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The Library of Congress is Full of Super Weird Stuff · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is the 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. Let's hear it for the man, the myth,
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  Speaker 1: the legend, our super producer Max, the Librarian Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're the librarian sorts. He's the keeper of the
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  Speaker 2: ridiculous archives. Yeah, library of ridiculousness. These are things that exist.
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  Speaker 1: And I guess, yeah, I guess we do have archives
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  Speaker 1: now because we've.
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  Speaker 3: Been we've been doing this show proseby too, your nol.
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  Speaker 2: I'm ben, what is an archive if not just a
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  Speaker 2: repository of information, no matter how stupid?
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yes, I love I love that idea. Man, what
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  Speaker 1: about the library of the worst books or the library
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  Speaker 1: of unnecessary things? And sit I also like that you're
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  Speaker 1: pointing out that a library is more than just a
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  Speaker 1: room with a bunch of books in it.
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  Speaker 3: Oh big time.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean I remember growing up, like
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  Speaker 2: one of the places that I first was exposed to
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  Speaker 2: kind of more artsy films was the library. You know,
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  Speaker 2: they usually would have like some criterion collection, things that
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  Speaker 2: you could take out from the library.
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  Speaker 3: Or even like anime graphic novels and stuff.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, like, I was always a big fan of
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  Speaker 2: the local library because it actually also had some kind
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  Speaker 2: of stuff that would probably if your parents knew about it,
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  Speaker 2: be considered a little naughty.
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  Speaker 3: Hey.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and also, you know, as you guys know, I
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  Speaker 1: live very close to a library here in our fair
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  Speaker 1: metropolis of Atlanta. I like to hang out there. It's
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  Speaker 1: one of the few places in the US culturally where
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  Speaker 1: you can hang out indoors without having to spend money.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, some people love that, some people hate that.
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  Speaker 1: I think we all agree that libraries are important. And
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  Speaker 1: here in the United States there is a big deal library,
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  Speaker 1: the Library of Congress. That's what today's episode is about
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  Speaker 1: because to the earlier point, man, there's a lot more
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  Speaker 1: than books in there, and we're going to talk about
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  Speaker 1: some of the most ridiculous things.
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  Speaker 2: I also just want to make clear I was not
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  Speaker 2: checking out like adult material from the library. I'm just
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  Speaker 2: talking about you know, there's some steamy scenes in some
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  Speaker 2: of those Stephen King novels.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly, mind reader, that's the thing. Yeah. The first time
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  Speaker 1: I read Stephen King's it, I was probably too young.
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  Speaker 1: I was a little little latchkey kids is volunteering at
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  Speaker 1: the library, and folks are so excited when they see
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  Speaker 1: children reading that sometimes they don't ask what the kids
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  Speaker 1: are reading. That being said, I am absolutely against banning books.
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  Speaker 3: I think we've made that clear on both of our shows.
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  Speaker 2: But the thing about today's episode is, do you think
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  Speaker 2: you think about a thing called the Library of Congress.
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  Speaker 2: It sounds like just the most you know, the highest
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  Speaker 2: form of library in the United States of these America.
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  Speaker 2: I must only hold the most you know, high minded
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  Speaker 2: of wisdom, containing you know.
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  Speaker 3: Tomes right then right, well, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Nothing frivolous or tawdry a.
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  Speaker 1: So, yes, that that is perfect. That is the perfect setup.
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  Speaker 1: So let's go to Jeff Summers, writing for grunge dot
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  Speaker 1: com as an introduction. Here he says it is possibly
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  Speaker 1: the largest library in the world. Now there are contenders
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  Speaker 1: for that title, and the library itself holds more than
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  Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty two million what they call assets
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  Speaker 1: in four hundred and fifty different languages. As we'll see,
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  Speaker 1: one of the oldest things in the Library of Congress
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  Speaker 1: is not in English. It's in it's Kinea form.
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  Speaker 3: Like they go deep.
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  Speaker 2: And one thing that's important to remember is for the
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  Speaker 2: most part. This stuff is stuff. This is physical media.
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  Speaker 2: Think of like the Library of Alexander, the idea of
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  Speaker 2: like a repository of the world's not necessarily always knowledge,
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  Speaker 2: but just its history. You know, because sometimes in artifact,
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  Speaker 2: even if it's not some sort of genius take, you know,
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  Speaker 2: it is in and of itself a piece of history.
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  Speaker 2: We're going to talk about some of those pieces that,
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  Speaker 2: while on the surface might seem a little silly, are
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  Speaker 2: actually really really important.
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  Speaker 3: But first of all, let's just talk a little bit
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  Speaker 3: about the.
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  Speaker 2: History of the Library of Congress, often shorthandified as the Luck.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the loc right. So it's very old, at
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  Speaker 1: least for this states. It was created more than two
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  Speaker 1: centuries ago, in eighteen hundred. Like the Library of Alexandria,
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  Speaker 1: this place is burned down more than once. We can
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  Speaker 1: go directly to the Library of Congress official website and
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  Speaker 1: they point out that from the very early days of
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  Speaker 1: the conspiracy that led to the creation of this country,
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  Speaker 1: folks understood the importance and power of knowledge. Books and
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  Speaker 1: libraries were essential to the aims and the values that
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  Speaker 1: were set out. Since the US started using I guess
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  Speaker 1: you could say, and you know, no secret Illiteracy was
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  Speaker 1: much more common in the early days right around the world.
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  Speaker 1: But the founding fathers all had some pretty pretty high end,
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  Speaker 1: top notch.
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  Speaker 2: Educations they did, and this is they were they and
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  Speaker 2: this is education that came largely from, you know, from
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  Speaker 2: books to help kind of support that education. So they
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  Speaker 2: also realized and understood that books were very important. So
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  Speaker 2: in eighteen hundred, as part of an Act of Congress
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  Speaker 2: that moved the national government from Philadelphia to Washington, John
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  Speaker 2: Adams added in an Act of Congress that provided five
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  Speaker 2: thousand dollars for books to be used by said Congress.
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  Speaker 2: And this started what is now the Library of Congress.
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  Speaker 2: There was a joint actually the first ever joint committee
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  Speaker 2: in Congress, the Joint Congressional Committee, that would basically provide
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  Speaker 2: staff and oversee the creation of this this library.
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  Speaker 1: And for anyone yearning for the inflation calculator, you're going
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  Speaker 1: to be surprised. Five thousand dollars in eighteen hundred was
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  Speaker 1: only Yeah, if we it was only it would only
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  Speaker 1: be worth about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Today
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  Speaker 1: there's a lot of eighty two. Yeah, it's not too shabby. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: but I just budget. I'm just like the Library of
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  Speaker 1: Congress is such a leviathan of knowledge, right, a repository,
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  Speaker 1: as you said, I was shape. They started with a
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  Speaker 1: little more seed money.
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  Speaker 3: But nope.
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  Speaker 2: Well, like any collection, you know, these things kind of
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  Speaker 2: tend to build over time. So that's why I started
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  Speaker 2: to see and we also saw it go through several iterations.
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson went on to approve a legislative compromise that
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  Speaker 2: essentially invented a brand new job, the Librarian of Congress,
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  Speaker 2: and created this It required a presidential appointment to be
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  Speaker 2: this librarian.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Library of Congress.
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  Speaker 1: The final boss of library acts. There's only been fourteen
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  Speaker 1: so far, and they all, like you said, no, they
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  Speaker 1: all have to get appointed by the president. Jefferson names
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  Speaker 1: the first two librarians, and each of them had also
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  Speaker 1: served or served concurrently as clerk at the House of Representatives, and.
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  Speaker 2: That makes sense. Yeah, you know again again this is
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  Speaker 2: the zero shade on But it requires a little bit of,
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  Speaker 2: you know, fastidious organizational skills. It might come with someone
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  Speaker 2: like a clerk or a treasurer, parliamentarian press.
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  Speaker 3: Very diplomatic. I appreciate that.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, So Jefferson does this in eighteen o two, and
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  Speaker 1: he returns to save the library during the War of
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  Speaker 1: eighteen twelve. This is where we get to shout out
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  Speaker 1: a returning guest, Jesslyn Shields, who writes for our alma
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  Speaker 1: mater Houstuffworks dot Com. She describes how the original library
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  Speaker 1: was in the US Capitol and it was burned down
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  Speaker 1: by British troops. They went through yeah coats, yes, yes,
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  Speaker 1: the redcoats. Very confusing for those colonists who are colorblinds.
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  Speaker 1: But they they burned down the whole place. And three
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  Speaker 1: years later the Library of Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson's personal library.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so that's pretty cool.
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  Speaker 2: There were probably some redundant tomes in there from that
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  Speaker 2: original collection, right, Yeah, I got a wonder.
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  Speaker 1: Jefferson Bible the Weirdness Director's cut.
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  Speaker 2: Ever, Oh boy, I don't think I know about the
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  Speaker 2: Jefferson Bible. But like we're talking works of philosophy, like
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  Speaker 2: the classics, right is that? Like we're talking like maybe
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  Speaker 2: legal books, things like things like that. What would have
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  Speaker 2: comprised the first run at creating the stock for the
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  Speaker 2: Library of Congress.
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  Speaker 1: So pre Jefferson, when the library, when the Library first
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  Speaker 1: came in. They were collecting a lot of documents in general,
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  Speaker 1: and you nailed it with the classics, but they're also
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  Speaker 1: there's a reason the clerk is the librarian, right, they're
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  Speaker 1: a also collecting a lot of documentation related to government affairs,
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  Speaker 1: and they get a bit more esoteric, one would imagine
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  Speaker 1: when they get old Tommy Jay's collection the Jefferson Bible.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, we just got to mention this. I
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  Speaker 1: can't believe we haven't done an episode on this. So
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  Speaker 1: this guy, Thomas Jefferson, famously imperfect dude. He went through
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  Speaker 1: the Christian Bible and he cut out all almost all
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  Speaker 1: of the supernatural stuff, all the stuff he considered supernatural, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: which is kind of missing the point a lot of that. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: that's like a pretty dull read. And really quickly.
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  Speaker 2: This is a question that came up for me that
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  Speaker 2: may have been coming up for some of you fair listeners.
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  Speaker 2: The National Archives and the Library of Congress are two
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  Speaker 2: different things.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, good call.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, the Library is actually part of the legislative branch
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  Speaker 2: of the US government, and the Archives as an independent
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  Speaker 2: agency that's part of the executive branch. And the reason
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  Speaker 2: I bring that up is early days of the Library
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  Speaker 2: of Congress. You mentioned a lot of documents and historical
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  Speaker 2: records and things like that is now more under the
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  Speaker 2: purview of the Archives.
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  Speaker 1: I see, okay, And that's an important distinction. So we
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  Speaker 1: need both of them. They are not redundant. The Library
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  Speaker 1: of Congress surviving eighteen twelve. They buy Thomas Jefferson's collection
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  Speaker 1: of books, and he had more than six thousand. He
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  Speaker 1: had like sixty five hundred different works, and they continued growing.
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  Speaker 1: But their problems did not end there. In the early
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  Speaker 1: days of the library, well the early decades, if we're
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  Speaker 1: being honest, there was not enough space for all the
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  Speaker 1: stuff they wanted. The fire was a clear and present
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  Speaker 1: danger at all times. They didn't have a staff adequate
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  Speaker 1: to the job, and they also eternally had funding problems.
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  Speaker 1: This thing popularized literacy. It popularized literature to the general
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  Speaker 1: public of the US, but it's mainly for Congress in
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  Speaker 1: those early days. It's mainly for when Congress members have
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  Speaker 1: a question, when they need to refer to something. It's
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  Speaker 1: like their version of the Internet.
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  Speaker 3: Basically.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean, like I said, it would have
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  Speaker 2: been all kinds of probably legal journals, scholarly journals and
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  Speaker 2: things like that of the time that would have been,
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  Speaker 2: you know, an answer to a particular conundrum that might
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  Speaker 2: have popped up. Now it's a little more of a
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  Speaker 2: historical kind of site, you know. It's it's an actual
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  Speaker 2: physical location. So it is. It is a really interesting
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  Speaker 2: counterpoint to the Internet in ad age, where so much information,
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  Speaker 2: or at the very least physical versions of information, seem
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  Speaker 2: very throwaway.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's important that something like that still exists.
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  Speaker 1: Agreed one hundred percent. Okay, So we're all familiar with
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  Speaker 1: the US Civil War. That happens. Things are bad for
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  Speaker 1: a while, and the country gets through it. The economy
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  Speaker 1: begins to expand, Uncle Sam as the federal government is
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  Speaker 1: growing like gangbusters. The city of Washington, DC is also growing.
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  Speaker 1: This is where we introduce the Librarian of Congress from
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty four to eighteen ninety seven, Ainsworth Rand Spofford,
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  Speaker 1: real name Weird. So Spofford says, look, we're in a
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  Speaker 1: very important time right now for the country. You folks
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  Speaker 1: in Congress, you need to understand. The loc is a
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  Speaker 1: national institution. It is the National Library. And Spofford says,
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  Speaker 1: we need a single place a one stop shop for
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  Speaker 1: American publications, and it should also be for the people,
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  Speaker 1: not just for Congress. And this guy plays a huge
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  Speaker 1: role in centralizing copyright registrations at the Library of Congress.
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  Speaker 1: And this happens in eighteen seventy, so midway through his career.
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  Speaker 1: That's the reason you can submit a book or a
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  Speaker 1: work to the Library of Congress today. And we have
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  Speaker 1: a slight plot twist at the end. There's going to
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  Speaker 1: be a lot of plot twists in this episode, I suspect,
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  Speaker 1: but Noel, we've eaten our vegetables. You, Max and I
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  Speaker 1: have given our fellow ridiculous historians the history of the library.
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  Speaker 1: But that's not why we're here today, is.
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  Speaker 3: No, it's not.
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  Speaker 2: We're here to talk about all the weird things that
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  Speaker 2: are contained there, and we sort of tease that up.
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  Speaker 3: Tom.
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  Speaker 2: So let's start with comic books, which is again one
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  Speaker 2: of the things that I was so excited to be
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  Speaker 2: able to discover at my own local library. Yeah, it's awesome.
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  Speaker 2: The Library of Congress actually is the home of the
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  Speaker 2: world's largest collection of comic books, numbering in the hundreds
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  Speaker 2: of thousands, around one hundred and forty thousand items. The
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  Speaker 2: Washington Post took a look at the collection and reported
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  Speaker 2: that in twenty eighteen, a collector by the name of
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  Speaker 2: Stephen A. Jeppy donated three thousand comics out of his
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  Speaker 2: own personal collections, some of which were like really really
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  Speaker 2: valuable and historically important comics like Action Comics number one,
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  Speaker 2: which of course the first appearance of Superman, and some
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  Speaker 2: of the original storyboards that Walt Disney Company did for
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  Speaker 2: the Mickey for the first Mickey Mouse short ever.
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  Speaker 1: Produced amazing stuff. Right, we can read a lot of
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  Speaker 1: lists out there in the public sphere now about these
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  Speaker 1: weird things. Again, we shouted out summers over Ack Runge
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  Speaker 1: did great work with his hidden secrets of the Library
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  Speaker 1: of Congress. You'll also see things that are not from
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  Speaker 1: the States. As as we teased earlier. There's, for instance,
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  Speaker 1: the vod Si Mueller World Map from fifteen o seven.
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  Speaker 1: Not a book, definitely a map. This guy created the
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  Speaker 1: first map of the globe as far as people knew,
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  Speaker 1: at least Western cultures knew, and fifteen o seven and
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  Speaker 1: this was this was new and stunning for its time
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  Speaker 1: because it included what they were calling the New World,
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  Speaker 1: the South and North American continents based on the voyages
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  Speaker 1: of Amerigo Vespucci. And yes, America is named after this guy,
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  Speaker 1: Amerigo Vespucci, who is a real bag of badgers and
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  Speaker 1: probably worthy of his own episod. I don't even want
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  Speaker 1: to tease it more than that. You shouldn't they just haven, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: just trust us, it'll be worth it. So the Library
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  Speaker 1: of Congress owns the only surviving copy of this map's
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  Speaker 1: original printing, and it was made from a woodcut on
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  Speaker 1: twelve different sheets of paper. And on this map, Vould
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  Speaker 1: simular calls the New World America because it's a latinized
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  Speaker 1: version of Vespucci's first name. Sometimes people refer to this
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  Speaker 1: map as America's birth certificate.
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  Speaker 3: That's pretty cool.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, The Vold Semular World Map another thing that is
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  Speaker 2: contained within the Library of Congress that might seem, you know,
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  Speaker 2: like a small thing, but actually, when looked at in
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  Speaker 2: the greater context of who it's kind of speaking about,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: it's sort of a big thing. It is a recipe
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  Speaker 2: from Rosa Parks, a figure seen as quite you know,
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  Speaker 2: larger than life in the history of this country in
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  Speaker 2: terms of you know, her place and pushing civil rights forward.
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  Speaker 2: It is the a recipe for peanut butter pancakes. And
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  Speaker 2: this is really interesting on a couple of levels because
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  Speaker 2: originally peanuts, you know, while plentiful, were kind of considered
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  Speaker 2: to not be a food that was eaten by, you know, members.
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  Speaker 3: Of the higher class.
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  Speaker 2: It was actually a food that was consumed largely by
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  Speaker 2: African slave populations in the South. And it was also
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: in an effort to kind of help black farmers and
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  Speaker 2: improve their kind of lot in life, was offered up
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  Speaker 2: to them as a cash crop, you know, to give
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: them something other than cotton to farm, given the you know,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: fraught nature of that crop, cotton that is. And so
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: for Rosa Parks to have a recipe for this, it
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: was something that really connected to the black community, connected
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  Speaker 2: to the struggle for civil rights, and also was just
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  Speaker 2: like a really fun, delicious recipe. She wrote on the
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: back of a banking envelope, the equivalents of like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: a note written on a cocktail napkin. I mean, it
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  Speaker 2: really is just kind of a snapshot of Rosa Parks.
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  Speaker 3: This is kind of day to day life.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, And we know that people from the African continent
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  Speaker 1: were the first folks to introduce peanuts to North America,
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  Speaker 1: which is also you know, it's a strange thing. You
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  Speaker 1: travel to other countries and people often think of peanut
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  Speaker 1: butter as this weird, uniquely American thing. You don't see
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  Speaker 1: it in a lot of grocery stores outside of this country.
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  Speaker 1: And you're right, well, you put it so beautifully. Rosa
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  Speaker 1: Parks is struggling financially at the time, and so she
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  Speaker 1: uses scrap paper to write down this peanut butter pancake recipe,
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  Speaker 1: and it is. It's just one of those amazing pieces
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  Speaker 1: of history that could have easily been forgotten where it
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: not for places like the Library of Congress. Now there
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: is another place which is full of weird things. That place,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: famously owned by Elia Musk is Twitter. And in twenty ten,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: before Musk gets involved, Twitter makes a deal with the
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  Speaker 1: Library of Congress. They say we're going to go all
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  Speaker 1: the way back to the very first tweets in two
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  Speaker 1: thousand and six, in each and every public tweet will
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  Speaker 1: be in the Library of Congress. So if you tweeted
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  Speaker 1: in the early days of Twitter, then you are in
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  Speaker 1: the Library of Congress. Congratulations. Everybody knows your weird hot
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: takes on the people who are sitting next to you
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  Speaker 1: on the plane, at least if you tweeted before twenty eighteen.
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  Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, the library finally says, Okay, we've got enough.
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  Speaker 1: We don't need all the tweets, we don't need everybody's
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  Speaker 1: weird takes about stuff. We're gonna only archive the most
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  Speaker 1: notable tweets.
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  Speaker 2: But do you know, like when they're saying they're archiving
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: these tweets, is it is it all in like a
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: digital version or are they're not like printing out tweets,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: signing them.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I hope they're printing them out, and I hope they're
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: putting them in.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Would cut for that would be incredible, That would be incredible.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: But like you said, the essentially the volume of tweets,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: you know, billions in fact, were not something that the
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: library could keep a hold of, you know, keep keep
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: on top of them. So instead they decided just to
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: collect and archive some of the more, you know, notable
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: tweets from notable personalities. Or I guess one perhaps that
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: we're associated with certain cultural events or historical events, you know,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: like the Arab spring.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: No. I think you're probably to something that Ben and
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: I have talked about earlier today. So we had our
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: bi weekly slight call, and that very end of it
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: was kind of like, yeah, if you have to reach
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: out to me, guys, reach out to me. Through it
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: sounded like he was about to go into the spiel
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: at the end of a show, like you can find
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: me on Twitter at blah blah blah.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: So I've decided that our slate have.
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: To do all of our official communications now via Ben's
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: Twitter page. I love it, so all of our official
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: iHeart thanks and this is on Twitter already. So now
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: the Library of Congress will have to keep check of
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: all of our official business communications that we're doing via
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: Twitter now.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So Ben, oh, of course, yes, and and well well additionally,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you know, I think it's important for us to once
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: again iterate that any and all complaints should go to
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: our official complaint department at John Strickland on Twitter or
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland at iHeartRadio dot com. Thank you for your service, Twister.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So you're right, though, Nolan, even though it might sound
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: weird that they stop collecting tweets, because there's not a
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: physical form unless they're printing it out, unless they're putting
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: it on lithographs or woodcuts, but there is server space,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and that server space is finite. The library was unable,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: by their own admission, to cope with the just the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: sheer massive tweets. People love having their small, short, weird
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: takes on stuff myself included. There are billions and billions
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: of billions of tweets, and so the library said, you know,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: they love organization, They said, we don't have a plan
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: in place to organize these and make it a publicly
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: accessible database. It's just an infinite mass of messy spaghetti.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And all those tweets that they collected from two thousand
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and six to twenty eighteen, they're all just sort of
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: thrown into servers. It's probably buried. So if you have
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a weird hot take that you wish you hadn't said
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: in you know, eight or nine, a Reddit detective will
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: find it before the Library of Congress does.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, So you're probably safe there for now. Yeah, exacly.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Moving on to things that are a little more tangible,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: or at least back to things that a little more tangible,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: it's sort of in like a bit of an ick
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: factor way as well. This is maybe not so much,
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: but when before photographs were something that was accessible to everybody.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: One thing that folks might do to remember somebody or
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: to you know, have a little keepsake was to send
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: or you know, hold on to a lock of someone's hair.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Also something that would be done after someone had passed away.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So the Library of Congress is actually a possession of
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: all kinds of locks of hair, like an alarming amount,
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: you know, from famous.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: And unknown individuals alike.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they have a problematic amount of hair for
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: a library. Yeah, we're talking about George Washington's hair is
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: in there. That Beethoven's got some hair in there. Melissy's
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: s grant Edna Saint Vincent Malay. James Madison apparently made
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a really weird, intricate knot of his own hair and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: he gave it to this girl he was dating. That's
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: in there. There was another one to think about, anonymous hair.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Probably my favorite story here is the Library of Congress
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: possesses mystery hair that was sent to President James Garfield
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and the only note was my compliments. Whomever this was,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: the Garfield probably knew knew their identity because he kept
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: this hair in his diary and they got it, the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: library got it after he died. And speaking of presidents.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: As you might imagine, folks, there's a lot of presidential
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: stuff in the library.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, let's go to their old pal, honest abe Lincoln,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: specifically some personal effects that were carried on his person
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: when he was assassinated, things like a pair of glasses
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: that actually been This is another interesting view into the
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: life of a larger than life figure. A pair of
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: glasses that had been repaired with a little piece of string,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: a pocket knife which may well have been used to
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: actually repair the glasses in the first place, a gold
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: watch fob, a handkerchief and cuff links with his monogram
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: on them, and also a leather wallet with newspaper clippings
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: following the events of the Civil War, and five bucks
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: in Confederate script.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah what a flex? Right, what a flex? Abraham be
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: an extra. His personal belongings were given to his son, Robert,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and Robert later passed those on to his daughter. So
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: for those of us following along at home, that would
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: be Lincoln's granddaughter. And she eventually donates the items to
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: the loc and nineteen thirty seven. Weirdly enough, decades decades
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: pass no one opens the box. In nineteen seventy six,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: someone finally gets to it because again, staffing has been
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: a problem for a long time, and they say, oh,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: this is Abe Lincoln's stuff, so I guess we should
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: keep it. Good thing we open the boxes before we
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: throw them out, all right. And here's one that excites
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: our research associate, mister Max Williams to no end. There
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: is a glass flute in the Library of Congress. Bloodlinin
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: was a flute maker in the early eighteen hundreds and
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: in eighteen oh six Claude Patten's the first glass flute.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Flutes at the time were not made of glass. They
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: were made of wood or ivory. And the problem with
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: that is, like you guys, as musicians know, when humanity changes,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: when the temperature changes, it can throw the instrument off
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: depending on its materials. So a glass flute doesn't have
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: those same problems. And it became It didn't become the norm, obviously,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: but it did become a really popular novelty. And it
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: wasn't until after Claude died that metal flutes became the norm.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you might remember there was a big hubbub
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: around the pop singer Lizzo playing this playing one round
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: glass flutes. I believe it was like the maybe the Grammys,
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: I think it was, but you know, she is actually
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: a very accomplished floutist. And there was three of these
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: flutes were owned by President James Madison and Lizzo actually
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: played it on stage in twenty twenty two, you know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: as part of a partnership I guess with the Library
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: of Congress. But I think there was some focus maybe
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: on the.
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: More extreme side of politics.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: Say that kind of took issue with that and claimed
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: that it was in some way like sullying the legacy of.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Sure, you know, okay, all right, all of that's yeah. Anyway,
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I gotta.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: Say there was two things that spurred on me writing
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: this brief.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: One of them was this.
• 29:16
  Speaker 4: The other one I'm gonna hold on to and I'll
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: say it later on why kind thought of like, let's
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: do a dive into this and all. But yeah, people
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: were very upset when that happened, and I thought it
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: was awesome because it's a musical instrument, let's use it.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: How is it a hot take to play a musical
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: instrument for the purpose, like to use a thing for
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the purpose it was designed. That's ridiculous anyway, you know what,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: that's still not the weirdest one. One of the weirdest
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: things would be briece yourself, folks, in a big thank
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you to all the teachers who play our show for classrooms.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: You are the cool teachers. Just gonna give you a
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: heads up. This one is sexually frank. It is pornography.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: Is in the Library of Congress. You might have heard
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: of something called the Delta Collection. We're going to give
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: you a heads up, folks. It is not about airplanes.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: Nope, it's not.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: If you ask about that, you're going to be exposed
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: to a cavalcade of historic pornography. Literary Hub writes about
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the Delta Collection and refers to it as one time
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: being the largest collection of pornography and erotic material in
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: the world. It was established to be kind of a
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: holding space for obscene materials that were seized by federal agents,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: and then to serve as a database so that law
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: enforcement could actually kind of catalog which types of literature
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: should be considered pornography. You know, the whole I know
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: when I see it kind of thing. But this is
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: an interest during an interesting time for this type of
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: material in the United States. It was actually kept quite
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: secret and very rarely discussed openly, but that you know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: has since changed since seeing people are obviously we're talking
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: about people are aware of this porn stash, the US
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: government's porn stash, let's call it.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And here's the weirdest thing about it. Okay, So
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: why do they have this? Are they just naughty people secretly?
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Not really, at least most of them. This literature is
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: quite useful because for a long time it was secret
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and they didn't talk about it in public because it
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: seems very morally problematic, right given the various moral panics
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: in US history. But it served as a catalog of obscenity.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: We always remember those famous quotes. I think it was
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: the court case about James Joyce's ulysses where they said,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I don't have a working definition of obscene, but I
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: know it when I see it. This catalog is a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: reference device that law enforcement and the courts could use
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: for researching and defining what they considered obscene. There was
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: one guy at the Library of Congress who was super
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: into this. We have to introduce you very briefly and
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a safer work way, to a dude named Ralph Whittington.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Ralph Whittington had a private collection of pornography that almost
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: surpasses the Delta collection of the Library of Congress. This
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: guy is super into historical depictions of naughty bits to
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: beast with two backs, the Australias, the Netherlands, the other
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: realm regions. Okay, and he actually sold his collection eventually
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: to the Museum of Sex, which is in New York City,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: which is also a pretty cool place if you've ever
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: been you want to check out some of the history
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: of depictions of sex throughout pop culture and history, that
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: is the place to go. Moving on, we've got a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: pretty robust collection of celebrity palm prints, because of course
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: we do. Why wouldn't we Yeah, yeah, I guess why
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: wouldn't you know?
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: What you know?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: It was the palm reading All of this stuff was
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: very popular in the twenties and thirties. There was one
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: of the most famous palmists in the world, a woman
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: by the name of Nellie Simmons Meyer. She read the
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: poems of some really notable figures throughout history, George Gershwin,
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a heap of other folks
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: and would take these palm prints along with their autograph.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: You know in the process. When she passed, she donated
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: a portion of her collection to the Library of Congress,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: including the one of Amelia Earhart, which was one of
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: the most you know, popular attractions there.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: And we still have the analysis from this studier of palms.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: If you are wondering what Earhart's palm says about her,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: apparently it reveals her passion for flying, as well as
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a love of physical activity and a strong will, attention
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to detail, pursuit of perfection, ambitious yet rational. It's very strange, right,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: I know that you can submit add a number of
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: things to the Library of Congress. I feel like we
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: do have to give a shout out here. The oldest
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: written thing in the library is that canaform tablet, dating
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: from at least twenty forty BCE. But you can be
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: a part of the Library of Congress too, folks. That's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the best news. That's the plot twist here, Noel or
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: pal Matt and I wrote a book for one of
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: our shows. Stuff they don't want you to know, And
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do it, Matt. I'm going to send
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: it to the Library of Congress.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I think you should.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: They'll take it as a gift.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I think it's a grand idea.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: What else would you put in the Library of Congress.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: You can send music, there's a ton of music there historically.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Again, well, what's the whole.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: Deal with copyright? You know, as it pertains the Library
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: of Congress. Isn't that one way of like copyrighting something,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: or like if you have a song or a song lyric,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: if you send it to the Library of Congress and
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: it's recorded, then it's officially you know, you can prove
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: that you copyrighted it.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: You can indeed register things with the Library of Congress.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: And if you, like us, love validation, then this might
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: be this might be a fun adventure for you. We
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: still haven't scratched the surface of all the other weird
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: stuff in the Library of Congress. But I think we're
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: all on the same page when we say we're grateful
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: that this exists.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely we are, and I'm also anyone else I'm grateful
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: that exists.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Ben, I think you're gonna say, peanut butter pancakes.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Peanut butter pancakes are really good.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Said, that's part of our that's basically, we're grateful for
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: all these individuals.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Alex Williams, who composed are.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: Max william Our research associates, Doctor Z and Jeff. We
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: also want to thank you's Jeff Coates. We're getting Jeff
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Rich here. We also, of course want to thank Christopher Hasiotis.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: We want to thank all the hardworking folks at the
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Library of Congress, with a special shout out to the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: current librarian, Harla Hayden.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.