April 7, 2021 • 34 mins
Yves joins us to discuss the 'Mistress of Modern Magic', Ellen E. Armstrong, often considered the first African-American woman magician to run an independent touring magic show. Amazing alliteration abounds!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
I've never told you protection of I Heart Radio. It
is time for another episode of Female First, which means
we are once again joined by our good friend in
colleague Eves. Hello, Eves. Hey, Hey y'all. I oh, We're
(00:29):
so happy to have you. As always, we did have
some technical difficulties this morning, but I was supposed to
be a professional. But the fact that you caught it
before we were in the middle of recording very yeah.
I knew that's where I don't know until after the fact.
(00:49):
That's what I was afraid of. I was like, oh, God, like,
if if this all, if this all falls apart in
the middle of the episode, I'm going to be so
sad because I feel like losing content, like losing anything
you recorded or anything you have saved. It is just
it's the wst feeling in the world. Yeah. Yeah, and
I've done that twice now. When I first started on
(01:13):
Stuff I Never told you as the producer, I was
so nervous because again I had like no training for
that job, and they taught me, but I was just like,
I'm a nervous soul anyway. And then They're like, okay,
record this podcast, and I forgot to press record and
I realized like ten minutes in, but it took me
like two minutes before I got the courage to stop them,
(01:34):
and I lied and I said something like, oh, it
was a technical malfunction, but I definitely just forgot. So
we all have been there, is what I'm trying to say. Yes,
I've been there. Yeah. So I did want to ask
you all in relation to this episode and what we're
gonna be talking about today, were either of you ever
(01:56):
into magic? Do you have any tricks? All? Semanth I
had a couple of tricks, and both of them were
very amateur at best. And I'm not going to give
away my tricks. When we see to the face to face,
I might actually be able to do something I can't remember.
(02:17):
I think one of them was done by my brother.
Taught me one of them, and the other one just
happened because I had the equipment for it. But it's
very specific and I'm very good entertainer, so I was
able to, like, you know, pull it off as a child.
So I'm pretty sure half of it was adults just
(02:37):
be nice and pretending like they don't know what I'm doing,
but I felt like I was a success. I have
so many follow up questions to that very vague for it.
What does that mean? You can tell you can't tell
your tricks? If I tell you the equipment that I
have for then you know, come on so more. Great
(03:00):
magician never never gives away. M h wow. Okay, well
I would definitely love to see a Symanthemcvey magic show
once Quarantine it's over. Yeah, yeah, I feel like we
should just we should put on a magic show. You
(03:21):
understand my magic. It would be a thirty second extravaganza. True,
you look away, You've just missed the whole thing. I like,
I'll doin it again. It was amazing. Yeah, I have none,
I have no, I've never Yeah, I was never into magic. Um.
I read about magic, but that was the farthest it
(03:42):
went growing up. The magic that I'm going to claim
is that my birthday is the same as Harry Houdini's,
which I must have some legacy in the date that
is Marsh twenty four of magic in whatever kind of
universal universal situation is happening on Mars. But yeah, other
than that, I just no. There there is no magic.
(04:03):
No magic talent here for me. Wait wait that Hudini
was like an escape artist, right, Yeah, so we're gonna
need you to learn an escape trick of some sort. Yeah. Well,
I will say I've just been watching a lot of
Arrested Development because of Jessica Walter's death, and I was like, oh,
I wanna I want to see this did not age? Well,
just just put that out there. But I do love
(04:25):
Job's magic stuff all the time. I'm like, that's about right,
that's about how I would do it. Too awful. Well,
happy belated birthday Eves. Yeah. Yeah. My little brother was
really into magic and magic tricks, although I can't recall
any of them, so I must not have been very impressed.
(04:46):
I have one card trick I can do, but it
kind of takes a minute, so I feel like people
get bored during it. It's not the best trick, but
I can do it. And then I have it's not
really a magic trick at all, but I can do
that thing where you make fire in your hand with
a lighter. Yeah, that's what I have. Anything with fire fantastic.
(05:08):
People who have known me for a long time will
tell you that's probably the worst trip I'm very clumsy
and accident prom and I should not be messing with fire.
But so you're like job where you set people on
fire and or just put a lot of fluid on people. Yeah, yeah,
I have accidentally set a trash can on fire once. Um.
So anyway, we're talking about someone who had much more
(05:30):
success than any of us today. Who did you ring
for as Eves Ellen e Armstrong today? And that's the
reason we're talking about magic because we're talking about a
magician and she came from a family of magicians too.
So as always, like the first are a very weird thing,
and there I'm sure there are a lot of undocumented
like magical arts performers that are happening, but like the
(05:53):
first that we're going for today is that she was
the first and only black woman of her time to
run an independent during magic show. So there are a
lot of caveats in there, but I think it's just
good to think about this quote unquote first as just
like she was one of the very few people at
the time who was a black woman who was performing magic,
(06:14):
and she had her own show in which she toured
around the United States. Yeah, we were very excited. Uh
was magic show I'm sorry to disappoint in that regard.
Maybe I should learn something and bring it back to you.
I'll teach you one of my tricks. Okay, I only
have to Alright, alright, I'll take that. But no, Yeah,
(06:34):
I've really magic really excites me too. Like I said earlier,
I'm like into fantasy and into reading about magic and
and things like that, and I think just I'm into
the occult and all of the things that have to
do with illusion and things like that are really cool
to me too. So I'm excited about Lennie Armstrong too.
And there have been some people who have you know,
talked about her in her biography, but there's not a
(06:56):
whole heck of a lot out there about Elenie Armstrong
and the specifics in the details of her story. But
there have been a bunch of newspaper stories about them
performing in different locations around the United States, mainly on
the East Coast. And yeah, we'll get into that a
little bit, and a little bit about the just not
(07:17):
too much, but a little bit about the magician, the
background of black magicians in the United States, and of
her family's magic. Yeah, I mean family of magicians. I
thought already like I'm in and this needs to be
a book series. So shall we get to her history? Yeah,
let's do it. So family of magicians, including her father.
Her father was a pretty noted magician, and there were
(07:41):
magicians early on the eighteen hundreds, in the early nineteen hundreds.
Of course, there is a very rich history of the
performing arts and vaudeville and those kind of circuits in
the United States back in those days, and black performers
were often a part of that. There were traveling circuses
in the US that included performances by magicians, and there
were other names back in the day of some early
(08:02):
black magicians, such as people like Richard Potter, who was
considered the first black American magician and may have even
been the first American born magician of any race according
to documentation for the United States History. But yeah, there
are magic and traveling shows were a part of of
U S history at that time. And Ellen herself she
(08:25):
was born in nineteen fourteen, but she came from this
family of black American magicians. Her father was John Hartford
Armstrong and he was born in South Carolina around eighteen
eighty six. He was probably a mixed race this is
kind of I guess I should tell a little bit
about my like interest in Ellen E. Armstrong in the
first place, because I was trying to have a list
(08:46):
of people who I keep running to do for for
the female first series, and was like thinking of doing
another person, and then I was like, hmm, I don't know.
I kind of wanted a bit more information on her.
And I was waiting for a book to come in
and I was looking around my house and I was like,
wait a second, I have a poster. I have a
broadside of Ellen E. Armstrong on the wall in my
(09:08):
living room, and I was like, wait, why don't I
just do Ellennie Armstrong? Like I know there's not a
ton of documentation out there on her, but obviously I
knew that we would love a magician, like we haven't
done a magician before. Yes, I haven't done a magician before.
And magic is really fun, Like it's really lighthearted, you know,
like it's I think it's a really cool practice. And
(09:31):
also it was just, you know, wanted to dig back
into her history and learn a little bit more about her,
and the other part of that it's a really cool broadside,
you know. I think posters from back in the day.
And we'll talk about some of those posters and what
they said on them a little bit later on in
the episode. Are really cool. So I was drawn to
her when I found the broad Side, So I was
just like, Okay, I had to get this, and I've
(09:51):
had it for several years now. But the other connection
there was that her family lived in South Carolina, and
I'm from South Carolina, Columbia specifically, so Spartanburg and Columbia
are thinks come up in her history. So yeah, that's
that's like where I came from. Why I felt this
connection to ELLENI Armstrong in the beginning. But yeah, moving
on with her story, her father learned magic and towards
the American South Um. He dubbed himself the King of
(10:14):
Colored Conjurors, which is we all love a good alliteration.
More alliteration is going to come in here later. But
he and his brother also performed magic. They build themselves
as the Armstrong Brothers, and they performed at black churches
in schools in North and South Carolina. And John would
(10:34):
include black history and his magic acts too, so things
like including the story of Frederick Douglas in one of
his acts, So blackness and black history were things that
came up in their actual acts. You know, of course
they lived their lives as black people, but that was
also something that came up in their acts that they
tied into them. And his wife, his first wife, Mabel White,
(10:56):
joined the act as an assistant. She died years later,
but he remarried to Lily Armstrong, and she was a
musician and she would help with the Armstrong's shows, So
she joined the family and performing magic. So all the
hands of the family were coming in and assisting on
the shows, and the shows were doing really well. Of course,
(11:18):
there weren't a bunch of black American magicians at the time,
but there's a description of the Armstrong family in one
of the papers in a collection at the South Caroliniana
Library at the University of South Carolina. It says that
they were one of a handful of black magicians of
this era and likely were the only ones to have
(11:39):
an international reputation um and it said that they performed
along the Atlantic seaboard from Philadelphia to Key West, in Cuba,
and in Europe from eighty nine to at least in
nineteen thirties. So of course some of that time is
before Ellenie Armstrong herself was born, but she was born
into this family that was already doing touring of magic acts.
So some of the acts that they performed were things
(12:01):
like mind reading, sleight of hand, changing water to wine
it said, card tricks, and changing an egg into a chick.
So those are some of the things. And when you're
taking chick, you're talking about a chicken, right, yes, just
so I know, I'm just thinking, I feel like the
modern Dame. This reminded me. I saw this magic show
(12:28):
and I was an Indian and I'm pretty sure something
was lost in translation, but I didn't get what was
going on. And I was called out to be a
volunteer and I just had to pour water out over
and over again, and he would say Watcher of India.
And it was supposed to be a trick, but I
don't get it sticking around like that. There's still water
(12:48):
in here. I'm not pouring out all the water. The
context was just lost there. It was lost on me. Wow,
if anybody knows what that trick is semetric, please let
us know. Curious. It haunts me. That's funny. Yeah. Some
(13:24):
of the places where they performed were churches, high schools, colleges,
and so these were family events and they performed for
white audiences, were mixed audiences, and auditoriums and theaters and
opera houses in other places like that. And there are
other newspaper articles and letters talking about arm Staring performances,
(13:44):
which you can find online at the collection at the USC.
They're digitized. I'll read from some of those just so
you can get a sense of like what people were writing,
because they're there are a bunch of them, and a
bunch of letters of recommendation that people were sending to
recommend them and saying they were these great magic performers,
very glowing reviews of the things that they did. So
(14:05):
here's the one from the Florida Centinel. It's called the
Armstrongs in town. It said Professor J. Hartford Armstrong, Hertford,
the Gray, and Mrs Armstrong prestigiators, which was a word
that I did not know, but it's an old word
for contraar and my readers arrived in the city last
Wednesday from a splendid trip from Cuba and up the
East coast where they held big engagements and mightily please
(14:28):
the people. So that's one of the glowing reviews, and
they're a bunch of them, like that they are pretty
much the same. And here's another one about performance in Tampa, Florida.
During the past two weeks, all of Tampa has been
unusually entertained in the different churches, halls, and school houses.
The exercises have been of a high moral nature, and
the throngs of people have pronounced them the best ever
(14:51):
seen in their lines. And to know that Afro Americans
possess such excellent talent can draw such large audi there
isn't entertain them until midnight is another proof that the race,
the race is successfully competing with other races in the
most intelligent pursuits in this world. This is attributed to
(15:12):
the Armstrong Brothers. Yeah, you know, magician names, but obviously
there's a lot to unpack there. But I do really
love magician names. And there's a lot of excellent words
used in these glowing reviews of like splendidly and mightily
and high moral like interesting, yeah, family funds like that's
(15:37):
what I've seen as some of the magical tricks. And
then of course the ones after dark, like they're very
specific on who they're targeting. Oh yeah, that is true, Yes,
they are. The audiences are very clear and the lines
there are delineated pretty strongly. Yeah, I just thought I
thought that one was pretty pretty funny, just like how
they brought the whole race and do it and saying wow,
(16:00):
like these look at these model negroes. Essentially, I mean
it was unusual to see, you know, black people performing
magic at the time, and they were a very notable family. Yeah,
even today though, I think I don't know much about magic,
but there's definitely a few people who just pop in
your head, whether it's like the Chris Angel or you know,
Sick Graded Roy, David Blade. Yeah, like then they're you
(16:24):
rarely see people's color. You definitely don't see women, so
it's kind of like, wow, they were making big head
wait even for today's standard. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting too,
just the names you floated there, Like, I don't know
much about magic and magicians either, but that like, apart
from Stagfried and Roy, I feel like those dudes are
(16:46):
real intense, Like it's almost become like a metal like Copperfield.
Is that a better one. David's name, Penny Teller, Steve Old,
I don't know, we don't know. Don't talking about comfort Field, right,
(17:06):
you know who you're talking about family. Well, the point
is they're like a very a handful of like household
name magicians. But obviously they're also This is not to
say that there aren't like a ton more people who
are working in magic who are very successful. Yes, they're
also many more black people and people of color who
are also working in magic. So not to to say
(17:27):
that just because we don't know their names specifically, that
they don't exist that I think you know, or that
they're not. Oftentimes that is purposeful and it is systemic
that there are specific names that we don't know. So
but yeah, it wasn't like there were black people left
and right back in the day who were entire families
who were performing entering magic acts. I think is what
(17:50):
it really boils down to. But yeah, the occult and
spirituality and things like that were often something that was
taboo back in the day. So yeah, from another article
talking about them coming back to Newport News, the Armstrongs
will tickle your shoe strings and make your big toe laugh.
They will not pay doctor's bills if you faint from laughter.
(18:14):
Was that a saying? Was that an old time you saying,
I don't know, I don't really know what tickle your
shoe strings. I mean, there's so many things I don't
understand about that. Yeah, yeah, but I guess they were funny.
I don't know if fainting from laughter was a thing
that really happened back in the day, because they said
that on some of their copy in the documentation, and
(18:35):
I just I get like, I don't know if that
was a thing or if that was I don't know,
women fainting in media was a big thing back then
for no reason. So I don't know if it has
anything to do with that. But I thought that was
interesting too. Yeah. So there's also another one. Um. I
got a couple more here. Here's a quote. Professor Armstrong's
work is highly creditable and does not cater to ignorance
(18:58):
nor superstition. His feet are all the results of phenomena,
which are the results of science. We commend the artists,
especially because of his endeavor to remove superstition from our
people and to have them understand that everything which we
cannot comprehend at a glance does not originate from the
(19:18):
prince of evil. Professor Armstrong, after many years of work
and experiment has evolved some instructive data on the existence
and identity of the Fifth dimension. Isn't isn't that great
out there fighting Satan? Right, It's right. So many like
(19:41):
little little phrases in there that I really like in
this quote Prince of Evil, and I think that the
our people thing was was really interesting to me that
turn of phrase to remove supercition from our people, which
I'm guessing they mean black people by that. And also
how they wrapped, how they just tried, They just tried
(20:03):
so hard to make it seem like it was something
that was so straightforward, so straight down the middle. It
had nothing to do with anything occult. It wasn't anything
that was weird, nothing that was woo woo, nothing about it.
It was all good. But then you end with the
fifth dimension. It was like all science and data and
also the fifth dimension. Okay, yeah, but yeah, there's there's
(20:25):
a lot to unpack there. And then the last one
is just a letter of recommendation from Bethel a m. E.
Church in Dalton, Georgia in April of nineteen fourteen, and
they said this is to certify that the Armstrong Brothers
gave one of their high class entertainments at our church,
Bethel Aamy last Monday night to a crowded house. To
say that they pleased the audience to the highest degree
of satisfaction is put putting it moudly. The people of Dalton, Georgia,
(20:49):
representing all classes, were loud in their praises of this
very high class entertainment Georgia. That is ridiculously progressive of them. Yeah,
as that still one of the areas that I'm always
timmant to go to myself. Yeah yeah, wow, yeah, granted
it was that at a m E church, but yes, yeah, yeah.
(21:12):
So that's that's just a sampling of some of the
um the letters and the articles that were written about
them and their performances, and there are a bunch more
that you can go through and read. Yeah. So in
that collection you can also find portraits of the families,
so you can see pictures of them and you can
(21:34):
find it's like pictures of them in front of their home,
separate portraits of the different family members. But I think
it's funny that they mentioned representing all classes in that
last quote. Their shows would appeal to middle and working
class black people. Well, you know what you can call
like what you would consider middle class, but who didn't
(21:55):
care to go to minstrel our vaudeville shows, and we're
attracted to that kind of educational spin of the Armstrong shows.
Some Black American entertainers would, and I think that's like
the whole classing is a whole other conversation and thinking
about who were the types of people who attended their shows.
(22:15):
But some black American entertainers would pretend not to be black,
and instead I pretend they were fore and born to
make it in the United States. But yes, Ellen herself,
that was kind of a long background on her family,
but I think it's you know, necessary to just kind
of know where Ellen came from. So she grew up
in that magic and entertainment realm, and at an early
(22:36):
age she assisted her father with the magic shows. She
even had her own part of the show doing my reading.
And by the time that she was a teenager, she
was doing what was called talk talk, in which she
drew cartoons on a talkboard and when wouldn't vite audience
members up to draw as well. And her father died
(22:58):
in nineteen thirty nine and it was at that point
that she took over his magic show and kept it
going and she continued to focus on black churches in
schools on the East coast of the United States, and
she was probably the only black female magician touring in
the US at the time solo. And in the early
(23:18):
years of her doing the show on her own, she
was called the Mistress of Modern Magic, which you can
see on some of her posters, and the posters would
also describe her acts and coming back to that alliteration thing.
For some reason, on her posters they seemed to really
love alliteration, starting with the letter M for I don't
know why that letter, but for instance, the broad so
(23:40):
that I have it, says in her Modern Marvelous Matchless
Mary making March through Mystery Land. I love that, you
know m is letter if I'm remembering correct figuring it out,
connecting the dots and have nothing to do with it.
(24:01):
But I had to count it out. Wait a second,
you know any I feel like you just opened a
cannon worms, because that's one of those things that conspiracy
theorists are gonna go back and say, wait a second.
He was trying to figure out he was the fifth
dimension and the thirteenth letter, and that's going to connect
these dots and there's something. There has to be something
deeper going on. It's gonna be a Reddit tread. Yes,
(24:23):
I've been down that Reddit dread. That's not good. Don't
go down it. This is why they went from Reddit. Yeah,
(24:49):
so some of her acts are so called novelties. As
the posters called them was silken sorcery. I'm not exactly
sure what what some of these tricks are, but these
are the names for them, Silken Sorcery, the Miser's Dream,
the Mysterious Jars of Egypt, and the Puzzling Parasol. Really
(25:11):
good names they are. And the poster also said that
she had original chemical, mechanical and electrical magical experiments, and
as we talked about earlier, kind of like the educational
spin that it had on it. Some of the other
words that were used to describe the acts were clean, scientific, educational,
(25:33):
and amusing. So the imagery and the portrayal of what
her entertainment acts were were was very like. It seemed
like a very buttoned up thing. And so we're all
the letters of recommendations in the articles the way they
described here in such a like very neat way. It
seems like it was very controlled like the words that
(25:54):
people were using to describe them to make sure that
they were able to perform in more venues and that
they would have peeled to audiences and that they would
actually get the money you know, that they needed to
get from these performances because it was a living. You know,
they were being paid for this, so it was important
for them and for her to be able to continue
to do that. Right. I find it interesting that they
(26:14):
keep calling this, I guess, and it is a letter
of recommendation, essentially having to be like, see this other
plus really liked us and they approved. Yeah you should too.
And I find that very like a fascinating way of
traveling and entertaining. Yeah. Well, I feel like there's an
air of like kind of being safe. Like it's educational,
Like it's not like the occult. It's a very educational,
(26:36):
child friendly show. It's gonna be good. We we don't
do anything to entertain the evil of darkness. Yeah, no
prince of evil to be found in any of these performances.
So the Times in Democrat newspaper out of Orangeburg, South Carolina,
had a section titled News of Interest to color People,
(26:59):
which was funny to me. Is as if only only
people of color could be interested in things that were
happening about people. This is in February nineteen fifty, and
he said, Ellen E. Armstrong will present a magical act
at seven thirty Friday at East Middle School. The act
is the same as that formerly performed by their original
Jay Hartford Armstrong. At mission will be thirty five cents
(27:21):
for adults, twenty five for students, in fifteen cents for tots,
which is what they called children in several instances in
some of these tots. And I think thirty five cents
in nineteen fifty that would be about a little less
than four dollars in today's money. So yeah. She later
she focused on her chalk talk act and would use
a pad in crayons instead and will let other people
come up and draw. Still, and she was still she
(27:44):
was emphasizing her cartooning skills. So you'll see her called
an extraordinary or cartoonists extraordinary or something like that, and
the posters. So not only was she a magical artist,
she was also great at drawing and dick cartoons. And
she retired in nineteen seventy and spent her later years
in spartan Burg, South Carolina and she died in nineteen
seventy nine, but I'm not sure of the circumstances of
(28:07):
her death. But yeah, Fortunately, like I said, you can
find some of those digitized writings about her online and
we still have access to pictures of the family and
know a little bit about what their magical acts were.
Although I wish that there was video. I wish that
there was some of those acts. That's what I really want.
I would love to know more about what the actual
(28:31):
acts were. Like, Yeah, so based on some of the names,
I know that they were pretty cool. But yeah, the
puzzling parasol, that's what I want to know, right Well,
I was you don't want to know that Egypt one
that seemed cool too. Yeah, that one's related to my
water of India things. That's that joke was on me.
(28:54):
That's the backstory that we didn't know that the jar
you reported from was a mysterious jar of Egypt because
the water was Indian water. Oh, I like this, was
there any cartoons that like, did they have any records
or pictures of the cartoons that she had drawn at
(29:15):
any point in time? I haven't seen any. I haven't
seen it was interested. I would imagine if I think
some of those people took them home, so I took
them with them, some of the drawings that were done
as part of her acts. So I wonder if there
are any out there that people still have from going
to one of the shows. But I'm not sure I
would that. I would love that assessed up her beginning
of her career with her father. I would love to
(29:36):
see because people obviously liked it that it carried on.
I love to see how it works. Yeah, that would
be cool. Like the progression of it too, that would
be really cool. Yeah. Well, this this has been a delight,
so many fun names and words going on in this one.
(29:57):
Is there anything else you have before we wrap up
on this one? No, I think that is it. Man.
I do wish I could just see in her show.
I'm wondering what it was like. The description makes it
so intriguing on how they're trying to be that fine
line of no, we're not into devil worshiping, but we
do know magic and the element, like just like what
(30:18):
is this? And then the fact that the entire thing
is if laughing hearts stay at home like a light
that's part of their poster and like, wait, huh, Like
she's not, just like she's obviously a very much an entertainer.
Her family was an entertainer. But I don't wonder, No,
I wish I was one of those shows. Okay, I'm
(30:39):
gonna well, we'll get this sminty magic here together, and
it's gonna be a train wreck. Not just entertaining, no,
but well not for us, but other people might laugh
out terrible it is. That's how I get fired because
I started to fire at the office. Essentially, she just
(30:59):
said herself on by and we see the zoom video
and I'm like, well, that was a mistake. Never again,
I've made a huge mistake. Going back to job and
his magic show. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited for the possibilities.
And thank you so much for bringing this story to
her attention, Eaves. It was a very very fun one. Yes,
(31:21):
thanks for having me. That was that was fun. It was.
Where can the good listeners find you? You can find
me on Twitter at us Jeff Coe, on Instagram at
not Apologizing, and also on the show This Day in
History Class, which is a daily show about history talks
about other people that did cool things in history, just
(31:43):
like Ellenie Armstrong and events that happen in history, and
also on the podcast Unpopular, which is about people in
history as well, but a little bit different in terms
of talking about their biographies and what they did in
order to disrupt systems and where they were often persecuted,
and it goes through those stories. And this also here.
(32:07):
I think this issode. Okay, Yeah, I feel like we
went through this Samantha the last time because I feel
like in my record keeping, I feel like I might
have skipped an episode. So I'm like record keeping, I
make it sound like it's very serious and important, like
I don't know a micro fush and like fire safe
(32:30):
lock container somewhere, But no, it's just my notes app.
But I feel like I skipped something in there, so
I don't know. I'm gonna have to go back in
go through. Yeah, we'll have to fact check that it's
very important, very important. Yeah, there's no way we can
ever know Slash it's recorded. I think, I I believe
(32:54):
we can get to the bottom of this, But I
actually am if listeners know this. But I actually have
a really weird thing with numbers, so I do want
to know so I can keep tracks specific important numbered
episode so by the next episode will know Okay, we
have to also know when to eat the cheesecake, so yeah,
good cake and all of those things. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(33:18):
we're coming up on that. We might have already missed.
We might already be too late, because if you're talking
about episode doing that, we'll figure that. We'll good do
sminth tea housekeeping and figure that out in the meantime. Listeners,
If you would like to contact us, you can our emails,
Stuff Media, Mom and Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts,
(33:40):
or on Instagram and stuff We've Never Told You. Thanks.
It's always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You production of I Heart Radio from more podcasts from
I Hear Radio. Visit the iHeart Radio at Baffle Podcasts,
or if you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stuff
I've never told you protection of I Heart Radio. It
is time for another episode of Female First, which means
we are once again joined by our good friend in
colleague Eves. Hello, Eves. Hey, Hey y'all. I oh, We're
(00:29):
so happy to have you. As always, we did have
some technical difficulties this morning, but I was supposed to
be a professional. But the fact that you caught it
before we were in the middle of recording very yeah.
I knew that's where I don't know until after the fact.
(00:49):
That's what I was afraid of. I was like, oh, God, like,
if if this all, if this all falls apart in
the middle of the episode, I'm going to be so
sad because I feel like losing content, like losing anything
you recorded or anything you have saved. It is just
it's the wst feeling in the world. Yeah. Yeah, and
I've done that twice now. When I first started on
(01:13):
Stuff I Never told you as the producer, I was
so nervous because again I had like no training for
that job, and they taught me, but I was just like,
I'm a nervous soul anyway. And then They're like, okay,
record this podcast, and I forgot to press record and
I realized like ten minutes in, but it took me
like two minutes before I got the courage to stop them,
(01:34):
and I lied and I said something like, oh, it
was a technical malfunction, but I definitely just forgot. So
we all have been there, is what I'm trying to say. Yes,
I've been there. Yeah. So I did want to ask
you all in relation to this episode and what we're
gonna be talking about today, were either of you ever
(01:56):
into magic? Do you have any tricks? All? Semanth I
had a couple of tricks, and both of them were
very amateur at best. And I'm not going to give
away my tricks. When we see to the face to face,
I might actually be able to do something I can't remember.
(02:17):
I think one of them was done by my brother.
Taught me one of them, and the other one just
happened because I had the equipment for it. But it's
very specific and I'm very good entertainer, so I was
able to, like, you know, pull it off as a child.
So I'm pretty sure half of it was adults just
(02:37):
be nice and pretending like they don't know what I'm doing,
but I felt like I was a success. I have
so many follow up questions to that very vague for it.
What does that mean? You can tell you can't tell
your tricks? If I tell you the equipment that I
have for then you know, come on so more. Great
(03:00):
magician never never gives away. M h wow. Okay, well
I would definitely love to see a Symanthemcvey magic show
once Quarantine it's over. Yeah, yeah, I feel like we
should just we should put on a magic show. You
(03:21):
understand my magic. It would be a thirty second extravaganza. True,
you look away, You've just missed the whole thing. I like,
I'll doin it again. It was amazing. Yeah, I have none,
I have no, I've never Yeah, I was never into magic. Um.
I read about magic, but that was the farthest it
(03:42):
went growing up. The magic that I'm going to claim
is that my birthday is the same as Harry Houdini's,
which I must have some legacy in the date that
is Marsh twenty four of magic in whatever kind of
universal universal situation is happening on Mars. But yeah, other
than that, I just no. There there is no magic.
(04:03):
No magic talent here for me. Wait wait that Hudini
was like an escape artist, right, Yeah, so we're gonna
need you to learn an escape trick of some sort. Yeah. Well,
I will say I've just been watching a lot of
Arrested Development because of Jessica Walter's death, and I was like, oh,
I wanna I want to see this did not age? Well,
just just put that out there. But I do love
(04:25):
Job's magic stuff all the time. I'm like, that's about right,
that's about how I would do it. Too awful. Well,
happy belated birthday Eves. Yeah. Yeah. My little brother was
really into magic and magic tricks, although I can't recall
any of them, so I must not have been very impressed.
(04:46):
I have one card trick I can do, but it
kind of takes a minute, so I feel like people
get bored during it. It's not the best trick, but
I can do it. And then I have it's not
really a magic trick at all, but I can do
that thing where you make fire in your hand with
a lighter. Yeah, that's what I have. Anything with fire fantastic.
(05:08):
People who have known me for a long time will
tell you that's probably the worst trip I'm very clumsy
and accident prom and I should not be messing with fire.
But so you're like job where you set people on
fire and or just put a lot of fluid on people. Yeah, yeah,
I have accidentally set a trash can on fire once. Um.
So anyway, we're talking about someone who had much more
(05:30):
success than any of us today. Who did you ring
for as Eves Ellen e Armstrong today? And that's the
reason we're talking about magic because we're talking about a
magician and she came from a family of magicians too.
So as always, like the first are a very weird thing,
and there I'm sure there are a lot of undocumented
like magical arts performers that are happening, but like the
(05:53):
first that we're going for today is that she was
the first and only black woman of her time to
run an independent during magic show. So there are a
lot of caveats in there, but I think it's just
good to think about this quote unquote first as just
like she was one of the very few people at
the time who was a black woman who was performing magic,
(06:14):
and she had her own show in which she toured
around the United States. Yeah, we were very excited. Uh
was magic show I'm sorry to disappoint in that regard.
Maybe I should learn something and bring it back to you.
I'll teach you one of my tricks. Okay, I only
have to Alright, alright, I'll take that. But no, Yeah,
(06:34):
I've really magic really excites me too. Like I said earlier,
I'm like into fantasy and into reading about magic and
and things like that, and I think just I'm into
the occult and all of the things that have to
do with illusion and things like that are really cool
to me too. So I'm excited about Lennie Armstrong too.
And there have been some people who have you know,
talked about her in her biography, but there's not a
(06:56):
whole heck of a lot out there about Elenie Armstrong
and the specifics in the details of her story. But
there have been a bunch of newspaper stories about them
performing in different locations around the United States, mainly on
the East Coast. And yeah, we'll get into that a
little bit, and a little bit about the just not
(07:17):
too much, but a little bit about the magician, the
background of black magicians in the United States, and of
her family's magic. Yeah, I mean family of magicians. I
thought already like I'm in and this needs to be
a book series. So shall we get to her history? Yeah,
let's do it. So family of magicians, including her father.
Her father was a pretty noted magician, and there were
(07:41):
magicians early on the eighteen hundreds, in the early nineteen hundreds.
Of course, there is a very rich history of the
performing arts and vaudeville and those kind of circuits in
the United States back in those days, and black performers
were often a part of that. There were traveling circuses
in the US that included performances by magicians, and there
were other names back in the day of some early
(08:02):
black magicians, such as people like Richard Potter, who was
considered the first black American magician and may have even
been the first American born magician of any race according
to documentation for the United States History. But yeah, there
are magic and traveling shows were a part of of
U S history at that time. And Ellen herself she
(08:25):
was born in nineteen fourteen, but she came from this
family of black American magicians. Her father was John Hartford
Armstrong and he was born in South Carolina around eighteen
eighty six. He was probably a mixed race this is
kind of I guess I should tell a little bit
about my like interest in Ellen E. Armstrong in the
first place, because I was trying to have a list
(08:46):
of people who I keep running to do for for
the female first series, and was like thinking of doing
another person, and then I was like, hmm, I don't know.
I kind of wanted a bit more information on her.
And I was waiting for a book to come in
and I was looking around my house and I was like,
wait a second, I have a poster. I have a
broadside of Ellen E. Armstrong on the wall in my
(09:08):
living room, and I was like, wait, why don't I
just do Ellennie Armstrong? Like I know there's not a
ton of documentation out there on her, but obviously I
knew that we would love a magician, like we haven't
done a magician before. Yes, I haven't done a magician before.
And magic is really fun, Like it's really lighthearted, you know,
like it's I think it's a really cool practice. And
(09:31):
also it was just, you know, wanted to dig back
into her history and learn a little bit more about her,
and the other part of that it's a really cool broadside,
you know. I think posters from back in the day.
And we'll talk about some of those posters and what
they said on them a little bit later on in
the episode. Are really cool. So I was drawn to
her when I found the broad Side, So I was
just like, Okay, I had to get this, and I've
(09:51):
had it for several years now. But the other connection
there was that her family lived in South Carolina, and
I'm from South Carolina, Columbia specifically, so Spartanburg and Columbia
are thinks come up in her history. So yeah, that's
that's like where I came from. Why I felt this
connection to ELLENI Armstrong in the beginning. But yeah, moving
on with her story, her father learned magic and towards
the American South Um. He dubbed himself the King of
(10:14):
Colored Conjurors, which is we all love a good alliteration.
More alliteration is going to come in here later. But
he and his brother also performed magic. They build themselves
as the Armstrong Brothers, and they performed at black churches
in schools in North and South Carolina. And John would
(10:34):
include black history and his magic acts too, so things
like including the story of Frederick Douglas in one of
his acts, So blackness and black history were things that
came up in their actual acts. You know, of course
they lived their lives as black people, but that was
also something that came up in their acts that they
tied into them. And his wife, his first wife, Mabel White,
(10:56):
joined the act as an assistant. She died years later,
but he remarried to Lily Armstrong, and she was a
musician and she would help with the Armstrong's shows, So
she joined the family and performing magic. So all the
hands of the family were coming in and assisting on
the shows, and the shows were doing really well. Of course,
(11:18):
there weren't a bunch of black American magicians at the time,
but there's a description of the Armstrong family in one
of the papers in a collection at the South Caroliniana
Library at the University of South Carolina. It says that
they were one of a handful of black magicians of
this era and likely were the only ones to have
(11:39):
an international reputation um and it said that they performed
along the Atlantic seaboard from Philadelphia to Key West, in Cuba,
and in Europe from eighty nine to at least in
nineteen thirties. So of course some of that time is
before Ellenie Armstrong herself was born, but she was born
into this family that was already doing touring of magic acts.
So some of the acts that they performed were things
(12:01):
like mind reading, sleight of hand, changing water to wine
it said, card tricks, and changing an egg into a chick.
So those are some of the things. And when you're
taking chick, you're talking about a chicken, right, yes, just
so I know, I'm just thinking, I feel like the
modern Dame. This reminded me. I saw this magic show
(12:28):
and I was an Indian and I'm pretty sure something
was lost in translation, but I didn't get what was
going on. And I was called out to be a
volunteer and I just had to pour water out over
and over again, and he would say Watcher of India.
And it was supposed to be a trick, but I
don't get it sticking around like that. There's still water
(12:48):
in here. I'm not pouring out all the water. The
context was just lost there. It was lost on me. Wow,
if anybody knows what that trick is semetric, please let
us know. Curious. It haunts me. That's funny. Yeah. Some
(13:24):
of the places where they performed were churches, high schools, colleges,
and so these were family events and they performed for
white audiences, were mixed audiences, and auditoriums and theaters and
opera houses in other places like that. And there are
other newspaper articles and letters talking about arm Staring performances,
(13:44):
which you can find online at the collection at the USC.
They're digitized. I'll read from some of those just so
you can get a sense of like what people were writing,
because they're there are a bunch of them, and a
bunch of letters of recommendation that people were sending to
recommend them and saying they were these great magic performers,
very glowing reviews of the things that they did. So
(14:05):
here's the one from the Florida Centinel. It's called the
Armstrongs in town. It said Professor J. Hartford Armstrong, Hertford,
the Gray, and Mrs Armstrong prestigiators, which was a word
that I did not know, but it's an old word
for contraar and my readers arrived in the city last
Wednesday from a splendid trip from Cuba and up the
East coast where they held big engagements and mightily please
(14:28):
the people. So that's one of the glowing reviews, and
they're a bunch of them, like that they are pretty
much the same. And here's another one about performance in Tampa, Florida.
During the past two weeks, all of Tampa has been
unusually entertained in the different churches, halls, and school houses.
The exercises have been of a high moral nature, and
the throngs of people have pronounced them the best ever
(14:51):
seen in their lines. And to know that Afro Americans
possess such excellent talent can draw such large audi there
isn't entertain them until midnight is another proof that the race,
the race is successfully competing with other races in the
most intelligent pursuits in this world. This is attributed to
(15:12):
the Armstrong Brothers. Yeah, you know, magician names, but obviously
there's a lot to unpack there. But I do really
love magician names. And there's a lot of excellent words
used in these glowing reviews of like splendidly and mightily
and high moral like interesting, yeah, family funds like that's
(15:37):
what I've seen as some of the magical tricks. And
then of course the ones after dark, like they're very
specific on who they're targeting. Oh yeah, that is true, Yes,
they are. The audiences are very clear and the lines
there are delineated pretty strongly. Yeah, I just thought I
thought that one was pretty pretty funny, just like how
they brought the whole race and do it and saying wow,
(16:00):
like these look at these model negroes. Essentially, I mean
it was unusual to see, you know, black people performing
magic at the time, and they were a very notable family. Yeah,
even today though, I think I don't know much about magic,
but there's definitely a few people who just pop in
your head, whether it's like the Chris Angel or you know,
Sick Graded Roy, David Blade. Yeah, like then they're you
(16:24):
rarely see people's color. You definitely don't see women, so
it's kind of like, wow, they were making big head
wait even for today's standard. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting too,
just the names you floated there, Like, I don't know
much about magic and magicians either, but that like, apart
from Stagfried and Roy, I feel like those dudes are
(16:46):
real intense, Like it's almost become like a metal like Copperfield.
Is that a better one. David's name, Penny Teller, Steve Old,
I don't know, we don't know. Don't talking about comfort Field, right,
(17:06):
you know who you're talking about family. Well, the point
is they're like a very a handful of like household
name magicians. But obviously they're also This is not to
say that there aren't like a ton more people who
are working in magic who are very successful. Yes, they're
also many more black people and people of color who
are also working in magic. So not to to say
(17:27):
that just because we don't know their names specifically, that
they don't exist that I think you know, or that
they're not. Oftentimes that is purposeful and it is systemic
that there are specific names that we don't know. So
but yeah, it wasn't like there were black people left
and right back in the day who were entire families
who were performing entering magic acts. I think is what
(17:50):
it really boils down to. But yeah, the occult and
spirituality and things like that were often something that was
taboo back in the day. So yeah, from another article
talking about them coming back to Newport News, the Armstrongs
will tickle your shoe strings and make your big toe laugh.
They will not pay doctor's bills if you faint from laughter.
(18:14):
Was that a saying? Was that an old time you saying,
I don't know, I don't really know what tickle your
shoe strings. I mean, there's so many things I don't
understand about that. Yeah, yeah, but I guess they were funny.
I don't know if fainting from laughter was a thing
that really happened back in the day, because they said
that on some of their copy in the documentation, and
(18:35):
I just I get like, I don't know if that
was a thing or if that was I don't know,
women fainting in media was a big thing back then
for no reason. So I don't know if it has
anything to do with that. But I thought that was
interesting too. Yeah. So there's also another one. Um. I
got a couple more here. Here's a quote. Professor Armstrong's
work is highly creditable and does not cater to ignorance
(18:58):
nor superstition. His feet are all the results of phenomena,
which are the results of science. We commend the artists,
especially because of his endeavor to remove superstition from our
people and to have them understand that everything which we
cannot comprehend at a glance does not originate from the
(19:18):
prince of evil. Professor Armstrong, after many years of work
and experiment has evolved some instructive data on the existence
and identity of the Fifth dimension. Isn't isn't that great
out there fighting Satan? Right, It's right. So many like
(19:41):
little little phrases in there that I really like in
this quote Prince of Evil, and I think that the
our people thing was was really interesting to me that
turn of phrase to remove supercition from our people, which
I'm guessing they mean black people by that. And also
how they wrapped, how they just tried, They just tried
(20:03):
so hard to make it seem like it was something
that was so straightforward, so straight down the middle. It
had nothing to do with anything occult. It wasn't anything
that was weird, nothing that was woo woo, nothing about it.
It was all good. But then you end with the
fifth dimension. It was like all science and data and
also the fifth dimension. Okay, yeah, but yeah, there's there's
(20:25):
a lot to unpack there. And then the last one
is just a letter of recommendation from Bethel a m. E.
Church in Dalton, Georgia in April of nineteen fourteen, and
they said this is to certify that the Armstrong Brothers
gave one of their high class entertainments at our church,
Bethel Aamy last Monday night to a crowded house. To
say that they pleased the audience to the highest degree
of satisfaction is put putting it moudly. The people of Dalton, Georgia,
(20:49):
representing all classes, were loud in their praises of this
very high class entertainment Georgia. That is ridiculously progressive of them. Yeah,
as that still one of the areas that I'm always
timmant to go to myself. Yeah yeah, wow, yeah, granted
it was that at a m E church, but yes, yeah, yeah.
(21:12):
So that's that's just a sampling of some of the
um the letters and the articles that were written about
them and their performances, and there are a bunch more
that you can go through and read. Yeah. So in
that collection you can also find portraits of the families,
so you can see pictures of them and you can
(21:34):
find it's like pictures of them in front of their home,
separate portraits of the different family members. But I think
it's funny that they mentioned representing all classes in that
last quote. Their shows would appeal to middle and working
class black people. Well, you know what you can call
like what you would consider middle class, but who didn't
(21:55):
care to go to minstrel our vaudeville shows, and we're
attracted to that kind of educational spin of the Armstrong shows.
Some Black American entertainers would, and I think that's like
the whole classing is a whole other conversation and thinking
about who were the types of people who attended their shows.
(22:15):
But some black American entertainers would pretend not to be black,
and instead I pretend they were fore and born to
make it in the United States. But yes, Ellen herself,
that was kind of a long background on her family,
but I think it's you know, necessary to just kind
of know where Ellen came from. So she grew up
in that magic and entertainment realm, and at an early
(22:36):
age she assisted her father with the magic shows. She
even had her own part of the show doing my reading.
And by the time that she was a teenager, she
was doing what was called talk talk, in which she
drew cartoons on a talkboard and when wouldn't vite audience
members up to draw as well. And her father died
(22:58):
in nineteen thirty nine and it was at that point
that she took over his magic show and kept it
going and she continued to focus on black churches in
schools on the East coast of the United States, and
she was probably the only black female magician touring in
the US at the time solo. And in the early
(23:18):
years of her doing the show on her own, she
was called the Mistress of Modern Magic, which you can
see on some of her posters, and the posters would
also describe her acts and coming back to that alliteration thing.
For some reason, on her posters they seemed to really
love alliteration, starting with the letter M for I don't
know why that letter, but for instance, the broad so
(23:40):
that I have it, says in her Modern Marvelous Matchless
Mary making March through Mystery Land. I love that, you
know m is letter if I'm remembering correct figuring it out,
connecting the dots and have nothing to do with it.
(24:01):
But I had to count it out. Wait a second,
you know any I feel like you just opened a
cannon worms, because that's one of those things that conspiracy
theorists are gonna go back and say, wait a second.
He was trying to figure out he was the fifth
dimension and the thirteenth letter, and that's going to connect
these dots and there's something. There has to be something
deeper going on. It's gonna be a Reddit tread. Yes,
(24:23):
I've been down that Reddit dread. That's not good. Don't
go down it. This is why they went from Reddit. Yeah,
(24:49):
so some of her acts are so called novelties. As
the posters called them was silken sorcery. I'm not exactly
sure what what some of these tricks are, but these
are the names for them, Silken Sorcery, the Miser's Dream,
the Mysterious Jars of Egypt, and the Puzzling Parasol. Really
(25:11):
good names they are. And the poster also said that
she had original chemical, mechanical and electrical magical experiments, and
as we talked about earlier, kind of like the educational
spin that it had on it. Some of the other
words that were used to describe the acts were clean, scientific, educational,
(25:33):
and amusing. So the imagery and the portrayal of what
her entertainment acts were were was very like. It seemed
like a very buttoned up thing. And so we're all
the letters of recommendations in the articles the way they
described here in such a like very neat way. It
seems like it was very controlled like the words that
(25:54):
people were using to describe them to make sure that
they were able to perform in more venues and that
they would have peeled to audiences and that they would
actually get the money you know, that they needed to
get from these performances because it was a living. You know,
they were being paid for this, so it was important
for them and for her to be able to continue
to do that. Right. I find it interesting that they
(26:14):
keep calling this, I guess, and it is a letter
of recommendation, essentially having to be like, see this other
plus really liked us and they approved. Yeah you should too.
And I find that very like a fascinating way of
traveling and entertaining. Yeah. Well, I feel like there's an
air of like kind of being safe. Like it's educational,
Like it's not like the occult. It's a very educational,
(26:36):
child friendly show. It's gonna be good. We we don't
do anything to entertain the evil of darkness. Yeah, no
prince of evil to be found in any of these performances.
So the Times in Democrat newspaper out of Orangeburg, South Carolina,
had a section titled News of Interest to color People,
(26:59):
which was funny to me. Is as if only only
people of color could be interested in things that were
happening about people. This is in February nineteen fifty, and
he said, Ellen E. Armstrong will present a magical act
at seven thirty Friday at East Middle School. The act
is the same as that formerly performed by their original
Jay Hartford Armstrong. At mission will be thirty five cents
(27:21):
for adults, twenty five for students, in fifteen cents for tots,
which is what they called children in several instances in
some of these tots. And I think thirty five cents
in nineteen fifty that would be about a little less
than four dollars in today's money. So yeah. She later
she focused on her chalk talk act and would use
a pad in crayons instead and will let other people
come up and draw. Still, and she was still she
(27:44):
was emphasizing her cartooning skills. So you'll see her called
an extraordinary or cartoonists extraordinary or something like that, and
the posters. So not only was she a magical artist,
she was also great at drawing and dick cartoons. And
she retired in nineteen seventy and spent her later years
in spartan Burg, South Carolina and she died in nineteen
seventy nine, but I'm not sure of the circumstances of
(28:07):
her death. But yeah, Fortunately, like I said, you can
find some of those digitized writings about her online and
we still have access to pictures of the family and
know a little bit about what their magical acts were.
Although I wish that there was video. I wish that
there was some of those acts. That's what I really want.
I would love to know more about what the actual
(28:31):
acts were. Like, Yeah, so based on some of the names,
I know that they were pretty cool. But yeah, the
puzzling parasol, that's what I want to know, right Well,
I was you don't want to know that Egypt one
that seemed cool too. Yeah, that one's related to my
water of India things. That's that joke was on me.
(28:54):
That's the backstory that we didn't know that the jar
you reported from was a mysterious jar of Egypt because
the water was Indian water. Oh, I like this, was
there any cartoons that like, did they have any records
or pictures of the cartoons that she had drawn at
(29:15):
any point in time? I haven't seen any. I haven't
seen it was interested. I would imagine if I think
some of those people took them home, so I took
them with them, some of the drawings that were done
as part of her acts. So I wonder if there
are any out there that people still have from going
to one of the shows. But I'm not sure I
would that. I would love that assessed up her beginning
of her career with her father. I would love to
(29:36):
see because people obviously liked it that it carried on.
I love to see how it works. Yeah, that would
be cool. Like the progression of it too, that would
be really cool. Yeah. Well, this this has been a delight,
so many fun names and words going on in this one.
(29:57):
Is there anything else you have before we wrap up
on this one? No, I think that is it. Man.
I do wish I could just see in her show.
I'm wondering what it was like. The description makes it
so intriguing on how they're trying to be that fine
line of no, we're not into devil worshiping, but we
do know magic and the element, like just like what
(30:18):
is this? And then the fact that the entire thing
is if laughing hearts stay at home like a light
that's part of their poster and like, wait, huh, Like
she's not, just like she's obviously a very much an entertainer.
Her family was an entertainer. But I don't wonder, No,
I wish I was one of those shows. Okay, I'm
(30:39):
gonna well, we'll get this sminty magic here together, and
it's gonna be a train wreck. Not just entertaining, no,
but well not for us, but other people might laugh
out terrible it is. That's how I get fired because
I started to fire at the office. Essentially, she just
(30:59):
said herself on by and we see the zoom video
and I'm like, well, that was a mistake. Never again,
I've made a huge mistake. Going back to job and
his magic show. Well, I'm excited. I'm excited for the possibilities.
And thank you so much for bringing this story to
her attention, Eaves. It was a very very fun one. Yes,
(31:21):
thanks for having me. That was that was fun. It was.
Where can the good listeners find you? You can find
me on Twitter at us Jeff Coe, on Instagram at
not Apologizing, and also on the show This Day in
History Class, which is a daily show about history talks
about other people that did cool things in history, just
(31:43):
like Ellenie Armstrong and events that happen in history, and
also on the podcast Unpopular, which is about people in
history as well, but a little bit different in terms
of talking about their biographies and what they did in
order to disrupt systems and where they were often persecuted,
and it goes through those stories. And this also here.
(32:07):
I think this issode. Okay, Yeah, I feel like we
went through this Samantha the last time because I feel
like in my record keeping, I feel like I might
have skipped an episode. So I'm like record keeping, I
make it sound like it's very serious and important, like
I don't know a micro fush and like fire safe
(32:30):
lock container somewhere, But no, it's just my notes app.
But I feel like I skipped something in there, so
I don't know. I'm gonna have to go back in
go through. Yeah, we'll have to fact check that it's
very important, very important. Yeah, there's no way we can
ever know Slash it's recorded. I think, I I believe
(32:54):
we can get to the bottom of this, But I
actually am if listeners know this. But I actually have
a really weird thing with numbers, so I do want
to know so I can keep tracks specific important numbered
episode so by the next episode will know Okay, we
have to also know when to eat the cheesecake, so yeah,
good cake and all of those things. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(33:18):
we're coming up on that. We might have already missed.
We might already be too late, because if you're talking
about episode doing that, we'll figure that. We'll good do
sminth tea housekeeping and figure that out in the meantime. Listeners,
If you would like to contact us, you can our emails,
Stuff Media, Mom and Stuff at iHeart media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts,
(33:40):
or on Instagram and stuff We've Never Told You. Thanks.
It's always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina,
and thanks to you for listening. Stuff I Never Told
You production of I Heart Radio from more podcasts from
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