Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You missed in History Class. A production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio Happy Friday. I'm Tracy B. Wilson
Speaker 1: and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about the Rum Rebellion.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know why I had it in
Speaker 1: my head so solidly that we had talked about this before,
Speaker 1: and I even looked through, like I did a search
Speaker 1: for the words rum rebellion in my giant folder of
Speaker 1: old scripts for the show, trying to be like, did
Speaker 1: we just mention it in passing in one of our
Speaker 1: other related to Australia episodes, like maybe the Catalpa Mutiny
Speaker 1: or maybe the Lady Julianna, like either of the NOE.
Speaker 1: It just seems like, not, is there any chance your
Speaker 1: brain is subbing it in for whiskey rebellion since it's
Speaker 1: a spirit related It's no, definitely not definitely not. Uh
Speaker 1: So yeah, um, this is definitely one of the more
Speaker 1: ridiculous coups we've talked about, maybe the most ridiculous coup,
Speaker 1: because most of the coups that we have talked about
Speaker 1: on the show have been just horrifying and violent, and
Speaker 1: this has, you know, horrifying context. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: prison colony in Australia, But the actual circumstances of the
Speaker 1: rebellion really seemed to be Bly did not go to
Speaker 1: Australia to make friends, and there were people there who
Speaker 1: had some really strong personalities already, and the actual coup
Speaker 1: itself was minimally violence. There was only one person that
Speaker 1: got hurt. And then you know, although Bly and his
Speaker 1: daughter were kept on house arrest, they were also on
Speaker 1: house arrest and what was effectively the governor's mansion. Right,
Speaker 1: So on the spectrum of cous it's like, on the goofier,
Speaker 1: less violent end of the it's less harrowing than many
Speaker 1: that we've talked about. Yeah, it also is, I think
Speaker 1: because so much of it boils down to kind of
Speaker 1: petty bickering that gets out of control because of egos,
Speaker 1: it just lends itself to a more jocular tone. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like he really liked rules. I mean, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a sitcom, right, Like he really liked rules but
Speaker 1: had a temper. He's like the boss that wants to
Speaker 1: fix a very jumbled and messed up situation but doesn't
Speaker 1: know how to do it in terms of interpersonal communications.
Speaker 1: So they just sweep in and like erase all that
Speaker 1: has gone before to institute new things, which never ever works.
Speaker 1: No No. I also I was kind of fascinated by
Speaker 1: the descriptions of his um his sort of harangue that
Speaker 1: he would assault people with with the torrent of insults
Speaker 1: and um I wish I had written down or or
Speaker 1: bookmarked one of the things that it would just sort
Speaker 1: of described what these were like, and it they just
Speaker 1: in some ways just seemed like random, almost nonsensical torrents
Speaker 1: of insults that were really demoralizing to the people who
Speaker 1: were hearing them, in part because they just didn't they
Speaker 1: didn't make sense, and they didn't fit with the way
Speaker 1: people thought that officers should be disciplining anybody, oh humans
Speaker 1: in their piccadillos. Yeah, if you look at pictures of
Speaker 1: of William Bly, he also doesn't look like you might
Speaker 1: imagine if your familiarity with with him is like fictional
Speaker 1: depictions of the Mutiny on the Bounty, where he's kind
Speaker 1: of this red faced, screaming tyrant. He looks like a
Speaker 1: very pale person who somehow has managed to stay in
Speaker 1: the shade his whole life, in spite of being the
Speaker 1: captain of a ship and then living in Australia. Uh,
Speaker 1: maybe he always had a really lovely umbrella or Paris
Speaker 1: Hall said, uh yeah, I have a think a lot
Speaker 1: about still tess of late, because I have been, you know,
Speaker 1: studying how various spirits get made, and there's part of
Speaker 1: me that just wants to go, like you guys, it's
Speaker 1: not that hard. You could have made more. Um well,
Speaker 1: and that was part of the thing was stills had
Speaker 1: been outlawed and so they weren't supposed to have skills
Speaker 1: at all. But you know, there's a whole long tradition
Speaker 1: of the same classes of people who were transported to
Speaker 1: Australia also knowing how to keep their still secret. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, they probably had something there that would
Speaker 1: have worked as a a base grain, yeah, to start
Speaker 1: the whole process. Um, I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 1: if sugarcane grows there, I don't know. Um, but you
Speaker 1: don't need you can. You can make lots of other
Speaker 1: spirits with other grains, any of which would have been
Speaker 1: known to anybody that came from England. So right, and
Speaker 1: we know that they we had previously talked about people
Speaker 1: having io used that used tweet as currency, right, so
Speaker 1: you can, man, I'm just imagining a whole now very
Speaker 1: complicated monetary system for the colony of New South Wales,
Speaker 1: overlapping between wheat and alcohol. Yes, So anyway, now you
Speaker 1: know what's kind of weird connections. My brain will go
Speaker 1: down these kinds of episode of So Tracy. This week
Speaker 1: we had as a guest the wonderful and very charming
Speaker 1: Jeremy Kat's show, which is just so delightful to get
Speaker 1: to spend time with him and talk. Um. I was
Speaker 1: so excited because it was kind of happening at the
Speaker 1: same time we were getting that episode ready that he
Speaker 1: got to talk about having picked up the Hebrew Bible
Speaker 1: that John Assof had been sworn in on them, right, um,
Speaker 1: And he mentioned that that that Bible had belonged to
Speaker 1: Rabbi Rothschild. I don't remember if we connected the dots
Speaker 1: really that like he was a civil rights leader, he
Speaker 1: was the rabbi at the temple when it was bombed
Speaker 1: in nine So it is a really interesting piece of
Speaker 1: history for a number of reasons. And that they now
Speaker 1: get to have it in their collection and share it
Speaker 1: with people as this this monumental you know, prop sounds
Speaker 1: demeaning to it. But this item, that's that's part of
Speaker 1: the props of the world stage of like these very
Speaker 1: vital moments in Jewish history and Atlanta. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just very cool. History is still alive. We're making
Speaker 1: it all the time. Um So, I went to that
Speaker 1: museum once when I lived in Atlanta. I went there
Speaker 1: with my friend Aaron, and they have an exhibit that is,
Speaker 1: um like a history of the Jewish community in Atlanta
Speaker 1: through a set of I think eighteen artifacts. There's a
Speaker 1: number of artifacts, and then the temporary exhibit was on
Speaker 1: Murray Sendec. Loved it so much. The other thing I
Speaker 1: got really excited about when you told me you were
Speaker 1: doing this interview is I am so fascinated by these
Speaker 1: Images of America books that this book is part of.
Speaker 1: Like anytime I walk into some random in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere place that has a gift shop and the
Speaker 1: gift shop has an Images of America book that is
Speaker 1: about that specific places history, I'm just deeply fascinated by
Speaker 1: I have. I have one of them on my desk
Speaker 1: right now, which is about a place called break Heart Reservation,
Speaker 1: which today is like a um a park with lots
Speaker 1: of walking trails and a playground and and hiking in
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Um, having the whole history of it.
Speaker 1: And as soon as you told me, I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm incredibly just like I want to note number one,
Speaker 1: Like I have this imagined world of like how how
Speaker 1: it becomes, how these books come into existence in so
Speaker 1: many places, um, And then anytime I see one, I
Speaker 1: just want to look through it and take it home.
Speaker 1: I would have a whole library of just imagism of
Speaker 1: America books random places. They're really really good. And I
Speaker 1: was glad that Jeremy shared with us kind of the
Speaker 1: process of how that came to be a thing, and
Speaker 1: and you know, he of course kind of had a
Speaker 1: similar project in mind already, so he was a little
Speaker 1: ahead of the game. But yeah, I mean it's one
Speaker 1: of those things too, right. I have lived in Atlanta
Speaker 1: for a long time now, with like thirty years, and
Speaker 1: just flipping through it, you know, is an interesting walk,
Speaker 1: not quite down memory lane, because many of these things
Speaker 1: certainly predated my time here, but you see the things
Speaker 1: that that continue to persist as part of Atlanta culture. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things that really kind of struck me.
Speaker 1: It does not exist any longer. It has been absorbed
Speaker 1: by a larger conglomerate. But Riches department store for the
Speaker 1: very longest time was like and icon of Atlantic culture. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I worked in the Riches for years. I worked
Speaker 1: in the salons there, and so to see pictures of
Speaker 1: the original Riches, yeah, it just did something to my heart.
Speaker 1: It's so wonderful. One of the other, like previous temporary
Speaker 1: exhibits at the museum, like, was a history of Riches,
Speaker 1: which I thought was really like. I didn't personally see
Speaker 1: that one, but I thought it was really cool. It's
Speaker 1: very very cool. Um. Yeah, you do sort of realize
Speaker 1: how much how much Atlanta has been shaped by its
Speaker 1: Jewish community in ways that we don't always appreciate. So
Speaker 1: I was really happy to have him on with us.
Speaker 1: We also made a deal after we finished recording that
Speaker 1: once we are both vaccinated, I'm gonna go visit the
Speaker 1: Freeman and he's going to give me a tour, which
Speaker 1: I was private tour of a museum my my dream,
Speaker 1: my dream scenarios. So we are going to go do
Speaker 1: that and hopefully he'll let me take him to lunch
Speaker 1: or something. But I hope people, I mean like you,
Speaker 1: I love these books. I just think visually they offer
Speaker 1: such an easy entry point to history and in ways
Speaker 1: that they're all also always so well written, even though
Speaker 1: there's limited text space. It's like whoever edits them to
Speaker 1: be concise but also really clear and very um good
Speaker 1: at conveying you know, really the importance and the significance
Speaker 1: of what you're seeing is doing an a plus job.
Speaker 1: Whoever the editors are on this series, kudos you so so.
Speaker 1: Wherever you are and run into these, I highly recommend them.
Speaker 1: And again, I'm just super grateful I had that conversation.
Speaker 1: We hope that whatever the weekend has in store for you,
Speaker 1: that it is delightful and enjoyable, and that you as
Speaker 1: good a time as possible, and we will see you
Speaker 1: right back here, starting tomorrow with a classic and then
Speaker 1: next week with new episodes. Stuff you Missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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