August 17, 2015 • 31 mins
Marion Carstairs, who preferred the name Joe, was an early 20th-century heiress who bucked traditional gender roles and for a time, hid her wealth from even her closest friends. She also became a very successful speedboat racer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And today's
topic features a really fun figure of the early twentieth century.
There is a little high society in this one, a
(00:23):
lot of money, some gender bending, a good amount of debauchery,
a very unique doll, and loads of speedboats. So this
may actually be a true scenario where there really is
something for everyone. The topic of today's podcast is Joe
car Stairs. And first I have to mention that this
was actually suggested by a listener, and I am a
(00:43):
disorganized mess and I cannot find the listener's name, and
I feel really really bad because I would love to
credit them because this has been really nothing short of
a delight to research. Uh. Second, we have to contextualize
pronouns on this one a little bit. Joe was a woman,
and though she took a man's name and she lived
in many ways as a man, she would also introduce
(01:05):
herself as a woman. So while she may have identified
in many ways as male, since she generally referred to
herself as a female, we're going to use feminine pronouns here,
and she does make it a little bit tricky because
even throughout her life she kind of delighted when people
would mistake her for a boy or a man, but
she would usually then always also delight in telling them, no,
(01:27):
I'm actually a woman, kind of to watch their shocked reaction.
She really played that edge of gender fluidity. And so
we're going with feminine pronouns. It's possible if she lived today,
where there is sort of a different vocabulary around gender
and how it works and the fluidity of it, she
may have chosen a different one for herself, but since
she seemed to stick to feminine pronouns, we are going
(01:49):
to do the same. Uh. And as I was reading
up on Joe, I found myself really delighting in so
many of the details of her life, really eccentric and
interesting and fascinating. Eating So this one is going to
end up being a two parter. She did lead a
wild and eccentric life, some of which we only know
of through her telling of it, and she was a
very big personality. So her primary biographer that that wrote
(02:14):
the one existing biography of her, really continually points out
that there is every possibility that some of these stories
are embellishment. Uh As, she was definitely really into storytelling
and she was very much into this idea of creating
her own persona. So just keep that in mind as
we go. Joe Carstairs came from money. Her grandfather was
(02:34):
Jabez Able Bostwick, who made this fortune working as the
treasurer of Southern Improvement Company, which was a venture of
John D. Rockefeller. Her grandmother, so job as his wife,
was Helen Celia Bostwick, and this is one of the
few family members that Joe really seemed to admire and
identify with through her whole life. She would describe Nellie,
(02:56):
as Helen was called as tough, wicked, a wonderful person
in a very strong will. When Jabez died in a
fire in eighteen ninety two, he left behind a ten
million dollar fortune. Yeah, definitely some cash in the family.
And just in case you do not recognize the name
the Southern Improvement Company, that group later changed its name
(03:17):
to Standard Oil, which you probably will recognize. Javis and
Nellie had three children. They had a daughter who was
also named Nellie, a daughter named Evelyn, and a son
named Albert. And Evelyn was born Francis Evelyn Bostwick on
June eighteen seventy two. And as she grew up, this
middle child was a vivacious and strong willed woman herself.
(03:38):
She had a bit of a party reputation, and she
had some early brushes with drug use that actually turned
into a habit. Later on, she was known as something
of a fem fital, complete with a story about backing
out of an engagement right at the last minute. But
then Evelyn met scottsman Albert Carstairs while traveling in Europe.
There's a lot of haziness around this marriage, which lasted
(03:59):
for ten years. We know that Albert was a captain
in the second Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and
that he served in both Egypt and Malta, but it
seems like he left the army when he married Evelyn.
We don't actually know if there, if they were happy
or not, but there was definitely some infidelity on Evelyn's part. Yeah,
(04:20):
it was kind of one of those sudden I met
this guy and I'm marrying him. And she was such
a wild child at this point that that just was
what it was. It all seems sort of a tumultuous
thing and We do know that Evelyn and Albert were
in London in nineteen hundred, because that's where and when
Joe was born as Marian Barbara Carstairs on February first
(04:40):
of that year. Whether or not Albert Carstairs was actually
Joe's biological father is unknown. We do know that Albert
joined the army once again just a week before Joe
was born. When she was five, Joe was thrown off
a camel she was riding at the London Zoo and
she was knocked unconscious. When she regained consciousness, people started
calling her Tuffy, and she took this nickname to heart.
(05:03):
In fact, she once told a friend that her biography
should start off with that story, and writer Kate summer
Scale actually obliged her in a book about the Carstairs
And even at this young age, Joe's life, which was
privileged in terms of financial comfort, was really something of
a mess. Her parents had divorced at this point, and
(05:25):
Albert Carstairs had basically vanished from her life. Her mother
was regarded by Europe as being a socialite simply by
way of dirty money that was gained, possibly by nefarious means.
But in spite of all these questions about the origin
of her wealth, Evelyn managed to make a place for
herself in British society. She eventually became a Lady in
waiting to King Edward the Seventh, wife Queen Alexandria. Evelyn
(05:48):
also remarried in nineteen o three to a British Army
captain named Francis Francis, and she had two children with him.
Evelyn Francis, who was called Sally, was born in nineteen
o four, and Francis Francis Jr. Was born in nineteen
o six. Joe was not very enthusiastic about these new siblings.
She had some jealousy over her mother's tendency to dote
(06:09):
on her brother Frank, presumably because he was a boy,
although it should be noted that Evelyn was never really
consistent with her affection for any of her children. Conversely,
Joe's tomboyish ways weren't exactly a source of delight for
her mother and stepfather either. Captain Francis wanted to find
a way to cure Joe of her wildness, and Joe
(06:29):
herself had never really identified in a girlish way. Later
on in her life she would remark that she quote
was never a little girl, I came out of the
womb queer. At one point, when Joe was eight, Francis
actually caught her stealing his cigars, and in a manner
that many people have tried to cure their children of
(06:51):
dabbling and smoking. He thought he would teach her a
lesson and forced her to sit down and smoke the
whole thing because he thought she's gonna get sick as
a dog. But little did he know that Joe had
actually been stealing and smoking cigars for a while at
that point, so her eight year old self was pretty
relaxed as she sat and smoked her cigar with him
right to the end. Evelyn and the Captain did not
(07:11):
stay together. They stayed legally married until nineteen fifteen, but
they really had not been together as a couple for
years by that point. As was the case in her
marriage to Albert Carstairs, Evelyn also had numerous affairs. Captain
Francis tried to keep his two children away from her
as much as possible due to her unpredictable behavior, which
was fueled by alcohol and a heroin addiction, although Joe
(07:35):
really did not have that same level of protection. Yeah,
Captain Francis was very protective of the two children that
he had had with Evelyn, but Joe kind of was
on her own. Despite her inconsistency as a mother, Evelyn
was also really jealous of other women who cared for
her children. She even fired a nanny at one point
(07:56):
because Joe had grown especially close to her and for
her Joe was extremely rebellious. She bullied her younger siblings,
and she was defiant. She spent a good deal of
time sort of lost in her own fantasy world, which
centered largely around kind of maritime interests in boats, which
were the only things that she claimed to admire as
a child. And then, at age eleven, Joe was sent
(08:18):
back to America to go to boarding school. And while
this was framed as some sort of punishment for her
bad behavior, Joe really saw this as a door opening
for her to have some fun, independent times of her own.
She was put on an ocean liner to make the
voyage across the Atlantic to Stanford, Connecticut, where she would
attend the Low Haywood School. She fit in there really quickly,
(08:39):
in part because she could do the French homework of
the other girls at the school. Joe had picked up
quite a bit of French while her mother had employed
a French nanny, and though her life at the school
really seemed pretty carefree, Joe was constantly afraid that Evelyn
was going to suddenly change her mind and send word
that Joe had to return to Europe, but that never
actually happened. She didn't even see her mother for four
(09:01):
years until Evelyn's third marriage in nineteen fifteen to yet
another military man, this one French and also account named
Roger de Peregny. Unlike Evelyn's first two husbands, Joe adored
Parrene and he seemed to love her as well. The
two of them became really great pals. They went carousing,
they smoked cigars, they raced cars. Parny even altered one
(09:25):
of his racing cars to fit Joe's frame so she
could drive it. They even visited some brothels together, and
perhaps one of the reasons that Joe was so very
fond of Parignee was because he was not inclined, as
others had been, to always follow her mother Evelyn's lead.
In fact, the marriage did end as the others had,
(09:47):
but this time because Evelyn couldn't stand Parrenees infidelities. Rather
than the other way around. In nineteen sixteen, Joe headed
back to Europe, but this time it was to drive
ambulances in the or Effort. Joe was only sixteen at
the time, and she had persuaded her grandmother, Nellie, to
use her influence to get her into the job. Joe
(10:08):
had told Nellie that she wanted the experience because she
had hopes of eventually becoming a doctor. And before we
get to the next phase of Joe's life, where she
is going to meet some friends that she will stay
close to for the rest of her days, uh, we're
gonna have a quick word from one of the great
sponsors that keeps the show going. So, while she was
living in Paris with four other young women who were
(10:30):
also driving ambulances, Joe really just watched the war unfold.
She had quite a lot of sort of world experience
through this set up. The flat that she shared with
these other women had a glass ceiling so they could
see planes overhead at night. Uh. And Joe watched buildings
be shelled and she saw aircraft down. At one point,
(10:51):
she struggled to pull a down pilot from the wreckage
of his plane, only to realize that he was already dead.
Joe's time in Paris was also when she had her
first sexual experience, which was with a woman. Despite having
had crushes while in boarding school, she insisted that these
relationships were always chased, and while she visited brothels with
her French stepfather, she claimed to have never taken part
(11:13):
of any sexual activities there. And soon after she had
this first experience, she also had an affair with a
woman who Joe would later say changed her life, and
that was Dorothy Wilde known as Dolly, who was the
niece of the famed poet Oscar Wilde, and many people
described Dolly as sort of the female counterpart to her
infamous uncle, who had died in nineteen hundred. Dolly was
(11:36):
a woman who was managed, she loved other women, She
drove ambulances like Joe, and she actually lived in the
shared flat that Joe was living in Paris. Joe learned
from Dolly the art of cultivating this theatrical persona. Dolly
was at the center of the bohemian social scene in Paris,
whereas Joe was out on the edges. Joe watched as
(11:59):
Dolly ar armed everybody around her, only to forget the
promises and appointments that she made basically as soon as
she made them. We don't know how the affair between
Joe and Dolly came to an end, but this friendship
left Joe with the sense that she could herself cultivate
a male alter ego. Yeah, and it was never specifically
(12:21):
spelled out in any of the things I read, but
it seems that it was during this time in Paris
that she started going pretty much exclusively by the name
Joe Uh and her mother was actually also living in
Paris at this time. She met her fourth husband there
in nineteen seventeen, when Evelyn became a laboratory assistant at
the College de France, and his name was Sergei Voronov,
(12:44):
and he was a surgeon, and she was assigned to
him as an assistant. And Voronov conducted many experiments involving
testicular pulpe as a cure as like a curative agent,
as well as testicular grafting as a therapeutic measure. He
did some kind of wacky science. Uh. Voronoff was not
always taken seriously by the medical community, but Evelyn seemed
(13:05):
to really believe in him. She presented papers with him.
She worked dutifully at his side, and her family's money
was funding most of his research. When rumors reached Evelyn
that Joe was having lesbian affairs, she invited, or, as
Joe characterized it, summoned her daughter to visit her. When
(13:27):
Joe arrived, her mother confronted her about her sexuality and
told her that she needed to get married or she
would lose all her rights to the family money. And
when Joe retold this, she made a series of tapes
in the nineteen seventies with the intent that she was
going to find a ghostwriter to write her autobiography. The
(13:48):
way she talks about it is that she completely didn't care.
She blew off her mother's threat. She told her to
go ahead and disinherit her, but in truth she actually
acquiesced through a bit of a loophole. In nineteen eighteen,
Joe actually married her childhood friend, Count Jacques du Pray,
who was rumored to actually be one of Evelyn's lovers.
(14:09):
So there's some speculation that Joe particularly selected this man
just to spite her mother by saying, fine, I'll marry
a guy that you are romantically involved with. Uh, Jacques
and Joe never consummated their marriage. They basically agreed to
split the ten thousand dollar dowry and go their separate
ways immediately after the wedding. When the war ended, Joe
(14:31):
moved from Paris to London, and she often spoke of
having met her father, Albert Carstairs, quite by chance in
a pub there. In this story, which may or may
not be true, he mistook her for a boy and
then she introduced herself as his daughter, but two of
them shared a cigar and a drink and then parted ways,
never to see one another again. Yeah, we have no
(14:53):
idea whether this actually happened or not. Her biographer that
we mentioned before is quick to point out that some
of the things that Joe said happened during this discussion
or that she talked about with her father, including the
death of her mother, hadn't actually happened yet. Her mother
was still alive at this point, so the timeline does
not match up in Joe's recollection. So there are some
(15:16):
red flags that there at least some falsehoods in this
whole thing. So we don't know if it actually took place.
But eventually Joe made her way to Ireland to drive
British officers in the ongoing war against Shinfane as part
of the Women's Legion Mechanical Transport Section. And while she
was doing this, she befriended two sisters, Molly and Bartieklklow,
(15:37):
who took her in and the three were really fast friends.
In n the three of them all volunteered to go
to northern France to relieve mail drivers there. This was
not an easy job. They were driving in areas that
had been destroyed and the rough terrain really took a
toll on all the cars. The young women, along with
(15:58):
another friend named Joan McKern handled all the needed repairs
themselves while also tending to soldiers, reburying fallen men who
had been put into temporary graves, and trying to clear debris.
Joe and her friends were demobilized on April twenty, nineteen twenty,
and just a week after this driving service ended, Joe's grandmother, Nellie,
(16:20):
died from a heart attack. Nellie had actually had several
strokes before this and had survived them all every time
people thought that this was her time to go, but
it was finally a heart attack that took her. And
while Joe claimed to have been living on almost no
income at this point, while she awaited the execution of
her grandmother's will. That information was a fabrication. Nellie had
actually set up a trust so that her grandchildren would
(16:42):
be taken care of, and Joe never once wanted for money.
For example, in ninety one, she was paid out an
income of a hundred and forty five thousand dollars, and
in nineteen twenty two that income jumped to two hundred
thousand dollars. Evelyn died in nine While her was likely
Drugger alcohol related, it was officially recorded as being from
(17:04):
natural causes. Joe, however, blamed or enough, even suggesting that
he had somehow murdered her mother. After Evelyn's passing, Joe
had her marriage to her childhood friend annulled. Yep, that
was just for show for her mom. Uh. But despite
the generous annual income that Joe was getting, she still
(17:26):
didn't own up to it. She still claimed that she
wasn't getting any money. She They're even stories that she
went so far as to like steal things that she needed,
like food, when she could have easily paid for them.
She seemed to really just love living this more humble
life and spending time with her friends, and this is
after their again their war services drivers has had ended,
(17:47):
so she suggested that they all pool their earnings. Joe,
at this point, again living this life where she feigned
to not have an income, was perfectly happy to take jobs,
working as a bartend, her on a chicken farm. At
one point she worked as a car demonstrator. But she
wanted all of these women she had become friends with
to pool their money and set up a chauffeur business
(18:09):
in London. The service, which was called X Garage, was successful,
and because such a service run by women was really novel,
it got the attention of a lot of the press.
At one point, partner Joan McKern told the press that
they had decided to hire only women. She said, after
employing both men and girls, we have found that the
(18:30):
girls are much more adaptable and trustworthy. And during this
time Joe had secured an estate to live on in Hampshire.
There were two army huts on the property that were
converted into a bungalow and Joe named this little house
Bostwick and she lived there more or less in seclusion.
This is also when she bought her first boat, which
(18:50):
was a yacht named Sonja, and Joe quickly became extremely
skilled as a yachts woman, and so she started racing.
Would prove to be quite a year for Joe. For
one thing, Sonia was extremely successful. It won almost every
race in its class. This is also the year that
the wills of Nellie and Evelyn were finally settled. In
(19:12):
the case of Evelyn's estate, both Francis Francis and Sergei
voronoff ward with Joe about how the will would be executed.
The men clearly felt that in having annulled her marriage,
Joe had given up the rights to the family money. Eventually, though,
Evelyn's estate was all div divvied up, and Joe also
came into a large inheritance from her grandmother's will as well,
(19:36):
so she could really no longer hide the fact that
she was wealthy. At this point, these sorts of things
were being reported in the papers and so in. At
this point, Joe was flush with cash, and she decided
that she was going to commission a hydroplane to be
built for her. And that's hydroplane in the sense of
the very fast vote. Celebrated designer Samuel Saunders was and
(20:00):
trusted the TA with the task of creating this speedboat
for Joe, and it was only one of two boats
built at the East Cow's Yard on the Isle of
Wight that year. These were extremely expensive boats, so they
really didn't make that many of them. And initially this
boat was going to be called Gwen, but when it
capsized during testing, Joe decided to simply reverse the name
and call it nug Any w g instead, so it
(20:23):
was re christened. This boat came with saunders own mechanic,
Joe Harris the Joe's Carstairs and Harris were devoted friends
from that point on. Harris rode with Joe in almost
every race and was steadfast and loyal even when they
were in dangerous situations. Yeah, Joe often pointed out Joe
Carstairs that when Harris rode with her, his seat by design,
(20:46):
was just not as safe as hers. If something happened,
he was going to go flying, whereas sort of the
captain's seat, the driver's seat would had some safety measures
around it. Uh. They are said to have had sort
of a fatherly daughterly relationship in many ways, but they
were incredibly close. However, a new figure that is very
unusual is about to enter Joe's life, and we're going
(21:09):
to talk about that right after a brief word from
one of our fabulous sponsors. So getting back to Joe Carstairs.
At the end of Joe and her girlfriend at the time,
Ruth Baldwin, traveled to the Swiss Alps for Christmas, and
it's there that Ruth gave Joe what would become a
lifelong prize possession. This was a small leather doll. It
(21:30):
was stuffed with jointed arms and legs, and it was
a little man. And Joe named this small leather gentleman
Lord Todd Wadley, and she treasured him utterly. Joe and
Ruth set up a house together near King's Road in Chelsea,
and Joe had a plaque made for the front door
that read Marian Barbara Carstairs and Lord Todd Wadley. While
(21:52):
Joe and Ruth seemed to have a really deep and
abiding love for one another, their relationship was not exclusive.
In Joe and her boat nug raced for the Duke
of York's trophy on the Thames, an event attended by
tens of thousands of spectators, and in the end it
came down to Nuke and a German boat called Seagreed four,
(22:14):
but the German hydroplanes connecting rod Broke Nug had trouble
as well. The propeller got caught on a piece of
rope that was in the water, and Joe hacked at
the rope to cut it free and eventually finished the
race and was the only competitor to do so. From
then on, Joe's fame and her career as a speedboat
racer really grew. There's a famous portrait taken of Joe
(22:36):
in those early days, and she had gotten drunk and
had her arms tattooed, and in the photo they're bared
showing off her tattoos, and she also has Lord Todd
Wadley sitting underneath facing her. She's wearing men's clothes, there's
a cigarette in her mouth, and she's then profile gazing
down at this doll. It is it's quite a striking image,
and she and Lord Todd Wadley are dressed almost the same.
(23:00):
It's a very wonderfully strange, sort of beautiful moments. Uh
in the nine twenties in Europe were really sort of
the perfect time and place for Joe. She loved her speedboats,
which were wildly popular. She loved the debauchery and rule
bending that was going on at the time. She had
affairs with numerous actresses at the London stage, including to
(23:20):
Lula Bankhead, all the while sort of playing the dandy
in these impeccably tailored suits, and in some ways it
was a uniquely free time to be doing these sorts
of things. So she was taking on the boyishness that
was to some degree already in vogue and women's fashion.
You know, women that were playing hyper femininity even were
(23:42):
you know, binding their breasts so that they looked like
they had more boyish figures, and there was the bobbing
of hair, and femininity was even being played with. So
Joe sort of took that kind of concept and really
just floored it into a full gender switch, which seemed
to be really sort of oddly accepted, at least in
the theater and party set of London that she ran in.
(24:02):
And as Joe had basically conquered the speedboat world in
Nuke's class, she wanted to move on to another challenge.
She once again commissioned Samuel Saunders, and this time she
wanted to create three incredibly fast hydroplanes for her she
wanted the fastest craft on water, and they were reputed
to be able to zip along at a hundred miles
(24:22):
an hour. That sounds terrifying to me. I am clearly
not a speed freak. I was just on a boat
that was going much slower than that, and it was
still like a but being up in the front of
it just a pounding experience. Yeah, my dad really loved, loves,
(24:43):
continues to love speedy things. He raced cars when he
was younger. He really loved speedboats, and I always remember
just being terrified on them when I was a kid.
But the first of these, uh, the first two of
these three boats that Joe had commissioned were unveiled in
and they had the names Estelle one and a Stell too,
after her mother. If this sounds weird, it is because
(25:05):
this ended up being a little bit of a whoopsie
Daisy scenario. Joe, who had always been so intent on
bucking off her family history in favor of creating her
own identity, had actually forgotten that her mother's name was
in fact Evelyn and not a Stell. And when Carstairs
realized her error, she wasn't even dismayed about it. She
thought it was all rather amusing, but both of the
(25:27):
watercraft proved to be pretty problematic. A Stell one sank
on one of its first outings and a Stell too
had problems as well, causing Joe to withdraw her entry
from the Harmsworth Trophy Race. But then she heard that
her main competitor was also having trouble with his boats,
so she once again announced her intent to participate. That
meant that she had to travel to Detroit for the race,
(25:51):
and initially she had planned to take another boat designed
by Saunter's firm across the Atlantic, but that ship too
had problems during testing, and this series of failures actually
resulted in one of the designers that worked under Shaunders
being fired from the firm, and instead of one of
her custom design speedsters, Joe ended up making the trans
Atlantic crossed crossing in the Cunard Liner Berengaria, which she
(26:15):
apparently fell in love with. When she reached the United States,
Joe posed for photos with Lord Todd Wadley and she
made headlines. One paper called her a puzzler Colan Mannish
thanks us paper for that in fight. Another another referred
to her as the pretty English motor boat racer. The
(26:36):
press has also called her Betty, and some of their
coverage based on her middle name of Barbara, which she
really hated. She super duper hated that Betty thing. And
it's funny looking back at, uh, some of the old
accounts of it where they're talking about, you know, famed
woman speedster Betty Carstairs, and I'm like, where did they
even come up with? She really really disliked it a
(26:58):
great deal. The important thing was the race. Uh. Joe,
with Joe Harris at her side, as usual, did incredibly well.
This race was really close and it was really exciting
right up until a stell To capsized, throwing both Joe's
from the vessel. Joe Carstairs initially seemed unharmed. Joe Harris
(27:19):
they were a little bit worried about. They had to
pull him out of the water and it turned out
he had broke into ribs. Later it was revealed that
the Heiress had actually also cracked three of her ribs.
But she didn't want to miss any parties, so she
didn't tell anybody and just went about her business. Uh.
She also as she went to these parties, started rumors
that American competitors had purposely sabotaged her boat. Despite her
(27:44):
difficulty in the race, she was praised in the press
for her prowess. She returned to London and dismayed at
the series of blunders on the part of the Saunders Farm,
set up her own boatyard, headed by Joe Harris as
chief engineer. And that is actually where we're gonna, cliffhang you, uh.
In the next episode, We're gonna talk about the next
(28:05):
stages of Joe's racing career. We're eventually going to veer
off to the Bahamas. Things get a little more eccentric
and odd. Uh. But she's so fascinating. I just I
really want to take the time to talk about all
of these sort of strange little snippets of her life.
So in lieu of listener mail today, I actually have
(28:25):
a listener thank you that I have to send out
to our listener, Heather. I think it was on Facebook
and I have had difficulty locating it. But at one
point things had come up about Roly Crump, who was
an imagineer at the Haunted Mint for the Haunted Mansion
and other Disney projects, and Heather had mentioned that she
had this comic book called Seekers of The Weird, which
(28:47):
I also have in love that was based on his
early drawings that got kind of put aside that weren't
part of the museum that was supposed to eventually be
built as part of the attraction by Walt, but was,
as I said, discarded. So this comic came out in
the last couple of years. It's very, very fun. And
Heather had mentioned that she had an extra copy that
(29:07):
had been signed and she would happily send it to me,
and I actually never responded to her because I almost
didn't know how like I'm reluctant to be like yes
and me stuff, but I was also just so touched
by the offer that I didn't know what to do.
And then the comics showed up last week, and um,
it's spectacular because it's signed by Roally Crump, which is
incredibly meaningful as well as the other creators, and it's
so fabulous, and it came on a day when I
(29:29):
was just having not my finest hour, so it was
really like perfect timing and so touching. And Heather, You're
so generous. I cannot thank you enough. I treasure it. Uh,
it's absolutely a delight, So thank you, thank you, Thank you.
We have so many great listeners and they are often
so kind and generous to us, and I feel like
we have to point those out when we can, so
(29:50):
if you would like to write to us, you can
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(30:12):
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(30:33):
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(30:54):
of other topics. Because it has to works dot com
into
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy Vie Wilson. And today's
topic features a really fun figure of the early twentieth century.
There is a little high society in this one, a
(00:23):
lot of money, some gender bending, a good amount of debauchery,
a very unique doll, and loads of speedboats. So this
may actually be a true scenario where there really is
something for everyone. The topic of today's podcast is Joe
car Stairs. And first I have to mention that this
was actually suggested by a listener, and I am a
(00:43):
disorganized mess and I cannot find the listener's name, and
I feel really really bad because I would love to
credit them because this has been really nothing short of
a delight to research. Uh. Second, we have to contextualize
pronouns on this one a little bit. Joe was a woman,
and though she took a man's name and she lived
in many ways as a man, she would also introduce
(01:05):
herself as a woman. So while she may have identified
in many ways as male, since she generally referred to
herself as a female, we're going to use feminine pronouns here,
and she does make it a little bit tricky because
even throughout her life she kind of delighted when people
would mistake her for a boy or a man, but
she would usually then always also delight in telling them, no,
(01:27):
I'm actually a woman, kind of to watch their shocked reaction.
She really played that edge of gender fluidity. And so
we're going with feminine pronouns. It's possible if she lived today,
where there is sort of a different vocabulary around gender
and how it works and the fluidity of it, she
may have chosen a different one for herself, but since
she seemed to stick to feminine pronouns, we are going
(01:49):
to do the same. Uh. And as I was reading
up on Joe, I found myself really delighting in so
many of the details of her life, really eccentric and
interesting and fascinating. Eating So this one is going to
end up being a two parter. She did lead a
wild and eccentric life, some of which we only know
of through her telling of it, and she was a
very big personality. So her primary biographer that that wrote
(02:14):
the one existing biography of her, really continually points out
that there is every possibility that some of these stories
are embellishment. Uh As, she was definitely really into storytelling
and she was very much into this idea of creating
her own persona. So just keep that in mind as
we go. Joe Carstairs came from money. Her grandfather was
(02:34):
Jabez Able Bostwick, who made this fortune working as the
treasurer of Southern Improvement Company, which was a venture of
John D. Rockefeller. Her grandmother, so job as his wife,
was Helen Celia Bostwick, and this is one of the
few family members that Joe really seemed to admire and
identify with through her whole life. She would describe Nellie,
(02:56):
as Helen was called as tough, wicked, a wonderful person
in a very strong will. When Jabez died in a
fire in eighteen ninety two, he left behind a ten
million dollar fortune. Yeah, definitely some cash in the family.
And just in case you do not recognize the name
the Southern Improvement Company, that group later changed its name
(03:17):
to Standard Oil, which you probably will recognize. Javis and
Nellie had three children. They had a daughter who was
also named Nellie, a daughter named Evelyn, and a son
named Albert. And Evelyn was born Francis Evelyn Bostwick on
June eighteen seventy two. And as she grew up, this
middle child was a vivacious and strong willed woman herself.
(03:38):
She had a bit of a party reputation, and she
had some early brushes with drug use that actually turned
into a habit. Later on, she was known as something
of a fem fital, complete with a story about backing
out of an engagement right at the last minute. But
then Evelyn met scottsman Albert Carstairs while traveling in Europe.
There's a lot of haziness around this marriage, which lasted
(03:59):
for ten years. We know that Albert was a captain
in the second Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles and
that he served in both Egypt and Malta, but it
seems like he left the army when he married Evelyn.
We don't actually know if there, if they were happy
or not, but there was definitely some infidelity on Evelyn's part. Yeah,
(04:20):
it was kind of one of those sudden I met
this guy and I'm marrying him. And she was such
a wild child at this point that that just was
what it was. It all seems sort of a tumultuous
thing and We do know that Evelyn and Albert were
in London in nineteen hundred, because that's where and when
Joe was born as Marian Barbara Carstairs on February first
(04:40):
of that year. Whether or not Albert Carstairs was actually
Joe's biological father is unknown. We do know that Albert
joined the army once again just a week before Joe
was born. When she was five, Joe was thrown off
a camel she was riding at the London Zoo and
she was knocked unconscious. When she regained consciousness, people started
calling her Tuffy, and she took this nickname to heart.
(05:03):
In fact, she once told a friend that her biography
should start off with that story, and writer Kate summer
Scale actually obliged her in a book about the Carstairs
And even at this young age, Joe's life, which was
privileged in terms of financial comfort, was really something of
a mess. Her parents had divorced at this point, and
(05:25):
Albert Carstairs had basically vanished from her life. Her mother
was regarded by Europe as being a socialite simply by
way of dirty money that was gained, possibly by nefarious means.
But in spite of all these questions about the origin
of her wealth, Evelyn managed to make a place for
herself in British society. She eventually became a Lady in
waiting to King Edward the Seventh, wife Queen Alexandria. Evelyn
(05:48):
also remarried in nineteen o three to a British Army
captain named Francis Francis, and she had two children with him.
Evelyn Francis, who was called Sally, was born in nineteen
o four, and Francis Francis Jr. Was born in nineteen
o six. Joe was not very enthusiastic about these new siblings.
She had some jealousy over her mother's tendency to dote
(06:09):
on her brother Frank, presumably because he was a boy,
although it should be noted that Evelyn was never really
consistent with her affection for any of her children. Conversely,
Joe's tomboyish ways weren't exactly a source of delight for
her mother and stepfather either. Captain Francis wanted to find
a way to cure Joe of her wildness, and Joe
(06:29):
herself had never really identified in a girlish way. Later
on in her life she would remark that she quote
was never a little girl, I came out of the
womb queer. At one point, when Joe was eight, Francis
actually caught her stealing his cigars, and in a manner
that many people have tried to cure their children of
(06:51):
dabbling and smoking. He thought he would teach her a
lesson and forced her to sit down and smoke the
whole thing because he thought she's gonna get sick as
a dog. But little did he know that Joe had
actually been stealing and smoking cigars for a while at
that point, so her eight year old self was pretty
relaxed as she sat and smoked her cigar with him
right to the end. Evelyn and the Captain did not
(07:11):
stay together. They stayed legally married until nineteen fifteen, but
they really had not been together as a couple for
years by that point. As was the case in her
marriage to Albert Carstairs, Evelyn also had numerous affairs. Captain
Francis tried to keep his two children away from her
as much as possible due to her unpredictable behavior, which
was fueled by alcohol and a heroin addiction, although Joe
(07:35):
really did not have that same level of protection. Yeah,
Captain Francis was very protective of the two children that
he had had with Evelyn, but Joe kind of was
on her own. Despite her inconsistency as a mother, Evelyn
was also really jealous of other women who cared for
her children. She even fired a nanny at one point
(07:56):
because Joe had grown especially close to her and for
her Joe was extremely rebellious. She bullied her younger siblings,
and she was defiant. She spent a good deal of
time sort of lost in her own fantasy world, which
centered largely around kind of maritime interests in boats, which
were the only things that she claimed to admire as
a child. And then, at age eleven, Joe was sent
(08:18):
back to America to go to boarding school. And while
this was framed as some sort of punishment for her
bad behavior, Joe really saw this as a door opening
for her to have some fun, independent times of her own.
She was put on an ocean liner to make the
voyage across the Atlantic to Stanford, Connecticut, where she would
attend the Low Haywood School. She fit in there really quickly,
(08:39):
in part because she could do the French homework of
the other girls at the school. Joe had picked up
quite a bit of French while her mother had employed
a French nanny, and though her life at the school
really seemed pretty carefree, Joe was constantly afraid that Evelyn
was going to suddenly change her mind and send word
that Joe had to return to Europe, but that never
actually happened. She didn't even see her mother for four
(09:01):
years until Evelyn's third marriage in nineteen fifteen to yet
another military man, this one French and also account named
Roger de Peregny. Unlike Evelyn's first two husbands, Joe adored
Parrene and he seemed to love her as well. The
two of them became really great pals. They went carousing,
they smoked cigars, they raced cars. Parny even altered one
(09:25):
of his racing cars to fit Joe's frame so she
could drive it. They even visited some brothels together, and
perhaps one of the reasons that Joe was so very
fond of Parignee was because he was not inclined, as
others had been, to always follow her mother Evelyn's lead.
In fact, the marriage did end as the others had,
(09:47):
but this time because Evelyn couldn't stand Parrenees infidelities. Rather
than the other way around. In nineteen sixteen, Joe headed
back to Europe, but this time it was to drive
ambulances in the or Effort. Joe was only sixteen at
the time, and she had persuaded her grandmother, Nellie, to
use her influence to get her into the job. Joe
(10:08):
had told Nellie that she wanted the experience because she
had hopes of eventually becoming a doctor. And before we
get to the next phase of Joe's life, where she
is going to meet some friends that she will stay
close to for the rest of her days, uh, we're
gonna have a quick word from one of the great
sponsors that keeps the show going. So, while she was
living in Paris with four other young women who were
(10:30):
also driving ambulances, Joe really just watched the war unfold.
She had quite a lot of sort of world experience
through this set up. The flat that she shared with
these other women had a glass ceiling so they could
see planes overhead at night. Uh. And Joe watched buildings
be shelled and she saw aircraft down. At one point,
(10:51):
she struggled to pull a down pilot from the wreckage
of his plane, only to realize that he was already dead.
Joe's time in Paris was also when she had her
first sexual experience, which was with a woman. Despite having
had crushes while in boarding school, she insisted that these
relationships were always chased, and while she visited brothels with
her French stepfather, she claimed to have never taken part
(11:13):
of any sexual activities there. And soon after she had
this first experience, she also had an affair with a
woman who Joe would later say changed her life, and
that was Dorothy Wilde known as Dolly, who was the
niece of the famed poet Oscar Wilde, and many people
described Dolly as sort of the female counterpart to her
infamous uncle, who had died in nineteen hundred. Dolly was
(11:36):
a woman who was managed, she loved other women, She
drove ambulances like Joe, and she actually lived in the
shared flat that Joe was living in Paris. Joe learned
from Dolly the art of cultivating this theatrical persona. Dolly
was at the center of the bohemian social scene in Paris,
whereas Joe was out on the edges. Joe watched as
(11:59):
Dolly ar armed everybody around her, only to forget the
promises and appointments that she made basically as soon as
she made them. We don't know how the affair between
Joe and Dolly came to an end, but this friendship
left Joe with the sense that she could herself cultivate
a male alter ego. Yeah, and it was never specifically
(12:21):
spelled out in any of the things I read, but
it seems that it was during this time in Paris
that she started going pretty much exclusively by the name
Joe Uh and her mother was actually also living in
Paris at this time. She met her fourth husband there
in nineteen seventeen, when Evelyn became a laboratory assistant at
the College de France, and his name was Sergei Voronov,
(12:44):
and he was a surgeon, and she was assigned to
him as an assistant. And Voronov conducted many experiments involving
testicular pulpe as a cure as like a curative agent,
as well as testicular grafting as a therapeutic measure. He
did some kind of wacky science. Uh. Voronoff was not
always taken seriously by the medical community, but Evelyn seemed
(13:05):
to really believe in him. She presented papers with him.
She worked dutifully at his side, and her family's money
was funding most of his research. When rumors reached Evelyn
that Joe was having lesbian affairs, she invited, or, as
Joe characterized it, summoned her daughter to visit her. When
(13:27):
Joe arrived, her mother confronted her about her sexuality and
told her that she needed to get married or she
would lose all her rights to the family money. And
when Joe retold this, she made a series of tapes
in the nineteen seventies with the intent that she was
going to find a ghostwriter to write her autobiography. The
(13:48):
way she talks about it is that she completely didn't care.
She blew off her mother's threat. She told her to
go ahead and disinherit her, but in truth she actually
acquiesced through a bit of a loophole. In nineteen eighteen,
Joe actually married her childhood friend, Count Jacques du Pray,
who was rumored to actually be one of Evelyn's lovers.
(14:09):
So there's some speculation that Joe particularly selected this man
just to spite her mother by saying, fine, I'll marry
a guy that you are romantically involved with. Uh, Jacques
and Joe never consummated their marriage. They basically agreed to
split the ten thousand dollar dowry and go their separate
ways immediately after the wedding. When the war ended, Joe
(14:31):
moved from Paris to London, and she often spoke of
having met her father, Albert Carstairs, quite by chance in
a pub there. In this story, which may or may
not be true, he mistook her for a boy and
then she introduced herself as his daughter, but two of
them shared a cigar and a drink and then parted ways,
never to see one another again. Yeah, we have no
(14:53):
idea whether this actually happened or not. Her biographer that
we mentioned before is quick to point out that some
of the things that Joe said happened during this discussion
or that she talked about with her father, including the
death of her mother, hadn't actually happened yet. Her mother
was still alive at this point, so the timeline does
not match up in Joe's recollection. So there are some
(15:16):
red flags that there at least some falsehoods in this
whole thing. So we don't know if it actually took place.
But eventually Joe made her way to Ireland to drive
British officers in the ongoing war against Shinfane as part
of the Women's Legion Mechanical Transport Section. And while she
was doing this, she befriended two sisters, Molly and Bartieklklow,
(15:37):
who took her in and the three were really fast friends.
In n the three of them all volunteered to go
to northern France to relieve mail drivers there. This was
not an easy job. They were driving in areas that
had been destroyed and the rough terrain really took a
toll on all the cars. The young women, along with
(15:58):
another friend named Joan McKern handled all the needed repairs
themselves while also tending to soldiers, reburying fallen men who
had been put into temporary graves, and trying to clear debris.
Joe and her friends were demobilized on April twenty, nineteen twenty,
and just a week after this driving service ended, Joe's grandmother, Nellie,
(16:20):
died from a heart attack. Nellie had actually had several
strokes before this and had survived them all every time
people thought that this was her time to go, but
it was finally a heart attack that took her. And
while Joe claimed to have been living on almost no
income at this point, while she awaited the execution of
her grandmother's will. That information was a fabrication. Nellie had
actually set up a trust so that her grandchildren would
(16:42):
be taken care of, and Joe never once wanted for money.
For example, in ninety one, she was paid out an
income of a hundred and forty five thousand dollars, and
in nineteen twenty two that income jumped to two hundred
thousand dollars. Evelyn died in nine While her was likely
Drugger alcohol related, it was officially recorded as being from
(17:04):
natural causes. Joe, however, blamed or enough, even suggesting that
he had somehow murdered her mother. After Evelyn's passing, Joe
had her marriage to her childhood friend annulled. Yep, that
was just for show for her mom. Uh. But despite
the generous annual income that Joe was getting, she still
(17:26):
didn't own up to it. She still claimed that she
wasn't getting any money. She They're even stories that she
went so far as to like steal things that she needed,
like food, when she could have easily paid for them.
She seemed to really just love living this more humble
life and spending time with her friends, and this is
after their again their war services drivers has had ended,
(17:47):
so she suggested that they all pool their earnings. Joe,
at this point, again living this life where she feigned
to not have an income, was perfectly happy to take jobs,
working as a bartend, her on a chicken farm. At
one point she worked as a car demonstrator. But she
wanted all of these women she had become friends with
to pool their money and set up a chauffeur business
(18:09):
in London. The service, which was called X Garage, was successful,
and because such a service run by women was really novel,
it got the attention of a lot of the press.
At one point, partner Joan McKern told the press that
they had decided to hire only women. She said, after
employing both men and girls, we have found that the
(18:30):
girls are much more adaptable and trustworthy. And during this
time Joe had secured an estate to live on in Hampshire.
There were two army huts on the property that were
converted into a bungalow and Joe named this little house
Bostwick and she lived there more or less in seclusion.
This is also when she bought her first boat, which
(18:50):
was a yacht named Sonja, and Joe quickly became extremely
skilled as a yachts woman, and so she started racing.
Would prove to be quite a year for Joe. For
one thing, Sonia was extremely successful. It won almost every
race in its class. This is also the year that
the wills of Nellie and Evelyn were finally settled. In
(19:12):
the case of Evelyn's estate, both Francis Francis and Sergei
voronoff ward with Joe about how the will would be executed.
The men clearly felt that in having annulled her marriage,
Joe had given up the rights to the family money. Eventually, though,
Evelyn's estate was all div divvied up, and Joe also
came into a large inheritance from her grandmother's will as well,
(19:36):
so she could really no longer hide the fact that
she was wealthy. At this point, these sorts of things
were being reported in the papers and so in. At
this point, Joe was flush with cash, and she decided
that she was going to commission a hydroplane to be
built for her. And that's hydroplane in the sense of
the very fast vote. Celebrated designer Samuel Saunders was and
(20:00):
trusted the TA with the task of creating this speedboat
for Joe, and it was only one of two boats
built at the East Cow's Yard on the Isle of
Wight that year. These were extremely expensive boats, so they
really didn't make that many of them. And initially this
boat was going to be called Gwen, but when it
capsized during testing, Joe decided to simply reverse the name
and call it nug Any w g instead, so it
(20:23):
was re christened. This boat came with saunders own mechanic,
Joe Harris the Joe's Carstairs and Harris were devoted friends
from that point on. Harris rode with Joe in almost
every race and was steadfast and loyal even when they
were in dangerous situations. Yeah, Joe often pointed out Joe
Carstairs that when Harris rode with her, his seat by design,
(20:46):
was just not as safe as hers. If something happened,
he was going to go flying, whereas sort of the
captain's seat, the driver's seat would had some safety measures
around it. Uh. They are said to have had sort
of a fatherly daughterly relationship in many ways, but they
were incredibly close. However, a new figure that is very
unusual is about to enter Joe's life, and we're going
(21:09):
to talk about that right after a brief word from
one of our fabulous sponsors. So getting back to Joe Carstairs.
At the end of Joe and her girlfriend at the time,
Ruth Baldwin, traveled to the Swiss Alps for Christmas, and
it's there that Ruth gave Joe what would become a
lifelong prize possession. This was a small leather doll. It
(21:30):
was stuffed with jointed arms and legs, and it was
a little man. And Joe named this small leather gentleman
Lord Todd Wadley, and she treasured him utterly. Joe and
Ruth set up a house together near King's Road in Chelsea,
and Joe had a plaque made for the front door
that read Marian Barbara Carstairs and Lord Todd Wadley. While
(21:52):
Joe and Ruth seemed to have a really deep and
abiding love for one another, their relationship was not exclusive.
In Joe and her boat nug raced for the Duke
of York's trophy on the Thames, an event attended by
tens of thousands of spectators, and in the end it
came down to Nuke and a German boat called Seagreed four,
(22:14):
but the German hydroplanes connecting rod Broke Nug had trouble
as well. The propeller got caught on a piece of
rope that was in the water, and Joe hacked at
the rope to cut it free and eventually finished the
race and was the only competitor to do so. From
then on, Joe's fame and her career as a speedboat
racer really grew. There's a famous portrait taken of Joe
(22:36):
in those early days, and she had gotten drunk and
had her arms tattooed, and in the photo they're bared
showing off her tattoos, and she also has Lord Todd
Wadley sitting underneath facing her. She's wearing men's clothes, there's
a cigarette in her mouth, and she's then profile gazing
down at this doll. It is it's quite a striking image,
and she and Lord Todd Wadley are dressed almost the same.
(23:00):
It's a very wonderfully strange, sort of beautiful moments. Uh
in the nine twenties in Europe were really sort of
the perfect time and place for Joe. She loved her speedboats,
which were wildly popular. She loved the debauchery and rule
bending that was going on at the time. She had
affairs with numerous actresses at the London stage, including to
(23:20):
Lula Bankhead, all the while sort of playing the dandy
in these impeccably tailored suits, and in some ways it
was a uniquely free time to be doing these sorts
of things. So she was taking on the boyishness that
was to some degree already in vogue and women's fashion.
You know, women that were playing hyper femininity even were
(23:42):
you know, binding their breasts so that they looked like
they had more boyish figures, and there was the bobbing
of hair, and femininity was even being played with. So
Joe sort of took that kind of concept and really
just floored it into a full gender switch, which seemed
to be really sort of oddly accepted, at least in
the theater and party set of London that she ran in.
(24:02):
And as Joe had basically conquered the speedboat world in
Nuke's class, she wanted to move on to another challenge.
She once again commissioned Samuel Saunders, and this time she
wanted to create three incredibly fast hydroplanes for her she
wanted the fastest craft on water, and they were reputed
to be able to zip along at a hundred miles
(24:22):
an hour. That sounds terrifying to me. I am clearly
not a speed freak. I was just on a boat
that was going much slower than that, and it was
still like a but being up in the front of
it just a pounding experience. Yeah, my dad really loved, loves,
(24:43):
continues to love speedy things. He raced cars when he
was younger. He really loved speedboats, and I always remember
just being terrified on them when I was a kid.
But the first of these, uh, the first two of
these three boats that Joe had commissioned were unveiled in
and they had the names Estelle one and a Stell too,
after her mother. If this sounds weird, it is because
(25:05):
this ended up being a little bit of a whoopsie
Daisy scenario. Joe, who had always been so intent on
bucking off her family history in favor of creating her
own identity, had actually forgotten that her mother's name was
in fact Evelyn and not a Stell. And when Carstairs
realized her error, she wasn't even dismayed about it. She
thought it was all rather amusing, but both of the
(25:27):
watercraft proved to be pretty problematic. A Stell one sank
on one of its first outings and a Stell too
had problems as well, causing Joe to withdraw her entry
from the Harmsworth Trophy Race. But then she heard that
her main competitor was also having trouble with his boats,
so she once again announced her intent to participate. That
meant that she had to travel to Detroit for the race,
(25:51):
and initially she had planned to take another boat designed
by Saunter's firm across the Atlantic, but that ship too
had problems during testing, and this series of failures actually
resulted in one of the designers that worked under Shaunders
being fired from the firm, and instead of one of
her custom design speedsters, Joe ended up making the trans
Atlantic crossed crossing in the Cunard Liner Berengaria, which she
(26:15):
apparently fell in love with. When she reached the United States,
Joe posed for photos with Lord Todd Wadley and she
made headlines. One paper called her a puzzler Colan Mannish
thanks us paper for that in fight. Another another referred
to her as the pretty English motor boat racer. The
(26:36):
press has also called her Betty, and some of their
coverage based on her middle name of Barbara, which she
really hated. She super duper hated that Betty thing. And
it's funny looking back at, uh, some of the old
accounts of it where they're talking about, you know, famed
woman speedster Betty Carstairs, and I'm like, where did they
even come up with? She really really disliked it a
(26:58):
great deal. The important thing was the race. Uh. Joe,
with Joe Harris at her side, as usual, did incredibly well.
This race was really close and it was really exciting
right up until a stell To capsized, throwing both Joe's
from the vessel. Joe Carstairs initially seemed unharmed. Joe Harris
(27:19):
they were a little bit worried about. They had to
pull him out of the water and it turned out
he had broke into ribs. Later it was revealed that
the Heiress had actually also cracked three of her ribs.
But she didn't want to miss any parties, so she
didn't tell anybody and just went about her business. Uh.
She also as she went to these parties, started rumors
that American competitors had purposely sabotaged her boat. Despite her
(27:44):
difficulty in the race, she was praised in the press
for her prowess. She returned to London and dismayed at
the series of blunders on the part of the Saunders Farm,
set up her own boatyard, headed by Joe Harris as
chief engineer. And that is actually where we're gonna, cliffhang you, uh.
In the next episode, We're gonna talk about the next
(28:05):
stages of Joe's racing career. We're eventually going to veer
off to the Bahamas. Things get a little more eccentric
and odd. Uh. But she's so fascinating. I just I
really want to take the time to talk about all
of these sort of strange little snippets of her life.
So in lieu of listener mail today, I actually have
(28:25):
a listener thank you that I have to send out
to our listener, Heather. I think it was on Facebook
and I have had difficulty locating it. But at one
point things had come up about Roly Crump, who was
an imagineer at the Haunted Mint for the Haunted Mansion
and other Disney projects, and Heather had mentioned that she
had this comic book called Seekers of The Weird, which
(28:47):
I also have in love that was based on his
early drawings that got kind of put aside that weren't
part of the museum that was supposed to eventually be
built as part of the attraction by Walt, but was,
as I said, discarded. So this comic came out in
the last couple of years. It's very, very fun. And
Heather had mentioned that she had an extra copy that
(29:07):
had been signed and she would happily send it to me,
and I actually never responded to her because I almost
didn't know how like I'm reluctant to be like yes
and me stuff, but I was also just so touched
by the offer that I didn't know what to do.
And then the comics showed up last week, and um,
it's spectacular because it's signed by Roally Crump, which is
incredibly meaningful as well as the other creators, and it's
so fabulous, and it came on a day when I
(29:29):
was just having not my finest hour, so it was
really like perfect timing and so touching. And Heather, You're
so generous. I cannot thank you enough. I treasure it. Uh,
it's absolutely a delight, So thank you, thank you, Thank you.
We have so many great listeners and they are often
so kind and generous to us, and I feel like
we have to point those out when we can, so
(29:50):
if you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at house stepworks dot com.
You can connect with this at Facebook dot com, slash
missed Industry on Twitter, at mis in History at pinterest
dot com, slash missed in History at misston History dot
tumbler dot com. You can visit us at mist in
History dot spreadshirt dot com if you would like to
purchase some stuff to miss in History class goodies, and
(30:12):
we have a brand new Instagram account as missed in
History and we'll be posting some hopefully fun kookie at
times pictures there. If you would like to research a
little bit more about what we talked about today, you
can go to our parents site, how stuff Works. Type
in the word gender in the search bar, and one
of the articles that you're gonna come up with is
how fluid is gender? Uh. You can research at that
(30:33):
at how some Works. You can visit us at mist
in history dot com for all of our episodes, show
notes on any of the episodes that Tracy and I
have worked on as well as the occasional other additional
blog post or goodie, so we encourage you to come
visit us at how st work dot com and miss
in history dot com for more on this and thousands
(30:54):
of other topics. Because it has to works dot com
into
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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