Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We are
Speaker 1: concluding a two part episode today. In part one of
Speaker 1: this show, we gave some background about the Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: Indian School, which was part of the federally run system
Speaker 1: of off reservation boarding schools that were meant to assimilate
Speaker 1: in sort of scare quotes, native students into white culture,
Speaker 1: or at least to get Native students to conform with
Speaker 1: white culture. It didn't actually assimilate. There was still a
Speaker 1: lot of racism and discrimination after people went through these programs.
Speaker 1: We also talked a bit about the history of basketball
Speaker 1: and how girls basketball at Fort Shaw quickly became the
Speaker 1: best basketball team in Montana. Today, we are picking up
Speaker 1: with the St. Louis World's Fair, where the team spent
Speaker 1: about four months in nineteen o four becoming the world
Speaker 1: champions there. As was the case in the previous episode,
Speaker 1: we are still getting into some pretty abhorrent racism here,
Speaker 1: and there is also a brief mention of animal cruelty.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o three, Fort Shaw Indian School was as
Speaker 1: we mentioned at the end of the previous episode invited
Speaker 1: to participate in the nineteen o four St. Louis World's Fair,
Speaker 1: also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, so named because
Speaker 1: it was meant to start a year earlier and mark
Speaker 1: the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. This was, of course,
Speaker 1: also the subject of the nineteen forty four film starring
Speaker 1: Judy Garland, which is spectacular. It's also totally not surprising
Speaker 1: that forty years later Metro Goldwyn Mayor made a musical
Speaker 1: out of this. This fair was huge. The nineteen o
Speaker 1: four World's Fair ran from April thirtieth to December one,
Speaker 1: during which time more than twenty million people attended it.
Speaker 1: The fair site, which was the largest ever for a
Speaker 1: World's Fair, covered twelve hundred acres that was dotted with
Speaker 1: about nine hundred buildings, including fifteen exhibit palaces. The exhibitors
Speaker 1: included sixty two nations and forty three of the then
Speaker 1: forty five United States states. A mile long avenue called
Speaker 1: the Pike was full of vendors and amusements. It seems
Speaker 1: like every ubiquitous American food, from hot dogs to ice
Speaker 1: cream cones, was supposedly introduced at the nineteen o four
Speaker 1: World's Fair, but most of those stories just f y
Speaker 1: I are apocryphal. Uh. There were carnival rides, the massive
Speaker 1: ferris wheel, boer War reenactments, award of babies, and incubators.
Speaker 1: It just goes on and on and on. A running
Speaker 1: theme for this fair, as was often the case in
Speaker 1: these kinds of expositions, was progress. Some of this progress
Speaker 1: was related to science and industry. The incubators are actually
Speaker 1: one example. There were meteorological balloon experiments, There was a
Speaker 1: demonstrate and of the first ground to air wireless telegraph.
Speaker 1: New technologies from X rays to electric typewriters got their
Speaker 1: first public display. Some things that were still pretty novel
Speaker 1: to the world at the time got their time to
Speaker 1: shine to including all kinds of other electrical appliances, gasoline engines,
Speaker 1: and automobiles. But some of it was also about cultural progress.
Speaker 1: The general idea was that the United States culture was superior,
Speaker 1: and that the nation was having a civilizing influence on
Speaker 1: the rest of the world as well as within its
Speaker 1: own borders. This cultural progress was displayed through large pavilions
Speaker 1: of living exhibits of thousands of people from around the world.
Speaker 1: These living exhibits were a common element of the world's
Speaker 1: fairs and expositions of the era. They functioned almost like
Speaker 1: temporary human zoos. People actually lived in these where the
Speaker 1: duration of the fair and living exhibits were frequently arranged
Speaker 1: to suggest a pro Russian from the least to the
Speaker 1: most civilized people's One example in St. Louis was the
Speaker 1: Philippine Village, which covered forty seven acres and housed more
Speaker 1: than a thousand people from at least ten different Filipino
Speaker 1: ethnic groups. Often, the cultural practices that were considered the
Speaker 1: most taboo from a white Christian American perspective, uh were
Speaker 1: the biggest draw. In the case of the Philippine Village,
Speaker 1: this was the eager rote, who occasionally consumed dog for
Speaker 1: ceremonial purposes, and during the fair, organizers gave them dog
Speaker 1: to eat every day so that spectators could watch. Fort
Speaker 1: Shaw's invitation was to participate in the Model Indian School.
Speaker 1: This was a mock boarding school where students would demonstrate
Speaker 1: the academic, domestic and vocational skills that they were taught
Speaker 1: at school. The Fort Shaw School was not the only
Speaker 1: Indian school to participate the Model Indian School was to
Speaker 1: house about a hundred and fifty students selected from all
Speaker 1: across the nation's network of Indian boarding schools, specifically schools
Speaker 1: that were located within what had been Louisiana Purchased territory.
Speaker 1: The school was part of a section of the fair
Speaker 1: that came to be known as Indian Hill, where about
Speaker 1: five hundred fifty Native Americans, mainly from tribes within the
Speaker 1: Louisiana Purchased territory or on display. At this so called
Speaker 1: Indian Reservation. Fourteen different tribes had individual areas that demonstrated
Speaker 1: their traditional housing and living arrangements, clothing, food, and cultural practices.
Speaker 1: This simultaneously illustrated the diversity among the nation's indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: while also sending a message that they were, at least
Speaker 1: in the organizer's view, primitive. The Model Indian School was
Speaker 1: in the middle of Indian Hill. It was a three
Speaker 1: story building that faced an open plaza when it was
Speaker 1: surrounded by these spourteen miniature communities. School was in session
Speaker 1: from nine am to five pm, and visitor us could
Speaker 1: observe a kindergarten class from Human Indian School and Arizona Territory.
Speaker 1: A seventh grade class from Chillico Indian School and what's
Speaker 1: now Oklahoma, but was an Indian territory and a wide
Speaker 1: array of domestic and vocational courses. These classes and workshops
Speaker 1: were arranged along one side of a wide hallway, and
Speaker 1: on the other side were open stalls where Native Americans
Speaker 1: sold baskets, pots, and other indigenous art and handiwork. This
Speaker 1: contrast was part of the point of the Model Indian
Speaker 1: Schools existence. It sent a message. Without these schools, the
Speaker 1: students would grow up to be selling so called primitive
Speaker 1: crafts from a blanket on the ground. The school also
Speaker 1: had a chapel, and that was where the students gave
Speaker 1: performances and recitations in the afternoons. As the fair war on.
Speaker 1: This actually became a really popular attraction. The crowds got
Speaker 1: a lot too big to fit inside the chapel, so
Speaker 1: whenever the weather allowed, these performances were moved outdoors. When M.
Speaker 1: Mcowen contacted Fred Campbell to ask fort Shaw Indian School
Speaker 1: to participate in the Model Indian School, it was up
Speaker 1: to Campbell to choose which students should attend, and for
Speaker 1: him this was an incredibly easy decision. The basketball team
Speaker 1: was famous all across the state of Montana. They were
Speaker 1: all exemplary students as well as being very responsible and mature.
Speaker 1: Remember they're all traveling together all the time and seemed
Speaker 1: to have no problems. Uh So, upon receiving this invitation,
Speaker 1: Campbell told them that if they continued to do so
Speaker 1: well in their academic and vocational work, and if they
Speaker 1: kept playing as well as they had been until it
Speaker 1: was time to travel to St. Louis, they would be
Speaker 1: the ones to go. This is a strategic move on
Speaker 1: Campbell's part. The team had become well known enough in
Speaker 1: Montana that they could easily arrange games as they traveled
Speaker 1: to the state to help raise money for the trip,
Speaker 1: and as the word spread, he thought crowds would probably
Speaker 1: follow them if they as they got farther and farther
Speaker 1: away from home. Knowing that there was a chance they
Speaker 1: would pass through towns that didn't yet have a basketball team,
Speaker 1: Campbell also expanded the size of the team's roster so
Speaker 1: that if there was no local team, or if the
Speaker 1: local team didn't think it could make a respectable showing
Speaker 1: against fort shot team, they'd have enough players on hand
Speaker 1: for scrimmage games. This would also let them play five
Speaker 1: on five exhibitions at the World's Fair if there was
Speaker 1: no team to play against there, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about who the players were and how they got
Speaker 1: ready after we first paused for a little sponsor break.
Speaker 1: When building out the team that would travel to the
Speaker 1: World's Fair, Fred Campbell, who was coach, kept the trio
Speaker 1: who had performed so well in earlier games. Nettie Worth
Speaker 1: remained center, and Many Burton and Emma Sansavor were both
Speaker 1: still forwards. Nettie's older sister, Lizzie, who was twenty three,
Speaker 1: had recently graduated from Carlisle Indian School, and she came
Speaker 1: on board as a chaperone and a substitute player. J
Speaker 1: Sephine Langley, who had been with the team from the
Speaker 1: beginning and had previously taken on a similar role, was
Speaker 1: at this point engaged to be married, and she left
Speaker 1: the team to take a full time job at the school.
Speaker 1: Also remaining from the nineteen o two team was Belle Johnson,
Speaker 1: who had been friends with Josie Langley when they were
Speaker 1: both living on the Blackfeet Reservation. Bell's mother sent her
Speaker 1: and her siblings to Fort Shaw on Josie's encouragement, and
Speaker 1: Josie took them under her wing when they were orphaned
Speaker 1: after their mother's death in nineteen hundred. Rounding out the
Speaker 1: nineteen o four team where Katie Snell, Jenny Butch Rose, Larrose,
Speaker 1: Flora Lucero, Sarah Mitchell, and Genevieve Healey who was known
Speaker 1: as Jen. Katie, Jenny, and Sarah were all a Sinna boy. Rose.
Speaker 1: LaRose was Shohony and Chippewa on her father's side and
Speaker 1: Bannock on her mother's. Jen Healy was Gravant and Flora
Speaker 1: was Chippewa. Most of them had been substitute players in
Speaker 1: their previous season. Part of the agreement for their getting
Speaker 1: to go to St. Louis was continuing to play as
Speaker 1: well as they had been, but they didn't exactly get
Speaker 1: that opportunity. The state had not developed a formal structure
Speaker 1: for pairing teams against one another. There was no statewide
Speaker 1: association or organization setting standards for games, playoffs, and championships.
Speaker 1: It was the responsibility of individual schools to work out
Speaker 1: game schedules, and Fort Shaw did not get that done.
Speaker 1: The reasons for not getting that done are not entirely clear,
Speaker 1: and it could have been a product of several factors,
Speaker 1: like the general difficulties of scheduling games all across the
Speaker 1: state when there was not an organized way to do it,
Speaker 1: reluctance by other teams to play against Fort Shaw, which
Speaker 1: by this point had proven itself to be a powerhouse,
Speaker 1: and just being more focused on preparing for a multi
Speaker 1: month trip to St. Louis. According to the Anaconda Standard,
Speaker 1: it was because quote, there is no girls team in
Speaker 1: the state that can give them anything like a tussle.
Speaker 1: They stand alone and unrivaled. Whatever the reason, Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: just didn't get much of a competitive schedule together for
Speaker 1: the nineteen or three season, so instead of playing against
Speaker 1: other teams, Fort Shaw spent most of the season playing
Speaker 1: scrimmage games. This gave the new players more opportunities to
Speaker 1: play and practice performing in front of a crowd. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the school's vocational classes made new uniforms, still with long
Speaker 1: sleeve tops with sailor collars and bloomer like pants with
Speaker 1: red and white trim to distinguish between the two scrimmage teams.
Speaker 1: In addition to all their scrimmage exhibitions, the young women
Speaker 1: had a lot of other skills to brought to brush
Speaker 1: up on before going to the World's Fair. In addition
Speaker 1: to doing their academic and vocational work in front of
Speaker 1: an audience at the Model Indian School, they would be
Speaker 1: performing in mandolin recitals, doing literary recitations, and giving demonstrations
Speaker 1: of gymnastics and calisthenics. Lizzie Worth acted as choreographer for
Speaker 1: their demonstrations, and Fort Shaw's music teacher, Fern Evans set
Speaker 1: the program and trained them for their musical recitals. Lily B.
Speaker 1: Crawford trained them in their literary recitations, which was the
Speaker 1: one aspect of their preparation that the girls struggled with.
Speaker 1: Most of the girls had been playing team games together
Speaker 1: since childhood, and they had been studying music since they
Speaker 1: entered Fort Shaw. The school's music program was also highly regarded,
Speaker 1: with the band accompanying the basketball team and holding performances
Speaker 1: at halftime and after the game, but almost none of
Speaker 1: them really had any experience speaking in front of a
Speaker 1: crowd or reciting a literary piece for a crowd's enjoyment.
Speaker 1: I should make it clear that they likely all had
Speaker 1: experience with music from before they entered the school, but
Speaker 1: the school was really really where they had formal education
Speaker 1: and music. The piece they prepared for Their literary recitation
Speaker 1: was from Henry Wadsworth Longfellows, the Song of Hiawatha, in particular,
Speaker 1: it was part twenty the Famine. They also did an
Speaker 1: interpretive performance called Song of the Mystic, which was a
Speaker 1: dance that they performed in white robes, and the whole
Speaker 1: dance and the robe that they're wearing was described as
Speaker 1: just dazzlingly beautiful to watch. For their recitation UH, they
Speaker 1: were to wear ceremonial buckskin dresses, which was a challenge.
Speaker 1: At Fort Shaw, the girls were only allowed to wear
Speaker 1: uniforms and back Home Indian Agents, which were government appointees
Speaker 1: that sort of served as liaisons with UH native people's,
Speaker 1: had strongly discouraged the wearing of traditional native garments, so
Speaker 1: finding enough buckskin dresses and beaded breastplates for this recitation
Speaker 1: actually proved to be very difficult. As they prepared to
Speaker 1: go to St. Louis, the basketball team added these recitations, dances,
Speaker 1: and recitals to their schedules so they would follow up
Speaker 1: their exhibition games with concerts afterward, and the cost of
Speaker 1: admission went toward their funds for the trip. Through the
Speaker 1: early spring of nineteen o four, the fort Shaw team,
Speaker 1: the band, and a few other students who had a
Speaker 1: particular knack for performance, traveled to Anaconda, Butte and Missoula,
Speaker 1: playing what was billed as a farewell game and performance,
Speaker 1: the public's last chance to see them before they left
Speaker 1: for St. Louis. After the scrimmage game, they change out
Speaker 1: of their uniforms and into their traditional attire for an
Speaker 1: evening of music, recitation and dance. The Model Indian School
Speaker 1: at the St. Louis World's Fair was scheduled to open
Speaker 1: on June first, nineteen o four, and the Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: team had to join a little later. Because of their
Speaker 1: school commitments. They weren't actually able to leave until the
Speaker 1: start of June. They traveled by wagon and then train,
Speaker 1: doing something of a whistle stop tour through Montana, North Dakota,
Speaker 1: and Minnesota before turning south toward Missouri. They arrived on
Speaker 1: the Fairs Montana day that was June fourteenth, nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: and they played a mandolin recital not long after they
Speaker 1: got off the train. I'm just gonna say that sounds
Speaker 1: exhausting to I can barely get off the airplane and
Speaker 1: come right to the office and start working and they
Speaker 1: had been in transit on a train for a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, got off the train and played amndaland recital.
Speaker 1: All of this sounds exhausting. Go play a basketball game
Speaker 1: and then change clothes and you're gonna dance for a while,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna play some music and you're gonna do recitation. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's exhausting, it is. And we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: time that they spent doing this in St. Louis after
Speaker 1: another quick sponsor break. As we alluded to before the break,
Speaker 1: it had taken the Fort Shaw basketball team and their
Speaker 1: coach and chaperons about two weeks to travel from school
Speaker 1: to St. Louis. Once they got there, they kept up
Speaker 1: a busy schedule. In addition to their demonstration classes at
Speaker 1: the Model Indian School, they had regularly scheduled performances of
Speaker 1: their Hiawatha recitation song on the Mystic and their mandolin concertos.
Speaker 1: Twice a week, weather permitting, they held basketball exhibitions in
Speaker 1: the courtyard outside of the Model School. The players had downtime,
Speaker 1: they usually spent it down at the Pike, which became
Speaker 1: a favorite place to wander and watch and try out
Speaker 1: new foods. Most of their games on the fairgrounds were scrimmages,
Speaker 1: but they did actually leave the fairgrounds to play against
Speaker 1: several local high school teams. Even though they never had
Speaker 1: a home court advantage and they did not have the
Speaker 1: welcoming crowd that they had grown used to back in Montana,
Speaker 1: they still won every single time. If you've listened to
Speaker 1: our live show from Dallas on Pierre de Freddy and
Speaker 1: the Modern Olympic Games, you'll know that in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: the Olympic Games were held in St. Louis at the
Speaker 1: same time at the as the World Spare. Unsurprisingly, this
Speaker 1: led to some problems, but it also meant there were
Speaker 1: a lot of athletic activities to take in in St. Louis,
Speaker 1: including basketball games. But the Ford Shop basketball team was
Speaker 1: really the only opportunity to see women's sports. Women weren't
Speaker 1: a actually allowed to participate in the Olympic Games yet,
Speaker 1: and women's basketball would not be an Olympic sport for
Speaker 1: another seventy plus years. The team did, however, get the
Speaker 1: honor of playing an exhibition game at the Olympics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you'll recall these two events happening abutted right against
Speaker 1: each other, caused so much confusion some people didn't even
Speaker 1: know they that the Olympics were happening. Some of them
Speaker 1: that were actually in the Olympics thought they were playing
Speaker 1: at the World Fair. Aside from those couple of early
Speaker 1: games in their first season of competitive play, at this point,
Speaker 1: the Fort Shaw Indian schoolgirls basketball team was undefeated. News
Speaker 1: coverage of their games suggested that they were unstoppable, speedier,
Speaker 1: and more agile than the other teams, and adept at
Speaker 1: feints and strategies that their opponents just could not match.
Speaker 1: So Philip Strummel of Missouri decided it was time for
Speaker 1: somebody to rise to this challenge. He put together an
Speaker 1: all star team to play against Fort Shaw in a
Speaker 1: three game match to determine who would be champion of
Speaker 1: the World's Fair. He hand selected past members of St.
Speaker 1: Louis's Central High School team, taking the best of the
Speaker 1: best from the years that Central had been state champions.
Speaker 1: This alumna team trained together with the specific goal exclusively
Speaker 1: of defeating Fort Shaw. The games were to take place
Speaker 1: over three Saturdays. The first game was held on September three,
Speaker 1: and Fort Shaw one twenty four to two. Still not
Speaker 1: the colossal scores that happened today. But that's a big disparity,
Speaker 1: and they did it even though Emma Sansavor was only
Speaker 1: recently back on the court, having sprained her ankle in
Speaker 1: one of their games against the local high school. And
Speaker 1: the words of the St. Louis Dispatch quote, to the
Speaker 1: great surprise of several hundred spectators, the girls from Fort
Speaker 1: Shaw were more active, more accurate, and cooler than their opponents.
Speaker 1: At the next scheduled Saturday strummle, and this louis alumna
Speaker 1: team didn't even show up, forfeiting the entire series. Apparently,
Speaker 1: though the team was not actually content to lose the
Speaker 1: series by forfeit, they asked for a second match, which
Speaker 1: took place on October eight, this time in front of
Speaker 1: the Model Indian School. So many people came to watch
Speaker 1: that security had to be called to clear the playing
Speaker 1: field and keep the crowd held back. Fort Shaw one
Speaker 1: again seventeen to six, this time making them the undisputed
Speaker 1: champions of the nineteen o four Louisiana Purchase Exposition, and
Speaker 1: even though there was no official governing body for a
Speaker 1: World basketball league, the public consensus was that they were
Speaker 1: world champions as well, even though the World's Fare was
Speaker 1: to run until December. The Model Indian School was really
Speaker 1: only built as a summer building. It was just not
Speaker 1: equipped to withstand cold temperatures or wintry weather. So not
Speaker 1: long after that October eighth championship, the Fort Shaw students,
Speaker 1: together with the best of the Model Schools student body,
Speaker 1: helped dismantle it. And then they packed up and went
Speaker 1: home and their journals and their letters. The players unsurprisingly
Speaker 1: described this as being both a sorrow and a relief,
Speaker 1: like they had they had seemed to have a really
Speaker 1: good time in St. Louis, but they were also eager
Speaker 1: to get back home to the rest of their classmates
Speaker 1: and eventually to their families, maybe not to be working
Speaker 1: and incredibly grueling sports and performance schedule. It is a
Speaker 1: crueling It surprises me that they that they were able
Speaker 1: to spend as much time on the pike as they did,
Speaker 1: like that was really their favorite place to go anytime
Speaker 1: they did not have something on their schedule to do.
Speaker 1: The fourth Shop girls basketball team continued its undefeated streak
Speaker 1: through nineteen oh six as its members became adults and
Speaker 1: either left school or graduated. Though they were invited to
Speaker 1: the Lewis and Clark Exposition of nineteen o five. By
Speaker 1: that point, their reputation as a team was so formidable
Speaker 1: that no one wanted to play against them. Only a
Speaker 1: couple of world champion team members were still enrolled in
Speaker 1: the school by nineteen o seven, which is the year
Speaker 1: that Fred Campbell left a school superintendent to take a
Speaker 1: job at the Fort Peck Indian Reservation as an allotting agent. Today,
Speaker 1: there is a monuments to the team at the former
Speaker 1: site of Fort Shaw Indian School. It's shaped like an
Speaker 1: arch that reads nineteen o four World Champions Fort Shaw
Speaker 1: Indian School. There's an inscribed stone with a picture of
Speaker 1: the team and the players names on it beneath the arch.
Speaker 1: It's not actually clear what happened to all of the
Speaker 1: nineteen o four Fort Shaw players after the end of
Speaker 1: the season. Most of them went on to finish school
Speaker 1: mary and have families. Some later worked as seamstresses, teachers, nurses, aids,
Speaker 1: and interpreters. Several died at sadly early ages, including Minnie Burton,
Speaker 1: who died in childbirth at thirty three, and Emma Sansavor,
Speaker 1: who died of septi simia after the birth of her
Speaker 1: ninth child when she was thirty nine. Jenny Butch died
Speaker 1: in nineteen o nine of a lethal dose of salts,
Speaker 1: with foul play actually suspected in her death. Flora Lucero
Speaker 1: died of diabetes in nineteen fifty eight. Jim Healy outlived
Speaker 1: the rest of her team, dying in nineteen eighty one
Speaker 1: at the age of nineties three. Apart from their physical
Speaker 1: talent and skill on the court, the girls basketball team
Speaker 1: at Fort Shaw is an amazing example of resilience in
Speaker 1: the face of adversity. In addition to the general experience
Speaker 1: of growing up in a boarding school that was a
Speaker 1: meant to erase their own culture and replace it with
Speaker 1: another one, several of the girls experienced personal tragedies in
Speaker 1: their earlier life or while at school. Many had lost
Speaker 1: immediate family members before being enrolled, or learned of the
Speaker 1: deaths of parents, siblings, and other family members back at
Speaker 1: home while they were studying, or actually lived through those
Speaker 1: deaths when illnesses like typhoid and smallpox struck the school.
Speaker 1: This was not limited to their time at Fort Shaw.
Speaker 1: A five year old died of unknown causes during an
Speaker 1: outbreak of fever that coincided with a heat wave at
Speaker 1: the Model Indian School in July of nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: leading the Pima Indian School Kindergarten to go back to
Speaker 1: Arizona Territory early yeah. The unknown causes was the officially
Speaker 1: recorded cause of death, but it was pretty apparent that
Speaker 1: the child was sick and the school was fastly overheated.
Speaker 1: Some of these tragedies took place during the playing season.
Speaker 1: Emma Sansover's mother struggled with alcoholism and she had become
Speaker 1: involved with an abusive man. Emma learned from a newspaper
Speaker 1: report that her mother had disappeared and was suspected to
Speaker 1: have been murdered just before a game in nineteen o
Speaker 1: three during the team's tour. In the early spring of
Speaker 1: nineteen o four, Katie Snell's little brother George and their
Speaker 1: cousin Fred Cunahan both ran away from school and they
Speaker 1: were caught in a blizzard. George survived but had severe
Speaker 1: frost by and Fred died. The two boys, who were
Speaker 1: both just seven, had apparently been inspired by the successful
Speaker 1: escape of four older boys who had sneaked away before
Speaker 1: the storm and successfully hopped a train back home before
Speaker 1: the storm hit. That last tragedy really highlights one of
Speaker 1: the disparities of this story. We spent a lot of
Speaker 1: time in part one talking about the system of Indian
Speaker 1: boarding schools in the United States and how the conditions
Speaker 1: there were often miserable and even abusive for the students.
Speaker 1: The girls basketball team had a lot of privileges. They
Speaker 1: wrote about their time on the team and at the
Speaker 1: fair as a joyful one. They made a remarkable name
Speaker 1: for themselves and for the school, but this doesn't erase
Speaker 1: the experience of their classmates, who were not so comparatively fortunate.
Speaker 1: Although their enrollment started to decline in the nineteen teens,
Speaker 1: federal off reservation boarding schools have continued to operate in
Speaker 1: the decades since then. Fort Shaw closed in nineteen ten
Speaker 1: and Carlisle Indian Industrial School closed in nineteen eighteen. Until
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the boarding schools that continue to operate
Speaker 1: still had a goal of westernizing and americanizing their students
Speaker 1: and erasing Native cultures. By nineteen seventy three, about sixty
Speaker 1: thousand Native students were enrolled in boarding schools on and
Speaker 1: off reservations. The focus of these schools started to change
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies, largely through Native activism, and today
Speaker 1: there are still a handful of federal boarding schools in operation,
Speaker 1: run by the Bureau of Indian Education at the Bureau
Speaker 1: of Indian Affairs, which is part of the United States
Speaker 1: Department of the Interior. Now, these schools are generally focused
Speaker 1: on students who were at risk for drug abuse, suicide,
Speaker 1: and other serious issues. Rather than teaching only in English
Speaker 1: and discouraging Native practices, the schools today actively teach Native
Speaker 1: languages and cultural practices in addition to other academic subjects.
Speaker 1: But these boarding schools continued to be the subject of controversy,
Speaker 1: everything from government budget cuts to low graduation rates and
Speaker 1: achievement scores, and a general question of whether the federal
Speaker 1: government should be running boarding schools for Native students at all.
Speaker 1: There's an ongoing movement for tribes and nations to assume
Speaker 1: control over those schools themselves. To circle back to basketball
Speaker 1: as we close out, It is a hugely popular sport
Speaker 1: today in many Native American communities, with a really fast
Speaker 1: paced style of play that's come to be known as
Speaker 1: res ball. Even so, it was only in twenty eleven
Speaker 1: that Tony Robinson became the first Native American woman drafted
Speaker 1: into the w n b A basketball. We did a
Speaker 1: sports episode, Tracy, I know I didn't you did research
Speaker 1: on sportsings. I know I did a two part podcast
Speaker 1: on sports ball, which is uh still kind of astounding
Speaker 1: to me. I said in part one that I would
Speaker 1: be really hard pressed to like sit all the way
Speaker 1: through a football game, which is a thing that I
Speaker 1: did in high school as part of the color guard
Speaker 1: in the marching band. But I could not tell you
Speaker 1: what was going on on the field at any point.
Speaker 1: I just I yelled when people yelled, and then I
Speaker 1: went out onto the field during halftime and did my
Speaker 1: flag routine. Yeah. I never really got into football. Hockey
Speaker 1: and baseball. I have both watched, uh with some fervor,
Speaker 1: but football has never been my my sport. Neither has basketball,
Speaker 1: for that matter, But lots of people love them and
Speaker 1: get great enjoyment from him. My best friend is a
Speaker 1: football fanatic, so I hear a lot about it during
Speaker 1: the season. Yeah. When I um, we made that reference
Speaker 1: in part one to the Carlisle, Indian Schools football team
Speaker 1: and I was listening, I was doing some research about
Speaker 1: that because I felt like we should acknowledge it. It
Speaker 1: would be weird not to say something about it, since
Speaker 1: you know, it has parallels to these two episodes in
Speaker 1: so many different ways. But I was listening to this
Speaker 1: explanation about how the football rules at the time differed
Speaker 1: from the football rules now, and it got into this
Speaker 1: whole thing about the first down line, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm out. I don't know that's good. Uh you know
Speaker 1: where I do. It's it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: I have an almost visceral inability to understand it. So
Speaker 1: many times in my life I have I have read
Speaker 1: what the first down line is, and it's just it
Speaker 1: won't stay in my brain. It falls directly out the
Speaker 1: other side. You got other stuff in your brain? Do
Speaker 1: you have listener mail in your brain? I do, and
Speaker 1: it is really great. Uh. It is from Laura. Laura
Speaker 1: wrote an email titled Aaron Burr and a Mummified Head,
Speaker 1: So of course I had to read that. I love
Speaker 1: everything about it. Right out of the gate, Laura says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Tracy Holly, I just wanted to say thanks for a
Speaker 1: great podcast recently. I enjoyed your feature Theodoja Burr Austin
Speaker 1: and a throwback to the episode about her father Aaron
Speaker 1: having grown up in Australia. I wasn't familiar with their
Speaker 1: stories and found their lives extremely interesting, so much so
Speaker 1: I went on to do some extra reading and found
Speaker 1: a small connection to my own life. I learned that
Speaker 1: after has failed Mexico venture, Aaron Burr escaped to Europe
Speaker 1: and eventually London. Here he was befriended by the noted
Speaker 1: social reformer Jeremy Bentham. In fact, the pair became so
Speaker 1: close that Burr wrote to Theodosia of his new confidant, quote,
Speaker 1: he is indeed the most perfect model that I have
Speaker 1: seen or imagined of moral and intellectual excellence. He is
Speaker 1: the most intimate friend I have in this country and
Speaker 1: my constant associate. I live in his house and compose
Speaker 1: a part of his family. The reason that this is
Speaker 1: so interesting to me is that I am very familiar
Speaker 1: with old Jeremy Bentham. In fact, I see him pretty
Speaker 1: much every day, despite the fact that he died in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty two. Begins talking about the University College of
Speaker 1: London and goes on to say, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: parts of the old campus is the auto icon of
Speaker 1: its spiritual founder. You guessed it, Bentham. Essentially, this auto
Speaker 1: icon is his mummified remains sitting on top of a chair,
Speaker 1: clothed in his actual black suit and hat, complete with
Speaker 1: glasses and cane to fit with his dying wishes. Because
Speaker 1: he left his body to science and it was dissected
Speaker 1: in a public lecture by a friend, after which the
Speaker 1: skeleton was preserved. Bentham originally wanted his head preserved, also
Speaker 1: using techniques traditional to the Maori people of New Zealand,
Speaker 1: but the process went horrifically wrong. Please see the attached
Speaker 1: article for a picture. A wax likeness was placed on
Speaker 1: the auto icon instead, and the disfigured head was displayed
Speaker 1: separately until a series of pranks by Arrival University saw
Speaker 1: it stolen and held for ransom. According to legend, it
Speaker 1: was also hidden in a luggage locker in a Scottish
Speaker 1: Strand train station and used for football practice. Not surprisingly,
Speaker 1: it was then locked safely away in the until just
Speaker 1: recently when a new exhibition at the university placed the
Speaker 1: head back on public display to explore life, death and preservation.
Speaker 1: And then there's a link to an article about this
Speaker 1: bizarre severed head situation that was just they're lying around
Speaker 1: for people to look at. Uh. Yeah, it was amazing.
Speaker 1: Amazing to me that a piece of history that I
Speaker 1: passed by every day was so connected to big events
Speaker 1: happening around the world so many years ago, events that
Speaker 1: I learned about from your podcast. Keep up the excellent work, Laura.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Laura. I love that letter. It's really great. Um.
Speaker 1: When so, when when we get email, we have a
Speaker 1: little thing where we can start the email that captures
Speaker 1: our attention in some way, and this is one where
Speaker 1: I started when we got it, which was on Halloween.
Speaker 1: And then, as is the case with what the first
Speaker 1: down line means, my brain just flushed it completely out.
Speaker 1: And so this morning when I was getting listener mail
Speaker 1: together and I looked at my starred messages, I was like,
Speaker 1: the what with the civiled I love it? I love it. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Laura. Do you would like to
Speaker 1: write to us. We're a history podcast at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. We're also on Facebook and Facebook dot com,
Speaker 1: slash miss in history. Our Twitter is missed in history.
Speaker 1: Our Tumbler, and our interest in our Instagram are all
Speaker 1: also missed in history. If you come to our website,
Speaker 1: which is missed in history dot com, you will find
Speaker 1: a searchable archive of all the episodes we've ever done
Speaker 1: show notes for the episodes Holly and I have done
Speaker 1: that includes links to uh slash notations of all of
Speaker 1: the research that we have used for these podcasts, so
Speaker 1: you can do that if you come. Visit us at
Speaker 1: miss in history dot com. For more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics, visit how stop works dot com.
Speaker 1: M