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Female Firsts: Mary Fields · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you, a production of I Heart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: And today we are thrilled, thrilled, and once again be
0:22
Speaker 1: joined by our good friend, the amazing Eves. I'm so
0:27
Speaker 1: glad to have you back, yes, because you took you
0:32
Speaker 1: took a month off and you were greatly missed. Thank you. Yes,
0:40
Speaker 1: How how have you been? Do you have anything that
0:42
Speaker 1: you're excited about or that you would like to share?
0:44
Speaker 1: What's been going on? Eves? I don't know. I'm excited
0:48
Speaker 1: about life, so I guess there's a good place to start.
0:51
Speaker 1: You know, Like times are hard and it's really hard
0:54
Speaker 1: to stay ground it right now, so I'm excited about life.
0:58
Speaker 1: I feel like this is one of those tough of course,
1:00
Speaker 1: we're at the end of the year, so everybody's reflecting
1:04
Speaker 1: on how the year was, what it's been like, and
1:08
Speaker 1: I know that's like a pretty heavy load for a
1:10
Speaker 1: lot of people. But I think it's really nice to
1:13
Speaker 1: have this moment when we can all expect to think
1:16
Speaker 1: about change and expect to be hopeful, because that can
1:20
Speaker 1: get really weedy and difficult when, like so many things
1:26
Speaker 1: that we talk about on a daily basis hard about hope. Yeah,
1:33
Speaker 1: so yeah, I'm excited and I'm glad to be here
1:36
Speaker 1: with y'all. Yes, that's a I love that. That's such
1:39
Speaker 1: a positive take on it, which I really appreciate because
1:44
Speaker 1: we're kind of like me and Samantha been so everything
1:50
Speaker 1: is terrible, but that's that's good. I like that taking
1:53
Speaker 1: that moment. But I also, yeah, I'm a big at
1:55
Speaker 1: least right now, I'm a big proponent of like taking
1:57
Speaker 1: that moment, but also being gentle with yourself that that
2:00
Speaker 1: that moment of like, it's been rough, but there are
2:04
Speaker 1: positives and it's nice to think about still what changes
2:09
Speaker 1: you would like to make, however small they may be.
2:13
Speaker 1: I am also very, very excited about the woman you
2:19
Speaker 1: bought for this episode, because we discussed her very briefly.
2:24
Speaker 1: We did a history on women and the USPS, which
2:30
Speaker 1: was surprisingly fascinating. It felt like a Western and so
2:35
Speaker 1: you actually brought us a Western. Yes, yes, yes, all
2:41
Speaker 1: of the dangers people used to face, and I loved
2:45
Speaker 1: kind of the community aspect of it too, where everybody's
2:48
Speaker 1: sort of new the post person and also a lot
2:53
Speaker 1: of controversy around outfits. Of course always are y'all good
2:59
Speaker 1: at that. Do y'all converse with your post people? So, like,
3:09
Speaker 1: I know, I just had a whole thing because I
3:11
Speaker 1: usually give our mail carrier like a gift card for
3:15
Speaker 1: the holidays and today thank you, and I had to
3:18
Speaker 1: sit back and forth and starting I'm like, I don't
3:20
Speaker 1: know their name, and to be honest, they switched up
3:23
Speaker 1: so often because I live in an area that's just
3:25
Speaker 1: pretty high traffic, there's a lot of complaints. I think
3:28
Speaker 1: we had an issue with like mail going missing, slash dumping,
3:33
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I don't think it's that person,
3:35
Speaker 1: but like issues like that. So I was like, I
3:37
Speaker 1: don't even know if they're a man or a woman.
3:40
Speaker 1: I don't know, so I don't want to say, you know, postman, postwoman, Malkie.
3:44
Speaker 1: So I just called them Maril carrier. But it felt
3:47
Speaker 1: awkward and so impersonal. I felt really bad. Yeah, that's
3:52
Speaker 1: that's tough. I know. I know the person who does
3:57
Speaker 1: most of the like USPS person who does most of
4:00
Speaker 1: delivering of my mail, and he's super nice. He's seen
4:02
Speaker 1: me like in all kinds of states of like being
4:06
Speaker 1: soaked by the rain or like in my pajamas, and
4:09
Speaker 1: once I came out, I just happened to open the
4:11
Speaker 1: door randomly, and he was right outside my door, and
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm easily startled. As you all know. It was a
4:17
Speaker 1: huge moment of like like I'm jumping back and almost screaming.
4:21
Speaker 1: But then he was like, I hope you don't mind.
4:23
Speaker 1: I've just been signing for you. And I was like,
4:27
Speaker 1: oh no, I appreciate that because I've never I never
4:29
Speaker 1: hear them, and I'm never there to sign or at
4:32
Speaker 1: least I never hear it. I'm always here in my apartment.
4:35
Speaker 1: But anyway, and he showed me the signature and he
4:38
Speaker 1: was like, this is okay with you. It's better than mine.
4:42
Speaker 1: That doesn't get have been any trouble. I really do
4:44
Speaker 1: appreciate it, but you just got a fine way to go.
4:48
Speaker 1: Oh no, I I don't know that that. I don't
4:54
Speaker 1: know that. It was like a I actually have no
4:57
Speaker 1: idea what he was doing, but he was signing my
4:59
Speaker 1: name is owed it to me, And I was like, yeah,
5:01
Speaker 1: I've been to it. I love to continue doing that.
5:04
Speaker 1: I have missed the many packages for that reason. Yes,
5:08
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying. That's so that's why I'm so appreciative.
5:11
Speaker 1: I think I have indicated somewhere like, for the love
5:14
Speaker 1: of God, I don't care. Just leave it if it
5:18
Speaker 1: needs a signature, and I will take the blame. I
5:21
Speaker 1: think I've actually gone into the website and said that, like,
5:24
Speaker 1: please please just leave it. What about you, Eaves? No,
5:30
Speaker 1: I'm really bad at stuff like that. Um, I feel
5:32
Speaker 1: like my social anxiety shows up this kind of thing. Um,
5:37
Speaker 1: I want to get better at it though, Like I
5:39
Speaker 1: I would love to get better at that. So, like,
5:41
Speaker 1: that's that's definitely a goal of mine. It's good to
5:44
Speaker 1: be on good terms because, as we talked about in
5:46
Speaker 1: my episode, sometimes they'll notice if you like don't answer
5:49
Speaker 1: the door, they haven't seen you in a while, and
5:51
Speaker 1: then reports stuff and people have been like saved by
5:56
Speaker 1: their mail carrier, being like saved about miss Yes. Now
6:00
Speaker 1: that's a that's a movie, saved by the mail carrier.
6:07
Speaker 1: All right, well, Eves, let's get into the story. I'm
6:10
Speaker 1: so excited. Who did you bring for us today? So
6:12
Speaker 1: today we're going to be talking about Mary Fields, also
6:15
Speaker 1: known as stagecoach Mary. So I have a feeling that
6:19
Speaker 1: that's going to be a name that's that a lot
6:21
Speaker 1: of people might be familiar with, even if they don't
6:24
Speaker 1: know anything about her exactly what she did or even
6:27
Speaker 1: what her first was. So Stagecoach Mary Mary Feels was
6:32
Speaker 1: the first Black American woman to carry mail on a
6:36
Speaker 1: star route for the US Post Office Department. We'll get
6:39
Speaker 1: into the weeds of like what a star root is
6:41
Speaker 1: in a little bit of the context for the U.
6:43
Speaker 1: S Post Department back then. But yeah, like I'm sure
6:48
Speaker 1: a lot of people have hurt that because she has
6:50
Speaker 1: one of those monikers that like just rolls off the tongue.
6:52
Speaker 1: That's so easy to say, stagecoach Mary. It sounds so cool,
6:56
Speaker 1: like the two of you were saying earlier, like it's
6:58
Speaker 1: the whole persona uh. And the story of Mary Fields
7:03
Speaker 1: just is so right for the imagery and the idealism
7:08
Speaker 1: and all the like fluff that came along with what
7:12
Speaker 1: the old West is. And I was I was recently
7:15
Speaker 1: in the West, because I was recently over there. This
7:17
Speaker 1: is kind of what inspired me to start thinking about
7:19
Speaker 1: black women in the West and like reading about them
7:23
Speaker 1: because I'm a Southern girl forever and I've been in
7:26
Speaker 1: the South. Um, a lot of my family is from
7:29
Speaker 1: the South, So yeah, there's a lot of this mythologizing
7:32
Speaker 1: and romanticizing of the Old West, and also the making
7:36
Speaker 1: larger of her character itself. When it comes to her,
7:39
Speaker 1: she's the perfect subject for legends and myth making. Um.
7:43
Speaker 1: So a lot of the tales about who she was
7:46
Speaker 1: and what she did during her lifetime, which was in
7:48
Speaker 1: the eighteen hundreds in the early nineteen hundreds, is embellished.
7:53
Speaker 1: There are definitely a lot of apocryphal stories there. But
7:57
Speaker 1: on the other hand, it also means that she's been
7:59
Speaker 1: recogniz eyes um. She has a nickname, you know, and
8:03
Speaker 1: she's had books written about her. She's been fictionalized in
8:07
Speaker 1: TV and film and over the years as well, including
8:11
Speaker 1: more recent things. And yeah, so she just has a
8:15
Speaker 1: really cool story. Yeah, she absolutely does. Cool picture too
8:18
Speaker 1: that usually comes up when you search her pretty pretty bad. Yeah,
8:24
Speaker 1: and there's some excellent quotes the picture. I've seen that
8:27
Speaker 1: picture even before we were talking, and we've been talking
8:29
Speaker 1: about who she was or what she was in relations
8:32
Speaker 1: to the US Postal Service, because you've seen that picture,
8:35
Speaker 1: whether or not you know where it's from or it's
8:38
Speaker 1: pretty famous. And her kind of like she became like
8:41
Speaker 1: you said, very very like romantic size and then again
8:45
Speaker 1: like a legendary tale almost, but that picture in itself
8:47
Speaker 1: so like, oh, you know, like every every man now
8:51
Speaker 1: and then you're like, that's one of those that I recognized.
8:53
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but it is badass and I've
8:56
Speaker 1: seen it. Yeah, it's a legendary picture. So there is
9:04
Speaker 1: an author who wrote a book Deliverance Mary Fields, the
9:07
Speaker 1: first African American woman's star roots mail carrier in the
9:10
Speaker 1: United States of Montana history, had to go through the
9:14
Speaker 1: full thing there. Um. But yeah, so according to her,
9:17
Speaker 1: the author, I don't want to get her name wrong,
9:20
Speaker 1: but I believe it's pronounced Meante metcalfe McConnell. But according
9:25
Speaker 1: to the author, the documentation that the author provided to
9:28
Speaker 1: United States Postal Service historians enable them to verify her
9:34
Speaker 1: quote unquote first. So McConnell also says that through her work,
9:38
Speaker 1: she was able to confirm that Mary Fields was the
9:41
Speaker 1: first black person to register to vote in Cascade, Montana. Um.
9:45
Speaker 1: So that author is also scheduled to release another book. Umo.
9:51
Speaker 1: So well, we can get into more of the context
9:54
Speaker 1: of all the things that, um, the Postal Service stuff
9:57
Speaker 1: and Mary Phil's life, um, and all of that later. Yes,
10:14
Speaker 1: I start at the beginning. So Mary Fales was born
10:19
Speaker 1: around eighteen thirty two in Hickman County, Tennessee. She didn't
10:23
Speaker 1: know her birthday, as so many black people didn't. She
10:26
Speaker 1: was born enslaved. She was a servant for the Warner
10:30
Speaker 1: family in the years before the Civil War, and she
10:34
Speaker 1: was emancipated sometime around emancipation or just after the Civil War.
10:40
Speaker 1: She could read and write, but there isn't a lot
10:43
Speaker 1: more that's documented about her early years. There's a lot
10:45
Speaker 1: more that's documented um into her later years, but it
10:50
Speaker 1: is known that after emancipation she worked on steamboats on
10:53
Speaker 1: the Mississippi River in the southeast, and one of the
10:57
Speaker 1: steamboats that she worked on was the Robert E, which
11:01
Speaker 1: garnered attention when it beat the Natchez in a publicized
11:04
Speaker 1: race from New Orleans to St. Louis in eighteen seventy.
11:08
Speaker 1: So Mary eventually made her way to Toledo, Ohio, and
11:12
Speaker 1: there she started working at an Ursulin convent. The Ursulin's
11:16
Speaker 1: are a Catholic religious order of women. It's not completely
11:20
Speaker 1: clear while she gravitated to the convent. There is speculation
11:23
Speaker 1: around it um but one theory being that there was
11:26
Speaker 1: some familiarity there because she was a servant for the
11:30
Speaker 1: duns for several years and they had relatives who were
11:32
Speaker 1: nuns at the convent. But either way, she made it
11:36
Speaker 1: there by train in eighteen seventy and she did jobs
11:39
Speaker 1: like wash laundry, work in the kitchen, and maintain the grounds.
11:44
Speaker 1: And these are things that you'll see come up throughout
11:46
Speaker 1: her entire lifetime. As she moved from place to place.
11:49
Speaker 1: She continued to do laundry, continued to cook and work
11:53
Speaker 1: in the garden. But as a worker there at the convent,
11:57
Speaker 1: Mary met Ursulin. Mother Mary Amadeus, and then many of
12:01
Speaker 1: the nuns that were there ended up going to Montana
12:04
Speaker 1: and running a school for Native Americans. Mary Fields also
12:09
Speaker 1: ended up moving to Montana Territory in eight So for context,
12:15
Speaker 1: Montana was admitted as a state in eighteen eighty nine,
12:20
Speaker 1: so just four years after she moved to Montana Territory.
12:23
Speaker 1: It said that she moved to Montana when Arslan Mother
12:25
Speaker 1: Amadeus was sick with pneumonia there um Some sources say
12:30
Speaker 1: that they knew each other before the convent because Mother
12:34
Speaker 1: Mary was related by marriage to the family who had
12:37
Speaker 1: enslaved Mary Fields in Tennessee. But like we could go
12:41
Speaker 1: on forever with the links and all of the stories
12:44
Speaker 1: and speculations, so fly past that. But in Montana she
12:51
Speaker 1: worked at St. Peter's Mission near a cascade. She helped
12:55
Speaker 1: with construction again, did laundry in the garden and other
12:58
Speaker 1: odd jobs, and she also delivered food and supplies in
13:02
Speaker 1: the mission. So she drove horses and a freight wagon
13:04
Speaker 1: for miles to get stuff to the Ursulain nuns. So
13:08
Speaker 1: in a lot of these secondary accounts of Mary Feels
13:12
Speaker 1: she is described as being crass, hardened, mean, quick, tempered, um,
13:21
Speaker 1: which goes into the myth making around her as a
13:26
Speaker 1: figure more so than an actual person. Even if she
13:30
Speaker 1: had some of those qualities, a lot of the descriptions
13:33
Speaker 1: can be embellishment, exaggerated, and even inaccurate. She has been
13:38
Speaker 1: made into this character, as it goes with a lot
13:42
Speaker 1: of people who are nicknamed. So she had other There
13:47
Speaker 1: were other things people called her as well, um, like
13:50
Speaker 1: black Mary, white crow, colored Mary, inward Mary. There's something
13:56
Speaker 1: to be said about the way that the Old West
13:58
Speaker 1: mythologizing mixed with the stereotypes of black women in her story,
14:04
Speaker 1: those things were all wrapped up together. Um. Because she
14:07
Speaker 1: was both she lived in the West in this time
14:10
Speaker 1: that is portrayed with so much fantastic imagery. Um that
14:16
Speaker 1: is understandably fascinating, you know for us to look back on,
14:22
Speaker 1: but it is wrapped up in so many so so
14:25
Speaker 1: many conceptions that we have of the time that are
14:28
Speaker 1: built on media and the propagandizing of of the character
14:37
Speaker 1: of the time. So you know, there were sources that
14:40
Speaker 1: says she was six ft in two hundred pounds, which
14:44
Speaker 1: is like, you know, why we need to talk about
14:47
Speaker 1: her weight, but whatever, um, which McConnell says, it's not
14:52
Speaker 1: true that she did quote unquote Man's work. So a
14:55
Speaker 1: lot of the secondary sources that you'll see, which is like, oh,
14:58
Speaker 1: you know, great there talking about this this woman, Like
15:02
Speaker 1: it's great that we do have so many, like mainstream
15:05
Speaker 1: sources that talk about her, that talk about her history,
15:08
Speaker 1: but still fall victim to all of the stereotyping and
15:14
Speaker 1: the racism that's been perpetuated from her over time, because
15:17
Speaker 1: it's just kind of regardgitating those things so that she
15:20
Speaker 1: did Man's work because she was doing things like construction,
15:23
Speaker 1: gardening and carried a gun and things like that, and
15:26
Speaker 1: that she was generally imposing so with the building of
15:29
Speaker 1: this figure, like in my head, you have a picture
15:32
Speaker 1: to go along with it. So that picture that Samantha
15:34
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, that is of her standing in a very
15:38
Speaker 1: like stately way holding a long rifle that's almost as
15:42
Speaker 1: tall as her and in black and white, you know,
15:46
Speaker 1: that helps as well, just makes it so that wow, yeah,
15:49
Speaker 1: I can see this woman being that person. Maybe these
15:53
Speaker 1: things are true. So people have created this larger than
15:57
Speaker 1: life character for it was gun toting, pain swearing, fight picking, drinking, smoking,
16:05
Speaker 1: cussing woman. But it's important to remember that she was
16:08
Speaker 1: a dark skinned black woman in the United States in
16:11
Speaker 1: the mid to late eight early nineteen hundreds, and that
16:16
Speaker 1: happens all the time with dark skinned black women, where
16:18
Speaker 1: they're portrayed as more masculine um and they have to
16:21
Speaker 1: be a certain way. Power is inherent in a person,
16:24
Speaker 1: especially one who's in the Old West, Like, how could
16:26
Speaker 1: a dark skinned black woman who lived, you know, we
16:29
Speaker 1: lived and worked just after the Civil War and knew
16:32
Speaker 1: how to ride horses and was a sharp shooter and
16:35
Speaker 1: all these how could she not be masculine? So yeah,
16:39
Speaker 1: this is it's been definitely like that's what spewed in
16:44
Speaker 1: her history. Um, So she was a good shooter and
16:47
Speaker 1: horseback rider, but she wasn't in gunfights since she wasn't
16:50
Speaker 1: in a gang, and she wore pants under her skirt,
16:54
Speaker 1: and she was tough. She was devoted to her work
16:56
Speaker 1: and the people she cared about. But it's really clear
16:59
Speaker 1: that during even during her time, so this wasn't just
17:02
Speaker 1: post her you know, posthumous Lee, this was also during
17:06
Speaker 1: her time, you know, when she was getting these nicknames
17:08
Speaker 1: and things like that. But her figure has been stretched
17:11
Speaker 1: beyond her actual personhood with it being clear that racism
17:15
Speaker 1: plays a big role in that, which is something that
17:18
Speaker 1: I know y'all enculed her a lot, like when y'all
17:20
Speaker 1: are doing your history research, um and in feminist history
17:25
Speaker 1: in general, I think it's funny that anything that isn't
17:29
Speaker 1: shrinking is obviously the opposite of that. Like if you're
17:33
Speaker 1: just being, that means you're trying to take up space,
17:35
Speaker 1: especially for women of color, especially as you were talking
17:38
Speaker 1: about like that, this specific woman in this time. Oh
17:42
Speaker 1: my gosh, even today, we know that that still happens
17:45
Speaker 1: for people who are not seen as the top tier
17:49
Speaker 1: of what they think is success, which is a white
17:52
Speaker 1: man in general, so having that and just could just
17:56
Speaker 1: clearly be existing, surviving, doing what they're good at. So
17:59
Speaker 1: they're for, oh, we have to make a reason as
18:02
Speaker 1: to why you were okay with you doing that. We're
18:04
Speaker 1: gonna allow this to happen, and it's usually very big
18:07
Speaker 1: and very sexist, very racist reasons. Yeah. Can I repeat
18:10
Speaker 1: what you just said, Samantham, because I really love that
18:13
Speaker 1: when you just said, even if someone is not shrinking,
18:16
Speaker 1: it seems like they're taking up space. And I feel
18:18
Speaker 1: like you really beautifully worded that, because I don't that
18:22
Speaker 1: is just really poetic in a way, even though poetic
18:26
Speaker 1: kind of connotes a good thing. But because she was
18:30
Speaker 1: like that six ft and two hundred pounds, like that
18:32
Speaker 1: translated in a literal way for people who were recording
18:36
Speaker 1: her history, like she was a large person, as if
18:39
Speaker 1: she couldn't do the things that she did and also
18:41
Speaker 1: still have character and you know, be this person who
18:45
Speaker 1: was full of life, but you know, she was clearly
18:50
Speaker 1: bigger than she needed to be, because I mean, oftentimes
18:53
Speaker 1: I guess this is a conundrum in this you know,
18:56
Speaker 1: where black people and black women are made more masculine
18:59
Speaker 1: and larger, we're all so diminished like made diminutive as well.
19:03
Speaker 1: So yeah, I really love the way you put that santhis.
19:06
Speaker 1: Thank you for saying that, UM. And I also feel
19:09
Speaker 1: like it's important to say that both things can exist
19:12
Speaker 1: at the same time. I feel like we talked about
19:13
Speaker 1: this a lot when we are talking about these figures
19:16
Speaker 1: in history, especially because their first Like there is so
19:19
Speaker 1: much contradiction in them where there are people who came
19:22
Speaker 1: before them, but this is also accomplishment for them. It's
19:25
Speaker 1: the same case in this. It's like, yeah, she could
19:27
Speaker 1: have you know, people can't be tough, they can be rowdy,
19:31
Speaker 1: they can be all of these things today and yesterday
19:34
Speaker 1: and far back in history. Um, they can contain all
19:37
Speaker 1: of those characteristics in themselves. But that can also be
19:41
Speaker 1: There's so many different elements to it. Like people who
19:43
Speaker 1: lived during her time and interacted with her were also
19:46
Speaker 1: colored by their perceptions of her based on the world
19:51
Speaker 1: views that they had at the time, a lot of
19:53
Speaker 1: which was racism, but also ignorance and not interacting with
19:56
Speaker 1: black people and expecting a certain thing when it was
19:58
Speaker 1: time for them to interact with black people, UM, and
20:02
Speaker 1: expecting black people to take certain what roles is specifically
20:07
Speaker 1: black women. So yeah, like it could be that she
20:11
Speaker 1: had some of those elements in her and also that
20:14
Speaker 1: other people who remarked about her, we're remarking from their
20:17
Speaker 1: own personal world views. And also that she might have
20:22
Speaker 1: been that way for a certain reason because in rural
20:26
Speaker 1: Montana in the eighteen hundreds and she had to deal
20:29
Speaker 1: with people in their prejudices, Like, it's not it's not
20:32
Speaker 1: that it's not that complicated. It's definitely complicated, but it's
20:35
Speaker 1: not that complicated. So as if the story goes, the
20:55
Speaker 1: state Bishop of Montana ended up ordering Mary to be
20:58
Speaker 1: dismissed from the car event, and supposedly because she had
21:02
Speaker 1: got enough fight with someone and got an in a
21:06
Speaker 1: fight with someone, and he deemed her behavior inappropriate for
21:11
Speaker 1: the work that she was doing, the customs that they
21:13
Speaker 1: were trying to impart up upon the children, the Native
21:15
Speaker 1: American children at the mission school. So after she left
21:19
Speaker 1: the mission, she went to near Cascade, which was just nearby,
21:23
Speaker 1: and opened a restaurant there. But the restaurant didn't do
21:27
Speaker 1: so hot. She gave a lot of away, a lot
21:29
Speaker 1: of meals for free, so it wasn't that profitable of
21:32
Speaker 1: a venture. And that's in comes the part where she
21:36
Speaker 1: gets her first because she pursued a job as a
21:39
Speaker 1: mail carrier was that restaurant. Being a restaurateur didn't work
21:43
Speaker 1: out for her, she pursued that job as a mail
21:46
Speaker 1: carrier for a route between cass Gate and St. Peter's Mission,
21:49
Speaker 1: so she knew she knew the area already, and in
21:55
Speaker 1: she got that contract to be a star Root mail
21:58
Speaker 1: carrier for the U. S. Post Office Department. At this
22:02
Speaker 1: point she was in her sixties, so for a little context.
22:08
Speaker 1: The department introduced rural free delivery in eight nine in
22:14
Speaker 1: West Virginia and it spread from there, though it took
22:18
Speaker 1: several years for it to be implemented across the country,
22:20
Speaker 1: so it's kind of slow moving because before then, rural
22:24
Speaker 1: people would have to travel to pick up their mail
22:26
Speaker 1: at the post office are paid private services to deliver them,
22:29
Speaker 1: while folks in the city it could have it conveniently delivered.
22:34
Speaker 1: And in the years already by default, i should say
22:37
Speaker 1: um in the years leading to rural free delivery, customers
22:40
Speaker 1: were asking for routes to be established to rural places
22:43
Speaker 1: for obvious reasons, like a lot of the time they
22:44
Speaker 1: had to travel far to pick up their mail. So
22:48
Speaker 1: what exactly is the Star route it is In five
22:53
Speaker 1: to reduce mail transportation cost, Congress had a preface for
22:57
Speaker 1: stage coaches, but they ditched that, and they made it
22:59
Speaker 1: so that contracts would be awarded to the lowest bidder
23:02
Speaker 1: for quote, what may be necessary to provide for the due, celarity, certainty,
23:09
Speaker 1: and security of such transportation. So postal clerks often shortened
23:14
Speaker 1: that phrase to three asterisks for the three points or
23:19
Speaker 1: and or stars, whatever you wanna call them. The bids
23:21
Speaker 1: became known as starbids, and the roots became known as
23:24
Speaker 1: star roots, and they the star roots started off being
23:28
Speaker 1: implemented in places that weren't populated enough for an official route.
23:32
Speaker 1: So star roots just sounds amazing, though, like she did
23:35
Speaker 1: a Star route in actuality, it's it's a lot more
23:39
Speaker 1: mundane than than what it sounds like, because the stars
23:43
Speaker 1: for astress. But still, you know, a Star route, like
23:47
Speaker 1: you know, it's still it felts upgraded, for sure. That's
23:54
Speaker 1: the minute the work that she did. Of course, like
23:56
Speaker 1: I'm being money, but Mary, she did carry a mail
23:59
Speaker 1: on her root for years until nineteen o three. It
24:02
Speaker 1: was a thirty four mile round trip. She had to
24:05
Speaker 1: deal with the harsh weather and the wildlife like wolves,
24:09
Speaker 1: which is where you know, what is the uh is
24:12
Speaker 1: it balto? Yeah, that kind of idea of like, oh
24:15
Speaker 1: my gosh, it's it's huge adventure that you have to
24:18
Speaker 1: go on and make sure day job and you're in
24:20
Speaker 1: the wild West like in the United States. Hey was
24:31
Speaker 1: low and hours were long, uh. And she would drive
24:35
Speaker 1: that stage coach are she wouldn't even walk in snowshoes
24:38
Speaker 1: at times when it was necessary, and she was reliable
24:42
Speaker 1: and she was quick at her job, and her work
24:44
Speaker 1: as a carrier earned her that nickname that you know,
24:47
Speaker 1: stage coach Mary. Yeah. I mean it's one of those
24:50
Speaker 1: things that I guess, you know, we take for granted
24:54
Speaker 1: that mail just arrives and at a time, Yeah, there
24:57
Speaker 1: was you going out into the the elements and dealing
25:03
Speaker 1: with wolves and all of these things. And I can
25:07
Speaker 1: imagine like how you know, people were grateful to be
25:12
Speaker 1: able to have the service and that's kind of like wow, yeah,
25:17
Speaker 1: here she comes stagecoach Mary. And if you go watch
25:21
Speaker 1: videos on I think about how I don't I don't
25:24
Speaker 1: know if this is the official slogan, but like the
25:27
Speaker 1: for the U. S. Postal Service today, how it's like
25:30
Speaker 1: we'll go rain sleek Snow, that's what I thought you
25:36
Speaker 1: were referencing at first. So there's kind of pride around,
25:40
Speaker 1: you know, being able to deliver at any time and
25:44
Speaker 1: get the things to people when they need them. Um.
25:47
Speaker 1: And I also want to you know, I said earlier
25:49
Speaker 1: that I was thinking about the West, but also another thing.
25:53
Speaker 1: You know, it's the time of season when we're all
25:55
Speaker 1: talking about the post office. A lot of that talk
25:58
Speaker 1: is maligning, but they're doing a lot of work right now,
26:02
Speaker 1: and they always are at this time of the year,
26:04
Speaker 1: so I feel like it it fits, you know, within
26:07
Speaker 1: the theme when we're all the stressed over like when
26:11
Speaker 1: things are going to get to certain places and packages
26:13
Speaker 1: are going to get to certain places, and if they're
26:15
Speaker 1: going to make them one time or not, and if
26:16
Speaker 1: they're going to get there safely there's gonna be anything
26:19
Speaker 1: in the box when it gets there. Oh my god.
26:20
Speaker 1: I could go on about like are you okay? I'm
26:25
Speaker 1: just thinking about the things that we complain about, like
26:28
Speaker 1: but also thinking about how far we had to come
26:31
Speaker 1: to get to a place where we had our male
26:32
Speaker 1: conveniently delivered like this. It just feels so extra to
26:37
Speaker 1: be complaining about this. I love watching episodes where it's
26:41
Speaker 1: supposed to be in the future and you have someone
26:43
Speaker 1: from the past and you're trying to explain like deliveries
26:45
Speaker 1: in or mail, and they're like, oh, yeah, we'll be
26:48
Speaker 1: here like immediately, and it's like, yeah, not really. They
26:51
Speaker 1: it worse like that. They're like, those are my favorite
26:54
Speaker 1: moments of those comparisons they express is delivered by play.
27:01
Speaker 1: I mean it's amazing because I mean the logistics alone
27:06
Speaker 1: are make my brain hurt. Yeah, yeah for real. Yeah,
27:11
Speaker 1: So Mary was It's part of that history. You know,
27:14
Speaker 1: it's not just some separate woman history, not some separate
27:18
Speaker 1: black person or black woman history. She's part of the
27:20
Speaker 1: whole history of the United States Postal Service that got
27:23
Speaker 1: us to this day. And after finishing her stint with
27:26
Speaker 1: the post Office Department, she opened a laundry service and Cascade.
27:31
Speaker 1: She babysat children, gave them treats, She continued gardening, and
27:37
Speaker 1: she went to baseball games in Cascade, and even chose
27:40
Speaker 1: to be mascot for the town's baseball team. Which sorry,
27:45
Speaker 1: when I heard this, I had to laugh because I
27:48
Speaker 1: was like, she was mascot for the team, you know, like,
27:51
Speaker 1: did she choose that or know, right, but she did.
27:55
Speaker 1: She really liked baseball and you can actually go and
27:58
Speaker 1: find a picture of her with the baseball team online,
28:02
Speaker 1: so that's pretty cool to look out. And yeah, and
28:05
Speaker 1: people in her townel would help her out as well.
28:08
Speaker 1: She got free meals and when her house caught on
28:10
Speaker 1: fire nineteen twelve, people helped her rebuild it. So it's
28:13
Speaker 1: not to say that everybody in Montana treated her will
28:17
Speaker 1: like obviously she everybody didn't like her, people had it
28:21
Speaker 1: out for her. UM. She didn't necessarily jail immediately in
28:24
Speaker 1: the communities that she was in UM, but she did
28:28
Speaker 1: have support in her communities, and she did four bonds
28:32
Speaker 1: with the nuns also that she worked with UM from
28:35
Speaker 1: the mission. So yeah, there were people on her team
28:39
Speaker 1: and there were people who weren't on her team, as
28:40
Speaker 1: we can say about so many of us in life,
28:42
Speaker 1: with the caveat that she's her own individual, last person
28:44
Speaker 1: who had her own struggles. But of course, so she
28:48
Speaker 1: died on December five, nineteen fourteen, and she's buried in Cascade,
28:52
Speaker 1: and December is her month, So I feel like that's
28:54
Speaker 1: another good reason for December the month of remembrance. I
28:59
Speaker 1: should I'm into it. Yeah, this is it's such a
29:05
Speaker 1: it's such an interesting story. And I do think, like,
29:09
Speaker 1: you know, going back to what you were saying, Eve's
29:10
Speaker 1: about taking this time to kind of reflect and think
29:14
Speaker 1: about change and things you want to change. And I,
29:20
Speaker 1: I don't know. I remember when Samith and I did
29:22
Speaker 1: this episode on this and I had never really considered
29:24
Speaker 1: how I just take for granted the mail arriving, but
29:28
Speaker 1: also how important you know, that relationship would be to
29:32
Speaker 1: somebody if this person bringing you something and bringing email
29:35
Speaker 1: and it would foster this and I can totally see
29:37
Speaker 1: how it would build this reputation and you would just
29:40
Speaker 1: be like, thank goodness, she's she's coming with the mail.
29:44
Speaker 1: And I think it's worth like remembering that kind of
29:47
Speaker 1: stuff and remembering the history that got us to where
29:51
Speaker 1: we are today. Yeah. I agree. That's what I was
29:55
Speaker 1: going to say earlier that if you go and look
29:57
Speaker 1: at videos of about the Star Roots, just the the
30:01
Speaker 1: pride that people in later years also took in being
30:05
Speaker 1: the people who were independent carriers to get the mail
30:07
Speaker 1: to people like this is this is my boat. I
30:10
Speaker 1: know these waters. I'm going to get it to you
30:12
Speaker 1: no matter what flood comes it's pretty inspiring. I feel
30:16
Speaker 1: like you could add it to a workout playlist or
30:18
Speaker 1: like your daily affirmations, morning affirmations. I love that, so
30:25
Speaker 1: it's like, what do you do in your daily affirmation?
30:28
Speaker 1: So I watched these old us. They really get me going,
30:34
Speaker 1: probably works better than the ones we have today, So
30:36
Speaker 1: let's do it. That's that's fair. That is really rare. Well,
30:41
Speaker 1: this is has always been such a delight. Eaves anything
30:44
Speaker 1: else you want to add before we close up? No,
30:47
Speaker 1: I think that's all. That's that's it, y'all. Well I do.
30:50
Speaker 1: I will have a question though, So as we were,
30:52
Speaker 1: you were talking at the beginning that she's portrayed down
30:55
Speaker 1: even now today because she's become kind of such a figurehead.
30:59
Speaker 1: So apparently both she uh stagecoach Marya as well as
31:04
Speaker 1: Cathay Williams are on our portrayed. I think this is
31:08
Speaker 1: very loosely base, but they're they're characterized as this on
31:12
Speaker 1: Harder to Fall. Has anyone seen this? Yeah, I was
31:15
Speaker 1: gonna bring it up, but I hadn't seen it, so
31:17
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, but I do plan on watching
31:22
Speaker 1: it because I feel like it's a very loose Uh,
31:24
Speaker 1: it's a pretty loose um portrayal of who they were.
31:28
Speaker 1: I mean, I will say there was some criticism on
31:30
Speaker 1: the on the people who portray it because they were
31:32
Speaker 1: trying to make it. As we were talking about like
31:34
Speaker 1: the larger than life she is portrayed by Zusi beats.
31:39
Speaker 1: I think I'm just saying the right on harder to fall.
31:42
Speaker 1: And obviously I think from the photo of what we
31:45
Speaker 1: have for who she is, uh in the way back,
31:50
Speaker 1: way back when, it's definitely different portrayal, and I think
31:53
Speaker 1: that was kind of the same idea with Cathay Williams.
31:56
Speaker 1: They're like, Okay, obviously they're not doing it exactly, They're
31:59
Speaker 1: not trying to find people looking like them, but representing
32:02
Speaker 1: what they did. So I just wondered how that came
32:05
Speaker 1: because I've heard a lot of back and forth, and
32:06
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about the movie because I do have
32:08
Speaker 1: a lot of famous black Western cowboys slash people in
32:12
Speaker 1: that time, so I do want to see it and
32:14
Speaker 1: I'm really excited by it. But I wondered if anybody
32:16
Speaker 1: had actually seen that portrayal. But I'll answer my question
32:21
Speaker 1: so a audience, our listeners have seen it, let us know, yes, yes,
32:26
Speaker 1: us now maybe we will revisit this episode. Yeah, and
32:30
Speaker 1: maybe you can drop a comment on any discrepancies that
32:33
Speaker 1: you felt like we're in the film or anything you
32:35
Speaker 1: thought that they got really right about. Yeah, yeah, i'd
32:40
Speaker 1: been great. We'll do a female first round up that
32:49
Speaker 1: would that would be really good of portrayals and fictional media.
32:55
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah. The book that McConnell wrote is
32:57
Speaker 1: actually a fictionalized historical account as well. And apparently the
33:00
Speaker 1: book that she's supposed to be releasing next year is
33:06
Speaker 1: going to be more on the non fiction side based
33:08
Speaker 1: on the sources that she used to create the falized account.
33:12
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff to check out. I love it, um,
33:17
Speaker 1: and we love having you here, Eaves for the last
33:21
Speaker 1: female first of one, So we'll see you in two.
33:31
Speaker 1: In the meantime, where can the listeners find you? You
33:34
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Eve's Deep Code, on
33:37
Speaker 1: Instagram at not Apologizing, and on here this very show.
33:44
Speaker 1: UM for a lot of other female first episodes, so
33:47
Speaker 1: you can go back through the archives and listen to those. Yes,
33:49
Speaker 1: but you absolutely should. Thanks as always, Eves. It was
33:53
Speaker 1: delight and I hope you enjoyed the rest of your year.
33:56
Speaker 1: Thank you. For a wonderful new year. Same to everyone else. Yes,
34:00
Speaker 1: and thanks to you listeners for listening. Yes, and also
34:06
Speaker 1: to her super producer Christina cannot forget her always always.
34:10
Speaker 1: If you would like to contact us, you can Our
34:12
Speaker 1: email is Seppidia mom Stuff at iHeart video dot com.
34:15
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
34:17
Speaker 1: or on Instagram at stuff I've Never told you. And Yes,
34:20
Speaker 1: thanks to all of you, Happy holidays, Happy New Year,
34:22
Speaker 1: whatever you happy all the time, but yes all the time. Yes.
34:27
Speaker 1: Step Underment plays Prediction, I Hire Radio for More podcast,
34:29
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, Bush Radio, app Apple Podcast, or wherever
34:32
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite ships