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Ruffled Feathers · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. It was early in the morning in Winnipeg,
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  Speaker 1: Manitoba when the air raid sirens sounded. People were woken
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  Speaker 1: from their peaceful slumbers by a warning. A few hours earlier,
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  Speaker 1: a local radio dj had been taken captive and a
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  Speaker 1: radio station had been hijacked by Nazi troops. Meanwhile, more
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  Speaker 1: troops were working their way across the city. Within thirty minutes,
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  Speaker 1: half of Winnipeg was under control of Hitler's forces. A
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  Speaker 1: Canadian army under the command of Colonel's D. S. McKay
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  Speaker 1: and E. A. Prittam mobilized out of Fort Osborne Barracks.
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  Speaker 1: By six thirty that morning, street lights flickered before going dark.
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  Speaker 1: The bombs started dropping by seven a m. And the
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  Speaker 1: small group of soldiers already on the scene did their
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  Speaker 1: best to hold the line. They built a five mile
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  Speaker 1: perimeter around City Hall but within minutes it was clear
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  Speaker 1: that they were no match. The Nazi forces were too strong.
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  Speaker 1: They blew up the bridges. A firefight ensued. German tanks
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  Speaker 1: rolled down the streets while anti aircraft vehicles launched towards
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  Speaker 1: the sky. The first civilian casualty was announced at eight o'clock,
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  Speaker 1: soon after, Winnipeg's mayor, the premier, and Lieutenant governor were
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  Speaker 1: all taken prisoner. An hour and a half after the
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  Speaker 1: battle had started, the Canadian flag at City Hall was
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  Speaker 1: replaced by the Nazi flag, its black swastika waving ominously overhead.
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  Speaker 1: German officials announced new rules for Winnipeg citizens and handed
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  Speaker 1: up amphlets outlining them. For example, all automobiles and public
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  Speaker 1: transportation vehicles were now property of the occupying forces. All
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  Speaker 1: meats and produced from local farms had to be sold
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  Speaker 1: through the Office of the Commandant of Supplies in Winnipeg.
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  Speaker 1: Farmers were not allowed to keep any of their output
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  Speaker 1: for themselves. If they wanted to eat, they had to
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  Speaker 1: buy it like everyone else. All Canadian flags at emblems
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  Speaker 1: had to be destroyed as well. Churches could not hold services.
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  Speaker 1: Newspapers were replaced with pro Nazi publications and books. Were
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  Speaker 1: burned out on the steps of the public Library. It
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  Speaker 1: happened so quickly and without warning, nobody was prepared, nobody
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  Speaker 1: except Henry E. Sellers, John Perrin, and George Waite. These
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  Speaker 1: three men were on the Committee for Victory War Bonds.
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  Speaker 1: Victory bonds were bought by Canadian civilians as loans to
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  Speaker 1: the government to increase the country's warcoffers. As part of
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  Speaker 1: a marketing campaign to increase victory bonds sales, George Waite
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  Speaker 1: proposed a simulation of a Nazi invasion. His fellow committee
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  Speaker 1: members went along with it and created if Day, a
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  Speaker 1: citywide effort to boost their war bond sales by well
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  Speaker 1: scaring the pants off their fellow Canadians. They advertised their
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  Speaker 1: efforts several weeks in advance, just in case someone saw
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  Speaker 1: several dozen Nazis marching down the streets and really thought
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  Speaker 1: the city was under attack. The committee also created fake
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  Speaker 1: newspapers with articles written in German to add to the authenticity.
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  Speaker 1: At the top of each paper, in big letters, they
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  Speaker 1: had printed the words this did not take place, but
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  Speaker 1: it could happen here, however, to really drill the idea
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  Speaker 1: home that any place was vulnerable to attack. Waits and
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  Speaker 1: his team hired thirty troops from various militia groups to
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  Speaker 1: portray the brave Canadian Army soldiers. Meanwhile, with the help
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  Speaker 1: of a Hollywood customer, forty young men from the Board
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  Speaker 1: of Trade don Nazi uniforms and goose stepped their way
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  Speaker 1: down the streets of Winnipeg, intimidating news stand operators in
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  Speaker 1: any one else unwise enough to be out at six
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  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning. As for the bridges, well, they
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  Speaker 1: weren't really blown up. Coal dust and dynamite sold the
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  Speaker 1: effect to the audience willing to believe that Nazis really
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  Speaker 1: had invaded their city, and it worked. Despite the frequent
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  Speaker 1: reminders beforehand that it was happening, many Metitobins had either
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  Speaker 1: forgotten about IF Day or hadn't been paying attention to
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  Speaker 1: the signs. Several folks fled their homes or offices to
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  Speaker 1: avoid the approaching Nazis, while others looked on in horror
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  Speaker 1: at what had become of their city. The committee had
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  Speaker 1: set out to sell forty five million dollars worth of
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  Speaker 1: war bonds that day. Instead they sold over sixty five million.
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  Speaker 1: IF Day had been a success and a shocking reminder
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  Speaker 1: to Canadian citizens that they weren't as safe as they
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  Speaker 1: thought they were, so the Greater Winnipeg Victory Loan Committee. However,
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  Speaker 1: World War two was just business as usual. The Martin
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  Speaker 1: family was on the run For as long as they
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  Speaker 1: could remember. They had the freedom to live where they liked,
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  Speaker 1: but in the late eighteen hundreds their options were closing down.
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  Speaker 1: But where some might have only seen difficulty, Jay Warren
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  Speaker 1: Jacobs saw an opportunity. Warren was the son of a blacksmith.
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  Speaker 1: He had grown up traveling the Pennsylvania countryside. His father's
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  Speaker 1: work travel the countryside too, because he was also a
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  Speaker 1: buggy maker and wagon builder. The vehicles he made were sturdy,
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  Speaker 1: but they were beautiful too, and that's thanks in no
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  Speaker 1: small part to Warren. As he was growing up, it
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  Speaker 1: became clear he had an eye for design, and it
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  Speaker 1: became his role to hand paint the scroll work on
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  Speaker 1: the sides of his father's creations. He was a master
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  Speaker 1: with the brush. A reputation as a boy artist followed
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  Speaker 1: him only as long as he was a boy. Soon
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  Speaker 1: he was in demand as a professional sign painter and calligrapher.
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  Speaker 1: Once he was hired to write the names in a
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  Speaker 1: big Emily Bible. It wasn't long before he wrote his
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  Speaker 1: own name in the book, because the trip introduced him
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  Speaker 1: to the daughter of that family, and they were married
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  Speaker 1: in But as we know, Warren's family wasn't the only
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  Speaker 1: one he was watching out for, and in the years
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  Speaker 1: after he noticed the Martins, he moved from simple sign painting,
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  Speaker 1: which never brought in quite enough money for his growing family,
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  Speaker 1: to a new career construction. When he stepped in to
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  Speaker 1: help the Martins, he laid the first brick in his
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  Speaker 1: architecture empire. In fact, the house he built was so
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  Speaker 1: attractive it brought their relatives to and he built a second.
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  Speaker 1: Within a few years, he had built homes for hundreds.
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  Speaker 1: But if you can imagine the sign painters flair coming
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  Speaker 1: to bear on his new endeavor, then I'm sure you
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  Speaker 1: won't be surprised to hear that his home designs were
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  Speaker 1: not what you'd call restrained. In fact, they were ornate railings, pillars, arches,
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  Speaker 1: broad porches, and ornate window treatments. Sometimes they stretched as
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  Speaker 1: high as four floors of doors and windows opening out
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  Speaker 1: to invite air and light into a four sided cube.
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  Speaker 1: His most intricate designs were sheer wedding cakes of wood
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  Speaker 1: and plaster, modeled on famous public buildings, a forty five
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  Speaker 1: room fortress with a bell tower made after Philadelphia's Independence Hall,
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  Speaker 1: a sixty six room mansion built on the design of
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  Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania State Capital. And work like that didn't go unnoticed.
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  Speaker 1: He had orders come in from some of America's leading
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  Speaker 1: figures and fattest wallets. Warren Jacobs sold pre made houses
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  Speaker 1: to Henry Ford, William Rockefeller, and Thomas Edison. But these
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  Speaker 1: weren't just one off buildings. Because Warren had a mind
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  Speaker 1: for business. He had started in architecture company to sell
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  Speaker 1: each of these designs, and they each had a model
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  Speaker 1: number if you wanted to feel like a big wig
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  Speaker 1: in old Philadelphia while you were looking for a model number. Three.
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  Speaker 1: Photographs from years later showed just how successful he was,
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  Speaker 1: with pre made houses stacked on top of each other
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  Speaker 1: in warehouses waiting to be shipped out to customers wherever
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  Speaker 1: they may be. War and his company continued manufacturing ornate
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  Speaker 1: and unusual houses until the Second World War, when materials
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  Speaker 1: got scarce and the nation turned to other projects. Later
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  Speaker 1: generations of the Martin family, though, have continued to live
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  Speaker 1: in houses built according to Warren's design, although lately people
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  Speaker 1: have been noticing that not all is well in that
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  Speaker 1: domestic sphere. There were a few things that made Warren's
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  Speaker 1: houses unusual, things that made Warren distinct from the other
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  Speaker 1: architects and builders in his neck of Pennsylvania. For one thing,
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  Speaker 1: the foundations of his houses were highly unusual. Warren designed
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  Speaker 1: a kind of pivoting poll to go underneath them and
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  Speaker 1: lift them up into the air. For another, he was
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  Speaker 1: building his houses precisely so that the residents inside could
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  Speaker 1: be watched, and Warren watched closely. And he collected too.
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  Speaker 1: He collected the things they brought home, and before long
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  Speaker 1: he had a wide ranging gallery of bones and furnishings
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  Speaker 1: left behind in his houses. If that makes Jay Warren
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  Speaker 1: Jacobs sound like the worst kind of landlord, you can
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  Speaker 1: imagine the worry. It didn't go unnoticed. At one point,
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  Speaker 1: the FEDS heard about Warren's collection, and they discussed passing
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  Speaker 1: a law to take his collection away. Not because he
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  Speaker 1: was committing crimes though, no for science. They wanted Warren's
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  Speaker 1: collection in a public museum. Because, you see, Warren's homes
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  Speaker 1: were for the birds, that Martin family. They're the largest
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  Speaker 1: species of swallow in North America. Then their glossy blue
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  Speaker 1: black feathers gave them the name by which they're known today,
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  Speaker 1: the Purple Martin. Today, borders around America are still working
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  Speaker 1: to give them homes because they're a species that has
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  Speaker 1: preferred man made homes for centuries. Today's Purple Martin landlords
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  Speaker 1: are still working overtime to keep that feathered family accommodated,
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  Speaker 1: but no one's ever done it with quite as much
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  Speaker 1: style as Jay Warren Jacobs. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
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  Speaker 1: me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
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  Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,