June 1, 2023 • 36 mins
Since 1800, the Library of Congress has functioned as the national library of the United States. Don't let the name fool you -- this institution isn't just a bunch of dusty old tomes and long-forgotten letters from politicians. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max explore some of the weirdest things in the joint, from ancient cuneiform to human hair and, honestly, some stuff so lewd that we decided not to put it in the description.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth,
the legend, our super producer Max, the Librarian Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, you're the librarian sorts. He's the keeper of the
ridiculous archives. Yeah, library of ridiculousness. These are things that exist.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I guess, yeah, I guess we do have archives
now because we've.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Been we've been doing this show proseby too, your nol.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm ben, what is an archive if not just a
repository of information, no matter how stupid?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Right, Yes, I love I love that idea. Man, what
about the library of the worst books or the library
of unnecessary things? And sit I also like that you're
pointing out that a library is more than just a
room with a bunch of books in it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh big time.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean, I mean I remember growing up, like
one of the places that I first was exposed to
kind of more artsy films was the library. You know,
they usually would have like some criterion collection, things that
you could take out from the library.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Or even like anime graphic novels and stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I mean, like, I was always a big fan of
the local library because it actually also had some kind
of stuff that would probably if your parents knew about it,
be considered a little naughty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and also, you know, as you guys know, I
live very close to a library here in our fair
metropolis of Atlanta. I like to hang out there. It's
one of the few places in the US culturally where
you can hang out indoors without having to spend money.
And you know, some people love that, some people hate that.
(02:11):
I think we all agree that libraries are important. And
here in the United States there is a big deal library,
the Library of Congress. That's what today's episode is about
because to the earlier point, man, there's a lot more
than books in there, and we're going to talk about
(02:33):
some of the most ridiculous things.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I also just want to make clear I was not
checking out like adult material from the library. I'm just
talking about you know, there's some steamy scenes in some
of those Stephen King novels.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Exactly, mind reader, that's the thing. Yeah. The first time
I read Stephen King's it, I was probably too young.
I was a little little latchkey kids is volunteering at
the library, and folks are so excited when they see
children reading that sometimes they don't ask what the kids
are reading. That being said, I am absolutely against banning books.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think we've made that clear on both of our shows.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
But the thing about today's episode is, do you think
you think about a thing called the Library of Congress.
It sounds like just the most you know, the highest
form of library in the United States of these America.
I must only hold the most you know, high minded
of wisdom, containing you know.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Tomes right then right, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Nothing frivolous or tawdry a.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So, yes, that that is perfect. That is the perfect setup.
So let's go to Jeff Summers, writing for grunge dot
com as an introduction. Here he says it is possibly
the largest library in the world. Now there are contenders
for that title, and the library itself holds more than
(04:00):
one hundred and sixty two million what they call assets
in four hundred and fifty different languages. As we'll see,
one of the oldest things in the Library of Congress
is not in English. It's in it's Kinea form.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Like they go deep.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And one thing that's important to remember is for the
most part. This stuff is stuff. This is physical media.
Think of like the Library of Alexander, the idea of
like a repository of the world's not necessarily always knowledge,
but just its history. You know, because sometimes in artifact,
even if it's not some sort of genius take, you know,
it is in and of itself a piece of history.
(04:39):
We're going to talk about some of those pieces that,
while on the surface might seem a little silly, are
actually really really important.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But first of all, let's just talk a little bit
about the.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
History of the Library of Congress, often shorthandified as the Luck.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, the loc right. So it's very old, at
least for this states. It was created more than two
centuries ago, in eighteen hundred. Like the Library of Alexandria,
this place is burned down more than once. We can
go directly to the Library of Congress official website and
(05:16):
they point out that from the very early days of
the conspiracy that led to the creation of this country,
folks understood the importance and power of knowledge. Books and
libraries were essential to the aims and the values that
were set out. Since the US started using I guess
(05:38):
you could say, and you know, no secret Illiteracy was
much more common in the early days right around the world.
But the founding fathers all had some pretty pretty high end,
top notch.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Educations they did, and this is they were they and
this is education that came largely from, you know, from
books to help kind of support that education. So they
also realized and understood that books were very important. So
in eighteen hundred, as part of an Act of Congress
that moved the national government from Philadelphia to Washington, John
Adams added in an Act of Congress that provided five
(06:20):
thousand dollars for books to be used by said Congress.
And this started what is now the Library of Congress.
There was a joint actually the first ever joint committee
in Congress, the Joint Congressional Committee, that would basically provide
staff and oversee the creation of this this library.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And for anyone yearning for the inflation calculator, you're going
to be surprised. Five thousand dollars in eighteen hundred was
only Yeah, if we it was only it would only
be worth about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Today
(07:06):
there's a lot of eighty two. Yeah, it's not too shabby. Yeah,
but I just budget. I'm just like the Library of
Congress is such a leviathan of knowledge, right, a repository,
as you said, I was shape. They started with a
little more seed money.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But nope.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, like any collection, you know, these things kind of
tend to build over time. So that's why I started
to see and we also saw it go through several iterations.
Thomas Jefferson went on to approve a legislative compromise that
essentially invented a brand new job, the Librarian of Congress,
and created this It required a presidential appointment to be
(07:44):
this librarian.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, Library of Congress.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
The final boss of library acts. There's only been fourteen
so far, and they all, like you said, no, they
all have to get appointed by the president. Jefferson names
the first two librarians, and each of them had also
served or served concurrently as clerk at the House of Representatives, and.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That makes sense. Yeah, you know again again this is
the zero shade on But it requires a little bit of,
you know, fastidious organizational skills. It might come with someone
like a clerk or a treasurer, parliamentarian press.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Very diplomatic. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, So Jefferson does this in eighteen o two, and
he returns to save the library during the War of
eighteen twelve. This is where we get to shout out
a returning guest, Jesslyn Shields, who writes for our alma
mater Houstuffworks dot Com. She describes how the original library
(08:48):
was in the US Capitol and it was burned down
by British troops. They went through yeah coats, yes, yes,
the redcoats. Very confusing for those colonists who are colorblinds.
But they they burned down the whole place. And three
years later the Library of Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson's personal library.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Okay, okay, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
There were probably some redundant tomes in there from that
original collection, right, Yeah, I got a wonder.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Jefferson Bible the Weirdness Director's cut.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Ever, Oh boy, I don't think I know about the
Jefferson Bible. But like we're talking works of philosophy, like
the classics, right is that? Like we're talking like maybe
legal books, things like things like that. What would have
comprised the first run at creating the stock for the
Library of Congress.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So pre Jefferson, when the library, when the Library first
came in. They were collecting a lot of documents in general,
and you nailed it with the classics, but they're also
there's a reason the clerk is the librarian, right, they're
a also collecting a lot of documentation related to government affairs,
(10:06):
and they get a bit more esoteric, one would imagine
when they get old Tommy Jay's collection the Jefferson Bible.
By the way, we just got to mention this. I
can't believe we haven't done an episode on this. So
this guy, Thomas Jefferson, famously imperfect dude. He went through
(10:27):
the Christian Bible and he cut out all almost all
of the supernatural stuff, all the stuff he considered supernatural, Okay,
which is kind of missing the point a lot of that. Yeah,
that's like a pretty dull read. And really quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
This is a question that came up for me that
may have been coming up for some of you fair listeners.
The National Archives and the Library of Congress are two
different things.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, good call.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yes, the Library is actually part of the legislative branch
of the US government, and the Archives as an independent
agency that's part of the executive branch. And the reason
I bring that up is early days of the Library
of Congress. You mentioned a lot of documents and historical
records and things like that is now more under the
purview of the Archives.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I see, okay, And that's an important distinction. So we
need both of them. They are not redundant. The Library
of Congress surviving eighteen twelve. They buy Thomas Jefferson's collection
of books, and he had more than six thousand. He
had like sixty five hundred different works, and they continued growing.
(11:37):
But their problems did not end there. In the early
days of the library, well the early decades, if we're
being honest, there was not enough space for all the
stuff they wanted. The fire was a clear and present
danger at all times. They didn't have a staff adequate
(12:00):
to the job, and they also eternally had funding problems.
This thing popularized literacy. It popularized literature to the general
public of the US, but it's mainly for Congress in
those early days. It's mainly for when Congress members have
(12:22):
a question, when they need to refer to something. It's
like their version of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, So, I mean, like I said, it would have
been all kinds of probably legal journals, scholarly journals and
things like that of the time that would have been,
you know, an answer to a particular conundrum that might
have popped up. Now it's a little more of a
historical kind of site, you know. It's it's an actual
physical location. So it is. It is a really interesting
(12:52):
counterpoint to the Internet in ad age, where so much information,
or at the very least physical versions of information, seem
very throwaway.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I think it's important that something like that still exists.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Agreed one hundred percent. Okay, So we're all familiar with
the US Civil War. That happens. Things are bad for
a while, and the country gets through it. The economy
begins to expand, Uncle Sam as the federal government is
growing like gangbusters. The city of Washington, DC is also growing.
(13:23):
This is where we introduce the Librarian of Congress from
eighteen sixty four to eighteen ninety seven, Ainsworth Rand Spofford,
real name Weird. So Spofford says, look, we're in a
very important time right now for the country. You folks
(13:44):
in Congress, you need to understand. The loc is a
national institution. It is the National Library. And Spofford says,
we need a single place a one stop shop for
American publications, and it should also be for the people,
not just for Congress. And this guy plays a huge
(14:06):
role in centralizing copyright registrations at the Library of Congress.
And this happens in eighteen seventy, so midway through his career.
That's the reason you can submit a book or a
work to the Library of Congress today. And we have
a slight plot twist at the end. There's going to
(14:28):
be a lot of plot twists in this episode, I suspect,
but Noel, we've eaten our vegetables. You, Max and I
have given our fellow ridiculous historians the history of the library.
But that's not why we're here today, is.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We're here to talk about all the weird things that
are contained there, and we sort of tease that up.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Tom.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So let's start with comic books, which is again one
of the things that I was so excited to be
able to discover at my own local library. Yeah, it's awesome.
The Library of Congress actually is the home of the
world's largest collection of comic books, numbering in the hundreds
of thousands, around one hundred and forty thousand items. The
(15:20):
Washington Post took a look at the collection and reported
that in twenty eighteen, a collector by the name of
Stephen A. Jeppy donated three thousand comics out of his
own personal collections, some of which were like really really
valuable and historically important comics like Action Comics number one,
which of course the first appearance of Superman, and some
(15:42):
of the original storyboards that Walt Disney Company did for
the Mickey for the first Mickey Mouse short ever.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Produced amazing stuff. Right, we can read a lot of
lists out there in the public sphere now about these
weird things. Again, we shouted out summers over Ack Runge
did great work with his hidden secrets of the Library
of Congress. You'll also see things that are not from
(16:09):
the States. As as we teased earlier. There's, for instance,
the vod Si Mueller World Map from fifteen o seven.
Not a book, definitely a map. This guy created the
first map of the globe as far as people knew,
at least Western cultures knew, and fifteen o seven and
(16:30):
this was this was new and stunning for its time
because it included what they were calling the New World,
the South and North American continents based on the voyages
of Amerigo Vespucci. And yes, America is named after this guy,
(16:51):
Amerigo Vespucci, who is a real bag of badgers and
probably worthy of his own episod. I don't even want
to tease it more than that. You shouldn't they just haven, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
just trust us, it'll be worth it. So the Library
(17:11):
of Congress owns the only surviving copy of this map's
original printing, and it was made from a woodcut on
twelve different sheets of paper. And on this map, Vould
simular calls the New World America because it's a latinized
version of Vespucci's first name. Sometimes people refer to this
(17:36):
map as America's birth certificate.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, The Vold Semular World Map another thing that is
contained within the Library of Congress that might seem, you know,
like a small thing, but actually, when looked at in
the greater context of who it's kind of speaking about,
it's sort of a big thing. It is a recipe
from Rosa Parks, a figure seen as quite you know,
larger than life in the history of this country in
(18:03):
terms of you know, her place and pushing civil rights forward.
It is the a recipe for peanut butter pancakes. And
this is really interesting on a couple of levels because
originally peanuts, you know, while plentiful, were kind of considered
to not be a food that was eaten by, you know, members.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Of the higher class.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
It was actually a food that was consumed largely by
African slave populations in the South. And it was also
in an effort to kind of help black farmers and
improve their kind of lot in life, was offered up
to them as a cash crop, you know, to give
them something other than cotton to farm, given the you know,
fraught nature of that crop, cotton that is. And so
(18:47):
for Rosa Parks to have a recipe for this, it
was something that really connected to the black community, connected
to the struggle for civil rights, and also was just
like a really fun, delicious recipe. She wrote on the
back of a banking envelope, the equivalents of like, you know,
a note written on a cocktail napkin. I mean, it
really is just kind of a snapshot of Rosa Parks.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
This is kind of day to day life.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, And we know that people from the African continent
were the first folks to introduce peanuts to North America,
which is also you know, it's a strange thing. You
travel to other countries and people often think of peanut
butter as this weird, uniquely American thing. You don't see
(19:35):
it in a lot of grocery stores outside of this country.
And you're right, well, you put it so beautifully. Rosa
Parks is struggling financially at the time, and so she
uses scrap paper to write down this peanut butter pancake recipe,
and it is. It's just one of those amazing pieces
(19:56):
of history that could have easily been forgotten where it
not for places like the Library of Congress. Now there
is another place which is full of weird things. That place,
famously owned by Elia Musk is Twitter. And in twenty ten,
before Musk gets involved, Twitter makes a deal with the
(20:19):
Library of Congress. They say we're going to go all
the way back to the very first tweets in two
thousand and six, in each and every public tweet will
be in the Library of Congress. So if you tweeted
in the early days of Twitter, then you are in
the Library of Congress. Congratulations. Everybody knows your weird hot
(20:43):
takes on the people who are sitting next to you
on the plane, at least if you tweeted before twenty eighteen.
In twenty eighteen, the library finally says, Okay, we've got enough.
We don't need all the tweets, we don't need everybody's
weird takes about stuff. We're gonna only archive the most
(21:05):
notable tweets.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But do you know, like when they're saying they're archiving
these tweets, is it is it all in like a
digital version or are they're not like printing out tweets,
signing them.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I hope they're printing them out, and I hope they're
putting them in.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Would cut for that would be incredible, That would be incredible.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
But like you said, the essentially the volume of tweets,
you know, billions in fact, were not something that the
library could keep a hold of, you know, keep keep
on top of them. So instead they decided just to
collect and archive some of the more, you know, notable
tweets from notable personalities. Or I guess one perhaps that
we're associated with certain cultural events or historical events, you know,
(21:44):
like the Arab spring.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
No. I think you're probably to something that Ben and
I have talked about earlier today. So we had our
bi weekly slight call, and that very end of it
was kind of like, yeah, if you have to reach
out to me, guys, reach out to me. Through it
sounded like he was about to go into the spiel
at the end of a show, like you can find
me on Twitter at blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So I've decided that our slate have.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
To do all of our official communications now via Ben's
Twitter page. I love it, so all of our official
iHeart thanks and this is on Twitter already. So now
the Library of Congress will have to keep check of
all of our official business communications that we're doing via
Twitter now.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So Ben, oh, of course, yes, and and well well additionally,
you know, I think it's important for us to once
again iterate that any and all complaints should go to
our official complaint department at John Strickland on Twitter or
Jonathan Strickland at iHeartRadio dot com. Thank you for your service, Twister.
(22:42):
So you're right, though, Nolan, even though it might sound
weird that they stop collecting tweets, because there's not a
physical form unless they're printing it out, unless they're putting
it on lithographs or woodcuts, but there is server space,
and that server space is finite. The library was unable,
(23:04):
by their own admission, to cope with the just the
sheer massive tweets. People love having their small, short, weird
takes on stuff myself included. There are billions and billions
of billions of tweets, and so the library said, you know,
they love organization, They said, we don't have a plan
in place to organize these and make it a publicly
(23:26):
accessible database. It's just an infinite mass of messy spaghetti.
And all those tweets that they collected from two thousand
and six to twenty eighteen, they're all just sort of
thrown into servers. It's probably buried. So if you have
a weird hot take that you wish you hadn't said
(23:46):
in you know, eight or nine, a Reddit detective will
find it before the Library of Congress does.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, exactly, So you're probably safe there for now. Yeah, exacly.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Moving on to things that are a little more tangible,
or at least back to things that a little more tangible,
it's sort of in like a bit of an ick
factor way as well. This is maybe not so much,
but when before photographs were something that was accessible to everybody.
One thing that folks might do to remember somebody or
to you know, have a little keepsake was to send
(24:21):
or you know, hold on to a lock of someone's hair.
Also something that would be done after someone had passed away.
So the Library of Congress is actually a possession of
all kinds of locks of hair, like an alarming amount,
you know, from famous.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And unknown individuals alike.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, they have a problematic amount of hair for
a library. Yeah, we're talking about George Washington's hair is
in there. That Beethoven's got some hair in there. Melissy's
s grant Edna Saint Vincent Malay. James Madison apparently made
a really weird, intricate knot of his own hair and
(25:04):
he gave it to this girl he was dating. That's
in there. There was another one to think about, anonymous hair.
Probably my favorite story here is the Library of Congress
possesses mystery hair that was sent to President James Garfield
and the only note was my compliments. Whomever this was,
(25:28):
the Garfield probably knew knew their identity because he kept
this hair in his diary and they got it, the
library got it after he died. And speaking of presidents.
As you might imagine, folks, there's a lot of presidential
stuff in the library.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh yeah, let's go to their old pal, honest abe Lincoln,
specifically some personal effects that were carried on his person
when he was assassinated, things like a pair of glasses
that actually been This is another interesting view into the
life of a larger than life figure. A pair of
glasses that had been repaired with a little piece of string,
(26:15):
a pocket knife which may well have been used to
actually repair the glasses in the first place, a gold
watch fob, a handkerchief and cuff links with his monogram
on them, and also a leather wallet with newspaper clippings
following the events of the Civil War, and five bucks
in Confederate script.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah what a flex? Right, what a flex? Abraham be
an extra. His personal belongings were given to his son, Robert,
and Robert later passed those on to his daughter. So
for those of us following along at home, that would
be Lincoln's granddaughter. And she eventually donates the items to
(26:58):
the loc and nineteen thirty seven. Weirdly enough, decades decades
pass no one opens the box. In nineteen seventy six,
someone finally gets to it because again, staffing has been
a problem for a long time, and they say, oh,
this is Abe Lincoln's stuff, so I guess we should
(27:22):
keep it. Good thing we open the boxes before we
throw them out, all right. And here's one that excites
our research associate, mister Max Williams to no end. There
is a glass flute in the Library of Congress. Bloodlinin
was a flute maker in the early eighteen hundreds and
(27:43):
in eighteen oh six Claude Patten's the first glass flute.
Flutes at the time were not made of glass. They
were made of wood or ivory. And the problem with
that is, like you guys, as musicians know, when humanity changes,
when the temperature changes, it can throw the instrument off
(28:06):
depending on its materials. So a glass flute doesn't have
those same problems. And it became It didn't become the norm, obviously,
but it did become a really popular novelty. And it
wasn't until after Claude died that metal flutes became the norm.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, and you might remember there was a big hubbub
around the pop singer Lizzo playing this playing one round
glass flutes. I believe it was like the maybe the Grammys,
I think it was, but you know, she is actually
a very accomplished floutist. And there was three of these
flutes were owned by President James Madison and Lizzo actually
(28:47):
played it on stage in twenty twenty two, you know,
as part of a partnership I guess with the Library
of Congress. But I think there was some focus maybe
on the.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
More extreme side of politics.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Say that kind of took issue with that and claimed
that it was in some way like sullying the legacy of.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Sure, you know, okay, all right, all of that's yeah. Anyway,
I gotta.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Say there was two things that spurred on me writing
this brief.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
One of them was this.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The other one I'm gonna hold on to and I'll
say it later on why kind thought of like, let's
do a dive into this and all. But yeah, people
were very upset when that happened, and I thought it
was awesome because it's a musical instrument, let's use it.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
How is it a hot take to play a musical
instrument for the purpose, like to use a thing for
the purpose it was designed. That's ridiculous anyway, you know what,
that's still not the weirdest one. One of the weirdest
things would be briece yourself, folks, in a big thank
you to all the teachers who play our show for classrooms.
(29:51):
You are the cool teachers. Just gonna give you a
heads up. This one is sexually frank. It is pornography.
Is in the Library of Congress. You might have heard
of something called the Delta Collection. We're going to give
you a heads up, folks. It is not about airplanes.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Nope, it's not.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
If you ask about that, you're going to be exposed
to a cavalcade of historic pornography. Literary Hub writes about
the Delta Collection and refers to it as one time
being the largest collection of pornography and erotic material in
the world. It was established to be kind of a
holding space for obscene materials that were seized by federal agents,
(30:33):
and then to serve as a database so that law
enforcement could actually kind of catalog which types of literature
should be considered pornography. You know, the whole I know
when I see it kind of thing. But this is
an interest during an interesting time for this type of
material in the United States. It was actually kept quite
secret and very rarely discussed openly, but that you know,
(30:56):
has since changed since seeing people are obviously we're talking
about people are aware of this porn stash, the US
government's porn stash, let's call it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, And here's the weirdest thing about it. Okay, So
why do they have this? Are they just naughty people secretly?
Not really, at least most of them. This literature is
quite useful because for a long time it was secret
and they didn't talk about it in public because it
(31:25):
seems very morally problematic, right given the various moral panics
in US history. But it served as a catalog of obscenity.
We always remember those famous quotes. I think it was
the court case about James Joyce's ulysses where they said,
(31:45):
I don't have a working definition of obscene, but I
know it when I see it. This catalog is a
reference device that law enforcement and the courts could use
for researching and defining what they considered obscene. There was
one guy at the Library of Congress who was super
into this. We have to introduce you very briefly and
(32:07):
a safer work way, to a dude named Ralph Whittington.
Ralph Whittington had a private collection of pornography that almost
surpasses the Delta collection of the Library of Congress. This
guy is super into historical depictions of naughty bits to
(32:30):
beast with two backs, the Australias, the Netherlands, the other
realm regions. Okay, and he actually sold his collection eventually
to the Museum of Sex, which is in New York City,
which is also a pretty cool place if you've ever
been you want to check out some of the history
of depictions of sex throughout pop culture and history, that
(32:52):
is the place to go. Moving on, we've got a
pretty robust collection of celebrity palm prints, because of course
we do. Why wouldn't we Yeah, yeah, I guess why
wouldn't you know?
Speaker 3 (33:07):
What you know?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It was the palm reading All of this stuff was
very popular in the twenties and thirties. There was one
of the most famous palmists in the world, a woman
by the name of Nellie Simmons Meyer. She read the
poems of some really notable figures throughout history, George Gershwin,
Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a heap of other folks
(33:29):
and would take these palm prints along with their autograph.
You know in the process. When she passed, she donated
a portion of her collection to the Library of Congress,
including the one of Amelia Earhart, which was one of
the most you know, popular attractions there.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And we still have the analysis from this studier of palms.
If you are wondering what Earhart's palm says about her,
apparently it reveals her passion for flying, as well as
a love of physical activity and a strong will, attention
to detail, pursuit of perfection, ambitious yet rational. It's very strange, right,
(34:14):
I know that you can submit add a number of
things to the Library of Congress. I feel like we
do have to give a shout out here. The oldest
written thing in the library is that canaform tablet, dating
from at least twenty forty BCE. But you can be
a part of the Library of Congress too, folks. That's
(34:34):
the best news. That's the plot twist here, Noel or
pal Matt and I wrote a book for one of
our shows. Stuff they don't want you to know, And
I'm going to do it, Matt. I'm going to send
it to the Library of Congress.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I think you should.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
They'll take it as a gift.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I think, yeah, I think it's a grand idea.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
What else would you put in the Library of Congress.
You can send music, there's a ton of music there historically.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Again, well, what's the whole.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Deal with copyright? You know, as it pertains the Library
of Congress. Isn't that one way of like copyrighting something,
or like if you have a song or a song lyric,
if you send it to the Library of Congress and
it's recorded, then it's officially you know, you can prove
that you copyrighted it.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You can indeed register things with the Library of Congress.
And if you, like us, love validation, then this might
be this might be a fun adventure for you. We
still haven't scratched the surface of all the other weird
stuff in the Library of Congress. But I think we're
(35:35):
all on the same page when we say we're grateful
that this exists.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Absolutely we are, and I'm also anyone else I'm grateful
that exists.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Ben, I think you're gonna say, peanut butter pancakes.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Peanut butter pancakes are really good.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Said, that's part of our that's basically, we're grateful for
all these individuals.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Alex Williams, who composed are.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Max william Our research associates, Doctor Z and Jeff. We
also want to thank you's Jeff Coates. We're getting Jeff
Rich here. We also, of course want to thank Christopher Hasiotis.
We want to thank all the hardworking folks at the
Library of Congress, with a special shout out to the
(36:20):
current librarian, Harla Hayden.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is the production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth,
the legend, our super producer Max, the Librarian Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, you're the librarian sorts. He's the keeper of the
ridiculous archives. Yeah, library of ridiculousness. These are things that exist.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
And I guess, yeah, I guess we do have archives
now because we've.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Been we've been doing this show proseby too, your nol.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'm ben, what is an archive if not just a
repository of information, no matter how stupid?
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Right, Yes, I love I love that idea. Man, what
about the library of the worst books or the library
of unnecessary things? And sit I also like that you're
pointing out that a library is more than just a
room with a bunch of books in it.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Oh big time.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
Yeah, I mean, I mean I remember growing up, like
one of the places that I first was exposed to
kind of more artsy films was the library. You know,
they usually would have like some criterion collection, things that
you could take out from the library.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Or even like anime graphic novels and stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I mean, like, I was always a big fan of
the local library because it actually also had some kind
of stuff that would probably if your parents knew about it,
be considered a little naughty.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Yeah, and also, you know, as you guys know, I
live very close to a library here in our fair
metropolis of Atlanta. I like to hang out there. It's
one of the few places in the US culturally where
you can hang out indoors without having to spend money.
And you know, some people love that, some people hate that.
(02:11):
I think we all agree that libraries are important. And
here in the United States there is a big deal library,
the Library of Congress. That's what today's episode is about
because to the earlier point, man, there's a lot more
than books in there, and we're going to talk about
(02:33):
some of the most ridiculous things.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
I also just want to make clear I was not
checking out like adult material from the library. I'm just
talking about you know, there's some steamy scenes in some
of those Stephen King novels.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
Exactly, mind reader, that's the thing. Yeah. The first time
I read Stephen King's it, I was probably too young.
I was a little little latchkey kids is volunteering at
the library, and folks are so excited when they see
children reading that sometimes they don't ask what the kids
are reading. That being said, I am absolutely against banning books.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
I think we've made that clear on both of our shows.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
But the thing about today's episode is, do you think
you think about a thing called the Library of Congress.
It sounds like just the most you know, the highest
form of library in the United States of these America.
I must only hold the most you know, high minded
of wisdom, containing you know.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Tomes right then right, well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Nothing frivolous or tawdry a.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So, yes, that that is perfect. That is the perfect setup.
So let's go to Jeff Summers, writing for grunge dot
com as an introduction. Here he says it is possibly
the largest library in the world. Now there are contenders
for that title, and the library itself holds more than
(04:00):
one hundred and sixty two million what they call assets
in four hundred and fifty different languages. As we'll see,
one of the oldest things in the Library of Congress
is not in English. It's in it's Kinea form.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Like they go deep.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
And one thing that's important to remember is for the
most part. This stuff is stuff. This is physical media.
Think of like the Library of Alexander, the idea of
like a repository of the world's not necessarily always knowledge,
but just its history. You know, because sometimes in artifact,
even if it's not some sort of genius take, you know,
it is in and of itself a piece of history.
(04:39):
We're going to talk about some of those pieces that,
while on the surface might seem a little silly, are
actually really really important.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
But first of all, let's just talk a little bit
about the.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
History of the Library of Congress, often shorthandified as the Luck.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, the loc right. So it's very old, at
least for this states. It was created more than two
centuries ago, in eighteen hundred. Like the Library of Alexandria,
this place is burned down more than once. We can
go directly to the Library of Congress official website and
(05:16):
they point out that from the very early days of
the conspiracy that led to the creation of this country,
folks understood the importance and power of knowledge. Books and
libraries were essential to the aims and the values that
were set out. Since the US started using I guess
(05:38):
you could say, and you know, no secret Illiteracy was
much more common in the early days right around the world.
But the founding fathers all had some pretty pretty high end,
top notch.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Educations they did, and this is they were they and
this is education that came largely from, you know, from
books to help kind of support that education. So they
also realized and understood that books were very important. So
in eighteen hundred, as part of an Act of Congress
that moved the national government from Philadelphia to Washington, John
Adams added in an Act of Congress that provided five
(06:20):
thousand dollars for books to be used by said Congress.
And this started what is now the Library of Congress.
There was a joint actually the first ever joint committee
in Congress, the Joint Congressional Committee, that would basically provide
staff and oversee the creation of this this library.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And for anyone yearning for the inflation calculator, you're going
to be surprised. Five thousand dollars in eighteen hundred was
only Yeah, if we it was only it would only
be worth about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. Today
(07:06):
there's a lot of eighty two. Yeah, it's not too shabby. Yeah,
but I just budget. I'm just like the Library of
Congress is such a leviathan of knowledge, right, a repository,
as you said, I was shape. They started with a
little more seed money.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But nope.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Well, like any collection, you know, these things kind of
tend to build over time. So that's why I started
to see and we also saw it go through several iterations.
Thomas Jefferson went on to approve a legislative compromise that
essentially invented a brand new job, the Librarian of Congress,
and created this It required a presidential appointment to be
(07:44):
this librarian.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Yeah, Library of Congress.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
The final boss of library acts. There's only been fourteen
so far, and they all, like you said, no, they
all have to get appointed by the president. Jefferson names
the first two librarians, and each of them had also
served or served concurrently as clerk at the House of Representatives, and.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
That makes sense. Yeah, you know again again this is
the zero shade on But it requires a little bit of,
you know, fastidious organizational skills. It might come with someone
like a clerk or a treasurer, parliamentarian press.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Very diplomatic. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Yeah, So Jefferson does this in eighteen o two, and
he returns to save the library during the War of
eighteen twelve. This is where we get to shout out
a returning guest, Jesslyn Shields, who writes for our alma
mater Houstuffworks dot Com. She describes how the original library
(08:48):
was in the US Capitol and it was burned down
by British troops. They went through yeah coats, yes, yes,
the redcoats. Very confusing for those colonists who are colorblinds.
But they they burned down the whole place. And three
years later the Library of Congress purchased Thomas Jefferson's personal library.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Okay, okay, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
There were probably some redundant tomes in there from that
original collection, right, Yeah, I got a wonder.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Jefferson Bible the Weirdness Director's cut.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Ever, Oh boy, I don't think I know about the
Jefferson Bible. But like we're talking works of philosophy, like
the classics, right is that? Like we're talking like maybe
legal books, things like things like that. What would have
comprised the first run at creating the stock for the
Library of Congress.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So pre Jefferson, when the library, when the Library first
came in. They were collecting a lot of documents in general,
and you nailed it with the classics, but they're also
there's a reason the clerk is the librarian, right, they're
a also collecting a lot of documentation related to government affairs,
(10:06):
and they get a bit more esoteric, one would imagine
when they get old Tommy Jay's collection the Jefferson Bible.
By the way, we just got to mention this. I
can't believe we haven't done an episode on this. So
this guy, Thomas Jefferson, famously imperfect dude. He went through
(10:27):
the Christian Bible and he cut out all almost all
of the supernatural stuff, all the stuff he considered supernatural, Okay,
which is kind of missing the point a lot of that. Yeah,
that's like a pretty dull read. And really quickly.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
This is a question that came up for me that
may have been coming up for some of you fair listeners.
The National Archives and the Library of Congress are two
different things.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, good call.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Yes, the Library is actually part of the legislative branch
of the US government, and the Archives as an independent
agency that's part of the executive branch. And the reason
I bring that up is early days of the Library
of Congress. You mentioned a lot of documents and historical
records and things like that is now more under the
purview of the Archives.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I see, okay, And that's an important distinction. So we
need both of them. They are not redundant. The Library
of Congress surviving eighteen twelve. They buy Thomas Jefferson's collection
of books, and he had more than six thousand. He
had like sixty five hundred different works, and they continued growing.
(11:37):
But their problems did not end there. In the early
days of the library, well the early decades, if we're
being honest, there was not enough space for all the
stuff they wanted. The fire was a clear and present
danger at all times. They didn't have a staff adequate
(12:00):
to the job, and they also eternally had funding problems.
This thing popularized literacy. It popularized literature to the general
public of the US, but it's mainly for Congress in
those early days. It's mainly for when Congress members have
(12:22):
a question, when they need to refer to something. It's
like their version of the Internet.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Basically.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, So, I mean, like I said, it would have
been all kinds of probably legal journals, scholarly journals and
things like that of the time that would have been,
you know, an answer to a particular conundrum that might
have popped up. Now it's a little more of a
historical kind of site, you know. It's it's an actual
physical location. So it is. It is a really interesting
(12:52):
counterpoint to the Internet in ad age, where so much information,
or at the very least physical versions of information, seem
very throwaway.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
I think it's important that something like that still exists.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Agreed one hundred percent. Okay, So we're all familiar with
the US Civil War. That happens. Things are bad for
a while, and the country gets through it. The economy
begins to expand, Uncle Sam as the federal government is
growing like gangbusters. The city of Washington, DC is also growing.
(13:23):
This is where we introduce the Librarian of Congress from
eighteen sixty four to eighteen ninety seven, Ainsworth Rand Spofford,
real name Weird. So Spofford says, look, we're in a
very important time right now for the country. You folks
(13:44):
in Congress, you need to understand. The loc is a
national institution. It is the National Library. And Spofford says,
we need a single place a one stop shop for
American publications, and it should also be for the people,
not just for Congress. And this guy plays a huge
(14:06):
role in centralizing copyright registrations at the Library of Congress.
And this happens in eighteen seventy, so midway through his career.
That's the reason you can submit a book or a
work to the Library of Congress today. And we have
a slight plot twist at the end. There's going to
(14:28):
be a lot of plot twists in this episode, I suspect,
but Noel, we've eaten our vegetables. You, Max and I
have given our fellow ridiculous historians the history of the library.
But that's not why we're here today, is.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
No, it's not.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
We're here to talk about all the weird things that
are contained there, and we sort of tease that up.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Tom.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
So let's start with comic books, which is again one
of the things that I was so excited to be
able to discover at my own local library. Yeah, it's awesome.
The Library of Congress actually is the home of the
world's largest collection of comic books, numbering in the hundreds
of thousands, around one hundred and forty thousand items. The
(15:20):
Washington Post took a look at the collection and reported
that in twenty eighteen, a collector by the name of
Stephen A. Jeppy donated three thousand comics out of his
own personal collections, some of which were like really really
valuable and historically important comics like Action Comics number one,
which of course the first appearance of Superman, and some
(15:42):
of the original storyboards that Walt Disney Company did for
the Mickey for the first Mickey Mouse short ever.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Produced amazing stuff. Right, we can read a lot of
lists out there in the public sphere now about these
weird things. Again, we shouted out summers over Ack Runge
did great work with his hidden secrets of the Library
of Congress. You'll also see things that are not from
(16:09):
the States. As as we teased earlier. There's, for instance,
the vod Si Mueller World Map from fifteen o seven.
Not a book, definitely a map. This guy created the
first map of the globe as far as people knew,
at least Western cultures knew, and fifteen o seven and
(16:30):
this was this was new and stunning for its time
because it included what they were calling the New World,
the South and North American continents based on the voyages
of Amerigo Vespucci. And yes, America is named after this guy,
(16:51):
Amerigo Vespucci, who is a real bag of badgers and
probably worthy of his own episod. I don't even want
to tease it more than that. You shouldn't they just haven, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
just trust us, it'll be worth it. So the Library
(17:11):
of Congress owns the only surviving copy of this map's
original printing, and it was made from a woodcut on
twelve different sheets of paper. And on this map, Vould
simular calls the New World America because it's a latinized
version of Vespucci's first name. Sometimes people refer to this
(17:36):
map as America's birth certificate.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, The Vold Semular World Map another thing that is
contained within the Library of Congress that might seem, you know,
like a small thing, but actually, when looked at in
the greater context of who it's kind of speaking about,
it's sort of a big thing. It is a recipe
from Rosa Parks, a figure seen as quite you know,
larger than life in the history of this country in
(18:03):
terms of you know, her place and pushing civil rights forward.
It is the a recipe for peanut butter pancakes. And
this is really interesting on a couple of levels because
originally peanuts, you know, while plentiful, were kind of considered
to not be a food that was eaten by, you know, members.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Of the higher class.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
It was actually a food that was consumed largely by
African slave populations in the South. And it was also
in an effort to kind of help black farmers and
improve their kind of lot in life, was offered up
to them as a cash crop, you know, to give
them something other than cotton to farm, given the you know,
fraught nature of that crop, cotton that is. And so
(18:47):
for Rosa Parks to have a recipe for this, it
was something that really connected to the black community, connected
to the struggle for civil rights, and also was just
like a really fun, delicious recipe. She wrote on the
back of a banking envelope, the equivalents of like, you know,
a note written on a cocktail napkin. I mean, it
really is just kind of a snapshot of Rosa Parks.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
This is kind of day to day life.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, And we know that people from the African continent
were the first folks to introduce peanuts to North America,
which is also you know, it's a strange thing. You
travel to other countries and people often think of peanut
butter as this weird, uniquely American thing. You don't see
(19:35):
it in a lot of grocery stores outside of this country.
And you're right, well, you put it so beautifully. Rosa
Parks is struggling financially at the time, and so she
uses scrap paper to write down this peanut butter pancake recipe,
and it is. It's just one of those amazing pieces
(19:56):
of history that could have easily been forgotten where it
not for places like the Library of Congress. Now there
is another place which is full of weird things. That place,
famously owned by Elia Musk is Twitter. And in twenty ten,
before Musk gets involved, Twitter makes a deal with the
(20:19):
Library of Congress. They say we're going to go all
the way back to the very first tweets in two
thousand and six, in each and every public tweet will
be in the Library of Congress. So if you tweeted
in the early days of Twitter, then you are in
the Library of Congress. Congratulations. Everybody knows your weird hot
(20:43):
takes on the people who are sitting next to you
on the plane, at least if you tweeted before twenty eighteen.
In twenty eighteen, the library finally says, Okay, we've got enough.
We don't need all the tweets, we don't need everybody's
weird takes about stuff. We're gonna only archive the most
(21:05):
notable tweets.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
But do you know, like when they're saying they're archiving
these tweets, is it is it all in like a
digital version or are they're not like printing out tweets,
signing them.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
I hope they're printing them out, and I hope they're
putting them in.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Would cut for that would be incredible, That would be incredible.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
But like you said, the essentially the volume of tweets,
you know, billions in fact, were not something that the
library could keep a hold of, you know, keep keep
on top of them. So instead they decided just to
collect and archive some of the more, you know, notable
tweets from notable personalities. Or I guess one perhaps that
we're associated with certain cultural events or historical events, you know,
(21:44):
like the Arab spring.
Speaker 4 (21:46):
No. I think you're probably to something that Ben and
I have talked about earlier today. So we had our
bi weekly slight call, and that very end of it
was kind of like, yeah, if you have to reach
out to me, guys, reach out to me. Through it
sounded like he was about to go into the spiel
at the end of a show, like you can find
me on Twitter at blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
So I've decided that our slate have.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
To do all of our official communications now via Ben's
Twitter page. I love it, so all of our official
iHeart thanks and this is on Twitter already. So now
the Library of Congress will have to keep check of
all of our official business communications that we're doing via
Twitter now.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
So Ben, oh, of course, yes, and and well well additionally,
you know, I think it's important for us to once
again iterate that any and all complaints should go to
our official complaint department at John Strickland on Twitter or
Jonathan Strickland at iHeartRadio dot com. Thank you for your service, Twister.
(22:42):
So you're right, though, Nolan, even though it might sound
weird that they stop collecting tweets, because there's not a
physical form unless they're printing it out, unless they're putting
it on lithographs or woodcuts, but there is server space,
and that server space is finite. The library was unable,
(23:04):
by their own admission, to cope with the just the
sheer massive tweets. People love having their small, short, weird
takes on stuff myself included. There are billions and billions
of billions of tweets, and so the library said, you know,
they love organization, They said, we don't have a plan
in place to organize these and make it a publicly
(23:26):
accessible database. It's just an infinite mass of messy spaghetti.
And all those tweets that they collected from two thousand
and six to twenty eighteen, they're all just sort of
thrown into servers. It's probably buried. So if you have
a weird hot take that you wish you hadn't said
(23:46):
in you know, eight or nine, a Reddit detective will
find it before the Library of Congress does.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Yeah, exactly, So you're probably safe there for now. Yeah, exacly.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Moving on to things that are a little more tangible,
or at least back to things that a little more tangible,
it's sort of in like a bit of an ick
factor way as well. This is maybe not so much,
but when before photographs were something that was accessible to everybody.
One thing that folks might do to remember somebody or
to you know, have a little keepsake was to send
(24:21):
or you know, hold on to a lock of someone's hair.
Also something that would be done after someone had passed away.
So the Library of Congress is actually a possession of
all kinds of locks of hair, like an alarming amount,
you know, from famous.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
And unknown individuals alike.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Yeah, yeah, they have a problematic amount of hair for
a library. Yeah, we're talking about George Washington's hair is
in there. That Beethoven's got some hair in there. Melissy's
s grant Edna Saint Vincent Malay. James Madison apparently made
a really weird, intricate knot of his own hair and
(25:04):
he gave it to this girl he was dating. That's
in there. There was another one to think about, anonymous hair.
Probably my favorite story here is the Library of Congress
possesses mystery hair that was sent to President James Garfield
and the only note was my compliments. Whomever this was,
(25:28):
the Garfield probably knew knew their identity because he kept
this hair in his diary and they got it, the
library got it after he died. And speaking of presidents.
As you might imagine, folks, there's a lot of presidential
stuff in the library.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Oh yeah, let's go to their old pal, honest abe Lincoln,
specifically some personal effects that were carried on his person
when he was assassinated, things like a pair of glasses
that actually been This is another interesting view into the
life of a larger than life figure. A pair of
glasses that had been repaired with a little piece of string,
(26:15):
a pocket knife which may well have been used to
actually repair the glasses in the first place, a gold
watch fob, a handkerchief and cuff links with his monogram
on them, and also a leather wallet with newspaper clippings
following the events of the Civil War, and five bucks
in Confederate script.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Yeah what a flex? Right, what a flex? Abraham be
an extra. His personal belongings were given to his son, Robert,
and Robert later passed those on to his daughter. So
for those of us following along at home, that would
be Lincoln's granddaughter. And she eventually donates the items to
(26:58):
the loc and nineteen thirty seven. Weirdly enough, decades decades
pass no one opens the box. In nineteen seventy six,
someone finally gets to it because again, staffing has been
a problem for a long time, and they say, oh,
this is Abe Lincoln's stuff, so I guess we should
(27:22):
keep it. Good thing we open the boxes before we
throw them out, all right. And here's one that excites
our research associate, mister Max Williams to no end. There
is a glass flute in the Library of Congress. Bloodlinin
was a flute maker in the early eighteen hundreds and
(27:43):
in eighteen oh six Claude Patten's the first glass flute.
Flutes at the time were not made of glass. They
were made of wood or ivory. And the problem with
that is, like you guys, as musicians know, when humanity changes,
when the temperature changes, it can throw the instrument off
(28:06):
depending on its materials. So a glass flute doesn't have
those same problems. And it became It didn't become the norm, obviously,
but it did become a really popular novelty. And it
wasn't until after Claude died that metal flutes became the norm.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Yeah, and you might remember there was a big hubbub
around the pop singer Lizzo playing this playing one round
glass flutes. I believe it was like the maybe the Grammys,
I think it was, but you know, she is actually
a very accomplished floutist. And there was three of these
flutes were owned by President James Madison and Lizzo actually
(28:47):
played it on stage in twenty twenty two, you know,
as part of a partnership I guess with the Library
of Congress. But I think there was some focus maybe
on the.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
More extreme side of politics.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Say that kind of took issue with that and claimed
that it was in some way like sullying the legacy of.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
Sure, you know, okay, all right, all of that's yeah. Anyway,
I gotta.
Speaker 4 (29:11):
Say there was two things that spurred on me writing
this brief.
Speaker 3 (29:15):
One of them was this.
Speaker 4 (29:16):
The other one I'm gonna hold on to and I'll
say it later on why kind thought of like, let's
do a dive into this and all. But yeah, people
were very upset when that happened, and I thought it
was awesome because it's a musical instrument, let's use it.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
How is it a hot take to play a musical
instrument for the purpose, like to use a thing for
the purpose it was designed. That's ridiculous anyway, you know what,
that's still not the weirdest one. One of the weirdest
things would be briece yourself, folks, in a big thank
you to all the teachers who play our show for classrooms.
(29:51):
You are the cool teachers. Just gonna give you a
heads up. This one is sexually frank. It is pornography.
Is in the Library of Congress. You might have heard
of something called the Delta Collection. We're going to give
you a heads up, folks. It is not about airplanes.
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Nope, it's not.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
If you ask about that, you're going to be exposed
to a cavalcade of historic pornography. Literary Hub writes about
the Delta Collection and refers to it as one time
being the largest collection of pornography and erotic material in
the world. It was established to be kind of a
holding space for obscene materials that were seized by federal agents,
(30:33):
and then to serve as a database so that law
enforcement could actually kind of catalog which types of literature
should be considered pornography. You know, the whole I know
when I see it kind of thing. But this is
an interest during an interesting time for this type of
material in the United States. It was actually kept quite
secret and very rarely discussed openly, but that you know,
(30:56):
has since changed since seeing people are obviously we're talking
about people are aware of this porn stash, the US
government's porn stash, let's call it.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, And here's the weirdest thing about it. Okay, So
why do they have this? Are they just naughty people secretly?
Not really, at least most of them. This literature is
quite useful because for a long time it was secret
and they didn't talk about it in public because it
(31:25):
seems very morally problematic, right given the various moral panics
in US history. But it served as a catalog of obscenity.
We always remember those famous quotes. I think it was
the court case about James Joyce's ulysses where they said,
(31:45):
I don't have a working definition of obscene, but I
know it when I see it. This catalog is a
reference device that law enforcement and the courts could use
for researching and defining what they considered obscene. There was
one guy at the Library of Congress who was super
into this. We have to introduce you very briefly and
(32:07):
a safer work way, to a dude named Ralph Whittington.
Ralph Whittington had a private collection of pornography that almost
surpasses the Delta collection of the Library of Congress. This
guy is super into historical depictions of naughty bits to
(32:30):
beast with two backs, the Australias, the Netherlands, the other
realm regions. Okay, and he actually sold his collection eventually
to the Museum of Sex, which is in New York City,
which is also a pretty cool place if you've ever
been you want to check out some of the history
of depictions of sex throughout pop culture and history, that
(32:52):
is the place to go. Moving on, we've got a
pretty robust collection of celebrity palm prints, because of course
we do. Why wouldn't we Yeah, yeah, I guess why
wouldn't you know?
Speaker 3 (33:07):
What you know?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
It was the palm reading All of this stuff was
very popular in the twenties and thirties. There was one
of the most famous palmists in the world, a woman
by the name of Nellie Simmons Meyer. She read the
poems of some really notable figures throughout history, George Gershwin,
Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a heap of other folks
(33:29):
and would take these palm prints along with their autograph.
You know in the process. When she passed, she donated
a portion of her collection to the Library of Congress,
including the one of Amelia Earhart, which was one of
the most you know, popular attractions there.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And we still have the analysis from this studier of palms.
If you are wondering what Earhart's palm says about her,
apparently it reveals her passion for flying, as well as
a love of physical activity and a strong will, attention
to detail, pursuit of perfection, ambitious yet rational. It's very strange, right,
(34:14):
I know that you can submit add a number of
things to the Library of Congress. I feel like we
do have to give a shout out here. The oldest
written thing in the library is that canaform tablet, dating
from at least twenty forty BCE. But you can be
a part of the Library of Congress too, folks. That's
(34:34):
the best news. That's the plot twist here, Noel or
pal Matt and I wrote a book for one of
our shows. Stuff they don't want you to know, And
I'm going to do it, Matt. I'm going to send
it to the Library of Congress.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
I think you should.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
They'll take it as a gift.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I think, yeah, I think it's a grand idea.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
What else would you put in the Library of Congress.
You can send music, there's a ton of music there historically.
Speaker 3 (34:57):
Again, well, what's the whole.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
Deal with copyright? You know, as it pertains the Library
of Congress. Isn't that one way of like copyrighting something,
or like if you have a song or a song lyric,
if you send it to the Library of Congress and
it's recorded, then it's officially you know, you can prove
that you copyrighted it.
Speaker 1 (35:14):
You can indeed register things with the Library of Congress.
And if you, like us, love validation, then this might
be this might be a fun adventure for you. We
still haven't scratched the surface of all the other weird
stuff in the Library of Congress. But I think we're
(35:35):
all on the same page when we say we're grateful
that this exists.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Absolutely we are, and I'm also anyone else I'm grateful
that exists.
Speaker 1 (35:43):
Ben, I think you're gonna say, peanut butter pancakes.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
Peanut butter pancakes are really good.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Said, that's part of our that's basically, we're grateful for
all these individuals.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Alex Williams, who composed are.
Speaker 1 (35:59):
Max william Our research associates, Doctor Z and Jeff. We
also want to thank you's Jeff Coates. We're getting Jeff
Rich here. We also, of course want to thank Christopher Hasiotis.
We want to thank all the hardworking folks at the
Library of Congress, with a special shout out to the
(36:20):
current librarian, Harla Hayden.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2 (36:32):
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Noel Brown
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