Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy B.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly fry Uh. This week we talked
Speaker 1: about the Lowry War, something one of our colleagues suggested
Speaker 1: forever ago that we finally got to. One person whose
Speaker 1: work was a big part of this research was Belinda
Speaker 1: Maynor Lowry Um. She is a historian and currently works
Speaker 1: at Emory University. I think um. She has written two
Speaker 1: different books on Lumby history. One is The Lumby Indians
Speaker 1: American Struggle. The other is Lumby Indians in the Jim
Speaker 1: Crow South, and that one is super interesting, and talked
Speaker 1: about a lot of stuff that wasn't directly related to
Speaker 1: this episode or the context for this episode, because it's
Speaker 1: really about the very complex and nuanced real relationship between UH,
Speaker 1: the Lumbi tribe and segregation in North Carolina, which I
Speaker 1: originally had a whole part of in the episode outline,
Speaker 1: and it was becoming so incredibly long and was not
Speaker 1: actually related to the Lowry War. I mean, it's part
Speaker 1: of the like ongoing following context, but it wasn't actually
Speaker 1: part of the war. Itself because North Carolina public schools
Speaker 1: were racially segregated basically from the beginning. So once the
Speaker 1: state recognized the Lumbi as an indigenous tribe, they were
Speaker 1: able to start their own school, and then that led
Speaker 1: into starting their own normal school or teacher college because
Speaker 1: the Lumby teachers weren't allowed to go to teaching college
Speaker 1: at any of the white schools, and that normal school
Speaker 1: or teachers college eventually became the University of North Carolina
Speaker 1: at Pembroke. So that is a very complicated new story,
Speaker 1: and I also, in addition to all of the complexity
Speaker 1: involved with it, I sort of felt like I a
Speaker 1: white person, not the best person to tell it. That
Speaker 1: whole book, though, I found very accessible to read for
Speaker 1: folks who are, you know, not historians and not living
Speaker 1: their day today immersed in history every single day. So
Speaker 1: that is something to check out if if folks want
Speaker 1: to know more. Um, a rabbit hole I went down
Speaker 1: while doing this research. Besides that, one is the North
Speaker 1: Carolina's outdoor historical dramas. I don't know why that phrase
Speaker 1: makes me laugh. So I just had this moment when
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, and then they made an outdoor
Speaker 1: drama about it. And then I was like, do other
Speaker 1: places have outdoor dramas in the way North Carolina does? Um,
Speaker 1: because we mentioned the Lost Colony, which is obviously about
Speaker 1: the Lost Colony, we mentioned Unto These Hills, which is
Speaker 1: about Cherokee history. I've seen that one. There's another one
Speaker 1: called Horn in the West. Horn in the West was
Speaker 1: first performed about the same time as Unto These Hills
Speaker 1: was I think those were within a few years of
Speaker 1: each other. I'm saying that for memory. I'm apologize if
Speaker 1: I got it wrong. Um. Horn in the West is
Speaker 1: about like Daniel Boone, so that's not about indigenous history really,
Speaker 1: and I've seen that one also, So I've seen I've
Speaker 1: seen Horn in the West and Unto These Hills. I
Speaker 1: don't think I have seen the Lost Colony. I have
Speaker 1: not seen, uh, the one that we talked about in
Speaker 1: this episode. But like these outdoor dramas that are about
Speaker 1: the history of the place that the drama is performed,
Speaker 1: there's multiples of them in North Carolina, and so I
Speaker 1: would like sort of tried to go down this path
Speaker 1: of like why are there so many of these in
Speaker 1: North Carolina? There are also I mean there's there are
Speaker 1: places that have Shakespeare in the Park or have like
Speaker 1: an outdoor theater company that does shows outdoors in good weather.
Speaker 1: But this is like the same show that has done
Speaker 1: in the same theater over and over again as a
Speaker 1: tourist attraction every single year. And I'm just like, what
Speaker 1: is the story there? And I was not finding satisfying
Speaker 1: answers to what the story is there? And then I
Speaker 1: was also like, this is not with the The episode
Speaker 1: is about Tracy get back to work. Yeah. It makes
Speaker 1: me laugh because it seems so oddly specific, because I
Speaker 1: don't know of any others that existing quite that way, right, Like,
Speaker 1: there are certainly people that do re enactments in various places,
Speaker 1: but I can't think of anywhere else that has like
Speaker 1: that as a cultural thing thing. Yea, And I mean
Speaker 1: the fact that there are three in North Carolina that
Speaker 1: have been running to my knowledge for decades, and then
Speaker 1: other ones in North Carolina that have run for a
Speaker 1: period of years and then maybe they fizzled out, maybe
Speaker 1: they get picked back up. North Carolina does have a
Speaker 1: relatively mild climate for doing outdoor dramas in the warm
Speaker 1: weather months. It's less mild now because climate change, but still.
Speaker 1: I also maybe I am particularly interested in them because
Speaker 1: I was a theater kid in high school and I
Speaker 1: knew people who like people who went to college at
Speaker 1: Appalachian and in the summer they would do Horn in
Speaker 1: the West. As one of the actors in that show.
Speaker 1: You know, I got my degree in theater. I don't
Speaker 1: think I have any friends that have done those, uh
Speaker 1: like of of anywhere, not necessarily North Carolina. But like
Speaker 1: you know, I have certainly had friends do like repertory
Speaker 1: theater in the summer in various places, but not not
Speaker 1: like something as specific as like historical dramas that are
Speaker 1: part of like a tourism industry. Yeah, fascinating. When I
Speaker 1: was in high school, my mom and I would go
Speaker 1: on weekend trips together, and we went on multiple different
Speaker 1: weekend trips that involved going out to the mountains, and uh,
Speaker 1: it was those various trips that we saw unto these
Speaker 1: hills and Horn in the West. And I'm really pretty
Speaker 1: sure that I've never seen the Lost Colony, even though
Speaker 1: I have also visited that part of North Carolina. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm glad that, uh that we finally got to the
Speaker 1: Lowry War from my short list that is not short
Speaker 1: at all. The federal recognition conversation is so complicated to
Speaker 1: me and is another thing where like, I, as a
Speaker 1: white person, I'm not the person to like sort all
Speaker 1: that out. College is like I have nothing further to act. No,
Speaker 1: it's it is all complicated. I mean, I I found myself, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did the research on this one, because
Speaker 1: I found myself getting lost with everyone having the same name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: where I was like, I literally had as I was
Speaker 1: reviewing it this morning, I had like a weird chart
Speaker 1: and I was like, wait, did I do this right?
Speaker 1: Have I gotten confused with the there So, there are
Speaker 1: a group of family names that are common among the Lumbi,
Speaker 1: and they include Lowry and Ox and Dine. A lot
Speaker 1: of the names that came up in the show, Um,
Speaker 1: those are not names that a lot of people would
Speaker 1: think of off the top of their head as being
Speaker 1: like an indigenous person's last name. Um. And that's been
Speaker 1: one of the things of like, how did this group
Speaker 1: of people living in this part of North Carolina with
Speaker 1: a like a tribal identity that goes back for centuries
Speaker 1: have a lot of last names that people would think
Speaker 1: of as English and I think that is one of
Speaker 1: the things that fed into the like are these descendants
Speaker 1: of the lost Colony conversation that came up in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Um, so yeah, there are lots and lots
Speaker 1: of lowry Is still today, including Lowries in like leadership.
Speaker 1: Melinda Mayor Lowry, the historian that was that wrote some
Speaker 1: of the work, uh, that was part of the research
Speaker 1: for this, as well as doing a panel that I
Speaker 1: watched a video of that was about all of this.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you are interested in the great or
Speaker 1: history of the Lumbi tribe, highly recommend Melinda Maynor Lowry's work.
Speaker 1: So we we talked about Thomas Nidgley Jr. We sure did.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the most fun ever, No, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: was unaware of how much people already knew about leaded
Speaker 1: gasoline being dangerous. It wasn't entirely surprising because you and
Speaker 1: I are both old enough to remember leaded gasoline being
Speaker 1: sold at gas stations and as a child being like,
Speaker 1: how did anyone think this was a good idea? Ever,
Speaker 1: leaded gasoline was not the only very problematic source of
Speaker 1: lead that that was phased out over about the same time.
Speaker 1: There are also things like lett in paint. A lot
Speaker 1: of houses still have lead in paint in them, lots
Speaker 1: of other stuff. But I'm like, I remember being there
Speaker 1: at the gas station with my mom and just kind
Speaker 1: of be like, I don't understand why we had to
Speaker 1: have a process where we put the lead in there
Speaker 1: and then we took the lead out of there, and
Speaker 1: I was like, that was the lead just always in
Speaker 1: there is lead part of gasoline, and we just discovered
Speaker 1: we needed to take it out. Like I didn't really
Speaker 1: get it. But I also didn't really get like why
Speaker 1: anybody would have thought that would have been a safe
Speaker 1: thing to do. Uh yeah, I mean right. This is
Speaker 1: a disheartening one for many reasons, and you and I
Speaker 1: talked about it beforehand, Like this idea that UM business
Speaker 1: is more important than safety is a problem that many
Speaker 1: industries have had over the years, and it just keeps recurring,
Speaker 1: it really does. This one is especially bad because people
Speaker 1: were dying so quickly, and it's like, oh, no, we're
Speaker 1: fixing the factory, okay, but people have already died. Like
Speaker 1: there's really a big problem with what you're doing. Something
Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about UM. One of the things
Speaker 1: Alice Hamilton was really focused on was what about gas
Speaker 1: station attendance? Um, because uh, I mean there are still
Speaker 1: places where people don't pump their own gas routinely. But
Speaker 1: the process of putting the lead into the gasoline, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of back and forth about when that
Speaker 1: step should happen, and there was a process that involved
Speaker 1: actually putting it in at the at the gas station,
Speaker 1: and Alice Hamilton's kept being like, this is killing people
Speaker 1: the factories. Have you even thought about the person who
Speaker 1: was pumping people's gas all day every day? Like what
Speaker 1: exposure is going to do to that person? Clearly nobody
Speaker 1: had thought about you didn't even get into it in
Speaker 1: the episode because it felt like a whole other thing.
Speaker 1: And I also felt like the episode was becoming very long. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. It did not occur to me
Speaker 1: that that might happen. And when I decided to do
Speaker 1: what I did with the episode, which was to talk
Speaker 1: about his biography and these two other things, Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: would you like to hear funny your thoughts? Yeah? Okay, So, um,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with rows chast? There's a bell that's
Speaker 1: ringing right You might be and not even realize it.
Speaker 1: Ros Chast is a cartoonist that did a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff with The New Yorker for a very long period
Speaker 1: of time. She's so funny and I love her, um,
Speaker 1: And this episode reminded me of one of my favorite
Speaker 1: Rows Chast cartoons, which is called four common lamp shade
Speaker 1: mistakes and how to avoid them. And they're very silly,
Speaker 1: like one lamp shade is too tiny and the suggestion
Speaker 1: is just by a larger shade, one is too large
Speaker 1: by a smaller shade, one has too much fringe, Just
Speaker 1: cut off the fringe. And the fourth one says made
Speaker 1: of magnesium and benzine soaked rags, leave the room. And
Speaker 1: I this has been one of my big favorites for
Speaker 1: a very long time. And so when ben Zinge came
Speaker 1: up in midst of like all of this other horrible stuff,
Speaker 1: my brain like deposited a little dopamine and went, remember
Speaker 1: that great Ross Chast cartoon. Oh yeah, you can tell
Speaker 1: other people about the great Ross Chast cartoon. Good Ross
Speaker 1: Chast is. I love her, Um. I also want to
Speaker 1: say something about our listener mail. Okay, Abby, I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to do this to you, but I'm you may have
Speaker 1: already discovered there is also diar Real Woman. Oh, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know that, and I reason there's that episode. Yes,
Speaker 1: well you wouldn't have it. It was related like it
Speaker 1: came out later in relation to like women's health. Um.
Speaker 1: But I am currently in the midst of acquiring a
Speaker 1: diar Real Woman so that I can have a dire
Speaker 1: Real couple. That's great. I understand Abby the proclivity to
Speaker 1: just buy strange things when you hear about and I'm
Speaker 1: sorry I have put this on your radar if you
Speaker 1: didn't already know, or you're welcome, I don't know which,
Speaker 1: but diar Real Woman. Um. I did want to note
Speaker 1: that a little bit about what I found so upsetting
Speaker 1: about Thomas Midgley Jr's death. So if if that's going
Speaker 1: to be a troubling topic for people, I think this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a Wednesday episode, so you can probably
Speaker 1: just have a great weekend. Have a great weekend. Um. So,
Speaker 1: the first things that I found that were about his
Speaker 1: death described it flatly as an accident, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until later that I learned that, like the death certificate
Speaker 1: in the corner's report did not come to the same
Speaker 1: conclusion of it being an accident. Um the idea that
Speaker 1: this man had to make a lift for himself to
Speaker 1: get from the bed to the wheelchair and that he
Speaker 1: had accidentally or like become entangled in it, and that
Speaker 1: it had killed him. I found so upsetting because, Number one,
Speaker 1: it's clear that at that time there was so much
Speaker 1: stigma around disability. One of the things that started to
Speaker 1: shift that stigma was how many people became paralyzed as
Speaker 1: a result of polio and then advocated for themselves and
Speaker 1: for changes to disabilityarize love. We've talked about that some
Speaker 1: in our episode on the independent living movement and Ed Roberts,
Speaker 1: who was a big figure in that movement. But still today,
Speaker 1: there are so many basic things that so many disabled
Speaker 1: people need for so many basic tasks of life that
Speaker 1: they cannot get access to, or cannot afford access to,
Speaker 1: or there's like only one model and that model doesn't
Speaker 1: quite work for them. Um My mom needs a lift
Speaker 1: to get from anywhere to anywhere, and on occasions when
Speaker 1: she has had to be hospitalized a lot of times
Speaker 1: they will have a sling for that lift, which is
Speaker 1: the thing that she's in to like move her from
Speaker 1: place to place. But it's not a sling that allows
Speaker 1: access to the toilet, and that just makes going to
Speaker 1: the bathroom like a whole gigantic, like a bigger process
Speaker 1: than otherwise. And so the fact that the that he
Speaker 1: had to build something for himself, and that, regardless of
Speaker 1: the circumstances, the thing that he built for himself killed
Speaker 1: him carries through to it. Just it it made me
Speaker 1: very angry and upset, of course. So that's it's like
Speaker 1: an example both of how there has been progress and
Speaker 1: how there is still so much, so much more that
Speaker 1: needs to be done about access and about how people
Speaker 1: having the the tools and the resources and the equipment
Speaker 1: that they need for daily life with a disability. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean this has been a very interesting time in
Speaker 1: terms of disability resources because I feel like during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: when most people during the early parts of pandemic, I
Speaker 1: should say, when most people were staying home, there were
Speaker 1: some kind of benefits that came about that really really
Speaker 1: helped the disabled community, and now a lot of those
Speaker 1: are rolling back. Um. I had just retweeted a tweet
Speaker 1: from a woman who was commenting on a story about
Speaker 1: how restaurants are now pulling their their QR code menus
Speaker 1: because some people don't like them. And it's like, she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm blind. That gave me like a level of access
Speaker 1: at restaurants that I haven't normally had. Why would you
Speaker 1: take this away? It doesn't detract from anyone else's experience,
Speaker 1: and I I hope that the the upside of all
Speaker 1: of this is that these are discussions that people are
Speaker 1: recognizing now that maybe haven't considered what it is like
Speaker 1: for someone who is disabled to have to like make
Speaker 1: their way in a world that does not make space
Speaker 1: for them and does not provide the equipment and the
Speaker 1: things they need. But also, as she said, it's infuriating
Speaker 1: because it's been going on forever for yeah, for all
Speaker 1: of the time. Yeah, yeah. Um. I think social media
Speaker 1: as as conflicted as my relationship with social media is, um,
Speaker 1: I think social media has allowed so many people to
Speaker 1: have a bigger voice and to to have more diversity
Speaker 1: of the voices that you have access to. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are still barriers to social media that are based
Speaker 1: on all kinds of different factors, including disability, but um,
Speaker 1: so many disabled people have been able to communicate their
Speaker 1: own thoughts and needs and feelings about things to a
Speaker 1: much broader audience, and I think that is bringing more
Speaker 1: awareness to stuff. I thing I've told Holly that I've
Speaker 1: done this, I haven't really like publicly. I've been trying
Speaker 1: to do less doom scrolling on Twitter. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I do instead of doom scroll on Twitter
Speaker 1: is that just flipped through TikTok until I find somebody
Speaker 1: doing something really cool. Um, And I found a lot
Speaker 1: of folks on on TikTok who are disabled and are
Speaker 1: making content that is about their disability in ways that
Speaker 1: are just really thoughtful and funny. And folks who are
Speaker 1: willing to answer lots of questions for people. Do not
Speaker 1: go pepper people with unsolicited questions because that can be
Speaker 1: really like invasive, but like people who are willing to
Speaker 1: take on that role and to talk to people about
Speaker 1: stuff that's going on. And I'm like, I am heartened
Speaker 1: to see that. I simultaneously like, I wish people did
Speaker 1: not have to do this kind of work. I wish
Speaker 1: we were already to a point where we had more understanding,
Speaker 1: but like also I'm glad there is more access there
Speaker 1: through these and other communication methods. So anyway, Happy Friday.
Speaker 1: I hope whatever is happening on your weekend is going
Speaker 1: to be good as good as it can be. Whatever
Speaker 1: is happening. We will be back with a Saturday Classic tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We're back Monday with a brand new episode, and uh,
Speaker 1: I hope everybody has a little minute of peace. Whatever
Speaker 1: is going on. M Stuff you Missed in History Class
Speaker 1: is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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