Behind the Scenes Minis: Lowry and Midgley

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly fry Uh. This week we talked about the Lowry War, something one of our colleagues suggested forever ago that we finally got to. One person whose work was a big part of this research was Belinda Maynor Lowry Um. She is a historian and currently works at Emory University. I think um. She has written two different books on Lumby history. One is The Lumby Indians American Struggle. The other is Lumby Indians in the Jim Crow South, and that one is super interesting, and talked about a lot of stuff that wasn't directly related to this episode or the context for this episode, because it's really about the very complex and nuanced real relationship between UH, the Lumbi tribe and segregation in North Carolina, which I originally had a whole part of in the episode outline, and it was becoming so incredibly long and was not actually related to the Lowry War. I mean, it's part of the like ongoing following context, but it wasn't actually part of the war. Itself because North Carolina public schools were racially segregated basically from the beginning. So once the state recognized the Lumbi as an indigenous tribe, they were able to start their own school, and then that led into starting their own normal school or teacher college because the Lumby teachers weren't allowed to go to teaching college at any of the white schools, and that normal school or teachers college eventually became the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. So that is a very complicated new story, and I also, in addition to all of the complexity involved with it, I sort of felt like I a white person, not the best person to tell it. That whole book, though, I found very accessible to read for folks who are, you know, not historians and not living their day today immersed in history every single day. So that is something to check out if if folks want to know more. Um, a rabbit hole I went down while doing this research. Besides that, one is the North Carolina's outdoor historical dramas. I don't know why that phrase makes me laugh. So I just had this moment when I was like, oh, and then they made an outdoor drama about it. And then I was like, do other places have outdoor dramas in the way North Carolina does? Um, because we mentioned the Lost Colony, which is obviously about the Lost Colony, we mentioned Unto These Hills, which is about Cherokee history. I've seen that one. There's another one called Horn in the West. Horn in the West was first performed about the same time as Unto These Hills was I think those were within a few years of each other. I'm saying that for memory. I'm apologize if I got it wrong. Um. Horn in the West is about like Daniel Boone, so that's not about indigenous history really, and I've seen that one also, So I've seen I've seen Horn in the West and Unto These Hills. I don't think I have seen the Lost Colony. I have not seen, uh, the one that we talked about in this episode. But like these outdoor dramas that are about the history of the place that the drama is performed, there's multiples of them in North Carolina, and so I would like sort of tried to go down this path of like why are there so many of these in North Carolina? There are also I mean there's there are places that have Shakespeare in the Park or have like an outdoor theater company that does shows outdoors in good weather. But this is like the same show that has done in the same theater over and over again as a tourist attraction every single year. And I'm just like, what is the story there? And I was not finding satisfying answers to what the story is there? And then I was also like, this is not with the The episode is about Tracy get back to work. Yeah. It makes me laugh because it seems so oddly specific, because I don't know of any others that existing quite that way, right, Like, there are certainly people that do re enactments in various places, but I can't think of anywhere else that has like that as a cultural thing thing. Yea, And I mean the fact that there are three in North Carolina that have been running to my knowledge for decades, and then other ones in North Carolina that have run for a period of years and then maybe they fizzled out, maybe they get picked back up. North Carolina does have a relatively mild climate for doing outdoor dramas in the warm weather months. It's less mild now because climate change, but still. I also maybe I am particularly interested in them because I was a theater kid in high school and I knew people who like people who went to college at Appalachian and in the summer they would do Horn in the West. As one of the actors in that show. You know, I got my degree in theater. I don't think I have any friends that have done those, uh like of of anywhere, not necessarily North Carolina. But like you know, I have certainly had friends do like repertory theater in the summer in various places, but not not like something as specific as like historical dramas that are part of like a tourism industry. Yeah, fascinating. When I was in high school, my mom and I would go on weekend trips together, and we went on multiple different weekend trips that involved going out to the mountains, and uh, it was those various trips that we saw unto these hills and Horn in the West. And I'm really pretty sure that I've never seen the Lost Colony, even though I have also visited that part of North Carolina. So anyway, I'm glad that, uh that we finally got to the Lowry War from my short list that is not short at all. The federal recognition conversation is so complicated to me and is another thing where like, I, as a white person, I'm not the person to like sort all that out. College is like I have nothing further to act. No, it's it is all complicated. I mean, I I found myself, Um, I'm glad you did the research on this one, because I found myself getting lost with everyone having the same name. Yeah, where I was like, I literally had as I was reviewing it this morning, I had like a weird chart and I was like, wait, did I do this right? Have I gotten confused with the there So, there are a group of family names that are common among the Lumbi, and they include Lowry and Ox and Dine. A lot of the names that came up in the show, Um, those are not names that a lot of people would think of off the top of their head as being like an indigenous person's last name. Um. And that's been one of the things of like, how did this group of people living in this part of North Carolina with a like a tribal identity that goes back for centuries have a lot of last names that people would think of as English and I think that is one of the things that fed into the like are these descendants of the lost Colony conversation that came up in the nineteenth century. Um, so yeah, there are lots and lots of lowry Is still today, including Lowries in like leadership. Melinda Mayor Lowry, the historian that was that wrote some of the work, uh, that was part of the research for this, as well as doing a panel that I watched a video of that was about all of this. So yeah, if you are interested in the great or history of the Lumbi tribe, highly recommend Melinda Maynor Lowry's work. So we we talked about Thomas Nidgley Jr. We sure did. That wasn't the most fun ever, No, yeah, I I was unaware of how much people already knew about leaded gasoline being dangerous. It wasn't entirely surprising because you and I are both old enough to remember leaded gasoline being sold at gas stations and as a child being like, how did anyone think this was a good idea? Ever, leaded gasoline was not the only very problematic source of lead that that was phased out over about the same time. There are also things like lett in paint. A lot of houses still have lead in paint in them, lots of other stuff. But I'm like, I remember being there at the gas station with my mom and just kind of be like, I don't understand why we had to have a process where we put the lead in there and then we took the lead out of there, and I was like, that was the lead just always in there is lead part of gasoline, and we just discovered we needed to take it out. Like I didn't really get it. But I also didn't really get like why anybody would have thought that would have been a safe thing to do. Uh yeah, I mean right. This is a disheartening one for many reasons, and you and I talked about it beforehand, Like this idea that UM business is more important than safety is a problem that many industries have had over the years, and it just keeps recurring, it really does. This one is especially bad because people were dying so quickly, and it's like, oh, no, we're fixing the factory, okay, but people have already died. Like there's really a big problem with what you're doing. Something that we didn't talk about UM. One of the things Alice Hamilton was really focused on was what about gas station attendance? Um, because uh, I mean there are still places where people don't pump their own gas routinely. But the process of putting the lead into the gasoline, there was a lot of back and forth about when that step should happen, and there was a process that involved actually putting it in at the at the gas station, and Alice Hamilton's kept being like, this is killing people the factories. Have you even thought about the person who was pumping people's gas all day every day? Like what exposure is going to do to that person? Clearly nobody had thought about you didn't even get into it in the episode because it felt like a whole other thing. And I also felt like the episode was becoming very long. Um, I don't know why. It did not occur to me that that might happen. And when I decided to do what I did with the episode, which was to talk about his biography and these two other things, Uh, yeah, would you like to hear funny your thoughts? Yeah? Okay, So, um, are you familiar with rows chast? There's a bell that's ringing right You might be and not even realize it. Ros Chast is a cartoonist that did a lot of stuff with The New Yorker for a very long period of time. She's so funny and I love her, um, And this episode reminded me of one of my favorite Rows Chast cartoons, which is called four common lamp shade mistakes and how to avoid them. And they're very silly, like one lamp shade is too tiny and the suggestion is just by a larger shade, one is too large by a smaller shade, one has too much fringe, Just cut off the fringe. And the fourth one says made of magnesium and benzine soaked rags, leave the room. And I this has been one of my big favorites for a very long time. And so when ben Zinge came up in midst of like all of this other horrible stuff, my brain like deposited a little dopamine and went, remember that great Ross Chast cartoon. Oh yeah, you can tell other people about the great Ross Chast cartoon. Good Ross Chast is. I love her, Um. I also want to say something about our listener mail. Okay, Abby, I'm sorry to do this to you, but I'm you may have already discovered there is also diar Real Woman. Oh, I didn't even know that, and I reason there's that episode. Yes, well you wouldn't have it. It was related like it came out later in relation to like women's health. Um. But I am currently in the midst of acquiring a diar Real Woman so that I can have a dire Real couple. That's great. I understand Abby the proclivity to just buy strange things when you hear about and I'm sorry I have put this on your radar if you didn't already know, or you're welcome, I don't know which, but diar Real Woman. Um. I did want to note that a little bit about what I found so upsetting about Thomas Midgley Jr's death. So if if that's going to be a troubling topic for people, I think this is gonna be a Wednesday episode, so you can probably just have a great weekend. Have a great weekend. Um. So, the first things that I found that were about his death described it flatly as an accident, and it wasn't until later that I learned that, like the death certificate in the corner's report did not come to the same conclusion of it being an accident. Um the idea that this man had to make a lift for himself to get from the bed to the wheelchair and that he had accidentally or like become entangled in it, and that it had killed him. I found so upsetting because, Number one, it's clear that at that time there was so much stigma around disability. One of the things that started to shift that stigma was how many people became paralyzed as a result of polio and then advocated for themselves and for changes to disabilityarize love. We've talked about that some in our episode on the independent living movement and Ed Roberts, who was a big figure in that movement. But still today, there are so many basic things that so many disabled people need for so many basic tasks of life that they cannot get access to, or cannot afford access to, or there's like only one model and that model doesn't quite work for them. Um My mom needs a lift to get from anywhere to anywhere, and on occasions when she has had to be hospitalized a lot of times they will have a sling for that lift, which is the thing that she's in to like move her from place to place. But it's not a sling that allows access to the toilet, and that just makes going to the bathroom like a whole gigantic, like a bigger process than otherwise. And so the fact that the that he had to build something for himself, and that, regardless of the circumstances, the thing that he built for himself killed him carries through to it. Just it it made me very angry and upset, of course. So that's it's like an example both of how there has been progress and how there is still so much, so much more that needs to be done about access and about how people having the the tools and the resources and the equipment that they need for daily life with a disability. Yeah. I mean this has been a very interesting time in terms of disability resources because I feel like during the pandemic, when most people during the early parts of pandemic, I should say, when most people were staying home, there were some kind of benefits that came about that really really helped the disabled community, and now a lot of those are rolling back. Um. I had just retweeted a tweet from a woman who was commenting on a story about how restaurants are now pulling their their QR code menus because some people don't like them. And it's like, she's like, I'm blind. That gave me like a level of access at restaurants that I haven't normally had. Why would you take this away? It doesn't detract from anyone else's experience, and I I hope that the the upside of all of this is that these are discussions that people are recognizing now that maybe haven't considered what it is like for someone who is disabled to have to like make their way in a world that does not make space for them and does not provide the equipment and the things they need. But also, as she said, it's infuriating because it's been going on forever for yeah, for all of the time. Yeah, yeah. Um. I think social media as as conflicted as my relationship with social media is, um, I think social media has allowed so many people to have a bigger voice and to to have more diversity of the voices that you have access to. I mean, there are still barriers to social media that are based on all kinds of different factors, including disability, but um, so many disabled people have been able to communicate their own thoughts and needs and feelings about things to a much broader audience, and I think that is bringing more awareness to stuff. I thing I've told Holly that I've done this, I haven't really like publicly. I've been trying to do less doom scrolling on Twitter. And one of the things I do instead of doom scroll on Twitter is that just flipped through TikTok until I find somebody doing something really cool. Um, And I found a lot of folks on on TikTok who are disabled and are making content that is about their disability in ways that are just really thoughtful and funny. And folks who are willing to answer lots of questions for people. Do not go pepper people with unsolicited questions because that can be really like invasive, but like people who are willing to take on that role and to talk to people about stuff that's going on. And I'm like, I am heartened to see that. I simultaneously like, I wish people did not have to do this kind of work. I wish we were already to a point where we had more understanding, but like also I'm glad there is more access there through these and other communication methods. So anyway, Happy Friday. I hope whatever is happening on your weekend is going to be good as good as it can be. Whatever is happening. We will be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow. We're back Monday with a brand new episode, and uh, I hope everybody has a little minute of peace. Whatever is going on. M Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H