WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.480 --> 00:00:03.919 Welcome. This is Rebecca Shore for Radio Eye and to 2 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:06.919 day I will be reading from a special edition of 3 00:00:07.040 --> 00:00:13.800 Smithsonian Magazine America at two fifty the Revolutionary Spark. As 4 00:00:13.839 --> 00:00:16.920 a reminder, Radio I is a reading service intended for 5 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.039 people who are blind or have other disabilities that make 6 00:00:20.120 --> 00:00:24.920 it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now 7 00:00:25.039 --> 00:00:28.920 for the article titled The operating room where anesthesia was 8 00:00:28.960 --> 00:00:32.200 first demonstrated is now a landmark. But for the men 9 00:00:32.240 --> 00:00:36.359 who claimed credit, there was much misery. Medical procedures used 10 00:00:36.359 --> 00:00:39.479 to be a scream filled endurance test until doctors at 11 00:00:39.479 --> 00:00:43.439 this Boston institution learned to tame the pain of patience 12 00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:49.079 by Douglas Starr. The most important demonstration in medical history 13 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:53.679 was about to begin. The date October sixteenth, eighteen forty six. 14 00:00:54.280 --> 00:00:57.719 The setting the operating room at the top of Massachusetts 15 00:00:57.759 --> 00:01:01.039 General Hospital, a dome topped am the theater built to 16 00:01:01.079 --> 00:01:05.000 both capture the sunlight and isolate the screams of surgical patients. 17 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:10.799 Surrounding the table stood a gaggle of Boston's most reputable surgeons, 18 00:01:10.840 --> 00:01:14.640 including John Collins Warren, one of the hospital's co founders. 19 00:01:15.280 --> 00:01:19.040 A driven puritanical man, Warren had studied in the medical 20 00:01:19.079 --> 00:01:24.079 capitals of London, Paris, and Edinburgh. Bare knuckled in black coats, 21 00:01:24.200 --> 00:01:27.200 he and his colleagues had gathered at Mass General in 22 00:01:27.239 --> 00:01:30.959 front of a steeply banked gallery of medical students. They 23 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:33.480 were about to perform what they hoped would be the 24 00:01:33.519 --> 00:01:38.879 first surgery on a successfully anesthetized patient. About two years earlier, 25 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:43.159 in another one of Warren's classes, a Connecticut dentist named 26 00:01:43.159 --> 00:01:47.359 Horace Wells had tried to anesthetize a patient with nitrous oxide, 27 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:50.959 also known as laughing gas. Wells had come upon the 28 00:01:51.000 --> 00:01:54.439 substance while attending an event in which a showman dosed 29 00:01:54.560 --> 00:01:58.560 volunteers with the gas. The audience watched with delight as 30 00:01:58.599 --> 00:02:03.359 the volunteers lost all inhibition, laughing and prancing. Wells had 31 00:02:03.400 --> 00:02:07.040 seen one volunteer injure his knee but experience no pain. 32 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:09.919 That had inspired him to give the gas to his 33 00:02:10.039 --> 00:02:15.560 patients before tooth extractions. After several successful trials in his office, 34 00:02:15.879 --> 00:02:19.759 Wells brought the formula to Boston. The procedure at Mass 35 00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:23.719 General a tooth extraction started out well, but after a 36 00:02:23.759 --> 00:02:27.680 few moments the patient moaned. It seemed that Wells had 37 00:02:27.759 --> 00:02:32.879 withdrawn the gas bag too soon. The audience irrupted into hisses, boos, 38 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:37.479 and cries of humbug. Wells was humiliated. This time. A 39 00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:41.840 dentist named William T. G. Morton would use another inhaled 40 00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:46.280 substance as an anesthetic, Ether. As the doctors and students 41 00:02:46.319 --> 00:02:50.000 looked on, Morton readied his equipment, a glass sphere with 42 00:02:50.039 --> 00:02:53.400 a small sponge in the bottom, a valve on one side, 43 00:02:53.719 --> 00:02:57.800 and a tube projecting from the other. He poured ether 44 00:02:57.960 --> 00:03:00.879 onto the sponge, held the tube to the patient's lips, 45 00:03:00.879 --> 00:03:04.360 and told him to inhale. The man's body twitched for 46 00:03:04.439 --> 00:03:08.120 a few minutes and then lay still. Morton stood back 47 00:03:08.199 --> 00:03:12.039 as Warren began the operation, a brief procedure to remove 48 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:15.319 a tumor from the patient's neck. The patient did not 49 00:03:15.439 --> 00:03:19.840 struggle or scream, Unlike in every surgery demonstration that came 50 00:03:19.879 --> 00:03:23.759 before it. The patient remained sedated through the entire operation. 51 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:28.120 Warren turned to the audience and uttered what would become 52 00:03:28.199 --> 00:03:32.800 one of the most famous sentences in the history of medicine. Gentlemen, 53 00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:37.560 he said, this is no humbug. That day, something entirely 54 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.919 new was ushered into the world surgery, as we know it. 55 00:03:41.599 --> 00:03:46.159 Anesthesia would help place America, long considered a medical backwater, 56 00:03:46.599 --> 00:03:50.960 on the world's medical map. Ether was to medicine what 57 00:03:51.080 --> 00:03:55.199 longitude was to navigation, and the airplane wing was to flight. 58 00:03:55.879 --> 00:03:59.719 Throughout history, nothing but death had been considered as unavoidable 59 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:05.159 as pain. Today, anesthesia during surgery is routine, with options 60 00:04:05.280 --> 00:04:10.240 ranging from local injections to intravenous or spinal delivery. Breathing 61 00:04:10.280 --> 00:04:14.680 tubes and continuous monitoring introduced in the twentieth century help 62 00:04:14.840 --> 00:04:18.920 ensure the patient's airways stay open while they're under But 63 00:04:19.079 --> 00:04:23.480 although that first successful demonstration in eighteen forty six benefited 64 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:27.199 untold millions of people, it brought only misery and pain 65 00:04:27.319 --> 00:04:32.360 to Ether's discoverers. Morton had a secret passed. He'd been 66 00:04:32.439 --> 00:04:36.839 a con man, drifting from one city to another, embezzling funds, 67 00:04:36.879 --> 00:04:41.240 defrauding his partners, and in one case, creating counterfeit postal seals. 68 00:04:41.959 --> 00:04:44.959 Fleeing a step ahead of the police. He'd returned to 69 00:04:45.040 --> 00:04:48.680 his native New England, decided to reform, and married the 70 00:04:48.759 --> 00:04:52.639 daughter of a prominent family. He'd met Wells, who instructed 71 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:56.319 him in dentistry, a crude practice at the time, easily 72 00:04:56.360 --> 00:04:59.439 taught to an apprentice, and the partners opened a branch 73 00:04:59.480 --> 00:05:04.000 office in Boston. In eighteen forty three, Morton and Wells 74 00:05:04.040 --> 00:05:05.959 came up with an idea for a new kind of 75 00:05:06.040 --> 00:05:11.160 denture and hired Charles Jackson, an imminent Boston chemist and geologist, 76 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:14.240 to analyze the metal in the denture and indorse it. 77 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:19.319 After Well's humiliation, Morton consulted with Jackson about which gas 78 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:23.600 might be more effective. Jackson suggested a gaseous form of 79 00:05:23.680 --> 00:05:28.040 sulphuric ether, a liquid long used to alleviate stomach cramps 80 00:05:28.079 --> 00:05:33.879 and topical pain, and sometimes enjoyed in recreational frolics. Morton 81 00:05:33.959 --> 00:05:37.680 had a local craftsman fashion and inhaler so a patient 82 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:40.680 could breathe in the gas as it evaporated from a 83 00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:45.079 liquid soaked sponge. He experimented on his dog and himself 84 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:48.680 before playing his part in the miracle at Mass General. 85 00:05:49.480 --> 00:05:52.759 After the surgery, Morton took out a patent on the substance, 86 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:57.399 calling it Lethion. When the military used ether while treating 87 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:02.240 soldiers during the Civil War, Morton unsuccessfully petitioned Congress for 88 00:06:02.360 --> 00:06:05.560 a reward. From then on, he spent part of each 89 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:10.319 year living in Washington, d c lavishly entertaining politicians to 90 00:06:10.480 --> 00:06:14.920 enlist them to his cause. Jackson, the chemist claimed that 91 00:06:14.959 --> 00:06:17.959 ether had been his idea and that Wharton had simply 92 00:06:18.000 --> 00:06:23.120 demonstrated it in public. Meanwhile, Wells claimed credit for discovering 93 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:27.160 inhaled anesthesia, even though his demonstration had appeared to fail. 94 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:33.199 A decade's long battle ensued. Wells gathered affidavits and testimonials 95 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.680 from his peers in Connecticut, while Morton and Jackson fought 96 00:06:36.720 --> 00:06:41.560 each other for congressional recognition, financial reward, and international acclaim. 97 00:06:42.240 --> 00:06:45.720 The fight took its toll. Wells, who never recovered from 98 00:06:45.720 --> 00:06:50.519 his humiliation, became addicted to chloroform and died by suicide 99 00:06:50.560 --> 00:06:54.519 at thirty three, just fifteen months after the demonstration at 100 00:06:54.560 --> 00:06:59.839 Mass General. Morton exhausted himself with his frenetic lobbying and spending, 101 00:07:00.279 --> 00:07:03.959 letting his dental practice and farm fall into ruin. In 102 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:07.800 eighteen sixty, he died, bankrupt and broken, at forty eight. 103 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:12.319 Jackson invested his energy in an attempt to sully Morton's 104 00:07:12.319 --> 00:07:17.319 reputation and burnish his own. In June of eighteen seventy three, 105 00:07:17.560 --> 00:07:21.879 he suffered what doctors called a paralytic shock, possibly a stroke. 106 00:07:22.519 --> 00:07:24.920 He spent the next seven years at the mc lean 107 00:07:25.040 --> 00:07:28.319 Asylum for the Insane, where he died at seventy five. 108 00:07:29.439 --> 00:07:32.920 No one can deny the impact of their contributions. In 109 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:37.480 the year after Morton's demonstration, surgeons at Mass General performed 110 00:07:37.560 --> 00:07:42.040 seventeen operations with anesthesia. To day, they perform more than 111 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:47.439 fifty thousand such operations annually. Globally, surgeons perform more than 112 00:07:47.480 --> 00:07:52.720 two hundred million operations under anesthetics each year. They rarely 113 00:07:52.879 --> 00:07:55.639 use ether any more. It was phased out in the 114 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:59.600 nineteen sixties and seventies with the discovery of less flammable 115 00:07:59.600 --> 00:08:03.879 annisetaethetics with fewer side effects. Who should get credit for 116 00:08:03.920 --> 00:08:08.480 the discovery? Historians give partial recognition to all three men, 117 00:08:08.800 --> 00:08:12.360 and to a fourth, Crawford Long of Athens, Georgia, who 118 00:08:12.480 --> 00:08:15.839 experimented with ether in eighteen forty two, but did not 119 00:08:15.959 --> 00:08:19.759 publish his findings until eighteen forty nine, three years after 120 00:08:19.800 --> 00:08:23.480 the demonstration at Mass General. All four men have been 121 00:08:23.519 --> 00:08:28.040 memorialized in stone. There are statues of Long in Georgia 122 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:31.839 and Washington, d c. And of Wells in Connecticut, and 123 00:08:31.959 --> 00:08:36.120 tombstones at the grave sites of Morton and Jackson inscriptions 124 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:40.759 on each claim sole credit. The room at Mass General 125 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:44.200 where the experiment took place, now called the ether Dome, 126 00:08:44.720 --> 00:08:48.600 is a designated National Historic Site and open to the public. 127 00:08:49.039 --> 00:08:52.440 But the grandest monument stands in the Boston Public Garden. 128 00:08:53.039 --> 00:08:56.879 Forty feet tall with Gothic style arches and columns, It's 129 00:08:57.000 --> 00:09:00.240 topped with the sculpture of a doctor cradling a supine 130 00:09:00.440 --> 00:09:03.360 patient on his knee, preparing to give him a dose 131 00:09:03.360 --> 00:09:07.519 of anesthetic. The sculptor inscribed no names on the structure, 132 00:09:07.879 --> 00:09:12.600 only Biblical quotations about the blessed work of alleviating pain. 133 00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:17.879 It's the nation's only monument to a drug and accompanying 134 00:09:17.960 --> 00:09:22.440 this article, did you know speed was of the essence 135 00:09:23.120 --> 00:09:27.799 before anesthesia? Surgeons strove to finish painful surgeries as quickly 136 00:09:27.879 --> 00:09:31.519 as possible. A skilled surgeon could amputate a leg in 137 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:35.960 under thirty seconds, according to history dot com quote. The 138 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:39.360 longer a patient was on the table, the greater their suffering, 139 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:41.879 and the greater the chance that they would die from 140 00:09:42.039 --> 00:09:48.840 blood loss or shock. Next, among all the great things 141 00:09:48.879 --> 00:09:53.320 Benjamin Franklin invented or discovered, his alter egos gave him 142 00:09:53.440 --> 00:10:01.000 the most freedom Silence, do Good, Richard Saunders, Benevolence, CD may, Iemette, Abrahim. 143 00:10:01.519 --> 00:10:04.440 All were pen names that allowed Franklin to say things 144 00:10:04.480 --> 00:10:10.600 he couldn't have otherwise said by H. W. Brands. Benjamin 145 00:10:10.639 --> 00:10:15.720 Franklin's fertile mind constantly spun off inventive and useful ideas. 146 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:20.480 His lightning rod saved buildings and lives. His energy saving 147 00:10:20.519 --> 00:10:24.360 improvement of the wood burning fireplace kept families warm and 148 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:29.519 forests from being leveled. His lending library extended literacy to 149 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:33.080 those who couldn't afford books. His map of the Gulf 150 00:10:33.120 --> 00:10:38.080 Stream made travel faster and commerce more efficient. But Franklin's 151 00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:43.000 ingenuity showed most clearly in his invention, or rather recurrent 152 00:10:43.080 --> 00:10:47.480 reinvention of himself. In the course of his life, Franklin 153 00:10:47.639 --> 00:10:52.320 devised dozens of arthorial personas in print, which allowed him 154 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:57.279 to challenge authority, identify folly, and promote human progress with 155 00:10:57.360 --> 00:11:00.480 an unsparing vigor he never could have achieved under his 156 00:11:00.600 --> 00:11:04.960 own name. Franklin created his first auts or ego when 157 00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.960 he was in his teens. A middle aged widow named 158 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:13.399 Silence Dogood Missus Dogood, allowed Franklin to evade an embargo 159 00:11:13.600 --> 00:11:18.320 against publication imposed by his jealous elder brother, James, a 160 00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:22.440 printer to whom Ben was apprenticed. James had a newspaper 161 00:11:22.639 --> 00:11:27.320 and sought contributors, but he refused Ben's submissions as corrosive 162 00:11:27.399 --> 00:11:31.919 of the master apprentice relationship. So Ben disguised his handwriting 163 00:11:32.240 --> 00:11:36.200 and surreptitiously slipped letters from Missus Dogood under the door 164 00:11:36.279 --> 00:11:40.039 of the print shop. Franklin's account of her life delighted 165 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:44.159 readers while underscoring the difficulties facing widows and women of 166 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:48.399 the day. Polly Baker was a literal as opposed to 167 00:11:48.440 --> 00:11:53.320 an actual descendant of Silence Dogood. Polly had the misfortune 168 00:11:53.320 --> 00:11:56.159 of falling in love with men who had no intention 169 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.960 of marrying her. When she became pregnant, she was brought 170 00:12:00.200 --> 00:12:04.039 before the magistrates to be punished for her crime of fornication. 171 00:12:04.840 --> 00:12:07.960 In defending herself, she said she had done nothing more 172 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:12.799 than obey the biblical command to be fruitful and multiply. Anyway, 173 00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:16.279 she asked why was no sanction brought against the men 174 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:20.559 who were equally responsible for her illegitimate children and more 175 00:12:20.600 --> 00:12:24.600 responsible for the corruption, As the court insisted of the honest, 176 00:12:24.879 --> 00:12:29.639 if imperfect woman who stood before it. Franklin's most famous 177 00:12:29.679 --> 00:12:34.000 alter ego was Richard Saunders, an astronomer and a polymath 178 00:12:34.320 --> 00:12:39.600 who annually published Poor Richard's Almanac. The Almanac provided information 179 00:12:39.720 --> 00:12:43.360 on holidays, holstices, phases of the moon, and the like. 180 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:46.759 What made it special were the squibs of advice and 181 00:12:46.879 --> 00:12:51.399 humor that filled otherwise blank spots on the pages. Quote 182 00:12:51.519 --> 00:12:56.000 fish and visitors stink in three days quote recommended itself 183 00:12:56.039 --> 00:12:59.799 to guests and hosts alike. Quote three may keep a secret, 184 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:03.799 two of them are dead. Quote chided the garrulity of 185 00:13:03.879 --> 00:13:09.519 blabbers and the naivete of confiders. Franklin's Saunders didn't invent 186 00:13:09.679 --> 00:13:14.320 adages so much as he improved on earlier versions. Franklin 187 00:13:14.440 --> 00:13:18.200 retired Saunders after going into politics, a move that inspired 188 00:13:18.279 --> 00:13:24.200 him to create additional personas. Americanus appeared in Franklin's own paper, 189 00:13:24.480 --> 00:13:27.919 the Pennsylvania Gazette, when he responded to news that the 190 00:13:27.960 --> 00:13:32.600 British Parliament planned to transport felons to America. The measure 191 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:35.519 was intended to relieve the British government of the expense 192 00:13:35.840 --> 00:13:39.399 of incarcerating the convicts at home, but was cast as 193 00:13:39.399 --> 00:13:43.679 a gift to the colonies, which could always use more people. Quote. 194 00:13:43.960 --> 00:13:47.440 Such a tender parental concern in our mother country for 195 00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:50.720 the welfare of her children calls aloud for the highest 196 00:13:50.759 --> 00:13:56.240 returns of gratitude and duty end quote. AMERICANUS wrote, the 197 00:13:56.320 --> 00:14:01.000 colonies must reciprocate quote. In some of the uninhabited parts 198 00:14:01.039 --> 00:14:04.879 of these provinces, there are numbers of these venomous reptiles 199 00:14:04.919 --> 00:14:10.519 we call rattlesnakes Felain's conduct. From the beginning of the world. 200 00:14:10.840 --> 00:14:15.720 AMERICANUS expatiated on the virtues of rattlesnakes, concluding that they 201 00:14:15.799 --> 00:14:19.440 quote seemed the most suitable returns for the human serpents 202 00:14:19.639 --> 00:14:23.360 sent us by our mother country. In this, however, as 203 00:14:23.399 --> 00:14:26.159 in every other branch of trade, she will have the 204 00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:30.440 advantage of us, as the rattlesnake gives warning before he 205 00:14:30.480 --> 00:14:36.000 attempts his mischief end quote. Franklin, appointed as agent of 206 00:14:36.039 --> 00:14:39.759 the Pennsylvania Assembly to the British government in seventeen fifty seven, 207 00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:44.399 relocated to London. There, he wrote to British newspapers as 208 00:14:44.399 --> 00:14:49.000 benevolous to rebut arguments in Parliament that the American colonies 209 00:14:49.039 --> 00:14:53.639 were too lightly taxed. Benevolus was a serious fellow compared 210 00:14:53.679 --> 00:14:58.200 with Franklin's other alter egos. After the Stamp Act provoked 211 00:14:58.320 --> 00:15:03.120 riots in America, Navelous identified numerous errors in fact and 212 00:15:03.240 --> 00:15:07.960 reasoning that misinformed British policy. He concluded with the fond 213 00:15:08.039 --> 00:15:10.879 hope that the British would be quote a little less 214 00:15:10.919 --> 00:15:15.519 hasty in censuring their brethren in America upon the groundless 215 00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:19.799 surmises and mistaken facts so frequently delivered as truths in 216 00:15:19.879 --> 00:15:23.320 our public papers, and that they will consider the importance 217 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.600 of a firm union between the two countries in affection 218 00:15:26.919 --> 00:15:32.840 as well as in government. Franklin's personas provided varying degrees 219 00:15:32.840 --> 00:15:37.080 of cover. Readers in Philadelphia caught on that Richard Saunders 220 00:15:37.120 --> 00:15:42.679 was Franklin. Americanus and Benevolus too, were obvious pseudonyms fit 221 00:15:42.759 --> 00:15:46.279 for an age when political opinion pieces often appeared under 222 00:15:46.320 --> 00:15:50.240 made up byelines. Sometimes this was to keep the authors 223 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:54.080 out of trouble with the authorities. Equally, it reflected the 224 00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:58.399 philosophy that a persuisive argument depended on evidence and reasoning 225 00:15:58.799 --> 00:16:02.320 rather than the expertise of the writer. But many people 226 00:16:02.360 --> 00:16:06.960 who read about Polly Baker thought she was real. Franklin's 227 00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:10.639 parting alter ego appeared just weeks before his death. In 228 00:16:10.720 --> 00:16:15.039 seventeen ninety by, now a leader of the abolitionist movement 229 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:19.159 in America, Franklin sent a petition to Congress urging an 230 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:25.159 end to slavery. In response, slavery apologists mustered of vehement defense, 231 00:16:25.519 --> 00:16:29.840 citing economic necessity and religion in support of the institution. 232 00:16:31.200 --> 00:16:35.799 In high satirical style, Franklin thereupon claimed to have discovered 233 00:16:35.799 --> 00:16:40.639 a speech by one cd Mayemet Abraheim of Algiers justifying 234 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:45.080 the enslavement of Christians. Quote if we cease our cruises 235 00:16:45.120 --> 00:16:48.080 against the Christians, how shall we be furnished with the 236 00:16:48.120 --> 00:16:52.399 commodities their countries produce which are so necessary for us? 237 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:56.559 Asked Ibrahim. Quote if we forbear to make slaves of 238 00:16:56.600 --> 00:17:01.480 their people, who in this hot climate are to cultivate ours, 239 00:17:01.519 --> 00:17:04.680 to fail to enslave Christians would deny them access to 240 00:17:04.720 --> 00:17:07.839 the true faith. Here they are brought into a land 241 00:17:08.079 --> 00:17:11.440 where the son of Islamism gives forth its light and 242 00:17:11.480 --> 00:17:14.759 shines in full splendor, and they have an opportunity of 243 00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:19.039 making themselves acquainted with the true doctrine, and thereby saving 244 00:17:19.079 --> 00:17:25.599 their immortal souls. Franklin's Ibrahim concluded, quote, let us then 245 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:29.720 hear no more of this detestable proposition, the manumission of 246 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:36.640 Christian slaves end quote and accompanying this article, fun fact 247 00:17:37.039 --> 00:17:42.680 how Benjamin Franklin charted the Gulf Stream As Deputy Postmaster General, 248 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:46.640 Franklin wondered why British male packet ships arriving in New 249 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:49.960 York City were so much slower than American ships on 250 00:17:50.079 --> 00:17:55.200 similar routes. From his cousin, Captain Timothy Folger, a veteran whaler, 251 00:17:55.759 --> 00:18:00.039 Franklin learned that American whaling expeditions had been aware of 252 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:03.880 the hidden eastbound current of warm water, one that British 253 00:18:03.920 --> 00:18:08.000 crews didn't know to avoid while sailing west. In seventeen 254 00:18:08.079 --> 00:18:12.279 sixty nine, sharing credit with Folger, Franklin published a chart 255 00:18:12.319 --> 00:18:15.839 of this hidden current, a quote river in the ocean 256 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:20.359 end quote. Following Franklin and Folger's map, ships knew to 257 00:18:20.359 --> 00:18:23.400 sail north of the current on the westbound journey from Europe, 258 00:18:23.799 --> 00:18:27.160 saving two weeks or more for some vessels that was 259 00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:33.039 nearly half the trip. Transatlantic trade and communications accelerated significantly 260 00:18:33.119 --> 00:18:39.000 as a result. Next, when a journalist took on corruption, 261 00:18:39.519 --> 00:18:42.039 he used a tool that hadn't been used much in 262 00:18:42.119 --> 00:18:47.960 American history. The unvarnished truth Lincoln Stephens was a reporter 263 00:18:48.160 --> 00:18:52.000 so dogged that political party bosses called him a quote 264 00:18:52.240 --> 00:18:55.799 born crook that's gone straight. In quote, he and his 265 00:18:55.920 --> 00:19:03.240 fellow muckrakers redefined modern journalism. John Grinspan, while we might 266 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:08.519 imagine nineteenth century Americans living on isolated farmsteads, in fact, 267 00:19:08.640 --> 00:19:12.920 they were constantly receiving news from year and far. Trouble was, 268 00:19:13.160 --> 00:19:17.440 much of it was rotten. Openly partisan papers distorted nearly 269 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:22.039 everything to suit the biases of their subscribers. The French 270 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:26.440 sociologist Alexei de Tokeville was dismayed to find in the 271 00:19:26.480 --> 00:19:30.640 eighteen thirties that the typical American reporter mostly resorted to 272 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:34.799 a quote coarse appeal to the passions of his reader's 273 00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:38.680 end quote. For much of early American history, you just 274 00:19:38.759 --> 00:19:43.680 couldn't trust the news. The democratic innovation of accurate political 275 00:19:43.759 --> 00:19:47.240 reporting in the United States didn't arrive until around the 276 00:19:47.279 --> 00:19:51.319 turn of the last century. It took the ceaseless inquiries 277 00:19:51.359 --> 00:19:55.519 of Lincoln Stephens, a journalist so dogged that party bosses 278 00:19:55.559 --> 00:19:59.079 called him a born crook that's gone straight to teach 279 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:03.960 citizens to a expect objectivity in news. Stephens went to 280 00:20:04.000 --> 00:20:07.759 the finest schools, but later wrote that his true education 281 00:20:08.160 --> 00:20:11.599 began with his reporting gigs, covering Wall Street and then 282 00:20:11.720 --> 00:20:14.720 crime for the New York Evening Post in the mid 283 00:20:14.880 --> 00:20:19.559 eighteen nineties. The Post was a reformist paper, and Stephens 284 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:24.319 was expected to produce condemnations of corrupt bigwigs and bent lawman. 285 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:28.599 Yet when he met crooks and cops, politicos and prostitutes, 286 00:20:28.960 --> 00:20:33.960 Stephens found their motivations far richer than the finger waggers acknowledged. 287 00:20:34.880 --> 00:20:39.640 He became obsessed with the systems that allowed malfeasance. Convinced 288 00:20:39.680 --> 00:20:42.559 that the country's corruption was part of a deeper story, 289 00:20:42.960 --> 00:20:46.359 Stephens set out with his little dog, Mickey, reporting for 290 00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:51.920 McClure's magazine. He came to appreciate the quote attractive candor 291 00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:56.119 of the honest crooks who ran urban political machines and 292 00:20:56.119 --> 00:21:00.519 would commits over how to steal an election or taxpayer fund. 293 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:04.400 He became a regular at their headquarters, where party bosses 294 00:21:04.440 --> 00:21:08.039 petted Mickey while talking about the mechanics of corruption. Quote 295 00:21:08.039 --> 00:21:12.559 as one artist to another end quote. Stephen's stories became 296 00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:17.039 a sensation, inspiring a wave of journalists who uncovered social 297 00:21:17.119 --> 00:21:20.799 ills by investigating them up close. There had been prior 298 00:21:20.839 --> 00:21:25.799 to muckrakers, most notably Ida B. Wells and Henry Demorist Lloyd, 299 00:21:26.119 --> 00:21:30.039 who exposed lynchings and strike breaking, respectively. But it was 300 00:21:30.119 --> 00:21:33.200 his quote Shame of the City's end quote series that 301 00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:37.359 drew the connections between democratic failures and readers sitting in 302 00:21:37.400 --> 00:21:42.240 their parlors. Stephens discovered that his own middle class audience 303 00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:47.240 was partly responsible for political corruption In San Francisco. He 304 00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:50.799 found that nearly the whole business community was complicit with 305 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:54.640 the party machine. In New York, he saw that Wall 306 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:58.039 Street and Tammany Hall were deeply linked and rolled his 307 00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:01.880 eyes at respectable New York Yorker's occasional efforts to quote 308 00:22:01.960 --> 00:22:05.680 throw the rascals out before losing interest and electing another 309 00:22:05.720 --> 00:22:09.480 crook as mayor. It was an innovation in self criticism, 310 00:22:09.920 --> 00:22:13.480 asking leaders to consider how quote the misgovernment of the 311 00:22:13.519 --> 00:22:17.880 American people is misgovernment by the American people end quote, 312 00:22:17.960 --> 00:22:20.920 as Stephens put it in the introduction to his best 313 00:22:20.960 --> 00:22:25.039 selling collection, The Shame of the Cities. He capped off 314 00:22:25.119 --> 00:22:29.039 decades of work with the Funny Humane autobiography, published in 315 00:22:29.160 --> 00:22:33.640 nineteen thirty one. According to the novelist and critic Granville Hicks, 316 00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:37.880 the Autobiography of Lincoln Stephens was quote possibly the most 317 00:22:37.960 --> 00:22:41.880 influential book end quote of the New Deal era, prompting 318 00:22:41.960 --> 00:22:45.680 America to consider quote the goodness of bad men and 319 00:22:45.720 --> 00:22:50.759 the badness of good men end quote. Stephens redefined journalism, 320 00:22:51.079 --> 00:22:54.319 guiding the work of investigators like Bob Woodward and Carl 321 00:22:54.359 --> 00:22:59.039 Bernstein and advocates like Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader. For 322 00:22:59.160 --> 00:23:04.200 Stephens and other muckrakers, journalism meant speaking truth not just 323 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:09.160 to power, but to one's own subscribers. And with this 324 00:23:09.359 --> 00:23:16.039 article fun fact, Lincoln Stephens also revolutionized the memoir. The 325 00:23:16.119 --> 00:23:19.799 Autobiography of Lincoln Stephens was published in nineteen thirty one 326 00:23:20.200 --> 00:23:25.119 in two volumes. A widely popular bestseller, the book traced 327 00:23:25.160 --> 00:23:30.559 Stephen's childhood in California and pioneering career as a muckraking journalist, 328 00:23:30.880 --> 00:23:34.640 and recounted his confrontations with party bosses as well as 329 00:23:34.640 --> 00:23:39.119 with national statesmen such as President's Theodore Roosevelt, who helped 330 00:23:39.160 --> 00:23:43.519 popularize the word muckraker, and Woodrow Wilson, and with figures 331 00:23:43.680 --> 00:23:47.680 like the crusading lawyer Clarence Darrow. The book was a 332 00:23:47.759 --> 00:23:51.839 landmark of style and of concept, helping establish a mode 333 00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:55.960 of confessional, self searching memoir that's still prevalent in the 334 00:23:56.119 --> 00:24:02.119 US and beyond. Next, a woman's right to vote was 335 00:24:02.160 --> 00:24:05.880 secured after work that was inspired by mothers and driven 336 00:24:05.920 --> 00:24:10.559 by maternal instincts, an appointment pattern. Many of the most 337 00:24:10.559 --> 00:24:15.720 important contributions to suffrage were enacted or inspired by mothers. 338 00:24:16.480 --> 00:24:20.960 By Lucia Graves as a young girl growing up on 339 00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:24.839 an Iowa farm after the Civil War, Carrie Chapman Cat 340 00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:27.759 was so swept up in the presidential election of eighteen 341 00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:31.079 seventy two that she named her kittens after the candidates. 342 00:24:31.640 --> 00:24:34.960 One of the less comely fur balls was dubbed Ulysses 343 00:24:35.119 --> 00:24:39.319 s Grant. But when election day arrived, she was horrified 344 00:24:39.599 --> 00:24:42.599 to see her mother left behind as her father drove 345 00:24:42.680 --> 00:24:45.920 off with the farm lands in the family's three seated buggy. 346 00:24:45.960 --> 00:24:49.440 To the Poles quote, I was astonished that my mother 347 00:24:49.559 --> 00:24:52.400 did not go to vote. She recalled and shocked when 348 00:24:52.440 --> 00:24:55.160 she told me she had no legal right to do so. 349 00:24:56.319 --> 00:25:00.079 That moment set Cat on her path a life dedicated 350 00:25:00.119 --> 00:25:03.440 to the women's suffrage movement that culminated in the passage 351 00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:06.920 of the Nineteenth Amendment. Looking back on her achievements, she 352 00:25:07.039 --> 00:25:10.440 later wrote, I could never forget that rank and justice 353 00:25:10.480 --> 00:25:14.000 to my mother. Though we often speak of the mothers 354 00:25:14.000 --> 00:25:17.880 of suffrage in a metaphorical sense, Kat's story points to 355 00:25:17.960 --> 00:25:22.680 a more literal lineage as well. Suffrage succeeded because mothers 356 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:26.880 who lacked any formal political power nonetheless inspired and shaped 357 00:25:26.920 --> 00:25:30.359 the work that secured it for their daughters and granddaughters. 358 00:25:30.960 --> 00:25:35.279 Susan B. Anthony inherited the reformist instincts of her Quaker household, 359 00:25:35.640 --> 00:25:38.559 and her mother managed a New York farm that became 360 00:25:38.599 --> 00:25:43.720 a hub for abolitionist organizing. Though Anthony herself never married 361 00:25:43.839 --> 00:25:46.880 or had children, she became something of a second mother 362 00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:50.359 to the children of Elizabeth Katy Stanton, caring for them 363 00:25:50.440 --> 00:25:54.200 so Stanton could write. All seven of those children lived 364 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:58.920 to adulthood, and Stanton's youngest daughter, Harriet Eaton Stanton Blatch, 365 00:25:59.400 --> 00:26:03.319 extended her mother's legacy in a new direction by organizing 366 00:26:03.400 --> 00:26:07.279 wage earning women to take mass political action and urging 367 00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:11.880 wealthy women to march alongside them. A generation after Stanton 368 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:16.359 and Anthony in the eighteen nineties, Mary Church Terrell, a 369 00:26:16.359 --> 00:26:20.440 civil rights strategist and educator, became the first president of 370 00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:24.039 the National Association of Colored Women and later helped found 371 00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:28.799 the n double ACP. Terrell wrote admiringly of her mother, 372 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:33.440 a successful business woman born enslaved, who insisted her daughter 373 00:26:33.519 --> 00:26:37.640 received the higher education she'd been denied. I lift up 374 00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:40.839 my heart and gratitude to my mother for her foresight 375 00:26:41.200 --> 00:26:44.319 and for the sacrifice she made in my behalf. Terrell 376 00:26:44.480 --> 00:26:48.920 later wrote for Alice Paul, the radical strategist who co 377 00:26:49.000 --> 00:26:52.000 founded the National Woman's Party and led the White House 378 00:26:52.000 --> 00:26:55.319 pickets that helped force the Suffrage Amendment onto the national 379 00:26:55.359 --> 00:26:59.119 agenda in the nineteen tens. Support for women's suffrage had 380 00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:02.839 been taken for granted in her childhood home. Paul recalled 381 00:27:02.839 --> 00:27:06.200 her mother regularly bringing her to suffrage meetings, where she 382 00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:10.839 absorbed the value of uncompromising persistence. When you put your 383 00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:13.559 hand to the plow, you can't put it down until 384 00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:16.000 you get to the end of the row, Paul recalled 385 00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:21.039 her mother, advising. By nineteen sixteen, Kat was orchestrating the 386 00:27:21.119 --> 00:27:23.960 campaign that would carry the movement across the finish line. 387 00:27:24.359 --> 00:27:28.240 Her winning plan mapped a swift state by state push 388 00:27:28.359 --> 00:27:32.559 or ratification by three quarters of American state legislatures, as 389 00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:36.519 required to amend the Constitution. In the summer of nineteen 390 00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:39.839 twenty thirty five states had approved the amendment, one short 391 00:27:39.880 --> 00:27:43.279 of the number required. In Tennessee, the state Senate had 392 00:27:43.319 --> 00:27:47.240 approved the amendment, but the House was split. Then Harry Byrne, 393 00:27:47.279 --> 00:27:50.799 a twenty four year old Republican representative, reversed his anti 394 00:27:50.839 --> 00:27:54.680 suffrage position at the last moment. It was, of course, 395 00:27:54.920 --> 00:27:58.039 his mother who tipped the balance. Vote for suffrage, and 396 00:27:58.119 --> 00:28:02.200 don't keep them in doubt, she wrote. This concludes readings 397 00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:05.720 from the Smithsonian Magazine for today. Your reader has been 398 00:28:05.759 --> 00:28:09.119 Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and have a great day.