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Uplifting Art · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Michael Bowen was a painter, but he saw himself as
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  Speaker 1: a peaceful warrior. He was born to wealthy parents in
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  Speaker 1: Beverly Hills. He grew up in the nineteen forties and fifties,
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  Speaker 1: resenting the conformity of his hometown. His maternal grandmother introduced
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  Speaker 1: him to mysticism at a young age, through which he
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  Speaker 1: could rebel against his upbringing. It was all about trying
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  Speaker 1: to get more in touch with God, to find the
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  Speaker 1: unconscious that connected all people, and how this was done
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  Speaker 1: depended on the person or the group, But for Michael,
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  Speaker 1: it was accomplished through his art. As such, his paintings
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  Speaker 1: are full of color, swirling lines, and evocative uses of
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  Speaker 1: the human eye. He saw these paintings as magic, as
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  Speaker 1: something beyond himself, something he couldn't help but create. He
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  Speaker 1: believed viewers of his work had a magical connection to it,
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  Speaker 1: seeing things that even he couldn't have anticipated. But as
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  Speaker 1: the fifties turned into the sixties, Michael felt dismay at
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  Speaker 1: the state of the country. The Vietnam War was brutal
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  Speaker 1: and pointless, and the government just kept perpetuating the conflict.
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  Speaker 1: He started to feel like his paintings weren't enough to
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  Speaker 1: combat this evil. Michael was introduced to the hallucinogetic drug
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  Speaker 1: LSD through some friends, and it had what he believed
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  Speaker 1: was a mystical effect on him, helping him to move
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  Speaker 1: closer to God and to the consciousness that unites all
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  Speaker 1: human beings. He began to work with a guru in
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  Speaker 1: Mexico who encouraged him to experiment further with drugs, and
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  Speaker 1: at one point Michael consumed so much of the hallucinogenic
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  Speaker 1: flower that he was in a coma for a month,
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  Speaker 1: But to him, this was all part of the process.
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  Speaker 1: He returned to California after his time in Mexico inspired
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  Speaker 1: to create a new type of art, performance art. But again,
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  Speaker 1: to him, art was magic, and this performance art would
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  Speaker 1: be something akin to a ritual, a ritual to unite
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  Speaker 1: human consciousness and move forward toward peace. In other words,
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  Speaker 1: to make love not war. Michael organized a large gathering
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  Speaker 1: in a park in San Francisco called the Human be In.
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  Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of people joined in on the event.
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  Speaker 1: They listened to speeches from psychologists and gurus, listened to
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  Speaker 1: poets recite their poetry, and they listened to now famous
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  Speaker 1: rock bands like Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, and
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  Speaker 1: of course, they did a lot of LSD. The huge
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  Speaker 1: popularity of the event led it to being seen as
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  Speaker 1: a major success. Michael felt that he was transforming the
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  Speaker 1: consciousness of America, but he also felt like he could
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  Speaker 1: do even more. He returned to Mexico and engaged in
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  Speaker 1: more training with his guru, taking more drugs, and practicing
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  Speaker 1: a variety of mystical techniques, including supposedly telekinesis levitating things
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  Speaker 1: with your mind. With this new power in his arsenal,
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  Speaker 1: he came up with a crazy idea for this next
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  Speaker 1: work of performance art. Michael returned to the US and
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  Speaker 1: told every activist he could about his plan. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: to get a massive group together, march on the Pentagon
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  Speaker 1: and levitate it with their minds, transforming it from a
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  Speaker 1: symbol of war to a symbol of love, and as
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  Speaker 1: it so happened, many more down to earth anti war
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  Speaker 1: activists had also been wanting to organize a march on
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  Speaker 1: the Pentagon. It's the headquarters of the United States Department
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  Speaker 1: of Defense, after all, and as such was the epicenter
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  Speaker 1: from which the US coordinated its war efforts. For months,
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  Speaker 1: many well known activists put together plans for the march,
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  Speaker 1: which was to take place on October twenty first of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen six. In many ways, Michael's previous Human Being was
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  Speaker 1: the blueprint. By this time, even more people showed up.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred thousand protesters joined together at Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: d C. Hearing speeches and listening to music from anti
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  Speaker 1: war figures, and once they were ready, they marched across
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  Speaker 1: the river to the Pentagon. Michael and his fellow activists
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  Speaker 1: led a variety of strange rituals around the building, which
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  Speaker 1: spoke to how diverse the crowd was. Some of the
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  Speaker 1: more religious members led an exorcism of the building, others
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  Speaker 1: chanted mantras or sprinkled magical corn meal, and finally, one
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  Speaker 1: of Michael's closest associates, an activist named Abby Hoffman, led
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  Speaker 1: a chant to levitate the Pentagon and transform it, ending
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  Speaker 1: the war. It's maybe a bit of an anti climax here,
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  Speaker 1: but the building obviously did not levitate and the war
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  Speaker 1: did go on. But the most memorable moment came after
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  Speaker 1: when Michael handed out hundreds of daisies that he had
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  Speaker 1: purchased for the event. Some of the activists began to
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  Speaker 1: place the flo flowers in the barrels of the guns
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  Speaker 1: held by the soldiers surrounding the Pentagon. This moment was
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  Speaker 1: captured in several iconic photographs, providing a symbol across the
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  Speaker 1: nation of resistance to war. Michael may not have ended
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  Speaker 1: the war, but once again he had used his art
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  Speaker 1: to transform human consciousness to guide it toward a better future.
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  Speaker 1: And to be clear, the moral of this story is
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  Speaker 1: not to do a dangerous amount of hallucinogetic drugs. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: it is to have faith in the small, strange and
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  Speaker 1: curious acts of resistance that all work together to change
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  Speaker 1: the world. Many people have secrets that they take to
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  Speaker 1: the grave, only for the truth to come out sometime
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  Speaker 1: after their death. Like romance painter Francisco Goya, he was
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  Speaker 1: famous for vibrant and idyllic portraits of Spanish life. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't an until after his death that a series of
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  Speaker 1: nightmarish paintings were discovered in his home. They revealed mental
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  Speaker 1: health struggles that he hid from his patrons and his fans.
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  Speaker 1: On December tenth of nineteen oh eight, a coroner in Manhattan, Montana,
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  Speaker 1: also uncovered a secret after receiving the body of the
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  Speaker 1: town's most mysterious resident. The discovery would launch a decades
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  Speaker 1: long investigation into who this person was and what they
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  Speaker 1: were running from. In the late eighteen fifties, a mysterious
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  Speaker 1: stranger turned up in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, looking for work.
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  Speaker 1: He called himself Billy and claimed to be a cook,
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  Speaker 1: and got hired at one of the local timber camps
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  Speaker 1: in the area. Now Billy was small in stature, with
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  Speaker 1: a thin nose and a slight hunchback. He was friendly
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  Speaker 1: but private. He didn't talk about himself very much. In
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  Speaker 1: the mornings, he was out of the bunk house before
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  Speaker 1: his roommates woke up, and he didn't come to bed
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  Speaker 1: until everyone else was asleep. After work, he'd go to
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  Speaker 1: the saloon with the other lumberjacks. He would dance with
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  Speaker 1: all the girls and bought rounds of for the entire bar,
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  Speaker 1: But his colleagues noticed that for all the booze that
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  Speaker 1: he bought for others, Billy would nurse the same single
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  Speaker 1: drink all night long. He never let himself get drunk.
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  Speaker 1: And there were other question marks about Billy as well.
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  Speaker 1: He spoke English, Norwegian, and German, but always said that
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  Speaker 1: he came from Iowa. He also picked up enough of
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  Speaker 1: the local Native American languages to have full conversations with
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  Speaker 1: tribal members. To everyone at camp, it was obvious that
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  Speaker 1: there was more to Billy than he led on, but
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  Speaker 1: he was a nice guy and he seemed harmless, and
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  Speaker 1: so the lumberjacks just let him keep his secrets, especially
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  Speaker 1: because Billy was good at his job. He was a
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  Speaker 1: fantastic cook and was soon in demand at lumber camps
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  Speaker 1: across Wisconsin. He amassed a small fortune over the years too,
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  Speaker 1: and bought several properties in town. And then one day
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  Speaker 1: in the eighteen eighties, a man showed up in Eau
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  Speaker 1: Claire looking for Billy. The two of them had some
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  Speaker 1: kind of an argument, and shortly after Billy left town.
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  Speaker 1: He moved to Manhattan, Montana, and changed his name to
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  Speaker 1: Sammy and Sammy spent the next eighteen years living and
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  Speaker 1: cooking on ranches in the area. He was popular among
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  Speaker 1: the ranch hands and a beloved dance partner at the
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  Speaker 1: local saloons. He also got involved in local town meetings
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  Speaker 1: and voted in several elections. He was generous with his
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  Speaker 1: money and often paid for his friends to receive medical care.
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  Speaker 1: And when he died in nineteen oh eight, the entire
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  Speaker 1: town mourned. Even the coroner was upset to come collect
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  Speaker 1: his body, and that's when he discovered Sammy's deepest secret. Biologically,
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  Speaker 1: Sammy was a woman. Now, as you might imagine, the
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  Speaker 1: coroner was surprised, but the discovery also explained Sammy's behavior.
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  Speaker 1: He never got drunk because he was likely scared of
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  Speaker 1: revealing the truth about his identity. He got up early
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  Speaker 1: and stayed up late so that he could change clothes
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  Speaker 1: in private without being seen by other men at camp.
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  Speaker 1: And this could also be why Sammy bought so much property,
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  Speaker 1: was an avid voter and spent his hard earned money
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  Speaker 1: with abandon These were luxuries that would have been unavailable
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  Speaker 1: to him as a woman. And remember that strange man
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  Speaker 1: who showed up in Eau Claire and argued with Sammy.
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  Speaker 1: Historians now think that it was his brother begging Sammy
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  Speaker 1: to come home. It's now believed that Sammy Williams was
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  Speaker 1: born in Norway, likely in eighteen thirty three, as Ingeborg Weakens.
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  Speaker 1: She and her family emigrated to Iowa when she was
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  Speaker 1: a kid. As a young woman, she was engaged to
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  Speaker 1: a childhood friend named Sven, but Sven's family broke off
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  Speaker 1: the engagement because Ingeborg was too low of status. Shortly after,
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  Speaker 1: she disappeared from history and a man named Billy Williams
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  Speaker 1: arrived in Wisconsin. It's not known whether Billy or Sammy
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  Speaker 1: would have considered themselves trans. It's possible he privately identified
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  Speaker 1: as a woman, but simply wanted the independence of living
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  Speaker 1: as a man. Whatever the case, Sammy's secret was a shock,
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  Speaker 1: but not a scandal that you might imagine it to be,
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  Speaker 1: because at the time, it's estimated that hundreds of people
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  Speaker 1: in the Old West were actually living as the opposite gender.
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  Speaker 1: Some of these individuals would probably consider themselves queer or
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  Speaker 1: trans if they were alive today, but others were simply
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  Speaker 1: chasing freedom. Outlaws would escape the gallows by hiding in
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  Speaker 1: plain sights as women. Plenty of women traveled West and
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  Speaker 1: became men to avoid the confines of marriage. Most of
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  Speaker 1: these gender nonconformists assimilated so seamlessly that they were only
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  Speaker 1: discovered after their deaths. Their history was once considered an
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  Speaker 1: integral part of the Old West. It's only in the
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  Speaker 1: last century that they've been erased or whittled down to
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  Speaker 1: singular characters like Calamity Jane. Now it's hard to say
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  Speaker 1: whether Sammy Williams saw themselves as trans in disguise, or
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  Speaker 1: maybe some mixture of the two. Whatever the case, their
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  Speaker 1: tombstone in Manhattan explains their story succinctly. It reads a
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  Speaker 1: female whose real name is unknown, but who has been
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  Speaker 1: for many years known as Sammy Williams. And that's fitting,
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  Speaker 1: after all, since the Old West was the land of opportunity,
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  Speaker 1: a chance to leave your past behind, strike it rich,
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  Speaker 1: and become whoever you want it to be. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works, I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.