January 28, 2021 • 27 mins
In the second part of this series, the guys explore the story of Harrison Weir, "The Father of the Cat Fancy." Learn how Weir led the charge to save the reputation of felines in Europe and abroad through the creation of high-class cat shows--and how these otherwise wholesome displays of quality cats became increasingly classist.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
for tuning in. This is part two of our episode
on the astonishingly rich history of cat shows. We had
to take a break and uh and play with our
own cats. Well, no, maybe you played with your cat.
I had. I had to go feed one of mine
(00:48):
because he was screaming at me. Man, did I tell
you this cat, this new cat that I've got, has
a really really adorable thing that she does where she
likes to pounce claws out on bare feet. You've mentioned that,
you mention, I think you recommended a spritzer bottle to
break her of this habit. But I also have a
laser pointer that I have to use as a diversion
(01:08):
so that I can just cross the living room, you know,
without like getting attacked. So you know, again, a great
example of cats gonna do what a cat's gonna do. Yes,
Now imagine taking these uh notoriously anti authoritarian creatures and
trying to get them to light up for a display
of their prowess in a cat show. So back to
(01:32):
this guy I mentioned earlier. His name Harrison Weir. His Uh.
His claim to fame and history being super into cats.
Two cats myself. So thanks for making this less stigmatized, Harry. Uh.
He shook the cat world at its foundations, like the
(01:54):
guy invented the bread slicing machine. He it was an
animal lover all sorts of animals. Uh. And he held
cats higher than most other animals in his esteem. He
said they are possibly the most perfect and certainly the
most domestic of animals. That's very nice, though it is
scientifically not accurate. Uh. He wasn't always a cat person.
(02:18):
In his book Our Cats and All About Them in
eighteen eighty nine, he said, you know, I used to
have a bias against cats, and I took some time
coming to this pro cat belief. And once he was
convinced that cats were cool, he started to proselytize for them.
He became the Edward Bernese, fighting a one man battle
(02:40):
to save the public image of cats. And here's a
line from what he wrote. He said, long ages of neglect,
a little treat to mention absolute cruelty with literally or
no gentliness, kindliness, or training have made the cat self reliant. Uh.
And he also said the small, though a large dog
(03:01):
may be regarded and petted, but it's generally useless. A
cat a pet or not ease of service, Which is
interesting because you've probably also heard the opposite argument from
a lot of people folks throughout history. I think it's
in the eye of the beholder or the petter. So
he knew he knew he couldn't just write books that
(03:24):
say cats are cool, right, literacy is not where it
is at this point in and also books you have
to pay for them, So like, how can I how
can I get more people on board with cats in general?
This led him to develop a competition, the Cat Show.
(03:45):
So he wanted to get the wealthy upper crust on
board with the idea that the idea that where it
sounds weird where you're talking about it, well, all these
pet shows do the idea that you will take your cat,
your animal, whatever you're in this case your cat, you'll
take your cat to a single place. And then there're
(04:06):
all some help being authority, who is like again they
look at your Persian cat. They're like, this is the
most Persian Persian cats, This is most jellical, those street
cats or whatever. Here is your award. Uh. To do this,
he had to make it look legit. So he started
making rules and categories, and again, to be very honest
(04:28):
with you here, folks, this stuff is arbitrary. He's just
kind of going with what feels good in his mind
at the time. Wouldn't you say? Yeah? I mean, you know,
he was essentially, this is a thing that I've never
been done before, so we had to start somewhere. I
would love to hear a few examples of these cat tigories.
He So there were a couple of things like type
(04:51):
of cat mainly Persian cat, said already, Manx cats, English
short hair cats, things like that, and then each of
those would have the thing that Paul fight them as
that cat breed. But it's not super specific to the
point of like the tale should be x centimeters long
or anything like that. Yeah, that's right. Uh So, you know,
(05:13):
in in true cat loving fashion. As the kind of
innovator of this whole thing, he appointed himself what he
referred to as an adjudicator. Uh And he was joined
by his brother John and a priest named Reverend mcdonnaugh um,
And then they hired a show manager named f. Wilson.
Then they had to get some people to actually participate,
(05:34):
so they rounded up some of their friends and family.
What they referred to as a goodly number of animals
were assembled to be evaluated. And when he was on
the train heading to the Crystal Palace the day of
the big show, he actually ran into a friend who
asked how he was doing and where he was going to,
(05:55):
which were responded the cat Show. And his friend was
a star honest and said, a show of cats. Why
I hate the things? Uh you know in this you know, rubbed,
we're the wrong way obviously as um as a man
of the cat. And he said, I'm sorry, very sorry
that you do not like cats, before kind of going
(06:15):
into the spiel and explaining the majesty and glory of
cats as animals, but also of of this event that
he was trying to curate. And then you know, in
his book we mentioned earlier are cats and all about them?
Weird talks about this conversation and then eventually admits he
wouldn't a bit overboard, and his friends just said, stop,
(06:38):
I see you do like cats and I do not,
So let the matter drop. Did he let it drop?
Of course not. He doubled down. He took his cat
hating friend from the train with him to the Crystal Palace,
and there they discovered that the show was off to
a great start. Uh, we're looking had a range of cats.
(07:01):
Around a hundred and fifty to two hundred and eleven
were shown cats somewhere between. There. There were two hundred
thousand guests that showed up to just stare at cats.
Two hundred thousand. That's insane. It's a it's a good turnout,
you know, it's a good turnout. Uh. The newspapers played
(07:22):
a role in this because they had talked about it
in advance. They also noticed the presence of exotic cats,
like the feline version of an imported weird car. Yeah, well,
something that certainly would have been seen as an oddity.
They would have been able to see every day, So
there was some draw there. Things like a something called
a Scottish wild cat that was owned by the Duke
(07:44):
of Sutherland, an Algerian cat that was listed as a
quote French African cat, a polydactyl cat that had twenty
six claws, and a tortoise shell cat um. There were
also some that purported to belong to the sta half
of the of the palace Um or to have been
caught in the sellers of the palace and thrown into
(08:06):
gauges to add, you know, some more numbers to to
the to the showing. So I think we set this
up earlier. Were has made a cat show with three
judges himself, his brother, one of his brothers, and a
priest who was uh he wasn't hired just because he
was a priest. By the way, folks, he was a
(08:27):
well known breeder of St. Bernard's, so a friend of animals,
if not cats specifically. Were had what he called the
standards of excellence or standards of points. These were the
guidelines that these three dudes would use to judge these cats.
Later these would be um revised into a manual for
(08:48):
organizers of other cat shows, and this manual was called
our Cats. So they were sorted according to things like
coat length, body type, shape color. This is where this
is where you see the origin of the phrase chunk.
I'm kidding that last part is not true, uh towards
(09:09):
the mic like old yeah. Uh So again this this
criteria is pretty much up to weird. You know, he
didn't have a ton of scientific analysis to bring to
bear here. Awards were given to cats that best fit
his criteria. And then there were also I would call
them like Carnival awards, the superlative awards, you know, the
(09:34):
biggest cat and the fattest cat, which yes, ridiculous historians
were two different things, of course they are. No, I
never would have questioned that, nor would I have ever
questioned the judgments of this, this triumvirate. I wonder what
was the I mean, these are similar, you know, to
what you see in a dog show, like bite, you know, uh,
(09:55):
posture gate, things like that. But again, a lot of
the things that you do in a dog should only
apply to cats. And I can only imagine that this
would have been a bit chaotic, right, Like, cats aren't
known for like standing still and like, you know, bending
to the will of people. So I imagine with like
somewhere between hundred fifty to fifty um, I imagine it
(10:16):
would have been quite a thing to behold the noise alone, right,
I mean, cats are are not known for being super
quiet either, But it went overwhell. The aristocratic crowd dug
the whole judging quality. But where we're really kind of
this was a this is a personal passion project for him.
He wasn't in it for the accolades. He was in
(10:37):
it for the sheer, you know, reverence of of cat
kind um. And he wanted to let people know about
all of the varieties of breeds and also convinced people,
like he tried to do on that train, to give
cats a chance. You can get a few more by blow.
(11:00):
Reports of this in an excellent article from Atlas Obsura
how England's first cat show countered Victorian snobbery. This this
thing was a runaway success. His friend on the train
was wrong. He was on the wrong side of history,
which is weird to say about cat shows, but here
we are. Uh. The first cat show plans kind of
(11:24):
in a hurry. It's a little bit of a one
man band situation, and he wanted to get the wealthy
people in the aristos. It was a success, so the
second show expands a few months later. He encourages working
class people to submit their own ordinary cats, like you know,
the their neighborhood Tom or whatever. Um let's call him
(11:47):
famous Tom. That's a cool cat name. So weird hoped
that by celebrating the everyday cats. He I love that
earlier point. He's not trying to make money. What he
was genuine It appears to be the case that what
he was genuinely trying to do was inspired owners of
cats or humans of cats throughout all socioeconomic levels to
(12:10):
take better care of these feelines. So this next exhibition
has many more cats on display, there's an expanded judge pool.
They also have trophies that they're awarding to people. It's
it's getting legit. But then of course fame gets in
(12:31):
the way. Uh. The shows at Crystal Palace did have
a positive impact on social perception of cats and they
were getting they were gradually becoming less of a divisive
thing to have in your home. In We're founds the
National Cat Club. He appoints himself president and then they
(12:53):
have their first official show at the Crystal Palace, as
you know, like the National Cat Club cat show or
cat competition, cat petition. The pieces are there, Yeah, and
you know, and what we were saying, I think the
first go of this there were somewhere between a hundred
two two hundred entries. This one had more than three
(13:16):
hundred and twenty UH entries into the competition. Again, it
just seems like it would have been absolute chaos, but
they seem to manage to keep under control. But the
interesting thing is we're kind of starts to get the
sense that people, other people's motivations aren't as pure as his.
Other people aren't in it just for the cat, you know.
(13:39):
And he expressed in eight two in a new preface
for the second edition of Our Cats and All About Them.
Uh he he kind of expressed remorse ever having been
part of the National Cat Club. He said he no
longer believed in their ideals instead of like this, I
now feel the deepest regret that I was ever induced
(14:00):
to be in any way associated with it. Uh. The
main problem, he said in the same statement, was that
a lot of these be he considered a lot of
these uh so called cat fanciers to be narcissists. Um.
And it was all about themselves. It was all about
what could the cats do for them in terms of
their image or whatever, rather than focusing on the animals themselves.
(14:23):
He went on to say, I found the principal idea
of many of its members consisted not so much in
promoting the welfare of the cat, which he capitalizes by
the way like you would like god, um, as of
winning prizes and more particularly their own cat club medals.
And by the way, we're was known for his reverend
capitalization of the word cat. This guy meant business and
(14:47):
in his defense, it was Uh, the arbitrary capitalization of
different things was more common back then. But still, yes,
that's definitely a choice. That's a feline flex on his part.
The issue is that the general public was not eligible
to win these special medals. The only way you could
win a cat club medal is if you were a
(15:09):
cat club member or a cat who's human was cat
club member. So we thought this was super snotty. And
you know what, he was right because he had been
trying to raise respect for cats, so he needed the
ruling class, the wealthy class on board there. But he
didn't know they would bring their elitist tendencies along, and
(15:32):
of course they did. It was part of the way
they defined themselves at the time. So now cats in
general are no longer considered super dirty and wicked. But
there's there are a lot of class issues that are
ruining cat shows for Harry. Uh. Some judging categories are
divided by the class not of the cat, but of
(15:53):
the cat owner. And uh, this one reporter who went
to a national cat club show in a t said
the following, I am sorry to see that some cats
entered into the working men's classes are also entered into
the ordinary classes. These, to my mind, are only bogus
working men's cats. Pre Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, bogus
(16:18):
was a much more um impactful, insulting word. Yeah, it's
almost like we're kind of created a monster with with
this whole thing. Like he was in it for all
the right reasons, and he was he was doing it
to kind of combat the snobbery of the time when
it came to animals and pure breads and all of that,
and to get people more hip to the idea that
cats are cool too. But then, of course, as as
(16:40):
it will, uh, snobbery pervaded his cat shows and and
what they when it became was something that he did
not like, and it just kind of snowballed from there. Uh,
this kind of you know, pervasive snobbery just got deeper
and deeper. Um, and it really was kind of like
almost causing the themselves to be treated like commodities as
(17:03):
opposed to you know, what we're intended, which was to
highlight them as the noble creatures that he believed they
were and give them their due when we've got this
history of cats being treated horribly. But at the end
of the day, even if it wasn't in the way
that we're maybe wanted it to be, it certainly was
raising the profile of cats in the you know, public,
(17:26):
kind of collective unconscious, I suppose. Uh. And Francis Simpson,
a fellow cat lover, wrote in his nineteen three book
of the Cat the following in terms of like the
kind of shifting cashet of felines, he said, the cat
is gradually creeping into the affections of mankind, even in
this busy, workaday world. And then he called out we're
(17:49):
as the kind of single minded individual that led to
the quote great strides um in cat fancy dumb suppose,
especially after kind of being reviled as visionaries often are.
You'll recall back to eighteen seventy one when We're had
that really awkward encounter on the train. Or he wouldn't
(18:11):
let it lie that that cats needed to be loved, uh,
you know, and and respected, even if the general consensus
was that they were lower creatures. Right, Yeah, but the
cat world kind of turned against them for a time. Uh.
We also see other people, acknowledging his foundational role here.
Magazine called Lady's Realm in nineteen hundred expressed the same belief.
(18:37):
They said, we had quote done wonders for the amelioration
of pussy or repairing the reputation of the cat. In
just the span of thirty years, which is not a
long time, cats had gone from being chased in the
streets to be allowed to uh sit and perr by
the fireside, And Lady's Realm also included how great has
(19:02):
been the change in the conditions of life for the
harmless necessary cat. At this point, now that we're reaching
the end of our two part episode, we need to
share an epilogue because you see, nothing occurs in a vacuum.
(19:23):
That's one of the consistent lessons of history. So while
this cat craze is occurring at London's Crystal Palace, other
people throughout Europe are getting on board. They want to
be a part of this, and so that's when we
see four other cat shows being held by members of
the public unrelated to Harrison were uh there are two
(19:47):
in London, two in Scotland, and then eventually they just
become a common thing. It's no longer weird to hear
about the UH the annual cat show. Eventually, of course,
because the US is always trying to emulate European culture.
At this time, UH, the practice of the cat show
(20:08):
crosses the Atlantic. If you were at Madison Square Garden
in just hanging out, then you may have well run
into the first well known cat show on the American continant.
And the same thing happened. People started forming cat clubs,
start organizing their own events, and then they morphed into
(20:33):
the things you see today, which are still not as
popular as the as the dog shows. Right, what is
it you Canuba dog show? That's the one. I think
that's the brand that sponsors in that popular dog food.
You know I fight at the top of the show
the first episode. I almost joked, like this seems like
a relic of the past, like cat shows surely don't
(20:54):
exist anymore, and what a dummy I am, Like, of
course they still exist. They're they're not as popular or
as widely you know, broadcast or or known as dog shows,
but they certainly exist. And you can actually go to
c f A UH dot org and and see a
calendar of of cat shows and also the the year's
previous winners from all the different categories of breeds cf
(21:16):
A standing for the Cat Fanciers Association. I love that
the word fancy is still part of it, you know,
it's still in the in the nomenclature. There's a very
popular cat magazine called cat Fancy. I think there's also
dog Fancy, but I believe cat fancy is definitely a thing.
Well there, I'm sure there are fans of felines who
will tell us that cats are just fancier. Uh no,
(21:39):
no comments, no comment. I love out all animals, um, well,
not all of them. They had some things to work
out with. Possums. Possums are weird, right am I the
only one here? Like? Oh, they're very strange. I mean
even you've ever seen one like come up on you
at night with its weird transparent glowy eyes no thank you,
(21:59):
and they hiss. Will alone. Out of all the marsupials
this continent could have had, we got possums anyway. Yes, cats.
So now, as as Noel said, you can find cat
shows pretty easily in the US and in Europe, and
you see that people's opinions of cats. This is what
(22:22):
I know. I kept hilling on this the judging qualifications
and standards are still pretty arbitrary, right. The Siamese cat,
which is now the ninth most popular cat breed in America,
was once upon a time seen as a quote unnatural
nightmare kind of cats, and now here in one. It
(22:45):
seems that the more things change, the more they stay
the same. As long as there are cats, there are
going to be cat shows. Let us know if you've
gone to one, you know what I mean, Send us
pictures of your cats, or send us pictures of your pets.
Extra points extra arbitrary Internet points for uh for really
(23:06):
really weird pets. We're not gonna get into it today,
but if you wish, you want to do a little
extra reading. On the side, there is a how stuff
Works article on how cat shows work. Um just gotta
animals dot how stuff works dot com, slash pets slash
cat dash show dot htm. Uh. Some good info there
(23:26):
on just the procedural aspects of cat shows, which clearly
still exists, although unfortunately Cat Fancy Magazine stopped publishing in
two thousand and fifteen, so you know, it's tough to
be a print magazine these days. But the sentiment and
the values of cat fancy live on in homes across
(23:48):
the planet. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Maybe
you had a furry companion of your own, purring along
as you listened. Let us know what other animal competitions
have you seen. I'm sure there their horse shows a plenty,
dressage performances and so on. The thing we mentioned earlier,
(24:10):
the thing I was saying about the most beautiful goat.
I was referring to the Maza Yen Alms competition in
Saudi Arabia. Uh, the a goat from Damascus, Dame Carer
won the first prize for most beautiful goat. Yeah. I
I don't really think of the word beautiful when I
think of goat. So maybe there in lies the irony
(24:33):
of the competition. It's a kind of goat called a
Damascus goat. Hang on, you, guys, I'm gonna say, I'm
gonna send you a picture. It's worth it. Uh. This
is this is not the specific goat, but this is
what these uh, this is what these goats look like.
So Noel Casey, I want you to pull this up.
I put it in our chat on our zoom. Check
(24:54):
this out. And that is not a beautiful goat. It
looks like a fist. It looks like you have it's like,
oh my god. And and it has weird little elf ears,
and it's eyes are and the wrong they're like it
looks like a like a lizard, like it's got an
eye on each side of its head. That is idious.
What is going on? Wow? Yeah, well beauties of the
(25:15):
eyebill holder, Casey, what do you think about that? Guy?
I mean, it's a very unique, so diplomatic, but I
would not associate that with beauty now. So again, that's
that's one of our that's another way to prove that
sometimes these standards can be arbitrary. Thanks so much for
coming along with us on this journey. Thanks to Harrison
(25:38):
Weird for redeeming the cat, Thanks to our long suffering
super producer at Casey Pegram and and of course thanks
to Christopher Haciots faced Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Eve's Jeff Coach. Check out her show This Day and
History Class along with Jay dot Ill, the podcast which
(25:59):
she produces huge thanks to research associate Gabe Louisier and
Cat Fancier. I imagine I assume we'll have to confirm
that later directly. But this was definitely a doozy of
a two parter. I certainly learned a lot. I'm a
cat owner and I didn't know half of this stuff.
And we would like to hear from you. If you
want to start a cat picture or pet picture sharing thread,
(26:22):
go on over to Ridiculous Historians on Facebook and uh,
let us let us know what your non human companions
look like again in bonus points for any really exotic
or unexpected ones. You can also find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Twitter, not just as shows,
but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on Instagram.
(26:44):
I am at how now Noel Brown, and you can
send me your pet pictures directly if you prefer at
ben Bullet hsw on Twitter or at ben Bullet on Instagram. Yes, Noel,
what a ride. I tell you, man, I would be
weirded out go into a cat show, not because of
the cats, but because I feel like I might run
(27:06):
into some very aristocratic person who would make me uncomfortable.
You know what I mean? Oh, I definitely twopen. You
gotta fear of the aristocrats. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(27:27):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so much
for tuning in. This is part two of our episode
on the astonishingly rich history of cat shows. We had
to take a break and uh and play with our
own cats. Well, no, maybe you played with your cat.
I had. I had to go feed one of mine
(00:48):
because he was screaming at me. Man, did I tell
you this cat, this new cat that I've got, has
a really really adorable thing that she does where she
likes to pounce claws out on bare feet. You've mentioned that,
you mention, I think you recommended a spritzer bottle to
break her of this habit. But I also have a
laser pointer that I have to use as a diversion
(01:08):
so that I can just cross the living room, you know,
without like getting attacked. So you know, again, a great
example of cats gonna do what a cat's gonna do. Yes,
Now imagine taking these uh notoriously anti authoritarian creatures and
trying to get them to light up for a display
of their prowess in a cat show. So back to
(01:32):
this guy I mentioned earlier. His name Harrison Weir. His Uh.
His claim to fame and history being super into cats.
Two cats myself. So thanks for making this less stigmatized, Harry. Uh.
He shook the cat world at its foundations, like the
(01:54):
guy invented the bread slicing machine. He it was an
animal lover all sorts of animals. Uh. And he held
cats higher than most other animals in his esteem. He
said they are possibly the most perfect and certainly the
most domestic of animals. That's very nice, though it is
scientifically not accurate. Uh. He wasn't always a cat person.
(02:18):
In his book Our Cats and All About Them in
eighteen eighty nine, he said, you know, I used to
have a bias against cats, and I took some time
coming to this pro cat belief. And once he was
convinced that cats were cool, he started to proselytize for them.
He became the Edward Bernese, fighting a one man battle
(02:40):
to save the public image of cats. And here's a
line from what he wrote. He said, long ages of neglect,
a little treat to mention absolute cruelty with literally or
no gentliness, kindliness, or training have made the cat self reliant. Uh.
And he also said the small, though a large dog
(03:01):
may be regarded and petted, but it's generally useless. A
cat a pet or not ease of service, Which is
interesting because you've probably also heard the opposite argument from
a lot of people folks throughout history. I think it's
in the eye of the beholder or the petter. So
he knew he knew he couldn't just write books that
(03:24):
say cats are cool, right, literacy is not where it
is at this point in and also books you have
to pay for them, So like, how can I how
can I get more people on board with cats in general?
This led him to develop a competition, the Cat Show.
(03:45):
So he wanted to get the wealthy upper crust on
board with the idea that the idea that where it
sounds weird where you're talking about it, well, all these
pet shows do the idea that you will take your cat,
your animal, whatever you're in this case your cat, you'll
take your cat to a single place. And then there're
(04:06):
all some help being authority, who is like again they
look at your Persian cat. They're like, this is the
most Persian Persian cats, This is most jellical, those street
cats or whatever. Here is your award. Uh. To do this,
he had to make it look legit. So he started
making rules and categories, and again, to be very honest
(04:28):
with you here, folks, this stuff is arbitrary. He's just
kind of going with what feels good in his mind
at the time. Wouldn't you say? Yeah? I mean, you know,
he was essentially, this is a thing that I've never
been done before, so we had to start somewhere. I
would love to hear a few examples of these cat tigories.
He So there were a couple of things like type
(04:51):
of cat mainly Persian cat, said already, Manx cats, English
short hair cats, things like that, and then each of
those would have the thing that Paul fight them as
that cat breed. But it's not super specific to the
point of like the tale should be x centimeters long
or anything like that. Yeah, that's right. Uh So, you know,
(05:13):
in in true cat loving fashion. As the kind of
innovator of this whole thing, he appointed himself what he
referred to as an adjudicator. Uh And he was joined
by his brother John and a priest named Reverend mcdonnaugh um,
And then they hired a show manager named f. Wilson.
Then they had to get some people to actually participate,
(05:34):
so they rounded up some of their friends and family.
What they referred to as a goodly number of animals
were assembled to be evaluated. And when he was on
the train heading to the Crystal Palace the day of
the big show, he actually ran into a friend who
asked how he was doing and where he was going to,
(05:55):
which were responded the cat Show. And his friend was
a star honest and said, a show of cats. Why
I hate the things? Uh you know in this you know, rubbed,
we're the wrong way obviously as um as a man
of the cat. And he said, I'm sorry, very sorry
that you do not like cats, before kind of going
(06:15):
into the spiel and explaining the majesty and glory of
cats as animals, but also of of this event that
he was trying to curate. And then you know, in
his book we mentioned earlier are cats and all about them?
Weird talks about this conversation and then eventually admits he
wouldn't a bit overboard, and his friends just said, stop,
(06:38):
I see you do like cats and I do not,
So let the matter drop. Did he let it drop?
Of course not. He doubled down. He took his cat
hating friend from the train with him to the Crystal Palace,
and there they discovered that the show was off to
a great start. Uh, we're looking had a range of cats.
(07:01):
Around a hundred and fifty to two hundred and eleven
were shown cats somewhere between. There. There were two hundred
thousand guests that showed up to just stare at cats.
Two hundred thousand. That's insane. It's a it's a good turnout,
you know, it's a good turnout. Uh. The newspapers played
(07:22):
a role in this because they had talked about it
in advance. They also noticed the presence of exotic cats,
like the feline version of an imported weird car. Yeah, well,
something that certainly would have been seen as an oddity.
They would have been able to see every day, So
there was some draw there. Things like a something called
a Scottish wild cat that was owned by the Duke
(07:44):
of Sutherland, an Algerian cat that was listed as a
quote French African cat, a polydactyl cat that had twenty
six claws, and a tortoise shell cat um. There were
also some that purported to belong to the sta half
of the of the palace Um or to have been
caught in the sellers of the palace and thrown into
(08:06):
gauges to add, you know, some more numbers to to
the to the showing. So I think we set this
up earlier. Were has made a cat show with three
judges himself, his brother, one of his brothers, and a
priest who was uh he wasn't hired just because he
was a priest. By the way, folks, he was a
(08:27):
well known breeder of St. Bernard's, so a friend of animals,
if not cats specifically. Were had what he called the
standards of excellence or standards of points. These were the
guidelines that these three dudes would use to judge these cats.
Later these would be um revised into a manual for
(08:48):
organizers of other cat shows, and this manual was called
our Cats. So they were sorted according to things like
coat length, body type, shape color. This is where this
is where you see the origin of the phrase chunk.
I'm kidding that last part is not true, uh towards
(09:09):
the mic like old yeah. Uh So again this this
criteria is pretty much up to weird. You know, he
didn't have a ton of scientific analysis to bring to
bear here. Awards were given to cats that best fit
his criteria. And then there were also I would call
them like Carnival awards, the superlative awards, you know, the
(09:34):
biggest cat and the fattest cat, which yes, ridiculous historians
were two different things, of course they are. No, I
never would have questioned that, nor would I have ever
questioned the judgments of this, this triumvirate. I wonder what
was the I mean, these are similar, you know, to
what you see in a dog show, like bite, you know, uh,
(09:55):
posture gate, things like that. But again, a lot of
the things that you do in a dog should only
apply to cats. And I can only imagine that this
would have been a bit chaotic, right, Like, cats aren't
known for like standing still and like, you know, bending
to the will of people. So I imagine with like
somewhere between hundred fifty to fifty um, I imagine it
(10:16):
would have been quite a thing to behold the noise alone, right,
I mean, cats are are not known for being super
quiet either, But it went overwhell. The aristocratic crowd dug
the whole judging quality. But where we're really kind of
this was a this is a personal passion project for him.
He wasn't in it for the accolades. He was in
(10:37):
it for the sheer, you know, reverence of of cat
kind um. And he wanted to let people know about
all of the varieties of breeds and also convinced people,
like he tried to do on that train, to give
cats a chance. You can get a few more by blow.
(11:00):
Reports of this in an excellent article from Atlas Obsura
how England's first cat show countered Victorian snobbery. This this
thing was a runaway success. His friend on the train
was wrong. He was on the wrong side of history,
which is weird to say about cat shows, but here
we are. Uh. The first cat show plans kind of
(11:24):
in a hurry. It's a little bit of a one
man band situation, and he wanted to get the wealthy
people in the aristos. It was a success, so the
second show expands a few months later. He encourages working
class people to submit their own ordinary cats, like you know,
the their neighborhood Tom or whatever. Um let's call him
(11:47):
famous Tom. That's a cool cat name. So weird hoped
that by celebrating the everyday cats. He I love that
earlier point. He's not trying to make money. What he
was genuine It appears to be the case that what
he was genuinely trying to do was inspired owners of
cats or humans of cats throughout all socioeconomic levels to
(12:10):
take better care of these feelines. So this next exhibition
has many more cats on display, there's an expanded judge pool.
They also have trophies that they're awarding to people. It's
it's getting legit. But then of course fame gets in
(12:31):
the way. Uh. The shows at Crystal Palace did have
a positive impact on social perception of cats and they
were getting they were gradually becoming less of a divisive
thing to have in your home. In We're founds the
National Cat Club. He appoints himself president and then they
(12:53):
have their first official show at the Crystal Palace, as
you know, like the National Cat Club cat show or
cat competition, cat petition. The pieces are there, Yeah, and
you know, and what we were saying, I think the
first go of this there were somewhere between a hundred
two two hundred entries. This one had more than three
(13:16):
hundred and twenty UH entries into the competition. Again, it
just seems like it would have been absolute chaos, but
they seem to manage to keep under control. But the
interesting thing is we're kind of starts to get the
sense that people, other people's motivations aren't as pure as his.
Other people aren't in it just for the cat, you know.
(13:39):
And he expressed in eight two in a new preface
for the second edition of Our Cats and All About Them.
Uh he he kind of expressed remorse ever having been
part of the National Cat Club. He said he no
longer believed in their ideals instead of like this, I
now feel the deepest regret that I was ever induced
(14:00):
to be in any way associated with it. Uh. The
main problem, he said in the same statement, was that
a lot of these be he considered a lot of
these uh so called cat fanciers to be narcissists. Um.
And it was all about themselves. It was all about
what could the cats do for them in terms of
their image or whatever, rather than focusing on the animals themselves.
(14:23):
He went on to say, I found the principal idea
of many of its members consisted not so much in
promoting the welfare of the cat, which he capitalizes by
the way like you would like god, um, as of
winning prizes and more particularly their own cat club medals.
And by the way, we're was known for his reverend
capitalization of the word cat. This guy meant business and
(14:47):
in his defense, it was Uh, the arbitrary capitalization of
different things was more common back then. But still, yes,
that's definitely a choice. That's a feline flex on his part.
The issue is that the general public was not eligible
to win these special medals. The only way you could
win a cat club medal is if you were a
(15:09):
cat club member or a cat who's human was cat
club member. So we thought this was super snotty. And
you know what, he was right because he had been
trying to raise respect for cats, so he needed the
ruling class, the wealthy class on board there. But he
didn't know they would bring their elitist tendencies along, and
(15:32):
of course they did. It was part of the way
they defined themselves at the time. So now cats in
general are no longer considered super dirty and wicked. But
there's there are a lot of class issues that are
ruining cat shows for Harry. Uh. Some judging categories are
divided by the class not of the cat, but of
(15:53):
the cat owner. And uh, this one reporter who went
to a national cat club show in a t said
the following, I am sorry to see that some cats
entered into the working men's classes are also entered into
the ordinary classes. These, to my mind, are only bogus
working men's cats. Pre Bill and Ted's excellent adventure, bogus
(16:18):
was a much more um impactful, insulting word. Yeah, it's
almost like we're kind of created a monster with with
this whole thing. Like he was in it for all
the right reasons, and he was he was doing it
to kind of combat the snobbery of the time when
it came to animals and pure breads and all of that,
and to get people more hip to the idea that
cats are cool too. But then, of course, as as
(16:40):
it will, uh, snobbery pervaded his cat shows and and
what they when it became was something that he did
not like, and it just kind of snowballed from there. Uh,
this kind of you know, pervasive snobbery just got deeper
and deeper. Um, and it really was kind of like
almost causing the themselves to be treated like commodities as
(17:03):
opposed to you know, what we're intended, which was to
highlight them as the noble creatures that he believed they
were and give them their due when we've got this
history of cats being treated horribly. But at the end
of the day, even if it wasn't in the way
that we're maybe wanted it to be, it certainly was
raising the profile of cats in the you know, public,
(17:26):
kind of collective unconscious, I suppose. Uh. And Francis Simpson,
a fellow cat lover, wrote in his nineteen three book
of the Cat the following in terms of like the
kind of shifting cashet of felines, he said, the cat
is gradually creeping into the affections of mankind, even in
this busy, workaday world. And then he called out we're
(17:49):
as the kind of single minded individual that led to
the quote great strides um in cat fancy dumb suppose,
especially after kind of being reviled as visionaries often are.
You'll recall back to eighteen seventy one when We're had
that really awkward encounter on the train. Or he wouldn't
(18:11):
let it lie that that cats needed to be loved, uh,
you know, and and respected, even if the general consensus
was that they were lower creatures. Right, Yeah, but the
cat world kind of turned against them for a time. Uh.
We also see other people, acknowledging his foundational role here.
Magazine called Lady's Realm in nineteen hundred expressed the same belief.
(18:37):
They said, we had quote done wonders for the amelioration
of pussy or repairing the reputation of the cat. In
just the span of thirty years, which is not a
long time, cats had gone from being chased in the
streets to be allowed to uh sit and perr by
the fireside, And Lady's Realm also included how great has
(19:02):
been the change in the conditions of life for the
harmless necessary cat. At this point, now that we're reaching
the end of our two part episode, we need to
share an epilogue because you see, nothing occurs in a vacuum.
(19:23):
That's one of the consistent lessons of history. So while
this cat craze is occurring at London's Crystal Palace, other
people throughout Europe are getting on board. They want to
be a part of this, and so that's when we
see four other cat shows being held by members of
the public unrelated to Harrison were uh there are two
(19:47):
in London, two in Scotland, and then eventually they just
become a common thing. It's no longer weird to hear
about the UH the annual cat show. Eventually, of course,
because the US is always trying to emulate European culture.
At this time, UH, the practice of the cat show
(20:08):
crosses the Atlantic. If you were at Madison Square Garden
in just hanging out, then you may have well run
into the first well known cat show on the American continant.
And the same thing happened. People started forming cat clubs,
start organizing their own events, and then they morphed into
(20:33):
the things you see today, which are still not as
popular as the as the dog shows. Right, what is
it you Canuba dog show? That's the one. I think
that's the brand that sponsors in that popular dog food.
You know I fight at the top of the show
the first episode. I almost joked, like this seems like
a relic of the past, like cat shows surely don't
(20:54):
exist anymore, and what a dummy I am, Like, of
course they still exist. They're they're not as popular or
as widely you know, broadcast or or known as dog shows,
but they certainly exist. And you can actually go to
c f A UH dot org and and see a
calendar of of cat shows and also the the year's
previous winners from all the different categories of breeds cf
(21:16):
A standing for the Cat Fanciers Association. I love that
the word fancy is still part of it, you know,
it's still in the in the nomenclature. There's a very
popular cat magazine called cat Fancy. I think there's also
dog Fancy, but I believe cat fancy is definitely a thing.
Well there, I'm sure there are fans of felines who
will tell us that cats are just fancier. Uh no,
(21:39):
no comments, no comment. I love out all animals, um, well,
not all of them. They had some things to work
out with. Possums. Possums are weird, right am I the
only one here? Like? Oh, they're very strange. I mean
even you've ever seen one like come up on you
at night with its weird transparent glowy eyes no thank you,
(21:59):
and they hiss. Will alone. Out of all the marsupials
this continent could have had, we got possums anyway. Yes, cats.
So now, as as Noel said, you can find cat
shows pretty easily in the US and in Europe, and
you see that people's opinions of cats. This is what
(22:22):
I know. I kept hilling on this the judging qualifications
and standards are still pretty arbitrary, right. The Siamese cat,
which is now the ninth most popular cat breed in America,
was once upon a time seen as a quote unnatural
nightmare kind of cats, and now here in one. It
(22:45):
seems that the more things change, the more they stay
the same. As long as there are cats, there are
going to be cat shows. Let us know if you've
gone to one, you know what I mean, Send us
pictures of your cats, or send us pictures of your pets.
Extra points extra arbitrary Internet points for uh for really
(23:06):
really weird pets. We're not gonna get into it today,
but if you wish, you want to do a little
extra reading. On the side, there is a how stuff
Works article on how cat shows work. Um just gotta
animals dot how stuff works dot com, slash pets slash
cat dash show dot htm. Uh. Some good info there
(23:26):
on just the procedural aspects of cat shows, which clearly
still exists, although unfortunately Cat Fancy Magazine stopped publishing in
two thousand and fifteen, so you know, it's tough to
be a print magazine these days. But the sentiment and
the values of cat fancy live on in homes across
(23:48):
the planet. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. Maybe
you had a furry companion of your own, purring along
as you listened. Let us know what other animal competitions
have you seen. I'm sure there their horse shows a plenty,
dressage performances and so on. The thing we mentioned earlier,
(24:10):
the thing I was saying about the most beautiful goat.
I was referring to the Maza Yen Alms competition in
Saudi Arabia. Uh, the a goat from Damascus, Dame Carer
won the first prize for most beautiful goat. Yeah. I
I don't really think of the word beautiful when I
think of goat. So maybe there in lies the irony
(24:33):
of the competition. It's a kind of goat called a
Damascus goat. Hang on, you, guys, I'm gonna say, I'm
gonna send you a picture. It's worth it. Uh. This
is this is not the specific goat, but this is
what these uh, this is what these goats look like.
So Noel Casey, I want you to pull this up.
I put it in our chat on our zoom. Check
(24:54):
this out. And that is not a beautiful goat. It
looks like a fist. It looks like you have it's like,
oh my god. And and it has weird little elf ears,
and it's eyes are and the wrong they're like it
looks like a like a lizard, like it's got an
eye on each side of its head. That is idious.
What is going on? Wow? Yeah, well beauties of the
(25:15):
eyebill holder, Casey, what do you think about that? Guy?
I mean, it's a very unique, so diplomatic, but I
would not associate that with beauty now. So again, that's
that's one of our that's another way to prove that
sometimes these standards can be arbitrary. Thanks so much for
coming along with us on this journey. Thanks to Harrison
(25:38):
Weird for redeeming the cat, Thanks to our long suffering
super producer at Casey Pegram and and of course thanks
to Christopher Haciots faced Alex Williams who composed our theme.
Eve's Jeff Coach. Check out her show This Day and
History Class along with Jay dot Ill, the podcast which
(25:59):
she produces huge thanks to research associate Gabe Louisier and
Cat Fancier. I imagine I assume we'll have to confirm
that later directly. But this was definitely a doozy of
a two parter. I certainly learned a lot. I'm a
cat owner and I didn't know half of this stuff.
And we would like to hear from you. If you
want to start a cat picture or pet picture sharing thread,
(26:22):
go on over to Ridiculous Historians on Facebook and uh,
let us let us know what your non human companions
look like again in bonus points for any really exotic
or unexpected ones. You can also find us on Instagram.
You can find us on Twitter, not just as shows,
but as individuals. That's right. You can find me on Instagram.
(26:44):
I am at how now Noel Brown, and you can
send me your pet pictures directly if you prefer at
ben Bullet hsw on Twitter or at ben Bullet on Instagram. Yes, Noel,
what a ride. I tell you, man, I would be
weirded out go into a cat show, not because of
the cats, but because I feel like I might run
(27:06):
into some very aristocratic person who would make me uncomfortable.
You know what I mean? Oh, I definitely twopen. You
gotta fear of the aristocrats. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
(27:27):
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
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Noel Brown
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