Behind the Scenes Minis: Lowry and Midgley

Tracy and Holly discuss resources for learning more about the Lumbee and the unique nature of North Carolina's outdoor historical dramas. Additionally, they discuss lead, cartoonist Roz Chast, and Midgley's death.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy B.
Wilson and I'm Holly fry Uh. This week we talked
about the Lowry War, something one of our colleagues suggested
forever ago that we finally got to. One person whose

(00:24):
work was a big part of this research was Belinda
Maynor Lowry Um. She is a historian and currently works
at Emory University. I think um. She has written two
different books on Lumby history. One is The Lumby Indians
American Struggle. The other is Lumby Indians in the Jim

(00:45):
Crow South, and that one is super interesting, and talked
about a lot of stuff that wasn't directly related to
this episode or the context for this episode, because it's
really about the very complex and nuanced real relationship between UH,
the Lumbi tribe and segregation in North Carolina, which I

(01:06):
originally had a whole part of in the episode outline,
and it was becoming so incredibly long and was not
actually related to the Lowry War. I mean, it's part
of the like ongoing following context, but it wasn't actually
part of the war. Itself because North Carolina public schools

(01:27):
were racially segregated basically from the beginning. So once the
state recognized the Lumbi as an indigenous tribe, they were
able to start their own school, and then that led
into starting their own normal school or teacher college because
the Lumby teachers weren't allowed to go to teaching college

(01:48):
at any of the white schools, and that normal school
or teachers college eventually became the University of North Carolina
at Pembroke. So that is a very complicated new story,
and I also, in addition to all of the complexity
involved with it, I sort of felt like I a
white person, not the best person to tell it. That

(02:08):
whole book, though, I found very accessible to read for
folks who are, you know, not historians and not living
their day today immersed in history every single day. So
that is something to check out if if folks want
to know more. Um, a rabbit hole I went down
while doing this research. Besides that, one is the North

(02:31):
Carolina's outdoor historical dramas. I don't know why that phrase
makes me laugh. So I just had this moment when
I was like, oh, and then they made an outdoor
drama about it. And then I was like, do other
places have outdoor dramas in the way North Carolina does? Um,

(02:51):
because we mentioned the Lost Colony, which is obviously about
the Lost Colony, we mentioned Unto These Hills, which is
about Cherokee history. I've seen that one. There's another one
called Horn in the West. Horn in the West was
first performed about the same time as Unto These Hills
was I think those were within a few years of
each other. I'm saying that for memory. I'm apologize if

(03:14):
I got it wrong. Um. Horn in the West is
about like Daniel Boone, so that's not about indigenous history really,
and I've seen that one also, So I've seen I've
seen Horn in the West and Unto These Hills. I
don't think I have seen the Lost Colony. I have
not seen, uh, the one that we talked about in
this episode. But like these outdoor dramas that are about

(03:35):
the history of the place that the drama is performed,
there's multiples of them in North Carolina, and so I
would like sort of tried to go down this path
of like why are there so many of these in
North Carolina? There are also I mean there's there are
places that have Shakespeare in the Park or have like
an outdoor theater company that does shows outdoors in good weather.

(03:59):
But this is like the same show that has done
in the same theater over and over again as a
tourist attraction every single year. And I'm just like, what
is the story there? And I was not finding satisfying
answers to what the story is there? And then I
was also like, this is not with the The episode
is about Tracy get back to work. Yeah. It makes

(04:19):
me laugh because it seems so oddly specific, because I
don't know of any others that existing quite that way, right, Like,
there are certainly people that do re enactments in various places,
but I can't think of anywhere else that has like
that as a cultural thing thing. Yea, And I mean

(04:40):
the fact that there are three in North Carolina that
have been running to my knowledge for decades, and then
other ones in North Carolina that have run for a
period of years and then maybe they fizzled out, maybe
they get picked back up. North Carolina does have a
relatively mild climate for doing outdoor dramas in the warm

(05:04):
weather months. It's less mild now because climate change, but still.
I also maybe I am particularly interested in them because
I was a theater kid in high school and I
knew people who like people who went to college at
Appalachian and in the summer they would do Horn in
the West. As one of the actors in that show.
You know, I got my degree in theater. I don't

(05:27):
think I have any friends that have done those, uh
like of of anywhere, not necessarily North Carolina. But like
you know, I have certainly had friends do like repertory
theater in the summer in various places, but not not
like something as specific as like historical dramas that are
part of like a tourism industry. Yeah, fascinating. When I

(05:50):
was in high school, my mom and I would go
on weekend trips together, and we went on multiple different
weekend trips that involved going out to the mountains, and uh,
it was those various trips that we saw unto these
hills and Horn in the West. And I'm really pretty
sure that I've never seen the Lost Colony, even though
I have also visited that part of North Carolina. So anyway,

(06:13):
I'm glad that, uh that we finally got to the
Lowry War from my short list that is not short
at all. The federal recognition conversation is so complicated to
me and is another thing where like, I, as a
white person, I'm not the person to like sort all
that out. College is like I have nothing further to act. No,

(06:34):
it's it is all complicated. I mean, I I found myself, Um,
I'm glad you did the research on this one, because
I found myself getting lost with everyone having the same name. Yeah,
where I was like, I literally had as I was
reviewing it this morning, I had like a weird chart
and I was like, wait, did I do this right?
Have I gotten confused with the there So, there are

(06:58):
a group of family names that are common among the Lumbi,
and they include Lowry and Ox and Dine. A lot
of the names that came up in the show, Um,
those are not names that a lot of people would
think of off the top of their head as being
like an indigenous person's last name. Um. And that's been
one of the things of like, how did this group
of people living in this part of North Carolina with

(07:19):
a like a tribal identity that goes back for centuries
have a lot of last names that people would think
of as English and I think that is one of
the things that fed into the like are these descendants
of the lost Colony conversation that came up in the
nineteenth century. Um, so yeah, there are lots and lots

(07:40):
of lowry Is still today, including Lowries in like leadership.
Melinda Mayor Lowry, the historian that was that wrote some
of the work, uh, that was part of the research
for this, as well as doing a panel that I
watched a video of that was about all of this.
So yeah, if you are interested in the great or
history of the Lumbi tribe, highly recommend Melinda Maynor Lowry's work.

(08:15):
So we we talked about Thomas Nidgley Jr. We sure did.
That wasn't the most fun ever, No, yeah, I I
was unaware of how much people already knew about leaded
gasoline being dangerous. It wasn't entirely surprising because you and

(08:35):
I are both old enough to remember leaded gasoline being
sold at gas stations and as a child being like,
how did anyone think this was a good idea? Ever,
leaded gasoline was not the only very problematic source of
lead that that was phased out over about the same time.

(08:56):
There are also things like lett in paint. A lot
of houses still have lead in paint in them, lots
of other stuff. But I'm like, I remember being there
at the gas station with my mom and just kind
of be like, I don't understand why we had to
have a process where we put the lead in there
and then we took the lead out of there, and
I was like, that was the lead just always in
there is lead part of gasoline, and we just discovered

(09:17):
we needed to take it out. Like I didn't really
get it. But I also didn't really get like why
anybody would have thought that would have been a safe
thing to do. Uh yeah, I mean right. This is
a disheartening one for many reasons, and you and I
talked about it beforehand, Like this idea that UM business

(09:41):
is more important than safety is a problem that many
industries have had over the years, and it just keeps recurring,
it really does. This one is especially bad because people
were dying so quickly, and it's like, oh, no, we're
fixing the factory, okay, but people have already died. Like
there's really a big problem with what you're doing. Something

(10:05):
that we didn't talk about UM. One of the things
Alice Hamilton was really focused on was what about gas
station attendance? Um, because uh, I mean there are still
places where people don't pump their own gas routinely. But
the process of putting the lead into the gasoline, there
was a lot of back and forth about when that
step should happen, and there was a process that involved

(10:29):
actually putting it in at the at the gas station,
and Alice Hamilton's kept being like, this is killing people
the factories. Have you even thought about the person who
was pumping people's gas all day every day? Like what
exposure is going to do to that person? Clearly nobody
had thought about you didn't even get into it in

(10:51):
the episode because it felt like a whole other thing.
And I also felt like the episode was becoming very long. Um,
I don't know why. It did not occur to me
that that might happen. And when I decided to do
what I did with the episode, which was to talk
about his biography and these two other things, Uh, yeah,
would you like to hear funny your thoughts? Yeah? Okay, So, um,

(11:14):
are you familiar with rows chast? There's a bell that's
ringing right You might be and not even realize it.
Ros Chast is a cartoonist that did a lot of
stuff with The New Yorker for a very long period
of time. She's so funny and I love her, um,
And this episode reminded me of one of my favorite
Rows Chast cartoons, which is called four common lamp shade

(11:36):
mistakes and how to avoid them. And they're very silly,
like one lamp shade is too tiny and the suggestion
is just by a larger shade, one is too large
by a smaller shade, one has too much fringe, Just
cut off the fringe. And the fourth one says made
of magnesium and benzine soaked rags, leave the room. And
I this has been one of my big favorites for
a very long time. And so when ben Zinge came

(11:59):
up in midst of like all of this other horrible stuff,
my brain like deposited a little dopamine and went, remember
that great Ross Chast cartoon. Oh yeah, you can tell
other people about the great Ross Chast cartoon. Good Ross
Chast is. I love her, Um. I also want to
say something about our listener mail. Okay, Abby, I'm sorry

(12:19):
to do this to you, but I'm you may have
already discovered there is also diar Real Woman. Oh, I
didn't even know that, and I reason there's that episode. Yes,
well you wouldn't have it. It was related like it
came out later in relation to like women's health. Um.
But I am currently in the midst of acquiring a
diar Real Woman so that I can have a dire

(12:40):
Real couple. That's great. I understand Abby the proclivity to
just buy strange things when you hear about and I'm
sorry I have put this on your radar if you
didn't already know, or you're welcome, I don't know which,
but diar Real Woman. Um. I did want to note

(13:00):
that a little bit about what I found so upsetting
about Thomas Midgley Jr's death. So if if that's going
to be a troubling topic for people, I think this
is gonna be a Wednesday episode, so you can probably
just have a great weekend. Have a great weekend. Um. So,
the first things that I found that were about his

(13:21):
death described it flatly as an accident, and it wasn't
until later that I learned that, like the death certificate
in the corner's report did not come to the same
conclusion of it being an accident. Um the idea that
this man had to make a lift for himself to
get from the bed to the wheelchair and that he

(13:42):
had accidentally or like become entangled in it, and that
it had killed him. I found so upsetting because, Number one,
it's clear that at that time there was so much
stigma around disability. One of the things that started to
shift that stigma was how many people became paralyzed as

(14:03):
a result of polio and then advocated for themselves and
for changes to disabilityarize love. We've talked about that some
in our episode on the independent living movement and Ed Roberts,
who was a big figure in that movement. But still today,
there are so many basic things that so many disabled

(14:23):
people need for so many basic tasks of life that
they cannot get access to, or cannot afford access to,
or there's like only one model and that model doesn't
quite work for them. Um My mom needs a lift
to get from anywhere to anywhere, and on occasions when

(14:46):
she has had to be hospitalized a lot of times
they will have a sling for that lift, which is
the thing that she's in to like move her from
place to place. But it's not a sling that allows
access to the toilet, and that just makes going to
the bathroom like a whole gigantic, like a bigger process
than otherwise. And so the fact that the that he

(15:11):
had to build something for himself, and that, regardless of
the circumstances, the thing that he built for himself killed
him carries through to it. Just it it made me
very angry and upset, of course. So that's it's like
an example both of how there has been progress and
how there is still so much, so much more that

(15:33):
needs to be done about access and about how people
having the the tools and the resources and the equipment
that they need for daily life with a disability. Yeah.
I mean this has been a very interesting time in
terms of disability resources because I feel like during the pandemic,
when most people during the early parts of pandemic, I

(15:56):
should say, when most people were staying home, there were
some kind of benefits that came about that really really
helped the disabled community, and now a lot of those
are rolling back. Um. I had just retweeted a tweet
from a woman who was commenting on a story about
how restaurants are now pulling their their QR code menus

(16:18):
because some people don't like them. And it's like, she's like,
I'm blind. That gave me like a level of access
at restaurants that I haven't normally had. Why would you
take this away? It doesn't detract from anyone else's experience,
and I I hope that the the upside of all
of this is that these are discussions that people are

(16:39):
recognizing now that maybe haven't considered what it is like
for someone who is disabled to have to like make
their way in a world that does not make space
for them and does not provide the equipment and the
things they need. But also, as she said, it's infuriating
because it's been going on forever for yeah, for all
of the time. Yeah, yeah. Um. I think social media

(17:01):
as as conflicted as my relationship with social media is, um,
I think social media has allowed so many people to
have a bigger voice and to to have more diversity
of the voices that you have access to. I mean,
there are still barriers to social media that are based
on all kinds of different factors, including disability, but um,

(17:24):
so many disabled people have been able to communicate their
own thoughts and needs and feelings about things to a
much broader audience, and I think that is bringing more
awareness to stuff. I thing I've told Holly that I've
done this, I haven't really like publicly. I've been trying
to do less doom scrolling on Twitter. And one of

(17:44):
the things I do instead of doom scroll on Twitter
is that just flipped through TikTok until I find somebody
doing something really cool. Um, And I found a lot
of folks on on TikTok who are disabled and are
making content that is about their disability in ways that
are just really thoughtful and funny. And folks who are
willing to answer lots of questions for people. Do not

(18:07):
go pepper people with unsolicited questions because that can be
really like invasive, but like people who are willing to
take on that role and to talk to people about
stuff that's going on. And I'm like, I am heartened
to see that. I simultaneously like, I wish people did
not have to do this kind of work. I wish
we were already to a point where we had more understanding,

(18:27):
but like also I'm glad there is more access there
through these and other communication methods. So anyway, Happy Friday.
I hope whatever is happening on your weekend is going
to be good as good as it can be. Whatever
is happening. We will be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow.

(18:49):
We're back Monday with a brand new episode, and uh,
I hope everybody has a little minute of peace. Whatever
is going on. M Stuff you Missed in History Class
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
from I heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

(19:13):
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