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Acquired Taste · 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: Those of us with hidden talents often discovered them accidentally.
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  Speaker 1: For example, raj Mohan Nair of India lost his mother
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  Speaker 1: when he was very young. Not wanting to live without her,
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  Speaker 1: he grabbed hold of a high tension wire attached to
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  Speaker 1: an electrical transformer, but he was not injured. The electricity
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  Speaker 1: that would have killed another human being simply passed through
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  Speaker 1: him without causing any harm. Since then, he's discovered his
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  Speaker 1: body is capable of handling multiple amps of electricity with
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  Speaker 1: only minor side effects. The average human can't even withstand
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  Speaker 1: a tenth of an amp without serious injury or death,
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  Speaker 1: which makes nare something of a modern miracle, like a
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  Speaker 1: character out of a comic book who has developed a superpower.
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  Speaker 1: William McKenna's superpower, though, was not so much impressive as
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  Speaker 1: it was off putting. McKenna was born around eighteen sixty
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  Speaker 1: eight in Long Island, New York. His childhood is something
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  Speaker 1: of a mystery, but what we do know is that
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  Speaker 1: he got a job at Meyer's Glass factory in Brooklyn
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  Speaker 1: when he was just fourteen. McKenna was on his lunch
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  Speaker 1: break one day when he noticed a strange but enjoyable
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  Speaker 1: new texture in his food. With every bite, he became
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  Speaker 1: more enamored with this flavor that had found its way
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  Speaker 1: into his meal. Back then, you see, there weren't as
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  Speaker 1: many safety precautions in factories as there are today, and
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  Speaker 1: so it wasn't uncommon for debris to find its way
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  Speaker 1: into a person's hair, skin, or even their food. As
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  Speaker 1: it turns out, what McKenna had been eating that day
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  Speaker 1: was glass, glass dust, to be exact, and it kickstarted
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  Speaker 1: a new passion in him. Pretty soon, he was chomping
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  Speaker 1: on glass any chance he could get, so much so
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  Speaker 1: that the factory owners started to notice that their inventory
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  Speaker 1: was disappearing, which is why when they found McKenna chomping
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  Speaker 1: on one of their bottles, they knew they had found
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  Speaker 1: their thief. He was promptly fired and forced to find
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  Speaker 1: a new line of work, but McKenna realized something that
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  Speaker 1: day that he had a unique talent for eating. He
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  Speaker 1: started working at a die museum under the nickname the
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  Speaker 1: Human Ostrich due to his indestructible stomach, although human goat
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  Speaker 1: might have been more appropriate, because pretty soon William began
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  Speaker 1: eating much more than just glass. To get the word
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  Speaker 1: out about his act, he showed up at the offices
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  Speaker 1: of a newspaper called The New York Graphic, boasting about
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  Speaker 1: his newfound skills. He even performed for them by eating
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  Speaker 1: carpet tax, a couple of handfuls of paper, and a
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  Speaker 1: glass tumbler. Oddly, the reporters weren't too taken by his show.
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  Speaker 1: The article written about him remarked that he was a
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  Speaker 1: disheveled man and smelled of cigarettes and garlic. All in all,
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  Speaker 1: not an impressive specimen even as a sideshow act, but
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  Speaker 1: that didn't stop him from performing. He once said that
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  Speaker 1: he brought in seventy five dollars a week as the
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  Speaker 1: Human Ostrich, about twenty five hundred dollars today, and despite
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  Speaker 1: his bizarre eating habits, McKenna also made sure to eat
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  Speaker 1: three large meals every day. He could not, of course,
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  Speaker 1: subsist only on glass and metal, all of this while
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  Speaker 1: maintaining a fairly normal frame, weighing in at one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and thirty eight pounds and five feet six inches tall. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: McKenna took his show on the road, eating random items
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  Speaker 1: for audiences in places like Self Bend, Indiana. The papers
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  Speaker 1: there described him as being able to eat everything from
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  Speaker 1: a cambric needle to a five inch spike, a boiler
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  Speaker 1: plate or a railway sandwich, and of course glass, large
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  Speaker 1: hunks of it, not crump tiny slivers. He would crunch
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  Speaker 1: a whole glass cup or bottle, taking big bites in
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  Speaker 1: front of the audience, and to finish it all off,
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  Speaker 1: he would end by eating a live bullfrog. He wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: chew it, though, he would swallow it whole, and then
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  Speaker 1: let people touch his belly so they could feel it
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  Speaker 1: moving around inside. Sadly, William McKenna's death was as mysterious
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  Speaker 1: as his childhood. He fell out of the public eye
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  Speaker 1: by the early eighteen nineties, and his fate remains unknown
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  Speaker 1: to this day, although I'd like to think that he
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  Speaker 1: lived a long life and died of old age, not
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  Speaker 1: from swallowing needles and carpet tacks. Of course, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: glass half full kind of guy, the half that McKenna
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  Speaker 1: didn't eat. That is Mary Ann Evans wanted to be
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  Speaker 1: a writer. In fact, she was a writer, and a
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  Speaker 1: talented one in that unfortunately for me. Mary She was
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  Speaker 1: born in Victorian England during the eighteen hundreds, when society
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  Speaker 1: believed women were incapable of writing as well as men,
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  Speaker 1: especially when it came to literature of any worth. For
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  Speaker 1: a while, she worked at a far left wing journal
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  Speaker 1: in London. The owner of The Westminster Review took the
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  Speaker 1: glory for being the editor, although it was Mary Anne
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  Speaker 1: who did much of the work behind the scenes, but
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  Speaker 1: she did enjoy some success at the journal. Reviewers and
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  Speaker 1: readers became fans of the articles that she wrote. But
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  Speaker 1: Mary Anne was determined to succeed, and she worked hard
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  Speaker 1: to hone her craft. She realized that if her work
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  Speaker 1: was to be taken seriously, she needed to adopt a
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  Speaker 1: male pen name. So she chose a name that sounded
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  Speaker 1: masculine and intellectual, and the ruse worked. Mary's pen name
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  Speaker 1: quickly became a respected and well known author. Her novels
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  Speaker 1: were widely read and admired. Under her pseudonym, Mary wrote
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  Speaker 1: stories that explored complex themes and characters, and she became
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  Speaker 1: a beloved figure in the literary world. She rarely talked
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  Speaker 1: about her personal life, so it's no surprise that only
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  Speaker 1: a select few friends and family knew the famous novelist
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  Speaker 1: was not only a woman, but Mary Anne. Not only
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  Speaker 1: did she write novels under her male pen name, but
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  Speaker 1: she also wrote essays, poems, and reviews. Critics and readers
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  Speaker 1: alike enjoyed her sharp wit and admired her ability to
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  Speaker 1: challenge conventional wisdom, making some of her essays controversial. Little
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  Speaker 1: did readers know that some of these controversies reflected the
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  Speaker 1: women behind the name. Mary Anne was a feminist, and
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  Speaker 1: her novels often explored women's lives and the constraints that
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  Speaker 1: society placed on them. She believed that women should have
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  Speaker 1: the same opportunities as men, and she used her writing
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  Speaker 1: to advocate for women's rights. Oddly, although a writer herself,
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  Speaker 1: Mary Anne remained a critic of other women novelists. She
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  Speaker 1: was a master of characterization. Her novels are known for
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  Speaker 1: their vivid, complex yet ordinary characters who often struggle with
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  Speaker 1: their flaws and weaknesses. She was interested in exploring the
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  Speaker 1: complexities of human nature and the way that people interact
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  Speaker 1: with each other. Under her pen name, mary Anne also
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  Speaker 1: translated several important works of philosophy and literature from German
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  Speaker 1: into English, including Spinoza's Ethics and Fauerbach's Essence of Christianity.
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  Speaker 1: While the pen name had fooled readers, one person saw
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  Speaker 1: past the ruse. Charles Dickens wrote to the famed author twice.
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  Speaker 1: In the first letter, he addressed the author's womanly touches.
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  Speaker 1: The second letter came after Mary Anne sent Charles Dickens
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  Speaker 1: a copy of one of her novels. He replied with
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  Speaker 1: a thank you and alluded that he had never seen
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  Speaker 1: any man present himself a woman so firmly in thought.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty nine, y brilliant success of the novel
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  Speaker 1: Adam Bede made the public more curious about the author,
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  Speaker 1: which even Queen Victoria raved about. People around mary Anne
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  Speaker 1: began to suspect problems arose when someone else complained that
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  Speaker 1: he had not received money from the book. Mary Anne
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  Speaker 1: thought that it was funny until people pitched in as
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  Speaker 1: a fundraiser. That's when she began to worry about those
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  Speaker 1: that con artist was scamming. After an article ran stating
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  Speaker 1: that the famous author was a woman. Marianne's publisher told
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  Speaker 1: her that it was time to come clean. In eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty nine, she admitted that she and the renowned author
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  Speaker 1: were the same. Instead of a fallout, fans and readers
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  Speaker 1: accepted the news, and instead of referring to her by
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  Speaker 1: her real name, the public continued to use the pen name.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen sixty, Mary Anne Evans released her next novel
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  Speaker 1: as the celebrated author, George Eliot. The fact that the
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  Speaker 1: novels fans had come to love had been written by
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  Speaker 1: a woman never cut into her profits or her popularity.
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  Speaker 1: I guess you could say that the pen name is
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  Speaker 1: indeed mightier than the sword. 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 me,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey and partner with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: 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 Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time,
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  Speaker 1: stay curious.