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Breeching: A Weird Historical Obsession with Children's Pants · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in. We've got a shout out to our
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Speaker 1: super producer, mister Max white Pants Williams.
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Speaker 2: Actually I'm on Brieft right now.
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Speaker 3: Oh no, boy, Well can we only see your upper
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Speaker 3: body here in this zoom video? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're we're audio family show. So the only
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Speaker 1: nudity here is emotional and we're so glad he joined us.
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Speaker 1: I am Ben Bullen joined us always with the one
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Speaker 1: and only the man with the legend, mister Noel.
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Speaker 3: Brown and legend.
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Speaker 4: That's the kind of thing.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, what's it? What's a geig economy? So what's your
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Speaker 1: what's your pants situation? No, before HR gets mad at
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Speaker 1: me for asking.
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Speaker 3: My pants are HR approved. I'm wearing a bit of
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Speaker 3: a gene, a dark gene. They're kind of new, so
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Speaker 3: they're a little stiff, but I'm liking them. I'm breaking
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Speaker 3: them in.
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Speaker 1: You're a gene guy, you're a deniman.
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Speaker 3: I'm aneman. But would you say that we are going
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Speaker 3: forth into the breach? Yes today, yes, breach do some
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Speaker 3: breaching unbreaching.
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Speaker 4: Perhaps there we go.
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Speaker 1: It's time to breach a to breach and broach a
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Speaker 1: subject that we set up earlier this week with some
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Speaker 1: lovely help from our research associate for this episode, mister
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Speaker 1: Max Williams, you might have looked at childhood pictures of
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Speaker 1: many historical figures, especially in the anglosphere, in Western Europe,
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Speaker 1: in North America and Canada and so on, and you
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Speaker 1: might have said, whole why is this really well known
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Speaker 1: influential dude as a child, Why do they appear to
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Speaker 1: be wearing a dress? Today's episode is the episode wherein
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Speaker 1: we conclusively answer that question.
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Speaker 4: It's true, it's true.
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Speaker 3: We also do have already in the back catalog an
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Speaker 3: entire episode about kids wearing pants and the idea of
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Speaker 3: you know, short short pants and breeches and all of
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Speaker 3: that good stuff. But we're really gonna go this is
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Speaker 3: going to be sort of a sister episode to that
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Speaker 3: one in many ways. And Natasha Frost over at Atlas
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Speaker 3: Obscura points out delightfully and a little missive involving a
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Speaker 3: gentleman by the name of John Neil who was an
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Speaker 3: eighteenth century resident of post Revolutionary War America, and he
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Speaker 3: remembers the day that he and his twin sister were
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Speaker 3: parted torn a sunder is the phrase that she but
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Speaker 3: here here's his remembrance. They put me into jacket and trousers,
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Speaker 3: he wrote in seventeen ninety five. And he gathered up
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Speaker 3: his call from the article, gathered up his collection of
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Speaker 3: petticoats and flung them over to his sister. And he
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Speaker 3: basically was gifting these to his sister. And being twins,
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Speaker 3: we had always been alike, he says, till then, but
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Speaker 3: from that time forward, I was the manchild and she
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Speaker 3: poor thing only sissy, which was something very different back then.
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Speaker 3: Just so true, it's very true. And then only forced
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Speaker 3: to wear petticoats.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you've seen it. This is
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Speaker 1: for the parents, the teachers in the audience today. You
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Speaker 1: see it all around the world pretty much. Most Western
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Speaker 1: children start wearing some form of pants, pantaloon, trousers, breeches,
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Speaker 1: breches at an early age. And this is quite expensive
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Speaker 1: when the kids growing up, you know, you have to
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Speaker 1: buy this, get new pants every.
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Speaker 4: Time, to be tailored too.
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Speaker 3: I mean, this is not off the rack kind of
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Speaker 3: stuff back in those days, and this was you know,
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Speaker 3: celebrated as a sort of coming of age, you know,
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Speaker 3: a lot like a bar mitzvrs.
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Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, and so this is what our palmac
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Speaker 1: sees as a nightmare fuel tradition. You tell us what
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Speaker 1: you think, folks, You're absolutely right. No, this was seen
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Speaker 1: as an early rite of passage. You are no longer
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Speaker 1: an infant, you are a full on child. I love
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Speaker 1: that you mentioned Natasha Frost from that Atlas Obscure article
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Speaker 1: which does great work on this. Frost dates this back
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Speaker 1: to the United Kingdom in the middle of the sixteenth
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Speaker 1: century and says that when early migrants from Europe came
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Speaker 1: over to North America, they brought this custom with them,
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Speaker 1: the custom of celebrating this evolution of a child's life,
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Speaker 1: this passage of time. You don't see this breaching ceremony
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Speaker 1: almost at all in the early twentieth century and going forward,
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Speaker 1: primarily because laundry technology improved, which I know is how
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Speaker 1: it is ridiculous and a little bit silly, but people
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Speaker 1: used to be pretty.
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Speaker 3: Dirty, sure, and you know, having a child of self
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Speaker 3: soiling age wearing custom tailored pantaloons could have posed a
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Speaker 3: laundry conundrum, right, And once you know, we were able
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Speaker 3: to use better chemicals and technologies to desoil garments. It
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Speaker 3: became a little bit less of an issue.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, a little bit, you know, and shout out
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Speaker 1: to everybody who is concerned about the environment and using
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Speaker 1: cloth diapers.
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Speaker 4: We know, we know, we know.
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Speaker 1: It's a rough gig, folks, But look, humans are the
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Speaker 1: same back then as they are today. For centuries and centuries,
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Speaker 1: people thought of pants as more than just clothing. It
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Speaker 1: was symbolic. It represented a transformation. It was a statement.
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Speaker 1: And this sounds weird, it probably hasn't aged well, but
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Speaker 1: back in the day, giving the kid pants was seen
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Speaker 1: as assigning a kind of gender role in society. Because
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Speaker 1: now now you can climb trees, you can do all
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Speaker 1: the Huckleberry Finn Tom Sawyer stuff.
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Speaker 3: Right, paint fences, there are trick people to paint them
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Speaker 3: for you. It's you know, the origin is surely of
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Speaker 3: the expression, you know, wearing the pants in the family,
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Speaker 3: the idea of this representing a masculine leadership role and
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Speaker 3: sort of being in charge, you know, being the head
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Speaker 3: hot show.
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Speaker 1: Before this pants ritual, all small children would wear long
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Speaker 1: dresses comparable in some ways to the modern hospital gown,
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Speaker 1: except it was nighty. Perhaps yeah, like moo moo and
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Speaker 1: a shift, if you will. And a lot of times
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Speaker 1: when families were not royalty and they had a lot
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Speaker 1: of children, these pieces of clothing were purposely made to
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Speaker 1: be sort of one size fits all. You pass it
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Speaker 1: down to the next kid, and so on and so
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Speaker 1: on and so on. And of course more well to
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Speaker 1: do families had the flex they had to have fancy
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Speaker 1: dresses for their children.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and even you know, after passing into
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Speaker 3: that manhood kind of role and being breached oftentimes, you know,
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Speaker 3: folks in this era of history would still wear what
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Speaker 3: are called dressing gowns, you know, for bed, Like you
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Speaker 3: think of old Ebenezer Scrooge in his best dressing gown,
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Speaker 3: you know, clutching a candle, you know, as he was
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Speaker 3: spooked by holiday ghosts.
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Speaker 1: Yes, which also I would argue helps the structure of
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Speaker 1: the story because it puts that titan of industry in
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Speaker 1: a more childlike position.
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Speaker 4: That's a really good point.
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Speaker 3: You know, this is done not to get on too
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Speaker 3: much of a tangent, but I read a really interesting
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Speaker 3: thing about how oftentimes villains in fiction and cinema are
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Speaker 3: seen drinking milk because it puts them in this sort
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Speaker 3: of like they are this they've got issues with, you know,
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Speaker 3: arrested development in some way, shape or form. And it's
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Speaker 3: also I've seen it used as a way of representing
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Speaker 3: sort of whiteness as well, like I believe specifically in
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Speaker 3: Get Out, the excellent Jordan Peel movie where no spoilers,
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Speaker 3: but one of the villains is seen drinking milk and
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Speaker 3: eating cereal separately.
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Speaker 1: Clockwork Orange, No country for old Men. Whenever you see
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Speaker 1: someone drinking milk in a film, it is a very
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Speaker 1: purposeful choice. Shout out to Quentin Tarantino and inglorious bastards.
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Speaker 1: There are a lot of There are a lot of
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Speaker 1: bad people drinking milk. And I'm sure that the old
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Speaker 1: Got Milk campaign and trade associations have opinions on that,
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Speaker 1: but we haven't called them yet.
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Speaker 4: Nope, no penalty. I don't know the number. O T
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Speaker 4: M I L k oh.
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Speaker 3: That is seven digits.
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Speaker 4: That could be a number we should try. Let's try
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Speaker 4: a ring.
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Speaker 1: Let's try it because we've got our big boy bridges
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Speaker 1: on for this episode, so we can cold call people,
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Speaker 1: just like that pigeon that's been giving me nightmares.
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Speaker 4: We are scared.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, the the idea of breeches. If we go
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Speaker 1: to s. Lombard in her work making Manhood growing up
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Speaker 1: Male in colonial New England, what we see is that
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Speaker 1: this clothing, the transformation into trousers, functioned as a passport
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Speaker 1: to the world beyond the childhood home. You could get
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Speaker 1: into adventures, you could ride horses, you could go on
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Speaker 1: high jinks. And while you did that, just like the
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Speaker 1: story of the twins that we opened with here, while
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Speaker 1: you did that, your unfortunate siblings, if they were assigned
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Speaker 1: female at birth, they have to stay in these stresses.
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Speaker 1: They don't get pants, and this keeps them closer to
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Speaker 1: the home. This is a lot of like handmaid's tail, oh,
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Speaker 1: hierarchical stuff.
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Speaker 4: Well think about it too.
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Speaker 3: I mean, like so many women's garments, you know, back
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Speaker 3: in history were very oppressively tight, you know, things like corsets,
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Speaker 3: and you'd often see the male. The male escorts such
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Speaker 3: almost be necessary in order to help the women into
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Speaker 3: a coach or out of a coach, because they couldn't
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Speaker 3: do it on their own, largely because their legs are
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Speaker 3: so tight together and they had to be delicately sort
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Speaker 3: of assisted in and out or crossing a mud puddle
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Speaker 3: in the thoroughfare, you know, in the Western times, the
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Speaker 3: idea of a gentleman throwing his waistcoat across you know,
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Speaker 3: the said mud puddle and escorting the woman across dare she,
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Speaker 3: you know, besmirch her her petticoats? And the struggle continues
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Speaker 3: today in terms of just getting in a nice dress
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Speaker 3: with pockets. Got your back folks. By the way, we
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Speaker 3: are pro pockets here, and decorative pockets are for the birds.
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Speaker 3: What's that about decorative pockets? I still under why would
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Speaker 3: you do it?
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Speaker 4: Anyways?
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Speaker 3: So, I mean, we're not fashion experts, but still it
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Speaker 3: feels a little bit counterproductive. We're not there, make it,
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Speaker 3: make it be a functional pocket?
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Speaker 4: Why why why not? Why is why is it sew
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Speaker 4: it up at the top? It doesn't make sense.
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Speaker 1: We're fashion functionalists, not fashion fascists, and we're certainly not
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Speaker 1: he ghots. So there is a cool shout out that
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Speaker 1: that you found here.
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Speaker 4: Max.
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Speaker 1: One of my favorite books that is so often forgotten
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Speaker 1: in the modern day, the Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.
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Speaker 1: This is a wild ride. If you like Don Quixote,
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Speaker 1: you're gonna like this book. It is bonkers.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and there is an episode of breaching that really
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Speaker 3: represents a you know, push forward into manhood. And there's
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Speaker 3: a great quote from it from the father of this
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Speaker 3: main character. 'tis high time to take this young creature
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Speaker 3: out of these woman's hands and push him into those
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Speaker 3: of a private governor. Okay, jumping right from a little
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Speaker 3: baby to a governor.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it starts with the breaching. Let's go to
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Speaker 1: Jennifer Jordan, who wrote a pretty comprehensive deep dive on
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Speaker 1: masculinity as it was seen in the seventeenth century, and
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Speaker 1: Jordan identifies the same phenomenon we're talking about the social
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Speaker 1: import of acquiring pants. This meant, you know, like you said,
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Speaker 1: you're wearing the pants in the family, you're the young
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Speaker 1: man of the house. It became a huge significant milestone
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Speaker 1: in a boy's journey toward adulthood, toward manhood in some ways,
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Speaker 1: not in terms of the ceremony itself, but in terms
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Speaker 1: of what it represented. In a way, it's similar to
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Speaker 1: like a bar mitzvah or abot mitzvah. You know, it's
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Speaker 1: a huge passage in your life. And people in the
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Speaker 1: canon of Western literature talk about this all the time,
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Speaker 1: not just in their like bangor singles like in their
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Speaker 1: letters to their friends, the equivalent of DMS pre internet.
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Speaker 1: Samuel Coleridge talks about it with I think his son
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Speaker 1: was five years old? Is that correct when he got
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Speaker 1: this right?
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Speaker 4: Is it?
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Speaker 3: Samuel Coleridge, the guy who wrote in Kublai Khan's Pleasuredome
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Speaker 3: doth decree or what? I love that one. Yeah, it's
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Speaker 3: a good one.
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Speaker 4: You know.
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Speaker 3: It's funny too talking about manhood. Maybe I'm off the
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Speaker 3: mark on this one, but a lot of these pantaloons
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Speaker 3: were quite revealing in the swimsuit region, let's just say.
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Speaker 3: And often women's clothing were designed to be as modest
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Speaker 3: as humanly possible. It was almost as though the cut
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Speaker 3: of one's breach could in fact be designed to accentuate
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Speaker 3: one's literal manhood, you know, like David Bowie and Labyrinth.
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Speaker 4: Here we go.
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Speaker 1: We're reference rich today, folks. That's how we start. Twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty four. Coleridge is kind of surprised when he's talking
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Speaker 1: about his son's his son's introduction to pants in a
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Speaker 1: letter in eighteen oh one, he said he did not
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Speaker 1: roll and tumbled over and over in his old joyous way, No,
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Speaker 1: it wasn't eager and solemn gladness as if he felt
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Speaker 1: it to be an awful area. It is life, so
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Speaker 1: like that is an area. He gets pants and he's like, uh,
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Speaker 1: beat me your max. He gets pants and he's like, hush,
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Speaker 1: it's getting real kind man stuff.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, And didn't they have like sort of like you
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Speaker 3: know again, like the bar Mitzvah type situation. They had
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Speaker 3: sort of gathering sort of celebrations of these breaching occasions, right,
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Speaker 3: and there were like gifts given to make the pockets
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Speaker 3: of said breeches jingle with cash or coin to represent
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Speaker 3: the transition of this young lad into manhood.
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Speaker 1: So one of the first questions naturally occurs is how
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Speaker 1: old are these kids when they are allowed pants. The
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Speaker 1: answer varies from situation to situation, but in general it's
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Speaker 1: somewhere between four and eight years old. And it's something
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Speaker 1: like it's a liminal space. It's kind of like when
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Speaker 1: parents decide whether or not to let their kid in.
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Speaker 1: On the Santa Claus conspiracy, the ways depicted is that
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Speaker 1: there were sometimes conflicting desires on the parts of the parents.
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Speaker 1: The dads were like, let's make him a little man,
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Speaker 1: a little mini me that can go in trapes about,
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Speaker 1: and the mothers were depicted as saying, Oh, I don't
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Speaker 1: want them to grow up. Yeah, he's not ready. I
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Speaker 1: want him to be my little little guy forever.
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Speaker 4: And in fact, a historian named Catherine K.
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Speaker 3: Cain had this to say, And this is another pull
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Speaker 3: from the incredible Atlas Obscure article by Frost that we
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Speaker 3: mentioned earlier. Some mothers might try to delay the event,
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Speaker 3: especially if there were no other infants or toddlers in
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Speaker 3: the nursery, So that we know that in general it
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Speaker 3: can be the case often only children get peg with
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Speaker 3: having a little bit of arrested development, perhaps because they
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Speaker 3: are so precious, you know, there's no one else to
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Speaker 3: replace them once they leave the nest, so to speak,
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Speaker 3: so they're often kind of held back a little bit.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's kind of a stereotype or
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Speaker 1: social observation that can have some sand to it. But
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Speaker 1: of course we don't want to paint with a broad
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Speaker 1: brush if it's not necessary. We do know that sometimes
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Speaker 1: children might not get pants because of their perceived health conditions,
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Speaker 1: like we need him to be on the mend, he's
17:39
Speaker 1: sick with one of the weird medical maladies of our
17:43
Speaker 1: day is the brain fever, the dropsy, the shoe foot,
17:47
Speaker 1: et cetera, break bone fever. There it is, and the
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Speaker 1: dancing plague, the dancing plang. This kid's got moves. We
17:55
Speaker 1: can't put them in pants just yet. Let's see if
17:58
Speaker 1: they can pop and lock and do a dougie or.
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Speaker 4: Perhaps a stinky leg.
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Speaker 3: Also, of course, and we've already kind of alluded to,
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Speaker 3: this class continued to play quite a big role in
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Speaker 3: when and under what circumstances a boy.
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Speaker 4: Was to be breached.
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Speaker 1: And you know, another thing is again, I keep going
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Speaker 1: back to this. People are not incredibly different from one
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Speaker 1: generation or one age to the next. So this is
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Speaker 1: a shout out to everybody in the US or Canada
18:34
Speaker 1: who had, as a young child been dressed in a
18:37
Speaker 1: costume for Halloween without your parents' consent. My folks always
18:44
Speaker 1: kept is a place of pride in their mantle. Picture
18:47
Speaker 1: of me as a pumpkin and then as what I
18:51
Speaker 1: can only describe as a dangerously out of shaped French
18:55
Speaker 1: chef nice. I was like not even two years.
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Speaker 3: Remember those really kind of shoddy plastic costumes that like
19:05
Speaker 3: came with like sort of like a smock that was
19:08
Speaker 3: sort of made of a weird rubbery material and then
19:10
Speaker 3: almost like a like a reusable tablecloth, but not particularly reusable,
19:15
Speaker 3: and then the accompanying mask. Those would be pretty much
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Speaker 3: single use. You wouldn't really get much hand me down
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Speaker 3: action out of those. But the class aspects here is
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Speaker 3: really important because, as we mentioned, these garments were custom made,
19:27
Speaker 3: or they needed to be, especially if you know, there
19:30
Speaker 3: were lots of differences in size and build between various children.
19:35
Speaker 3: So a less well to do family might not have
19:39
Speaker 3: the coin to commission a tailor, you know, to to
19:42
Speaker 3: you know, cut a brand new tailored suit of pants,
19:47
Speaker 3: you know, for a young lad passing into manhood, So
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Speaker 3: they might have to deal with these hand me downs
19:52
Speaker 3: and for a while, and or continue on with the
19:55
Speaker 3: sort of dressing gown situation until it became untenable. And
19:59
Speaker 3: if there was going to be some sort of gathering
20:02
Speaker 3: or party, it certainly wouldn't be at the scale of
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Speaker 3: that the rich might be capable of throwing.
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Speaker 1: Here is a cookie, congratulations your man now. Child labor
20:12
Speaker 1: is definitely with being so into the minds up.
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Speaker 4: To the mines. Yeah, so yeah, class.
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Speaker 1: It always makes me sad when we have to talk
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Speaker 1: about class this way. It makes me think of things
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Speaker 1: like hard candy Christmas, about all these absolutely wonderful, innocent
20:31
Speaker 1: kids who are rightly asking, well, why don't I get
20:35
Speaker 1: the same kind of party? Wealthy families balled out on
20:38
Speaker 1: this stuff. There are accounts of kids being given a
20:43
Speaker 1: ceremonial toy sword, and the history we mentioned earlier. Cain
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Speaker 1: talks about how in more well to do families, the
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Speaker 1: kid would change into his new custom made suit because
20:57
Speaker 1: mass production of clothing not really a thing yet, Nope.
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Speaker 1: And sometimes the tailor who made the little man suit
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Speaker 1: would be there to dress the boy, or the father's
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Speaker 1: valet because people had valets there and as footman perhaps, yes, right,
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Speaker 1: And the family would gather in the room, and then
21:20
Speaker 1: there would be another guest, the local barber. And remember
21:25
Speaker 1: this isn't too far gone from the years in which
21:28
Speaker 1: someone qualified to cut hair was also qualified to amputate
21:31
Speaker 1: limbs and let blood.
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Speaker 3: Right.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, no.
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Speaker 3: And it's interesting, too, Ben, because I think we've been
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Speaker 3: hinting at it. This really was a passage in many ways,
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Speaker 3: not only into manhood, but into like leaving the house,
21:45
Speaker 3: you know, because you needed to fit into that gender
21:49
Speaker 3: role in order to leave the house. And for the
21:51
Speaker 3: wealthier class that would be more about being introduced into
21:54
Speaker 3: society perhaps, but for the less well to do class
21:58
Speaker 3: it would be my be put off until they literally
22:01
Speaker 3: had to, like we said, go hit the mines or
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Speaker 3: the fields, you know, and that is terrible, but that
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Speaker 3: is they would put it off until that point because
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Speaker 3: you can't really work in minds there in fields wearing
22:13
Speaker 3: a you know, like a nightie. Yeah, you gotta have
22:17
Speaker 3: that flexibility in the leg areas.
22:20
Speaker 1: And like literally every other single thing humans have ever done,
22:27
Speaker 1: there was a contingent of people who had a big
22:30
Speaker 1: problem with it's there's a guy who maxic called mcclearpill.
22:35
Speaker 1: I think he's a real pill. His name is George Nicholson.
22:37
Speaker 1: In seventeen ninety seven, he writes a book called on Clothing.
22:41
Speaker 1: I want to give him as due. This was the
22:44
Speaker 1: time of stupid long book titles, So congratulations to you
22:48
Speaker 1: on the brevity.
22:49
Speaker 4: Nicholson.
22:50
Speaker 1: However, your weird anti pants stance is kind of telling
22:55
Speaker 1: on yourself, bro. He said, look, if you wear pants,
22:58
Speaker 1: it's like comfortable to pee. And he also said this
23:04
Speaker 1: would encourage self pleasure because yeah, he was like, if
23:09
Speaker 1: you give these little boys pants, they're gonna play with themselves.
23:12
Speaker 3: Oh boy, but wouldn't it be easier to do that
23:15
Speaker 3: just lifting up the dress.
23:17
Speaker 1: I think George Nicholson had probably had some things on
23:21
Speaker 1: his own that he needed.
23:22
Speaker 4: To as wress.
23:24
Speaker 1: It's sort of like like if you read Hemingway writing
23:27
Speaker 1: about bullfights, it's like, come on, dude, everybody knows but you.
23:30
Speaker 3: This is a metaphor for something that you haven't maybe
23:34
Speaker 3: quite pegged yet.
23:36
Speaker 4: No, that's a very very good point. Yeah.
23:38
Speaker 1: Well, so, okay, we've got a quote from Nicholson and Max,
23:43
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you found this because it shows us
23:46
Speaker 1: this attempt at anti pants propaganda. Dare we say it
23:51
Speaker 1: was during the first and second year. The boy can
23:54
Speaker 1: neither button nor unbutton his breeches, and he's continually in
23:58
Speaker 1: a sad condition. Uh, Max white pants Williams has added
24:02
Speaker 1: L O.
24:03
Speaker 4: L like what the condition? Are they in a psychodicition
24:07
Speaker 4: because they can't pee? Or are they a technician because
24:09
Speaker 4: they peede themselves?
24:10
Speaker 2: Because he just in the way he's saying is they
24:12
Speaker 2: can't get their pants off.
24:14
Speaker 1: He makes it sound like the reprehensible practice of footbinding,
24:17
Speaker 1: which is totally different. But he makes it sound like
24:20
Speaker 1: you're binding crotches well.
24:22
Speaker 3: But also he goes on to say he takes it
24:25
Speaker 3: a step further in saying, in his breaches, a boy
24:28
Speaker 3: is pent up and shackled, and by way of compensation,
24:32
Speaker 3: his mind is stuffed with opinion and folly is he
24:36
Speaker 3: saying this boy needs to let out some steam. I
24:39
Speaker 3: feel like it sounds like he's encouraging touching himself exactly.
24:43
Speaker 2: Here's this whole part about this dude's This dude just
24:46
Speaker 2: has something that doesn't what he's on about it.
24:50
Speaker 4: He's wearing his on brief dress.
24:52
Speaker 1: Still he got some bad pants too. Maybe maybe he
24:55
Speaker 1: just got a really bad pair of pants and the
24:57
Speaker 1: trauma stayed with him, Uh the call. As we know,
25:02
Speaker 1: scientific studies have been conducted on the idea of pants,
25:07
Speaker 1: like Shout Out Again, the Clockwork Orange, and the Lovely
25:09
Speaker 1: Ongoing Narrative about the ephemeral cycles of fashion. We know
25:13
Speaker 1: that sometimes bag you pants are in, sometimes type pants
25:17
Speaker 1: are in, they come and go, and so there has
25:20
Speaker 1: been science conducted on this that shows really tight pants
25:25
Speaker 1: could damage sperm count ords. But that's like, honestly, guys,
25:32
Speaker 1: that's like reading a study that says insert insert food
25:38
Speaker 1: ingredient here gives rats cancer what they.
25:42
Speaker 3: Need massive amounts shovel it into their little rat maws, a.
25:46
Speaker 1: Larger amount than any human or any human sized rat
25:50
Speaker 1: would ever actually eat. So I think there's a little
25:53
Speaker 1: bit of context that we have to approach those studies with. However,
25:59
Speaker 1: and this is something, uh, Max, I don't want to see.
26:02
Speaker 1: You're excited about it. But this is something we've talked
26:04
Speaker 1: about off air pretty often. For the past few weeks.
26:08
Speaker 1: We talked about breaching, but Noel riddled me this, what
26:12
Speaker 1: is unbreaching?
26:21
Speaker 3: Ugh into the unbreach go We Yeah, breaching, of course
26:26
Speaker 3: is a thing, a ritualized kind of passage into into manhood,
26:31
Speaker 3: into you know how, bearing responsibility, responsibilities of a head
26:35
Speaker 3: of household type situation. But what on earth is unbreaching? So,
26:42
Speaker 3: writing for a Jay Store in an article called Boys
26:45
Speaker 3: in Dresses, Matthew Wills had this to say, exploring the
26:49
Speaker 3: biographies of men as disparate as Czar Nicholas the Second, Franklin,
26:54
Speaker 3: Delano Roosevelt, and Ernest Hemingway, you're apt to come across
26:57
Speaker 3: pictures of them as young boys looking into distinguishable from
27:01
Speaker 3: young girls, their hair is long, and they're wearing dresses.
27:04
Speaker 3: This tracks this is sort of the pre breaching, you know, situation.
27:08
Speaker 3: It also makes sense that that's when the barber would
27:10
Speaker 3: make an appearance, because up to that point, if they're
27:13
Speaker 3: not leaving the house, it would have been prohibitively expensive
27:17
Speaker 3: or maybe like a waste of effort to cut their hair.
27:19
Speaker 3: So you'd have a lot of these portraits having them
27:22
Speaker 3: in this kind of pre breached state.
27:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is not like culture war level stuff.
27:30
Speaker 1: This is a matter of practicality for parents pretty often.
27:35
Speaker 1: And you know, obviously, folks, kids should not have to
27:39
Speaker 1: have uniforms unless they go to like a private school
27:42
Speaker 1: where they make you do it. If we're big fans
27:47
Speaker 1: of self expression and people arriving at their own identities
27:50
Speaker 1: on this show, so we get the problematic aspects of this.
27:55
Speaker 1: We also know that they were changing fashion trends in
27:59
Speaker 1: the world of children's clothing as we get to the
28:03
Speaker 1: turn of the twentieth century, now we start seeing more
28:08
Speaker 1: overt kind of gender uniforms. As scholar Joe B. Poletti
28:13
Speaker 1: points out in her work, until the First World War,
28:18
Speaker 1: little boys were, like you pointed out in the dressed
28:20
Speaker 1: and skirts had long hair. The color coating of like
28:25
Speaker 1: giving little girls pink outfits, little boys baby blue outfits,
28:29
Speaker 1: that wasn't really common until the nineteen twenties.
28:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, also there wasn't color photography, so it
28:37
Speaker 3: made more sense. You know, it was black and white,
28:39
Speaker 3: so most of these outfits were white. I'm still you know, guys,
28:43
Speaker 3: I'm hilariously colorblind. It's all gray to me. I'm surprised
28:47
Speaker 3: more people haven't died. When I drive through traffic lights,
28:49
Speaker 3: you're not missing anything, well except maybe the color of
28:52
Speaker 3: the stup.
28:53
Speaker 2: Like, I did feel bad because when I wore the
28:55
Speaker 2: white suit and on the Christmas party, I wore a
28:57
Speaker 2: green green tie and a red shirt and I did
28:59
Speaker 2: not thing about telling Ben that, And so it was
29:02
Speaker 2: until we were on Aaron Noles. A lot of Ben's like, oh,
29:04
Speaker 2: that's the shirt you're wearing, Max Mi, Oh sorry, yeah.
29:07
Speaker 1: No, I knew the suit was white.
29:09
Speaker 3: It's good to be able to continuously be surprised by something, though.
29:12
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's very kind.
29:13
Speaker 3: I mean silver lining, you know, Yeah, so there.
29:17
Speaker 1: Is a course, there is a lining to this as well.
29:23
Speaker 1: You let us know whether you think it's silver lightning folks,
29:26
Speaker 1: our history lazy.
29:29
Speaker 4: Right, right right.
29:29
Speaker 1: Our historian Pilletti here says that children's clothing became more
29:36
Speaker 1: like gender typed and at the same time, she notes
29:42
Speaker 1: that clothing for adult women began to look there's a
29:46
Speaker 1: quote from her more androgynous. And she points out that
29:50
Speaker 1: there was a new sort of hierarchy of differences in
29:56
Speaker 1: color and fabric, material and trim, perhaps the way it
30:00
Speaker 1: was cut right that would separate boys and girls at
30:05
Speaker 1: later stages, and that you also, she knows, to the
30:10
Speaker 1: point about photography, she says, you know, you you're gonna
30:14
Speaker 1: have a tough time seeing this in most photos of
30:17
Speaker 1: the era, because photographs were kind of like everybody was
30:22
Speaker 1: kind of like a photograph of Bigfoot.
30:24
Speaker 3: Right, But also just some of these specifics, you know,
30:27
Speaker 3: were more kind of specific to that society, you know,
30:31
Speaker 3: so we might not recognize those as being gendered based
30:35
Speaker 3: on the standards that we've gotten used to, So it
30:37
Speaker 3: might be something that we would just would kind of
30:38
Speaker 3: go over our heads since we're used to seeing dress
30:41
Speaker 3: equals girl, pants equals boy. There were more subtleties, and
30:45
Speaker 3: especially to your point, Ben, or to Joe's point about
30:48
Speaker 3: the more androgynous types of clothing that were briefly associated
30:53
Speaker 3: with with women's dress.
30:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's a lot packed in here because one
30:59
Speaker 1: thing we haven't talked about yet is the tremendous role
31:03
Speaker 1: of folklore of indeed pre Christian beliefs that go throughout
31:09
Speaker 1: all communities in the world, not just the Western world
31:13
Speaker 1: as we call it today. There was this superstition that
31:16
Speaker 1: still persists in various various communities. There was this superstition
31:21
Speaker 1: that one must take certain actions to protect one's children
31:27
Speaker 1: from infernal or dangerous supernatural forces. So like, okay, you like,
31:32
Speaker 1: don't say the kid's name, and these certain circumstances. And
31:37
Speaker 1: this is probably part of the reason why the little
31:41
Speaker 1: boys were dressed in dresses, which is very weird to
31:46
Speaker 1: think about, but there's historical sand to.
31:49
Speaker 4: It one hundred percent. But also.
31:52
Speaker 3: The idea of toilet training, Oh, it was important so
31:55
Speaker 3: to have, you know, a garment that was much easier
31:58
Speaker 3: to change and walk and didn't require any you know,
32:01
Speaker 3: fiddling with clasps or you know whatever, because it wouldn't
32:04
Speaker 3: have been zippers or elastic bands. It would have been
32:07
Speaker 3: like you know, more tricky buttons or you know, not
32:11
Speaker 3: snaps even I mean maybe even things that had to
32:14
Speaker 3: be kind of laced right, So it was a bit
32:19
Speaker 3: of a to do to get out of your pantaloons.
32:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, the difference. I love that how Poleeti puts this.
32:25
Speaker 1: The difference between boys and girls at an early age
32:29
Speaker 1: socially was not seen as as important as the difference
32:35
Speaker 1: between children and adults. That was the big line of demarcation.
32:40
Speaker 1: And so yes, it becomes celebratory. It also, I gotta
32:46
Speaker 1: say it, sometimes really wealthy parents treat their young children
32:51
Speaker 1: like pets, and it's kind of weird. That's why we
32:54
Speaker 1: get the knickerbockers, That's why we get the we get
32:57
Speaker 1: the cosplay. When some of these children were in a
33:00
Speaker 1: very very h well to do families got their first
33:03
Speaker 1: pair of pants to get outfits.
33:05
Speaker 3: And just to clarify real quick, when we're talking about unbreaching,
33:08
Speaker 3: we're talking about all of the fits that went into
33:11
Speaker 3: this pre breached kind of period addresses.
33:16
Speaker 1: Until you get the pants, you are unbreached. When you
33:19
Speaker 1: get the pants, you have been breached.
33:21
Speaker 4: I see.
33:21
Speaker 3: So this is and also a lot of this stuff
33:23
Speaker 3: would be much more specific in terms of the bespoke
33:26
Speaker 3: aspects of the unbreached uh phase, that would be much
33:30
Speaker 3: more specific to the wealthy, you know, because they're probably
33:33
Speaker 3: also largely the ones that are going to end up
33:35
Speaker 3: in photographs because that was the thing that was everyone
33:38
Speaker 3: didn't get to do that. That was an expensive process
33:41
Speaker 3: and you know, required time away from the minds in
33:45
Speaker 3: the fields to even you know, get the kid to
33:46
Speaker 3: sit still, and to have you have to have the
33:48
Speaker 3: whole crew, you know, to do these family photographs.
33:51
Speaker 2: I think about it before photographs, like you need someone
33:54
Speaker 2: to paint you. You have to be important and have
33:57
Speaker 2: a lot of right to have. I mean, you probably
33:59
Speaker 2: have your vallee and your painter and you're something like
34:03
Speaker 2: normal blokes like us.
34:04
Speaker 4: Now we ain't getting paid in Yeah.
34:05
Speaker 3: And unless there was some stylized sort of thing, impressionistic
34:09
Speaker 3: sort of a portrait of three waifs in the gun,
34:12
Speaker 3: you know.
34:13
Speaker 1: I like the idea of breaching coming with that, uh,
34:17
Speaker 1: with that responsibility, like okay, you're six, you're a man now. Uh,
34:23
Speaker 1: we're going to refer to each other by our surnames.
34:26
Speaker 4: Right, I am here's a gun.
34:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm here's a gun. And to prove your manhood,
34:31
Speaker 1: I need you to stand still for about four hours
34:34
Speaker 1: holding this gun. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you
34:37
Speaker 1: with the valet. I've opium to attend to. So like that,
34:42
Speaker 1: Like that's that's how it goes, all right. I know
34:45
Speaker 1: we're getting toward the end. Uh, we do have a
34:48
Speaker 1: conclusive explanation here. We do know that fashion continues to evolve,
34:53
Speaker 1: and it does have a lot of symbolic import to
34:56
Speaker 1: various cultures throughout time and across the world. But I
35:00
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out. It's one of
35:01
Speaker 1: my favorite weird words. Finally got to use it. I
35:05
Speaker 1: can't believe we got this far without saying it. Knickerbockers.
35:09
Speaker 1: It's such a silly word. Knickerbockers.
35:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, and it's uh, you know, you'll see
35:15
Speaker 3: it in I think there's the Knickerbocker Hotel. I think
35:18
Speaker 3: there's one in New York, and I think there's one
35:19
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles too. But it just does it feels
35:22
Speaker 3: like such a like it's of its time, you know,
35:24
Speaker 3: this this word. But they were they were kind of
35:26
Speaker 3: short pants, weren't They weren't nickerbockers, kind of like sort
35:30
Speaker 3: of ruffled little little pantaloons or what's a knickerbockers?
35:33
Speaker 1: A look, it's style. Couple different things. There are also
35:37
Speaker 1: oh gosh, okay, so yes, knickerbockers are a type of clothing.
35:43
Speaker 1: They can also be oh gosh. They're also called knickers,
35:47
Speaker 1: but they can also be a last name. It can
35:51
Speaker 1: refer to part of the Dutch community of early New York, right,
35:57
Speaker 1: the Knickerbockers. It's fascinating.
35:59
Speaker 4: I'm just fine.
36:00
Speaker 1: I need excuses to say knickerbocker more often. I think
36:04
Speaker 1: maybe we can start using more specific names for pantsy guys.
36:08
Speaker 1: When we compliment people, we can be like, no, there's
36:11
Speaker 1: awesome smart trousers, mister.
36:14
Speaker 3: De some fetching pantaloons, Yeah, you've got a nack. Fetching
36:20
Speaker 3: is a weird one too. It's like it makes it
36:22
Speaker 3: like it's like I'm standing up and taking notice. You
36:24
Speaker 3: done fetched me, and here I am remarking upon your
36:28
Speaker 3: fabulous outfit.
36:29
Speaker 1: You've a knack for Knickerbocker's my friend. I So with this,
36:34
Speaker 1: we hope that we have answered the question. And if
36:38
Speaker 1: you were interested in learning more about the history of fashion,
36:41
Speaker 1: there is a show with a great catalog that we'd
36:44
Speaker 1: like to recommend. It is called Dressed Epede by our
36:49
Speaker 1: longtime friend Holly Fry. The podcast is not putting on
36:54
Speaker 1: new episodes for a while now, but it's deep and
36:58
Speaker 1: it's really awesome exploration to us by co host April
37:01
Speaker 1: Callahan and Cassidy Zachary.
37:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, both of whom I believe both have backgrounds in
37:06
Speaker 3: literal fashion history, and they go pretty deep into it,
37:10
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of detail and really interesting stuff
37:14
Speaker 3: that even people that might not consider themselves interested in fashion,
37:18
Speaker 3: there is history is forward in this podcast, So it
37:21
Speaker 3: really is you know, we can learn a lot by
37:24
Speaker 3: the Closed People War and the kind of circumstances and
37:27
Speaker 3: ceremony around these garments and outfits.
37:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely, whether or not this podcast finds you wearing pants,
37:37
Speaker 1: perhaps the most important thing we can leave each other
37:40
Speaker 1: with today is dress how you want you know what
37:43
Speaker 1: I mean, You have the agency to wear what you
37:47
Speaker 1: would like, unless you know, I got you're at a
37:50
Speaker 1: private school or you're in some sort of situation where
37:53
Speaker 1: uniform is required. Because your clothing is more than just
37:57
Speaker 1: a function. It can also be a statement of your
38:00
Speaker 1: personality and how you feel and how how you want
38:04
Speaker 1: to be seen and be felt. And that's a beautiful,
38:08
Speaker 1: amazing thing, Oh.
38:09
Speaker 3: For sure, especially now where you know, gender is such
38:12
Speaker 3: a fluid thing, you know, and that is much more
38:15
Speaker 3: socially acceptable than it's ever been. There are a lot
38:18
Speaker 3: more opportunities, you know, for going one's own way in
38:23
Speaker 3: terms of fashion. So I think that's really liberating. And
38:26
Speaker 3: you know, for the longest time, as we see in
38:27
Speaker 3: this history, things were very much foisted upon people, you know,
38:32
Speaker 3: because of perceived gender, and now it is very much
38:35
Speaker 3: kind of up for grabs, like what direction do you
38:37
Speaker 3: want to go in? Do you want to mix it up?
38:39
Speaker 3: There kind of are no rules. It's just about, like
38:41
Speaker 3: you said, Ben, wearing what feels good and what makes
38:44
Speaker 3: you feel like the best version of yourself.
38:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd like to end on that point again, you
38:49
Speaker 1: have agency to present how you wish to the world
38:54
Speaker 1: to be seen, to be felt. It is a beautiful
38:56
Speaker 1: thing and we can't wait for you to join for
39:00
Speaker 1: more Ridiculous History. Will be back next week. It's a
39:04
Speaker 1: brand new Misadventures in the Meantime. Big big thanks to
39:07
Speaker 1: super producer and research associate for this episode, mister Max Williams.
39:12
Speaker 3: That's right, Alex Williams, who composed this theme chrisphrosciotis Eve's
39:18
Speaker 3: Jeff Coates here in the Spirit.
39:20
Speaker 1: Big big thanks to our pal Jonathan Strickland aka the Quister.
39:25
Speaker 1: If you also enjoy food History, check out our sister
39:28
Speaker 1: show Savor with Lauren Vogelbam and Addie Reese. Christ rossi
39:33
Speaker 1: otis here in Spirit. I caught up with Christopher over
39:36
Speaker 1: the holidays. He's doing well and you guys, he has
39:38
Speaker 1: an official wizard beard now, oh cool. I asked him
39:41
Speaker 1: if he knows spells and he thought I was joking.
39:44
Speaker 3: But with him briefly also and let him know that
39:48
Speaker 3: we continue to shout him out in every episode, So
39:51
Speaker 3: huge props to Christopher, who is here from the beginning
39:54
Speaker 3: with Ridiculous History. Also for shouting out the Quist. We
39:57
Speaker 3: kind of shout out a. J. Jacobs The Puzzler. Check
40:00
Speaker 3: out his show too if you want a daily dose
40:02
Speaker 3: of New York Times fun, you know, and in a
40:06
Speaker 3: short form puzzles for your daily commute.
40:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll be on The Puzzler in a different series
40:13
Speaker 1: of episodes on the way soon. You can also tune
40:17
Speaker 1: in to catch a. J. Jacobs in the future with
40:21
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. No big spoilers folks, but got a sneak
40:26
Speaker 1: peek at his newest book, which comes out in May,
40:30
Speaker 1: and I am so excited.
40:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, same year.
40:33
Speaker 3: I think you got a chance to read a little
40:34
Speaker 3: more than I did.
40:35
Speaker 4: But the peak that I got was a delight. So
40:37
Speaker 4: be on the lookout for AJ's new book, and in.
40:40
Speaker 3: The meantime, we'll see you next time, folks. For more
40:50
Speaker 3: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
40:53
Speaker 3: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.