May 4, 2019 • 47 mins
Friend of the show Yves stops by with a new segment looking at female firsts.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I'll
never told you. And this is a very special bonus
episode and the first of a bonus segment about first.
(00:29):
So this is pretty exciting. And to help me with
this very special, super bonus packed episode is my good
friend and co worker Eves. So let's get to it.
So now we are joined by a good friend of
mine and co worker Eves. It's good to see you again. Yes,
you've heard from Eves on the episode we did around
(00:52):
um Invisible Disability. And we're going to do this segment
that we hope will be a regular segment about female First.
And we spent a decent, not embarrassing amount of time
trying to come up with an acronym for it because
I love doing ridiculous acronyms allah shield from Marvel movies.
(01:14):
So right now we're working with female first empower. Well
we'll get there, we'll get there. You know this has
to be done, though, we're not giving no, no, no,
Please right in with your your suggestions. I actually came
up with one of these for the other podcast I
do and like no one will get on board with it.
I'm like, it's time for another segment of Plate and
(01:37):
they're like Annie, but you can also hear Eaves on
This Day in History class. And one of the reasons
I I'm really excited to have you on here is
because part of doing this show, I've just come to
realize there's so many women who have done amazing things
(01:58):
that I'd never heard of, I was never taught about.
I can say that I've ran into that a lot
too doing This Day in History class, and I'll just
get so excited when I found out things about women
to like, oh my gosh, they did this, they did this.
Everybody needs to know, you know. So I think even
if there are people that we know about, maybe we
don't know everything about them, and then there are people
(02:20):
that or who we haven't heard of at all. So
I'm excited to to be able to talk about people
in history who did amazing things. Yeah, and put a
spotlight on on women who have either been erased or
just never gotten the spotlight they deserve. That's something we
talked about it in our Wikipedia episode of just how
many women kind of forgotten to time? And Yeah, I'm
(02:44):
a big, big history nerd, so I uh, I'm very
happy to to include this and today you have to
two women who kind of uh that there's a couple
of similarities, some more important than others. I was like,
their names will start with him. Did you go through
(03:06):
a whole checklist of like similarities and differences. I can
see you doing that. I do, like, I really do. Yeah,
I think it's important to talk about them, But I
want to talk about first first in general, because I
think there's kind of some I don't know, hesitancy over
celebrating first Sometimes. I do think it's really important to
(03:27):
look back in history and see how things started and
see how they snowballed on from the things that happened
um in the beginning. Um, Like, things have precedents, they
don't just come out of nowhere, and I think that
that can get a little lost sometimes. So it's definitely
important to recognize the first women, the first black people
to do this, the first Native American people to do
things like we haven't today's episode. But um, I think
(03:51):
that there's an argument to be had about the value
of first, because it kind of is like one of
those things that sounds really nice, send really pretty on paper.
But there's definitely an argument to be had about the
value of first, especially when it comes to first when
they are mixed with like gender and with ethnicity, because
(04:11):
a lot of the times they'll be a first woman
to do something and then a first Black woman to
do something. But a lot of Tom's people weren't recognized
for the very reason of that ethnicity. So it kind
of does in a way at times overshadow people's achievements
in history. So I don't know, how how do you
(04:33):
feel about Do you have any thoughts on that? I think, Um,
it's kind of like you said, a nice it's a
nice thing, and it is important because we've talked about
time and time again, seeing yourself represented directly impacts what
you think you can do. But at the same time,
it is it's a complex There's like a lot of
(04:54):
people behind that, right, and a lot of people that
were probably forgotten. Um. And again going back to Wick Pdia, Um,
there's just so many women. Um are other marginalized people
that did the thing and then weren't recognized for it. UM.
So I do think like first are important, but you
(05:15):
should always and I'm just a big proponent of this
in general, have that context behind it, like why were
they the first or like were there other people that
preceded them and made it possible for them to do
the thing that we're also not recognizing exactly. And the
way you put it makes me think of how sometimes
first get shoehorned into things like start adding on a
(05:38):
bunch of adjectives and qualifiers to make a thing a first,
like the first this and then the first that, and
the first this and the first. Um. We had an
episode on the same history class on the first jazz recording,
which was by a band of white men, and we
know that jazz has history and African American communities, um,
and it's still a thing of note to talk about.
(05:59):
We did talk about it, but there's also a history
behind that first jazz recording and there was a reason
that a white band was the band that got to
have that recording in the first place. So I just
want that a weirdness, you know, like just because something
is the first doesn't mean that there's not another history
behind it that's just as notable. Yeah, that's it. Um. Yeah,
(06:20):
So do you want to talk about our first our
first our first historical guest on the show today, our
first first historical guest. I like this, And also now
I'm going to come up with like my own first
like the first Annie to have a podcast with an
e Yu doing a first segment with Eve's Wow, You're
gonna go in history books now for that reason, not
(06:42):
all the other things we've done, specifically this. Yeah, Yeah,
let's let's get into it. I'm excited to talk about
both of these women. Yeah. So, um, our first woman
is Maggie L. Walker. The ellis Brolina. Um. So, I
guess I want to just set the scene first. So
at the time him, when Maggieleena Walker was alive or
(07:03):
just in the beginning, UM, women didn't have the vote,
and she was born right off the back of the
Civil War essentially, so she was she grew up during
their reconstruction era, which is an era when President Lincoln
began planning the reconstruction of the South, and so at
this time there were many people who were enslaved who
were newly declared free, so it was a time of
(07:23):
major upheaval. Like essentially, UM, there were things like black codes,
which were laws that attempted to undermine black people's freedom,
and people were desperately trying to hold onto that system
of slavery at the time, which showed up in things
like sharecropping and lynch ngs, and segregationist policies were also
really big. These were gym crow laws that we're talking about.
(07:45):
So but at the same time all of these things
were happening, Black people were also becoming more involved in
the political process, and education was playing a huge role
in the way that black people were interacting in the
community and churches as well. We're a big part of that.
So there was it was just a turbulent time basically,
(08:06):
and this was the period that Maggie Walker lived in. UM,
And it's I think it's just really cool in general
to think about women specifically, or Black people specifically who
were making moves in such a transitional period. UM. That's
really inspirational, right, I know, Like, don't forget how inspiring that.
That's another thing that's important about context is like wow, yeah,
(08:30):
because I'm thinking like like, I think, so I really
don't want to put these dishes in the dishwasher today,
And then I'm like, wait a second. Maggie Walker was
born right after the Civil War ended, and she started
it back, you know, so I don't know. Yeah, that's
another thing that I like, I like to think about
first that they're they're really inspirational when you put them
in context and complain about stupid things like me are
(08:51):
not stupid. I mean that is a fair complaint, you right. Yeah.
The first black owned bank that was charter in the
United States was a Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain
United Order of True Reformers serious name, so you know
it's serious, UM. And that was founded on March second,
eight eight, and it opened on April three, eighteen eighty nine.
(09:14):
So that was the first black own bank that was charter.
But the first US black own bank that actually opened
was a Capital Savings Bank, and that opened in d
C in October eighteen eighty eight. So there was stuff
brewing before Maggie Walker came along. But in nineteen o three,
Maggie Lena Walker became the first woman in the US
to charter and become the president of a bank. So
(09:35):
she was the first woman period, not just black woman,
she was black, but she was the first woman in
the US to charter and become the president. And this
was in Richmond, Virginia. And I say it like that
because Richmond was once the capital of the Confederacy. UM.
And it is also an hour away from Charlotte's Ville. Um,
(09:57):
so you know, just think about the history of this
place where she was opening a bank. Uh yeah, yeah.
When I was researching her, I saw I found two
laws that I thought were really interesting that we're active
at the time, and one of them was apparently in
Richmond and probably a lot of other places, but Richmond,
(10:18):
you couldn't once you got married, you had to say
goodbye to a job. That what right? Oh man? So
she when she got married, she had a job as
a teacher. She got married and then he had to
give it up. Yeah, and she wanted to do big
and great things. So I guess not that teaching isn't amazing,
(10:40):
not saying that, but you know, she stayed active like
her whole life doing things. But yeah, that's that's that
was a really like wow, that's very specific and what
a law. Jeez. Yeah, she um, she volunteered a lot, right,
There was an organization that she volunteered a lot at. Yeah,
(11:00):
there was. She She ended up being involved in a
lot of organizations And I'm going to get to a
list of them later because it's really a mouthful. When
if you want to come up with an acronym for
all of her organizations that she's been in. I challenged
you to challenge. I just got really excited about that.
So I guess I'll go through her background a little
(11:21):
bit first, like you see how she became this person
who was so involved in all of these organizations. She
was born in eighteen sixty four in Richmond, Virginia. As
I mentioned earlier, her mother was Elizabeth Draper Mitchell, and
she was a formerly enslaved assistant cook for Elizabeth Van
Lou who was a union spy, union spy and abolitionists
who she kind of ensured the education of her servants.
(11:44):
And Maggie's biological father was an Irish American man that
her mom had met on the Van Lou estate, so
the two of them didn't marry, but shortly after Maggie's
birth she got married. Her mom, Elizabeth got married to
a man named William Mitchell, who was also at this estate,
but he was a butler, and William became the head
(12:05):
waiter at a hotel a little bit later in Richmond,
but unfortunately he was later found drowned in a river,
which was a very sad point of you know, a
sad part of Maggie's life because his death was ruled
to suicide, but Maggie believed that he was murdered. Really
sad But at age fourteen, she joined the Independent Order
(12:26):
of St. Luke's, which was the organization that she became
a lot more heavily involved in over the course of
her life and actually was until the end of her life. UM.
And at first it was an organization that helped the
sick and the elderly enrichment. It was a burial society
at first, and then as it grew and developed, it
turned into a fraternal order in a life insurance company. UM.
(12:48):
It was a black organization. If I didn't say that already,
I'm not sure. The order provided financial and social support
to people, and they did things like lended money to
people who had financial difficulty and raised money for members
who had health problems. But after Maggie's mom's husband, after
her husband died, UM, Maggie really began to work with
(13:09):
her mother to help her out financially. So she helped
her mother on the laundry business. So she delivered loads
of clothes to people as part of her mother's laundry business.
And laundry was one of the few things that black
women could do at the time that that was accessible
to them as work and domestic work in general. And
I'm sure you know how important domestic work is in
the history of women. Um So, we'll get to that later,
(13:33):
but um So, at this time she kind of started
realizing the social gap between black people and white people
in America. So she went to the Lancaster School and
she went to Richmond Colored Normal School, and then after
she graduated in eight three, she went and she started
teaching in the public school system, which leads to your
(13:54):
point right when she gave her her job because she
was married or she had to give over because um So,
Maggie was a part of the Independent Order of St.
Luke's as I said earlier, she started being involved in
that organization as a teenager, and the i s O
(14:14):
well started providing like these weekly sickness and disability benefits
and death claims for members beginning in eight which is
very important because at the time, white owned firms denied
the black community access to disability and life insurance in
that gem Crow era, So that was a big deal,
Like it provided a lot that people didn't have in
(14:35):
the black community at the time. So over time, her
Maggie's leadership in growing the membership of the organization really
allowed more payment of death claims and lower costs for premiums.
So she really helped the organization in that way. And
Maggie's contributions also contributed to the development of modern African
(14:56):
American communities that provided services like business and real estate
financing and education, food and clothing and things like that.
So that was important at a time when communities, or
black community specifically, we're building in the United States. And
so over the course of her life, we'll call it
the IO s L. That's still kind of hard, but
(15:19):
the name itself Independent Order of St. Lukes is also
kind of a mouthful, so we'll call it the IO
s L. UM. So she did a lot in the
IO s L over the years of her life. That
was something that she was heavily involved in, and so
in she co founded the Juvenile Department at the IO
s L, which provided leadership opportunities for Black children. UM.
(15:41):
Kids were taught things like financial responsibility, work ethics, and
hygiene skills UM running the gamut. Here. At one point,
the order began giving kids mental pocket banks so they
could fill them with money and then open a savings
account at the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, which is
her bank that she found it, which we'll get you
a little bit later. And so in she became the
(16:04):
right worthy Grand Secretary at the Independent Order of St. Luke's.
And at the time that she became that the Order
was like it was kind of dwindling, like there were
only a few thousand members and it was in debt.
And she really built up the organization to over a
hundred thousand members in twenty four states, and she made
it this kind of vehicle of economic empowerment for black
(16:27):
folks and for women. The Order also collected three point
five million dollars over the time of her leadership while
she was there and built up a hundred thousand dollars yeah,
built up a hundred thousand dollars in reserve. And she
held that Grand secretary position until she died. So she
was committed to the post she was and she also
(16:48):
employed a lot of black women um at the organization.
She donated to black schools, especially ones for girls, and
she wanted women to have the same employment, the same
professional opportunities that men had, and she wanted girls to
be able to envision having those kind of opportunities as
well careers outside of teaching and domestic work. So on
(17:13):
August nine o one UM at the annual convention of
the Order, she called for another Black bank. There were
only about twenty in the US at the time, so
she said the following She said, first, we need a
savings bank. Let us put our moneys together, let us
use our moneys. Let us put our money out at
usury among ourselves and reap the benefit ourselves. Let us
(17:35):
have a bank that will take the nickels and turn
them into dollars. So she was really into this idea
of economic empowerment and kind of self help and really
building up communities and ways like that. So she also
at the same time, like in nineteen o two, she
began publishing the St. Luke Harold, the newspaper of the
(17:56):
Independent Order of St. Luke's, and she used that newspaper too.
It was distributed to people, but she used to encourage
black people Enrichmond to establish their own institutions. And by
nineteen sixteen the paper had four thousand subscribers. So as
we can see, she was just really like, she was
really innovative and she was really trying all these new
things to get to get things going, and she was
(18:18):
trying to use this kind of I was gonna say,
holy trinity. Well she was. She was trying to use
this trinity of the paper and a department store that
she later opened up and the bank too create this
like bustling and thriving part of the black community in Richmond. Right.
And like we said, this is when things were it
(18:40):
was reconstruction and things were bidding getting built. Um. Yeah,
I love that she opened a department store. Yeah, it
didn't do so hot. Um ended up closing. I think
it opened in nineteen o five and it closed in
nineteen eleven because black people weren't supporting it. Um. And
that's not I know I can sound bad, but the
(19:00):
black people didn't come out to it, and they should
have done this, But it's kind of like they felt
that pressure at the time from white owned businesses. They
thought that there would be repercussions for them visiting that
business as well, because white owned businesses and white people
were pushing back against the store. Because Maggie was trying
to use it as this place where that would feel
safer for black people to go and would also employ
(19:22):
a lot more black people, but because they didn't get
to where they needed to be financially, it had to close. Yeah. Yeah,
so things fail sometimes. I don't think that should detract
us from our missions, do you know? Otherwise I don't
know where i'd be. I'd just be at home. I'm sorry.
(19:45):
Thank you for that. You know, I don't turn it down.
I'll accept it. I appreciate it. I believe in you, Annie,
Thank you. I know that that's not what will happen
with your life. This is not a like hit on
pick Star movies or anything that just made me really
sad for some reason. So there were a lot of
(20:06):
racial stereotypes at the time that discouraged white bankers from
loaning money to black people, and because they thought that
black people wouldn't repay the loans, stereotypes like that, and
if black people were given loans, they were often charged
to hire rate of interest in white customers. I mean,
we don't have to get into paid loans and we
don't have to talk about lending practices today, but there
(20:30):
are precedents for things. Um, a lot of things have
been going on a long time in the United States
when it comes to marginalized communities, but UM a lot
of white owned banks did accept deposits from black customers,
but some didn't, and those managers thought that black customers
would scare away the white people who were coming into
the business. So Maggie knew that it wasn't the best
(20:52):
idea to go to these white owned banks, and that
they're needed to be black owned banks that black people
could patronize. So she wanted to be the person who
could create that bank. So she was already clearly into
women's empowerment and the empowerment of black people and building
up community, so the bank was just part of that.
So she started building up her banking and her accounting
(21:13):
and her business skills by studying banks that were in Richmond, Virginia.
She recruited in It Burke, the hit teller from their
True Reformers Bank, which was the bank that we talked
about earlier, the first black bank that was chartered in
the US. And so after all that happened and she
built up all her skills and self educated UM, she
opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank on the first
(21:36):
floor of St. Lucoll on November two, nine oh three.
The goal of the bank was to encourage savings and
facilitate loans, and yeah, she became the first woman period
to charter a bank in the United States in Ene. Yep,
that's uh. I love the name. I don't know why,
but like saving pennies. I've just had a good experience
(21:59):
with every place that I've been to that's got that name,
and they're mostly bars, but penny the word the word
penny in their name interesting. So are you a person
who picks up pennies on hits but not pennies on
tails or do you not pick up pennies at all?
Oh my gosh, I actually feel a deep pang in
my heart every time I see a penny, and I'm like,
this is so sad because if no one picks you up,
(22:20):
you're just out of our money circulation. Yeah, it's just
like lost money. That's why I pick it up every time.
I feel Yes. And this is gonna be so embarrassing
because I'm going to sound like a cheap skate saying this,
but I'm gonna come forth. I'm gonna speak my truth
right now, do it. I can't stand when people don't
give me back change at like restaurants. I hate that.
(22:42):
I'm like do you know how important these nickels are
to me? This is my life. I'm the same way.
I'm the same way because I have to pay for
laundry still and I'm always like, this is laundry money.
I need this. Don't take this from me. And it
happened a lot when I was in I feel like
(23:03):
l A. Oh yeah, like taking to l A, l A.
What's going on cheap skates? Yea. Let me not offend
any l A listeners. Well no, no listeners from l A.
They just have the money to give those nickels away.
If Friday with your experience with the nickel situation in
l A, please we need to know. Please do how
I would love to We have some more about all
(23:26):
of these first to share with you listeners, But first
we have a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Um So. By
the end of the first day of the bank's business
(23:47):
after Maggie opened it, it had over nine thousand dollars
in deposits, and by January of nineteen o six, savings
deposits were a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. So that
provided opportunities for home and business loans, and by nineteen
twenty the bank had financed over six hundred home loans,
allowing for significant real estate holdings among the black community
(24:10):
in Richmond. So it was just a a snowball of
things that were able to happen after she opened this
bank basically, and most of the female account holders there
were domestic workers as well. So her Maggie's vision for
the bank was like she wanted multiple branches in Virginia
(24:30):
and Brandon, d C. It didn't really work out like
that in the beginning, um only there was only a
branch in Hampton, Virginia. But it was successful over the
years and it continued to grow, especially in the beginning,
and it helped really ensure the existence and longevity of
the middle class of black people in Virginia or in Richmond.
(24:54):
And so in nineteen there was a stock market crash
which would have affected the bank and as it did
a lot of banks and other businesses. Um So Maggie
had the foresight. She was a smart woman. She was
a smart woman, and she merged the St. Luke Bank
with two other black banks in the area, which were
the Commercial Bank and Trust Company and the Second Street
(25:17):
Savings Bank, and in nineteen thirty the bank became the
Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, and Maggie was the chairman
r chair person, the chair she was the chairperson, Okay.
The bank continued to operate as a black owned institution
until two thousand five when yeah, like a long time
(25:38):
when it was purchased, thank you for recognizing how amazing
that is, UM, when it was purchased by the Abigail
Adams Corporation, and then the Premier Bank bought it in
two thousand eleven. So at that time it was the
longest operating black owned bank in the States. UM. And
that brings us to contemporary times. UM. But during her
(25:59):
lifetime a bank wasn't the only thing that she was
involved in. Like she was also politically active. She was
socially active. As we mentioned at the top of the episode,
these were ready days in in the United States and
there was a lot to fight for. UM. So in
nineteen o four she was an organizer of the boycott
that protested the Virginia Passenger in Power Companies policy of
(26:22):
segregated seating on street cars and enrichment. And we talked
about the department store she opened that in nineteen O
five and she also so here's where the organizations come in. Um.
She worked for the Order of St. Luke's. But she
was in a ton of other organizations, including she was
the vice president of the Richmond chapter of the n
double a cp UM later in life. But here's some
(26:43):
other roles. She heilled are you ready for this? So
buckle in the National Association of Colored Women, She was
in the National Association of Wage Earners, the Council of
Colored Women, Interracial Commission, International account of Women of the
Darker Races, National Negro Business League, and the Negro Organization Society.
(27:08):
That's pretty solid. She had a lot going on. She
shod and I'm just she didn't have Google cow probably,
but if she did, if she didn't off the hook right.
Too many notifications all the time. So in nineteen twenty
one she also ran for public office under what they
(27:31):
call Lily Black Republican ticket, and the ticket didn't do
so well. She was running for Superintendent of Public Instructions,
so she lost like everybody else had the ticket. But
you know, it is what it is. And um, but
that was a venture of hers as well. She tried
to go into office also when she also lived in
a really nice house in a really nice part of
town Um in Virginia. From nineteen o five to nineteen
(27:53):
thirty four, she lived in a Victorian townhouse in an
elite black neighborhood in jim Crow Richmond, Um. And it
was pretty fancy, Like it was kind of fancy, and
she has some cool people come over, Like she had
some cool friends like w. Douvoce, Mary McCloud, Bethune, and
Langston Hughes Um. But yeah, her house was like I'm
(28:15):
just trying to imagine this when I think about families,
like who has so many children who were so huge,
which I feel like doesn't happen that much anymore, but
she had I think I think it was like at
once at one point like dozens of rooms in the house,
Like she had more added on to the townhouse. Then
he got up to twenty or thirty two rooms or
something like that, because there was a lot of family
that was living in the house at one time. Like
(28:38):
families had their own like parts of the house, which
I think is really cool. Um. And I think that's
another conversation that is a longer conversation to be had
when it comes to continuing to nurture generations of the
family within black community specifically. Um, another conversation to be
had that we don't have time for it right now. Um.
(28:59):
But yeah, she had a huge family and house that
she lived in and she lived well, like she was successful.
Um So later in her life she did um a
lot more things. She fought for women's suffrage in the
nineteenth Amendment UM, which prohibits the government from denying the
right to vote in the basis of sex. And she
just kept doing things after the bank was growing. So
(29:24):
she's the first she is. Yeah, her story is really cool,
and I love that she did do so much stuff
to empower people in her community, Like that was a
big push for her. UM So inspiring first for sure. Yeah,
(29:45):
and I think that the thing she did, it's also
really good to look back on because you know, a
lot of like talk when it comes to a black
community and financial education, financial literacy, economic empowerment and the
black dollars staying in the black community is still a
conversation that happens a lot right now and for good reasons.
And we're also talking about reparations a lot right now,
(30:05):
because nobody got paid for the work that they did
while they were enslaved. Um. But the things that Maggie did,
I think people it's easy to be able to look
to her as an inspiration or as a leader of
what to do to economically empower people and to keep
that goal on one's mind and to try new things,
(30:28):
you know, and to continue to educate people. And she
was just so so determined and so headstrong at a
time when it probably was easy not to be you know,
like it's probably easy to lose faith what I mean
by that, right, right? Right? So yeah, I just I
think she's really cool. And yeah, so do you want
(30:52):
to move on to our next first? Yeah? I like this.
I feel like we're reviewing, like two thumbs up Maggie Walker,
because you look, what we think about you is very important,
is okay, And it does all the other stuff you've
done in your accolades, It doesn't matter. When I say
you're cool, You're cool. Cool. Heaves gives you the cool
(31:15):
stamp and you are set you up set. But yeah,
let's let's move on to your other first, who, as
I not so coolly pointed out, is another woman whose
name starts with Anne, and she's got other things going
on for her that was so cool. Annie, don't down
yourself like that. If he just gives me the cool
(31:37):
thumbs up, Oh gosh, my life is made. What Annie
and I were talking about earlier is that the similarities
between these two people, Maggie Walker and Maria tald Chief,
which is who we're about to talk about, and Maria
tal Chief, like Maggie Walker was the first woman to
do a thing, but she was also a first Native
(31:58):
American woman to do a thing, so she um ethnicity. Notwithstanding,
she was the first. She was the first woman, and
she was the first major prima ballerina in America. And
she was the first because she was Native American. She
was also the first Native American to do that thing.
But she was a pioneer in the field in general.
(32:19):
So she was a prima ballerina for the New York
City Ballet. That's how she got that first. Um is okay,
so I have taken ballet, but prima ballerina UM for
for people who don't perhaps know, please tell us no,
I don't know. I'm asking you, isn't it. It's like
(32:43):
the prime ballery. Yeah, the principal dancer. UM, I haven't
taken ballet either, said you have you have Okay, so
you're way way more on point than I am about currently.
Not what is that called the point? One point? The point?
The point was a ballet pun that just happened, but
it was physical so it just felt flat on his face. Well,
(33:06):
the day that we're able to somehow translate sound into
also feeling our vision when people can see what's going
on in the podcast studio, that's what that is called for.
Now we just inherate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
(33:26):
if you can imagine listeners, so it would be like
to like watch something that we are visionaries, but if
you can imagine, it's like to watch we are ever
died right now. But also who was ahead of her
time is Ritty was very ahead of her time. So
(33:49):
she was born on January and she was born named
Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in Fairfax, Oklahoma on the O
Sage Nation Reservation UM and her fa father was Alexander
Joseph Tall Chief, who was a full blooded oh Sage
and a big time real estate exect. And her mother
was Ruth Tall Chief who had Irish, Scottish and Dutch roots.
(34:12):
And at that time, the O Sage were the wealthiest
tribe in the US since they had discovered oil on
their land and everyone held mentmal rights. But you know,
Maria still had some stuff going on in her family
UM and her father had a drinking problem, which often
led to arguments with Maria's mother and the O Sage
were obviously still subject to persecution like Native American tribes
(34:36):
were in America at the time from the federal government.
So in eighteen eighty four, the U s officially banned
what they called quote pagan ceremonies UM, and they began
imprisoning and even killing American Indians who took part in
tribal religious ceremonies, and so the throughout the late eighteen
hundreds in the early nineteen hundreds, the government was enforcing
(34:59):
laws that outlawed Native American traditions. And there's a old
rich like I don't want to say rich because that
sounds positive, but there's a long history of uh of
Native Americans practices being forcefully assimilated and being Christianized and
(35:19):
so on and so forth. Maria's grandmother, Eliza Big Heart
Tall Chief, still snuck Maria and her younger sister into
secret tribal ceremonies when they were children, which is just
really endearing to me. I don't know, it sounds really cute,
but Maria was fascinated by all the outfits, the dancing
and the songs at the pow wows, and that really
(35:40):
stuck with her throughout her childhood different lifetime. So when
she was three, she went to her first ballet lesson
UM in the basement of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs,
UM And by the time she was five, her ballet
teacher already had her dancing on point on the toe thing,
the toe thing, which um is actually not great to
start that earliest in Julie. Maria also started piano lessons
(36:03):
when she was young. Her mother really wanted her to
be a concert pianist, but Maria wanted to do ballet,
like that's where she really wanted. She did do piano lessons,
but what she really wanted was ballet, so her family
called her Betty Marie. When she was eight years old,
her family moved to Beverly Hills, California, So, under the
guidance of the famed dancer and choreographer Ernest Pilcher, Maria
(36:27):
and her sister learned everything from ballet to acrobatics to
tap dance, and Ruth was really excited to get her
daughters out onto the stage, so sometimes she made them
do these cringe worthy Native American dances that were really contrived,
um to be called tribalt. So yeah, in nineteen thirty eight,
(36:50):
Maria and her sister began studying basically from here, it's
just ballet, ballet, ballet, like you know, when you're in something,
you're in something, and as we know, with a lot
of people who we're a passionate artists, like their lives
become that art and they just really delve into it.
And that was that was Maria's life from that point.
(37:13):
So she basically really got heavy into ballet from here.
So in nineteen thirty eight, she and her sister began
studying under David Lashin and his wife was a prima
ballerina Tatiana Ribauchinska and Bronislava Nijinska, who was a notable
ballet teacher and choreographer. So Nazynska was a really tough
teacher who pushed her students to be dancers at all time,
(37:34):
but not just when they were like practicing and performing.
You make it a part of your life, and she
really recognized Maria's talent and they decided to cast her,
or she decided to cast her in the ballet chopin Concerto,
which was performed at the Hollywood Bowl in nineteen forty
Oh wow, yep. So Maria graduated from Beverly Hills High
(37:56):
School in nineteen forty two, and she hit the ground running.
After that. She got a job as an extra in
the film Presenting Lily Mars, which start Judy Garland. We know,
we all know, yes, well, I'm not going to make
any assumptions, but never sued, and soon after she earned
(38:17):
a spot at Valet Roust de Monte Carlo, which was
a major ballet company at the time. And when she
was performing with Ballet Rous, this is the time that
she went from Betty Marie as her family called her,
to Maria tall Chief. One word originally in her name
is tall Chief is two words, but she went to
she was already using tall Chief as one word, but
she changed her first name to Maria because her colleagues
(38:40):
said that a more Russian sounding name would help make
her more appealing and palatable to people. Wow. Yeah, So
she started rising in the ranks Basically she went from
the court of ballet to solo parts, started being in
the spotlight. And the Russian choreographer George Balance, she who
(39:00):
has been called the father of American ballet, really helped
her sharpen her ballet skills um over the years. So
he helped her on the turnout or when they when
dancers like rontate their legs outwards so the toes point
away from each other. I'm trying to do my hands
doing the thing again, what do you know about this?
Because you were in ballet? What am I? What am
(39:21):
I talking about? Okay, So he trained her to become stronger,
and he just really helped her embody the art of ballet.
And she even once said Marie even Want said that
she didn't fully understand ballet until he came around. So
that ballet relationship turned into a more romantic relationship in
n the two of them, Maria and Balance, she got
(39:42):
married when she was twenty one and he was forty
two years old, So there's a big difference there. But
that marriage didn't last too long. It only lasted six years. Yeah,
but so it was it was a rough relationship. Um.
They didn't really the job or mesh like that much,
but what at least not romantically, but while why there?
(40:02):
While they were together and afterwards they collaborated a ton.
So they went to France and Maria made her debut
at the Paris Opera Ballet in nineteen forty seven, and
in nineteen forty eight Maria joint Balancine's new company, the
New York City Ballet, and she was Prima Ballerina there
until nineteen sixty. Wow. Yeah, a long time, A long time.
(40:24):
I'm just thinking about and I'm always fascinated by athletes, um,
by their like what's what's the word for it, Like
how they're able to do these really intense things for
so long. Yeah, Like that seems like so much stress
on the body. It does. Yeah, I remember when, um,
(40:45):
Michael Phelps was like phelips Mania and it was like
this is what are he eats every day? And this
is his work out every day? What? Yeah? What you
have to have serious resolve to stay that dedicated to
something that's so physical and so intensely physical, and like
you said it, it becomes your life like everything m hm.
Really interesting. So we have a little bit more for you,
(41:08):
But first we're going to pause for one more quick break,
for a word from our sponsor, m and we're back,
Thank you sponsor. So Maria rose to the top of
the ballet world when she started the Firebird at the
(41:30):
New York City Ballet and her performance as the sugar
poem Ferry in a version of Chaikovsky's The Nutcracker, and
a bunch of other roles that showed off her technical
skill and her passion. And so she toured Europe and Asia,
and she performed with other ballet companies and even play
Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in the nineteen fifty three film
Million Dollar Mermaid. So she was she was talented. You
(41:56):
have a lot of things. Sounds like it, sounds like it.
So during her life she was always involved in the
ballet world in some way. Even after she retired from
dancing and settled down with her family in Chicago, UM
she went on to become the director of Ballet at
the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she founded the Chicago
City Ballet and was its artistic director from eighty one
(42:20):
until eight seven. M So a lifetime, lifetime of achievements.
So it's time for us to give her lifetime Achievement
Award like we did with Maggy Walker. We've got the
thumbs up, ready to go. You're cool. Yeah, so that's
that's that's Maria taal Chief. That's yeah, that's an also
(42:45):
pretty amazing story. I didn't know she was in a film. Yeah. Um,
so if you don't mind me asking, why did you
pick these two? These two women? So I was I
want okay, so sometimes they're selfish, you know, I want
to know more about them. So, um, I was already
familiar with Maria, so we had an episode on her
for this day in history class, but I wasn't as
(43:07):
familiar with Maggie Walker, and I wanted to learn more
about her. And then I, like I said earlier, didn't
realize the connection between the two of them in terms
of the whole ethnicity and woman thing um going on.
But um, I figured that was a serendipitous occurrence. But yeah,
so that's it was just I don't know, you know,
(43:28):
sometimes you just don't know exactly why. Um. But they
were the ones who jumped out to me, and I
think it was also like a even though they have
their similarities, they're also very in very different fields. Like
one's an artist, and one's a financial like in the
financial area and the business development um social justice economic
(43:49):
justice kind of area, and artists, but they're both equally like,
they're both important, and they're both people that were able
to look to when it comes to setting andrews and
setting goals and just being inspirational in general. So yeah,
that's probably part of it. Not Also, I just think
(44:09):
it's really good to highlight black women who were working
in the financial area because we we do hear a
lot about people or black women in history who dealt
with social justice, but not necessarily from the financial and
banking angle of it. So I thought it would be
really cool to highlight her for that reason. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(44:33):
I agree. Um, and I had never heard of either
of these women, so I'm very glad to have two
more inspirational women too. Yeah, I hope that a lot
of people haven't either, not because I don't want them
to know about people, but because they get to learn
about somebody else, you know, some some new people today,
(44:55):
and hopefully people will continue looking into their stories because
we've only talked for so long. If I don't know
whose life you could fit into what hour? So I mean, yeah,
especially not these women, right right, right, um, yeah, there's
definitely so much more that if you're listening to this,
(45:15):
you're like, wow, I want to know everything. There's so
much out there for you. Yeah. Um, but I think
that this brings us about to the end of this
our first first female first. I'm going to come up
with something first female first, like four h but four
f forever inimitable. I feel like I'm making up words
(45:39):
at this point. Maybe that's what we need to do.
I mean, we've learned from these women. You can't let
barriers stop you. You need to we learned already, see see. Yeah, um,
well we'll do that. We'll work on that all podcast.
But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us, Eves.
This has been really fun and educational and uh yeah,
(46:02):
hopefully this will be a recurring first segments. Yes, thank
you for having me. Yes, and I'll be back soon.
Oh I hope so. Um. And like we've mentioned, you
can hear Eves on this day in history class. And
it's like five episodes a week, right, it's seven every day.
It's every day. So I complain about my life. It's
(46:25):
still a lot of work. Like we're all swapped here. Yes,
yeah that is true. So yes, you can hear Eaves
every day on this day in history class, and I
highly recommend that you check it out. Thank you any
This brings us to the end of this our first
episode of First. I hope that you enjoyed it as
(46:47):
much as I enjoyed doing it with my good friend Eves.
If you would like to email is about a first
you would love to hear about, you can. Our email
is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You
can also find us on social media. On Twitter we
are at mom Stuff Podcasts, and on Instagram we are
at Stuff I've Never told You. Thanks It's Always fair
producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you.
Hey, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I'll
never told you. And this is a very special bonus
episode and the first of a bonus segment about first.
(00:29):
So this is pretty exciting. And to help me with
this very special, super bonus packed episode is my good
friend and co worker Eves. So let's get to it.
So now we are joined by a good friend of
mine and co worker Eves. It's good to see you again. Yes,
you've heard from Eves on the episode we did around
(00:52):
um Invisible Disability. And we're going to do this segment
that we hope will be a regular segment about female First.
And we spent a decent, not embarrassing amount of time
trying to come up with an acronym for it because
I love doing ridiculous acronyms allah shield from Marvel movies.
(01:14):
So right now we're working with female first empower. Well
we'll get there, we'll get there. You know this has
to be done, though, we're not giving no, no, no,
Please right in with your your suggestions. I actually came
up with one of these for the other podcast I
do and like no one will get on board with it.
I'm like, it's time for another segment of Plate and
(01:37):
they're like Annie, but you can also hear Eaves on
This Day in History class. And one of the reasons
I I'm really excited to have you on here is
because part of doing this show, I've just come to
realize there's so many women who have done amazing things
(01:58):
that I'd never heard of, I was never taught about.
I can say that I've ran into that a lot
too doing This Day in History class, and I'll just
get so excited when I found out things about women
to like, oh my gosh, they did this, they did this.
Everybody needs to know, you know. So I think even
if there are people that we know about, maybe we
don't know everything about them, and then there are people
(02:20):
that or who we haven't heard of at all. So
I'm excited to to be able to talk about people
in history who did amazing things. Yeah, and put a
spotlight on on women who have either been erased or
just never gotten the spotlight they deserve. That's something we
talked about it in our Wikipedia episode of just how
many women kind of forgotten to time? And Yeah, I'm
(02:44):
a big, big history nerd, so I uh, I'm very
happy to to include this and today you have to
two women who kind of uh that there's a couple
of similarities, some more important than others. I was like,
their names will start with him. Did you go through
(03:06):
a whole checklist of like similarities and differences. I can
see you doing that. I do, like, I really do. Yeah,
I think it's important to talk about them, But I
want to talk about first first in general, because I
think there's kind of some I don't know, hesitancy over
celebrating first Sometimes. I do think it's really important to
(03:27):
look back in history and see how things started and
see how they snowballed on from the things that happened
um in the beginning. Um, Like, things have precedents, they
don't just come out of nowhere, and I think that
that can get a little lost sometimes. So it's definitely
important to recognize the first women, the first black people
to do this, the first Native American people to do
things like we haven't today's episode. But um, I think
(03:51):
that there's an argument to be had about the value
of first, because it kind of is like one of
those things that sounds really nice, send really pretty on paper.
But there's definitely an argument to be had about the
value of first, especially when it comes to first when
they are mixed with like gender and with ethnicity, because
(04:11):
a lot of the times they'll be a first woman
to do something and then a first Black woman to
do something. But a lot of Tom's people weren't recognized
for the very reason of that ethnicity. So it kind
of does in a way at times overshadow people's achievements
in history. So I don't know, how how do you
(04:33):
feel about Do you have any thoughts on that? I think, Um,
it's kind of like you said, a nice it's a
nice thing, and it is important because we've talked about
time and time again, seeing yourself represented directly impacts what
you think you can do. But at the same time,
it is it's a complex There's like a lot of
(04:54):
people behind that, right, and a lot of people that
were probably forgotten. Um. And again going back to Wick Pdia, Um,
there's just so many women. Um are other marginalized people
that did the thing and then weren't recognized for it. UM.
So I do think like first are important, but you
(05:15):
should always and I'm just a big proponent of this
in general, have that context behind it, like why were
they the first or like were there other people that
preceded them and made it possible for them to do
the thing that we're also not recognizing exactly. And the
way you put it makes me think of how sometimes
first get shoehorned into things like start adding on a
(05:38):
bunch of adjectives and qualifiers to make a thing a first,
like the first this and then the first that, and
the first this and the first. Um. We had an
episode on the same history class on the first jazz recording,
which was by a band of white men, and we
know that jazz has history and African American communities, um,
and it's still a thing of note to talk about.
(05:59):
We did talk about it, but there's also a history
behind that first jazz recording and there was a reason
that a white band was the band that got to
have that recording in the first place. So I just
want that a weirdness, you know, like just because something
is the first doesn't mean that there's not another history
behind it that's just as notable. Yeah, that's it. Um. Yeah,
(06:20):
So do you want to talk about our first our
first our first historical guest on the show today, our
first first historical guest. I like this, And also now
I'm going to come up with like my own first
like the first Annie to have a podcast with an
e Yu doing a first segment with Eve's Wow, You're
gonna go in history books now for that reason, not
(06:42):
all the other things we've done, specifically this. Yeah, Yeah,
let's let's get into it. I'm excited to talk about
both of these women. Yeah. So, um, our first woman
is Maggie L. Walker. The ellis Brolina. Um. So, I
guess I want to just set the scene first. So
at the time him, when Maggieleena Walker was alive or
(07:03):
just in the beginning, UM, women didn't have the vote,
and she was born right off the back of the
Civil War essentially, so she was she grew up during
their reconstruction era, which is an era when President Lincoln
began planning the reconstruction of the South, and so at
this time there were many people who were enslaved who
were newly declared free, so it was a time of
(07:23):
major upheaval. Like essentially, UM, there were things like black codes,
which were laws that attempted to undermine black people's freedom,
and people were desperately trying to hold onto that system
of slavery at the time, which showed up in things
like sharecropping and lynch ngs, and segregationist policies were also
really big. These were gym crow laws that we're talking about.
(07:45):
So but at the same time all of these things
were happening, Black people were also becoming more involved in
the political process, and education was playing a huge role
in the way that black people were interacting in the
community and churches as well. We're a big part of that.
So there was it was just a turbulent time basically,
(08:06):
and this was the period that Maggie Walker lived in. UM,
And it's I think it's just really cool in general
to think about women specifically, or Black people specifically who
were making moves in such a transitional period. UM. That's
really inspirational, right, I know, Like, don't forget how inspiring that.
That's another thing that's important about context is like wow, yeah,
(08:30):
because I'm thinking like like, I think, so I really
don't want to put these dishes in the dishwasher today,
And then I'm like, wait a second. Maggie Walker was
born right after the Civil War ended, and she started
it back, you know, so I don't know. Yeah, that's
another thing that I like, I like to think about
first that they're they're really inspirational when you put them
in context and complain about stupid things like me are
(08:51):
not stupid. I mean that is a fair complaint, you right. Yeah.
The first black owned bank that was charter in the
United States was a Savings Bank of the Grand Fountain
United Order of True Reformers serious name, so you know
it's serious, UM. And that was founded on March second,
eight eight, and it opened on April three, eighteen eighty nine.
(09:14):
So that was the first black own bank that was charter.
But the first US black own bank that actually opened
was a Capital Savings Bank, and that opened in d
C in October eighteen eighty eight. So there was stuff
brewing before Maggie Walker came along. But in nineteen o three,
Maggie Lena Walker became the first woman in the US
to charter and become the president of a bank. So
(09:35):
she was the first woman period, not just black woman,
she was black, but she was the first woman in
the US to charter and become the president. And this
was in Richmond, Virginia. And I say it like that
because Richmond was once the capital of the Confederacy. UM.
And it is also an hour away from Charlotte's Ville. Um,
(09:57):
so you know, just think about the history of this
place where she was opening a bank. Uh yeah, yeah.
When I was researching her, I saw I found two
laws that I thought were really interesting that we're active
at the time, and one of them was apparently in
Richmond and probably a lot of other places, but Richmond,
(10:18):
you couldn't once you got married, you had to say
goodbye to a job. That what right? Oh man? So
she when she got married, she had a job as
a teacher. She got married and then he had to
give it up. Yeah, and she wanted to do big
and great things. So I guess not that teaching isn't amazing,
(10:40):
not saying that, but you know, she stayed active like
her whole life doing things. But yeah, that's that's that
was a really like wow, that's very specific and what
a law. Jeez. Yeah, she um, she volunteered a lot, right,
There was an organization that she volunteered a lot at. Yeah,
(11:00):
there was. She She ended up being involved in a
lot of organizations And I'm going to get to a
list of them later because it's really a mouthful. When
if you want to come up with an acronym for
all of her organizations that she's been in. I challenged
you to challenge. I just got really excited about that.
So I guess I'll go through her background a little
(11:21):
bit first, like you see how she became this person
who was so involved in all of these organizations. She
was born in eighteen sixty four in Richmond, Virginia. As
I mentioned earlier, her mother was Elizabeth Draper Mitchell, and
she was a formerly enslaved assistant cook for Elizabeth Van
Lou who was a union spy, union spy and abolitionists
who she kind of ensured the education of her servants.
(11:44):
And Maggie's biological father was an Irish American man that
her mom had met on the Van Lou estate, so
the two of them didn't marry, but shortly after Maggie's
birth she got married. Her mom, Elizabeth got married to
a man named William Mitchell, who was also at this estate,
but he was a butler, and William became the head
(12:05):
waiter at a hotel a little bit later in Richmond,
but unfortunately he was later found drowned in a river,
which was a very sad point of you know, a
sad part of Maggie's life because his death was ruled
to suicide, but Maggie believed that he was murdered. Really
sad But at age fourteen, she joined the Independent Order
(12:26):
of St. Luke's, which was the organization that she became
a lot more heavily involved in over the course of
her life and actually was until the end of her life. UM.
And at first it was an organization that helped the
sick and the elderly enrichment. It was a burial society
at first, and then as it grew and developed, it
turned into a fraternal order in a life insurance company. UM.
(12:48):
It was a black organization. If I didn't say that already,
I'm not sure. The order provided financial and social support
to people, and they did things like lended money to
people who had financial difficulty and raised money for members
who had health problems. But after Maggie's mom's husband, after
her husband died, UM, Maggie really began to work with
(13:09):
her mother to help her out financially. So she helped
her mother on the laundry business. So she delivered loads
of clothes to people as part of her mother's laundry business.
And laundry was one of the few things that black
women could do at the time that that was accessible
to them as work and domestic work in general. And
I'm sure you know how important domestic work is in
the history of women. Um So, we'll get to that later,
(13:33):
but um So, at this time she kind of started
realizing the social gap between black people and white people
in America. So she went to the Lancaster School and
she went to Richmond Colored Normal School, and then after
she graduated in eight three, she went and she started
teaching in the public school system, which leads to your
(13:54):
point right when she gave her her job because she
was married or she had to give over because um So,
Maggie was a part of the Independent Order of St.
Luke's as I said earlier, she started being involved in
that organization as a teenager, and the i s O
(14:14):
well started providing like these weekly sickness and disability benefits
and death claims for members beginning in eight which is
very important because at the time, white owned firms denied
the black community access to disability and life insurance in
that gem Crow era, So that was a big deal,
Like it provided a lot that people didn't have in
(14:35):
the black community at the time. So over time, her
Maggie's leadership in growing the membership of the organization really
allowed more payment of death claims and lower costs for premiums.
So she really helped the organization in that way. And
Maggie's contributions also contributed to the development of modern African
(14:56):
American communities that provided services like business and real estate
financing and education, food and clothing and things like that.
So that was important at a time when communities, or
black community specifically, we're building in the United States. And
so over the course of her life, we'll call it
the IO s L. That's still kind of hard, but
(15:19):
the name itself Independent Order of St. Lukes is also
kind of a mouthful, so we'll call it the IO
s L. UM. So she did a lot in the
IO s L over the years of her life. That
was something that she was heavily involved in, and so
in she co founded the Juvenile Department at the IO
s L, which provided leadership opportunities for Black children. UM.
(15:41):
Kids were taught things like financial responsibility, work ethics, and
hygiene skills UM running the gamut. Here. At one point,
the order began giving kids mental pocket banks so they
could fill them with money and then open a savings
account at the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank, which is
her bank that she found it, which we'll get you
a little bit later. And so in she became the
(16:04):
right worthy Grand Secretary at the Independent Order of St. Luke's.
And at the time that she became that the Order
was like it was kind of dwindling, like there were
only a few thousand members and it was in debt.
And she really built up the organization to over a
hundred thousand members in twenty four states, and she made
it this kind of vehicle of economic empowerment for black
(16:27):
folks and for women. The Order also collected three point
five million dollars over the time of her leadership while
she was there and built up a hundred thousand dollars yeah,
built up a hundred thousand dollars in reserve. And she
held that Grand secretary position until she died. So she
was committed to the post she was and she also
(16:48):
employed a lot of black women um at the organization.
She donated to black schools, especially ones for girls, and
she wanted women to have the same employment, the same
professional opportunities that men had, and she wanted girls to
be able to envision having those kind of opportunities as
well careers outside of teaching and domestic work. So on
(17:13):
August nine o one UM at the annual convention of
the Order, she called for another Black bank. There were
only about twenty in the US at the time, so
she said the following She said, first, we need a
savings bank. Let us put our moneys together, let us
use our moneys. Let us put our money out at
usury among ourselves and reap the benefit ourselves. Let us
(17:35):
have a bank that will take the nickels and turn
them into dollars. So she was really into this idea
of economic empowerment and kind of self help and really
building up communities and ways like that. So she also
at the same time, like in nineteen o two, she
began publishing the St. Luke Harold, the newspaper of the
(17:56):
Independent Order of St. Luke's, and she used that newspaper too.
It was distributed to people, but she used to encourage
black people Enrichmond to establish their own institutions. And by
nineteen sixteen the paper had four thousand subscribers. So as
we can see, she was just really like, she was
really innovative and she was really trying all these new
things to get to get things going, and she was
(18:18):
trying to use this kind of I was gonna say,
holy trinity. Well she was. She was trying to use
this trinity of the paper and a department store that
she later opened up and the bank too create this
like bustling and thriving part of the black community in Richmond. Right.
And like we said, this is when things were it
(18:40):
was reconstruction and things were bidding getting built. Um. Yeah,
I love that she opened a department store. Yeah, it
didn't do so hot. Um ended up closing. I think
it opened in nineteen o five and it closed in
nineteen eleven because black people weren't supporting it. Um. And
that's not I know I can sound bad, but the
(19:00):
black people didn't come out to it, and they should
have done this, But it's kind of like they felt
that pressure at the time from white owned businesses. They
thought that there would be repercussions for them visiting that
business as well, because white owned businesses and white people
were pushing back against the store. Because Maggie was trying
to use it as this place where that would feel
safer for black people to go and would also employ
(19:22):
a lot more black people, but because they didn't get
to where they needed to be financially, it had to close. Yeah. Yeah,
so things fail sometimes. I don't think that should detract
us from our missions, do you know? Otherwise I don't
know where i'd be. I'd just be at home. I'm sorry.
(19:45):
Thank you for that. You know, I don't turn it down.
I'll accept it. I appreciate it. I believe in you, Annie,
Thank you. I know that that's not what will happen
with your life. This is not a like hit on
pick Star movies or anything that just made me really
sad for some reason. So there were a lot of
(20:06):
racial stereotypes at the time that discouraged white bankers from
loaning money to black people, and because they thought that
black people wouldn't repay the loans, stereotypes like that, and
if black people were given loans, they were often charged
to hire rate of interest in white customers. I mean,
we don't have to get into paid loans and we
don't have to talk about lending practices today, but there
(20:30):
are precedents for things. Um, a lot of things have
been going on a long time in the United States
when it comes to marginalized communities, but UM a lot
of white owned banks did accept deposits from black customers,
but some didn't, and those managers thought that black customers
would scare away the white people who were coming into
the business. So Maggie knew that it wasn't the best
(20:52):
idea to go to these white owned banks, and that
they're needed to be black owned banks that black people
could patronize. So she wanted to be the person who
could create that bank. So she was already clearly into
women's empowerment and the empowerment of black people and building
up community, so the bank was just part of that.
So she started building up her banking and her accounting
(21:13):
and her business skills by studying banks that were in Richmond, Virginia.
She recruited in It Burke, the hit teller from their
True Reformers Bank, which was the bank that we talked
about earlier, the first black bank that was chartered in
the US. And so after all that happened and she
built up all her skills and self educated UM, she
opened the St. Luke Penny Savings Bank on the first
(21:36):
floor of St. Lucoll on November two, nine oh three.
The goal of the bank was to encourage savings and
facilitate loans, and yeah, she became the first woman period
to charter a bank in the United States in Ene. Yep,
that's uh. I love the name. I don't know why,
but like saving pennies. I've just had a good experience
(21:59):
with every place that I've been to that's got that name,
and they're mostly bars, but penny the word the word
penny in their name interesting. So are you a person
who picks up pennies on hits but not pennies on
tails or do you not pick up pennies at all?
Oh my gosh, I actually feel a deep pang in
my heart every time I see a penny, and I'm like,
this is so sad because if no one picks you up,
(22:20):
you're just out of our money circulation. Yeah, it's just
like lost money. That's why I pick it up every time.
I feel Yes. And this is gonna be so embarrassing
because I'm going to sound like a cheap skate saying this,
but I'm gonna come forth. I'm gonna speak my truth
right now, do it. I can't stand when people don't
give me back change at like restaurants. I hate that.
(22:42):
I'm like do you know how important these nickels are
to me? This is my life. I'm the same way.
I'm the same way because I have to pay for
laundry still and I'm always like, this is laundry money.
I need this. Don't take this from me. And it
happened a lot when I was in I feel like
(23:03):
l A. Oh yeah, like taking to l A, l A.
What's going on cheap skates? Yea. Let me not offend
any l A listeners. Well no, no listeners from l A.
They just have the money to give those nickels away.
If Friday with your experience with the nickel situation in
l A, please we need to know. Please do how
I would love to We have some more about all
(23:26):
of these first to share with you listeners, But first
we have a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Um So. By
the end of the first day of the bank's business
(23:47):
after Maggie opened it, it had over nine thousand dollars
in deposits, and by January of nineteen o six, savings
deposits were a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. So that
provided opportunities for home and business loans, and by nineteen
twenty the bank had financed over six hundred home loans,
allowing for significant real estate holdings among the black community
(24:10):
in Richmond. So it was just a a snowball of
things that were able to happen after she opened this
bank basically, and most of the female account holders there
were domestic workers as well. So her Maggie's vision for
the bank was like she wanted multiple branches in Virginia
(24:30):
and Brandon, d C. It didn't really work out like
that in the beginning, um only there was only a
branch in Hampton, Virginia. But it was successful over the
years and it continued to grow, especially in the beginning,
and it helped really ensure the existence and longevity of
the middle class of black people in Virginia or in Richmond.
(24:54):
And so in nineteen there was a stock market crash
which would have affected the bank and as it did
a lot of banks and other businesses. Um So Maggie
had the foresight. She was a smart woman. She was
a smart woman, and she merged the St. Luke Bank
with two other black banks in the area, which were
the Commercial Bank and Trust Company and the Second Street
(25:17):
Savings Bank, and in nineteen thirty the bank became the
Consolidated Bank and Trust Company, and Maggie was the chairman
r chair person, the chair she was the chairperson, Okay.
The bank continued to operate as a black owned institution
until two thousand five when yeah, like a long time
(25:38):
when it was purchased, thank you for recognizing how amazing
that is, UM, when it was purchased by the Abigail
Adams Corporation, and then the Premier Bank bought it in
two thousand eleven. So at that time it was the
longest operating black owned bank in the States. UM. And
that brings us to contemporary times. UM. But during her
(25:59):
lifetime a bank wasn't the only thing that she was
involved in. Like she was also politically active. She was
socially active. As we mentioned at the top of the episode,
these were ready days in in the United States and
there was a lot to fight for. UM. So in
nineteen o four she was an organizer of the boycott
that protested the Virginia Passenger in Power Companies policy of
(26:22):
segregated seating on street cars and enrichment. And we talked
about the department store she opened that in nineteen O
five and she also so here's where the organizations come in. Um.
She worked for the Order of St. Luke's. But she
was in a ton of other organizations, including she was
the vice president of the Richmond chapter of the n
double a cp UM later in life. But here's some
(26:43):
other roles. She heilled are you ready for this? So
buckle in the National Association of Colored Women, She was
in the National Association of Wage Earners, the Council of
Colored Women, Interracial Commission, International account of Women of the
Darker Races, National Negro Business League, and the Negro Organization Society.
(27:08):
That's pretty solid. She had a lot going on. She
shod and I'm just she didn't have Google cow probably,
but if she did, if she didn't off the hook right.
Too many notifications all the time. So in nineteen twenty
one she also ran for public office under what they
(27:31):
call Lily Black Republican ticket, and the ticket didn't do
so well. She was running for Superintendent of Public Instructions,
so she lost like everybody else had the ticket. But
you know, it is what it is. And um, but
that was a venture of hers as well. She tried
to go into office also when she also lived in
a really nice house in a really nice part of
town Um in Virginia. From nineteen o five to nineteen
(27:53):
thirty four, she lived in a Victorian townhouse in an
elite black neighborhood in jim Crow Richmond, Um. And it
was pretty fancy, Like it was kind of fancy, and
she has some cool people come over, Like she had
some cool friends like w. Douvoce, Mary McCloud, Bethune, and
Langston Hughes Um. But yeah, her house was like I'm
(28:15):
just trying to imagine this when I think about families,
like who has so many children who were so huge,
which I feel like doesn't happen that much anymore, but
she had I think I think it was like at
once at one point like dozens of rooms in the house,
Like she had more added on to the townhouse. Then
he got up to twenty or thirty two rooms or
something like that, because there was a lot of family
that was living in the house at one time. Like
(28:38):
families had their own like parts of the house, which
I think is really cool. Um. And I think that's
another conversation that is a longer conversation to be had
when it comes to continuing to nurture generations of the
family within black community specifically. Um, another conversation to be
had that we don't have time for it right now. Um.
(28:59):
But yeah, she had a huge family and house that
she lived in and she lived well, like she was successful.
Um So later in her life she did um a
lot more things. She fought for women's suffrage in the
nineteenth Amendment UM, which prohibits the government from denying the
right to vote in the basis of sex. And she
just kept doing things after the bank was growing. So
(29:24):
she's the first she is. Yeah, her story is really cool,
and I love that she did do so much stuff
to empower people in her community, Like that was a
big push for her. UM So inspiring first for sure. Yeah,
(29:45):
and I think that the thing she did, it's also
really good to look back on because you know, a
lot of like talk when it comes to a black
community and financial education, financial literacy, economic empowerment and the
black dollars staying in the black community is still a
conversation that happens a lot right now and for good reasons.
And we're also talking about reparations a lot right now,
(30:05):
because nobody got paid for the work that they did
while they were enslaved. Um. But the things that Maggie did,
I think people it's easy to be able to look
to her as an inspiration or as a leader of
what to do to economically empower people and to keep
that goal on one's mind and to try new things,
(30:28):
you know, and to continue to educate people. And she
was just so so determined and so headstrong at a
time when it probably was easy not to be you know,
like it's probably easy to lose faith what I mean
by that, right, right? Right? So yeah, I just I
think she's really cool. And yeah, so do you want
(30:52):
to move on to our next first? Yeah? I like this.
I feel like we're reviewing, like two thumbs up Maggie Walker,
because you look, what we think about you is very important,
is okay, And it does all the other stuff you've
done in your accolades, It doesn't matter. When I say
you're cool, You're cool. Cool. Heaves gives you the cool
(31:15):
stamp and you are set you up set. But yeah,
let's let's move on to your other first, who, as
I not so coolly pointed out, is another woman whose
name starts with Anne, and she's got other things going
on for her that was so cool. Annie, don't down
yourself like that. If he just gives me the cool
(31:37):
thumbs up, Oh gosh, my life is made. What Annie
and I were talking about earlier is that the similarities
between these two people, Maggie Walker and Maria tald Chief,
which is who we're about to talk about, and Maria
tal Chief, like Maggie Walker was the first woman to
do a thing, but she was also a first Native
(31:58):
American woman to do a thing, so she um ethnicity. Notwithstanding,
she was the first. She was the first woman, and
she was the first major prima ballerina in America. And
she was the first because she was Native American. She
was also the first Native American to do that thing.
But she was a pioneer in the field in general.
(32:19):
So she was a prima ballerina for the New York
City Ballet. That's how she got that first. Um is okay,
so I have taken ballet, but prima ballerina UM for
for people who don't perhaps know, please tell us no,
I don't know. I'm asking you, isn't it. It's like
(32:43):
the prime ballery. Yeah, the principal dancer. UM, I haven't
taken ballet either, said you have you have Okay, so
you're way way more on point than I am about currently.
Not what is that called the point? One point? The point?
The point was a ballet pun that just happened, but
it was physical so it just felt flat on his face. Well,
(33:06):
the day that we're able to somehow translate sound into
also feeling our vision when people can see what's going
on in the podcast studio, that's what that is called for.
Now we just inherate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean
(33:26):
if you can imagine listeners, so it would be like
to like watch something that we are visionaries, but if
you can imagine, it's like to watch we are ever
died right now. But also who was ahead of her
time is Ritty was very ahead of her time. So
(33:49):
she was born on January and she was born named
Elizabeth Marie Tall Chief in Fairfax, Oklahoma on the O
Sage Nation Reservation UM and her fa father was Alexander
Joseph Tall Chief, who was a full blooded oh Sage
and a big time real estate exect. And her mother
was Ruth Tall Chief who had Irish, Scottish and Dutch roots.
(34:12):
And at that time, the O Sage were the wealthiest
tribe in the US since they had discovered oil on
their land and everyone held mentmal rights. But you know,
Maria still had some stuff going on in her family
UM and her father had a drinking problem, which often
led to arguments with Maria's mother and the O Sage
were obviously still subject to persecution like Native American tribes
(34:36):
were in America at the time from the federal government.
So in eighteen eighty four, the U s officially banned
what they called quote pagan ceremonies UM, and they began
imprisoning and even killing American Indians who took part in
tribal religious ceremonies, and so the throughout the late eighteen
hundreds in the early nineteen hundreds, the government was enforcing
(34:59):
laws that outlawed Native American traditions. And there's a old
rich like I don't want to say rich because that
sounds positive, but there's a long history of uh of
Native Americans practices being forcefully assimilated and being Christianized and
(35:19):
so on and so forth. Maria's grandmother, Eliza Big Heart
Tall Chief, still snuck Maria and her younger sister into
secret tribal ceremonies when they were children, which is just
really endearing to me. I don't know, it sounds really cute,
but Maria was fascinated by all the outfits, the dancing
and the songs at the pow wows, and that really
(35:40):
stuck with her throughout her childhood different lifetime. So when
she was three, she went to her first ballet lesson
UM in the basement of the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs,
UM And by the time she was five, her ballet
teacher already had her dancing on point on the toe thing,
the toe thing, which um is actually not great to
start that earliest in Julie. Maria also started piano lessons
(36:03):
when she was young. Her mother really wanted her to
be a concert pianist, but Maria wanted to do ballet,
like that's where she really wanted. She did do piano lessons,
but what she really wanted was ballet, so her family
called her Betty Marie. When she was eight years old,
her family moved to Beverly Hills, California, So, under the
guidance of the famed dancer and choreographer Ernest Pilcher, Maria
(36:27):
and her sister learned everything from ballet to acrobatics to
tap dance, and Ruth was really excited to get her
daughters out onto the stage, so sometimes she made them
do these cringe worthy Native American dances that were really contrived,
um to be called tribalt. So yeah, in nineteen thirty eight,
(36:50):
Maria and her sister began studying basically from here, it's
just ballet, ballet, ballet, like you know, when you're in something,
you're in something, and as we know, with a lot
of people who we're a passionate artists, like their lives
become that art and they just really delve into it.
And that was that was Maria's life from that point.
(37:13):
So she basically really got heavy into ballet from here.
So in nineteen thirty eight, she and her sister began
studying under David Lashin and his wife was a prima
ballerina Tatiana Ribauchinska and Bronislava Nijinska, who was a notable
ballet teacher and choreographer. So Nazynska was a really tough
teacher who pushed her students to be dancers at all time,
(37:34):
but not just when they were like practicing and performing.
You make it a part of your life, and she
really recognized Maria's talent and they decided to cast her,
or she decided to cast her in the ballet chopin Concerto,
which was performed at the Hollywood Bowl in nineteen forty
Oh wow, yep. So Maria graduated from Beverly Hills High
(37:56):
School in nineteen forty two, and she hit the ground running.
After that. She got a job as an extra in
the film Presenting Lily Mars, which start Judy Garland. We know,
we all know, yes, well, I'm not going to make
any assumptions, but never sued, and soon after she earned
(38:17):
a spot at Valet Roust de Monte Carlo, which was
a major ballet company at the time. And when she
was performing with Ballet Rous, this is the time that
she went from Betty Marie as her family called her,
to Maria tall Chief. One word originally in her name
is tall Chief is two words, but she went to
she was already using tall Chief as one word, but
she changed her first name to Maria because her colleagues
(38:40):
said that a more Russian sounding name would help make
her more appealing and palatable to people. Wow. Yeah, So
she started rising in the ranks Basically she went from
the court of ballet to solo parts, started being in
the spotlight. And the Russian choreographer George Balance, she who
(39:00):
has been called the father of American ballet, really helped
her sharpen her ballet skills um over the years. So
he helped her on the turnout or when they when
dancers like rontate their legs outwards so the toes point
away from each other. I'm trying to do my hands
doing the thing again, what do you know about this?
Because you were in ballet? What am I? What am
(39:21):
I talking about? Okay, So he trained her to become stronger,
and he just really helped her embody the art of ballet.
And she even once said Marie even Want said that
she didn't fully understand ballet until he came around. So
that ballet relationship turned into a more romantic relationship in
n the two of them, Maria and Balance, she got
(39:42):
married when she was twenty one and he was forty
two years old, So there's a big difference there. But
that marriage didn't last too long. It only lasted six years. Yeah,
but so it was it was a rough relationship. Um.
They didn't really the job or mesh like that much,
but what at least not romantically, but while why there?
(40:02):
While they were together and afterwards they collaborated a ton.
So they went to France and Maria made her debut
at the Paris Opera Ballet in nineteen forty seven, and
in nineteen forty eight Maria joint Balancine's new company, the
New York City Ballet, and she was Prima Ballerina there
until nineteen sixty. Wow. Yeah, a long time, A long time.
(40:24):
I'm just thinking about and I'm always fascinated by athletes, um,
by their like what's what's the word for it, Like
how they're able to do these really intense things for
so long. Yeah, Like that seems like so much stress
on the body. It does. Yeah, I remember when, um,
(40:45):
Michael Phelps was like phelips Mania and it was like
this is what are he eats every day? And this
is his work out every day? What? Yeah? What you
have to have serious resolve to stay that dedicated to
something that's so physical and so intensely physical, and like
you said it, it becomes your life like everything m hm.
Really interesting. So we have a little bit more for you,
(41:08):
But first we're going to pause for one more quick break,
for a word from our sponsor, m and we're back,
Thank you sponsor. So Maria rose to the top of
the ballet world when she started the Firebird at the
(41:30):
New York City Ballet and her performance as the sugar
poem Ferry in a version of Chaikovsky's The Nutcracker, and
a bunch of other roles that showed off her technical
skill and her passion. And so she toured Europe and Asia,
and she performed with other ballet companies and even play
Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova in the nineteen fifty three film
Million Dollar Mermaid. So she was she was talented. You
(41:56):
have a lot of things. Sounds like it, sounds like it.
So during her life she was always involved in the
ballet world in some way. Even after she retired from
dancing and settled down with her family in Chicago, UM
she went on to become the director of Ballet at
the Lyric Opera of Chicago, and she founded the Chicago
City Ballet and was its artistic director from eighty one
(42:20):
until eight seven. M So a lifetime, lifetime of achievements.
So it's time for us to give her lifetime Achievement
Award like we did with Maggy Walker. We've got the
thumbs up, ready to go. You're cool. Yeah, so that's
that's that's Maria taal Chief. That's yeah, that's an also
(42:45):
pretty amazing story. I didn't know she was in a film. Yeah. Um,
so if you don't mind me asking, why did you
pick these two? These two women? So I was I
want okay, so sometimes they're selfish, you know, I want
to know more about them. So, um, I was already
familiar with Maria, so we had an episode on her
for this day in history class, but I wasn't as
(43:07):
familiar with Maggie Walker, and I wanted to learn more
about her. And then I, like I said earlier, didn't
realize the connection between the two of them in terms
of the whole ethnicity and woman thing um going on.
But um, I figured that was a serendipitous occurrence. But yeah,
so that's it was just I don't know, you know,
(43:28):
sometimes you just don't know exactly why. Um. But they
were the ones who jumped out to me, and I
think it was also like a even though they have
their similarities, they're also very in very different fields. Like
one's an artist, and one's a financial like in the
financial area and the business development um social justice economic
(43:49):
justice kind of area, and artists, but they're both equally like,
they're both important, and they're both people that were able
to look to when it comes to setting andrews and
setting goals and just being inspirational in general. So yeah,
that's probably part of it. Not Also, I just think
(44:09):
it's really good to highlight black women who were working
in the financial area because we we do hear a
lot about people or black women in history who dealt
with social justice, but not necessarily from the financial and
banking angle of it. So I thought it would be
really cool to highlight her for that reason. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
(44:33):
I agree. Um, and I had never heard of either
of these women, so I'm very glad to have two
more inspirational women too. Yeah, I hope that a lot
of people haven't either, not because I don't want them
to know about people, but because they get to learn
about somebody else, you know, some some new people today,
(44:55):
and hopefully people will continue looking into their stories because
we've only talked for so long. If I don't know
whose life you could fit into what hour? So I mean, yeah,
especially not these women, right right, right, um, yeah, there's
definitely so much more that if you're listening to this,
(45:15):
you're like, wow, I want to know everything. There's so
much out there for you. Yeah. Um, but I think
that this brings us about to the end of this
our first first female first. I'm going to come up
with something first female first, like four h but four
f forever inimitable. I feel like I'm making up words
(45:39):
at this point. Maybe that's what we need to do.
I mean, we've learned from these women. You can't let
barriers stop you. You need to we learned already, see see. Yeah, um,
well we'll do that. We'll work on that all podcast.
But in the meantime, thank you so much for joining us, Eves.
This has been really fun and educational and uh yeah,
(46:02):
hopefully this will be a recurring first segments. Yes, thank
you for having me. Yes, and I'll be back soon.
Oh I hope so. Um. And like we've mentioned, you
can hear Eves on this day in history class. And
it's like five episodes a week, right, it's seven every day.
It's every day. So I complain about my life. It's
(46:25):
still a lot of work. Like we're all swapped here. Yes,
yeah that is true. So yes, you can hear Eaves
every day on this day in history class, and I
highly recommend that you check it out. Thank you any
This brings us to the end of this our first
episode of First. I hope that you enjoyed it as
(46:47):
much as I enjoyed doing it with my good friend Eves.
If you would like to email is about a first
you would love to hear about, you can. Our email
is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com. You
can also find us on social media. On Twitter we
are at mom Stuff Podcasts, and on Instagram we are
at Stuff I've Never told You. Thanks It's Always fair
producer Andrew Howard, and thanks to you.
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Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.