Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, A production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Homely Fry, and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy B. Wilson. We talked about Ruby Payne Scott
Speaker 1: this week. Uh huh, a woman who I sort of love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I will talk about one quote that I did not
Speaker 1: include because it used phrasing that I think we both hate, sure,
Speaker 1: but I want to mention it here because it's a
Speaker 1: good example of how even people who are your allies
Speaker 1: can say things that they maybe don't mean to be
Speaker 1: so awful but are Oh no, which is that. In
Speaker 1: Joan Freeman's biography, she describes Ruby as shrill. Oh I
Speaker 1: hate it, I hate it, you would, But she also
Speaker 1: says like, but she used that voice to like advocate
Speaker 1: for change, and it's like, I see what you're doing,
Speaker 1: but I know I wish, Yeah, she would have chosen
Speaker 1: any other word again too, that was written many years ago.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna ask when it was written, because
Speaker 1: I for sure have read things for work that were
Speaker 1: written a decade or more ago that I feel like
Speaker 1: if the person were writing it today, they would not
Speaker 1: have used that language. Yeah, I think she probably wouldn't have,
Speaker 1: like I read I don't remember which. I think maybe
Speaker 1: it was some of the GK. Chesterton research. There were
Speaker 1: people that had a focus on his weight that I
Speaker 1: think might No, I won't say it might have been
Speaker 1: handled kind of sensitively for the because it wasn't it really,
Speaker 1: But like, I really feel like some of the folks
Speaker 1: who wrote those things, were they writing them now, would
Speaker 1: not they choose different languages? Yeah, I really we didn't
Speaker 1: talk a ton about it, but I really really love
Speaker 1: pretty much discussion of Ruby and her family, and particularly
Speaker 1: Ruby and Bill seemed smitten with each other. And there
Speaker 1: are some very fun pictures that I found in one
Speaker 1: of the biographies I read, which is called Under the Radar,
Speaker 1: and they're pictures of them, like with their bushwalking club
Speaker 1: and things that were taken by their bushwalking club. And
Speaker 1: there's one particular photograph taken in nineteen forty seven, so
Speaker 1: they would have been married a few years at that point,
Speaker 1: and they're out in the middle of nowhere and Ruby
Speaker 1: is washing Bill's hair and it's the sweetest, most charming
Speaker 1: thing to me. It's so like cute, And you know,
Speaker 1: anytime you see people who are married taking care of
Speaker 1: one another in that way. I find it very charming
Speaker 1: and it's so sweet, and they do always seem like
Speaker 1: they're just sort of completely gago over each other, which
Speaker 1: I love. Yeah. Yeah, we didn't talk about their kids much.
Speaker 1: Their kids are still alive, but I will say they
Speaker 1: produced a mathematician who's incredibly well respected in their son, Peter.
Speaker 1: And there if you have, if any part of you,
Speaker 1: if you are an art person, heard the name Fiona
Speaker 1: and when is that Fiona Hall, the fairly well known sculptor,
Speaker 1: it is that's their daughter. She has done a lot
Speaker 1: of amazing art over the years and continues to so.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I didn't want to focus on them
Speaker 1: too much, but yes, pretty amazing kids from what seemed
Speaker 1: to be two pretty amazing parents. When you think about
Speaker 1: the fact that Bill was a feminist in the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: that seems pretty amazing. Yeah. They were apparently Ruby also
Speaker 1: loved kiddies, which just endears me to her even more.
Speaker 1: They always had cats at home. I found myself reading
Speaker 1: about her and being floored at every turn. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: she was so very outspoken about issues in ways that
Speaker 1: we don't really think about happening until like the seventies.
Speaker 1: In terms of her being like, no, we need equal
Speaker 1: rights and that's gonna happen, and I'm not giving up,
Speaker 1: and I'm advising all of my colleagues to not give
Speaker 1: up until we get them. And it's like we did
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine. You were doing this right. I also
Speaker 1: mentioned that we would talk a little bit about the
Speaker 1: Communist Party thing. Yeah, so here is why there's not
Speaker 1: much about it. She was suspected to be a member
Speaker 1: of the Communist Party for a long time. Well she
Speaker 1: must have been, because they gave her that nickname, right,
Speaker 1: she was, but there wasn't conclusive evidence and like the
Speaker 1: Australian Security Intelligence Organization had a dossier on her. They
Speaker 1: thought she was a communist, but there wasn't any direct
Speaker 1: evidence that they had initially, and it wasn't until later
Speaker 1: when a person who had also been a member of
Speaker 1: the Australian Communist Party, which I don't remember the exact
Speaker 1: name of it, but was like, oh, yeah, she was
Speaker 1: a member for a little while, and it seems like
Speaker 1: it was one of those things for her that was
Speaker 1: very much in line with her very very leftist politics.
Speaker 1: And then as things kind of shifted in the world
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties, she stopped participating and was no
Speaker 1: longer a member. But we don't have much more info
Speaker 1: than what I just said, But we really don't. She
Speaker 1: didn't seem to record anything about her thoughts on it
Speaker 1: or her interest in it. She doesn't seem to have
Speaker 1: been super active because it would have been more obvious,
Speaker 1: I think, to more people, and the Asia would have
Speaker 1: had more concrete information than they did. So it's a
Speaker 1: little bit It's one of those strange things that comes
Speaker 1: up a lot where it's like she was a Communist
Speaker 1: and it's like, yeah, yes, but was she like was
Speaker 1: she practicing This sounds like when you were talking about someone
Speaker 1: lapsing as a religious follower, but she seems to not
Speaker 1: have been doubled down into it by any means, right. Well, So,
Speaker 1: one of the things that we've talked about related to
Speaker 1: like the United States labor movement UH and like the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement in the United States, is that like
Speaker 1: a lot of these movements had a lot of ideas
Speaker 1: in common with the Communist Party about like equality and workers'
Speaker 1: rights and all of that. And my understanding of communism
Speaker 1: in Australia specifically, especially in like around the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: ish was like really strong connections to the labor movement
Speaker 1: and to organized labor and to like anti fascisms as
Speaker 1: fascism started to grow in parts of the world. And
Speaker 1: so I think it's a lot of people immediately start
Speaker 1: to think about like the Soviet Union and Soviet politics
Speaker 1: and things like that, and it's like there were some
Speaker 1: other nuances vrolled and so if somebody's outlook was like
Speaker 1: very very pro trade union and pro equal rights and
Speaker 1: pro economic equality, it's it's not all of that all
Speaker 1: that surprising, No, it completely trapped been. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: did see in a brief mention in the New York
Speaker 1: Times where they did that thing that they do obituaries
Speaker 1: for people that never got oh yeah, obituaries. There was
Speaker 1: a reference to an interview that I never found mentioned
Speaker 1: anywhere else where. Her daughter said that even after she
Speaker 1: had retired from her last job, she lived a pretty
Speaker 1: quiet life, but she did go out and protest the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, which also tracks. But I didn't find any
Speaker 1: other information about it. So that's another thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't really feel like merited inclusion, because we couldn't substantiate
Speaker 1: it in any kind of way, what an interesting woman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: who you know, did a lot for science, did a
Speaker 1: lot for women's rights without realizing it. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure she realized it, but like sure, I don't think
Speaker 1: the women's rights movement really recognized her as an important
Speaker 1: figure until much later. I still just love that she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm on a ladder, you ding dong? Do you really
Speaker 1: want to yeah? On skirts up there? Like she seems
Speaker 1: like just so completely direct in all of this. I
Speaker 1: love that she was like, no, I don't really think
Speaker 1: I need to give you the date of my wedding.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need that information, right. I just
Speaker 1: love how it's just a little firecracker and also very smart,
Speaker 1: and even people that thought they didn't like her were like, man,
Speaker 1: she's a really good scientist. Yeah. There are a couple
Speaker 1: of notes of people in some of her biographies, particularly
Speaker 1: that longer one I mentioned earlier, where it is like, well,
Speaker 1: we track down this colleague who said he really didn't
Speaker 1: like her, but he really really respected her. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, then, yeah, I guess that's all you need.
Speaker 1: Ruby Payne Scott. I also kind of accidentally timed this
Speaker 1: so that it would come out right. I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna end up being right before her birth date, and
Speaker 1: the date of her death is also right right up
Speaker 1: against her birth date by a little bit. So end
Speaker 1: of May should just be Ruby Payint Scott Bestival in
Speaker 1: my heart. Yeah, there you go. This week on the show,
Speaker 1: we talked about has Chorist Nanaga and UH delegation from
Speaker 1: Japan to North America and you Europe at a time
Speaker 1: when sometimes it may seem to folks that the world
Speaker 1: was not as interconnected as it really was. That is
Speaker 1: something that we UH talked about a lot in an
Speaker 1: interview that we did that with Dennis Carr. We mentioned
Speaker 1: that interview at the beginning of this episode. It was
Speaker 1: in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts,
Speaker 1: Boston that was all about this Manila Galleon trade and
Speaker 1: how the Manili, the Manila Galleon trade like influenced life
Speaker 1: in the colonies, life in Europe, art, all of that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and so like, we had already talked
Speaker 1: some about the world being like globally connected at that
Speaker 1: point in history when folks might not imagine that that
Speaker 1: was the case. But I thought it was really interesting
Speaker 1: to look at how Japan was more internationally connected than
Speaker 1: folks might imagine if what they think of in term
Speaker 1: of Japan becoming globally connected starts with Matthew Perry in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Yeah, I mean, I think that's it
Speaker 1: exactly right. That is such a long period of their
Speaker 1: isolationism that it and it's kind of been told that
Speaker 1: way at various points. Yeah, as well. It's like Japan
Speaker 1: was cut off from everyone until Matthew Perry writer, It's
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no. This
Speaker 1: the things that we talked about in this episode also
Speaker 1: makes it clear that this was not like a light
Speaker 1: switch that was thrown and suddenly Japan's borders were shut down.
Speaker 1: That it was sort of a process that took place
Speaker 1: over a period of time, and that the century or
Speaker 1: more leading up to the borders being totally closed, like
Speaker 1: had a lot of conflict going on, Like Japan's concerns
Speaker 1: about whether Spain would basically conquer Japan based on what
Speaker 1: we know of Spain in this seventeenth century, like those
Speaker 1: were valid, Like they could see what had you know,
Speaker 1: they could see that Spain had basically taken over the Philippines,
Speaker 1: They had you know, heard from people in New Spain,
Speaker 1: like what was happening to you know, the indigenous people
Speaker 1: that were they were not living in like total a
Speaker 1: total vacuum, So like concerns about what a deeper relationship
Speaker 1: with Spain would mean, Like those were really valid concerns,
Speaker 1: but also terrifying and violent time to be a Christian
Speaker 1: living in Japan. And there were people who continued to
Speaker 1: be Christian in practice Christianity in Japan after that that
Speaker 1: had to do it in like total secrecy. One thing
Speaker 1: that I said to Holly while working on this is
Speaker 1: that I resolved that when this episode was done, the
Speaker 1: next thing I was going to work on would be
Speaker 1: something that just did not have an outline, that was
Speaker 1: full of may have and possibly and this is a
Speaker 1: little bit unclear, because these three episodes, not totally right
Speaker 1: in a row, but very close together, have all been
Speaker 1: very challenging just due to a lack of clear information
Speaker 1: and resources about Mary Dyer and Nichelina watier Uh and
Speaker 1: Husk Grosun and Naga. Yeah, I don't know. I sometimes
Speaker 1: love those mystery ones because you can go here are
Speaker 1: the three options, and you can kind of to reference
Speaker 1: another recent one Okham's razor it a little bit and
Speaker 1: be like, well, yeah, sure, really one of these seems
Speaker 1: the most likely and involves the least supposition. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: do want to point out too that I think, probably
Speaker 1: in addition to thinking Japan was closed off forever until
Speaker 1: the Perry expedition, I also suspect that many people, and
Speaker 1: for me, I didn't realize this until I was well
Speaker 1: into adulthood, that Christianity was already in Japan, well before
Speaker 1: I would have guessed. Yeah, right, Like, the idea of
Speaker 1: Christians being persecuted in Japan before the nineteenth century is
Speaker 1: not something I think most people realize, at least certainly
Speaker 1: not in my age group, because there's a lot of
Speaker 1: a lot of very slanted accounts that suggest that, you know,
Speaker 1: when European and American colonists started traveling beyond North America
Speaker 1: into your other place, right, they brought Christianity with them.
Speaker 1: And it's like, no, the beaten to the punch on
Speaker 1: that one, guys. Yeah, I had on my short list
Speaker 1: for a really, really long time. The Mass Crucifixion that
Speaker 1: we talked about briefly in this episode, where the sam
Speaker 1: Fella Bay incident had happened, and a group of Christians
Speaker 1: was like rounded up and tortured and crucified like that
Speaker 1: was horrifying. And I was having sort of the same
Speaker 1: mental process when I heard about this happening, which was
Speaker 1: that I did not even know that there were any
Speaker 1: Christians in Japan at the time that that happened, Like
Speaker 1: that I had really only heard about any of that
Speaker 1: relating to like the nineteenth century and beyond, and finding
Speaker 1: enough specific information about it and to make it a
Speaker 1: whole episode was really challenging. And it was one of
Speaker 1: those things where there was one specific book and one
Speaker 1: specific library and I was like, maybe if I get
Speaker 1: that book, I can do it. And I went and
Speaker 1: got that book, which turned out to be a source
Speaker 1: that was used on this episode, and I very quickly
Speaker 1: was like, even with this book, don't I don't have
Speaker 1: what I need. So it had just been sort of
Speaker 1: lingering and I'm glad doesn't feel like the right word
Speaker 1: because it is such a horrifying incident's talk about, but
Speaker 1: like winding up finding a different topic that was related
Speaker 1: to it where there could at least be mentioned of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I appreciated. On a lighter note, Yeah, the way we
Speaker 1: talked about and and you found in your research that
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different takes on how the
Speaker 1: delegation the embassy as it were, was portrayed. Made me
Speaker 1: think about networks doing upfronts. Yeah, no, these guys are
Speaker 1: gonna probably maybe be great leaders in Japan. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like the way you announce stuff that you're hoping
Speaker 1: you can get being done. You can get some ad
Speaker 1: funding for Yeah. If you're not familiar with the term upfronts,
Speaker 1: this is an event where like networks or podcast companies
Speaker 1: or et cetera are doing presentations with the hope of
Speaker 1: getting advertising commitments. Right, Like you'll see them referenced in
Speaker 1: like any kind of entertainment press all the time, where
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, NBC's upfronts, Disney's upfronts, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: We are they announced their projected roster for the next year, right,
Speaker 1: and we do them for podcasting as well, like every
Speaker 1: every big media thing that runs on advertising pretty much
Speaker 1: does it. But it is often like you are. It's
Speaker 1: it's not the intention isn't even to be shady, but
Speaker 1: like sometimes you announce things that are in development that
Speaker 1: may or may not come to fruition. This gets me
Speaker 1: on a soapbox about various fandoms and how they're like,
Speaker 1: but you said this is happening. It's like, well, it's planned.
Speaker 1: Doesn't always mean that plans get through to the end,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's it's a thing where it's like, here's
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen, here's what we're looking forward to in
Speaker 1: our next year. And they don't always they don't always happen,
Speaker 1: but in this case, it feels like maybe it was
Speaker 1: a little more intentionally cloudy in the representation what was
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, based on the way that people writing
Speaker 1: in English wrote about this, I really thought that there
Speaker 1: was just like nothing to go on. And it was
Speaker 1: fairly late in my research when I found a paper
Speaker 1: written in English by a scholar writing in English who
Speaker 1: had clearly been in Japan and done a lot of
Speaker 1: research in Japan, and had this long list of Japanese
Speaker 1: language sources, and I was like, WHOA, I did not
Speaker 1: know any of these even existed, And so I start
Speaker 1: putting them all into WorldCat and it's like most of
Speaker 1: them just aren't aren't in libraries here, and like two
Speaker 1: or three of them there's like, oh, I I could
Speaker 1: Inner library loan this book in Japanese from Yale Great,
Speaker 1: and then and then try to find a Japanese speaker
Speaker 1: more proficient than my spouse, because while I can get
Speaker 1: some help with Japanese things from my spouse, like I think, yes,
Speaker 1: be a lot. And I was like, I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have to go with the information that is available
Speaker 1: on this in English, which is one of the challenges
Speaker 1: of doing this show. Like we get a lot of
Speaker 1: requests from folks who are like, I wish you would
Speaker 1: talk about the history of place more like fill in
Speaker 1: the blank, And a lot of times it's like, we
Speaker 1: also wish we could do more on the history of
Speaker 1: that place, but like a lot of the information about
Speaker 1: that place is contained within that place, in the languages
Speaker 1: spoken in that place, and is not accessible to us
Speaker 1: living in the United State dates even if we did
Speaker 1: have translators on staff in some cases, like the book
Speaker 1: itself is not here. Yeah. By the way, I worry
Speaker 1: that when you say on staff, people will think we
Speaker 1: have a staff. No, we don't have a staff. And
Speaker 1: I got asked once how many, like recently by someone
Speaker 1: else who works in podcasting, how many people were on
Speaker 1: our staff, and I probably came off as rude, but
Speaker 1: I just started laughing maniacally. Yeah, it was like me
Speaker 1: and Tracy. Yeah, sometimes when I am you know, in
Speaker 1: uh cab or whatever, Like I'm somewhere where I'm having
Speaker 1: a conversation with a random person and they ask what
Speaker 1: do you do? And then they ask for more detail,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, Holly and I research and write
Speaker 1: every episode and we record it. Our producer Casey does
Speaker 1: the audio editing on it. Sometimes we have one of
Speaker 1: the other producers will do the audio edit if Casey's
Speaker 1: not available for some reason. But like the really the
Speaker 1: the research and the writing and all of that is
Speaker 1: Holly and me, And there sometimes will be a paw
Speaker 1: and then that sounds like a lot. It's like, yes,
Speaker 1: it is a lot, and when you add it, it's
Speaker 1: a lot. And all the resources on the thing are
Speaker 1: in another country, in another language. Like it is a
Speaker 1: way higher bar to putting out a new episode from
Speaker 1: each of us every week. Yeah, just to get the basics.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Happy Friday, whatever's happening on your weekend. I
Speaker 1: hope it's great. We'll be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We'll be back on Monday with a brand new episode.
Speaker 1: And we hope everybody has a great, great weekend. And
Speaker 1: if you're working and your weekend is a different time,
Speaker 1: or you don't have real weekends, whatever's on your plate,
Speaker 1: hope it's great. Stuff you missed in History Class is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
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