Flying Off the Handle

There's a lot to get upset about in life, but these two stories are perfect proof that sometimes one era's complaint is another's curiosity.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet

(00:27):
of Curiosities. The invention caused outrage. People regarded the new
technology as the moral downfall of society, and as you
might imagine, made it a hot topic for conversation. Doctors
warned the apparatus had catastrophic events for women and girls. Women.

(00:51):
You see, we're thought to be frail, referred to as
the angel of the household. Their jobs were to keep
house and raise children, and nothing more. The new device
was too hard on their dainty, feminine skeletons. Their feet
would become deformed, forcing them to walk in an odd,
nonfeminine plunging motion. The bones and their fingers would curl

(01:13):
into a claw. Even their facial features weren't immune. Their
mouths would contort into a grimace, and their eyes would
bulge from their sockets. With continued use, a woman's body
would become more masculine, That is, if she even survived
at all. Doctors told the public that a woman's reproductive
system severely limited her from doing anything more manly, and

(01:34):
this contraption might cause her finite femininity and energy to
become permanently extinguished. Doctors also said the new technology would
render women and young girls sterile. Entire medical journals detailed
all sorts of anomalies linked to the invention. Women were
likely to suffer appendicitis attacks or even ruptures, inflammation, over exertion,

(01:57):
and dangerous internal swelling of the throat, just to name
a few. It was said that the device took a
toll on their looks too. Women risked dark shadows under
their eyes, pale lips, clenched jaws, and an overall look
of weariness. Heart palpitations, insomnia, headaches, and even depression were
known side effects plaguing women. Some doctors stated the conditions

(02:20):
were permanent, while others thought that with enough time away
from the invention, a full recovery could be expected. To
society's horror, women using the machine also began to dress differently,
wearing bloomers instead of dresses. Until now, women hadn't even
shown their ankles. Pastors and Others warned the apparatus might
loosen women's morals. Women might even be deriving. Dare I

(02:43):
say it's pleasure from the invention without a man? In
one a Sunday Herald reporter wrote that seeing a woman
with the device was the most vicious thing he had
ever laid eyes on, far outweighing women smoking. Three years later,
in the New York Times, headline read lunacy in England.
The article stated that without a doubt, persistent use led

(03:05):
to weakness of the mind, general lunacy, and homicidal mania
in women. Unable to handle the technology, women reportedly became
overly exhilarated, and the stress, both physical and mental, would
cause them to harm others while using the contraption and
leave innocent people for dead. While this invention sounds pretty awful,

(03:27):
men were completely unaffected. In fact, they were encouraged to
utilize the same apparatus. The invention was all the rage
back in the eighteen nineties and benefited men greatly, both
for business and for pleasure. There were even special clubs
for men who owned them all over the country. New
cultures surrounded the device. The message was clear, the invention

(03:47):
was purely masculine and only men could handle such a contraption.
But the real reason ran a bit deeper. A woman doctor,
a rarity for the time, disagreed with her male counterparts.
She pointed out that not one doctor could produce evidence
suggesting that the side effects they described were real. No
one walked around with claws shaped hands, plunging walks, or

(04:09):
the horrendous face that had garnered a diagnosis at all.
It's quite the visual. The women of the day didn't
buy it either. Women everywhere used them. Susan B. Anthony
even said that equal rights were closely tied to this invention.
A paper in Pennsylvania pointed out that the new technology
had given women the ability to go to the store,

(04:30):
visit a friend, and exercise, all without waiting for a
man to take her places, and that had been the
real issue all along. It allowed women a level of
freedom that most men of the time found threatening. Today,
it's hard to believe that one simple object caused moral
panic and the invention the bicycle. All across Europe, it

(05:04):
stood from manliness. Those with them were viewed as more
elite than those who did not have them. In Germany,
only men who had proved themselves in battle were permitted
to wear them. They became the symbol for bravery and
dashing courage, and by the nineteenth century they became all
the vogue for society's elites, so waiters, domestic servants, and
priests were forbidden to have them. Men wearing them were

(05:27):
considered more handsome, more virile, and certainly more important. In France,
this fashion trend happened at about the same time that
fine restaurants catering to the rich began to open in Paris.
Like plenty of cultures, dining is often more than just
about the food, though for the wealthy and elite in France,
it was also about showing off their importance. The clientele
wanted an experience, and that meant they wanted to feel

(05:49):
superior over those who served them, and so the waiters
were banned from wearing them. Those who insisted were fired.
The men who were denied the ability to wear the
fashion and felt humiliated, demoralized, and emasculated. Women during the
Industrial Revolution often claimed that a man without one wasn't
a suitable man at all. Although the waiters complained, restaurant

(06:11):
owners turned a deaf ear if the ultra wealthy wanted
to flaunt their manliness and superiority over them. So be it.
Though the industry wasn't the same as a factory. There
were unions, just not as tightly formed. Waiters came and
waiters went. Although it said that thousands went on strike,
the newspaper reported that this wasn't so much about the

(06:32):
style as class, and that in another ten years or
so another class difference would be the center of attention. Instead.
The reporters stated that the waiters, if their demands were met,
would then ask for better pay and all sorts of
other things. Sooner or later, prices would go up, and
it would be the patrons who would strike instead. In America,

(06:52):
the New York Times jumped into the fray, stating that
preventing waiters from wearing them was like the days of slavery.
Such acts were not be coming of the French elite,
it was, the reporter wrote, a grotesque and humiliating display
of tyranny. The cause became known as the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and Citizen. When the movement reached Parliament,

(07:13):
Antied Boyer, the socialist deputy from Marseilles, proposed a bill
to make bands illegal enforceable by serving three months in prison.
The restaurant owners lamented their elite clientele might go elsewhere
they paid to feel like they were being served by
lower class people, not equals. During the strike, though, waiters

(07:34):
heckled the scabs who had been hired to take their
place and picketed outside of the restaurants. The police were
called in to arrest the strikers, although they also ended
up arresting Americans who had come to dine and had
no idea that lacking the trendy sense of style got
them lumped in with the strikers. The boy A bill failed,
but all was not lost. By early May, waiters across

(07:57):
the city had finally won the right to sport this
elite aisle of the rich. Proponents argued that the waiters
should have asked for better pay, more time off, and
better working conditions as well. The men all replied that
it had nothing to do with socialism or capitalism and
everything to do with the sense of belonging and self identification.
France had finally confronted the injustice that had been brewing

(08:20):
right under everyone's nose, and when the restaurants reopened, waiters
proudly returned to their jobs, sporting the thing they had
fought so hard to wear, a mustache. I hope you've
enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the

(08:42):
show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
learn all about it over at the World of Loure
dot Come and until next time, stay curious. H