October 5, 2020 • 9 mins
Women marched on Versailles on this day in 1789. / On this day in 1936, people protesting unemployment and calling for the establishment of work in Jarrow, England, began their march to London.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. Heads up that you also might hear
two different hosts, me and Tracy V. Wilson. With that said,
on with the show. Welcome to this day in History
Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from the
desk of Stuff You Missed in History Class. It's the
show where we explore the past one day at a
(00:20):
time with a quick look at what happened today in history. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
it's October. Five women marched on Versilles on this day
in This is mostly in response to a food shortage.
(00:40):
France had deregulated its grain market in the seventeen seventies,
and this was all part of a big economic plan
that was devised by Anne Robert Jacques Trejeaux, who was
Minister of Finance, Trade and Public Works under King Louis
Triseo's philosophy was no bankruptcy, no tax increases, no borrowing.
This d regulation of the green market, though, was followed
(01:02):
by several years in a row of poor harvests, and
at the same time the population of France was growing
really quickly while the size of the agricultural industry was
staying the same, so there were more people, but at
best the same amount of food to feed them. In reality,
less food to feed them. Because of these poor harvests,
(01:22):
grain prices and consequently bread prices skyrocketed in the face
of this shortage, and by nine French laborers were spending
about eighty percent of their wages just on bread. Then
on October one of nine, in the middle of this
ongoing bread shortage and massive economic problems and the early
(01:44):
months of the French Revolution, there was a massive and
pretty rowdy party at Versailles, at the Opera house there,
and it got all kinds of publicity. Printmakers and other
media covered this whole party in a really overblown way,
but there was a neugget of truth to what they
were saying. There had really been a big, rowdy party
at Versailles while the common people were going hungry, and
(02:05):
guests at Versailles had been bad mouthing the ongoing revolution
to make things worse. This was at the time of
year when bread should have been available because the grain
harvest happened in September, but people were still facing breadlines
that stretched for blocks, so people started protesting in the
streets on October four, and then on the fifth, between
(02:28):
five thousand and ten thousand people, most of them women,
gathered outside the Hotel de Villa in Paris, which was
the seat of the city council. A lot of them
had participated in the storming of the Best Deal a
few months earlier. They were demanding that grain be released
to the people, and they just didn't get a response,
so they started marching, and they marched the whole twelve
(02:51):
miles or so, approximately twenty kilometers to Versailles. They were
armed with things like clubs and muskets and pikes, and
the crowd swelled on way there. By the time they
got to Versailles there were as many thirty thousand people.
They had also developed some goals. They wanted the monarchy
to address this food shortage. They wanted the king to
relocate to Paris and to reign from a position where
(03:13):
he was actually with his people, not off on his
own in Versailles. Mostly being influenced by the aristocracy. Some
of them also wanted to harm the king or to
harm Marie Antoinette. This crowd was at verciesh for about
twenty four hours and the tensions were really high at
various points. At one point, a group of protesters got
into Versailles to try to search for the queen, and
(03:35):
the guard opened fire and killed two of them. The
protesters turned on the guards and killed two of them
and dismembered them. Eventually, the military was able to remove
the protesters from inside of Versailles, and the king spoke
to them while they were out on the grounds. He
was saying that he loved his people, and he promised
to go to Paris. He even put on a tricolor cockade,
(03:56):
which had become an emblem of the revolution. Louis the
six teenth, Marie Antoinette and their children left Versai and
went to Paris the next day, and this was the
first time in a century that France was ruled from
Paris instead of from Versailles. So while the protest did
achieve some of its goals, we should note that this
is a very very early piece of the French Revolution,
(04:18):
and a whole lot more happened after that. You can
learn more about all this in the February episode of
Stuff You Missed in History Class. Thanks to Tari Harrison
for oliver audio work on this show and You can
subscribe to the Stay in History Class and Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts and where else you get your podcasts. You
can tune in tomorrow We're going to rob a train.
(04:47):
Hey everyone, I'm Eves and welcome back to This Day
in History Class, a podcast where we unwrap a piece
of history candy every day. The day was October five,
ninety six. Around two hundred people began their march from
(05:09):
Jarrow to London as part of the Jero March. They
were protesting the unemployment and poverty in Jarrow, a town
in northeast England on the south bank of the River Time.
None of the march's goals were immediately met, but in
the longer term it did contribute to changing attitudes regarding
welfare and social reforms. When the Great Depression hit the
(05:32):
UK in the nineteen thirties, industry declined an unemployment increased.
The economic downturn was particularly bad in industrial and mining
places like southern Wales, Northeast England and parts of Scotland
were hit hard because of the dominance of the coal, iron, steel,
and shipbuilding industries, so the places that had flourished due
(05:55):
to these industries took a huge fall during the depression.
Throughout the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, people organized hunger
marches to protest unemployment and poverty in the hopes of
improving their conditions. One of those places greatly affected by
unemployment was Jarro, which had an economy that was largely
built on coal and shipbuilding. In eighteen fifty one, Charles
(06:18):
Mark Palmer established a shipyard at Jarrow with his brother George,
calling the company Palmer Brothers and Co. By eighteen sixty five,
the company had expanded to include an iron rolling mill
and blast furnaces. In the early nineteen hundreds, the company
was a major builder of warships for the Royal Navy,
cargo liners and tankers, but when the depression hit, the
(06:42):
company suffered losses and shut down in nineteen thirty three.
Since Jerald depended so heavily on the shipbuilding industry, a
lot of people were unemployed. About sevent of the local
workforce was out of work by nineteen thirty three. In
a speech she gave and the how of Commons in November,
Gerald's labor Party, MP Ellen Wilkinson said that only one
(07:05):
hundred men were employed on a temporary scheme where eight
thousand people had previously been employed. Wilkinson, who was elected
as Gerald's MP in November of nine, was sympathetic to
the struggles of unemployed workers. People in gerald were eager
for the government to do something about the unemployment. They
(07:26):
organized a meeting with a Cabinet minister, but they were
told that Jerald had to work out its own salvation.
So the gerald Borough Council decided to present a petition
to Parliament for help establishing work in Jarrow. The petition
got eleven thousand signatures. It would be marched from Jarrow
to London to be shown to the House of Commons.
(07:49):
They hoped that the non political march would get a
lot of publicity and earned the sympathy of the public
so that industry would be re established in the town
and unemployed men could work. After attending at echumenical dedication service,
two hundred men deemed fit set off on a three
hundred mile journey to London on October five, ninety six.
(08:10):
They had the support of Wilkinson and Gerald's Mayor, Billy Thompson.
On October thirty one, they made it to London. A
group of blind veterans also organized a march to London
to arrive at the same time as the Gerald March.
A national hunger March also coincided with the Gerald March.
Wilkinson presented the petition to the House of Commons four
(08:32):
days later, but no immediate help was given to Jaral
or the protesters, who soon headed back to their hometown.
Though they got a warm welcome when they returned, the
marchers felt that their efforts were unsuccessful. There was no
immediate increase in employment, but the Second World War soon
brought industry back to the town. Some historians have said
(08:54):
that the Gerald March and other unemployment protests help shape
later perspectives the nineteen thirties, and that they contributed to
support of social programs after the war. I'm each Jeff
Coote and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday and give a warm, warm
(09:14):
birthday shout out to our producer Alexis, who works very
hard and it's also very awesome. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at t d I h
C Podcast. If emails your thing, send us a note
at this day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks
again for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For more
(09:46):
podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, history enthusiasts, you get not one, but two events
in history today. Heads up that you also might hear
two different hosts, me and Tracy V. Wilson. With that said,
on with the show. Welcome to this day in History
Class from how Stuff Works dot Com and from the
desk of Stuff You Missed in History Class. It's the
show where we explore the past one day at a
(00:20):
time with a quick look at what happened today in history. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
it's October. Five women marched on Versilles on this day
in This is mostly in response to a food shortage.
(00:40):
France had deregulated its grain market in the seventeen seventies,
and this was all part of a big economic plan
that was devised by Anne Robert Jacques Trejeaux, who was
Minister of Finance, Trade and Public Works under King Louis
Triseo's philosophy was no bankruptcy, no tax increases, no borrowing.
This d regulation of the green market, though, was followed
(01:02):
by several years in a row of poor harvests, and
at the same time the population of France was growing
really quickly while the size of the agricultural industry was
staying the same, so there were more people, but at
best the same amount of food to feed them. In reality,
less food to feed them. Because of these poor harvests,
(01:22):
grain prices and consequently bread prices skyrocketed in the face
of this shortage, and by nine French laborers were spending
about eighty percent of their wages just on bread. Then
on October one of nine, in the middle of this
ongoing bread shortage and massive economic problems and the early
(01:44):
months of the French Revolution, there was a massive and
pretty rowdy party at Versailles, at the Opera house there,
and it got all kinds of publicity. Printmakers and other
media covered this whole party in a really overblown way,
but there was a neugget of truth to what they
were saying. There had really been a big, rowdy party
at Versailles while the common people were going hungry, and
(02:05):
guests at Versailles had been bad mouthing the ongoing revolution
to make things worse. This was at the time of
year when bread should have been available because the grain
harvest happened in September, but people were still facing breadlines
that stretched for blocks, so people started protesting in the
streets on October four, and then on the fifth, between
(02:28):
five thousand and ten thousand people, most of them women,
gathered outside the Hotel de Villa in Paris, which was
the seat of the city council. A lot of them
had participated in the storming of the Best Deal a
few months earlier. They were demanding that grain be released
to the people, and they just didn't get a response,
so they started marching, and they marched the whole twelve
(02:51):
miles or so, approximately twenty kilometers to Versailles. They were
armed with things like clubs and muskets and pikes, and
the crowd swelled on way there. By the time they
got to Versailles there were as many thirty thousand people.
They had also developed some goals. They wanted the monarchy
to address this food shortage. They wanted the king to
relocate to Paris and to reign from a position where
(03:13):
he was actually with his people, not off on his
own in Versailles. Mostly being influenced by the aristocracy. Some
of them also wanted to harm the king or to
harm Marie Antoinette. This crowd was at verciesh for about
twenty four hours and the tensions were really high at
various points. At one point, a group of protesters got
into Versailles to try to search for the queen, and
(03:35):
the guard opened fire and killed two of them. The
protesters turned on the guards and killed two of them
and dismembered them. Eventually, the military was able to remove
the protesters from inside of Versailles, and the king spoke
to them while they were out on the grounds. He
was saying that he loved his people, and he promised
to go to Paris. He even put on a tricolor cockade,
(03:56):
which had become an emblem of the revolution. Louis the
six teenth, Marie Antoinette and their children left Versai and
went to Paris the next day, and this was the
first time in a century that France was ruled from
Paris instead of from Versailles. So while the protest did
achieve some of its goals, we should note that this
is a very very early piece of the French Revolution,
(04:18):
and a whole lot more happened after that. You can
learn more about all this in the February episode of
Stuff You Missed in History Class. Thanks to Tari Harrison
for oliver audio work on this show and You can
subscribe to the Stay in History Class and Apple Podcasts,
Google Podcasts and where else you get your podcasts. You
can tune in tomorrow We're going to rob a train.
(04:47):
Hey everyone, I'm Eves and welcome back to This Day
in History Class, a podcast where we unwrap a piece
of history candy every day. The day was October five,
ninety six. Around two hundred people began their march from
(05:09):
Jarrow to London as part of the Jero March. They
were protesting the unemployment and poverty in Jarrow, a town
in northeast England on the south bank of the River Time.
None of the march's goals were immediately met, but in
the longer term it did contribute to changing attitudes regarding
welfare and social reforms. When the Great Depression hit the
(05:32):
UK in the nineteen thirties, industry declined an unemployment increased.
The economic downturn was particularly bad in industrial and mining
places like southern Wales, Northeast England and parts of Scotland
were hit hard because of the dominance of the coal, iron, steel,
and shipbuilding industries, so the places that had flourished due
(05:55):
to these industries took a huge fall during the depression.
Throughout the nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties, people organized hunger
marches to protest unemployment and poverty in the hopes of
improving their conditions. One of those places greatly affected by
unemployment was Jarro, which had an economy that was largely
built on coal and shipbuilding. In eighteen fifty one, Charles
(06:18):
Mark Palmer established a shipyard at Jarrow with his brother George,
calling the company Palmer Brothers and Co. By eighteen sixty five,
the company had expanded to include an iron rolling mill
and blast furnaces. In the early nineteen hundreds, the company
was a major builder of warships for the Royal Navy,
cargo liners and tankers, but when the depression hit, the
(06:42):
company suffered losses and shut down in nineteen thirty three.
Since Jerald depended so heavily on the shipbuilding industry, a
lot of people were unemployed. About sevent of the local
workforce was out of work by nineteen thirty three. In
a speech she gave and the how of Commons in November,
Gerald's labor Party, MP Ellen Wilkinson said that only one
(07:05):
hundred men were employed on a temporary scheme where eight
thousand people had previously been employed. Wilkinson, who was elected
as Gerald's MP in November of nine, was sympathetic to
the struggles of unemployed workers. People in gerald were eager
for the government to do something about the unemployment. They
(07:26):
organized a meeting with a Cabinet minister, but they were
told that Jerald had to work out its own salvation.
So the gerald Borough Council decided to present a petition
to Parliament for help establishing work in Jarrow. The petition
got eleven thousand signatures. It would be marched from Jarrow
to London to be shown to the House of Commons.
(07:49):
They hoped that the non political march would get a
lot of publicity and earned the sympathy of the public
so that industry would be re established in the town
and unemployed men could work. After attending at echumenical dedication service,
two hundred men deemed fit set off on a three
hundred mile journey to London on October five, ninety six.
(08:10):
They had the support of Wilkinson and Gerald's Mayor, Billy Thompson.
On October thirty one, they made it to London. A
group of blind veterans also organized a march to London
to arrive at the same time as the Gerald March.
A national hunger March also coincided with the Gerald March.
Wilkinson presented the petition to the House of Commons four
(08:32):
days later, but no immediate help was given to Jaral
or the protesters, who soon headed back to their hometown.
Though they got a warm welcome when they returned, the
marchers felt that their efforts were unsuccessful. There was no
immediate increase in employment, but the Second World War soon
brought industry back to the town. Some historians have said
(08:54):
that the Gerald March and other unemployment protests help shape
later perspectives the nineteen thirties, and that they contributed to
support of social programs after the war. I'm each Jeff
Coote and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday and give a warm, warm
(09:14):
birthday shout out to our producer Alexis, who works very
hard and it's also very awesome. You can find us
on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at t d I h
C Podcast. If emails your thing, send us a note
at this day at I heeart media dot com. Thanks
again for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. For more
(09:46):
podcasts from I Heeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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