0:01

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

0:03

Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:10

Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

0:13

I'm Tracy Wilson and i'm today

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we have a listener request by everyone.

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It certainly seems that way, it

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feels that way. It's something people have been asking

0:24

us through an episode on since we joined the podcast,

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and then last week

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I asked on our Facebook page for events

0:32

specifically that people would like to hear about

0:34

because our listener ideas list is about

0:36

people. Uh

0:39

and Carmen, Carol and Aisha

0:41

all asked to hear about this. UM.

0:44

I also want to give a special shout out to Ayisha,

0:46

and I hope I'm saying your name correctly. Aisha

0:49

went through and answered so many people

0:52

who asked about episodes that we actually already

0:54

have after I had like clocked

0:56

out for the weekend, came

0:58

to work on my day morning, and when I started

1:01

plowing through that threat again, they were all these

1:03

answers that it was great and I will

1:05

thank her too because I was away on vacation

1:07

at the time, so she covers both of us

1:09

very kindly. That was awesome.

1:11

So if you go to the movies

1:14

today anywhere in the developed

1:16

world, there's going to be an announcement

1:18

before the feature reminding you to

1:20

look for your nearest exit. Uh.

1:23

If you like movies at all, you've probably

1:25

heard it so many times that you don't really even

1:27

think about it anymore. You probably

1:30

also don't need to be reminded that it might

1:32

be behind you. And you

1:34

probably also just take for granted

1:36

that if there's an emergency, you can push on

1:39

the door and it will open. That

1:42

standard. Yeah, it's pretty

1:44

movie theater standard business now. Not

1:47

so in h three, when Chicago's

1:50

Iroquois Theater, which had only been opened

1:52

for five weeks, caught fire and

1:55

killed more than six hundred people, are

1:59

alert. This is not a peppy episode.

2:02

No, And if you already feel depressed, so

2:05

many people have asked us to talk about this, so

2:07

so, so many so. Uh, if

2:10

you're angry at another Dead Women

2:12

and Children's story, blame

2:15

them. I don't know. You

2:17

can maybe come back to this one later when you're in a

2:19

lighter mood, and it will

2:22

be quite so impactful on your your

2:24

well being. Yeah, and I personally have been trying to

2:26

stick with more hopeful stories since we're heading

2:28

into the holiday season, and this is oddly

2:31

even more appropriate because it happens

2:33

darium holiday season. Yeah.

2:37

So, yeah, we'll make great efforts to

2:39

do peppier ones in the next the next

2:41

several episodes at least, uh

2:44

so. The Iroquois Theater on Randolph

2:46

Street in Chicago was, as Tracy said,

2:48

just a moment ago nearly knew when it

2:50

burned. It opened on November twenty

2:53

three, nine three, and it was six

2:55

stories tall and described by Eddie Foy,

2:57

who was on stage for its last performance,

2:59

as quote one of the finest that

3:01

had yet been built in this country, a

3:04

palace of marble and plate glass,

3:06

plush and mahogany and guilding. Its

3:09

foyer was immense. It had these sixty

3:12

foot ceilings and a grand staircase

3:14

on either side, and then the backstage

3:17

accommodations for the performers and the orchestra

3:20

were similarly very well appointed.

3:23

It was also supposed to be entirely

3:25

fireproof, and, as we've

3:27

talked about in past episodes, including

3:29

the one on the Grove Park in Buyer,

3:31

was a really huge threat to hotels

3:33

and other public buildings. Various

3:36

architects, planners, and builders tried

3:38

their hand at coming up with a way to build a fireproof

3:41

building. Theater fires

3:43

in particular had a huge potential for

3:45

catastrophe, so being fireproof

3:47

was a really big deal. And

3:50

in addition to its construction, there

3:52

was an asbestos curtain that was supposed to

3:54

protect the audience from any kind

3:56

of fire that started on the stage. Sho

4:00

Tago's building commissioner, George Williams

4:02

and its fire inspector Ed Laughlin

4:05

called it quote fireproof

4:07

beyond all doubts, but

4:10

not everyone was so convinced as

4:12

that. William clendonan editor

4:15

of Fireproof Magazine, had inspected

4:17

the Iroquois Theater that summer before it opened

4:20

and actually found it woefully lacking. Among

4:23

his points, there was no draft

4:25

to draw fire up into the loft instead

4:27

of allowing it to spread out into the audience.

4:30

There were exposed reinforcements around

4:32

the procenium arch, there was too

4:34

much wood trim everywhere. There

4:37

was also no fire alarm, no standpipe,

4:39

and no sprinkler over the stage.

4:42

So while the building itself

4:44

was widely touted as being fireproof,

4:48

uh if a fire did start,

4:50

there was all kinds of completely flammable

4:52

stuff inside of it, and a fire was

4:54

very likely to spread unchecked

4:57

without a way to either summon the fire

4:59

department from on the property

5:01

or control the fire until help

5:04

arrived. At full capacity,

5:06

the theater was supposed to see one thousand, seven

5:09

hundred and twenty four people, but

5:11

December thirty, nineteen o three was

5:13

a particularly busy day. School

5:16

was still out for Christmas break and the theater had

5:18

been packed with nineteen hundred people in

5:20

a standing room only show, although

5:22

some reports put the number even higher

5:25

than that, and unfortunately nearly

5:27

all of them were children and their mothers.

5:31

The show that day was a musical and it

5:33

was called Mr. Blue Beard. It started

5:35

vaudeville comedian Eddie Foy in

5:38

drag as the role of Sister Anne, and

5:40

he was backed up with a troop of five hundred

5:42

along with a full orchestra. This

5:45

play was an adaptation of Grimm's

5:47

Fairy Tales that had originally opened on Drewury

5:50

Lane in London, and it was touring with

5:52

all the original props and scenery and

5:54

a lot of the original cast. And

5:57

you may wonder how a play about blue Beard would

5:59

be okay for child drim uh

6:01

And in this version, all of blue Beard's murdered

6:03

wives are restored to life, and

6:05

like many musicals at the time, it was mostly

6:08

a framing device for a bunch of songs,

6:10

so it focused less on the actual story

6:12

of blue Beard and his murderous freeze.

6:15

As you know if you've ever been in a play, stage

6:18

lights are really really hot, and

6:20

in the second act, eight couples

6:22

took the stage for a number called In

6:24

the Pale Moonlight, and about three fifteen

6:27

in the afternoon, one of the

6:29

painted canvas backdrops caught

6:32

fire. It was in the vicinity of a spotlight.

6:35

There are various explanations for exactly

6:37

what happened. One

6:39

is that the backdrop brushed against

6:42

a reflector of the spotlight, which was extremely

6:44

hot. Another is that it actually

6:46

blew blue a fuse. Another

6:49

is that just something went wrong and a spark shot out.

6:52

Uh. Regardless, this oil paint

6:54

covered canvas backdrop started

6:57

to smolder, and a stage

6:59

hand named William McMullan saw

7:01

it happen and actually tried to

7:03

put it out with his hands

7:05

like you would hit out something small

7:08

that was smoldering, but he couldn't reach it from

7:11

the catwalk where he was standing. Also

7:14

on hand was an on site firefighter

7:16

who tried to put the fire out with two tubes

7:18

of a product called kill Fires.

7:21

This was, according to an advertisement in

7:23

the Los Angeles Herald the following year, quote,

7:26

a dry compound in a tin tube

7:28

and weighs less than three pounds. So

7:30

it's primary component was by carbonate of

7:33

soda, baking soda. And it probably

7:35

would have done fine for the task of putting out a

7:37

grease fire in a kitchen, But on

7:39

the vertical surface of a burning oil paint

7:41

covered canvas, it was not sufficient

7:43

to do the job at all, and the fire started

7:46

to spread. Yeah,

7:47

it's it was basically meant

7:49

to smother a fire out, and yeah,

7:55

there was literally no way to do that on a

7:58

vertical, hanging surface. This

8:00

so at first the audience didn't know anything

8:02

was wrong because the fire, as fire generally

8:05

does, climbed upwards, and the

8:07

first things that really caught were everything

8:09

in the fly space above the stage.

8:12

This was full of curtains and painted

8:15

canvas backdrops and other scenery

8:17

that was suspended above the stage

8:19

area. But the

8:22

audience's lack of awareness about

8:24

the situation changed rather quickly as

8:27

the various flies and curtains caught fire

8:29

and started to fall still burning onto

8:31

the stage. So

8:34

things are going to become pretty horrifying in a minute,

8:36

and before they do, let's take a brief

8:39

word from a sponsor. As soon

8:41

as burning scenery started to fall

8:43

onto the stage, the actors,

8:46

i mean some of them, continued on in their

8:49

roles and some of them really started to panic.

8:52

People in the audience also started

8:54

to panic, and Eddie Foy, who had

8:56

been in his dressing room when the fire started,

8:58

ran out to find out what the emotion was.

9:01

He had actually brought one of his children,

9:03

a little boy named Brian, to the show,

9:05

and since there weren't any seat of seats available,

9:08

he'd let Brian sit in one of the wings. When

9:11

Foy saw what was happening, the

9:13

first thing that he did was find his son and

9:15

give him to a stage hand to try to keep him

9:18

safe, and then he ran downstage

9:20

to try to calm the audience. He told

9:22

them not to get too excited, that everything

9:24

was under control. It became

9:26

pretty clear quickly that it wasn't

9:28

actually under control, because burning curtains

9:31

started following onto the stage at his feet.

9:34

At this point, he yelled at the stage manager

9:37

to drop the asbestos curtain, but

9:39

that curtain got snagged on a light fixture

9:41

and it jammed part way down its track. Boy

9:46

stayed on the stage. He really

9:48

did his best to calm the audience, and

9:50

while the people in front who could see and hear

9:53

him, did try or did at

9:55

least seem to try to take a more orderly,

9:58

calm approach for the exit. At

10:00

this point, the people in the balconies were already

10:03

completely in a panic. The

10:05

actors and dancers, completely terrified,

10:08

fled the theater through the stage door.

10:11

When they did, a huge blast of air

10:13

came in through that door and forced the flames

10:15

under the asbestos curtain. So he

10:17

had come down part way, and now it was just sort of being

10:20

drafted out underneath it into the audience.

10:22

Events that should have allowed the n rushing ear to

10:24

escape through the roof were nailed shut.

10:27

These were also supposed to contain fans to draw

10:30

the air out, but those had never been finished.

10:33

The result of this combination of

10:35

fire and air flow was an enormous

10:38

fireball, and it spread out

10:40

over the heads of the people who were on the

10:42

first floor of the theater, and according

10:44

to reports, that actually brushed the

10:46

balconies. Everything in the

10:48

house that was flammable caught fire and

10:51

the audience started to flee for the doors.

10:54

As the stage literally started

10:56

to collapse, Foy

10:58

looked up and saw that the asbestos curtain

11:01

itself was now burning. It was basically

11:03

too thin and it wasn't rein forced,

11:06

so once the fire got to it, it literally

11:08

fell apart. Boys actions were

11:10

really pretty heroic during all of this. He stayed

11:12

on stage as long as he could, trying

11:15

to encourage people to calmly steak

11:17

safety, and so finally the blinding

11:20

smoke and terror for the safety

11:22

of his own son sent him out the stage

11:24

door as well, and he was reunited with

11:26

his little boy outside. As

11:29

he left, the cables holding the last of the

11:31

flies and curtains and the loft gave way

11:33

and the whole burning mass

11:35

of scenery fell to the stage, causing

11:38

a second fireball to erupt

11:40

through the house of the theater. The

11:43

Iroquois Theater did indeed have a lot

11:45

of exits, twenty seven of them in total,

11:47

although there was one report that said there were thirty,

11:50

with twenty seven of them locked, but

11:53

some of them were actually obscured

11:56

by drapes. Others

11:58

have been blocked in an effort to keep people from

12:00

getting into the show without buying a ticket, and

12:02

those that could be opened by the audience used

12:05

an unfamiliar design and people did

12:07

not know how to get them open. They

12:09

had kind of a weird, fiddly lever

12:12

thing that would have been tricky and even

12:14

under good circumstances, but by

12:17

terrified people in a building filling

12:19

with smoke, they were next to impossible.

12:22

Um Also, just before we came in here

12:24

I found a report that the

12:26

the actual doors leading

12:28

from the balcony to those grand staircases

12:31

had also been locked to try to keep

12:33

the people in the balconies from getting to the

12:35

better seats in the

12:37

lower levels of the theater without paying

12:40

for them. So as people

12:42

tried to push their way out, the situation

12:44

only got worse. Smoke filled

12:47

the theater and no one could see, and there

12:49

were also no emergency lights that would

12:51

have helped guide people to the exits.

12:54

Those who made it to the doors first were actually

12:56

crushed against them by the people behind. People

12:59

who fell while trying to reach safety were trampled

13:01

to death. Casualties

13:04

even continued outside the theater

13:06

because the fires spread up the side of

13:08

the building under the fire escapes, so

13:11

people who had been in the balconies and actually

13:13

managed to get out onto the fire escape,

13:16

saw that it was impassable, and they

13:18

tried to jump. A lot

13:20

of them died when they landed, and later

13:23

waves of people who jumped survived only

13:26

because they landed on the bodies of the people

13:28

who had died in the jump previously. Then

13:31

that got even worse because the people jumped

13:33

after them crushed the people who had initially

13:35

survived their descent. And

13:38

I need a break from the story. It's

13:41

it's so awful. It's one of those things

13:43

that sounds almost ridiculous

13:46

in just the levels of horror that keep

13:48

kind of layering on top of one another.

13:51

It gets worse and worse. Yeah, So

13:54

we're going to take another brief

13:56

pause or a word from a sponsor,

13:59

so to get back to the Iroquois Theater fire.

14:02

It was all over in about fifteen

14:05

minutes. Because

14:07

there was no fire alarm in the theater, a stage

14:09

hand had to run to the nearest fire station

14:12

to someone help. Firefighters

14:14

had the blaze extinguished within about half

14:17

an hour. There wasn't really much left

14:19

for them to do when they got there because the fire had

14:21

burned up just about everything that was flammable

14:25

by that point that people who had survived

14:27

the crushing rush for the exits

14:29

had all nearly died of smoke inhalation.

14:33

Firefighters found piles of bodies

14:35

up to ten deep at the exits

14:38

and clogging all of the aisles. In

14:40

total, five hundred and seventy five people

14:43

died that day out of the nineteen hundred that

14:45

were there, so that equates to about

14:47

thirty of the audience. Nearly

14:50

all of the victims were women and children, and

14:52

thirty more people died of their injuries in the following

14:55

weeks, and hundreds more were

14:57

injured by the whole event. Most

14:59

of those old had been in the balconies. A

15:02

very few people were almost miraculously

15:04

pulled out from under the bodies of others, which

15:07

had protected them from the smoke and the fire.

15:10

The whole thing was obviously devastating

15:13

to Chicago's family families,

15:15

with the overwhelming number of

15:18

victims being moms and their children.

15:21

Was the deadliest fire in Chicago

15:24

history, far outpacing the Great

15:26

Chicago Fire, which killed about two hundred

15:28

fifty was also the deadliest

15:31

theater fire in the United States

15:33

history, and I think it's still also

15:35

the largest

15:38

single building fire depth

15:41

holl The

15:43

cast, having escaped through the stage

15:45

door, was almost unscathed. The

15:48

only fatality among the performers was

15:50

a tight rope artist named Nellie Reid, who

15:52

was supposed to be part of a flying ballet and

15:55

had been in the loft above the stage when the fire

15:57

started. She died of her burns

15:59

a few days to the incident. When

16:01

all of this happened, it was a huge

16:04

scandal, even though having

16:06

twenty seven exits and an asbestos

16:08

curtain and an onsite on site

16:10

firefighter sounds like

16:13

it's good from a fire safety standpoint.

16:16

A whole series of inquests

16:18

and investigations followed the

16:20

tragedy, and every single one of them

16:22

unearthed all kinds of problems

16:25

in terms of safety and oversight. The

16:28

Chicago Daily Tribune actually sponsored

16:30

its own investigation, and it later

16:32

published an enormous list of

16:35

faults and wrongdoing. The

16:37

theater itself had actually been in violation

16:39

of fire code before its opening,

16:42

but city officials got complimentary tickets

16:44

and they looked the other way.

16:47

In addition to all the problems we mentioned earlier,

16:49

there were no hooks for taking down burning

16:52

scenery. There were no fire extinguishers,

16:54

and there was no training for the staff about what

16:56

to do in the event of an emergency.

16:59

Had all the proper cod it's been followed and had

17:01

basic safety precautions been in place, many

17:04

lives would have been saved. Yeah,

17:06

this is a tragedy that a lot of

17:08

times gets a lot of credit for revolutionizing

17:12

fire safety, which in

17:14

some aspects is true. But

17:17

in other aspects there were

17:19

actual elements of the fire code that would

17:21

have saved lives and were not followed,

17:23

and city inspectors did

17:26

not do anything to prevent

17:28

the theater from opening up before

17:31

those faults were fixed. Although

17:34

the theater manager and several Chicago

17:37

public officials were indicted, none

17:39

of them were ever charged. The

17:41

owner of the theater was charged and

17:43

convicted, but that charge was

17:46

later reversed. The only person

17:48

who ever did jail time in conjunction

17:50

with this fire was a tavern keeper

17:53

whose business had been used as a temporary

17:55

morgue, and he was convicted

17:57

of stealing from the dead. None

18:00

of the victims families received any sort

18:02

of restitution, apart from one class

18:05

action suit whose members each received

18:07

seven hundred and fifty dollars. The

18:10

mayor of Chicago at the time was Carter H.

18:12

Harrison, and he was one of the people who

18:14

was indicted after the fire. Afterward,

18:17

he's shut down more than a hundred and seventy

18:20

theaters, churches, and other gathering

18:22

places to have them reinspected.

18:25

He also passed ordinances requiring

18:27

that all theater doors be clearly

18:29

marked and open outward in

18:32

the direction that traffic would need to go in

18:34

an emergency. And

18:36

as devastating as this fire was, the

18:39

building itself was actually mostly

18:41

unharmed. It closed

18:43

down and it reopened a year later as the Colonial

18:45

Theater. It was then torn down in to

18:48

make room for the Oriental Theater. It

18:51

is now the Gertrude cy Ford Center for

18:53

the Performing Arts. There's

18:55

also a memorial to the disaster

18:58

in Montrose Cemetery in Chicago, and

19:01

today, as Tracy mentioned at the top of the episode,

19:04

just about everywhere has laws saying that exits

19:06

have to be clearly marked and that you have to be able to

19:08

see them from the inside, even if you

19:10

can't get in from the outside. Because

19:13

I was working on the outline for this, I

19:15

was reminded of the S. S. Sultana

19:17

episode Yes and which

19:20

people ignored safety to make

19:22

extra money. I feel like we have

19:24

had other episodes also about

19:26

people ignoring safety to make extra

19:28

money. I know there are definitely

19:31

definitely episodes and the archives

19:33

about people ignoring safety to make

19:35

extra money. I would like the world

19:38

to learn a lesson from this history

19:40

and stop ignoring safety to make

19:43

extra money. Yeah.

19:45

I mean, it's one of those sort of horrible indicators

19:48

of you know, that aspect

19:50

of human nature that you will prioritize cash

19:52

flow over doing the right thing. It's

19:56

not our finest hour as people. No,

20:00

do you have some listener mail to shift

20:02

us into a slightly peppier and less depressing

20:04

gear. Yes. Before I

20:06

read it, I do like part of me wondered as I

20:09

was finishing this up if all of the people

20:11

who have asked us to talk about

20:13

this episode already

20:15

knew how heartbreakingly

20:18

tragic it was. I feel

20:20

like some of them must have, and some of them,

20:23

uh probably had sort of heard it

20:26

in the same context as like the Triangle

20:28

shirt waste factory fire, and it's

20:30

sort of it was a big fire. I

20:33

would like to hear more about that. Hm.

20:36

Sorry, it's such a terrible story. Well,

20:38

and it is important. I mean, there were a

20:40

lot of you know, ramifications

20:42

that we still feel today, whether or not we knew

20:45

that this was the source of some of them,

20:48

but it is. It's not not really an uplifting

20:50

and delightful adventure to go on. I

20:53

have a much more uplifting and delightful

20:55

listener mail. I love it when it's out. Yes,

20:58

So this is from Vanessa sa

21:01

and Vanessa says, Hi, Tracy and Holly.

21:03

I was so happy to stumble onto your podcast

21:05

about the Lady Julianna. I'm a regular

21:08

listener, but I had that one unplayed in my

21:10

feed when I heard you reading listener

21:12

mail about it. My fourth grade

21:14

grandmother Anne arrived in Australia

21:16

on the Lady Julianna. She had been

21:18

convicted for stealing clothes from

21:20

her employer. I'd say

21:22

she was already pretty sassy as at

21:25

that tender age. She was already using

21:27

an alias Hannah and stated in

21:29

court quote, I had no more

21:31

intention of taking the things than I have of

21:33

going to Jamaica this minute. She

21:36

was tried at the Old Bailey in February sight

21:39

and the court transcript still exists, which

21:41

I think is just the most amazing thing. She

21:44

tried to bluff it out, but it's pretty clear she was

21:46

guilty of her crime. She gave her

21:48

ages nineteen, but she was probably

21:50

only fourteen or fifteen. On

21:52

board the ship, she quickly took up with a sailor

21:55

James. I don't know whether they

21:57

had strong feelings for each other, if it was

21:59

exploitation on his part or pragmatism

22:01

on hers. I just hope it made

22:04

her voyage more comfortable. I have

22:06

heard the trip to the colony of New South Wales

22:08

described as akin to traveling to the Moon,

22:11

a prospect which must have been terrifying

22:13

at times to a girl so young when

22:16

she arrived in New South Wales in June

22:18

and was about five months pregnant on

22:21

the sixth of October seventeen ninety four

22:24

months after landing, and married

22:26

Thomas, who had arrived in the second fleet

22:28

on the twenty eighth of June.

22:30

See On Board the Neptune.

22:32

The treatment of convicts aboard the Neptune

22:35

has been described as the most horrific in the history

22:37

of transportation to Australia. They

22:39

had four children over the next six

22:42

years. Baby James was baptized

22:44

in late November se but

22:46

died the following January. One

22:48

of Anne's other children, William, died of a

22:50

snake bite when he was eleven. I

22:53

can't imagine what a strange and dangerous

22:55

place Australia must have seen no

22:58

snakes in London. I'm gonna

23:00

pause here and say, I know I said that

23:02

this, uh, this letter was uplifting,

23:05

and now we have just talked about the transportation

23:07

of prisoners and dead children. Just bear

23:10

with me. I

23:12

don't I don't need to laugh at it. I'm laughing at Tracy's

23:14

joke that we have to hang in there because I am,

23:16

you know, choked up. I have the wet eyes over

23:19

here. Well, I'm hanging in there.

23:21

I'll confess. We had to stop recording a second

23:23

ago so because I

23:25

had to compose myself. So I

23:28

have quite a few other convict ancestors

23:30

too, and they all did really well in the colony.

23:33

Two brothers convicted of highway robbery

23:35

were later to become the first sheriff's in a remote

23:38

area patrolling against bush

23:40

rangers. Thomas and husband

23:42

became a soldier in the New South Wales Corps

23:44

and tried his hand at farming on several different

23:47

land grants he received. He even

23:49

ended up putting notices in the newspaper

23:51

warning against trespassers onto his land.

23:54

I find it really ironic that a former highway

23:56

robber would be so precious about his property.

23:58

But I've always believe that opportunity

24:01

and hard work can lift a person out of the circumstances

24:03

into which they were born. This was

24:05

true for a great many of the colonists who came to

24:07

Australia, considered the worst

24:10

of the worst in England. They were able to

24:12

serve their time and then be given land

24:14

in civic responsibilities in their new country

24:16

that they could never have imagined in England.

24:19

I like to hope that as Anne matured, became

24:21

a wife, had children, and farmed

24:23

the land that she and Thomas acquired, that

24:25

she was grateful for the circumstances that brought

24:28

her so far, no matter how

24:30

inauspicious they had initially seemed.

24:32

And died in eighteen twenty one, and Thomas

24:34

in eighteen twenty four. He was murdered

24:37

by intruders who were not convicted due to

24:39

insufficient evidence. Their son

24:41

and my ancestor, Henry, was one of the

24:43

ten men chosen to settle Australia's

24:45

first inland city, in eighteen fifteen.

24:48

The bicentenary celebrations will be held this

24:50

year. Convict heritage is

24:52

considered something to be very proud of in Australia.

24:55

I'm fascinated by all of my ancestors

24:58

and genealogy is a great passion, but

25:00

I've always had a soft spot for Anne and

25:02

her story. She was the first of my European

25:04

ancestors to arrive in Australia. Thank

25:07

you for a wonderful episode with such a special

25:09

connection high regards Vanessa.

25:12

So maybe not

25:15

uplifting all the way through, but

25:18

I wanted to read it because I love the

25:20

tone of Yes,

25:22

these circumstances were horrible, but

25:25

this led to being a family, and

25:27

it leads to being my family. There

25:31

there are so many nuances to that story,

25:35

and so many aspects of uh

25:37

the colonization of Australia on

25:39

the part of of Great

25:42

Britain that are are problematic

25:44

and upsetting in a lot of ways that when

25:47

you get to the part of this is a person in her family

25:49

and this is her family's story, like that is the

25:52

part that is really really touching to me.

25:54

And that's the positive part

25:56

and why I wanted to read it. Not all the snake bites

25:58

and the murders and the being sentenced

26:03

to be transported at the age of probably

26:05

fourteen. Yeah, when I when

26:07

we first got that email, the part that got me

26:09

choked up, And it's because of Vanessa's she

26:11

has a really nice um writing tone.

26:14

When she mentions that she hopes that the

26:16

relationship that her her relatives

26:18

struck up with the sailor

26:20

on the ship made her voyage more comfortable.

26:23

I so got a lump in my throat. Yeah,

26:26

that's like. We we have had a

26:29

fair amount of listener mail talking about the relationships

26:32

that women had on the

26:34

the ship and and how

26:37

we should talk about them, and uh,

26:39

which ones were consensual and which ones definitely

26:42

we're not consensual, and this, like

26:44

this letter is one of the reasons. But I feel like

26:46

it's important to talk about all those things, but also

26:49

important not to paint all of them

26:51

with the same brush.

26:54

So you would like to write

26:56

to us you are angry that

26:59

we have this sad, sad

27:01

episode and then also

27:04

some sadness in our listener mail. You

27:06

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