hard as nails. But sometimes the
23:46
Speaker 1: carrot works better than the stick, exactly. And this strategy
23:50
Speaker 1: of becoming someone's friends the honey over the vinegar, they
23:54
Speaker 1: carry it over the stick. Uh. This is something that
23:57
Speaker 1: she employs more than once. Let's maybe we could talk
24:01
Speaker 1: a little bit about the case of the Adams Express
24:05
Speaker 1: Company theft. That's right, this guy named Nathan Moroney was
24:09
Speaker 1: the manager of the company's office in Montgomery, Alabama. And um,
24:15
Speaker 1: he was very highly suspected of having made off with
24:20
Speaker 1: some some serious cash from that office. And so they
24:25
Speaker 1: hired Warren to kind of get to the bottom of us.
24:28
Speaker 1: As she put on, you know, a little bit of
24:31
Speaker 1: a disguise, uh, and then changed her name to Mrs
24:34
Speaker 1: Potter and became friends with the guys, with the guy's wife.
24:39
Speaker 1: Of course, she made friends with the guy's wife because
24:41
Speaker 1: of course the guy's wife knows where the money is. Um.
24:43
Speaker 1: And I and I love the student in Mrs Potter, right,
24:46
Speaker 1: It's so innocuous, you know, It's like, oh, well, Mrs
24:49
Speaker 1: Potter would never you know, I would never betray me.
24:52
Speaker 1: It's Mrs Potter, I know her look at Mrs Potter
24:56
Speaker 1: would never betray anyone except she does. And because Mrs
25:00
Speaker 1: Moroney totally knew not only that her husband had taken
25:04
Speaker 1: the cash. Of course he took the cash, but she
25:06
Speaker 1: also knew where he had hidden it, and she led
25:09
Speaker 1: the detectives all the way to Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. Nathan Maroney
25:13
Speaker 1: was convicted and nearly all of the money was recovered.
25:16
Speaker 1: That's right. And at this point even Pinkerton himself had to,
25:20
Speaker 1: you know, give his detective her do you know real
25:25
Speaker 1: recognized his real here and he he wrote later, the
25:28
Speaker 1: victory was complete, but her faculties have been strained to
25:30
Speaker 1: the utmost and accomplishing it, and she felt completely exhausted.
25:34
Speaker 1: She had the proud satisfaction of knowing that to a
25:38
Speaker 1: woman belonged to the honors of the day. So if
25:41
Speaker 1: we unpack this, it feels like he's being a little
25:44
Speaker 1: bit more reluctant than he should be in admitting that
25:48
Speaker 1: his detective Kate Warren, had done things that other detectives,
25:53
Speaker 1: even in Pinkerton, could not. This is just like one
25:56
Speaker 1: of her many adventures. And look, maybe I've watched too
25:59
Speaker 1: much surprise Annos, But there's a part of me that
26:03
Speaker 1: finds these tactics like really cold blood where you're like,
26:07
Speaker 1: you know, like when Adrianna she becomes friends with that uh,
26:11
Speaker 1: that FBI agent who poses is like, you know, like
26:14
Speaker 1: a big haired New Jersey kind of socialite, and that
26:18
Speaker 1: moment when the rug gets pulled out from under or
26:20
Speaker 1: she's like, you've been lying to me this whole time.
26:22
Speaker 1: I really feel sorry for like the wife of this
26:25
Speaker 1: dude that took all the money, because sure maybe she knew,
26:28
Speaker 1: but I mean think about the time, and it's not
26:29
Speaker 1: like she needed a friend. Probably like I was probably
26:32
Speaker 1: a jerk. I don't know, I'm I'm editorializing here, but
26:36
Speaker 1: I know it's it's a means to an end, and
26:37
Speaker 1: I get that, and I respect the cunning and the tactics,
26:40
Speaker 1: but there is part of me that's like, oh, you
26:43
Speaker 1: made friends with the lonely wife of a bank teller
26:48
Speaker 1: who stole some money, and now that you're all going
26:50
Speaker 1: to prison, just stabbed in the gut. With that mention
26:52
Speaker 1: of Adrianna, every still gets me, still gets me, still
26:55
Speaker 1: feels a little soon brutal. Yeah, I have to say
27:03
Speaker 1: my that one of these cases stands out and look,
27:07
Speaker 1: I'm excited about getting to the time that she saves
27:09
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln's life. Everybody loves a good Abraham Lincoln story,
27:14
Speaker 1: as do I, But this one is so there's so
27:18
Speaker 1: many aspects of this one. So on another case, Warren
27:21
Speaker 1: actually thwarted a plot to poison a wealthy captain. This
27:26
Speaker 1: this part is so brilliant. She poses as a fortune teller,
27:29
Speaker 1: because who do people like to talk to? Who do
27:31
Speaker 1: people like to divulge their secrets to a fortune teller?
27:35
Speaker 1: So Pinkerton rents out this place where she can apply
27:38
Speaker 1: her fortune telling trade, and she all she studied. She
27:42
Speaker 1: studied up. Kate was a good student, and she studied
27:46
Speaker 1: what she had to do to pretend to be a
27:48
Speaker 1: good fortune teller. And she hosted Captain Sumner's sister, Annie Thayer.
27:55
Speaker 1: Now Warren already knew a little bit about Annie Thayer
27:58
Speaker 1: because she had already done her search. But the fact
28:01
Speaker 1: that she knew about Annie Thayer meant that she seemed
28:03
Speaker 1: like the best fortune teller of all time. And so
28:08
Speaker 1: Thayre start really starts trusting her, and you know, develops
28:12
Speaker 1: this connection with her, and then she eventually discloses that
28:17
Speaker 1: she has been told by a lover named Mr Patmore
28:21
Speaker 1: to assist Mr Donald Navy um a lover named Mr
28:28
Speaker 1: Patmore to assist in the murder of Mr Patmore's wife
28:32
Speaker 1: and her own brother, Dunn Captain Sumner. This this reads
28:39
Speaker 1: like a clue the game play scenario. We've got Mrs
28:43
Speaker 1: pat Moore with the poison in the drawing room and
28:49
Speaker 1: Captain Sumner with the whatever candlestick. I don't know, but yeah,
28:53
Speaker 1: this is wild. I love this in the intrigue so much.
28:56
Speaker 1: It's like a good drawing room murder mystery. Don't forge
29:00
Speaker 1: at Lucille. Where's tell? Oh, gosh, she could have done
29:06
Speaker 1: better than that. That's I mean, that's a little but
29:10
Speaker 1: I mean I think we can. I think I can
29:12
Speaker 1: speak for all of us. You know, sometimes you have
29:14
Speaker 1: to be you have to fake being a fortune teller
29:16
Speaker 1: to get stuff done. It happens. Do you think she
29:19
Speaker 1: did the voice? Oh, she definitely did the voice. Of
29:22
Speaker 1: course she did the voice. You all know what the
29:24
Speaker 1: voice is. We don't have to do we don't have
29:25
Speaker 1: to hopefully crystal Ball and a classic you know, fortune
29:29
Speaker 1: teller Turbine. These are all problematic tropes, by the way.
29:31
Speaker 1: I'm just putting that out there, but that is the
29:33
Speaker 1: quintessential kind of fortune teller um cliche that I guarantee
29:38
Speaker 1: is what she pulled off. But it clearly worked because
29:42
Speaker 1: she got her man or a woman again in this situation.
29:45
Speaker 1: She did show although I have to say, and you
29:47
Speaker 1: guys can edit this if you want, but since since
29:49
Speaker 1: we brought up Weezer, every time I think about fortune teller,
29:51
Speaker 1: I think of the fortune teller in the movie Mall
29:53
Speaker 1: Rats with three nipples in the dirt, Mallya. You know
29:57
Speaker 1: what I think of I think of the movie be
30:00
Speaker 1: Big and the Arcade Machine with the Great Zultar or
30:04
Speaker 1: whatever exactly. Again, all problematic tropes. But this was another age,
30:08
Speaker 1: another time, and like and like you said, Kate cracked
30:12
Speaker 1: this case wide open. Pat Moore was convicted of his
30:16
Speaker 1: wife's murder, spent ten years in prison, and everything was
30:20
Speaker 1: cleared up before poor Captain Sumner could be murdered. Good
30:23
Speaker 1: old Captain Sumner. I hope he went on to live
30:24
Speaker 1: a long and fruitful life on the high seas. I
30:28
Speaker 1: hope he at least at least wrote to wrote to
30:33
Speaker 1: Warren uh And and thanked her. Or maybe you know
30:36
Speaker 1: what we don't know how Daniel day lewis or how
30:39
Speaker 1: method she was with this. Maybe he is convinced that Lucille,
30:43
Speaker 1: through her powers of divinations, saved his life. And if
30:47
Speaker 1: that's the case, put it in the movie. I mean,
30:51
Speaker 1: I'm just picturing this like we needed an amazing actor
30:54
Speaker 1: for this, who can play all these different characters? Juries
30:58
Speaker 1: out for me, I think it's anybody's game. But but
31:02
Speaker 1: it's happened again, longtime listeners, we have run into another
31:08
Speaker 1: two part series. We haven't even gotten to Lincoln yet.
31:11
Speaker 1: Uh And and I agree Joe, honestly, just just from
31:15
Speaker 1: an aesthetic storytelling perspective, I think the Fortune Teller is
31:19
Speaker 1: a little bit of a stronger story, but the Abraham
31:23
Speaker 1: Lincoln one is also historically important, so much so that
31:27
Speaker 1: we are going to dedicate part two of our series
31:30
Speaker 1: on the United States first female detective entirely to this
31:35
Speaker 1: assassination attempt and her heroic actions on that day. Spoiler guys,
31:41
Speaker 1: don't don't search for this before the episode two comes out.
31:44
Speaker 1: You're gonna enjoy it. It's got a lot of weird twist. Um, Joe,
31:49
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on the show today. Uh.
31:53
Speaker 1: I you know, through the magic of podcast editing. Will
31:55
Speaker 1: be back in what Noel Casey two days? Uh in
32:00
Speaker 1: real time? Oh well no, and and podcast timely back
32:02
Speaker 1: in two days in our time. We'll be back in
32:05
Speaker 1: like one minute. You know, you're shattering the illusion here. Hey, look,
32:10
Speaker 1: you know have to pretend that we're all gonna go away.
32:12
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back two days later and then resumed,
32:14
Speaker 1: we're gonna go about our lives and me. Okay, all right,
32:18
Speaker 1: I wouldn't that be nice? I got a couch to
32:20
Speaker 1: build you guys, and we have a story to tell.
32:24
Speaker 1: While you're waiting for part two of Kate Warren, the
32:28
Speaker 1: US first female detective, why not check out Fierce? Joe.
32:33
Speaker 1: Where's the best place for people to learn more about Fierce? Well,
32:38
Speaker 1: you can find episodes of Fierce on the I Heart
32:40
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
32:45
Speaker 1: I also post all of the episodes on my own Instagram,
32:49
Speaker 1: which is at Joe Pianza Author. And you have a
32:52
Speaker 1: pretty cracker jack website too with links tell your books,
32:55
Speaker 1: of which there are many, um and your other podcast
32:59
Speaker 1: projects and all the stuff that you've got going on.
33:01
Speaker 1: I think you might even have one of those blogs
33:03
Speaker 1: people used to write blog blog, blog blah blah. Blog
33:05
Speaker 1: doesn't plug sound like a fake word. If you say
33:07
Speaker 1: blog enough, it's a fun word to say. Oh oh,
33:09
Speaker 1: this is so useless and unrelated to what we're talking about.
33:12
Speaker 1: The phenomenon you're describing is semantic satiation, when you say
33:17
Speaker 1: a word over and over and over uh, and you
33:19
Speaker 1: trick your brain into completely losing whatever that that word
33:22
Speaker 1: is supposed to represent, meaning guise. So there, there it is.
33:26
Speaker 1: I came here for etymology and idioms and luck. I
33:30
Speaker 1: feel good now that happens. Ask any shall receive h
33:34
Speaker 1: So once again, huge thanks to Joe Piazza for joining
33:37
Speaker 1: us today. Big thanks super producer Casey Pegram Alex Williams,
33:40
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Christopher Haciota is always here in spirit.
33:43
Speaker 1: Oh sorry, I was drinking my ice coffee. I drink
33:46
Speaker 1: so much of this nowadays. Big thanks to Eve's Jeff Coat.
33:49
Speaker 1: Of course, thanks to our research associate, uh the Magnetic
33:54
Speaker 1: North of Ridiculous History, Gabe Bluesia. Did you already say Gabe?
33:58
Speaker 1: I did not say Gabe. Oh okay, Well we'll keep
34:00
Speaker 1: this part in the great We'll see you next time.
34:03
Speaker 1: Fix for more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the
34:13
Speaker 1: i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
34:16
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.