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Sky High · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Alvar slowly blinked his eyes open. The sun had been
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  Speaker 1: beating down on him while he slept, and it was
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  Speaker 1: time to take his surroundings in. Everything seemed to have
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  Speaker 1: a blue tint. While his vision adjusted, his skin stung
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  Speaker 1: all over. It was burnt in raw from the sun,
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  Speaker 1: the saltwater, and the sand. His beard was caked with
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  Speaker 1: the latter, but he slowly climbed to his feet. Looking around,
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  Speaker 1: he saw that he was on an island. The Gulf
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  Speaker 1: of Mexico stretched out to one side, and a small
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  Speaker 1: bay leading to a coastline was on the other. As
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  Speaker 1: his mind came back to him, he remembered that it
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  Speaker 1: was the year fifteen twenty eight. He was on an
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  Speaker 1: expedition to Florida for the Spanish crown, but it had
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  Speaker 1: gone terribly wrong. Hundreds had died from disease, starvation, or
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  Speaker 1: combat with the indigenous peoples. The last of them had
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  Speaker 1: tried to flee to Mexico City on makeshift rafts, but
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  Speaker 1: clearly that had gone just as badly. Looking down at
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  Speaker 1: the beach, he saw several other Spanish sailors recovering as well.
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  Speaker 1: They were now shipwrecked on an unknown land. Despite the
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  Speaker 1: glare from the sun, the men were all freezing. It
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  Speaker 1: was winter, and a cold wind blew across the island.
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  Speaker 1: Alvar huddled near his fellow sailors, wondering where they would
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  Speaker 1: go next, but he didn't have much time to mull
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  Speaker 1: it over before new arrivals to the beach drew his attention.
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  Speaker 1: Nearly one hundred native warriors waded across the bay and
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  Speaker 1: onto the island. They were tall and imposing. Their nipples
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  Speaker 1: and up her lips were pierced with small pieces of wood.
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  Speaker 1: They were unlike anyone Alvar had ever seen. They all
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  Speaker 1: carried bows, and Alvar was sure that they were here
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  Speaker 1: to finish off the expedition. A few of the indigenous
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  Speaker 1: warriors stepped forward, and he was sure that they were
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  Speaker 1: about to start firing, but instead they did something else
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  Speaker 1: that astonished him they started to weep. Soon all the
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  Speaker 1: other warriors joined in they laid their hands on the sailors.
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  Speaker 1: It soon became clear to Alvar and the others that
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  Speaker 1: the tribe was trying to show them sympathy for what
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  Speaker 1: had befallen them. It was a far cry from the
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  Speaker 1: warfare that they had experienced in Florida. These Native Americans
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  Speaker 1: took the sailors back to their huts on the mainland
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  Speaker 1: and shared their fires and food. They mostly ate roots
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  Speaker 1: from the small, water filled plants dotting the arid landscape,
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  Speaker 1: but they would eat just about anything, lizards, spiders, even
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  Speaker 1: deer droppings. While many of Alvar's fellow sailors turned their
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  Speaker 1: noses up at this, he quickly adapted, learning to live
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  Speaker 1: as the native peoples did. Soon he was even working
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  Speaker 1: for them, traveling further inland to trade shells and pearls
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  Speaker 1: for food with other tribes. The Native Americans believed in
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  Speaker 1: healing by laying on hands and breathing uninjured or infected
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  Speaker 1: body parts. They thought that the Spanish, with their lighter skin,
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  Speaker 1: were somehow sent from the heavens and could perform these
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  Speaker 1: healing duties especially well, and so Alvar became known as
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  Speaker 1: a healer, traveling around this strange land selling shells and
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  Speaker 1: breathing on injured body parts. It turns out that none
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  Speaker 1: of the other Spanish sailors were as adaptable as Alvar.
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  Speaker 1: They slowly died from starvation or exposure to the elements.
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  Speaker 1: A dozen decided to try their luck, walking south on
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  Speaker 1: foot to Mexico. At least they thought that it was south.
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  Speaker 1: They still couldn't be sure where they were, but Alvar stayed,
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  Speaker 1: partly to learn more about the native people's and partly
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  Speaker 1: because there was one man there, a Spaniard named Lope
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  Speaker 1: de Oviedo, who was afraid of water and refused to
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  Speaker 1: leave the island. But finally, after many months, Alvar convinced
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  Speaker 1: him to leave by letting him ride across the bay
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  Speaker 1: on his back. They traveled miles barefoot, eventually reuniting with
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  Speaker 1: some of their fellow sailors, only three of whom were left.
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  Speaker 1: They continued south, sometimes meeting friendly native peoples, other times
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  Speaker 1: being taken captive and having to escape. Eventually, though, they
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  Speaker 1: made it back to Mexico, and from there they sailed
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  Speaker 1: back to Spain, but it had been almost ten years
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  Speaker 1: since they first set foot in Florida. They had walked
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  Speaker 1: over two thousand miles barefoot and encountered all kinds of unique,
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  Speaker 1: fascinating cultures. In fact, Alvar and his friends were the
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  Speaker 1: first known Europeans to set foot in some of these places.
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  Speaker 1: Remember that strange land where they were originally shipwrecked. Today
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  Speaker 1: we call it Texas, and Alvar, better known by his
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  Speaker 1: full name Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, was the first
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  Speaker 1: historian of Texas, chronicling everything he saw. His endless curiosity,
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  Speaker 1: even in the face of death, led to copious journals
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  Speaker 1: that give us some of our only insights into the
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  Speaker 1: Native American cultures at that time. Within a few years,
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  Speaker 1: many would die of disease carried by the Europeans. Others
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  Speaker 1: would be wiped out by famine or warfare with the
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  Speaker 1: Spanish or other tribes. So the next time you find
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  Speaker 1: yourself shipwrecked or lost in a strange land, do yourself
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  Speaker 1: a favor and stay curious. It might just be the
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  Speaker 1: best way to make it through alive. Lunch atop a
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  Speaker 1: skyscraper it's one of the most famous photos ever taken.
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  Speaker 1: You've most likely seen it before. It depicts a row
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  Speaker 1: of iron workers sitting along a steel beam. Below them,
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  Speaker 1: the distant buildings of New York City are as clear
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  Speaker 1: as day, but the men on this beam seem unaware
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  Speaker 1: of how high up they are. They're sharing cigarettes, opening
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  Speaker 1: their lunch boxes, talking amongst one another. The one to
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  Speaker 1: the far right of the frame is the only one
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  Speaker 1: who seems aware that they're being footed, squinting toward the
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  Speaker 1: camera with an empty flask balanced upon his knee. The
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  Speaker 1: original nineteen thirty two caption of the photo reads, in part,
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  Speaker 1: while New York's thousands rush to crowded restaurants for their
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  Speaker 1: noonday lunch, these intrepid steel workers atop the seventy story
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  Speaker 1: RCA building in Rockefeller Center get all the air and
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  Speaker 1: freedom they want by lunching on a steel beam with
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  Speaker 1: a sheer drop of over eight hundred feet to the
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  Speaker 1: street level. Honestly, it's no surprise that this image is iconic.
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  Speaker 1: It's both deeply humanizing of these steel workers and also
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  Speaker 1: vertigo inducing, almost impossible to look at without swaying on
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  Speaker 1: your feet a little and being glad that you are
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  Speaker 1: on firm ground. But as with every photograph of daring
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  Speaker 1: and impossible feats, there's one question that many asked themselves
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  Speaker 1: who took this picture? Well, it turns out there are
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  Speaker 1: more photographs from the RCA building, and some of them
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  Speaker 1: are just as dizzying as the lunch picture. One picture
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  Speaker 1: shows a slim man in nineteen thirties attire you know, suspenders,
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  Speaker 1: a tie, high waisted pants, and spats, perched on a
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  Speaker 1: steel beam with both his hands around a bulky camera
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  Speaker 1: pressed up against his chin. It looks as if a
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  Speaker 1: stray gust of wind might blow him away. And this
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  Speaker 1: man is the photographer Thomas Kelly, one of several photographers
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  Speaker 1: who were present on September twentieth of nineteen thirty two,
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  Speaker 1: the day that the famous picture was taken for RCA.
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  Speaker 1: Two of the others were William Lefwich and Charles Ebitts,
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  Speaker 1: and no one can be quite sure which of them
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  Speaker 1: snapped the famous lunch photograph. Like every other case of
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  Speaker 1: contested authorship, this topic is hotly debated among enthusiasts. Originally,
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  Speaker 1: Lewis Hine received credits. He had famously photographed the construction
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  Speaker 1: of the Empire State Building as well, but it's likely
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  Speaker 1: that he was not present for the RCA shoot. So
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  Speaker 1: how do we determine which of these long dead men
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  Speaker 1: took the photo. While Internet sleuths have taken to image
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  Speaker 1: analysis by looking at the skyline behind each of the
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  Speaker 1: photographers and their relative positions on the construction site, they
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  Speaker 1: can make educated guesses about which part of the city
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  Speaker 1: should be on the other end of the camera and
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  Speaker 1: the results. None of the photographs of the photographers show
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  Speaker 1: them taking the famous shot, so back to square one.
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  Speaker 1: In two thousand and three, Corbis Images, a company specializing
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  Speaker 1: in archival images, hired a private investigator to track down
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  Speaker 1: the photographer of the famous picture. The investigator located an
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  Speaker 1: old newspaper article which credits a man known as Hamilton Wright.
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  Speaker 1: But it's possible that mister Wright was not even on
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  Speaker 1: the building at the time. He was the head of
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  Speaker 1: a photography company and he would often get credit for
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  Speaker 1: images taken by people working under his employ But it
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  Speaker 1: does give us at least a possible connection, because at
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  Speaker 1: least one of the photographers that we know of was
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  Speaker 1: employed by the Hamilton Wright company, Charles Ebbitts. Ebitts was
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  Speaker 1: now the favorite candidate for authorship, but the presence of
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  Speaker 1: so many other photographers on the day still cast doubts
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  Speaker 1: on who who was actually responsible. The original glass negative
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  Speaker 1: of the photograph is housed in a storage facility in Pennsylvania.
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  Speaker 1: It's broken in several places, but has been kept in
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  Speaker 1: temperature controlled facilities ever since to make sure the pieces
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  Speaker 1: did not degrade with age. And as for the men
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  Speaker 1: in the photograph itself, well, their identities are even less
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  Speaker 1: certain than the photographer. They were most likely immigrant laborers,
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  Speaker 1: never credited in their time. Whole documentaries have been produced
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  Speaker 1: seeking out the identities of these men in the picture.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them have been positively identified, but others are
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  Speaker 1: lost to history, or perhaps not quite lost. That's the
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  Speaker 1: beautiful thing about photographs like lunch atop a skyscraper. It
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  Speaker 1: may not be much, but an image like this transcends time,
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  Speaker 1: location and profession create an empathy between us and the
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  Speaker 1: men who are working there eighty years ago. That's an
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  Speaker 1: even more towering achievement than the tallest of skyscrapers. I
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  Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. This show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works, I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.