November 26, 2021 • 15 mins
Holly and Tracy discuss Perkin's idealism, and how many things in their lives are impacted by his work. Then they discuss "Who killed Cock Robin?' and Tracy's fascination with it as a child.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh. This week we
talked about William Perkin and the discovery of Mauve and
really all of his other contributions to side. Yeah. I'm
(00:24):
so glad you picked this one because I know it's
one that people have asked us to talk about before,
and also something that has sort of come up in
passing on other episodes. But such an interesting story, and
I did not realize how young he was when that
happened a baby. That was one of the things that
I wanted to mention that I said we would talk
(00:45):
about at the end of that episode. That's very very
interesting to me because I feel like he is kind
of an outlier to the trope of the person who
becomes wildly successful when they're still very young. Because when
you're young and your sensibilities are not fully matured yet,
it's very easy for a lot of success to lead
(01:05):
to a lot of bad behavior. Um and like self
indulgence and just you know, kind of an overinflated sense
of self. But Perkin, in all of the writing that
people have done about him seems to have stayed surprisingly
idealistic throughout all of that, like setting up a business
will break a person, and yet he really seemed to
(01:27):
still be like, it's still about the science, which is
probably afforded him by the fact that his brother was
handling like the nuts and bolts of yucky business affairs,
while he was like, I'm gonna go to the lab
and make a new color goodbye. Um, which is not
to make him sound like he was like dippy or flippy,
but just like he could focus on the science and
not on the less pleasant parts of running a business. Um.
(01:53):
And it's interesting that part that we mentioned about them
making a magenta and then pulling that color stood out
to me in one of the papers that I was
reading about them, because they seemed really upset by the
fact that their process could potentially have caused people to
get sick, and like that doesn't seem necessarily in line
(02:13):
with a lot of industrialism of the day. Um. However,
the source for that was a write up about it
that his brother did, so I don't know as much
about his brother, and perhaps his brother just wanted to
make them look at or perhaps his brother was legitimately
that troubled by it. I mean, they did stop producing
it pretty quickly. So it seems to uphold that idea
(02:36):
that maybe they were kind of idealists in general as
a family, um, which again probably comes from the fact
that they had a very privileged upbringing, you know what
I mean, Like, there's a way in which you can
be very idealists when you have not had to struggle,
which they didn't. And thankfully, even though they took that
big risk financially with their dad, it all paid off
(02:57):
and then some That to me is just very very fascinating.
I also think, I mean, he, like I said, he
wasn't dealing with the business side of things, and he
got out at a young enough age that I think
he sits in this lucky space historically, where like we
can't ascribe all of the bad things that have come
out of manufacturing plants to him because he wasn't in
(03:20):
it anymore. And I think probably that would have been
very a very happy thing on his part. He seemed
like he really did would not have wanted any part
of that, um. But it's pretty cool. I think about
all of the things I use every single day that
are connected or rooted in something that he worked on
(03:40):
from like the sweetener I put in my coffee to
the color on my head, and I'm like, thank you,
William Perkin. I will say this, I really want um
us to maybe have T shirts that say Cold Tar
Color Jubilee on them, because I just think, what enough
(04:00):
phrase is good? What a name it's That's not a
thing that I would necessarily think I would have any
interest in. But if I knew that it was, you know,
all about fascinating colors and dyes being invented, that would
be a different thing. Also, would you ever think all
of those words would go together. I didn't think they
all went together when they were coming out of my
(04:22):
mouth on the show the Cold Tar Color Jubilee. Uh
yeah that one' We had a request from someone years
ago for this specific story and I don't remember who
that was, so my apologies on that one. But we
have gotten it, I think from a few other people
as well, and it's it's been on my list and
(04:42):
kind of jockeying around the positions at various times. And
I actually was working on another subject for this week
and then discovered there was a better source for that
than I had already had and I had to like
mail away for a book to come to me. So
I was like, I'm jumping horses. I'm jumping horses. But
I had our aready done enough pre limb on this
one and had some papers kind of ready to go
(05:03):
to read. So that helps make it make it happen
this week instead and made him jump to the top
of the list. Yeah. And also, you know who doesn't
want to talk about purple all day every day? I do. Yeah.
I mean, my entire living room is purple and black,
like clearly, it's a color I enjoy. And again, as
you just said, you wear it on your head every day,
(05:26):
every day of your life, every day I haven't been.
I mean, I like to tell people purple is my
natural color just because every once in a while, every
hundredth person gets really confused like they believe it. But
reminds me, I'm not going to say who this was,
but it reminds me of the time that we were
in a green room and a person far more famous
(05:49):
than you, and I asked if she could touch her hair. Yeah,
I think after you had said that the purple was
your natural color. Well, no, as I recall what had
happened was she asked we were dressed in historical clothing
for a strange event. She asked if that's how I
always dress and I jokingly said like, yeah, this is
(06:12):
just Tuesday outfit. And she said do you wear the
wig every time? And you said that's her real hair,
and then she said can I touch it? He's like,
that's fine. I don't generally advocate asking if you can
touch people's hair, but in this case was it was
charming and funny. Yeah, anybody can touch my my hair
(06:35):
if they want. I won't mind. I will also often
get into long discussions with people about how I achieved
my hair color. I think I have said it on
stage at live shows before, when people have as during
you and a yeah, happy to do it anytime. Brian
often comes around the corner at like the supermarket and
(06:55):
finds me talking to like a parent and a teenager
because their team agent wants it, but they're scared to
ask me, and the parent will just stomp up and go,
how do you get your hair so purple? My child
wants to know, and I'll be like, here's how I'll
write it all down. Purple hairnut for shy people is
what I'm saying. No, No, alright, we have wandered far
(07:18):
afield at this point. This week on the show, we
talked about mother Goose rhymes again, and in particular, we
talked about who Killed cock Robin, a poem I have
(07:39):
had a morbid fascination with since my very early childhood
because I had a story book that, in my memory
had two stories in it. But I could that could
be totally wrong. I mean, this is a book that
my mom read to me when I was very small,
and I don't remember what else was in the book,
because what I do remember is we would get to
(08:00):
the end of the story that my mom read to
me all the time, and then the next story in
it was who Killed cock Robin? And my mom would
be like, no, we're not reading that. Uh. And I'm
not sure whether it was because Mom did not want
to read the thing about the sparrow getting shot and
somebody catching its blood and all of that, or whether
(08:22):
she thought that I would have been traumatized by, which
I might have been. I was very sensitive about small animals,
But either way it became this like huge taboo source
of fascination and like my very small maybe three or
four year old nine, and I thought about like asking
my parents what book was that? And I did not
(08:45):
I did not do it, and also did not want
anybody to like go rummaging around boxes of old stuff
in their house trying to figure out the answer. Uh.
But yeah, cock Robin, just let's have a murder poem
for very small children. You know you got you gotta learn. Um.
(09:08):
I know you do not like the animal heads on
the human bodies that are illustrated in that by Henry
Lewis Stevens. Yeah. See, that's what I have been fascinated
with since I was a kid. So some of them
are fine with me, Like owl with his spade and trowel.
(09:28):
That's pretty, that's fine. Uh. And some of the like
birds with human bodies are okay. But the very first
illustration in it is like sparrow with no shirt on
and weirdly ripped torso and a tiny bird head. I love,
(09:50):
I love I love all this stuff. I love it.
I love the bug people. Yeah, the fish with his
dish and he has like the a on also bothered me. Caaculate.
See here's the thing these I have long looked at
this book and been like, which one of these will
I eventually get tattooed on my body. Okay, it was
(10:11):
very funny when you were like, yeah, I love all
the Beatles, yum. Near the end, there's a picture that
I actually think is quite beautiful. That's Who's sing Who'll
sing a song? And it's the Thrush and the Thrush
is singing that I think is really genuinely beautiful and
(10:32):
it doesn't freak me out at all. But then right
after that is the lark being the clerk, and it's
like if somebody put a lark's head John Ebony's or
Scrooge body. I love his crooked, little bad posture and
his skinny legs. I love the feathers that mimic the
shape of his legs. But going in a different direction,
(10:53):
I love the background of the ladybird with her children
pulling on her dress. I love at illustrations so much. Yeah,
the bul just looks kind of like a menatur, Yes,
very much. So. This is a ridiculous conversation to be
having in our audio medium of a podcast. But this
whole book is online at Project Gutenberg, and you can
(11:16):
see the whole thing for yourself if you go to
Guttenberg dot org and just put the words cock Robin
in the search bar, and you can also treat yourself
to this either wonderful land of animal whimsy or horror.
For my part of it, here's the thing I learned
when you sent your outline over and I looked at
(11:38):
it because there's a phrase that I use all the
time but never knew its origin, and that is namby pamby. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I use it all the time. I don't want to
hear your namby pamby excuses for blobby bluop, like I
always associate it with um unnecessary fluff namby pam Yeah.
(11:58):
And I don't know offhand if like that term comes
from the name of that satire or if that satire
was named for the term, but either way, that term
has been around for a while. Yeah, I had no idea.
I just thought that was more of a modern sort
of silly nonsensical expression used for the needs which I
(12:18):
just mentioned. Yeah, it's the whole thing. Yeah. Maybe I'm
planning to hopefully go see my parents for Thanksgiving and
in everybody vaccinated taking lots of precautions kind of way,
and maybe if that happens, as I hope it will
which will know by the time this episode comes out,
(12:38):
I think, because I think this is coming out after
your Thanksgiving, you'll go digging. Maybe I will. I will
dig through boxes of old stuff and see if I
can find the book and remember what it was that
I love to be read by my mom so much
that I always was disappointed when we got to the
end and she would not continue to have this, you know,
(12:58):
heart pierced elected blood murder story. Love it. I still
like my theory that it's about animal vamporism. Yeah, that's
a whole different thing. Um. Yeah, I love I love
those Stephen's illustrations so much. It did not come up,
(13:22):
And I don't know if you found it in any
of your research. When we're talking about Ladybird, Ladybird, about ladybugs,
which is what I grew up calling them being good luck,
and if that ties into any of the interpretations they're
viewed as being lucky in a lot of Europe and
North America. Um. And I did read a thing that
(13:44):
suggested that this idea of luck was tied to the
association with the Virgin Mary and being sort of blessed.
But then I couldn't I couldn't find a connection with
that in the poem. I mean not necessarily that the
people that came up with interpretations for that poem and
found an actual connection either. Uh. That thing from the
(14:06):
BBC article, just as it comes across to me is like, well,
there's fire and people got burned at the stake, So
clearly that's what that's about. Like, that's the most I mean,
it's obvious there's a kid. It's the most tenuous of
all of them, unless there is some kind of like
progression that somebody did figure out that was not documented
anywhere that I found. So yeah, I'm sure at some
(14:29):
point we will do some more mother Goose rhymes. I
don't know if it will be the very next six
Impossible episodes, because while we did get a lot of
people who were like, these are so fun, please do more,
I'm sure there were other people who were like, but
what if you didn't though? But what if you did
something else? You know, maybe we'll have some other six
Impossible episodes next time around. But either way, since it's Friday, everybody,
(14:53):
have a great weekend. Whatever is on your plates. If
you want to send us an email or history podcast
that I hurt right o dot com and if you
have not subscribed to the show, it is in the
I heart Radio app and really anywhere else that you
want to get any podcasts. Stuff you missed in History
Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
(15:16):
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly
Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Uh. This week we
talked about William Perkin and the discovery of Mauve and
really all of his other contributions to side. Yeah. I'm
(00:24):
so glad you picked this one because I know it's
one that people have asked us to talk about before,
and also something that has sort of come up in
passing on other episodes. But such an interesting story, and
I did not realize how young he was when that
happened a baby. That was one of the things that
I wanted to mention that I said we would talk
(00:45):
about at the end of that episode. That's very very
interesting to me because I feel like he is kind
of an outlier to the trope of the person who
becomes wildly successful when they're still very young. Because when
you're young and your sensibilities are not fully matured yet,
it's very easy for a lot of success to lead
(01:05):
to a lot of bad behavior. Um and like self
indulgence and just you know, kind of an overinflated sense
of self. But Perkin, in all of the writing that
people have done about him seems to have stayed surprisingly
idealistic throughout all of that, like setting up a business
will break a person, and yet he really seemed to
(01:27):
still be like, it's still about the science, which is
probably afforded him by the fact that his brother was
handling like the nuts and bolts of yucky business affairs,
while he was like, I'm gonna go to the lab
and make a new color goodbye. Um, which is not
to make him sound like he was like dippy or flippy,
but just like he could focus on the science and
not on the less pleasant parts of running a business. Um.
(01:53):
And it's interesting that part that we mentioned about them
making a magenta and then pulling that color stood out
to me in one of the papers that I was
reading about them, because they seemed really upset by the
fact that their process could potentially have caused people to
get sick, and like that doesn't seem necessarily in line
(02:13):
with a lot of industrialism of the day. Um. However,
the source for that was a write up about it
that his brother did, so I don't know as much
about his brother, and perhaps his brother just wanted to
make them look at or perhaps his brother was legitimately
that troubled by it. I mean, they did stop producing
it pretty quickly. So it seems to uphold that idea
(02:36):
that maybe they were kind of idealists in general as
a family, um, which again probably comes from the fact
that they had a very privileged upbringing, you know what
I mean, Like, there's a way in which you can
be very idealists when you have not had to struggle,
which they didn't. And thankfully, even though they took that
big risk financially with their dad, it all paid off
(02:57):
and then some That to me is just very very fascinating.
I also think, I mean, he, like I said, he
wasn't dealing with the business side of things, and he
got out at a young enough age that I think
he sits in this lucky space historically, where like we
can't ascribe all of the bad things that have come
out of manufacturing plants to him because he wasn't in
(03:20):
it anymore. And I think probably that would have been
very a very happy thing on his part. He seemed
like he really did would not have wanted any part
of that, um. But it's pretty cool. I think about
all of the things I use every single day that
are connected or rooted in something that he worked on
(03:40):
from like the sweetener I put in my coffee to
the color on my head, and I'm like, thank you,
William Perkin. I will say this, I really want um
us to maybe have T shirts that say Cold Tar
Color Jubilee on them, because I just think, what enough
(04:00):
phrase is good? What a name it's That's not a
thing that I would necessarily think I would have any
interest in. But if I knew that it was, you know,
all about fascinating colors and dyes being invented, that would
be a different thing. Also, would you ever think all
of those words would go together. I didn't think they
all went together when they were coming out of my
(04:22):
mouth on the show the Cold Tar Color Jubilee. Uh
yeah that one' We had a request from someone years
ago for this specific story and I don't remember who
that was, so my apologies on that one. But we
have gotten it, I think from a few other people
as well, and it's it's been on my list and
(04:42):
kind of jockeying around the positions at various times. And
I actually was working on another subject for this week
and then discovered there was a better source for that
than I had already had and I had to like
mail away for a book to come to me. So
I was like, I'm jumping horses. I'm jumping horses. But
I had our aready done enough pre limb on this
one and had some papers kind of ready to go
(05:03):
to read. So that helps make it make it happen
this week instead and made him jump to the top
of the list. Yeah. And also, you know who doesn't
want to talk about purple all day every day? I do. Yeah.
I mean, my entire living room is purple and black,
like clearly, it's a color I enjoy. And again, as
you just said, you wear it on your head every day,
(05:26):
every day of your life, every day I haven't been.
I mean, I like to tell people purple is my
natural color just because every once in a while, every
hundredth person gets really confused like they believe it. But
reminds me, I'm not going to say who this was,
but it reminds me of the time that we were
in a green room and a person far more famous
(05:49):
than you, and I asked if she could touch her hair. Yeah,
I think after you had said that the purple was
your natural color. Well, no, as I recall what had
happened was she asked we were dressed in historical clothing
for a strange event. She asked if that's how I
always dress and I jokingly said like, yeah, this is
(06:12):
just Tuesday outfit. And she said do you wear the
wig every time? And you said that's her real hair,
and then she said can I touch it? He's like,
that's fine. I don't generally advocate asking if you can
touch people's hair, but in this case was it was
charming and funny. Yeah, anybody can touch my my hair
(06:35):
if they want. I won't mind. I will also often
get into long discussions with people about how I achieved
my hair color. I think I have said it on
stage at live shows before, when people have as during
you and a yeah, happy to do it anytime. Brian
often comes around the corner at like the supermarket and
(06:55):
finds me talking to like a parent and a teenager
because their team agent wants it, but they're scared to
ask me, and the parent will just stomp up and go,
how do you get your hair so purple? My child
wants to know, and I'll be like, here's how I'll
write it all down. Purple hairnut for shy people is
what I'm saying. No, No, alright, we have wandered far
(07:18):
afield at this point. This week on the show, we
talked about mother Goose rhymes again, and in particular, we
talked about who Killed cock Robin, a poem I have
(07:39):
had a morbid fascination with since my very early childhood
because I had a story book that, in my memory
had two stories in it. But I could that could
be totally wrong. I mean, this is a book that
my mom read to me when I was very small,
and I don't remember what else was in the book,
because what I do remember is we would get to
(08:00):
the end of the story that my mom read to
me all the time, and then the next story in
it was who Killed cock Robin? And my mom would
be like, no, we're not reading that. Uh. And I'm
not sure whether it was because Mom did not want
to read the thing about the sparrow getting shot and
somebody catching its blood and all of that, or whether
(08:22):
she thought that I would have been traumatized by, which
I might have been. I was very sensitive about small animals,
But either way it became this like huge taboo source
of fascination and like my very small maybe three or
four year old nine, and I thought about like asking
my parents what book was that? And I did not
(08:45):
I did not do it, and also did not want
anybody to like go rummaging around boxes of old stuff
in their house trying to figure out the answer. Uh.
But yeah, cock Robin, just let's have a murder poem
for very small children. You know you got you gotta learn. Um.
(09:08):
I know you do not like the animal heads on
the human bodies that are illustrated in that by Henry
Lewis Stevens. Yeah. See, that's what I have been fascinated
with since I was a kid. So some of them
are fine with me, Like owl with his spade and trowel.
(09:28):
That's pretty, that's fine. Uh. And some of the like
birds with human bodies are okay. But the very first
illustration in it is like sparrow with no shirt on
and weirdly ripped torso and a tiny bird head. I love,
(09:50):
I love I love all this stuff. I love it.
I love the bug people. Yeah, the fish with his
dish and he has like the a on also bothered me. Caaculate.
See here's the thing these I have long looked at
this book and been like, which one of these will
I eventually get tattooed on my body. Okay, it was
(10:11):
very funny when you were like, yeah, I love all
the Beatles, yum. Near the end, there's a picture that
I actually think is quite beautiful. That's Who's sing Who'll
sing a song? And it's the Thrush and the Thrush
is singing that I think is really genuinely beautiful and
(10:32):
it doesn't freak me out at all. But then right
after that is the lark being the clerk, and it's
like if somebody put a lark's head John Ebony's or
Scrooge body. I love his crooked, little bad posture and
his skinny legs. I love the feathers that mimic the
shape of his legs. But going in a different direction,
(10:53):
I love the background of the ladybird with her children
pulling on her dress. I love at illustrations so much. Yeah,
the bul just looks kind of like a menatur, Yes,
very much. So. This is a ridiculous conversation to be
having in our audio medium of a podcast. But this
whole book is online at Project Gutenberg, and you can
(11:16):
see the whole thing for yourself if you go to
Guttenberg dot org and just put the words cock Robin
in the search bar, and you can also treat yourself
to this either wonderful land of animal whimsy or horror.
For my part of it, here's the thing I learned
when you sent your outline over and I looked at
(11:38):
it because there's a phrase that I use all the
time but never knew its origin, and that is namby pamby. Okay, yeah, yeah,
I use it all the time. I don't want to
hear your namby pamby excuses for blobby bluop, like I
always associate it with um unnecessary fluff namby pam Yeah.
(11:58):
And I don't know offhand if like that term comes
from the name of that satire or if that satire
was named for the term, but either way, that term
has been around for a while. Yeah, I had no idea.
I just thought that was more of a modern sort
of silly nonsensical expression used for the needs which I
(12:18):
just mentioned. Yeah, it's the whole thing. Yeah. Maybe I'm
planning to hopefully go see my parents for Thanksgiving and
in everybody vaccinated taking lots of precautions kind of way,
and maybe if that happens, as I hope it will
which will know by the time this episode comes out,
(12:38):
I think, because I think this is coming out after
your Thanksgiving, you'll go digging. Maybe I will. I will
dig through boxes of old stuff and see if I
can find the book and remember what it was that
I love to be read by my mom so much
that I always was disappointed when we got to the
end and she would not continue to have this, you know,
(12:58):
heart pierced elected blood murder story. Love it. I still
like my theory that it's about animal vamporism. Yeah, that's
a whole different thing. Um. Yeah, I love I love
those Stephen's illustrations so much. It did not come up,
(13:22):
And I don't know if you found it in any
of your research. When we're talking about Ladybird, Ladybird, about ladybugs,
which is what I grew up calling them being good luck,
and if that ties into any of the interpretations they're
viewed as being lucky in a lot of Europe and
North America. Um. And I did read a thing that
(13:44):
suggested that this idea of luck was tied to the
association with the Virgin Mary and being sort of blessed.
But then I couldn't I couldn't find a connection with
that in the poem. I mean not necessarily that the
people that came up with interpretations for that poem and
found an actual connection either. Uh. That thing from the
(14:06):
BBC article, just as it comes across to me is like, well,
there's fire and people got burned at the stake, So
clearly that's what that's about. Like, that's the most I mean,
it's obvious there's a kid. It's the most tenuous of
all of them, unless there is some kind of like
progression that somebody did figure out that was not documented
anywhere that I found. So yeah, I'm sure at some
(14:29):
point we will do some more mother Goose rhymes. I
don't know if it will be the very next six
Impossible episodes, because while we did get a lot of
people who were like, these are so fun, please do more,
I'm sure there were other people who were like, but
what if you didn't though? But what if you did
something else? You know, maybe we'll have some other six
Impossible episodes next time around. But either way, since it's Friday, everybody,
(14:53):
have a great weekend. Whatever is on your plates. If
you want to send us an email or history podcast
that I hurt right o dot com and if you
have not subscribed to the show, it is in the
I heart Radio app and really anywhere else that you
want to get any podcasts. Stuff you missed in History
Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
(15:16):
podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.