December 12, 2018 • 32 mins
Museum Hack writer Hayley Milliman joins Holly to talk about the company's irreverent approach to getting people excited about history, and discusses the new book "Museum Hack's Guide To History's Fiercest Females."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We have
got an interview today and this one is with one
of the authors of a book put out by museum Hack.
(00:23):
And if you have not heard of museum Hack, it
is a company that offers alternative museum tours and we're
going to get into that in the interview for a
bit more of an explanation of what that company is,
but in short, their approach to museums and history is
very irreverent and very playful. Based on the success of
museum Hacks history tours, their team decided to write a book.
(00:43):
One of the author's, Hayley Milliman, joined Holly to talk
about the book, which is titled Museum Hacks Guide to
History's Fiercest Females. Full disclosure, So I mentioned at one
point in the course of this interview a museum Hack
tour of the met that I went on that was
back in September. That tour was comped by the Benny,
So that was a freebee for me and I took
my husband well, and I might as well, just disclose
(01:04):
that I was invited to go on a tour but
I could not make the schedule work. Uh yeah, I
will say for a museum like the Met in particular,
they're not paying me to say anything about them. But
it was perfect for my husband because that museum is
overwhelming the first time you go, and he had never been,
so it was great to have someone go, here are
some cool things in this museum, and it made it
a lot more easy for him to kind of take
(01:26):
in that incredible large space in a way that we
had a helper. It was really lovely. We also have
what other quick note, especially if you are listening in
a classroom or with younger listeners, There are a couple
of words in this episode that Holly and I don't
typically say. There are words that are commonly allowed on
broadcast television and are in the context of these tours,
(01:47):
but everybody has different boundaries of what language they would
prefer to use around their kids and students. So if
you think that might apply to you, a great idea
to check this one out first to make sure everything
is okay. Were your listeners. There's also an offer that
museum Hack is really graciously extending to our listeners at
the end of the interview, the name of that tour
(02:09):
contains the words that we're talking about, so we can't
just bleep it out because then you wouldn't know the
name of the tour. Yes, so be sure to go
ahead and listen all the way to the end before
you make your decision about whether you want to share
this with younger history buffs in your life. But we
will jump right in to uh, Haley and I discussing
both museum Hack and this book. So first, now that
(02:31):
I have you, Haley, Uh, will you just tell us
a little bit about what museum Hack is. Yeah. So
we are a company that leads unconventional tours of the
world's museum UM. We were founded about, I think six
years ago now by Nick Gray UM. Nick has like
a really funny story. So basically he had always kind
(02:52):
of hated museums. He thought they were super boring. He
never ever went to one. UM and then he was
a first date UM and she suggested going to the
met with him at night. UM, and so they went
and Nick fell We like to say that Nick fell
in love on that date, UM, but that's unfortunately with
the girl. But with the museum UM, and so something
(03:14):
about like something about being there with all of the
lights UM and the girl UM who he was with
his UM, the girl who's on the date was told
him kind of all of these stories about her, you know,
favorite pieces at the met and having that like personal
connection where he was hearing her experience with it rather
than just like reading the placards are kind of like
(03:34):
hearing an impersonal account of it really connected with him until,
like I said, he like totally fell in love with
museums UM and became like obsessed with them and spent
all of this free time at museums and basically just
kind of started bringing all of his friends on like
little mini tours for himself. Like he'd go and learn
um about like things he wanted to do and would
(03:56):
like tell his friends basically like oh like here's these
interesting pieces of art work that I'm into. UM. And
so yeah, So it starts from there, and then we've
grown to a company. I think it's over seventy five employees.
Now we do tours in six different cities. UM. We
have so much fun and we basically just take people,
bring them to the museum UM and teach all of
our tours are very personalized, very centered along that like
(04:20):
initial experience that Nick had, which is like learning what
a person loves about the museum versus like just learning
about like all of the artifacts and the art and
like you know, a laundry list of names. It's really
about like what's the experience and the personal connection that
everybody has. UM. So we do that. That's like our
kind of main umbrella. We also do corporate tours, we
do scavenger hunts UM, and we have now just written
(04:42):
a book that we're kind of doing a lot of
different things all about like sharing stories, UM, about history
and art and culture and science that are that we're
passionate about. I love it because it makes art and
art history so alive for people in a completely new way.
Yes exactly. Yeah, it's like take it because it's like
these pieces they live there, but like it's it's bringing
(05:05):
like you could just just like you said, like it's
bringing them to life. UM. And it's really like leading
with that like why does this matter? And not like
why does it matter a large sense, like why does
it matter to you and to me? And just like
sitting here talking about it, UM, which like I think
we found just like makes all the difference in terms
of engagement for an audience. So you mentioned that you
(05:25):
have a book now which you are the main writer on.
How did you guys decide that, like, Okay, we've got
this tour thing down, now it's time to make a book. Yeah.
So you know, we were sitting um and first of
all to say that it's a very collaborative effort. UM.
So I'm like, I don't want to sell credit writing
it in any way. UM. But we uh we basically, um,
(05:48):
we're sitting down and we were talking about how, you know,
we're so thrilled that we have we're able to do
these tours in like six different cities across the United States. UM.
But that being said, like that still leaves many many
people who aren't in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, UM,
who just like aren't getting to call it a museum
hack tour um and aren't getting to like experience that
(06:10):
type of storytelling. UM. So we really started last year
kind of making an effort to tell the same sort
of stories that we tell in museums on our blog.
First and foremost, UM, our blog has been like pretty
like just like a standard kind of like corporate blog,
you know, like talking about promotions and like, you know,
work we have done with museums, but not really like
the storytelling aspect UM. So when I came on board
(06:31):
and we started doing storytelling blog pieces just to kind
of like experiment and be like, hey, do you are
people into this? Like people like this um and then
like with the goal of making eventually museum Hack a
household name um. And it became really clear that people
like did like the blog post um and did really
resonate with that storytelling. And that's that storytelling not only
resonated like on the stores in museums, but also uh
(06:54):
in written work as well. UM. And so then we
were like, well, you know this is like the movie.
Doing the blog with is great, Like let's figure out
another medium where we can not only have the stories
but also have this original artwork um and kind of
package it all up into something that you can hold
in your hands. UM. So yeah, that's kind of how
I do about initially. So this first book is all
(07:14):
about women, and I'm wondering how you decided. It seems
like the decision making process is pretty collaborative. How did
you all decide that that was the best plan for
your first book to focus on women. Yeah, so it's
definitely like a very collaborative process. I will say though
that I was pretty selfish and like pulling for women.
I think those are like the stories that really resonated
(07:36):
with me as I was writing on the blog that
I just like loved writing UM. And since I was
kind of spearheading the project initially, I was like, Okay, well,
when we're coming to a topic like, these are the
ones that I love so UM, so let's tours those.
But also, you know we've worked with um or, we'd
like looked and seeing what are what was resonating with
our audience in terms of stories that we were sharing
(07:57):
on Facebook and Instagram and that type of thinging and UM, like,
hands down, we would see that like almost every single
time we shared a story about a woman, no matter
like what the background, no matter if she was in science,
that she was you know, like a historical figure of
political figure in art, um, they would just always resonate
so deepree with our audiences. UM. And so it just
became kind of like a no brainer. UM. And also
(08:19):
obviously within like the last year to the like the
climate on recognizing women's achievements, acknowledging the struggles in the
pain that women have gone through as well as their
betty and like myriad contributions to society has been such
an important part of the conversations that are happening worldwide
over the last year. UM. So it's also just kind
of resonated and sit really well in with that. Now.
(08:41):
I have been on a museum hack tour and I
know that it is. It's as you said, it's very
personal and it's got this nice casual air to it.
And I'm wondering how that influenced how you wrote the book.
Were you always intentionally thinking we have to keep that
kind of of tone to the whole book, or did
you play with other different is. Yeah, Um, we definitely
(09:02):
wanted to keep that talent. So one of the things
that we work with with our guys and then with
our writers is, um, we believe very strongly that people
need to be kind of entertained before they could be educated. UM.
And that goes into like, you know, entertainment isn't necessarily
just like oh, let's you know, make people laugh. It's
also like establishing that connection, right, UM. And so a
(09:25):
lot of times it's done through humor. Um. You know,
because a lot of times there's like funny scenarios and
funny stories, um. But sometimes that entertainment piece is done
by creating like very meaningful personal connections as well. UM.
So while we do like tend to work with humor
a lot, it also um it also lands on like
things that sefullly resonate with the writer or with the
(09:46):
tour guide. Um. And so yeah, it was absolutely a
percent a very conscious choice on our part to make
the stories resonate with the writers, um. And to like
lead from a place of like what's important to the
writers and what do they want to tell about each
of these women? Um? And that's a lot of what
the writing process looks like is like each of the
writers being like, Okay, you know, I know them writing
(10:06):
this story about this woman, but what do I want
to tell about her? Versus like, you know, we could
list off a litany a fact for everybody, but we
really want to tell like to make it a story
and to make it powerful, to like foster that connection
with the audience. It's like, Okay, what resonated with me?
So yeah, are like the same approach that we have
with leading with entertainment and then bringing in the piece
of education. So everything we right, we want to you know,
(10:29):
make people interested and want to make them teach them
something and have them want to learn more. But but
we believe that that becomes so much more powerful after
you have that kind of initial connection and through entertainment.
So it's interesting because they are the stories in the
book are still pretty comprehensive. It's not like people have
focused on one thing to the exclusion of the overall story.
(10:51):
So I'm wondering what the research process is like and
how you balance those two things. Yeah, so it's definitely
personalized for the writers. So I'll speak to mind first.
I think I tend to view um and so typically,
I guess I'll back up. Typically for each of the
women were going through like a you know, a high
level kind of overview of their life. But that being said,
(11:11):
none of our stories are that long, um, so you know,
they're like around two thousands to three thousand words each,
and so with each of these women, you could easily
write multiple books on their whole lives and getting into
like the nitty gritty of decid' making in like a
lot of the political nuance or you know, what's basically
like the larger picture of what was going on around them. UM.
(11:31):
So while we are giving like an overview of their lives,
and like I like to think of it um as
like kind of like the greatest hits or highlights of
what what they were going on and what they were
kind of most known for and also what most resonated
with the writer. And so for me, my process is
kind of to just initially start out by reading just
(11:52):
some short summaries of the person's life. So that might
be like looking on Britannica or you know, just like
looking at like a very short synopsis of like you know,
what would you say about this woman in a page
or two pages? Um. And what I'll do is read
a number of different sources that are kind of like
that and see what sticks out to me. So, like,
what do I remember from the first couple of times
(12:13):
that I've just done this profile of this person? Um?
And then when I think about the things that like
resonate with me and that have stuck with me, That's
where I'm going to stake deeper and try to teach
out those parts of the story that I have that
personal connection to. And I know, it actually sounds a
lot like what we do when we're starting a research
project on our show, so I appreciate that completely. Coming up,
(12:36):
we're gonna hear how Haley and her team work to
keep their stories accurate but still retain that tone that
their tours have that tends to be a little bit
lighter in nature. But first we are going to take
a quick sponsor break. A lot of what happens when
(12:56):
we're doing research is that, you know, we're kind of
trying to like tease out the realities of an event
or a person's life from kind of the mythologized versions
that get shared, and sometimes those one pagers leave things
out or they just gloss over the nuance of something.
So I'm wondering how you make sure you're getting the
accurate story, which sometimes will reveal itself to be much
(13:19):
darker or more unsettling than we maybe we're taught growing up,
But you also keep the content pretty light. How do
you work that out? Yeah? I think a lot of
it is handled on a case by case basis, and
I do think that there are some stories where, um,
we we always talk about I guess for me, this
resonates mostly at the end, right, Like it's like at
(13:40):
the end of the piece, we like to talk about
having like a mic drop moment, right, like of having
something that's like you know, like a punch at the
end that's going to keep the story with the person.
And you having been on a museum hack tour, you
think back to it, like our guide do that all
the time, Like they'll end like on a joke or
a high note, or like they'll have like a one
liner at the end before they like you off onto
the next um exhibits. And so that's a principle that
(14:04):
we like to apply to the content that we write
as well. UM. But that being said, what that mic
drops is really will vary from person to person. So
like sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it's a funny mic
drop because like the larger story surrounding this woman is
like kind of ridiculous if there is just kind of humorous.
But sometimes it's just not funny at all. Um. Like sometimes, um,
(14:26):
we wrote about one woman, um Anna Cohannas, who was
like her land was basically completely sacked by settlers and
um she was from Haiti and she you know, like
all of her people were slaughtered and it's not funny.
You know, there's there's not a lot of humor that
you can take from the message of that story. So
the ending of that story isn't funny because it's not funny.
(14:49):
There's no humor in it. Instead, it's UM a call
to reflect people about you know, why don't we Why
why do we have a Columbus Day and we don't
celebrate her? You know why why have you never heard
her game before? And that's the mic drop of like
what's true to the story, um, and what's true to
the narrative of this person? Um? And so ending on
that kind of like mic drop moment will change depending
(15:10):
on who it is and what what we can take
from them. Um. Yeah. And we had another story about
a transgender Native American warrior and uh, that is also
not a funny story. UM. It's like it doesn't end,
it doesn't end with humor. It ends with a lot
of fatness, of a lot of pain. And so being
(15:31):
true to that um is very important to us as well.
So you mentioned a couple of stories, but I wanted
to get from you maybe what two or three of
the women that are in the book are your favorites
or were your favorite either to research or write about
or read about when you were you know, kind of
looking over what other people had written for the book,
(15:53):
like which ones are the ones that really kind of
hit your heart? Yeah. So I love the story of kings.
I like and myself half Chinese UM, And so I
just I think her story is so cool UM. And
I like, personally I'm like, how can I adapt this
into like a young adult fantasy novel? Um? But I
just think her story is so cool. She Um was
(16:14):
a pirate who basically like ruled over the seas around
China UM with the bread flag fleet. She just was
like such a badass and her story is so crazy,
and we hear so much about so many like male
pirates from the Caribbean Um, both fictional and the fictional
and real, but we I had never heard of her before,
and her stories just so cool, and she like just
(16:34):
ended like her life she didn't even get in trouble
for being a pirate. Basically, she just got to like
hang up her flag and then like open a gambling
house and so right, bull, I think she's just like
she's just like such a bad ass UM, and she
likes started off life on like a floating brothel. So
she like truly like from the bottom to the depth. UM,
(16:54):
And so she has always resonated with me. I love
her story. UM. I also UH wrote one about a
queen named tom IRUs who basically like overtook like one
of the world's greatest conquerors at the time. Um, she
was just like beat him on the battlefield. And again
like never heard of her name. UM. And then the
(17:16):
story I was kind of referencing earlier about the person's
name is Ashtish and UM it's not actually it's like
a moniker, not an actual name. UM. But that story
was just like it was extremely haunting, and UM, I
had never another thing that I had never read about
or really known anything about. UM. And just learning about
(17:36):
that really stuck with me. UM. And again, like it
stuck with me in a completely different way than learning
about Chanction and how great her like life was. It
was just a reminder of like why it's so important
to tell these stories, um, and why it's so important
to reflect on a lot of narratives that have been
silenced or just never never featured in the first place.
(17:57):
Were there any that you had hoped you could include
in the books that either got edited out or we're
just never going to be part of the project that
maybe you're keeping to the side for the future. Yeah.
So many, UM, I mean, I there are so many.
There's I was like, I'm a huge Hamilton fans. I
was going back on l including one or three of
(18:17):
the Skylar sisters. Had one on Peggy there for like
so long, um, because she also is like a total badass.
It like defended Eliza like she was like pregnant and
defended their family from um a tory like hunting party.
Like it was just she's crazy. She's like actually like
super badass. Um, not at all as characters that she
(18:40):
has a nable musical um. But so I had Peggy
in there for a while. There's another Revolutionary Wars story
about Agent three five five. Um, there's just there's so
many and so yeah, there's there's a lot. Um. There's
definitely enough to fill like hundreds of books. But we
wanted to keep it like we wanted to keep it.
(19:02):
We wanted to really, especially for this first one, just
make sure that we were representing stories from all over
the world and a bunch of different cultures. Um. And
so that was something that really was important to us
is making sure we have people from like all corners
of the blow kind of represented as best we can. Um.
And so because of that, we had to and sometimes
like prioritize other people just to make sure that everybody
(19:24):
is represented. Um. And so hopefully for round two or
three or four we can include more perfect I'm wondering
what you're hoping, you know, when people get this book
and they're paging through it, when they're done with it,
at least the initial round, what is your your sort
of dearest hope in terms of what their takeaway will be. Yeah,
I hope the first infirm us that there was just like, wow,
(19:45):
history is really fun. Um. I have like personally always
loved history, and I've always loved history because even before
I worked with me Samhack is like a young girl,
I always thought out stories that I could connect with. UM.
I read like the Dear America DI It's like an
elementary school kid of like love that, and that was
like my first intro into history was like learning these
like pixilized accounts as people who like live in certain
(20:09):
time periods, and like I've made that connection and then
learned about the larger history. UM. So beyond anything. I
hope that people take away that history is super fascinating
and really important, um. And then I also hope that
they take away that like, there are just there are
so many women out there who have accomplished so much
and been done so many amazing things, um that we
(20:30):
have never heard of, and it's so worthwhile to read
about them and learn about them and to find them
because they're literally in any part of the world in
any time period of history. They're amazing bad us without
doing amazing things, um, and sometimes terrible things to doing
amazing things, doing terrible things and just like living normally um.
And I think it's so important to like hear and
(20:52):
find their stories. Yeah, that's one of the things that
always comes up on our show, and it kind of
becomes my big soapbox issue of like, I want people
to understand that no matter what they think they are
living through or how unique the times we may be
in our something similar has always happened before, or there
(21:12):
has always been someone like them before that they can
identify with, or you know, we're all making history all
the time, so there is the odds are good that
someone out there has been through something similar or has
has dealt with something similar to what you're dealing with,
whether that's on a personal scale or you know, a
national scale or a global scale. We've all been doing
(21:33):
all kinds of things. Ye. You mentioned that there are
certainly plenty of great women's stories that could film many, many,
many books. Do you guys have an I already on
on what your future book projects will be? Yes, we do.
I can't secret what it is, UM, but I will
(21:55):
say that we do have an I UM and are
just kind of like starting to office of considering what
stories will be included. UM, And I guess I will
just like leave you with a tidbit that it will be.
It'll be very student. It's the museum hacks like a
reverend voice and passion for like engaging storytelling. I love it.
(22:17):
I love it. This next segment of the interview is
really casual, because once Holly learned that Hailey is a
lifelong history buff, she just wanted to know with what
some of her favorite historical subjects are. Before we get
into that, though, we are going to pause for a
quick sponsor break now, just because you mentioned that you
(22:39):
have loved history all your life, I'll hit you with
the surprise question. I'm wondering, like, outside of this project
and maybe even outside of women's history, is there something
that is just one of your favorite pet topics in history.
Oh my gosh, um, I I like go straight to
Tutor England. I was like a test to Tutor England,
(23:01):
and like I have so many books on Henry the
Eighth and all of his wives, and like I used
my ap Euro exam. I was just like I was
so into it. It It was so fascinating, and I had
different periods of time where I was like obsessed with
each of the different wives and learning like all about them,
and then also like Queen Elizabeth, like just basically that
(23:23):
like whole specific branch of the family from Henry the
East to Elizabeth One. Um, I was always just like
I could I could never stop reading about them. But
then I also took Latin for a very long time.
So Roman history and Greek history and like Greek and
Roman mythology are also I'm also very passionately about those
(23:43):
as well. Um, So they don't have quite as many
history books I thought those as I do about the Tutors,
and I think I have like most that were ever written.
Scott for Christmas for like years on him. What is
it about the tutors that you love so much? I
honestly don't know. I think Elizabeth, like Elizabeth was like
and her mother and Helen were just like so fascinating
(24:04):
to me. I think it's like something about they were
just like so powerful in such a unique way for
the time. It just like really fascinated me. And it's
I think women who like or and not even just
necessarily women, but just people who have to play like
games like that, like court intrigue games, They're just so
fascinating because I would be so bad at it, Okay.
(24:26):
I was just like I would never be able to,
like I would never be able to play into like
the palace intrigue. I would never be able to like
like what like learning about like how Elizabeth would like
like just like balance like marriage proposals for decades. I
was like, I would never be me. I have joked
on the show before that when I look at like
(24:47):
the lives of royals, particularly in those types of scenarios
where there are a lot of power grabs going on
where I'm like, who wants that job? But I don't
understand it why I wouldn't want any part of any
of that. Um, I could not possibly handle. Yeah. I
also always joked to like, my favorite foods are like
bread and cheese. So like in all those books, I'd
(25:10):
be like, they just sat at the table, it's like
a hunk of bread and hard cheese, and I'm like,
that's sound amazing. I want to eat that through like deal.
So something I had a very similar thing as a kid,
not from a history book, but reading Heidi, because they
always went up into the mountains and uh, they always
had bread and cheese and a little a bag of milk,
(25:33):
and I would for the longest time that was all
I wanted to eat because it was something I read
in a thing that I thought was cool. So I know,
I'm always like, oh yeah, like I would. I would
do really well in medieval England, Like gimme, gimme hard
bread and cheese. I'd be happy. I love it. On
that yummy, yummy note. Thank you so much, Hayley. I
(25:54):
really appreciate you taking time to talk about this project
with us. It's such a fun read and I think
it's sort of uh, it's interesting because it's a great
intro I think for people that maybe haven't looked at
much of these histories in depths before or even at all.
It's such a great little like opening the door and going,
here's what's actually cool about all this stuff. So I
(26:17):
think your wish will come true and that people will
walk away getting a better understanding of how interesting it
all is. Yeah, that's yeah, that's just my hope that
you get something resonates with you and you're like, oh
my gosh, I have to learn everything I can about
this UM. And on that note, we just wanted to
extend to your listeners. If anybody purchase a copy of
the book between now and the end of February, UM,
(26:39):
you can send us an email copy of your receipt
and you'll get a free ticket to UM any of
our Badass which is tours in the city of your choice. UM.
So just send us a copy of your receipt and
you can keep on learning about Badass Woman UM and
one of the six cities we do tours. And I
love it. That's so cool. Thank you so much. Alright,
miss Haley, we appreciate you. Yeah, a problem. We are
(27:01):
absolutely going to have that info on the museum Hack
tour that Haley mentioned. The offer for on our show page,
so if you need that info again, you can just
check it out there. You don't need to, you know,
pull over and write it down anywhere. Also, lots and
lots of thanks to Haley Milliman and museum Hack for
sharing such a unique and very unstuffy approach to history. Today.
(27:21):
You can find museum hack online at museum hack dot
com to check out all the tours that they offer
and the cities they offer them in. They are also
on Twitter at museum hack. Are you ready for some
listener mail about food? I sure am, especially since it's
about food. Since Haley and I diverge to talk about
(27:41):
food that we were inspired because of history of books,
I thought it might be a good a good one
to match up with this. This is from our listener Michael,
and it is about our A. Scoffier episode and particularly
about frog's legs. He wrote, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I
just listened to your episode on AUGUSTA. Scoffier and you
may chinned about the English apprehension to eating frog's legs
(28:03):
and August's consequent hiding of the fact that what was
in a dish he was serving was frog's legs by
calling it something else. You seem to agree that it
did sound disgusting. I had the same idea, that is,
before I actually had them stay tuned. I have a
rebuttal to that. My wife is from Malaysia and it
is something that's often served, although it is stir fried
(28:23):
with garlic and other vegetables at coffee shops. As a
side note, coffee shops typically referred to enclosed roadside restaurants,
which are different from the open air hacka stalls, and
at the time I made a note to just eat
what I was served and not ask what it was
and just enjoy. This has served me well whenever visiting
her family, and I have passed this on to our
son for whenever we go to visit. One time visiting
(28:44):
her before we were married, her parents took us to
a coffee shop for dinner. Food is typically served in
large dishes and placed on a large lazy susan to
share around the table. One of the dishes looked like
just small chicken or squab legs. I was so used
to seeing chicken's feet, which can also be alicious served
at dim sum, so I thought that was what they were,
and needless to say, they were awesome. I think I
(29:05):
had eight of them. I did ask her what those were,
and her reply, if they're good, just keep eating them.
I will tell you later. She did tell me later
that they were obviously frog's legs. And actually our son
has developed his mom's palette. He has tried chicken's feet
and liked them at dim sum and stir fried hole
baby octopus. He even asked for more octopus and there
was no hiding what those were. I just wanted to
(29:26):
share that story. Thank you for your podcast. My son
actually asked to listen when he sees them in my
podcast app. Michael, I apologize if we sounded like we
were disgusted by frog's legs. I'm not. I have eaten
them many times. But I think our hang up was
people being served food they were being lied to about. Absolutely. Yeah,
I think I told you this story. Um. When we
record and we have the sponsor break, we have sort
(29:48):
of a minute where we're just letting there be some
space in the recording file for the sponsor break to
make it easier to edit that in later. Um. And
I told Holly the story about how I was a
vegetarian in at two different points in my life for
periods of years. And the second time around, I was
working as a massage therapist at a fancy destination spa
(30:10):
and they had a party for their members and the
chef had prepared both quail and frog legs, and I
was like, well, I'm eating that, Like, sorry about my
vegetarianism going out the window at this point to eat
these frog legs. Yet, my my hang up was definitely
serving people food that they would not necessarily appreciate eating
(30:32):
without their consent in a sneaky way. Yeah, I mean
the flip right to remember, if you recall that story
of a scoffier, is that a lot of times these
people wanted to eat at a fancy French restaurant, but
they didn't understand the menu and were apparently uh not
into asking what anything was, so they would just let
the chef and the major detail pick out the the
(30:55):
menu and then they would just eat it and be like,
look at us eating fancy French food. So you know,
it's a little bit of trickery. It bothers me less
knowing that they were sort of just willfully ignorant on that. Yeah,
but that is the scoop. Yeah, uh, bronxlies don't sound
disgusting to me at all. Nope, Nope, sign me any
(31:15):
times since I was a kiddo, I say, signed me up.
But also I mean, at this point, I have meat
in my meals for far fewer meals than my non
meat meals. Me too, Me too. I've definitely cut back
a bunch um. But then there are times I know
I'm breaking the hearts of all of the vegetarians in
our listening group. It's complicated. Everyone has a different relationship
(31:37):
with food. If you would like to write to us,
you could do so at History Podcast at how stof
works dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as missed in History, uh, you can go
to our website, which is missed in history dot com
and you will find every episode of the show ever,
as well as show notes for the episodes that Tracy
and I have worked on, and occasional other goodies UH.
And we encourage you to go subscribe to the show.
(31:59):
If you have an already, you can do that at
Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or Brillian anywhere
you get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Frying and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We have
got an interview today and this one is with one
of the authors of a book put out by museum Hack.
(00:23):
And if you have not heard of museum Hack, it
is a company that offers alternative museum tours and we're
going to get into that in the interview for a
bit more of an explanation of what that company is,
but in short, their approach to museums and history is
very irreverent and very playful. Based on the success of
museum Hacks history tours, their team decided to write a book.
(00:43):
One of the author's, Hayley Milliman, joined Holly to talk
about the book, which is titled Museum Hacks Guide to
History's Fiercest Females. Full disclosure, So I mentioned at one
point in the course of this interview a museum Hack
tour of the met that I went on that was
back in September. That tour was comped by the Benny,
So that was a freebee for me and I took
my husband well, and I might as well, just disclose
(01:04):
that I was invited to go on a tour but
I could not make the schedule work. Uh yeah, I
will say for a museum like the Met in particular,
they're not paying me to say anything about them. But
it was perfect for my husband because that museum is
overwhelming the first time you go, and he had never been,
so it was great to have someone go, here are
some cool things in this museum, and it made it
a lot more easy for him to kind of take
(01:26):
in that incredible large space in a way that we
had a helper. It was really lovely. We also have
what other quick note, especially if you are listening in
a classroom or with younger listeners, There are a couple
of words in this episode that Holly and I don't
typically say. There are words that are commonly allowed on
broadcast television and are in the context of these tours,
(01:47):
but everybody has different boundaries of what language they would
prefer to use around their kids and students. So if
you think that might apply to you, a great idea
to check this one out first to make sure everything
is okay. Were your listeners. There's also an offer that
museum Hack is really graciously extending to our listeners at
the end of the interview, the name of that tour
(02:09):
contains the words that we're talking about, so we can't
just bleep it out because then you wouldn't know the
name of the tour. Yes, so be sure to go
ahead and listen all the way to the end before
you make your decision about whether you want to share
this with younger history buffs in your life. But we
will jump right in to uh, Haley and I discussing
both museum Hack and this book. So first, now that
(02:31):
I have you, Haley, Uh, will you just tell us
a little bit about what museum Hack is. Yeah. So
we are a company that leads unconventional tours of the
world's museum UM. We were founded about, I think six
years ago now by Nick Gray UM. Nick has like
a really funny story. So basically he had always kind
(02:52):
of hated museums. He thought they were super boring. He
never ever went to one. UM and then he was
a first date UM and she suggested going to the
met with him at night. UM, and so they went
and Nick fell We like to say that Nick fell
in love on that date, UM, but that's unfortunately with
the girl. But with the museum UM, and so something
(03:14):
about like something about being there with all of the
lights UM and the girl UM who he was with
his UM, the girl who's on the date was told
him kind of all of these stories about her, you know,
favorite pieces at the met and having that like personal
connection where he was hearing her experience with it rather
than just like reading the placards are kind of like
(03:34):
hearing an impersonal account of it really connected with him until,
like I said, he like totally fell in love with
museums UM and became like obsessed with them and spent
all of this free time at museums and basically just
kind of started bringing all of his friends on like
little mini tours for himself. Like he'd go and learn
um about like things he wanted to do and would
(03:56):
like tell his friends basically like oh like here's these
interesting pieces of art work that I'm into. UM. And
so yeah, So it starts from there, and then we've
grown to a company. I think it's over seventy five employees.
Now we do tours in six different cities. UM. We
have so much fun and we basically just take people,
bring them to the museum UM and teach all of
our tours are very personalized, very centered along that like
(04:20):
initial experience that Nick had, which is like learning what
a person loves about the museum versus like just learning
about like all of the artifacts and the art and
like you know, a laundry list of names. It's really
about like what's the experience and the personal connection that
everybody has. UM. So we do that. That's like our
kind of main umbrella. We also do corporate tours, we
do scavenger hunts UM, and we have now just written
(04:42):
a book that we're kind of doing a lot of
different things all about like sharing stories, UM, about history
and art and culture and science that are that we're
passionate about. I love it because it makes art and
art history so alive for people in a completely new way.
Yes exactly. Yeah, it's like take it because it's like
these pieces they live there, but like it's it's bringing
(05:05):
like you could just just like you said, like it's
bringing them to life. UM. And it's really like leading
with that like why does this matter? And not like
why does it matter a large sense, like why does
it matter to you and to me? And just like
sitting here talking about it, UM, which like I think
we found just like makes all the difference in terms
of engagement for an audience. So you mentioned that you
(05:25):
have a book now which you are the main writer on.
How did you guys decide that, like, Okay, we've got
this tour thing down, now it's time to make a book. Yeah.
So you know, we were sitting um and first of
all to say that it's a very collaborative effort. UM.
So I'm like, I don't want to sell credit writing
it in any way. UM. But we uh we basically, um,
(05:48):
we're sitting down and we were talking about how, you know,
we're so thrilled that we have we're able to do
these tours in like six different cities across the United States. UM.
But that being said, like that still leaves many many
people who aren't in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago, UM,
who just like aren't getting to call it a museum
hack tour um and aren't getting to like experience that
(06:10):
type of storytelling. UM. So we really started last year
kind of making an effort to tell the same sort
of stories that we tell in museums on our blog.
First and foremost, UM, our blog has been like pretty
like just like a standard kind of like corporate blog,
you know, like talking about promotions and like, you know,
work we have done with museums, but not really like
the storytelling aspect UM. So when I came on board
(06:31):
and we started doing storytelling blog pieces just to kind
of like experiment and be like, hey, do you are
people into this? Like people like this um and then
like with the goal of making eventually museum Hack a
household name um. And it became really clear that people
like did like the blog post um and did really
resonate with that storytelling. And that's that storytelling not only
resonated like on the stores in museums, but also uh
(06:54):
in written work as well. UM. And so then we
were like, well, you know this is like the movie.
Doing the blog with is great, Like let's figure out
another medium where we can not only have the stories
but also have this original artwork um and kind of
package it all up into something that you can hold
in your hands. UM. So yeah, that's kind of how
I do about initially. So this first book is all
(07:14):
about women, and I'm wondering how you decided. It seems
like the decision making process is pretty collaborative. How did
you all decide that that was the best plan for
your first book to focus on women. Yeah, so it's
definitely like a very collaborative process. I will say though
that I was pretty selfish and like pulling for women.
I think those are like the stories that really resonated
(07:36):
with me as I was writing on the blog that
I just like loved writing UM. And since I was
kind of spearheading the project initially, I was like, Okay, well,
when we're coming to a topic like, these are the
ones that I love so UM, so let's tours those.
But also, you know we've worked with um or, we'd
like looked and seeing what are what was resonating with
our audience in terms of stories that we were sharing
(07:57):
on Facebook and Instagram and that type of thinging and UM, like,
hands down, we would see that like almost every single
time we shared a story about a woman, no matter
like what the background, no matter if she was in science,
that she was you know, like a historical figure of
political figure in art, um, they would just always resonate
so deepree with our audiences. UM. And so it just
became kind of like a no brainer. UM. And also
(08:19):
obviously within like the last year to the like the
climate on recognizing women's achievements, acknowledging the struggles in the
pain that women have gone through as well as their
betty and like myriad contributions to society has been such
an important part of the conversations that are happening worldwide
over the last year. UM. So it's also just kind
of resonated and sit really well in with that. Now.
(08:41):
I have been on a museum hack tour and I
know that it is. It's as you said, it's very
personal and it's got this nice casual air to it.
And I'm wondering how that influenced how you wrote the book.
Were you always intentionally thinking we have to keep that
kind of of tone to the whole book, or did
you play with other different is. Yeah, Um, we definitely
(09:02):
wanted to keep that talent. So one of the things
that we work with with our guys and then with
our writers is, um, we believe very strongly that people
need to be kind of entertained before they could be educated. UM.
And that goes into like, you know, entertainment isn't necessarily
just like oh, let's you know, make people laugh. It's
also like establishing that connection, right, UM. And so a
(09:25):
lot of times it's done through humor. Um. You know,
because a lot of times there's like funny scenarios and
funny stories, um. But sometimes that entertainment piece is done
by creating like very meaningful personal connections as well. UM.
So while we do like tend to work with humor
a lot, it also um it also lands on like
things that sefullly resonate with the writer or with the
(09:46):
tour guide. Um. And so yeah, it was absolutely a
percent a very conscious choice on our part to make
the stories resonate with the writers, um. And to like
lead from a place of like what's important to the
writers and what do they want to tell about each
of these women? Um? And that's a lot of what
the writing process looks like is like each of the
writers being like, Okay, you know, I know them writing
(10:06):
this story about this woman, but what do I want
to tell about her? Versus like, you know, we could
list off a litany a fact for everybody, but we
really want to tell like to make it a story
and to make it powerful, to like foster that connection
with the audience. It's like, Okay, what resonated with me?
So yeah, are like the same approach that we have
with leading with entertainment and then bringing in the piece
of education. So everything we right, we want to you know,
(10:29):
make people interested and want to make them teach them
something and have them want to learn more. But but
we believe that that becomes so much more powerful after
you have that kind of initial connection and through entertainment.
So it's interesting because they are the stories in the
book are still pretty comprehensive. It's not like people have
focused on one thing to the exclusion of the overall story.
(10:51):
So I'm wondering what the research process is like and
how you balance those two things. Yeah, so it's definitely
personalized for the writers. So I'll speak to mind first.
I think I tend to view um and so typically,
I guess I'll back up. Typically for each of the
women were going through like a you know, a high
level kind of overview of their life. But that being said,
(11:11):
none of our stories are that long, um, so you know,
they're like around two thousands to three thousand words each,
and so with each of these women, you could easily
write multiple books on their whole lives and getting into
like the nitty gritty of decid' making in like a
lot of the political nuance or you know, what's basically
like the larger picture of what was going on around them. UM.
(11:31):
So while we are giving like an overview of their lives,
and like I like to think of it um as
like kind of like the greatest hits or highlights of
what what they were going on and what they were
kind of most known for and also what most resonated
with the writer. And so for me, my process is
kind of to just initially start out by reading just
(11:52):
some short summaries of the person's life. So that might
be like looking on Britannica or you know, just like
looking at like a very short synopsis of like you know,
what would you say about this woman in a page
or two pages? Um. And what I'll do is read
a number of different sources that are kind of like
that and see what sticks out to me. So, like,
what do I remember from the first couple of times
(12:13):
that I've just done this profile of this person? Um?
And then when I think about the things that like
resonate with me and that have stuck with me, That's
where I'm going to stake deeper and try to teach
out those parts of the story that I have that
personal connection to. And I know, it actually sounds a
lot like what we do when we're starting a research
project on our show, so I appreciate that completely. Coming up,
(12:36):
we're gonna hear how Haley and her team work to
keep their stories accurate but still retain that tone that
their tours have that tends to be a little bit
lighter in nature. But first we are going to take
a quick sponsor break. A lot of what happens when
(12:56):
we're doing research is that, you know, we're kind of
trying to like tease out the realities of an event
or a person's life from kind of the mythologized versions
that get shared, and sometimes those one pagers leave things
out or they just gloss over the nuance of something.
So I'm wondering how you make sure you're getting the
accurate story, which sometimes will reveal itself to be much
(13:19):
darker or more unsettling than we maybe we're taught growing up,
But you also keep the content pretty light. How do
you work that out? Yeah? I think a lot of
it is handled on a case by case basis, and
I do think that there are some stories where, um,
we we always talk about I guess for me, this
resonates mostly at the end, right, Like it's like at
(13:40):
the end of the piece, we like to talk about
having like a mic drop moment, right, like of having
something that's like you know, like a punch at the
end that's going to keep the story with the person.
And you having been on a museum hack tour, you
think back to it, like our guide do that all
the time, Like they'll end like on a joke or
a high note, or like they'll have like a one
liner at the end before they like you off onto
the next um exhibits. And so that's a principle that
(14:04):
we like to apply to the content that we write
as well. UM. But that being said, what that mic
drops is really will vary from person to person. So
like sometimes it is funny. Sometimes it's a funny mic
drop because like the larger story surrounding this woman is
like kind of ridiculous if there is just kind of humorous.
But sometimes it's just not funny at all. Um. Like sometimes, um,
(14:26):
we wrote about one woman, um Anna Cohannas, who was
like her land was basically completely sacked by settlers and
um she was from Haiti and she you know, like
all of her people were slaughtered and it's not funny.
You know, there's there's not a lot of humor that
you can take from the message of that story. So
the ending of that story isn't funny because it's not funny.
(14:49):
There's no humor in it. Instead, it's UM a call
to reflect people about you know, why don't we Why
why do we have a Columbus Day and we don't
celebrate her? You know why why have you never heard
her game before? And that's the mic drop of like
what's true to the story, um, and what's true to
the narrative of this person? Um? And so ending on
that kind of like mic drop moment will change depending
(15:10):
on who it is and what what we can take
from them. Um. Yeah. And we had another story about
a transgender Native American warrior and uh, that is also
not a funny story. UM. It's like it doesn't end,
it doesn't end with humor. It ends with a lot
of fatness, of a lot of pain. And so being
(15:31):
true to that um is very important to us as well.
So you mentioned a couple of stories, but I wanted
to get from you maybe what two or three of
the women that are in the book are your favorites
or were your favorite either to research or write about
or read about when you were you know, kind of
looking over what other people had written for the book,
(15:53):
like which ones are the ones that really kind of
hit your heart? Yeah. So I love the story of kings.
I like and myself half Chinese UM, And so I
just I think her story is so cool UM. And
I like, personally I'm like, how can I adapt this
into like a young adult fantasy novel? Um? But I
just think her story is so cool. She Um was
(16:14):
a pirate who basically like ruled over the seas around
China UM with the bread flag fleet. She just was
like such a badass and her story is so crazy,
and we hear so much about so many like male
pirates from the Caribbean Um, both fictional and the fictional
and real, but we I had never heard of her before,
and her stories just so cool, and she like just
(16:34):
ended like her life she didn't even get in trouble
for being a pirate. Basically, she just got to like
hang up her flag and then like open a gambling
house and so right, bull, I think she's just like
she's just like such a bad ass UM, and she
likes started off life on like a floating brothel. So
she like truly like from the bottom to the depth. UM,
(16:54):
And so she has always resonated with me. I love
her story. UM. I also UH wrote one about a
queen named tom IRUs who basically like overtook like one
of the world's greatest conquerors at the time. Um, she
was just like beat him on the battlefield. And again
like never heard of her name. UM. And then the
(17:16):
story I was kind of referencing earlier about the person's
name is Ashtish and UM it's not actually it's like
a moniker, not an actual name. UM. But that story
was just like it was extremely haunting, and UM, I
had never another thing that I had never read about
or really known anything about. UM. And just learning about
(17:36):
that really stuck with me. UM. And again, like it
stuck with me in a completely different way than learning
about Chanction and how great her like life was. It
was just a reminder of like why it's so important
to tell these stories, um, and why it's so important
to reflect on a lot of narratives that have been
silenced or just never never featured in the first place.
(17:57):
Were there any that you had hoped you could include
in the books that either got edited out or we're
just never going to be part of the project that
maybe you're keeping to the side for the future. Yeah.
So many, UM, I mean, I there are so many.
There's I was like, I'm a huge Hamilton fans. I
was going back on l including one or three of
(18:17):
the Skylar sisters. Had one on Peggy there for like
so long, um, because she also is like a total badass.
It like defended Eliza like she was like pregnant and
defended their family from um a tory like hunting party.
Like it was just she's crazy. She's like actually like
super badass. Um, not at all as characters that she
(18:40):
has a nable musical um. But so I had Peggy
in there for a while. There's another Revolutionary Wars story
about Agent three five five. Um, there's just there's so
many and so yeah, there's there's a lot. Um. There's
definitely enough to fill like hundreds of books. But we
wanted to keep it like we wanted to keep it.
(19:02):
We wanted to really, especially for this first one, just
make sure that we were representing stories from all over
the world and a bunch of different cultures. Um. And
so that was something that really was important to us
is making sure we have people from like all corners
of the blow kind of represented as best we can. Um.
And so because of that, we had to and sometimes
like prioritize other people just to make sure that everybody
(19:24):
is represented. Um. And so hopefully for round two or
three or four we can include more perfect I'm wondering
what you're hoping, you know, when people get this book
and they're paging through it, when they're done with it,
at least the initial round, what is your your sort
of dearest hope in terms of what their takeaway will be. Yeah,
I hope the first infirm us that there was just like, wow,
(19:45):
history is really fun. Um. I have like personally always
loved history, and I've always loved history because even before
I worked with me Samhack is like a young girl,
I always thought out stories that I could connect with. UM.
I read like the Dear America DI It's like an
elementary school kid of like love that, and that was
like my first intro into history was like learning these
like pixilized accounts as people who like live in certain
(20:09):
time periods, and like I've made that connection and then
learned about the larger history. UM. So beyond anything. I
hope that people take away that history is super fascinating
and really important, um. And then I also hope that
they take away that like, there are just there are
so many women out there who have accomplished so much
and been done so many amazing things, um that we
(20:30):
have never heard of, and it's so worthwhile to read
about them and learn about them and to find them
because they're literally in any part of the world in
any time period of history. They're amazing bad us without
doing amazing things, um, and sometimes terrible things to doing
amazing things, doing terrible things and just like living normally um.
And I think it's so important to like hear and
(20:52):
find their stories. Yeah, that's one of the things that
always comes up on our show, and it kind of
becomes my big soapbox issue of like, I want people
to understand that no matter what they think they are
living through or how unique the times we may be
in our something similar has always happened before, or there
(21:12):
has always been someone like them before that they can
identify with, or you know, we're all making history all
the time, so there is the odds are good that
someone out there has been through something similar or has
has dealt with something similar to what you're dealing with,
whether that's on a personal scale or you know, a
national scale or a global scale. We've all been doing
(21:33):
all kinds of things. Ye. You mentioned that there are
certainly plenty of great women's stories that could film many, many,
many books. Do you guys have an I already on
on what your future book projects will be? Yes, we do.
I can't secret what it is, UM, but I will
(21:55):
say that we do have an I UM and are
just kind of like starting to office of considering what
stories will be included. UM, And I guess I will
just like leave you with a tidbit that it will be.
It'll be very student. It's the museum hacks like a
reverend voice and passion for like engaging storytelling. I love it.
(22:17):
I love it. This next segment of the interview is
really casual, because once Holly learned that Hailey is a
lifelong history buff, she just wanted to know with what
some of her favorite historical subjects are. Before we get
into that, though, we are going to pause for a
quick sponsor break now, just because you mentioned that you
(22:39):
have loved history all your life, I'll hit you with
the surprise question. I'm wondering, like, outside of this project
and maybe even outside of women's history, is there something
that is just one of your favorite pet topics in history.
Oh my gosh, um, I I like go straight to
Tutor England. I was like a test to Tutor England,
(23:01):
and like I have so many books on Henry the
Eighth and all of his wives, and like I used
my ap Euro exam. I was just like I was
so into it. It It was so fascinating, and I had
different periods of time where I was like obsessed with
each of the different wives and learning like all about them,
and then also like Queen Elizabeth, like just basically that
(23:23):
like whole specific branch of the family from Henry the
East to Elizabeth One. Um, I was always just like
I could I could never stop reading about them. But
then I also took Latin for a very long time.
So Roman history and Greek history and like Greek and
Roman mythology are also I'm also very passionately about those
(23:43):
as well. Um, So they don't have quite as many
history books I thought those as I do about the Tutors,
and I think I have like most that were ever written.
Scott for Christmas for like years on him. What is
it about the tutors that you love so much? I
honestly don't know. I think Elizabeth, like Elizabeth was like
and her mother and Helen were just like so fascinating
(24:04):
to me. I think it's like something about they were
just like so powerful in such a unique way for
the time. It just like really fascinated me. And it's
I think women who like or and not even just
necessarily women, but just people who have to play like
games like that, like court intrigue games, They're just so
fascinating because I would be so bad at it, Okay.
(24:26):
I was just like I would never be able to,
like I would never be able to play into like
the palace intrigue. I would never be able to like
like what like learning about like how Elizabeth would like
like just like balance like marriage proposals for decades. I
was like, I would never be me. I have joked
on the show before that when I look at like
(24:47):
the lives of royals, particularly in those types of scenarios
where there are a lot of power grabs going on
where I'm like, who wants that job? But I don't
understand it why I wouldn't want any part of any
of that. Um, I could not possibly handle. Yeah. I
also always joked to like, my favorite foods are like
bread and cheese. So like in all those books, I'd
(25:10):
be like, they just sat at the table, it's like
a hunk of bread and hard cheese, and I'm like,
that's sound amazing. I want to eat that through like deal.
So something I had a very similar thing as a kid,
not from a history book, but reading Heidi, because they
always went up into the mountains and uh, they always
had bread and cheese and a little a bag of milk,
(25:33):
and I would for the longest time that was all
I wanted to eat because it was something I read
in a thing that I thought was cool. So I know,
I'm always like, oh yeah, like I would. I would
do really well in medieval England, Like gimme, gimme hard
bread and cheese. I'd be happy. I love it. On
that yummy, yummy note. Thank you so much, Hayley. I
(25:54):
really appreciate you taking time to talk about this project
with us. It's such a fun read and I think
it's sort of uh, it's interesting because it's a great
intro I think for people that maybe haven't looked at
much of these histories in depths before or even at all.
It's such a great little like opening the door and going,
here's what's actually cool about all this stuff. So I
(26:17):
think your wish will come true and that people will
walk away getting a better understanding of how interesting it
all is. Yeah, that's yeah, that's just my hope that
you get something resonates with you and you're like, oh
my gosh, I have to learn everything I can about
this UM. And on that note, we just wanted to
extend to your listeners. If anybody purchase a copy of
the book between now and the end of February, UM,
(26:39):
you can send us an email copy of your receipt
and you'll get a free ticket to UM any of
our Badass which is tours in the city of your choice. UM.
So just send us a copy of your receipt and
you can keep on learning about Badass Woman UM and
one of the six cities we do tours. And I
love it. That's so cool. Thank you so much. Alright,
miss Haley, we appreciate you. Yeah, a problem. We are
(27:01):
absolutely going to have that info on the museum Hack
tour that Haley mentioned. The offer for on our show page,
so if you need that info again, you can just
check it out there. You don't need to, you know,
pull over and write it down anywhere. Also, lots and
lots of thanks to Haley Milliman and museum Hack for
sharing such a unique and very unstuffy approach to history. Today.
(27:21):
You can find museum hack online at museum hack dot
com to check out all the tours that they offer
and the cities they offer them in. They are also
on Twitter at museum hack. Are you ready for some
listener mail about food? I sure am, especially since it's
about food. Since Haley and I diverge to talk about
(27:41):
food that we were inspired because of history of books,
I thought it might be a good a good one
to match up with this. This is from our listener Michael,
and it is about our A. Scoffier episode and particularly
about frog's legs. He wrote, Hi, Holly and Tracy, I
just listened to your episode on AUGUSTA. Scoffier and you
may chinned about the English apprehension to eating frog's legs
(28:03):
and August's consequent hiding of the fact that what was
in a dish he was serving was frog's legs by
calling it something else. You seem to agree that it
did sound disgusting. I had the same idea, that is,
before I actually had them stay tuned. I have a
rebuttal to that. My wife is from Malaysia and it
is something that's often served, although it is stir fried
(28:23):
with garlic and other vegetables at coffee shops. As a
side note, coffee shops typically referred to enclosed roadside restaurants,
which are different from the open air hacka stalls, and
at the time I made a note to just eat
what I was served and not ask what it was
and just enjoy. This has served me well whenever visiting
her family, and I have passed this on to our
son for whenever we go to visit. One time visiting
(28:44):
her before we were married, her parents took us to
a coffee shop for dinner. Food is typically served in
large dishes and placed on a large lazy susan to
share around the table. One of the dishes looked like
just small chicken or squab legs. I was so used
to seeing chicken's feet, which can also be alicious served
at dim sum, so I thought that was what they were,
and needless to say, they were awesome. I think I
(29:05):
had eight of them. I did ask her what those were,
and her reply, if they're good, just keep eating them.
I will tell you later. She did tell me later
that they were obviously frog's legs. And actually our son
has developed his mom's palette. He has tried chicken's feet
and liked them at dim sum and stir fried hole
baby octopus. He even asked for more octopus and there
was no hiding what those were. I just wanted to
(29:26):
share that story. Thank you for your podcast. My son
actually asked to listen when he sees them in my
podcast app. Michael, I apologize if we sounded like we
were disgusted by frog's legs. I'm not. I have eaten
them many times. But I think our hang up was
people being served food they were being lied to about. Absolutely. Yeah,
I think I told you this story. Um. When we
record and we have the sponsor break, we have sort
(29:48):
of a minute where we're just letting there be some
space in the recording file for the sponsor break to
make it easier to edit that in later. Um. And
I told Holly the story about how I was a
vegetarian in at two different points in my life for
periods of years. And the second time around, I was
working as a massage therapist at a fancy destination spa
(30:10):
and they had a party for their members and the
chef had prepared both quail and frog legs, and I
was like, well, I'm eating that, Like, sorry about my
vegetarianism going out the window at this point to eat
these frog legs. Yet, my my hang up was definitely
serving people food that they would not necessarily appreciate eating
(30:32):
without their consent in a sneaky way. Yeah, I mean
the flip right to remember, if you recall that story
of a scoffier, is that a lot of times these
people wanted to eat at a fancy French restaurant, but
they didn't understand the menu and were apparently uh not
into asking what anything was, so they would just let
the chef and the major detail pick out the the
(30:55):
menu and then they would just eat it and be like,
look at us eating fancy French food. So you know,
it's a little bit of trickery. It bothers me less
knowing that they were sort of just willfully ignorant on that. Yeah,
but that is the scoop. Yeah, uh, bronxlies don't sound
disgusting to me at all. Nope, Nope, sign me any
(31:15):
times since I was a kiddo, I say, signed me up.
But also I mean, at this point, I have meat
in my meals for far fewer meals than my non
meat meals. Me too, Me too. I've definitely cut back
a bunch um. But then there are times I know
I'm breaking the hearts of all of the vegetarians in
our listening group. It's complicated. Everyone has a different relationship
(31:37):
with food. If you would like to write to us,
you could do so at History Podcast at how stof
works dot com. You can also find us everywhere on
social media as missed in History, uh, you can go
to our website, which is missed in history dot com
and you will find every episode of the show ever,
as well as show notes for the episodes that Tracy
and I have worked on, and occasional other goodies UH.
And we encourage you to go subscribe to the show.
(31:59):
If you have an already, you can do that at
Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or Brillian anywhere
you get your podcasts. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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