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The 1904 Summer Olympic Games in St. Louis Hosted a Racist 'Special Olympics' · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: Let's begin today's show with a contextual fact. According to
0:28
Speaker 1: what we know from historical records, the very first Olympic
0:32
Speaker 1: Games in antiquity can be traced back to seven seventy
0:36
Speaker 1: six b C. E. BENNL. You've blown my mind. It's
0:42
Speaker 1: weird when we think about just how ancient that practice was. Now,
0:47
Speaker 1: the games did not occur every year continually from that point. Yeah,
0:52
Speaker 1: there was a lull about a fifteen hundred year lull,
0:56
Speaker 1: as it turns out, um, and then it was kind
0:59
Speaker 1: of reci a citated by a guy by the name
1:02
Speaker 1: of Pierre Baron de Coubertin Yes, and Casey Pegram joins us, hello,
1:07
Speaker 1: is that correct? Yeah, Pierre de coup And that's been
1:11
Speaker 1: Casey on the case from our super producer, Casey Pegram.
1:18
Speaker 1: Whoa you cool with those double sound flipped the script there,
1:21
Speaker 1: my man, I love it. But no, Pierre who was
1:24
Speaker 1: originally known by Pierre de Freder Casey Pierre de Fla.
1:30
Speaker 1: That's what that's why he's here. He's here for a
1:33
Speaker 1: lot of reason. He's here for amazing reasons. So tell
1:35
Speaker 1: us about this guy. Now that we've jacked up the
1:36
Speaker 1: flow entirely with valuable pronunciation information from Mr Casey Pegram. Yeah,
1:41
Speaker 1: this guy was an educator from France, um who totally
1:46
Speaker 1: revived the Olympic Games in eighteen nineties six in Greece. Indeed,
1:50
Speaker 1: ben m as it would be appropriate to do, I
1:54
Speaker 1: guess to carry on that torch. Yeah, it was in
1:57
Speaker 1: Athens in eighteen nineties six, and by by US accounts,
2:00
Speaker 1: I've read that one went okay. Um. And then they
2:03
Speaker 1: had one in Paris which was apparently a ship show. Uh.
2:07
Speaker 1: And then they had one that is the subject of
2:09
Speaker 1: today's episode in old St. Louis, Missouri. Yes, Missouri, Missouri,
2:15
Speaker 1: you got right in or chime in on ridiculous historians
2:20
Speaker 1: local Missouri residents to let us know how you prefer
2:23
Speaker 1: to pronounce it. Shred us. We welcome it. I'm having
2:26
Speaker 1: so much fun with that. So it's true. Noel America's
2:31
Speaker 1: first Olympic Games, the first Olympic Games in the US
2:36
Speaker 1: were held in nineteen o four in St. Louis or St. Louis,
2:40
Speaker 1: and they were tied to that year's World Fair, which
2:44
Speaker 1: happened in the same city. And there was even okay,
2:46
Speaker 1: So before we get too deep into this, folks, things
2:51
Speaker 1: were already starting off on a bizarre, awkward, and terrible
2:55
Speaker 1: foot when the nineteen o four Olympics moved to Missouri
2:59
Speaker 1: because they were originally supposed to be in the US,
3:02
Speaker 1: but supposed to be in a different city. Yeah, in
3:04
Speaker 1: the city of Chicago, which I'm very much looking forward
3:07
Speaker 1: to traveling to next weekend to see the band My
3:10
Speaker 1: Bloody Valentine's. Yeah, I'm looking forward to. Chicago is a
3:14
Speaker 1: beautiful city. But unfortunately St. Louis made some problems for
3:18
Speaker 1: Chicago because St. Louis was already set to host this
3:22
Speaker 1: World's Fair which had a really interesting name that was
3:26
Speaker 1: not the World's Fair. It was called the Louisiana Purchase
3:29
Speaker 1: Centennial Exhibition, and they were none too happy. The organizers
3:34
Speaker 1: of that little shin dig none too happy that the
3:36
Speaker 1: Olympics were going to give them a run for their
3:38
Speaker 1: money during the same period um in the summer in Chicago,
3:44
Speaker 1: so they threatened. According to this article by Nate DeMeo
3:47
Speaker 1: of Memory Palace Fame on Slate, um too out Olympics.
3:51
Speaker 1: The Olympics, in other words, making it such a big
3:54
Speaker 1: dog and pony show that the Olympics, which was not
3:58
Speaker 1: as widely known at the time, at being only the
4:00
Speaker 1: third year, um would probably suffer significantly. So Kubertan was like, Okay,
4:05
Speaker 1: I guess we better play ball with St. Louis. Yeah.
4:08
Speaker 1: They said specifically that they were going to make the
4:14
Speaker 1: official Olympic events in Chicago look terrible, look pitiful in comparison.
4:20
Speaker 1: And at this time the Baron was still trying ardently,
4:26
Speaker 1: because remember this isn't too far past, still trying ardently
4:30
Speaker 1: to resurrect the modern Olympics and give it the credibility
4:34
Speaker 1: it deserved. He wanted to avoid any controversy, and he
4:39
Speaker 1: said he would, you know, for the greater good of
4:42
Speaker 1: the Olympics, back down and award the location to St. Louis.
4:47
Speaker 1: But the problem was, first off, most people in Europe
4:52
Speaker 1: at that time probably had not heard of St. Louis
4:55
Speaker 1: at all. He was described as a second tier city,
4:58
Speaker 1: which I think is insulting. St. Louis is beautiful, but
5:01
Speaker 1: New York it is not. I mean, I went to St.
5:04
Speaker 1: Louis recently on some unrelated adventures, and I gotta say
5:08
Speaker 1: it's amazing city, amazing music, amazing barbecue if you like barbecue.
5:12
Speaker 1: But at this time that arch right. But at this time, uh,
5:17
Speaker 1: the location there in what they did describe as a
5:21
Speaker 1: second tier city was an incredible barrier to athletes, especially
5:26
Speaker 1: European athletes. We have to remember this was before an
5:29
Speaker 1: interstate system, so travel to the American Midwest was a
5:33
Speaker 1: daunting task, and almost all of the top European athletes
5:39
Speaker 1: didn't make it, and ultimately fewer than half of the
5:44
Speaker 1: Olympic events that year had even a single entrant who
5:49
Speaker 1: was not from America. And I want to say I
5:52
Speaker 1: read somewhere I'm sorry for being vague about this, folks,
5:56
Speaker 1: but that America actually scooped up some European athletes and
6:02
Speaker 1: made them part of the American team, or or folks
6:05
Speaker 1: that had recently immigrated to America but had not received
6:07
Speaker 1: citizenship yet, and they were the ones who won many
6:11
Speaker 1: of the medals and and and there are countries that
6:13
Speaker 1: are to this day disputing, uh those wins because they
6:17
Speaker 1: basically kind of sniped some of their people and they
6:20
Speaker 1: weren't officially citizens of the United States. So very wild
6:23
Speaker 1: West kind of Olympics here, and for for more reasons
6:26
Speaker 1: than one. Yeah, sort of shooting of shooting from the
6:29
Speaker 1: hip right, going winging it a little bit more than
6:33
Speaker 1: is appropriate. Uh, did we mention the mastermind behind this
6:37
Speaker 1: nold James Edwards Sullivan. No, we have not, but he's
6:40
Speaker 1: a huge part of the story. Okay. So, James Edwards
6:42
Speaker 1: Sullivan American sports official. He was born in eighteen sixty two.
6:47
Speaker 1: I lived until September nineteen fourteen. He was the chief
6:52
Speaker 1: organizer of these nineteen o four Summer Olympics, and a
6:57
Speaker 1: lot of the terrible, terrible mistakes that occurred fall upon
7:03
Speaker 1: his shoulders in this situation. He's the one who is
7:07
Speaker 1: putting out the threats. He's the one who was pushing
7:11
Speaker 1: the baron to move this, and he is one of
7:14
Speaker 1: the reasons that so many disastrous things occurred with the
7:18
Speaker 1: actual events. He was the organizer of the World's fair. Correct.
7:22
Speaker 1: Great question, and it's important that we clarify that point. So,
7:26
Speaker 1: James Edwards Sullivan is the primary organizer of the nineteen
7:31
Speaker 1: o four Summer Olympics, but the organizer of the Louisiana
7:37
Speaker 1: Purchase Exposition, which we've also seen both ways as either
7:41
Speaker 1: Louisiana Purchase Exhibition or Louisiana Purchase Exposition. The organizer of
7:46
Speaker 1: that stuff, whatever you want to call it, was a
7:48
Speaker 1: guy named David R. Francis. And the problem with this
7:53
Speaker 1: was that the St. Louis organizers treated the Olympic Games, uh,
7:59
Speaker 1: sort of as a side show to the World's Fair.
8:02
Speaker 1: Because the World's Fair was a big deal and very
8:05
Speaker 1: well established at this point, and there were other more popular,
8:10
Speaker 1: let's call them cultural exhibits. We're gonna be remiss if
8:12
Speaker 1: we don't mention some of the stuff that happened in
8:15
Speaker 1: those exhibits. Yeah, yeah, those were overshadowing the actual Olympic
8:23
Speaker 1: Games and events. And I believe in the nineteen o
8:26
Speaker 1: four Games the total number of athletes was only six
8:29
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty one, sixty five men and six women,
8:34
Speaker 1: and yet for some reason it went on for like
8:35
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventy five days, which I thought was bizarre. Um,
8:39
Speaker 1: let's backtrack just a little bit, two back to the
8:40
Speaker 1: World's Fair. So we're talking about let's just let's talk
8:43
Speaker 1: about some of the things that made the World's Fair
8:45
Speaker 1: kind of cool. Um. You had, you know, the kind
8:47
Speaker 1: of things you'd think about being at a fair. Um.
8:50
Speaker 1: On this particular one, they had a Lincoln's log cabin
8:53
Speaker 1: from when he was a boy. Okay, I guess that
8:54
Speaker 1: you wouldn't see that it's most fairs, but they also
8:56
Speaker 1: had waffle cones and you know, new fangled contraptions inventions,
9:00
Speaker 1: and I think this is where like peanut butter was debuted.
9:04
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you mentioned that. Okay, yes, quick interjection.
9:07
Speaker 1: There's a fantastic article but from serious seats by a
9:10
Speaker 1: guy named Robert Moss. The nineteen o four World's Fair
9:13
Speaker 1: a turning point for American food. There were a lot
9:17
Speaker 1: of amazing food things that happened here. Allegedly, the first
9:22
Speaker 1: hot dog ever was made in the nineteen or sold
9:25
Speaker 1: in the nineteen o four World's Fair. Uh, when a
9:31
Speaker 1: vendor named Anton fu Twanger was giving out sausages to people,
9:37
Speaker 1: but they were too hot for people to hold, and
9:40
Speaker 1: so he had his brother in law baked buns to
9:42
Speaker 1: hold the meat, creating the world's first hot dog. It's
9:46
Speaker 1: important to us through this episode, fellow ridiculous historians, to
9:50
Speaker 1: try to find some pluses. Yeah, but but so please
9:53
Speaker 1: go out about the World's Fair. I have this list
9:55
Speaker 1: of amazing food stuff too. We can keep going with
9:57
Speaker 1: that if you like. I'm just trying to, you know,
9:59
Speaker 1: put a silver lining on this story. I don't know. Yeah,
10:02
Speaker 1: peanut butter is not enough a silver line where we're going.
10:04
Speaker 1: We might have told us go ahead and get there.
10:06
Speaker 1: Um one one last little thing about kuber Tan, who,
10:08
Speaker 1: by the way, was the guy who re established the
10:11
Speaker 1: established the International Olympic Committee. That was his deal. So
10:14
Speaker 1: the Baron the Baron. So we're a third year of
10:16
Speaker 1: this event after year lull um, the stakes are high.
10:20
Speaker 1: He's kind of strong armed in going to St. Louis
10:23
Speaker 1: and was so peeved at the whole thing that he
10:25
Speaker 1: actually didn't even show up. He is quoted in saying
10:28
Speaker 1: that he had sort of a predisposition to assuming that
10:32
Speaker 1: the quality of the Olympiad would match the quality of
10:36
Speaker 1: the city. Yeah, kind of turning his nose up at
10:39
Speaker 1: at at St. Louis. Here. Let's give him another quote
10:42
Speaker 1: too that will get us to I think the meat
10:45
Speaker 1: of this episode. Also, these are the early days of
10:48
Speaker 1: the Hamburger and just gonna whenever we get too into
10:52
Speaker 1: too much disturbing stuff, how about we throw in a
10:54
Speaker 1: fun food festure that sounds good, Okay. So, in addition
10:58
Speaker 1: to his objections to the overall mediocrity potential four posed
11:04
Speaker 1: by the four Olympics, Uh, the Baron also took disapproving
11:09
Speaker 1: note of a spectacle, very problematic spectacle called Anthropology Days.
11:16
Speaker 1: Before we tell you what those are, before we explore that,
11:19
Speaker 1: let's just go with this quote, he says, referencing these
11:22
Speaker 1: as for that outrageous charade. It will of course lose
11:25
Speaker 1: its appeal when black men, red men, and yellow men
11:28
Speaker 1: learned to run, jump, and throw and leave the white
11:31
Speaker 1: men behind them. Think of all the problems with that. Yes,
11:36
Speaker 1: but at the same time, oddly forward thinking compared to
11:39
Speaker 1: the story we're about to tell you, So why don't
11:47
Speaker 1: we just launch right in? It's sort of twofold. It's
11:50
Speaker 1: interesting because even Ben and I off air were a
11:52
Speaker 1: little confused about who was actually hosting these Anthropology Days.
11:55
Speaker 1: As it turns out, it was kind of a partnership
11:57
Speaker 1: between the Olympics and the World's Fair. So I'm a
12:00
Speaker 1: little confused about how this guy, James Sullivan, who kind
12:03
Speaker 1: of was the chief organizer of the Zumberlympics, wasn't like
12:06
Speaker 1: given the thumbs up from the baron himself. But that
12:09
Speaker 1: we we haven't quite run across that particular minutia yet. Um,
12:13
Speaker 1: But here's the story. James Sullivan, he believed in the
12:20
Speaker 1: utter superiority of white men and wanted very much to
12:26
Speaker 1: put on a display or a charade, as the baron
12:29
Speaker 1: referred to it, to demonstrate this fact. So, um, there
12:34
Speaker 1: was this thing that was a very strange phenomenon at
12:36
Speaker 1: the beginning of the twentieth century, uh called human zoos,
12:40
Speaker 1: which were sort of like traveling carnivals or it would
12:43
Speaker 1: be like the equivalent of a freak show or a
12:44
Speaker 1: side show where indigenous people from places like philip Philippines
12:50
Speaker 1: or Africa, um, would be displayed in kind of mocked
12:56
Speaker 1: up versions of their traditional homes. Yeah, and but they
13:01
Speaker 1: would be you know, there's images uh in this really
13:04
Speaker 1: great article from Timeline called scientists staged a racist Olympics
13:08
Speaker 1: in nineteen o four to prove white superiority. That shows
13:12
Speaker 1: people just gathered around these picket fences and and looking
13:17
Speaker 1: at children, men, women, all kind of doing what they
13:22
Speaker 1: would be doing in their villages for example. Right. So
13:26
Speaker 1: Sullivan wanted to take this a step further, and the
13:30
Speaker 1: World's Fair itself had a mocked up Filipino village because
13:34
Speaker 1: at the time, the Philippines was a newly established territory
13:38
Speaker 1: of the United States. So it was they wanted to
13:41
Speaker 1: show their dominance. Well, yeah, he wanted to legitimize it,
13:45
Speaker 1: to legitimize this belief, which was already at that time
13:49
Speaker 1: not considered controversial. That's when he contacted a doctor W. J. McGhee,
13:55
Speaker 1: who was president of the American Anthropological Association and head
14:00
Speaker 1: of the Department of Anthropology at the St. Louis World's Fair.
14:04
Speaker 1: McGee thought, because indigenous people lived in harmony with nature,
14:08
Speaker 1: they were endowed with special strength and abilities that quote
14:11
Speaker 1: white people simply didn't have. And so he was compelled
14:15
Speaker 1: perhaps there's some different motivations by Sullivan's concept, and they
14:19
Speaker 1: began organizing these anthropology days, which they sometimes referred to,
14:26
Speaker 1: apparently informally as special Olympics. Yeah, yeah, not the way
14:30
Speaker 1: we think of that term today. And you know, McGee
14:34
Speaker 1: did have a scientific background and thought that he was
14:37
Speaker 1: conducting research, but he had this preconceived notion that we
14:41
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier that um indigenous people had certain um advantages
14:46
Speaker 1: typically had to do with strength or or endurance or
14:50
Speaker 1: things like that, and he wanted to build this hierarchical
14:53
Speaker 1: diagram of genealogy of the human species, of which he
14:58
Speaker 1: thought these indigenous people were at the bottom because his
15:01
Speaker 1: main concern was in intellect and he clearly subscribed to
15:05
Speaker 1: the concept of eugenics and selective breeding, which was alarmingly
15:10
Speaker 1: popular in or accepted in the US at that time.
15:14
Speaker 1: So they stacked the odds against these these people. They
15:18
Speaker 1: took several people from these exhibitions like what you mentioned earlier,
15:22
Speaker 1: in all the exhibition featuring people from the Philippines, and
15:27
Speaker 1: they said, well, you'll compete in a special version of
15:32
Speaker 1: Olympic events on August twelfth and thirteenth of that year
15:36
Speaker 1: of nineteen o four. And all their competitions that they
15:40
Speaker 1: put these people in were European style competitions shot put,
15:44
Speaker 1: high jump, long jump, running the mile, other stuff. But
15:48
Speaker 1: they didn't teach the participants. They didn't tell them a
15:52
Speaker 1: damn thing about what they were supposed to be doing. Yeah,
15:55
Speaker 1: and I mean, even I, uh, a lifelong citizen of
16:00
Speaker 1: these United States, I don't know the rules of the
16:03
Speaker 1: high jump or or the right form or how to
16:05
Speaker 1: do it properly, or you know, I don't. I really don't.
16:09
Speaker 1: And then that sounds, you know, like it would be
16:11
Speaker 1: so apparent or intuitive, and it's just not. They're very
16:14
Speaker 1: specific regulations for any professional sporting event. So from what
16:19
Speaker 1: I understand, correct me if this is if this is off.
16:22
Speaker 1: For what I understand, they didn't tell them, and there's
16:25
Speaker 1: obviously a language bearer. They didn't tell them anything at most,
16:29
Speaker 1: for instance, in the one yard dash or whatever, the
16:33
Speaker 1: participants just sort of got the idea that they were
16:35
Speaker 1: supposed to run. But in many cases they just saw
16:39
Speaker 1: gun fired and we're like, what next, or or they
16:42
Speaker 1: were just more fascinated with the weapon itself and the
16:45
Speaker 1: loud noise than it made than what it signified, which
16:48
Speaker 1: just seems just so ridiculous and shortsighted to me that
16:51
Speaker 1: they would just assume that these folks would would have
16:54
Speaker 1: the cultural knowledge of how these games work. That's just
16:57
Speaker 1: bonkers to me. They also had tednis, would she is
17:00
Speaker 1: weird because tennis is something like, look, even if you're
17:03
Speaker 1: skeptical with our explanation here and you think, well, sure,
17:07
Speaker 1: you can just relatively easily explained to someone the basics
17:11
Speaker 1: of something like a high jump or one yard dash, Tennis,
17:15
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree, has very specific equipment,
17:18
Speaker 1: rules and strategies. This Anthropology Days exhibition and this event,
17:23
Speaker 1: whatever you wanna call it, was a huge failure. There's
17:29
Speaker 1: very little notice, so there were not many people even
17:33
Speaker 1: in the crowd to watch. Uh. And Sullivan thought at
17:38
Speaker 1: least that the games were somewhat successful for his ulterior motive,
17:42
Speaker 1: because he said, ah, this proves that these and this
17:45
Speaker 1: is a terrible word, but to him, this proves that
17:47
Speaker 1: these quote unquote savages can't play tennis. Oh cool, good,
17:52
Speaker 1: good jobs, super helpful data there. All of these presuppositions
17:57
Speaker 1: that these guys made were based on the kind of
17:59
Speaker 1: inherent just thoughtless racism that we kind of take for
18:03
Speaker 1: grant today that most learning people would hopefully not be
18:06
Speaker 1: party too. For example, Uh, they assumed that anyone from
18:10
Speaker 1: a nation in Africa, for example, where spears were thrown
18:14
Speaker 1: as a means of hunting and protection and what have you,
18:17
Speaker 1: would automatically be good at throwing a javelin. You know,
18:21
Speaker 1: you know what makes me think of It makes me
18:23
Speaker 1: think of. Um. There's an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm
18:26
Speaker 1: where one of Larry's friends has adopted a Chinese baby,
18:29
Speaker 1: and Larry immediately asked them, so, is he like automatically
18:33
Speaker 1: good at using chopsticks? Yeah? I mean those are horrific
18:36
Speaker 1: things to think and of course, Larry David, we can
18:39
Speaker 1: safely say is lampooning net and it and does not
18:42
Speaker 1: himself believe it. But there is another angle here because
18:45
Speaker 1: of the thing you mentioned earlier, where it's like, because
18:47
Speaker 1: these folks were closer to nature and did these things
18:51
Speaker 1: as part of their everyday life, it's not just a
18:53
Speaker 1: nurture thing. There's also a nature thing here where they
18:55
Speaker 1: assumed that because they had done these things in their
18:57
Speaker 1: day to day they'd be able to immediately one to
18:59
Speaker 1: one translate themto some kind of silly game. Um, and
19:02
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. For example, the folks who tried the
19:06
Speaker 1: javelin that were from these nations that you spears were
19:09
Speaker 1: terrible at it. Yeah, And I think also there's an
19:12
Speaker 1: important point we have to make about these people. So
19:16
Speaker 1: according to that timeline article that we cited earlier by
19:20
Speaker 1: show shoot Parks, these people were already put in horrific conditions.
19:25
Speaker 1: So more than twenty million people attended the nineteen o
19:29
Speaker 1: four World's Fair. Right, they saw electricity, they heard the
19:32
Speaker 1: first telephone. They also went to see three thousand people
19:37
Speaker 1: who were placed in these exhibitions, people from the African continent,
19:40
Speaker 1: the Asian continent and parts of the America's But the
19:45
Speaker 1: way these people were forced to live was incredibly was
19:50
Speaker 1: like incredibly dangerous. Regardless of the weather. They would be
19:53
Speaker 1: forced to wear traditional clothing I'm doing air quotes here,
19:58
Speaker 1: even if it didn't suit the client. And and then,
20:00
Speaker 1: like people were supposed to who are forced to live
20:02
Speaker 1: in that Filipino village, would be made to perform traditional
20:07
Speaker 1: rituals that were only supposed to happen seasonally, over and
20:10
Speaker 1: over again to shock or entertain an audience. They were
20:13
Speaker 1: appalling sanitary conditions and a lot of these people felt
20:18
Speaker 1: that they had nowhere else to go. They were stuck
20:20
Speaker 1: in this alien environment. And imagine being pulled out of that.
20:25
Speaker 1: So your life is already not at its best. And
20:28
Speaker 1: then the Sullivan guy comes with some other people, grabs you,
20:32
Speaker 1: gibbers at you in English, hands you a javelin, and
20:36
Speaker 1: clearly thinks that he is going to prove that not
20:39
Speaker 1: only he, but anyone who looks like him is inherently
20:41
Speaker 1: better than you. I'm also confused that because he talks
20:44
Speaker 1: about how he had these ideas that they would be
20:46
Speaker 1: superior physically, So what was he what was he trying
20:49
Speaker 1: to what was he getting out confused? I think it
20:52
Speaker 1: was McGhee who thought he could prove specific physical advantages,
20:58
Speaker 1: and it was soul that who thought he could prove
21:02
Speaker 1: that what he saw as white people was inherently superior.
21:07
Speaker 1: So I guess the reason and so confusing to me
21:09
Speaker 1: is because the logic behind literally all of this is
21:11
Speaker 1: utterly convoluted and bizarre. Yeah, and uh, a lot of
21:16
Speaker 1: that convolution and bizarre nature comes from the fact that
21:19
Speaker 1: it's based on things that are completely wrong. It's true,
21:23
Speaker 1: And here's an interesting fact to um. To Mayo's article
21:26
Speaker 1: in Slate, he points out that, uh, these folks, though
21:30
Speaker 1: living in what he refers to as quasi captivity, um,
21:33
Speaker 1: were paid probably not much, and obviously they were living
21:38
Speaker 1: in horrible circumstances. But some of them even had like
21:42
Speaker 1: managers or agents. You know. It was almost like being
21:45
Speaker 1: a I don't know, Santa Claus impersonator or something. But um,
21:48
Speaker 1: the problem is a lot of these folks that were
21:51
Speaker 1: in these human zoos were never fully able to assimilate
21:55
Speaker 1: into American culture, right, and they were kind of held
21:59
Speaker 1: back by here, we're giving you an opportunity to not
22:03
Speaker 1: really live but but just barely right. Yeah, and uh
22:07
Speaker 1: for McGhee, the body of data that he wanted to
22:11
Speaker 1: collect from this to prove his whack of do notion
22:14
Speaker 1: of racial hierarchies and certain inherent advantages or disadvantages. Uh,
22:19
Speaker 1: he didn't get it. We don't know if that body
22:22
Speaker 1: of data ever existed. They did give it another go, though.
22:25
Speaker 1: There was a second attempt at this unconnected to the
22:28
Speaker 1: Olympic Games um where they did try to teach them
22:32
Speaker 1: the sports. You think that would have been front of
22:35
Speaker 1: mine the first time, but they just seemed to have
22:37
Speaker 1: missed that entirely. Yeah, how that one go? Did that
22:39
Speaker 1: any any any better results? No? No? No? Yeah. It
22:43
Speaker 1: turns out if something if you base something on a
22:46
Speaker 1: terrible idea and nonsense, the first time you try it,
22:49
Speaker 1: it'll still be a terrible idea. Non since the second time.
22:57
Speaker 1: While we're at this point, Uh, just one of mention
23:00
Speaker 1: another another fun food factor, right, Okay, So apparently at
23:07
Speaker 1: the Dentio four World's Fair when it was hot, there
23:11
Speaker 1: were very few people interested in this hot tea offered
23:15
Speaker 1: by a guy named Richard Blackton who was the tea
23:19
Speaker 1: commissioner in the India Pavilion. And this guy got so
23:22
Speaker 1: desperate that he decided to pour his tea over ice,
23:26
Speaker 1: and supposedly, according to legend, he invented iced tea. Well
23:30
Speaker 1: then the drink, yeah, not the rapper, not noted tea,
23:36
Speaker 1: invented iced tea. Um? Yeah, Where do we go from here? Ben?
23:40
Speaker 1: I guess well we should also say that, you know,
23:43
Speaker 1: I think we did mention. I hope we established that
23:46
Speaker 1: the concept of human zoos was not unique at all, Right,
23:51
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, it wasn't unique at all to the
23:54
Speaker 1: World's fair. It existed in other parts of the world,
23:58
Speaker 1: in Europe as well. It is better for history, of course,
24:03
Speaker 1: that this proved to be a failure. There were some
24:07
Speaker 1: other first that occurred during the Olympics, so in some
24:11
Speaker 1: ways it wasn't a complete disaster. It was the first
24:14
Speaker 1: time boxing, freestyle wrestling, that decathlon and dumbbells made their
24:18
Speaker 1: debut in the modern Olympics, right, and luckily James Sullivan
24:24
Speaker 1: would go down in history as the fool he was,
24:28
Speaker 1: which I consider a positive aspect absolutely how so, because
24:32
Speaker 1: he was clearly and categorically proven wrong, espousing a belief
24:36
Speaker 1: that was both offensive and incredibly common at the time.
24:41
Speaker 1: So I consider that a win for our species overall.
24:44
Speaker 1: Al Right, well, in the spirit of staying ridiculous, because
24:46
Speaker 1: while this, uh, this racial shenanigans is absolutely ridiculous, it's
24:49
Speaker 1: also pretty depressing and quite dark when you think about it,
24:53
Speaker 1: the idea of human zoos. It reminds me of that
24:57
Speaker 1: the episode we did about the real human skull that
24:59
Speaker 1: was down in the diorama at a museum, and the
25:02
Speaker 1: idea of um Grave robbing these indigenous people and taking
25:06
Speaker 1: them back to Europe and taxidermizing them. Sistuh. We haven't
25:11
Speaker 1: even mentioned the fact that a lot of this attitude
25:13
Speaker 1: was entirely based on the idea of imperialism of the
25:16
Speaker 1: United States. It was a stat you know, we had
25:18
Speaker 1: we had gotten this territory of the Philippines, we had
25:21
Speaker 1: this Filipino reservation, right, and it was this idea of
25:25
Speaker 1: showing our cultural dominance. I would say it's I would
25:29
Speaker 1: say it's ultimately descended from the European ideals that the
25:33
Speaker 1: Americans just they didn't invent it. No, no, no, for sure,
25:35
Speaker 1: but this is a really clear example of you know,
25:38
Speaker 1: trying to put that on full display. Um. So let's
25:42
Speaker 1: let's let's end with one uh funny story, I advanced
25:46
Speaker 1: to end with food facts. Okay, that's fine, so well
25:48
Speaker 1: the next to last thing to folks, don't leave completely depressed,
25:51
Speaker 1: because it was kind of depressing to but in a
25:53
Speaker 1: much more funny, lighthearted, funny way. So the marathon at
25:55
Speaker 1: the Olympics themselves, um was just utterly astros Uh. The
26:01
Speaker 1: winner a guy named Thomas Hicks. He finished in an
26:05
Speaker 1: absurdly long three hours and twenty eight minutes, and that
26:07
Speaker 1: is because the conditions were just abhorrent. It was ninety
26:11
Speaker 1: degrees they were was on a road that was covered
26:14
Speaker 1: with dust. Um, and I think according to history dot com,
26:17
Speaker 1: eighteen of the thirty two folks that were racing had
26:20
Speaker 1: to pull out because of sheer exhaustion. Uh. Somebody got
26:24
Speaker 1: a stomach hemorrhage and nearly died. William Garcia of California
26:31
Speaker 1: collapsed and had to be hospitalized because dust had coated
26:34
Speaker 1: his esophagus and ripped his stomach. Lighting. Oh my god,
26:37
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're ending with the food facts. Um. So yeah,
26:40
Speaker 1: Thomas Hicks. Uh he won with that ridiculously slow time,
26:45
Speaker 1: but only because his assistance kept feeding him doses of
26:49
Speaker 1: eggs and strychnine. Egg Whites and Stryck nine and Brandy
26:53
Speaker 1: to keep him on his feet. Yeah, for the at
26:57
Speaker 1: the ten mile mark, they had to start taking care
26:59
Speaker 1: of him. He had begged them for a drink and
27:01
Speaker 1: they refused they gave they sponged his mouth out instead. Uh.
27:05
Speaker 1: Strychnine and small doses was common as a stimulant at
27:09
Speaker 1: the time. And I know weird it sounds, but there
27:12
Speaker 1: were no rules about performance enhancing drugs. But he was.
27:16
Speaker 1: He was the ultimate winner. But did you hear about
27:18
Speaker 1: Fred Laure's. He's my favorite guy of Fred Laure's. Okay,
27:23
Speaker 1: So this guy Fred lawres l O r Z. He
27:27
Speaker 1: leads the starters from the time they fired the gun,
27:30
Speaker 1: but by the first mile Thomas Hicks hedges ahead and
27:34
Speaker 1: Lures at the nine mile mark started getting these crazy
27:39
Speaker 1: stomach cramps, and so he decided to hitch a ride
27:42
Speaker 1: in an accompanying car, and he waved at his fellow
27:47
Speaker 1: competitors as he ran, and then he rode in the
27:50
Speaker 1: car for eleven miles and then one of Hicks's handlers,
27:55
Speaker 1: one of the strict nine egg White guys, saw Laws
27:57
Speaker 1: and ordered him off the course, but Laura said it
28:00
Speaker 1: and kept running. And finished with a time of just
28:03
Speaker 1: under three hours, and the crowd went nuts and they
28:06
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, an American one. And then when I
28:10
Speaker 1: think President Theodore Roosevelt's daughter placed a wreath on loris
28:14
Speaker 1: head and was about to uh put the actual metal
28:17
Speaker 1: around his neck when somebody finally busted him. The cheers
28:21
Speaker 1: turned to booze. And we don't know if Lors was
28:24
Speaker 1: as sincere when he said this, but he smiled and said,
28:27
Speaker 1: I never attended to accept the honor. I finished only
28:30
Speaker 1: for the sake of a joke. And it's like, really,
28:32
Speaker 1: that's how you let it get that close to a
28:34
Speaker 1: gold medal. I don't know, man, I don't really buy
28:37
Speaker 1: It's a good story though, But Hicks Hicks does become
28:39
Speaker 1: the winner, right because he didn't hop in a car
28:43
Speaker 1: for eleven miles. He hopped on his feet. Well, I'm
28:48
Speaker 1: picturing him vomiting, constantly, clutching his guts, screaming water, screaming
28:53
Speaker 1: for water, having his his little toady's pouring some disgusting
28:57
Speaker 1: mixture down his throat. You know, That's that's how you
29:01
Speaker 1: typically picture a marathon runner right now, right, that's that's
29:04
Speaker 1: the glory Day's picture. So as we said, um, there
29:08
Speaker 1: were a lot of food facts that we're pointing to
29:11
Speaker 1: when we entered more difficult parts of this story. I
29:15
Speaker 1: want to give a little bit of a gray lining
29:16
Speaker 1: here because some of those stories, while inspiring, pretty easy
29:22
Speaker 1: to debunk. If you were writing an email now about
29:26
Speaker 1: iced tea again, the drink, uh, the truth is that
29:30
Speaker 1: it had been around for decades beforehand. Yeah. I guess
29:34
Speaker 1: if you're the one that got the booth at the
29:35
Speaker 1: World's Fair, you might get the credit in history. But
29:38
Speaker 1: thankfully we've got sites like serious Eats that do a
29:41
Speaker 1: great job of debunking that stuff. What what do they
29:43
Speaker 1: say about the actual origins of iced tea? Man? Oh yeah,
29:46
Speaker 1: the actual origins of iced tea, which are very interesting
29:50
Speaker 1: on their own, occur at least by eighteen sixty eight,
29:53
Speaker 1: probably way before sixty's, like three decades before the World Fair.
29:58
Speaker 1: Uh A i'dely circulated newspaper piece notes that iced tea
30:03
Speaker 1: with lemon juice is said to be a popular and
30:05
Speaker 1: healthy drink and has instructions for making it, and it's
30:09
Speaker 1: also numerous cookbooks. So I think a lot of the
30:12
Speaker 1: marketing of World's Fair stuff is just that marketing, and
30:18
Speaker 1: we have to be careful because marketing, you know, is
30:21
Speaker 1: a glitzy version of the truth. Do you think it
30:22
Speaker 1: wasn't really a Lincoln's boyhood cabin that was there? Just
30:25
Speaker 1: some sort of replica? I don't know. It also reminds me,
30:28
Speaker 1: you know, all those old medieval counterfeiters, like a Canterbury
30:33
Speaker 1: tale who would run around with fake reliquaries. Yeah, like
30:37
Speaker 1: the partner. But we do believe it is important for
30:42
Speaker 1: us to acknowledge these things and and realize that in
30:45
Speaker 1: nineteen o four at the World's Fair, people believe they
30:49
Speaker 1: were on the cusp of scientific innovation, you know, that
30:52
Speaker 1: they were on the bleeding edge of technology, and in
30:58
Speaker 1: some ways they were, but their own preconceptions, their own prejudices,
31:04
Speaker 1: their own pre existing notions, limited the scope of their vision.
31:08
Speaker 1: And hopefully that's something that we can learn from in
31:11
Speaker 1: the modern day. Like I'm stretching to make it a
31:13
Speaker 1: little bit of a parable. Now, you're doing a good job, Ben,
31:16
Speaker 1: You like it, think it works a good way to
31:17
Speaker 1: frame it. Um yeah, but there you there, you have it.
31:20
Speaker 1: To quote Robert Lamb of stuff to blow your mind,
31:22
Speaker 1: um our sister podcast. Um so yeah, I think we
31:26
Speaker 1: leave it there, right, Ben, I agreed or we hope
31:29
Speaker 1: that you have enjoyed this episode. We would like to
31:32
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. We've been doing more and more
31:34
Speaker 1: sports related stuff recently. Have you noticed that, which is
31:37
Speaker 1: weird because I don't think either one of us are
31:38
Speaker 1: into sports, and it's possible that that shows in the episode.
31:41
Speaker 1: Or we come to it with honest hearts, honest hearts,
31:43
Speaker 1: honest hearts and as fans of history if nothing else.
31:48
Speaker 1: So thank you for checking out the show and taking
31:50
Speaker 1: the strange journey with us. Thank you to our super producer,
31:53
Speaker 1: Casey Pegrham, and thank you to Eve's Jeff Code, who
31:56
Speaker 1: was our research assistant for this episode. If you want
31:59
Speaker 1: to reach us online, you can check us out on
32:01
Speaker 1: social media at Ridiculous History at Instagram and Twitter and Facebook,
32:05
Speaker 1: or you can join our Facebook community, the Ridiculous Historians.
32:08
Speaker 1: There's always all kinds of fun conversation and memory going
32:11
Speaker 1: on there. Um. If you don't want to do any
32:13
Speaker 1: of that, you can write us an email at Ridiculous
32:15
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. And I think we
32:17
Speaker 1: did not yet think are pal Alex Williams, who composed
32:20
Speaker 1: this to Thanks Alex