July 30, 2024 • 30 mins
The Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum, education, and research complex -- but how did it get here? Join Ben, Noel and Max as they welcome Lizzie Peabody, host of Sidedoor, the Smithsonian Institution's own official podcast, to learn the stunning origin story of their favorite museums. In part one of this special two-part episode, we meet a young man named James Smithson.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear from the man the myth legend,
our super producer, mister Max Williams as I am here,
and I am mister Max Williams, and I am Ben.
I don't go with it and I've been bullend. That's
mister Noel Brown as always, and Noel, A funny thing
(00:49):
happened on the way to Podcast Movement. We had an
amazing time meeting a lot of our friends, new and old,
a lot of colleagues, and during one of the panels
we did, we connected with a dream team that we've
talked about quite often in the history of this show,
the Smithsonian Institution.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The smith the very Smithsonian Institute. We encountered it in
its human personified form at Podcast Movements and it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Was a delight.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And we are pleased to inform you Rick the Historians
that we have the actual human embodiment of the Smithsonian
Institute with us here on the podcast today.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Ben tallas Mark, Yes, the.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Rumors are true. The Smithsonian Institution's podcast side door is
helmed by the audio producers, storyteller and senior producer Lizzie
Peabody from Washington, DC, And Lizzie, you were here with
us today. Holy smokes, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Wow, you're welcome. I've never been introduced as the human
embodiment of an institution, and I feel heavier already.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The pressure is indeed on because not only has he
given you the most difficult to live up to honorific
I guess in our introduction of you, but we are
literally today talking about the very founding of the institution
in which you yourself personally embody.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Yes, yes, indeed, which is a founding not many people
know about.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And you know, when you think of the founding of
like an institution that you know is funded by an
endowment and things like that, you don't really usually think
it's a sexy kind of exciting story. But you hipped
us to this story, and we were fully on board
from the word go.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
It is a sexy story, yes, I mean a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So could we get the lay of the land here,
I think most people are before we dive in. I
think most people are familiar with the Smithsonian Institution. Could
you tell us a little bit about Side Door and
the mission of this show and what it explores.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yes, I would love to. Side Door is the Smithsonian
Institution's podcast, meaning we broadcast stories from across the many
museums and research complexes, which currently is in the twenties.
There's you know, the many museums, the National Zoo, there's
(03:29):
a lot of research centers as well, and so we
get to tell stories of history, science, art and culture
that you might miss on a typical trip to the
National Ball and a meander through one of the museums.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Amazing, amazing, and that reminds me, you know, like like
you said earlier, Noel, stories that people might miss. In
an episode of side Door, you explore the origin story,
the genesis of the Great Smithsonian, and it all begins
(04:03):
with a guy named William Bennett.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yes, sort of sort I mean, well, let me actually
can I I just thought just had an idea and
I let me just tell like, okay, So let me
just say, you know, I think a lot of people
when they think of the Smithsonian, they think a museum,
or maybe a few museums, But there is nothing more
iconic than the red sandstone castle on the National Mall.
(04:29):
It's got turrets, it's got like it looks old and important. Uh,
And people walk by it every day on the National Mall,
not knowing that it is actually home to a crypt.
And inside of the crypt is the body of a
person who I would like to tell you about, whose
story is a little bit. His story is relatively unknown
(04:52):
and intricately tied to the founding of the Smithsonium.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't know that couldn't have asked. I couldn't have
asked for a better set up. I have to be
honest with everybody here right now. I have not been
to a Smithsonian museum. I've only been to Washington, d C.
Twice in my life, once as a child where we
did like some tour type stuff and that did not
include the Smithsonian. And I went recently for the first
(05:17):
time as an adult and was just passing through.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We didn't have the time.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But after talking with you, I cannot wait to see
this this this this building that you're talking about. It
sounds epically fascinating and just sort of like it would
loom very large and be sort of a curiosity kind.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Of moment, like what is that?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And I'm excited to find out before I go take
a visit, so I can right believe that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I know, I can't believe that we're going We're going
to It's had to be honest, my favorite. You know,
I go to d C not too infrequently, and it
is by far one of my favorite stops in a
city filled with wonders. We've gotta we've got to get
you there, so maybe we travel. We're scheduling this right
(06:02):
to travel irl as they say, maybe Lizzie, you can,
you can take us there through the cinema of the mind.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I would love to do that, I have to admit.
I So I go running on the National Mall every evening.
And did I tell you guys a story when we talk? Okay,
so I not every evening, let's be real, but as
many evenings as I can make myself, I go for
a jog down on the National Mall. It's great. It's
one of the great parts of living in DC. And
(06:29):
this one evening last spring, I was jogging back from
the Washington Monument toward the Capitol, past the Smithsonian Castle,
and there was like a little segue tour happening, and
the tour guide was saying something no offense but kind
of boring about like the amount of money that it
took to start the Smithsonian and this is the Smithsonian.
(06:51):
He was about to move on, and I was like, wait,
there's more to the story, and.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh, I go And then I just actually the tour guide.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
I commandeered it. I was I was such a jerk.
And then I stood there like sweating, profusely gesticulating, telling
this story that I find so cool. And they were
all leaning for it on their segways, but not too
much or it would have been a disaster. And yeah,
and and I told this story, and afterward they all applauded,
and I ran off into the sunset.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And true, and I take my leave. I got my
favorite tour cameo ever. Fantastic.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I know it made me like the most annoying person
in the universe, but I cannot regret it. I just
don't regret it.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
You're like the tour guide vigilante.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I think there's like a meme on the Internet where
Skeletor from the he Man Cartoons pops in and says
like an uncomfortable fact and they goes has a and
then he runs away, you know, kind of like that's
you and I often will commandeer a tour, uh in
that I will sort of piggyback on it, like if
I like I was recently in Boston walking around the
Freedom Trail and there was a dude dressed as Paul
(08:03):
Revere giving a tour of like this historic cemetery, and
me and my friend which kind of casually, you know,
sort of like shadowed them a little bit, like, you know,
we didn't pay for the tour. I don't know if
it was a paid tour, but we sort of, you know,
kind of stalked the tour. But you did the exact opposite,
or if it can be considered the opposite, I applaud you.
That is an act of patriotism right there.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Ah, thank you. I feel seen you should do well.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So let's definitely on segues.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, yeah, so let's get into some more of this lore.
I mean, we're talking about this building. There's a secret crypt.
I know, we've got something of a mysterious package that
sort of starts the story.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Why don't we start there?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Maybe?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, Okay, let's start there. So a few years ago,
in twenty nineteen, this package arrived at the Smithsonian Libraries
and Archives and it was the gift. It was an
anonymous donation. And so William Bennett, the conservator that I
spoke to in you know, inside Door we tell the story,
(09:03):
and William Bennett is one of the experts that I
spoke with directly, and it was his job to open
this up and figure out what it was. And it
was this pretty old document seventeen eighty seven, like only
a little bit younger than the United States. And it
was this bundle of like sixteen parchment pages that were
(09:25):
when he unfolded them, which took a while because he
had to sort of hydrate the pages because they're made
of animal skins and they were all crinkled and crackled together.
He discovered, I mean, unfolded, it's like the size of picture,
like a baby blanket, like a really like these are
big pieces of paper, and he estimated probably sixteen sheeps
(09:45):
worth of parchment. You know, you get like one piece
of parchment peep.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, of course, yes, it's like a bolty we.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Now, Liszie, let's post here real quick. I imagine it
is not abnormal for the Smithsonian to receive all sorts
of interesting mail and solicited a.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Very interesting like yeah, Ben, no, it it occurs to me,
like it's just is this just like in a bubble mailer, Like,
how is how is this arriving?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
You know, completely unannounced?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
So Lizzie Treaty. Tell us first, is it unusual for
the Smithsonian to receive this kind of correspondence or is
this like a semi frequent kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
It's pretty frequent that people will try to give their
things to the Smithsonian.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Dropping books off at a library.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, bless your heart, we don't want your grandma's quilled.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah, exactly, we have some old furniture. Surely it, you know,
is a familion of national importance, you know, please take
it off our hands. So it is not a common babies, Yes, yes,
we've turned away. I don't know how many beanie babies
Linzelman in American history has probably turned away, but I'm
(11:02):
guessing a lot. So yeah, it's not uncommon that people
do offer their belongings. But I think what was noteworthy
about this document is that it was so old and
so important to the history of the Smithsonian, and that
I don't think anyone at the Smithsonian even knew it
existed until it showed.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I guess that's my thing though, you'd think there would
have been a call or someone would have set up
a handoff and not just sent this in the mail
like it just Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Let me be clear, I don't actually know. There may
have been a call. In my imagination, it was dropped
off like a you know, like a baby on the doorstep. Sure,
in the dead of night, swaddled up and yeah, exactly
that's how it happened in my imagination. In reality, it
may have been a little more bureaucratic.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
But no, no, no, it's all coming out. We need
to leave them.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
But the story's still good. The story's still Gooding this,
we're hydrating the sheep skin, we're opening it up. And
William he spends a lot of time looking at old
you know, legal ease, and he's expecting it to be
a lot of kind of hard to decipher ancient law language. Sure,
(12:21):
and he found inside drama fit for a masterpiece theater.
Like once he could decipher the swoopy script. It was
a story of squabbles and family feud that shed a
lot of light on the founding of the institution that
employs us. So, I don't know, how do you guys
(12:43):
want to hear the story?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yes, please, okay, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So to tell the story, we have to go back
to Georgian England seventeen hundreds, mid seventeen hundreds. We're in
the quiet countryside of Bath, England, where lived a woman
named Elizabeth Macy. And just to sort of set the
scene because it helps me think, like Jane Austen, Pride
(13:07):
and Prejudice era, this is what we're talking like high aristocracy.
Who you are and how you were, who to whom
you were born is all of great importance. So in
seventeen sixty four, Elizabeth Macy is living a comfortable life
in the quiet countryside of Bath, England. She's a widow.
Her husband had been dead for over a decade. I
(13:28):
think he died when she was in her twenties. When
she realizes that she is pregnant, and this is a
surprise because she's thirty six. So that's kind of old
for the times, especially at the time, especially at the
time I am thirty six. I want to specify, it's
not old now.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For the time, even today though, Like I have a
friend who just got pregnant who is about thirty seven
or thirty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
A doctor will say you need a little extra check.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It on. Oh yeah, it's just the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So in these days this very likely could have been
a particularly difficult situation.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yes, so she's thirty six, she's pregnant, her husband's been
dead for over a decade, and the father of this
child is the Duke of Northumberland.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Max, can we get a gasp? All right, perfect cantal?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Oh? Yes, by heavens, because to be a widow in
these days too was like almost a status where it's like,
you're supposed to just mourn your dead husband.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
We're black and just never go outside.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, just linger in the horizon of social events, on
the edge.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And say, staring off into the middle distance.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It also makes someone kind of a social I don't
want to say, an outcast, but on the fringe of
this pride and prejudice esque society we're.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Describing, right, you spend your time wandering your garden and
penning letters to your female friends.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yes, exactly. So.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Not only is the father the first Duke of Northumberland.
It gets worse. So the first Duke of Northumberland is married,
and he's married to Elizabeth's cousin.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Oh see, this is what happens when you have a
real small social circuit.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
It's true. Yes, this is the hazard of a small
social circle. So so she's in a bit of a bind.
And to make matters worse, this is seventeen sixties England.
This is exactly when we see the rise of what
would today be called the tabloids. So there's this new
gossip magazine out there. It's called Town and Country, and
(15:40):
the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland are all over it.
People want to know what are their parties, like, what
are they wearing, who are they hanging out with, et cetera,
et cetera. So Elizabeth Macy is like, ye, Town and
Country cannot find out about this, God.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Forbid, this should be you know, an absolute pr nightmare.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
This is for the Duke anyway.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
This is also the MySpace of their day, right, or
that's not a dated reference, but this is sort of
the social media, right, the public commons of communications.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So sort of, yeah, a peek into the lives of
the rich and famous and powerful.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Right absolutely, and the country, yes, the Town and the Country.
And remember there wasn't like a whole lot of TV
programming or other things going on at the time, so
people were really interested. So Elizabeth does what many many
women did at the time. And she goes off to
Paris to have her baby in secret, and it's a
boy named James, so she names him James Macy, after
(16:40):
her late husband. I guess just so that people who
are really bad at math will think that maybe he's legitimate.
And then she comes.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Back home clever girl.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Yeah, and she raises James herself. And I think it's
relevant to say a little bit more about Elizabeth's family background,
which is what we were able to discover of her
through this document that showed up at the Smithsonian with
the bundle of court documents called the Hungerford Deed. Sheds
a lot of light into this particular family. So Elizabeth
(17:12):
and her family were descendants of prominent, wealthy medieval family
called the Hungerfords, and this document is called the Hungerford Deed.
They were really rich, they married into royalty, they owned
a lot of land. They were like the landed gentry.
But by the time our story takes place, their wealth
was sort of dwindling, and they had even had to
(17:32):
sell the family castle. I'm waiting for the gas. I'm
waiting for the gas.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The family castle exactly sell the other castle.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
What would the other castle be, the neighbor's castle.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
The cottage castle, you know what I mean, in the
equivalent of the Hampton's or whatever.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yes, So the historian that I spoke with for this
episode calls this this whole phenomenon like the cult of ancestry.
You know, birthright was a huge deal and what you
inherited mattered a lot. So in seventeen sixty five, the
year that she gave birth to James, Elizabeth's brother died.
She had there were three of them. She had a
(18:21):
brother and a sister, and her brother being the man,
was you know, the heir to all of their wealth.
And he his name was Lumly Hungerford Keat And that's
first namely firstlum was his first name.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Do you think people called him lum for sure? Lee
Lummy Lee would have been good.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I think they called him lomlum That's cute, I'm behind.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, super prestigious as well. It's better than Malay, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Lumly just really is a marble mouthed kind of name.
It's lovely, not have.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
A good malg Lumly.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It is kind of a lumpy one.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's the word.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
If he yeah. Well anyway, okay, so enough about him.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
He died. Oh no, he died, and now we're making
fun of his name.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yes, let's take a moment though, to mourn him and
then we'll move on. Okay, great, let's go.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Can we get Max? Can we get kind of like
a soulful R and B mournful?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, mournful, soulful bois to men so hard to say
goodbye to yesterday?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Exact? Get out of my head, that's what I'm thinking.
But we don't have the we don't have the rights.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Sound alike.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
We'll do sound alike to think. We can use our imaginations.
There's Max picked an incredible sound cure for this.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Fantastic Thank you so much, Max, and and Lizzie. For context, here,
in this period of time, this this part of the
eighteenth century, it is unfortunately not uncommon to have a
sibling pass away, right in untimely manner, right.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Right, So this wouldn't have been so uncommon. Wait, are
you just belittling his death? Now? Are you? Like? It's sad?
But not that said, I have.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
A personal vendetta every death. Reasons we're not going to
explain because we're a family show.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Okay, so yeah, so it wouldn't have been that uncommon
that Lumley died, but what was uncommon was that he
had no will and no heirs, so there really wasn't
all of his all the family wealth just was sort
of dropped in the lapse of the two sisters, Elizabeth
and Henrietta, and they had to kind of figure out
what to do with it and how to divide it
(20:22):
between them. And that is the hunger Ford Deed, this
big old document that William Bennett parsed through.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Why do I keep hitting my head hearing the hunger
Games games. I know that's not what we're talking about,
but I just had to get it out there so
maybe it would stop, the voices would stop saying this
to me.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
But please please carry on. I apologize.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
I like it. It's it's got a cutthroat edge to
it that I think fit.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Because people are definitely there's some games being played here.
I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And so here we have an acrimonious legal battle, right.
Hungerford games, I think is a pretty good phrase for this.
Because Elizabeth and her sister Henrietta are suddenly landed right
in their own right. They've inherited a tragic windfall. But
(21:21):
they are far from the only living members of the family, right.
They are not the last of their line, which means
for anybody who's been in a similar situation in more
recent years, it means that people can come out of
the woodwork cousins you may not be too familiar with.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
That was the case. So once Elizabeth and Henrietta realized
they had inherited these lands, the first thing they discovered
is that they had a bunch of cousins living on
their land and they had to boot them off the land.
So that didn't go over well with their cousins, and
thus began the first of many many lawsuits. There was
suing and counter suing and counter counter suing, but eventually
(22:02):
they got their cousins off their land, and they turned
and looked at each other and they're like, okay, now
we have to divide it between us. But the problem
was that it didn't divide evenly down the middle. So
they drew straws, and one of them was going to
get a bigger piece than the other. So Elizabeth drew
the short straw and Henrietta drew the long straw. She
got the bigger piece of land, and that meant that
(22:24):
she needed to pay Elizabeth the sum to kind of
make up for the difference, but she did not.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Oh so, now are they for another completely non dated reference,
Now are they in kind of a Highlanders situation? Like
the movie? Like you know, there can only be one,
can be only one? There we can be.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
I haven't seen Highlanders, so.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I guess it's okay. That's not it has boiled. It's
not very good. We basically gave you the best part
of the film.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Sean Connery, though, does have an incredible outfit, but.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's pretty bad earring. It's like his all right, that's
a different show.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's also almost like Sean Connery is doing a bad
Scottish accent, which is like weird considering that Sean Connery
is in fact Scottish. But he's like really just chewing
the scenery in this but unrelated.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
To today's story, but just a little.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We have to get in our Highlander dig in today's episode.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Right, we are contractually bound to do so, and we
drew the short straw on this episode. So this is
the one where we crack on Highlander and lovely And
it turns out that Elizabeth and Henrietta, despite being actual sisters,
do eventually after eliminating the rest of the families claims.
(23:40):
They do have this straw drawing situation and things go awry.
So they don't just solve this between sisters, do they
take it back to the courts?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Well, at first, Elizabeth is pretty patient and she's like, hey,
waiting for that check any day now, and Henriette is
I m m hmm, and then doesn't doesn't really respond
for a while, and they sort of go back and forth,
and Elizabeth kind of like, hey, you know, anytime you
wanted to give me that money, that'd be great, and
Henriette is like yeah, yeah, yeah, and then they know
she doesn't hear from her again, and so eventually Elizabeth
(24:15):
does sue her sister, and it's it. It is highly acrimonious,
and Henrietta doesn't even show up in court, and by
this time they're no longer speaking to each other, and
it's it's it's really what what William told me is that,
you know, reading through the document, it just gives you
a picture of the kind of woman that Elizabeth was,
and how she was described as litigious and haughty and
(24:38):
passionate and smart, and she got what she wanted and it.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Was not gonna lie. Really, you know plucky I would
add plucky in there, I don't.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
So this is the this is the atmosphere that young
James is growing up in. He's watching his mother sue
everyone she knows and and over lands that are inherited
that he will never inherit because he is illegitimate. He
is the bastard son of a duke, and so he's
kind of he had a front row seat of the
importance of lineage in this rigidly hierarchical society, and his
(25:17):
own lack of a father had a huge impact on him.
It carried a stigma in a way that I think
it's hard for us even to fully understand in the
modern context. But as an example, when he enrolled at Oxford,
you had to sign this ledger book, and right next
to your name you wrote your father's name, and he
(25:37):
left his father's name blank. And for pages and pages
and pages before and after years and years and years,
not a single other person left that spot blank. So
it was like this glaring omission in this big book
of important and learned people. So that really it really
got to him and his illegitimacy was public knowledge, but
(25:58):
his paternity, like, he knew who his father was, everyone
knew he was illegitimate. Nobody knew who his father was really,
but he did. And Heather Ewing, the historian I spoke
with sort of we infer that he probably really hoped
that his father would recognize him before his death, maybe
(26:22):
at least acknowledged that he was his son, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So they didn't have you know, they didn't have a
familiar relationship. No, we'd consider them pretty much totally estranged.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Completely estranged. Yeah, I don't know that they ever even spoke.
I mean, there was no open acknowledgment that James was
the Duke's son ever. And when James was a young man,
his father died, and that was that there was no
chance of any kind of recognition or coming together. There
was no like bedside scene of you know, weeping in
(26:57):
each other's arms.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And we can add that to the adaptation, right, sure,
we just shoehorn one of those in and it seems
like it belongs.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Just a caption at the beginning that says, inspired by
a true story.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Gosh, well, after this baby reindeer Shenanigan, I don't think
anyone's ever going to say something was definitely a true story. However,
I think probably best to just say inspired by actual
events and just go from there.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Memory is subjective. Who can who completely agree?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
We have a thing we call a ridiculous history cinematic universe. So, Lizzie,
we often in our heads are building out what the
film adaptation of this might look like. But in our
present day, our William Bennett is finding out about this
as he's reading this rehydrated sheepskin, and I imagine at
(27:54):
this point there has not been a film adaptation of
this strange story.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Not yet. But for those with funding and the interest,
come hither.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We're here to entertain all pitches. Yes, hold the phone,
said Alexander Brandell, joking a joke that will work earlier.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh my god, this is this is.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Part one of our exploration of the origin of the
Grand Smithsonian Institution with none other than the physical embodiment
of the Smithsonian. Host and producer of Side Door, Lizzie
Peabody and Noel we knew this was going to be
such an amazing time. And Max with the kids call
(28:41):
a banger yeah or a hoop nanny. I don't think
the kids. We know different kids there. So if you
if you had asked us, if you had you know,
been like Noel, Max, what's the story about the Smithsonian,
We couldn't really have told you, especially not near as
(29:01):
well as the actual experts at the Smithsonian. So this
is part one. Please tune in later in just a
few days for part two. And Noel, you know, we're
not exactly sure where we're gonna cut this, but I
think we're killing it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So first of all, let us thank her said embodiment,
Lizzie Peabody for her time on the show. Thanks to
some producer Max Williams, Alex Williams, you Cobozar team.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And thanks of course to our own stuffy aristocrat Jonathan
Strickland aka the Quiztor. Thanks to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor
Rachel Big Spinach Lance Gonna have to find a street
name for Lizzie in a little bit, but maybe that's
for part two. Thanks to Chris Rossiotis E's Jeff Goat
(29:48):
here in spirit and Noel has always thanks to you
you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear from the man the myth legend,
our super producer, mister Max Williams as I am here,
and I am mister Max Williams, and I am Ben.
I don't go with it and I've been bullend. That's
mister Noel Brown as always, and Noel, A funny thing
(00:49):
happened on the way to Podcast Movement. We had an
amazing time meeting a lot of our friends, new and old,
a lot of colleagues, and during one of the panels
we did, we connected with a dream team that we've
talked about quite often in the history of this show,
the Smithsonian Institution.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
The smith the very Smithsonian Institute. We encountered it in
its human personified form at Podcast Movements and it.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Was a delight.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And we are pleased to inform you Rick the Historians
that we have the actual human embodiment of the Smithsonian
Institute with us here on the podcast today.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Ben tallas Mark, Yes, the.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Rumors are true. The Smithsonian Institution's podcast side door is
helmed by the audio producers, storyteller and senior producer Lizzie
Peabody from Washington, DC, And Lizzie, you were here with
us today. Holy smokes, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Wow, you're welcome. I've never been introduced as the human
embodiment of an institution, and I feel heavier already.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
The pressure is indeed on because not only has he
given you the most difficult to live up to honorific
I guess in our introduction of you, but we are
literally today talking about the very founding of the institution
in which you yourself personally embody.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
Yes, yes, indeed, which is a founding not many people
know about.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
And you know, when you think of the founding of
like an institution that you know is funded by an
endowment and things like that, you don't really usually think
it's a sexy kind of exciting story. But you hipped
us to this story, and we were fully on board
from the word go.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
It is a sexy story, yes, I mean a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So could we get the lay of the land here,
I think most people are before we dive in. I
think most people are familiar with the Smithsonian Institution. Could
you tell us a little bit about Side Door and
the mission of this show and what it explores.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Yes, I would love to. Side Door is the Smithsonian
Institution's podcast, meaning we broadcast stories from across the many
museums and research complexes, which currently is in the twenties.
There's you know, the many museums, the National Zoo, there's
(03:29):
a lot of research centers as well, and so we
get to tell stories of history, science, art and culture
that you might miss on a typical trip to the
National Ball and a meander through one of the museums.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Amazing, amazing, and that reminds me, you know, like like
you said earlier, Noel, stories that people might miss. In
an episode of side Door, you explore the origin story,
the genesis of the Great Smithsonian, and it all begins
(04:03):
with a guy named William Bennett.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yes, sort of sort I mean, well, let me actually
can I I just thought just had an idea and
I let me just tell like, okay, So let me
just say, you know, I think a lot of people
when they think of the Smithsonian, they think a museum,
or maybe a few museums, But there is nothing more
iconic than the red sandstone castle on the National Mall.
(04:29):
It's got turrets, it's got like it looks old and important. Uh,
And people walk by it every day on the National Mall,
not knowing that it is actually home to a crypt.
And inside of the crypt is the body of a
person who I would like to tell you about, whose
story is a little bit. His story is relatively unknown
(04:52):
and intricately tied to the founding of the Smithsonium.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I don't know that couldn't have asked. I couldn't have
asked for a better set up. I have to be
honest with everybody here right now. I have not been
to a Smithsonian museum. I've only been to Washington, d C.
Twice in my life, once as a child where we
did like some tour type stuff and that did not
include the Smithsonian. And I went recently for the first
(05:17):
time as an adult and was just passing through.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
We didn't have the time.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
But after talking with you, I cannot wait to see
this this this this building that you're talking about. It
sounds epically fascinating and just sort of like it would
loom very large and be sort of a curiosity kind.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Of moment, like what is that?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
And I'm excited to find out before I go take
a visit, so I can right believe that.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
I know, I can't believe that we're going We're going
to It's had to be honest, my favorite. You know,
I go to d C not too infrequently, and it
is by far one of my favorite stops in a
city filled with wonders. We've gotta we've got to get
you there, so maybe we travel. We're scheduling this right
(06:02):
to travel irl as they say, maybe Lizzie, you can,
you can take us there through the cinema of the mind.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
I would love to do that, I have to admit.
I So I go running on the National Mall every evening.
And did I tell you guys a story when we talk? Okay,
so I not every evening, let's be real, but as
many evenings as I can make myself, I go for
a jog down on the National Mall. It's great. It's
one of the great parts of living in DC. And
(06:29):
this one evening last spring, I was jogging back from
the Washington Monument toward the Capitol, past the Smithsonian Castle,
and there was like a little segue tour happening, and
the tour guide was saying something no offense but kind
of boring about like the amount of money that it
took to start the Smithsonian and this is the Smithsonian.
(06:51):
He was about to move on, and I was like, wait,
there's more to the story, and.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Oh, I go And then I just actually the tour guide.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
I commandeered it. I was I was such a jerk.
And then I stood there like sweating, profusely gesticulating, telling
this story that I find so cool. And they were
all leaning for it on their segways, but not too
much or it would have been a disaster. And yeah,
and and I told this story, and afterward they all applauded,
and I ran off into the sunset.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
And true, and I take my leave. I got my
favorite tour cameo ever. Fantastic.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
I know it made me like the most annoying person
in the universe, but I cannot regret it. I just
don't regret it.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
You're like the tour guide vigilante.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I think there's like a meme on the Internet where
Skeletor from the he Man Cartoons pops in and says
like an uncomfortable fact and they goes has a and
then he runs away, you know, kind of like that's
you and I often will commandeer a tour, uh in
that I will sort of piggyback on it, like if
I like I was recently in Boston walking around the
Freedom Trail and there was a dude dressed as Paul
(08:03):
Revere giving a tour of like this historic cemetery, and
me and my friend which kind of casually, you know,
sort of like shadowed them a little bit, like, you know,
we didn't pay for the tour. I don't know if
it was a paid tour, but we sort of, you know,
kind of stalked the tour. But you did the exact opposite,
or if it can be considered the opposite, I applaud you.
That is an act of patriotism right there.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Ah, thank you. I feel seen you should do well.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So let's definitely on segues.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Yeah, yeah, so let's get into some more of this lore.
I mean, we're talking about this building. There's a secret crypt.
I know, we've got something of a mysterious package that
sort of starts the story.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Why don't we start there?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Maybe?
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Yes, Okay, let's start there. So a few years ago,
in twenty nineteen, this package arrived at the Smithsonian Libraries
and Archives and it was the gift. It was an
anonymous donation. And so William Bennett, the conservator that I
spoke to in you know, inside Door we tell the story,
(09:03):
and William Bennett is one of the experts that I
spoke with directly, and it was his job to open
this up and figure out what it was. And it
was this pretty old document seventeen eighty seven, like only
a little bit younger than the United States. And it
was this bundle of like sixteen parchment pages that were
(09:25):
when he unfolded them, which took a while because he
had to sort of hydrate the pages because they're made
of animal skins and they were all crinkled and crackled together.
He discovered, I mean, unfolded, it's like the size of picture,
like a baby blanket, like a really like these are
big pieces of paper, and he estimated probably sixteen sheeps
(09:45):
worth of parchment. You know, you get like one piece
of parchment peep.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, of course, yes, it's like a bolty we.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Now, Liszie, let's post here real quick. I imagine it
is not abnormal for the Smithsonian to receive all sorts
of interesting mail and solicited a.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Very interesting like yeah, Ben, no, it it occurs to me,
like it's just is this just like in a bubble mailer, Like,
how is how is this arriving?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
You know, completely unannounced?
Speaker 1 (10:21):
So Lizzie Treaty. Tell us first, is it unusual for
the Smithsonian to receive this kind of correspondence or is
this like a semi frequent kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
It's pretty frequent that people will try to give their
things to the Smithsonian.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Dropping books off at a library.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, yeah, bless your heart, we don't want your grandma's quilled.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah, exactly, we have some old furniture. Surely it, you know,
is a familion of national importance, you know, please take
it off our hands. So it is not a common babies, Yes, yes,
we've turned away. I don't know how many beanie babies
Linzelman in American history has probably turned away, but I'm
(11:02):
guessing a lot. So yeah, it's not uncommon that people
do offer their belongings. But I think what was noteworthy
about this document is that it was so old and
so important to the history of the Smithsonian, and that
I don't think anyone at the Smithsonian even knew it
existed until it showed.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I guess that's my thing though, you'd think there would
have been a call or someone would have set up
a handoff and not just sent this in the mail
like it just Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Let me be clear, I don't actually know. There may
have been a call. In my imagination, it was dropped
off like a you know, like a baby on the doorstep. Sure,
in the dead of night, swaddled up and yeah, exactly
that's how it happened in my imagination. In reality, it
may have been a little more bureaucratic.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
But no, no, no, it's all coming out. We need
to leave them.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
But the story's still good. The story's still Gooding this,
we're hydrating the sheep skin, we're opening it up. And
William he spends a lot of time looking at old
you know, legal ease, and he's expecting it to be
a lot of kind of hard to decipher ancient law language. Sure,
(12:21):
and he found inside drama fit for a masterpiece theater.
Like once he could decipher the swoopy script. It was
a story of squabbles and family feud that shed a
lot of light on the founding of the institution that
employs us. So, I don't know, how do you guys
(12:43):
want to hear the story?
Speaker 1 (12:44):
Yes, please, okay, absolutely.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
So to tell the story, we have to go back
to Georgian England seventeen hundreds, mid seventeen hundreds. We're in
the quiet countryside of Bath, England, where lived a woman
named Elizabeth Macy. And just to sort of set the
scene because it helps me think, like Jane Austen, Pride
(13:07):
and Prejudice era, this is what we're talking like high aristocracy.
Who you are and how you were, who to whom
you were born is all of great importance. So in
seventeen sixty four, Elizabeth Macy is living a comfortable life
in the quiet countryside of Bath, England. She's a widow.
Her husband had been dead for over a decade. I
(13:28):
think he died when she was in her twenties. When
she realizes that she is pregnant, and this is a
surprise because she's thirty six. So that's kind of old
for the times, especially at the time, especially at the
time I am thirty six. I want to specify, it's
not old now.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
For the time, even today though, Like I have a
friend who just got pregnant who is about thirty seven
or thirty eight.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
A doctor will say you need a little extra check.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
It on. Oh yeah, it's just the thing.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
So in these days this very likely could have been
a particularly difficult situation.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yes, so she's thirty six, she's pregnant, her husband's been
dead for over a decade, and the father of this
child is the Duke of Northumberland.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
Max, can we get a gasp? All right, perfect cantal?
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Oh? Yes, by heavens, because to be a widow in
these days too was like almost a status where it's like,
you're supposed to just mourn your dead husband.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
We're black and just never go outside.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
Yeah, just linger in the horizon of social events, on
the edge.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
And say, staring off into the middle distance.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
It also makes someone kind of a social I don't
want to say, an outcast, but on the fringe of
this pride and prejudice esque society we're.
Speaker 4 (14:53):
Describing, right, you spend your time wandering your garden and
penning letters to your female friends.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yes, exactly. So.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Not only is the father the first Duke of Northumberland.
It gets worse. So the first Duke of Northumberland is married,
and he's married to Elizabeth's cousin.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
Oh see, this is what happens when you have a
real small social circuit.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
It's true. Yes, this is the hazard of a small
social circle. So so she's in a bit of a bind.
And to make matters worse, this is seventeen sixties England.
This is exactly when we see the rise of what
would today be called the tabloids. So there's this new
gossip magazine out there. It's called Town and Country, and
(15:40):
the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland are all over it.
People want to know what are their parties, like, what
are they wearing, who are they hanging out with, et cetera,
et cetera. So Elizabeth Macy is like, ye, Town and
Country cannot find out about this, God.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Forbid, this should be you know, an absolute pr nightmare.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
This is for the Duke anyway.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
This is also the MySpace of their day, right, or
that's not a dated reference, but this is sort of
the social media, right, the public commons of communications.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
So sort of, yeah, a peek into the lives of
the rich and famous and powerful.
Speaker 4 (16:17):
Right absolutely, and the country, yes, the Town and the Country.
And remember there wasn't like a whole lot of TV
programming or other things going on at the time, so
people were really interested. So Elizabeth does what many many
women did at the time. And she goes off to
Paris to have her baby in secret, and it's a
boy named James, so she names him James Macy, after
(16:40):
her late husband. I guess just so that people who
are really bad at math will think that maybe he's legitimate.
And then she comes.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Back home clever girl.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Yeah, and she raises James herself. And I think it's
relevant to say a little bit more about Elizabeth's family background,
which is what we were able to discover of her
through this document that showed up at the Smithsonian with
the bundle of court documents called the Hungerford Deed. Sheds
a lot of light into this particular family. So Elizabeth
(17:12):
and her family were descendants of prominent, wealthy medieval family
called the Hungerfords, and this document is called the Hungerford Deed.
They were really rich, they married into royalty, they owned
a lot of land. They were like the landed gentry.
But by the time our story takes place, their wealth
was sort of dwindling, and they had even had to
(17:32):
sell the family castle. I'm waiting for the gas. I'm
waiting for the gas.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
The family castle exactly sell the other castle.
Speaker 4 (17:49):
What would the other castle be, the neighbor's castle.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
The cottage castle, you know what I mean, in the
equivalent of the Hampton's or whatever.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
Yes, So the historian that I spoke with for this
episode calls this this whole phenomenon like the cult of ancestry.
You know, birthright was a huge deal and what you
inherited mattered a lot. So in seventeen sixty five, the
year that she gave birth to James, Elizabeth's brother died.
She had there were three of them. She had a
(18:21):
brother and a sister, and her brother being the man,
was you know, the heir to all of their wealth.
And he his name was Lumly Hungerford Keat And that's
first namely firstlum was his first name.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Do you think people called him lum for sure? Lee
Lummy Lee would have been good.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I think they called him lomlum That's cute, I'm behind.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, super prestigious as well. It's better than Malay, I guess.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Lumly just really is a marble mouthed kind of name.
It's lovely, not have.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
A good malg Lumly.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
It is kind of a lumpy one.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, yeah, that's the word.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
If he yeah. Well anyway, okay, so enough about him.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
He died. Oh no, he died, and now we're making
fun of his name.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yes, let's take a moment though, to mourn him and
then we'll move on. Okay, great, let's go.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Can we get Max? Can we get kind of like
a soulful R and B mournful?
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Yeah, mournful, soulful bois to men so hard to say
goodbye to yesterday?
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Exact? Get out of my head, that's what I'm thinking.
But we don't have the we don't have the rights.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Sound alike.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
We'll do sound alike to think. We can use our imaginations.
There's Max picked an incredible sound cure for this.
Speaker 1 (19:28):
Fantastic Thank you so much, Max, and and Lizzie. For context, here,
in this period of time, this this part of the
eighteenth century, it is unfortunately not uncommon to have a
sibling pass away, right in untimely manner, right.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
Right, So this wouldn't have been so uncommon. Wait, are
you just belittling his death? Now? Are you? Like? It's sad?
But not that said, I have.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
A personal vendetta every death. Reasons we're not going to
explain because we're a family show.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Okay, so yeah, so it wouldn't have been that uncommon
that Lumley died, but what was uncommon was that he
had no will and no heirs, so there really wasn't
all of his all the family wealth just was sort
of dropped in the lapse of the two sisters, Elizabeth
and Henrietta, and they had to kind of figure out
what to do with it and how to divide it
(20:22):
between them. And that is the hunger Ford Deed, this
big old document that William Bennett parsed through.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Why do I keep hitting my head hearing the hunger
Games games. I know that's not what we're talking about,
but I just had to get it out there so
maybe it would stop, the voices would stop saying this
to me.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
But please please carry on. I apologize.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
I like it. It's it's got a cutthroat edge to
it that I think fit.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Because people are definitely there's some games being played here.
I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
And so here we have an acrimonious legal battle, right.
Hungerford games, I think is a pretty good phrase for this.
Because Elizabeth and her sister Henrietta are suddenly landed right
in their own right. They've inherited a tragic windfall. But
(21:21):
they are far from the only living members of the family, right.
They are not the last of their line, which means
for anybody who's been in a similar situation in more
recent years, it means that people can come out of
the woodwork cousins you may not be too familiar with.
Speaker 4 (21:40):
That was the case. So once Elizabeth and Henrietta realized
they had inherited these lands, the first thing they discovered
is that they had a bunch of cousins living on
their land and they had to boot them off the land.
So that didn't go over well with their cousins, and
thus began the first of many many lawsuits. There was
suing and counter suing and counter counter suing, but eventually
(22:02):
they got their cousins off their land, and they turned
and looked at each other and they're like, okay, now
we have to divide it between us. But the problem
was that it didn't divide evenly down the middle. So
they drew straws, and one of them was going to
get a bigger piece than the other. So Elizabeth drew
the short straw and Henrietta drew the long straw. She
got the bigger piece of land, and that meant that
(22:24):
she needed to pay Elizabeth the sum to kind of
make up for the difference, but she did not.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Oh so, now are they for another completely non dated reference,
Now are they in kind of a Highlanders situation? Like
the movie? Like you know, there can only be one,
can be only one? There we can be.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
I haven't seen Highlanders, so.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I guess it's okay. That's not it has boiled. It's
not very good. We basically gave you the best part
of the film.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Sean Connery, though, does have an incredible outfit, but.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
It's pretty bad earring. It's like his all right, that's
a different show.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It's also almost like Sean Connery is doing a bad
Scottish accent, which is like weird considering that Sean Connery
is in fact Scottish. But he's like really just chewing
the scenery in this but unrelated.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
To today's story, but just a little.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
We have to get in our Highlander dig in today's episode.
Speaker 1 (23:19):
Right, we are contractually bound to do so, and we
drew the short straw on this episode. So this is
the one where we crack on Highlander and lovely And
it turns out that Elizabeth and Henrietta, despite being actual sisters,
do eventually after eliminating the rest of the families claims.
(23:40):
They do have this straw drawing situation and things go awry.
So they don't just solve this between sisters, do they
take it back to the courts?
Speaker 4 (23:53):
Well, at first, Elizabeth is pretty patient and she's like, hey,
waiting for that check any day now, and Henriette is
I m m hmm, and then doesn't doesn't really respond
for a while, and they sort of go back and forth,
and Elizabeth kind of like, hey, you know, anytime you
wanted to give me that money, that'd be great, and
Henriette is like yeah, yeah, yeah, and then they know
she doesn't hear from her again, and so eventually Elizabeth
(24:15):
does sue her sister, and it's it. It is highly acrimonious,
and Henrietta doesn't even show up in court, and by
this time they're no longer speaking to each other, and
it's it's it's really what what William told me is that,
you know, reading through the document, it just gives you
a picture of the kind of woman that Elizabeth was,
and how she was described as litigious and haughty and
(24:38):
passionate and smart, and she got what she wanted and it.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Was not gonna lie. Really, you know plucky I would
add plucky in there, I don't.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
So this is the this is the atmosphere that young
James is growing up in. He's watching his mother sue
everyone she knows and and over lands that are inherited
that he will never inherit because he is illegitimate. He
is the bastard son of a duke, and so he's
kind of he had a front row seat of the
importance of lineage in this rigidly hierarchical society, and his
(25:17):
own lack of a father had a huge impact on him.
It carried a stigma in a way that I think
it's hard for us even to fully understand in the
modern context. But as an example, when he enrolled at Oxford,
you had to sign this ledger book, and right next
to your name you wrote your father's name, and he
(25:37):
left his father's name blank. And for pages and pages
and pages before and after years and years and years,
not a single other person left that spot blank. So
it was like this glaring omission in this big book
of important and learned people. So that really it really
got to him and his illegitimacy was public knowledge, but
(25:58):
his paternity, like, he knew who his father was, everyone
knew he was illegitimate. Nobody knew who his father was really,
but he did. And Heather Ewing, the historian I spoke
with sort of we infer that he probably really hoped
that his father would recognize him before his death, maybe
(26:22):
at least acknowledged that he was his son, but he didn't.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So they didn't have you know, they didn't have a
familiar relationship. No, we'd consider them pretty much totally estranged.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Completely estranged. Yeah, I don't know that they ever even spoke.
I mean, there was no open acknowledgment that James was
the Duke's son ever. And when James was a young man,
his father died, and that was that there was no
chance of any kind of recognition or coming together. There
was no like bedside scene of you know, weeping in
(26:57):
each other's arms.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
And we can add that to the adaptation, right, sure,
we just shoehorn one of those in and it seems
like it belongs.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
Just a caption at the beginning that says, inspired by
a true story.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Gosh, well, after this baby reindeer Shenanigan, I don't think
anyone's ever going to say something was definitely a true story. However,
I think probably best to just say inspired by actual
events and just go from there.
Speaker 4 (27:24):
Memory is subjective. Who can who completely agree?
Speaker 1 (27:29):
We have a thing we call a ridiculous history cinematic universe. So, Lizzie,
we often in our heads are building out what the
film adaptation of this might look like. But in our
present day, our William Bennett is finding out about this
as he's reading this rehydrated sheepskin, and I imagine at
(27:54):
this point there has not been a film adaptation of
this strange story.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Not yet. But for those with funding and the interest,
come hither.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We're here to entertain all pitches. Yes, hold the phone,
said Alexander Brandell, joking a joke that will work earlier.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Oh my god, this is this is.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
Part one of our exploration of the origin of the
Grand Smithsonian Institution with none other than the physical embodiment
of the Smithsonian. Host and producer of Side Door, Lizzie
Peabody and Noel we knew this was going to be
such an amazing time. And Max with the kids call
(28:41):
a banger yeah or a hoop nanny. I don't think
the kids. We know different kids there. So if you
if you had asked us, if you had you know,
been like Noel, Max, what's the story about the Smithsonian,
We couldn't really have told you, especially not near as
(29:01):
well as the actual experts at the Smithsonian. So this
is part one. Please tune in later in just a
few days for part two. And Noel, you know, we're
not exactly sure where we're gonna cut this, but I
think we're killing it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
So first of all, let us thank her said embodiment,
Lizzie Peabody for her time on the show. Thanks to
some producer Max Williams, Alex Williams, you Cobozar team.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
And thanks of course to our own stuffy aristocrat Jonathan
Strickland aka the Quiztor. Thanks to aj Bahamas, Jacobs, Doctor
Rachel Big Spinach Lance Gonna have to find a street
name for Lizzie in a little bit, but maybe that's
for part two. Thanks to Chris Rossiotis E's Jeff Goat
(29:48):
here in spirit and Noel has always thanks to you
you as well, Ben. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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