How the Underground Railroad Worked

As early as 1786, groups assembled to help slaves escape lives of bondage. And, as the 19th century progressed, the emergent Underground Railroad grew more sophisticated in aiding escaped slaves. But how did it work? Join Josh and Chuck to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know
from House Stuff Works dot com? Hey, and welcome to
the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me as always
as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff You

(00:22):
should know the podcast because Chuck and I are the
hosts of that hostesses no hosts, yep, Chuck, Yes, how
are you? I'm great, man, How are you? I'm fine.
It's you and I and Matt our guest producer Maddie
and alone in this entire building. Yeah. This it's uh,

(00:42):
the Friday before Memorial Day. Yeah, Friday afternoon even and
it's pretty empty in here, Yes it is. There's lots
of echoes that we're gonna have to adjust for and post.
Do we do post anymore? Is this like basically this
live to tape? At least we're not getting a hateful
stay or since we walked through the office. Yeah, it's refreshing,

(01:05):
so Chuck, as you know, I grew up in Ohio.
I was hoping you've mentioned this. Well, I grew up
in Ohio. Your hopes are are fulfilled. Well, another reason
why well, Um, it turns out I recently learned from
this article on how the underground Railroad, how the underground
railroad worked. We talked about how this is gonna be problematic.
Um that an estimated half of all underground railroad workers. Um,

(01:31):
we're from Ohio or lived in Ohio. We're part of Ohio.
I had no idea that, but reading that it makes
sense because that was such a part of my um
upbringing as a child. Everybody's house that was built in
like the nineteenth or eighteenth century had like an oh,
this is where they kept the freed slaves in the
underground road road. Everybody's house had like a little spot

(01:53):
that supposedly was part of the underground road heritage or
some real some were um are believable than others. But
normally it was like a public building or like a
National Historic registered building that like they gave tours to
that was part of the underground railroad. But like everybody's
house like had like a little spot in the basement

(02:14):
where like, yes, consumably human beings could stand here and
and uh you know, hide out. But yeah, I see,
I grew up in Georgia, so that we didn't have
those talks no, And apparently in this article the author
points out and I don't know where she got this,
but um, that there's there's still blemishes on families who

(02:34):
were known to have helped slaves on the underground road
road in the South still today. I don't know if
she's talking about I thought that was completely out of
left field. It was I grew up in and have
never heard anybody be like, yeah, that guy that lived
down the street, their family used to hide slaves. Yeah,
that that's not true. So so, um, but you you

(02:56):
were familiar with the underground railroad before this article. I was,
But it's a good time to point out that not
nearly enough, because black history is so glossed over in
American schools except in February, except in February, and it's
still even in February that I went through all my
schooling with just knowing like there was an underground railroad

(03:17):
and Harriet Tubman ran it and that's it. Period. Yeah,
never learned about Malcolm X. I think dread Scott may
have been mentioned briefly, but yeah, it's very sad. Yeah,
and hopefully that's changed some since then. Well for the
listeners who had similar experiences. Um, we're about to remedy
that because we're gonna tell you not only how it worked,

(03:39):
we're gonna tell you in so much detail that you
could conceivably go start your own right now, right. And
there are some still around today. Yes. Human trafficking is
the new word for UM slavery basically um where it
usually it's forced into sex work right um. And there
are groups who are dedicated to freeing sex workers from

(04:02):
fourth labor. They're called Polaris, which is renaming of the
North Star. Yeah. Um. And then and others. We should
do a podcast on human trafficking. I think we have
a good article on that that Molly wrote, if I'm
not mistaken. Oh really yeah, okay, you're ready, Yeah, let's
do it all right, so chuck. Um. Basically, the the

(04:24):
origins of the underground railroad, which was the network by
which escaped slaves ran along to freedom, almost always to
Canada if they were going north. As it turns out,
UM probably started before the eighteen twenties. Um, but it

(04:46):
couldn't have possibly been called the underground road road until
after the eighteen twenties because the actual railroad system wasn't
invented until them either that or they were like way
ahead of their time, but it may have had some
sort of name. And we know that there were groups
of people who were formed for the common purpose of
aiding escaped slaves to go secure freedom, to get out

(05:09):
of the South, or get out of a slave state
into protection in a non slave state. Because George Washington
complained about it in a letter in seventeen eighty six
that he suspected some Quakers that helped some of his
slaves escape. He was probably right on the money, tail, yeah,
because Quakers were one of the earliest members of the
underground Railroad and they were the um most trusted because

(05:34):
they were so recognizable and everybody knew, hey, Quakers will
help you out. Definitely the most trusted white people for sure. Um.
We but we should probably point out, um, the reason
everybody went to Canada was because there was a federal
law in the US. Right, that's right. What was it called.
It was called the Fugitive Slave Act of seventeen ninety three,

(05:56):
and uh, it was around since seventeen ninety three, but
it really got its teeth in eighteen fifty when it's
strengthened the fines and basically made um helping a slave
escape a federal crime, and then uh in non slave
states as well, and uh pretty much meant if you

(06:17):
were caught as a slave, you were going to be
put to death and likely tortured in a public place.
And maybe even your slave family or friends that you
were with on the plantation were also punished, even though
they didn't try to escape. So anyone involved in this
and even not being involved, but being involved by relationship
or something like that, UM, really had a lot to

(06:39):
lose from this one person making it to freedom, which
really um is it's just very heartening when you look
back on what these people did. They risked a lot.
Um in the eighteen fifties stiffening of the Slave Act, right, Um,
if you armed a slave, which was routinely done because

(07:00):
this is dangerous, UM, then you were subject to execution,
no matter who you were, white, black, whatever um that
was that was punishable by being executed. So people who
were helping escape slaves were putting a lot on the line,
right Yeah. And and one of the myths, there's a
few myths that even this article kind of uh perpetuates

(07:20):
a bit, but um rarely or not rarely, but more
often than not, they were other black people or former
slaves or current slaves helping the other slaves on the
underground railroad. It was not a big happy group of
white northern abolitionists risking their life to help out the slaves.
They did that some, but it was usually quakers um

(07:42):
or you know, like I said before, slaves or former slaves. Okay,
so that's one myth. There's a few others. Well, let's
go through this. What what did it an escape look
like right along the underground railroad during its height in
the mid nineteenth century. Uh, what would happen was free
black people would send a field agent, what they called

(08:04):
the field agent um. It was a lot of times
a minister or a doctor posing as like a census
taker to anybody who could move throughout a community undetected.
So they would make contact with a current slave who
supposedly wanted to escape, and they had to gain their trust,
because this whole thing was about trust. You really had
to trust because people would sell out their own own

(08:26):
kind to gain favor with with the master sometimes, so
sometimes you couldn't even trust your fellow slave, so you
really had to gain their trust as the field agent
and then they would eventually, once that trust was gained,
arranged for the escape from the plantation to travel to
the first safe house to a conductor. Actually, I'm sorry,

(08:48):
they passed along to the conductor who would take you
to your first station. Yes, and that was the beginning
of the journey, right. And the station was basically somebody's
house usually yeah, um, and the head of the household
as a station master. And that was somebody who was
putting his life, in the life of his family's on
the line, feed and housed and hide this person for

(09:12):
a little while. Um, possibly set him up with the disguise,
which um they got fairly Um. Yes, there's there's a
story of one in a UM apparently with a seminal
work on the Underground Railroad appropriately titled The Underground Railroad,
written by Wilburt Sea Bird right, and he talks about how, um,

(09:35):
a black woman was basically made up to look like
a wealthy white woman and to complete this disguise, was
given a white baby, um too for her journey. Yeah.
So people were, you know, fanatic about this. I read
another one, UM, a couple from Savannah. Um. The woman

(09:57):
was the daughter of the slave, her slave owner and
her mother was a slave, a house servant ever, UM.
So she was light skinned, so they had her pose
as a frail, aging white man, and her husband posed
as like a you know, a loyal servant slave UM

(10:18):
on their journey all the way from Savanna to I
think Philadelphia or Boston. UM. But yeah, that was kind
of harrowing. Apparently they were almost found out a bunch
of times. Yeah, so I can imagine, like just trying
to escape through the woods is scary enough, trying to
escape disguised in plain sight has to just be nerve racking,

(10:38):
you know, especially the lady with a white baby, because
I imagine that whoever might have found her out would
not have been too happy about that at the time.
At least along the way if you did maybe encounter
a train conductor who found you out but was willing
to keep his mouth shut for money, you needed money.
Most slaves didn't have money because they were not paid um.

(10:59):
And uh this was I guess at the station. The
station master might also hook you up with some money
that came from what are called stockholders UM. And stockholders
were probably wealthy abolitionists who didn't really want to get
their hands dirty. But we're happy to support the cause financially. True, right, yeah,
And I didn't get I mean, were they just people

(11:20):
who supported the cause basically financially, yeah, but you know
obviously in their in their hearts as well. Uh, now
I know what you mean. Though they didn't risk you know,
walking people through the woods. No. And abolitionists, despite you know,
they're they're desire to end slavery were frequently accused, and
rightfully so in a lot of cases of you know, saying, well,

(11:43):
we we think slavery is vomitable, but you're freed, and
that's great, but go live over there. We still want
to just have our very lily white parties and lives
and all that. Um. And there were a lot of
abolitions like that. So I would imagine that just giving
money two people to use for bribes or for travel

(12:03):
or you know, to support these station houses probably really
you know, hit home. It's the same thing today, like
people don't go help like, say, the homeless, you're resolving
your guilt, they give money to, you know, organizations that
actually deal with the homeless. I think that this was
very similar to that. I think you're probably right. Uh, runaways,
um usually didn't travel alone, although again I read somewhere

(12:26):
else on on one of the websites that a lot
of times they were alone. Um, But when they weren't,
they would have a conductor guide them to the next station,
usually about a day away. They didn't want to make
it like, you know, a three day journey because it
just you know, you you probably don't have tons of
food and water, and it's just more dangerous the further
you're going, right, not between station houses. The journey itself
to freedom last days, weeks, months. Yeah, each each station

(12:50):
was about a day away. Ideally they would follow the
north Star. Yeah, that's that's why that one, um modern hilarious. Yeah,
that's why it's called that circle. When the clouds were out. Um,
there's the old trick of looking where the moss grows
because on tree trunks, moss usually grows on the north side,

(13:10):
and you wanted to be headed north. There were instances
where because they made it a very zig zagging route
usually you know, they didn't want to make it a
straight line. So it made it easier to track, but
it also made it easier to get lost as a slave.
It did. And actually there's a sidebar towards the end
of this talking about quilt patterns and there are codes

(13:31):
embedded within. I I found a substantial amount of it.
Rele see, I found stuff saying that was like mythical
that in the songs. Check out um os black history
dot com. They have this list, this key of like
what all of these different quilt patterns are and what
they meant. Um two slaves who came upon a quilt

(13:53):
and one of them was this um kind of zigzagged X.
It's called them the drunken Path And basically it's saying
like going his zigzag pattern because there's guys out there's
slave hunters around, and if you say turned started walking south,
they would be less likely to suspect that you were
an escaped slave if you look like you were purposefully

(14:15):
walking south, because what slave walk south? That's where the
south is, right, right? But I mean, if it is
made up, this guy did a good job of perpetuating
it because it's very interesting. Well, even in here it
says it's it's one of the well known legends or not.
They just don't know because a lot of this stuff,
and it's good that you bring that up. A lot
we don't know about because the underground railroad was secret,

(14:37):
so we don't know about a lot of the places.
We don't know a lot of the routes or the
people who worked there, or who actually started it. Oh
and Josh also I mentioned the moss on the trees.
Clear knights were better to see the stars, but traveling
in the rain was pretty good too, because fat white
plantation owner probably wanted to be inside by the fire
when it was raining and not chasing after his slaves.

(15:00):
So let's talk about um the laws. We we mentioned
it kind of specifically UM earlier about some of the
I guess the punishment that that could befall anyone helping somebody, right, Um,
And in see the Fugitive Slave Act, UM basically created

(15:20):
the first laws that said this an escape slave can
be gone and gotten legally. Right. But there were slave
states and there were non slave states, and the non
slave states said, well, yeah, that's a great law, and
you do whatever you want down in the South, but
we're not really going to enforce it, and when we do,
it's going to be very light. Well, in eighteen fifty,

(15:43):
this thing got a lot of teeth, um, like you
were saying, and the fines were that were stepped up.
The penalties were harsher execution. UM was it was a
lot more UM doable, I guess. And then um, it
also became illegal for slave hunters to walk into a
free state, a non slave state and be like, Hey,

(16:05):
that black guy right there, I think he's an escaped slave.
He should come with me to anybody he could legally
claim it without having to justify even if they were
free men. Yes, um. And apparently there were rumors of
like slave traders like luring um, young black kids in
free states onto boats and then like taking them off

(16:25):
to the Deep South. It's like, what are you gonna do?
How are you gonna find these people? There's no documentation
like this. Um. So basically the North came to really
resent this change in the law in eighteen fifty because
people who were complacent living in non slave states suddenly
we're kind of having slavery imposed upon them a little more.

(16:45):
And then the dread Scott case like you mentioned earlier,
that really sealed the deal and really got abolitionists. UM.
I guess their their roles expanded tremendously after that. And
then as a result, also the underground railroad became much
more organized yeah, that is dread Scott v. Sandford, and uh.
It was famous because dread Scott, a slave, sued for

(17:09):
his freedom for himself and his wife and his two daughters,
and on the grounds that they lived quite a bit
of their lives in places like Wisconsin and Minnesota, in
these outlying Northwest territories that or northern territories that had
where it was illegal. Slavery was actually illegal. So he
sued on those grounds, and in one of probably the

(17:31):
worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this country,
they decided because the panel was full of Southerners. The
panel Supreme Court justices were a lot of Southerners, and
they ruled it Black people were not or people of
African descent were not citizens of the United States, free
or not, they are not citizens. Therefore they cannot sue

(17:53):
for their freedom right. They don't have any rights, so
they can be basically captured and taken to yes, a
life of slavery again. But if it hadn't been for
the dread Scott case, we may never have well we
may have, but it really sped up the process of
the Thirteenth Amendment in the Emancipation Proclamation, and hence the
Civil War and hence the Civil War, and some of

(18:14):
his descendants still live in St. Louis today. Well, shout
out to the Scots of St. Louis. UM and Chuck,
we said that this this um precipitated the Civil War.
The underground railroad helped move it along. The dread Scott case.
It it basically these things, Um, Northerners actively subverting federal law. UM.

(18:37):
And the South economic cloud really ticked the South off
the the South imposing its views on slavery on the
North through this eighteen fifty strengthening and the dread Scott case. UM,
it really ticked off the North. So this division was
was Um. It's very much part of what led up

(18:58):
to the Civil War. Yeah, pencil any even I thought
about ah nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act. They didn't like
it so much, But then they decided, you know, a
better way to do this. It's probably to be subversive
and to support things like the underground railroad on the
down low, rather than cause some big political snake write
a check. Exactly right. Um. So we say that because

(19:23):
the Civil Wars. Whenever you ask a kid, you know
why the Civil War happened? So slavery. I mean, that's
a that's a big part of it. But that's why
it's not just slavery. It wasn't like the North was like,
slavery is wrong and we're gonna go to war with
you over it, or the South was like, we love slavery,
We're not part of you any longer. Although the latter

(19:44):
I've heard recently was um much closer to the point
that the South was perfectly happy with succeeding creating its
own country and basically creating an economic empire based on
free labor, that that took over the entire Caribbean, and
that the Southern US. Yeah, I wish I was more
of a civil war. Buff. I'm glad you're not. Chuck. Yeah,

(20:05):
they're I wouldn't say obnoxious, but man, do they know
a lot about the Civil War and they like correcting
people too. Yeah, and we're going to hear from them,
so Chuck. Um. When you did finally make it out
along this this route um up to the northern the
extreme Northern States, the northern part of the Extreme Northern States,

(20:25):
and to Canada. Um, it could take days, weeks, months,
It could take twenty four hours if you happen to
have the money and the gaul to ride a train,
or if you live in a border state. Yeah, which
apparently is why a lot of slaves never escaped from
the Deep South. It was longer ago, and they didn't.
They wouldn't have taken the underground railroad which went exclusively north.

(20:48):
I believe they would have gone to Florida or to Mexico.
Never knew that. So Mexico in eighty nine outlawed slavery
and became active in protecting slaves who escaped to Mexico. Yeah.
Native American Indians go figure, we're very empathetic. They were
probably like, join the club, my man, come on in

(21:09):
almost literally chuck so in Florida in Spain said we're
issuing a decree here that says any any slave or
Native American who leaves an English colony and makes it
to Florida is a free Floridian, a free a free
member of the Spanish crown. Right right. All we want

(21:30):
from you is that you convert to a Catholic convert
to Catholicism, and become a member of the military for
a prescribed amount of time, right um, And in return,
you're a citizen here, right. So that's why Florida attracted
a bunch of people. And the reason they did it
was specifically to attract people from um England, the English
territories like Georgia or South Carolina, because they wanted to

(21:52):
jump start the economic engine, but they weren't going to
do it on slavery. Right. I wonder what impact that
has today. I wonder if there are more are African
American Catholics in Florida proportionately because of that. Well, one
of the impacts that it had that's still around the
day are the Seminoles. The Seminoles were a recent tribe
that started in about the eighteenth century um based on

(22:13):
displaced Creek Indians who made it to Florida to take
Spain up on their offer and escaped slaves. And now
there's a division in the Seminole tribe between Black Seminoles
and Red Seminoles, and it's not they don't always get along.
But during this time, the Seminole Indians came up because
in a lot of cases, black slaves, freed slaves or

(22:34):
escaped slaves would come up to an Indian Indian sentiment,
lived near it or be absorbed into it and that's
where the seminoles came from. That's pretty cool, didn't it.
There's really one jerk in this whole thing, and that's
that's Yeah, our ancestors. They were white Northerners too. It's
not all in the South, white jerk, white Northerners probably.

(22:56):
Uh yeah, Anyway, I'm just always stick up for the South. Well,
think about it that there were an estimated two thousand
to three thousand underground railroad workers there. There are a
lot more people in the US and the North and
the South than that at the time. Buddy. Yeah, that's
a good point. Uh. It is interesting though to me
that you said Canada, because that was where many of

(23:17):
them ended up. And I never knew that. I never
knew that. And it made sense because why go to Pennsylvania,
even though they're sympathetic to a certain degree, when the
Fugitive Slave Act still is hanging over my head and
somebody could turn me in for some dough if they
wanted to. Yeah, let's just go to Canada where they
don't care and they don't have those laws. Plus, I mean,

(23:38):
it's not like you're gonna just stop in Detroit. You're
gonna be like, oh no, I'm gonna keep moving to Canada.
So we were saying that there there was some involvement
by some people. There was UM separate involvement, disconnected involvement, whatever.
But some of the people, some of these abolitionists UM
and freed slaves UM and escaped slave who have made

(24:00):
lives for themselves UM formed in these northern non slave
states and enclaves of where where of an escaped slave
can feel very free, like Boston, Philadelphia, UM, I think
New York. Um. They formed these things called vigilance committees. Right, Yeah,
it's very nice. They provided like some protection for them, uh,

(24:20):
try to get them work, try to get them a
place to live. And so you know, it's just sort
of like, hey, now you're you're safe now, and we're
gonna help you set up life as an American. Yeah,
and get something that everyone in this country should be
born with, which is freedom. Right. And here's a credit
card to enslave you in a different way that came

(24:43):
later and that touched all races. It did, so, Chuck,
there's um one one person who kind of rose above
all others as far as the underground railroad went. And
her name was Harriet Tubman. She was, she wasn't. It
is still referred to as the Moses of for people. Yeah,
it is not a cliche to bring up Harriet Tubman,

(25:03):
as you know, like, of course you're gonna bring up
ry Tubman. Of course we are, because she was the
Moses of her people, and she was an escaped slave
from Maryland, and very sadly I went back to get
her family and helped them escape. Found her husband had
a new wife, and he was like, yeah, um to
stay here. Yeah, and she wasn't too happy with that, clearly,

(25:25):
so she reportedly books say, um kind of hardened her
a little bit, which in the end helped her because
you sort of needed a bit of a hard heart
to lead people on the underground railroad. You didn't need
whiners and criers and people that would draw attention and
make noise. Yeah. Apparently she would threaten to kill people

(25:45):
if they didn't shut up. Yeah, like, quiet down, I'm
trying to get you to freedom. Just shut up about
it was her was her motto, officially, I think, And
she was individually probably the most successful uh conductor on
the underground railroad, right, Yeah, I think uh at least
seventy slaves um that she led to freedom to New
York and Canada personally thirteen journeys, and these are long trips.

(26:08):
We'll think about it. Also, she's an escaped slave. She
goes back into slave states thirteen times to guide people out.
She bad, She's a big bad mama. She Uh. She
went on to serve as a spy, as a scout,
and a nurse for the Union Army and received no
military wartime pension for that, even though she was Harriet

(26:29):
Tubman and um went on to sell fruits and vegetables
door to door. You're joking, and wrote a book and
lived off profits from her book. She actually made money
off of which is good the US as a Yeah, so, Chuck,
you want to talk about how many people were let out?
We were. We We mentioned Harriet Tubman l at least

(26:51):
seventy personally. UM and estimates very wildly as to how
many people escaped. UM. As we said, the heyday of
the underground road road was eighteen twenties to the eighteen
sixties day. UM. Some some people maintain about a hundred
thousand people escaped, which is that's huge. UM. On the

(27:12):
other end, UH, the journal Black Studies estimates of between
eighteen thirty and sixty UM, only about two thousand people
escaped via underground road road. The National Park Service settled
somewhere in the middle and says, yeah, let's say a
thousand per year. But again it's very secretive. People have
no idea who was who, whether a house really was

(27:34):
a stop. There are some places that are most decidedly
UM parts of the underground road road that are still
around today, like the Dobbin Horse Tavern and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
has movable bookcase that people used to hide in. It
was a house at the time, UM. But because of
the secrecy, because of the success of it of it, UM,
we we have no idea you know, who was a

(27:56):
part of it, who wasn't. And that's pretty neat, I think.
But there's the National Park Services really spent a lot
of time and effort and money so far UM figuring out,
you know, where the underground railroad ran and who is
a part of it, and what buildings were going to
preserve the buildings and there's a there's actually a bike
um trail that you can ride I think, or something

(28:20):
like that along established identified underground railroad routes. Yeah, pretty cool.
You know you. I just wanted to point out when
you said the our checkered history, America's checkered history. I
still feel England's stank on this. Yeah, that was early
enough to wear. It wasn't like you know, rednecks from
the south this. These are still like English fops doing

(28:41):
this stuff. So I blame England, You blame England. I'm
trying to figure out when my my line is drawn
and when I'm saying this was America because even after
the Revolutionary where it was still just people from England
living here. Okay, so England is your fault. Take that
to England and it's Canada the big hero to you

(29:03):
and this. Yeah, of course, man, you know that's still
a territory of the English crown. Yeah to you on
that one, pal, I don't know what to think. Um
so wait, wait before we go, we have to mention
John Brown. We talked about how like a lot of
people were like, here's some money, I'll be a stockholder
in the underground road road and impress my friends. John
Brown walked the walk he lived in like freed black colonies.

(29:27):
He um, if he didn't do it himself, he oversaw
the murder of five unarmed pro slavery UM settlers in Kansas,
which is up for grabs between slavery and in a
non slavery state. UM. And he basically turned into a
guerrilla and staged raids on pro slavery settlements and killed
lots of people. UM. And then he staged with the

(29:48):
raid on Harper's ferry uh and was eventually caught and
hanged for it. But he was as far as the
abolitionists go, he was like, um, he he was, I
guess you could say equal to Harriet Tubman as far
as in the abolitionist camp where she was in the
freed slaves camp, she was hands on and did it.
Did you hear the box car guy who who packed

(30:11):
himself up in a box and had himself ship to Philadelphia? No,
did it work? Yeah? Awesome. He had like some biscuits
and a little bit of water and some air holes
and his I think his nickname is box Car. I
can't remember his full name. But they, you know, opened
up the crate in Philadelphia and he climbed out and
they were like, congratulations, your holy can't so the bravery,

(30:31):
I mean, not just the slaves themselves, people who helped
I mean, the bravery of these people at the time
cannot be understated, agreed, because you were getting tortured and
killed if you were caught and all for your freedom.
That's all you were looking for. Pretty heavy stuff. Yes, So, Chuck,
if they want to learn more about the underground railroad,

(30:52):
they should type in underground railroad in the search bar,
how stuff works dot com rang um, and then of
course brings up listener email. And you know, I bet
the ladies from stuff you miss in history class have
probably done one on this already, and so I would
seek that out for another angle, because sometimes we double up,
and it's always good to hear different angles on these things.

(31:15):
And they're a great joke too, and you can compare
it word for word eventually by comparing the transcripts on
the blogs. Right, They're like they were a lot more
factual than Chuck and Josh. All right, Josh, I'm gonna
call this critical email from Katie. We don't read a
lot of criticisms much, but this was very specific, so
I thought we would. Hi, Chuck and Josh, I'm a
new listener, but it recently listened to about sixty of

(31:37):
your shows. I am thirty one years old and work
as a film cruiser. You guys have really grown on
me slowly. The concept of the show is the best part.
I think there are a few things that keeping or
keeping you guys from really going big and would like
to share my thoughts. First, I think the podcast are
a bit slow and have a few too many personal
jokes every time Chuck has a personal story to go

(31:58):
along with the topic. This is the least inner, painting
and interesting. Your personal relationships to the topic are mundane. Sorry,
this should be cut. The banter is good. You are
clearly smart and witty, and that is enough to keep
the listener engaged. Josh, your intros are so boring. Why
not mix it up and or cut the small talk?
I fast forward past it every time. And I think

(32:19):
your listener mail is the worst part of the podcast.
I think you lose at least half, if not more,
of your listeners at this part. Save that stuff for
the blog. The podcasts themselves need to be solid and tight.
The production value fails in comparison to This American Life
or Planet Money. For these reasons, I would highly suggest
getting a new producer taking pot SATs at Jerry. That's

(32:40):
just so wrong. You need a makeover big time. You
need new music in your intros and throughout the show,
perhaps sound effects and more out of studio commentary. Some
of my favorite podcast our Saunas, Hangovers, Cremation, Sharpless, Reincarnation, Mummies,
and Altitude basically go be Radio Lab. I listened to
your Guatemala pieces while I was traveling Guatemala last week.

(33:03):
Pretty cool in hopes of supplementing my education about the
country while traveling there. But you failed miserably. Actually, she
says it failed miserable. I get the point though. Uh.
They were my least favorite podcast you guys have done,
and I think you genuinely wasted your listeners time with
your personal, pointless stories about your free vacation. I was

(33:23):
shocked to learn how small your perspective of the world is,
considering how often you both write and research about the world.
Your impressions of Guatemala sounded like you've never left the South. Uh.
They were naive and not worthy of two hours of
my time. On the other hand, it was fantastic to
listen how volcanoes work while climbing volcanoes in Antigua. This

(33:43):
is what you guys are best at. And you need
to stick to this, but it needs to be better. Seriously,
you have mastered the podcast medium, but there is so
much potential yet to be tapped. And she says taped,
but I guess she needs tapped. I hope you guys
continue to make great podcast and that you really up
the production value. Thank you, Katie M. P s. I

(34:04):
happen to own a house in Turkey and have spent
much time in Turkish baths. You define them incorrectly in
your song and podcast. Who is that? Katie? Katie M.
Thank you Katie for the tips. We appreciate the insight
and thanks for listening. We don't know why, but thank
you for listening. All right, Well we've mastered the medium, okay,

(34:25):
except for like the fifty points. Well, if you have
in any pointers for us or tips, we want to
hear them. We're always open to that kind of thing,
So shoot us an email at Stuff Podcast at how
stuff works dot com. Be sure to check out our

(34:46):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff
Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing
possibilities of tomorrow, brought to you by the Reinvented two
thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you