Embroidery History Sampler, Part 2

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. This is the second
part of our episode about embroidery. History, which I mentioned
in part one, is really a sampler because there is

(00:23):
just so much history. Part one took us up through
the creation of one of the most famous pieces of
embroidery in the world, that being the Bayou Tapestry, and
today we're going to pick right back up from there.
This isn't, because of its nature, necessarily one big connected narrative,
so you could probably listen to this one without hearing

(00:43):
part one. First you'll just miss the earlier instances of
embroidery and history. But we are going to jump right
back into it, and as promised, we will talk quite
a bit about embroidery samplers today. But first we're going
to talk about our literary reference to embroidery. If you
have read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, you might have noticed a
mention of embroidery in the passage about the Miller's wife,

(01:07):
which describes her clothing. Quote of white too was the
dainty smock she wore embroidered at the collar all about
with coal black silk alike within and out. This is
a reference to a style of embroidery known as blackwork,
which originally used black silk on white or off white
linen or cotton to create a dramatic contrast. Over time,

(01:30):
other colors have been used for black work, but it's
often still in the darker color range to maintain that
really sharp difference. The reference to the collar's embellishment being
alike within and out has led to the belief that
Chaucer was probably describing a style of embroidery known as
holbind stitch. That's a double running stitch where you lay

(01:53):
out your design with the running stitch and then go
back for another pass where you fill in the gaps
left by the first one, and that gives both the
front and the back of the fabric a complete line.
In blackwork, the holbind stitch is usually used to create
the outline base of the design, and then the interior
spaces are often but not always filled in. Incidentally, the

(02:16):
holbind stitch is named for the painter Hans Holbein the
Younger because his portraits often showed subjects wearing garments that
were adorned with blackwork. We do not know when people
started using black work in England, but it was obviously
before thirteen eighty seven, which is when The Canterbury Tales
was written. Well before that, black work is believed to

(02:39):
have originated in northern Africa, specifically the area of Morocco.
When the Moors crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and moved
into Spain in the early eighth century, black work embroidery
moved with them. It evolved in the Moorish community of
Spain with new designs, and eventually was adopted into wider
Spanish culture. That is why you will sometimes see it

(03:00):
called Spanish work instead of black work, and then from
Spain it spread throughout Europe and eventually became associated very
closely with English needlework. Well before Chaucer's famous work was published,
England had become well known for the production of a
style of embroidery that was called Opus anglicanum translated from

(03:20):
Latin that's just English work. Opus anglicanum is characterized by
detailed imagery made of delicate stitches that are worked in
silk thread with gold and silver. The name was coined
in the thirteenth century, which was well after it became popular.
London was considered the epicenter for this style of work,
and though it's high degree of technical proficiency meant it

(03:43):
wasn't used for everyday items, there was quite a lot
of it produced. The style of embroidery was usually reserved
for religious garments, although it became so revered that churches
all over Europe had ecclesiastical garments embroidered in London. A
lot of examples of it from all over the European continent.

(04:04):
One is in the collection of the met in New
York and it's a chossible. That's an overlay garment worn
by a priest during Mass. It features saints on the
front of it and depictions of the Coronation of the Virgin,
the adoration of the Magi, and the Annunciation on the back.
Per the METS Online description of this garment, it once

(04:25):
included John the Evangelist and John the Baptist among the saints,
but the garment was altered at some point and their
heads were cut off to set the front piece higher
into the shoulder seam. Yeah, it had just been altered
to change with styles of the times and as a consequence, sorry,
John's yeah, it's a cut, that's a little that's a

(04:47):
that's a little weird to me, But it's funny when
you look at pictures of it. It is available to
see online. I mean there are clearly like bodies there
that just kind of end at the classical region. In
twenty sixteen, the Victorian Albert Museum in London had an
exhibition dedicated to medieval artistry and that included more than

(05:08):
one hundred Opus Anglicanum embroidery works that featured pieces that
had come from all around Europe. These items, like the
piece known as the Toledo Cope, had been created in
England on commission to be sent to churches around Europe.
So the Toledo Cope had been in Spain since its
creation in the thirteen hundreds, and that twenty sixteen exhibit

(05:29):
marked its first time back in England. And this cope
and others like that Chawsable we mentioned from the Mets
collection are covered in this incredibly rich detailed embroidery and
feature religious imagery such as Saints the Virgin Mary, et cetera.
Once we get into the fourteen hundreds, we have lots
and lots of surviving examples of embroidery. One style of

(05:52):
handiwork in the Western tradition is something that's still popular today,
and that's needlework samplers. A needlework sand is a piece
of fabric that has been embroidered with a bunch of
different designs, often showing a wide range of techniques and
stitching styles. Modern examples of samplers are often found frames
and hanging as decor, but their origin is completely practical.

(06:15):
These were really referenced documents. A stitcher might make a
sampler to show the various stitches or designs that they
had learned as they learned them, or as a way
to record designs that they liked. Then this piece of
fabric could be used as a guide so the stitcher
could review it and see what they might want to
use for an upcoming project. They have been used this

(06:38):
way going at least to the thirteen hundreds, and they
appear in a lot of different cultures. The Victoria and
Albert Museum has a sampler from Egypt with an earliest
estimated creation date of the fourteenth century. Some of the
stitching on it looks almost like crosstitch, and the designs
include what looked like stylized branching trees, a band of

(07:01):
basket weave style designs, and even a kitty that looks
like it is wearing a crown. Yeah, I might get
that as a history tattoo to match my mic. The cat.
Samplers offer an interesting look at the stitcher who creates them,
because in many cases people created multiple ones throughout their lives.

(07:22):
Some existing examples are the work of children learning the stitches,
and others are clearly the work of experienced embroiderers who
were perhaps learning new patterns, but who also maybe wanted
to show an assortment of stitches and design that showcase
their skill set. There aren't really any known historical examples
of multiple comparable samplers from one stitcher, but if you

(07:44):
were to look at a person's first sampler and then
their samplers throughout their lives, you would very clearly be
able to see the linear progression of their skill. Coming up,
we will talk about how samplers were really reference documents,
but first we will pause for a sponsor break. These

(08:10):
samplers that we talked about earlier were, for a long
time the only way that embroidered patterns could be shared
before books or sheets with instructions and designs were printed
on them. This was a good way for stitchers to
keep a record to refer back to, and it was
also a way that people could share their reference collections
so that different embroiderers could borrow patterns and designs from

(08:31):
one another. Over time, particularly in Europe, two styles of
samplers started to develop, with a degree of structure to
their layouts that were not present in earlier examples. Like
earlier examples look like I have this piece of cloth
and I'm kind of embroidering on it wherever I want
to put something. But at this point it started to
be like, here's how you lay out your sampler. Some

(08:53):
are in a style that's known as a band sampler,
in which rows of designs appear in bands across them.
These are the kinds of designs that you might expect
to see along the edges of a garment or on
linens like table cloths or pillowcases, and there are patterns
that can repeat as long as the item being embellished needs.
The other style of sampler is called a spot sampler.

(09:15):
These have various different designs included on them, but they
aren't the types of designs that generally repeat, so these
are motifs like animals, flowers, symbols, or abstract geometric shapes. Sometimes, though,
a band design or multiple band designs do appear on
a spot sampler, so you'll have like spots along the top,
bands along the bottom, or some other layout. One of

(09:38):
the most famous samplers was created by a woman named
Jane Bostock in fifteen ninety eight. It is the oldest
dated British sampler that we know of, and it represents
a moment of transition when samplers were going from practice
fabrics to display pieces. It's forty two points six centimeters
in length that's sixteen point eight and and thirty six

(10:01):
point two centimeters wide or fourteen point twenty five inches.
This sampler, which is embroidered on linen, was created to
commemorate the birth of Jane's cousin, Alice Lee, who was
born in fifteen ninety six. We know this because Jane
used her skills to embroider out the lettering that said
so on the sampler, which reads quote Alice Lee was

(10:22):
born the twenty third of November, being Tuesday in the
afternoon fifteen ninety six. Above the lettering are nature motifs.
There's a dog carrying a collar with a leash attached,
a bear with a muzzle on it surrounded by flowers,
a squirrel in a tree, and the style of lion
you would expect to see on a heraldry design. There

(10:45):
are also elements of nature motifs in the upper space
which have been unpicked so that just leaves the stitch
holes to examine. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum,
which has this piece in its collection, these unpicked designs
quote appear to be a castle on an elephant, a
squirrel cracking a nut, and a raven. Further description of

(11:07):
the sampler at the VNA website indicates that the motifs
that were removed from the sampler are associated with Jane's
side of the family tree. The ones that remain on
the sampler are associated with Alice's. Below the lettering that
notes Alice's birth, there are blocks of various geometric and
floral pattern designs. In North America, the oldest known historical

(11:29):
sampler was created by Laura Standish, daughter of Miles and
Barbara Standish, who traveled to North America on the Mayflower
and were famously part of the Plymouth Colony. Laura was
born in North America in the late sixteen twenties. Her sampler,
which is also on linen, is long and narrow. It's
twenty three point five inches at sixty centimeters long and

(11:51):
a mere seven and a half inches or nineteen centimeters wide.
It's believed that she created this sometime in the sixteen forties.
Laura embroidered her own message, which is placed at the
bottom of the sampler and reads, Laura Standish is my name, Lord,
guide my heart, that I may do Thy will also
my hands with such convenient skill as may conduce to

(12:12):
virtue void of shame, and I will give the glory
to thy name. This sampler has no standard motifs. It
is all stitched bands of design, although they do incorporate
iconography like an acorn and a rose in their repeats,
and this sampler is hugely popular with modern embroiderers. You
can easily purchase a Laura's Standish Sampler kit to recreate it.

(12:36):
As time and the art of embroidery progressed, people started
developing patterns for entire samplers with a set assortment of
designs laid out to fill the space. These are still
popular today and they offer a chance for a needle
artist to learn stitches or to practice them. You can
even purchase kits now that have a sampler that's designed

(12:57):
to be a piece of art in its own right,
with the cohesive style to all the designs and all
of the embroidery, floss and other supplies that you will
need to complete the project. An interesting holdover from earlier
samplers that is still included in the modern sampler patterns
and kits is designed to make letters of the alphabet.

(13:18):
In early samplers, these were practiced because of a practical need.
Foundation garments and personal linens like bedclothes were routinely embroidered
with the owner's initials for easier sorting of the wash
and returning things to the correct person. Worsted yarn called
cruel has been around for many centuries, dating back at

(13:38):
least to the first century BCE, but it became very
popular in the fifteenth century, and soon after embroidery that
made use of it also exploded in popularity. The word
cruel to describe this type of yarn which is spelled Crwel,
not cruel like being mean, is derived from the Welsh
word for wool, which is krua. Unlike other embroidery material,

(14:01):
which is fine and can be pulled apart, similar to
the way one might separate embroidery flows today to achieve
the desired thickness for a project, cruel work makes use
of an entire piece of yarn. Cruel yarn was not
originally intended to be pulled apart. If you buy modern
cruel yarn, sometimes it is, but the initial thing was
not that. This results, of course, in a much more

(14:24):
dimensional work because of the thickness. Cruel is also known
for its fluid lines. It is not as rigid in
its designs as some other forms of embroidery, and it
has often been worked freehand without a set pattern. This
raised embroidery quickly became very popular throughout Europe, and like
almost any new embellishment, it was first used for the

(14:45):
clothes of religious figures and the very wealthy. One item
of note, going back to the first part of this
and our frequent flyer on the show, the Bayou Tapestry,
which predates this surge in popularity, is sometimes described as
having cruel embroidery, and that is not wrong, but the
style that was used on it is very different from
what was popularized as cruel embroidery several hundred years later.

(15:09):
The rise of samplers in English embroidery is indicative of
a shift that was happening regarding embroidery in Europe, led
largely by the Tutors as rulers during the Tudor period,
which began in fourteen eighty five. When the War of
the Roses ended and Henry the Seventh emerged victorious and
took the throne, Embroidery ceased to be exclusively used for

(15:32):
religious ornamentation and started to be an integral part of fashion,
particularly for the royal court and the wealthy nobles. If
someone wanted to show off their status and wealth, they
could easily do it if they appeared at court wearing
a garment that was lavishly embroidered with silk and precious metals.

(15:52):
This meant that more skilled embroiderers were also needed to
create these kinds of things, and, as is often the case,
as embroidery became a status signifier and something that people
outside the aristocracy created it was copied by people who
didn't have as much status. Over time, it became integrated
into the clothing and lenins of a lot of people.

(16:14):
By the sixteen hundreds, embroidery had become commonly practiced and
taught as a pastime as well as a valuable skill.
We're going to talk about some of the organizations that
formed to promote embroidery and the earliest embroidery books. Right
after we hear from the sponsors that keep stuff you
missed in history class going. By the sixteenth century, embroidery

(16:44):
was so important in England that the Worshipful Company of
Broiderers received its grant of Arms in fifteen fifty eight,
and it was given its first charter three years later
in fifteen sixty one from Queen Elizabeth the First. Though
that recognition was new, the group its was not. It
is believed to have formed at least as early as
the thirteenth century, although the documentation of that is not available.

(17:08):
For several hundred years, the group held its functions in
the Broderers Hall, which was a monastery that was originally
constructed in the tenth century. That location remained active until
nineteen forty when it was bombed by Germany in early
World War II, and that is why the documentation of
the companies founding in the thirteenth century is not available.

(17:29):
It and other pieces of their archive were destroyed at
that time. The Worshipful Company of Broiderers still exists. It
got a new supplemental charter in twenty nineteen. According to
the website quote, the company continues to patronize the industry
and to encourage excellence within the art through association with
the Embroiderers Guild and support of the Royal School of Needlework,

(17:51):
today a registered charity housed in Hampton Court Palace, as
well as through continuing their competitions and exhibitions for hundreds
of years. Right up to today, the official Broiderer's toast
has remained the same quote, the Worshipful Company of Broderers,
Root and branch, May it continue and flourish forever. The

(18:12):
sixteen hundreds saw the rise of a style of embroidery
in Norway known as Hardanger. That is also the name
of the region where it developed. And this decorative embroidery
is also called white work because traditionally it used white
thread on white fabric and It makes use of a
lot of different stitch techniques to create striking geometric designs,
often with a repeat. Sometimes these even have little cutout

(18:35):
sections to make it just really intricate. This style quickly
gained popularity throughout Europe and eventually the globe. It remains
very popular today. You can find lots of books about it.
The first book of embroidery patterns is sometimes stated as
for Alla Frohmen Frauen or or All Pious Women, sometimes
translated as for All Devout Women. This was published in

(18:58):
Germany in fifteen twenty three or fifteen twenty four by
publisher Johann Schaunsberger the Younger. There don't seem to be
any scans or photos of this book online, but there
are others that were published around the same time, also
published by Shaunsberger. One is I'm New from Bookline, which
is a new little book of patterns, and I'm New

(19:21):
Motor Book, a new model book. These are usually described
as books of textile and embroidery patterns, but they don't
have any instructions. The pages just contain mostly woodcut prints
of the designs, so somebody trying to use them would
be expected to know how to use them as the
basis to create their own embroidery designs. There are some

(19:43):
notes on the weaving of textile designs, but not for
how to do any of the actual beeedlework. Also, to
be clear, Schaunsberger was a publisher, not a needlework expert.
It is not clear who assembled this collection of designs.
After Germany started publishing design books, the rest of Europe

(20:03):
started doing the same. In the seventeen hundreds, Rococo fashion
gave rise to a new and very beautiful style of embellishment,
and that is ribbon embroidery. This is another way to
create dimensional embroidery. It uses silk ribbons in lieu of
floss or yarn, and these ribbons tend to have a
very fine and thin texture, so they can easily be

(20:23):
pulled through fabric with a needle. This technique is often
used to create just scrumptious and sumptuous floral designs that
look both delicate and luxurious while also having lots of depth.
During the late eighteenth century, the concept of sashiko embroidery
was mentioned in print for the first time. This is
a Japanese technique that combines mending and decoration and uses

(20:46):
simple straight stitches of white thread or floss to reinforce
an article of clothing. Traditionally, the white thread is featured
on a background of dark blue. Sashiko endures today and
it's popular for mending denim. Modern iterations often harken back
to those original colors, with white thread or floss used

(21:06):
to repair the blue denim. Yeah, sometimes people do just
like a straight like basket weave, but sometimes they do
beautiful swirls and other designs. It's super pretty. If you embroider,
you have almost certainly purchased DMC six strand embroidery flaws.
And that company actually reaches back to the middle of
the seventeen hundreds, although it did begin as a fabric manufacturer.

(21:30):
The founding members were Jean Henridolphus, Jean Jacques Schmeltzer and
Samuel Cochland, and they formed their business in Mohouse, France,
which sits right in the crook that's kind of made
by the country's borders with Switzerland and Germany today and
the founding of that textile company was a significant economic
moment for the town, as it and other textile companies

(21:51):
brought Mohause into the industrial age with their production processes.
That company then passed to Jeanre's nephew, Daniel Dolphus late
in the seventeen nineties, and when Daniel married a woman
named Ann Marie MiG he rebranded the company as Dolphus
meg A Company or DMC in eighteen hundred. Over time,

(22:12):
of course, the company diversified from strictly printing textiles into
offering yarns, embroidery patterns, and other embroidery supplies, and today
DMC is a widely recognized brand among embroiderers. You can
get it at just about any fabric or craft store
that carries embroidery supplies. Eighteen oh four saw a huge

(22:32):
step forward in the way embroidery patterns were published. This
is the first year that patterns were available in Europe
laid out across a grid, with every square showing a stitch.
This is also the beginning of an embroidery style known
as Berlin work. This is the style of needle point
embroidery that uses a thick yarn like tapestry yarn, and

(22:53):
sometimes covers a whole canvas. Berlin work named for Berlin, Germany,
where it was developed off and features red Wool's tapestry
yarn as a primary component. The gritted pattern system has
become standard across many different types of embroidery, and it's
often associated with cross ditch today. For a very long time.

(23:15):
How long is not documented, a technique called beetle wing
embroidery has been used in India. This is an embellishment
that makes use of eletra, the kitanous outer shell of
a jewel beetle. These casings are absolutely beautiful. They come
in many different colors, but the most common is a
metallic green with a purply iridescent secondary shimmer that glints

(23:37):
as the shell moves in the light. These wings are
very hard and they can be cut to a desired
shape and drilled with small holes for a needle and
thread to pass through. India is certainly not the only
place they have been used as decoration. Jewel beetles can
live in a variety of environments and they thrive around
the globe, and their sparkly wings have been incorporated into

(23:58):
ornamentation on just about every but in India, particularly during
the long period of the Mughal Empire. Their use was perfected. Often,
these wing based sequins were stitched into clothes with gold
embroidery thread to create just a dazzling effect. Beetlewing embroidery
was hugely popular among Indian aristocracy in the seventeen hundreds

(24:21):
and eighteen hundreds. So that's just as England's power in
the country was growing to the point that the British
Raj rule began in eighteen fifty eight, and naturally Europeans
appropriated this technique and made it a fad back in Europe.
The first beatlewing embellished garments to make it to England

(24:41):
appeared in the eighteen twenties, and the popularity of eletra
im best clothes grew rapidly. As with any fad, things
had to get bigger and more sparkly, so within a
decade there were huge ornate designs appearing on ladies' dresses
and that trend continued for decades. Uh. Yeah. To be clear,

(25:03):
electra and beetle wing embroidery is very closely tied to colonialism.
In India, electra were used on all colors of garments,
but in Europe it became very popular to embroider them
into a design on a white cotton or linen garment,
although after a few decades different background colors became popular
as well, and as the English adopted the style, the

(25:24):
way that beetlewing embroidery was produced in India changed. It
had been the kind of embellishment that was reserved for
special occasion wear for the elite classes, but as demand
from Europe grew, the small scale production in India could
simply not meet demand, and soon a more industrial approach
to churning out embroidery with beetle wings started up. This

(25:46):
meant that designs were not customized for specific garments as much.
There tended to be a fairly static library of designs
that went on to dress after dress after dress. Still,
these clothes were very prized in England, and any famous
women of the day were described in written accounts as
wearing dresses adorned with beetle wings. Dame Alice Ellen Terry,

(26:08):
who was a renowned British actress fame for her Shakespearean roles,
appeared as the female lead in Macbeth in eighteen eighty eight.
She wore a gown that was dripping with green, iridescent
beetle wings. Beetle wings style also made its way to
the US when John Singer Sargent painted a portrait of
Mary Barrett Wendell during his first visit to the US,

(26:31):
which was also in eighteen eighty eight. She is depicted
wearing a gown embellished with eletra. Like many of the
techniques we've been discussing, beetling embroidery is still done today,
although the sourcing of the materials has changed. Real beetles
are still used, but today most of them come from Thailand,
and the wings are collected from insects that are being

(26:53):
used as a protein source in food, rather than the
old way of just taking the wings and discarding the insect.
A eighteen seventy two, the Royal School of Needlework was
founded in London at Hampton Court Palace. That palace was
originally built in fifteen fourteen for Henry the Ight's Chief Minister,
Cardinal Thomas Woolsey. The goal was twofold to revive interest

(27:16):
in embroidery and also to educate women in embroidery as
a vocation. In the decades since its inception, the organization
has worked on a number of high profile projects, including
the Funeral Paul that adorned Queen Victoria's coffin and the
coronation regalia for King George the Fifth, among others. The

(27:36):
group has also been involved in outreach programs, including one
after World War One that offered embroidery lessons to soldiers
who had returned home from the front as a form
of therapy. Today, the RSN continues. It offers classes, lecture
series and other events, and continues to contribute work to
royal events as well as collaborating with museums. In nineteen

(27:58):
oh six, the Embroiderers Guild was started in London. This
group's founding was the result of sixteen former students from
the Royal School of Needlework who wanted to form a
group to quote deal entirely with embroidery and with the
first object of keeping up a high standard of work
and design. So this isn't a guild in the formal
sense that we've often talked about on the show. Before

(28:20):
anybody can join it and over its one hundred twenty
year history, the Embroiderers Guild has accumulated a really impressive
collection of embroidery from around the globe and dating back
to the fifteen hundreds. It keeps all of this in
its archive. In nineteen fifty eight, a US branch of
the Embroiderers Guild was formed in New York, but after
twelve years, the New York group withdrew from the English

(28:43):
umbrella to form the Embroiderers Guild of America. As is
the case with the European group, anyone of any skill
level can become a member of the EGA. Today there
are more than two hundred and thirty chapters of this
group across the US and Canada, and there are also
online groups. Their national headquarters today are in Louisville, Kentucky.

(29:04):
Both of these groups and others like them, have from
the beginning offered instruction and education in addition to providing
reference information. These groups also sometimes work on community projects.
They form partnerships with museums and historical societies, and as
embroidery education resources have shrunk in number in North America
and Europe, these groups have really taken on the mission

(29:26):
to ensure that there is always information available to people
who are interested in the art. One of the really
thrilling things about embroidery today is that it's going through
a kind of revival, but one which, while often subversive
and unconventional, connects it to the centuries old tradition of
communication as well as art. While people still make embroidery

(29:48):
pieces that are intended simply to be beautiful, there are
many stitchers who specialize in protest art made through embroidery
or thought provoking concept pieces. This is not the first
time a surge of interests has happened, and it's interesting
to note that handiwork has experienced surges in popularity in
the US during times of political upheaval. In the eighteen seventies,

(30:11):
as the US was in recovery from the Civil War,
embroidery became more popular than ever as a pastime. Once
again became popular in the nineteen sixties when the country
was experiencing the unrest of the Civil Rights movement. Yeah,
it kind of fascinates me that we in times when
everything is a little bit stressful and strained, people want

(30:32):
to go back to these kind of old school crafts
as a way to ground themselves. I kind of love it.
That's our very, very samply look at embroidery through the ages. Yeah,
I have so many things to discuss on Friday, but
right now I have listener mail. It's short but good. Yeah,
and allows. I didn't mean to have two Disney emails

(30:55):
in a row this week, but I did. And here
we go. This is from our listener share. They're in
who writes High Holly and Tracy, but this one is
more for Holly. YouTube shows me odd things every once
in a while. And you may know all about this already,
but I definitely thought of you. Maybe they have this
at disney World. Also enjoy happy New Year. And she
sent a link to a video on YouTube that is

(31:15):
all about the Disneyland cat program because Disneyland. We may
have mentioned it before on the show, but it's been
a while. Disneyland has a program where there are naturally
feral cats that run around the property and they have
a trap, neuter release program where they will trap those cats,
get them vetted and sterilized, and then they let them

(31:36):
go and they let them run around because they are
controlling the rodent population. The one thing that's interesting is
that there are even social media accounts of people that
track some of these cats like they know them by sight.
Most of them do not run around the parks in
the day. They tend to wait until night time when
it gets quiet, and then they come out, But there
are some that will appear, and the kind of rule

(31:58):
of thumb, as I understand it is that if they
start to get too comfortable with humans, someone will scoop
them up and they will get them adopted out, because
they don't actually want the cats running around in the
park during the day. Disney World does also do similar
stuff to this, because they have four parks and a
lot of wild space. There's a lot of kiddies as

(32:18):
well as bunnies that run around some of the parks.
There used to be a security guard that would keep
carrots in his jacket to feed the bunnies. He has
since passed. We all miss him. But there is a
similar program. So if a cat is found on Disney property,
they will get it vetted. If it is fairal, they
will re release it. If it's kittens, they'll often try

(32:39):
to get them socialized so they can adopt out. I've
had friends that used to work in Disney that adopted
kittens through that program. So there are always people on
the lookout. I'm taking care of those critters, which I love.
I love it so much. Any excuse to talk about
Disney and also kitties. My dream is to one day

(33:00):
sort of have a kitty from Disney, but I don't
think that's realistic. Transport alone would be a pain in
the neck. But I am glad that you mentioned it.
It's a good thing. If you are in the parks
and you see a kiddie, they're probably doing their job.
They're so cute to every once in a while, it
feels like a very special thing. I laugh sometimes anytime
there are wild animals in the parks that appear when

(33:22):
humans are around, and that goes for kitties, bunnies. Sometimes
you'll see a family of ducks walking around and it
kind of cracks me up because there's all of this
beautiful stuff that has been created for people to engage with.
But the second a duck walks through Epcot with five
duck links behind it, that's all anybody's looking at. And
I'm glad that they're being looked after and people care

(33:42):
about them. So that's the answer to your question. In
addition to probably more information than you wanted, If you
would like to write to us about animals and parks,
your own animals, anything, really, we love it all. You
can do that at History podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
You can also subscribe to the show on the eye
heart Radio app, or anywhere you like to listen to podcasts.

(34:08):
Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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