Chainsaw History - Bonus Episode: The Value of Elizabeth Fry

Episode Date: April 19, 2023

Podcasting siblings Jamie and Bambi Chambers continue their journey through the ValueTales series of children's books from the 1980s with The Value of Kindness: The Story of Elizabeth Fry. In this episode, they tackle the peculiar portrayal of a pivotal prison reformer, as the book veers off course by focusing on Elizabeth's obsession with her hair and the private thoughts of an imaginary butterly. Listen in as they shed light on Fry's actual accomplishments—including her work in Newgate Prison, her advocacy for female inmates, and her efforts to transform the penal system—while expressing their frustration at the book's failure to depict her as the trailblazing humanitarian she truly was.Stay connected with us on social media and discover more on our website: http://www.chainsawhistory.com

Welcome to the bonus episode everybody. This is Chainsaw History in the value of series where my sister and I force you to deal with the children's history books that our parents made us read when we were little kids. I am Jamie Chambers and this is my sister Mammy. Hello. And if you are listening to us, this is going to be on the main Chainsaw History feed along with our regular episodes. You can go to chainsawhistory.com. If you want to learn more, see our full show notes, get our entire back catalog or even better, sign up as a paid subscriber. And if you go at the $5 level or higher, you will get an entire catalog of extra features, including bonus articles on the website and entire additional shows like more of the value

of series like you're going to hear today. And a new series we've got going on called No Time for Love Dr. Jones where we follow Indiana Jones through his adventures in history. It's a thing we're doing. It is a thing. So today my sister has brought one of these books that we had when we were kids. What have you got for us today, Mammy? I have The Value of Kindness, The Story of Elizabeth Fry. Yeah, before we start recording, you're like, this is the somebody nobody's ever heard of. This is somebody's, I mean, probably, I only know of her through these books. I vaguely remember her from this book and I can't say I have heard her name recently.

Yeah, no, it's, she's like someone who was very cool and very forgotten about. So we're going to learn about Elizabeth Fry. So let's look at the cover. I want to see what we got going on here. We see a dude in a hospital bed even wearing a collared shirt and a nice lady who's wearing like a covered head. She's wearing very repressive, like Elizabethan looking clothes and she's bringing the dude in the in the bed flowers and there's a butterfly behind her. Yes. The butterfly thing. The butterfly is a fucking thing. Okay. All right, Elizabeth Fry, let's get into it. Okay, and this one was written by a Spencer Johnson MD. That the founder of the series. So this one's a little bit more straightforward than the other ones I've read.

He's not as good a writer as the people he hired. Well, the last person who did these books, at least for the ones that I've read for the women, it's been, she was horrible. It was really, really, this one's pretty straightforward. So I can't really pick on the writing of it too much. It's more just... So what did it say about her on that title page before? The title page? Like it's like it says something about her at the very top? Yes. So it says that this tale is about a person who was very kind, Elizabeth Fry. The story that follows is based on events of her life. More historical facts of Elizabeth Fry can be found on page 61, the last page. So we start out again with the words once upon a time,

because we know all biography should start with once upon a time. Well, I think I'm criminal offense that Mr. MD there was convinced that all children's books have to start with once upon a time. Yeah. So we're going to get into it. Once upon a time, there was a girl named Elizabeth who lived in a great house in England. She slept in a soft bed and wore pretty clothes. She ate fine food and on sunny days, she played in a garden with her brothers and sisters. She should have been happy, but she wasn't. What's that little bitch's problem? Sounds like she had a pretty good. Yeah, it's literally, it's like, okay, and you see her playing with some children, but she looks unhappy. Dear world, everything's great,

but I am an ungrateful brat and I am not happy. But of course, I'm sure she has a noble reason for being unhappy. I like being kind to people, she said, because it makes people happy. I wish I could go out and be kind to those people whom no one else thinks about. So she's unhappy because she can't be kind enough to the right people who need it the most. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. It's like, I can't be kind to the rich people that I fucking live with. And again, they kind of, it's like she lived in a soft bed. No, her parents owned a bank and were insanely rich. Like they had stupid money. And so she's a poor little rich girl who's like, no, I must go off and among the squalor of the people to make a difference. She wanted to be kind to people.

Not even like, they always say kind, not even like she wanted to help people or change circumstances. It's like, we have to throw in the kindness. She was kind. I'm a fan of kindness. Yep. So here's where we have some bullshit. Cool. There were days when Elizabeth was sad on one of those days that a butterfly came flitting in into the garden. She pretended that the butterfly was talking to her. Oh, was it like the butterfly from the last unicorn, just like singing random shit? No, but here you can see the butterfly because it's weird. That is the result of doing drugs. Yes. That thing, I mean, that bug-eyed is definitely the word to use with this butterfly. It's got big terrifying red eyes with antennae curled up over

them. And he's got these Mickey Mouse gloved hands sticking out to grill this poor girl. It's a she, and that's why she has the lipstick. Oh, she's got the lipstick because there's Minnie Mouse gloves. Okay. And I assume that's just we're getting a close-up and that she's actually not the size of a medium-sized dog. Well, I mean, the butterfly sticks with her, so. But since it's an imaginary butterfly, it's fine. It's an imaginary butterfly. So she gets an imaginary butterfly. She gets an emotional support butterfly for being rich. Mm-hmm. That'll help her cope with the trauma of her life of luxury. And the butterfly asked her why she's sad, and she's like, I'm sad because I have all this shit,

and other people don't, and I want to be kind to people. And because of that, I'm unhappy. He's like, I'm a manifestation of your mental illness, so what the hell do you want me to do about it? So I can see how that might trouble you, the butterfly said. I just flew over Newgate Prison, and it troubled me to see the way the women prisoners have to live. So now her imaginary friend is giving her some knowledge about shit she has no idea about, which is nonsense. Once she actually learned about this prison. I assume she wrote about it, or heard about it. Yeah, because, okay, so her parents are ungodly rich, but they're also Quakers, which is kind of an important part of her life that they never once mentioned in this book.

Because they try to keep the specific religious stuff. But yeah, Quakers, they had very, they had specific thoughts about how you're supposed to do things. Yeah, and her parents were not in a strict sect of Quakers. They were more relaxed like she did where they were more mainstream Quakers. They were rich, they enjoyed their wealth, they wore fucking nice clothes, and yeah, all that shit. So the butterfly tells her about how dreadful this prison is. And she was like, I want to go help them. Cool. Yep. And so she ran into the house. And she said, I'll change my clothes. I don't want to remind them that they don't have pretty clothes. I'll get rid of this Paris Hilton shit. I'm gonna dress like a slob.

So she put on a simple gray dress and covered her head in a plain white hat. I'll go with you, offered the butterfly. But not if I have to change my clothes. Elizabeth laughed. Everyone knew the butterflies couldn't change their clothes. Yeah. Yes, we're laughing because it's hilarious. Real quick, I guess I'm fuzzy on it. What year are we in? Or what time period are we in? Because I don't know what she said. Okay, well, they do not say at all in almost any of these books. It's like the time period's ambiguous. You have to flip to the back to see their biography. Yeah, so Elizabeth Fry was born in 1780. Oh, okay. So I wasn't far off when I said Elizabeth and I was. Yes. But we're closer to Victoria than Elizabeth. Yeah, for sure. So she wanted to go and visit

the women in this prison. Her dad was like, hold on there. That sounds like a fucking dangerous and terrible thing for you to do as a young woman. You do know that you're rich, right? Yeah, and it's dangerous. You could get hurt, fuck that nonsense. So he decides that she should go visit people in the hospital because that is a lot safer. You were a lot less likely to be violently assaulted visiting people in the hospital. Which is funny because that's what they put on the cover, which is not part of this story at all. That's just where it started, where her parents were like, no, you can't go visit a prison. That's fucking insane. They just picked a random illustration from the middle of the book and just slapped it on the cover. Got it.

Because this dude looks way happier than the women in prison. I only paid for so many of these drawings and we got to use one of them twice. Yep. So Elizabeth goes and she visits people in the hospital and she was happy. I'm being kind. And they said time passed quickly. She did get older. She got married and so she had a new last name. It was Fry because Fry is her married name. Her married name. Gurney is her maiden name. I call that a step up in the last name department. Not really because she went from having an uber rich family and now granted she wanted to be a more traditional Quaker. Like she wanted to do the step down, more eliminating of the worldly God things and focus more on the Godly things. Sure. That's who she was as a person

and she had a husband who also went along with that. They joined a more strict set of Quakers than what she was raised in. And they said she got married and had a new last name. And then they kind of gloss over the fact that it's like through the course of her life. Elizabeth had 11 fucking children. 11. So Mr. Fry just could not stay off her. Could not stay off this woman. She was constantly pregnant. And still doing a bunch of other stuff. Yeah. Well, constantly popping out kids for this dude. For this dude. And trust me when I say it's like this woman did nothing but fucking work.

But yeah, she had 11 children and all of them but one lived to adulthood. Hey, and you're talking 18th, 19th century and that's not bad. No, it's not bad at all. That's actually a really great odds. Of course it's like her family had money which always improves your survival so much. Yeah, it's amazing what a little money can do. So, but yeah, it was just kind of an interesting fact of, you know, Bitty had a lot of kids. So we're glossing over all of the Yeah, we're glossing over some of her time. Love and marriage and kids and the whole deal.

Oh, although interesting fact, her last child was born on the same day as her first grandchild. So this bitch had fucking kids spread out. So apparently when she wasn't working, she was fucking and having babies. Considering the age difference in my own children, I don't have much to say. Yeah, you spread yours out too. It's a terrible idea. One kid turning 30 this year and another turning eight. Yeah, so there you go. Yeah, and how old's your granddaughter? Oh, she's three. Yeah, yeah, you didn't think that through, but it's fine.

I'm old. You're old and make a terrible decision. But Elizabeth Fry is even older and deader. Yeah, older and deader and apparently had even more children than you did. Yeah. So the butterfly, she decides that she is finally going to fucking, she's an adult woman and she's going to visit this fucking prison. This butterfly will not leave me alone about it. And it's the butterfly was like, Oh, I know that this is not the butterfly's jam.

The butterfly. Okay, I'm going to read you this passage. Be careful, worn the butterfly. Some of these women were bad people even before they went to prison, but it is so terrible inside the prison that now most of them have become even meaner. The women are cruel to one another. They might even be cruel to you. So apparently this butterfly is fucking has some wisdom and knowledge and apparently like look, I have been watching Orange is the New Black and Wentworth and these ladies prisons are not to be fucked around with. Mm hmm. And so she went in the prison and at first she wasn't afraid,

but then she actually got in there and she says quote, it's frightful. She cried. It's so filthy and the air is so bad. I can hardly breathe. What a terrible way for anyone to live. And then we see an illustration of cave people living in just filth and squalor with their hair grown over their eyes and just covered in sores and it's like shit. Yeah, that's terrible. It is terrible. And apparently these prisons are supposed to be ladies. These are supposed to be ladies. And again, they don't really get,

again, you only see four women in this room, but in actual it was like 500 women in a room. Just giant children and a lot of these and because there had death sentences for even like petty theft. So the conditions of these places were really bad. This is when there was still slavery. So but yeah, she was an abolitionist. She did not believe in slavery and she believed in like basic human rights. Which is good because if memory serves, slavery was abolished in England in the early 1800s. Yes. Like 1810 or something. Yeah, but there were still colonies that still had it and they were still shipping

people off to like fucking Australia and like giving them literally it was like with nothing. They would just drop them off on a shore and was like, adios, have fun. Hope you don't die. Which Australia like to kill people. It's a pretty harsh environment in a lot of situations. So but they don't talk about that at all. We're only going to focus on this tiny itsy-bintsy portion of her life. So these guys are living in squalor and again, they don't describe it but the horrificness inside these prisons. It was literally like no beds, no bathrooms. They were shitting in buckets and had straw. I mean and these were like packed. You can only imagine with malnourished and the treatment they got from the people around the

place. Yeah and again and it's like they don't describe it here but the women had to make their own food and they weren't given a lot of supplies. It was really, really kind of horrific, unimaginable situation. Just locked in a crowded room. Yeah and these are women and children who probably didn't do much more than just have debt. So because debtor's prison was a thing. Because it was a thing but this was I guess more of a I want to say more of a high security. I don't I don't really know. I didn't I am a fraud because I did not look up fucking Newgate prison specifically but they did describe it on her Wikipedia page that it was really fucking bad. So these bitches are fighting and Elizabeth cries for them to stop quote. The

women did stop fighting. They stopped and they stared at Elizabeth Fry. Here's a fine lady come to make fun of us said one. Let's tear her pretty clothes said another. We can black her pretty eyes set a third but I don't come to make fun of you said Elizabeth quickly. I want to help you. Well that's awfully kind. It is awfully kind and at first they didn't believe her and they were going to beat her ass and they wanted to tear her clothes but then they were like well she doesn't even really have nice clothes on. She's just cleaner than us. She slummed it up to kind of. Yeah I mean she's like dressed like a Quaker bitch. So they don't know what to do with her and they kind of start closing in on her to the point where the prison guards are like

they're going to kill her. We better get her out of there and Elizabeth was like no no no I'll just stand still and they won't hurt me and so she stood real still. The fucking guards are there to shoot them so everyone's kind of frozen and she said quote. If I can only make them believe that I'm here to be kind to them. Said Elizabeth and so she stood there and then she picked up a sick child. Used as a human shield. And so she picked up the child in her arms and literally was like you can't attack me while I'm holding one of your babies but instead she said quote. Friends she said to the prisoners. Many of you are mothers. I too am a mother. I am distressed for your children. Is there not something we can do for these innocent little ones?

Do you want to make them grow up to become real prisoners themselves? Are they going to learn to be thieves and worse? Yeah you guys don't want your your kids to be thieves and hookers. And they were like well what the fuck are we supposed to do about it? They'll become the criminal element. So quote. Suddenly the women stopped shouting and threatening. They began to cry soft happy tears. She is kind they said. She did come to help us. So the women gave her a chair and she started talking to them and then they started bringing her children and basically what happened. After deciding not to shank her. That she wanted to open up a school for these young innocent kids that are just imprisoned with their mom.

Prison children. Prison children. Yeah and again they do not get into this but one of the first things that she does is get prison separation because men and women in prison weren't necessarily separated and women were getting assaulted all over the place. Imagine that. Yeah so she was like uh and she also made it where like the guards themselves a lot of times had to be women. That they couldn't just be around nothing but men. Unattended with men. Unattended with men. And there would molest them. And they have no recourse or anything they can do shit. Exactly so that was one of the first reforms that they do not talk about.

Gosh imagine. Imagine jail guards sexually assaulting inmates. Inmates. I've never heard of that before in our local fucking sheriff's office. Yeah well it was even worse because they had inmates in there with female inmates. Just why not just throw everybody together. What's the worst that could happen? Because apparently I mean and again they didn't have they didn't really see these people as no they were as human beings anymore. We don't do great at that now in America much less back then in the early 19th century. In jolly old England. But um so Elizabeth starts a school in the prison for these kids.

And so quote Elizabeth started a school for the children of women prisoners at Newgate. She taught them reading spelling and sewing. Most of the mothers couldn't read or spell. They would peep through the door of the school room and think I wish we could go to school too. So you see her. She's got her little prison classroom for these little vagabond prison children. But you can see it's not as dirty. Clean things up and she's a picture of a cat. C-A-T. So she's teaching these kids. And so the women come to her and they're like hey yo can you teach us how to do shit too? We also would like to read and and shit. And she was like I don't know if I can do that but I can try. It's like I can ask.

But I can't promise anything because you know she had to ask to even set up the school for the kids. And they were like well we don't think that that's valuable. And she was like well I think you're wrong. So they're like they're like guest on from Beauty and the Beast. We don't want women reading. They might get started getting ideas and thinking. Well apparently that was not how this went. So quote Elizabeth Fry invited the prison authorities to her home. And again her home's pretty big. It's pretty nice. She's a pretty influential well-to-do lady. So it's not like just anyone was asking. Small army of children at her command. So quote if we could make the prison a nicer place she said. And if we could teach the women something useful

they might live better lives once they are out of prison. It won't work said the authorities. However we will let you try just to show you that you are wrong to be kind to these prisoners. Ho ho ho men know everything. So they gave her permission so she started opening up a school for the women. And she says quote when you can read and write she told them you will be more likely to succeed and not return to prison. And then we also have quote I wish that I could read and write thought the butterfly but it couldn't. Butterflies simply do not read and write. It's really bad. It's really really bad. And I even glossed over the story of how the butterfly explained to her that it's chrysalis was like a prison.

Which was a little bit horrifying for me as someone who like did not want to think about like the butterfly prison of its own mind. Let me tell you about the time I turned my body inside out and I painfully morphed into something else. Yeah. Well that's relevant to the story of Elizabeth Fry. Yeah it was kind of horrific. So the butterfly upsets me. I'm trying not to think about it too much while also having to. Yeah shut the fuck up butterfly you're right you can't read. Can't read you stupid fucking butterfly. Yeah. And so she did not teach the butterfly how to knit but she did teach the women so she taught them sewing and knitting and reading and writing. And so did she teach them how to save a butterfly by sticking a pin through its head

and sticking it on a cork board. I do find it very funny that she's holding up a pair of scissors next to the butterfly. Right next to the butterfly. Fucking clip your wings you bitch. It's like how do you like crawling again. How'd you like to go back to being a caterpillar. And so she started teaching the women how to make quilts. And they said they were taught sewing. So they have a quilting bee. And they have a little quilting and look all the women look they're not ragged. Yeah they look actual human beings that brush their hair and yeah they look like women again. They're not little captain caveman people. Quote I'll take your quilts and sell them for you said Elizabeth. Then I'll give you the money and you can buy little things for yourself. You are very kind

to person Elizabeth Fry the prisoner said thank you. So Elizabeth sold their quilts and they got a little bit of money and they bought little things at the prison store so they could have personal items. And you know food and shit which they were getting much of before. So their conditions improved dramatically. Quote then one day the authorities came around to see how things were going in the prison. What's happened they cried look over there how clean everything is and look at those women they're bright and happy and pretty. They're not suffering nearly enough we must put a stop to this instantly. The women had cleaned the prison up you see and they had cleaned themselves up. The prison looked like a busy little shop or a friendly home. The women

were not fighting in fact they were helping each other. So you see these baffled stupid men. What how could we have possibly have been wrong about anything ever we are men with penises. My mustache says there's something up. But yeah they had to concede that her prison reform was useful and helpful and was working. So quote the prison officials were so impressed that they told the people of the village about the change in the prison. Look at it they said see how nice it is now. It's much better place since good kind Elizabeth Fry came here to help the prisoners. And so now the prison's all shiny. Now it's a castle. Now it's a castle instead of a prison which it was always a castle. Well it is England. It's England. They have castles laying around.

Yeah so they turn a lot of them into prisons so that probably tracks. No a single mention of all the the lesbian hookups that happen in the women's prison. Whatever you know after being abused by all those men. Again this is not orange is the new black. So the men called a meeting quote we have men prisoners at Newgate two said one of the officials. What if we stopped treating them. We could help them the way you have helped the women. And she says you should do that. You should totally do that. I don't need to do that but you should do that. I'm not going into the men's prison. She does not go into the men's prison although she did write. She helped draft laws. So she advocated for them. She advocated for all of them. However I

don't think she personally went into the men's. Well good because that wouldn't have ended well. That yeah it was like you should do that. You guys. She almost got beaten to death in the lady prison. Imagine what would have happened to her in the dude prison. In the dude prison and again. Not that they would have probably let her in in the first place. Well I think there was it was just a free for all. She was the one who separated them and then was like yeah you deal with those guys. The rapists and the murderers. I'll go over here with these poor fucking battered women. We should try this innovative treat people like human beings. So they did. They opened schools and the prisoners knew someone cared

about them and they learned useful shit to become reformed people and not just you know. And so the prison in worse situations than they were in before. So the prison industrial complex was fixed completely and we've never had any problems ever since. Hooray. No that's not what happened. I could have sworn I saw John Stewart talking about this on TV last week. Yeah well and again I don't know what the prison situation in England is. I mean I'm gonna go with it's probably not great. However but you know we know I don't know a whole lot about it. We inherited our legal system from England and like back in the day our prisons sucked just as bad. So quote soon Elizabeth Fry was getting letters from all over Great Britain. She got so many

letters that her daughters had to help her with her mail. Luckily she had lots of those. She had tons of those. Like six of them. See she knew all that sex with her husband was gonna come in handy one day. Yep so now she has child labor and they help her. And she and one one day here's a special one mother cried one of the girls. It has a red seal on it. Whom do you think it could be from? Gasp. Elizabeth Fry was very happy when she opened the letter. It was an invitation to come speak at the House of Commons. Oh shit she's going to Parliament. Yeah and she was the first it was the first time a woman other than the queen had been asked to speak for the government to speak to the government. Wow. And so the butterfly says can I come with you and she was

like of course you can't imaginary butterfly how could I possibly do anything without you. She's fucking criminally insane. Who's going to give me nightmare fuel with your stories of metamorphosizing. Yeah although here you can you can see the picture. All right so yeah you see her dressed up in her school mom outfit giving a talk to all the powdered wig dudes in the House of Commons. Yeah but she is like wearing like pink. I hope she had to witness a screaming match in a fist fight. Which still would have been completely off color because she was like she was a tone down. She dressed up like the Quaker Oats dude. Quote the answer is very simple she told the distinguished men. Prison should be a place of reform places where people who

have been bad can learn how to be good. You will never teach a person to be good by being bad to them by beating or starving or humiliating them. She went on the answer is to be kind to help people to care about making them happier. When people are happy they will be good. She's right you know so the members of the House of Commons. I'm so proud of you Elizabeth whispered the butterfly because apparently she didn't have a real life husband or family or people which is completely fucking. Her children are busy working in her letter writing mill. Yeah well I mean she actually was like a ridiculously busy person. I mean sounds like it I mean like impressed enough people to get invited to talk to Parliament at this stage. Yes and in literally she's like yeah how about you

know we can reduce crime by improving the quality of people's lives. It's this weird weird foreign concept that nobody's ever occurred. So quote after that Elizabeth was invited to go to the continent of Europe and talk to the kings and queens and heads of state. They all wanted to know how to make their prisons better. She wrote in a carriage to see them. Why they added that. Why they needed this tiny little paragraph with a giant illustration of a carriage speeding off with a team of horses. Yeah like literally like this entire fucking thing was so unnecessary it's hilarious. Yeah the writing is bad. Not quite as bad as the last one but it's it's pretty bad. I don't know the Christopher Columbus one maybe have maybe takes the cake for me so far. Yeah well

that's the one where we got to find out about the private thoughts of an imaginary character that he didn't even share with anyone. It was you know the whole the whole thing about Christopher Columbus was nothing but fucking propaganda and bullshit. This one is actually like let's talk about this woman that you probably have never heard of and then just give this little little highlight reel with a crazy person talking to a butterfly. I mean they spent more time on her about like just her being a child than they did on any of her good works. So they show her talking to kings and queens. We're all just hanging out together. Yeah they just happen to be hanging out together which is not how any of this happens. We just take our thrones and just like set it all

up. Yeah and you got like and we got all kinds of like Burger King Kings Club. Yeah and I mean and they kind of yeah they don't even explain who the kings or king queens are at this point. They just show random turban and dude in a crown and some sort of eastern like a Russian looking dude. Yeah it's like they have the Queen of England the Tsar of Russia. I don't even know who the fuck that's supposed to be and then the King of Persia. Oh yes and I only know that because I looked at her actual like. Who'd she talk to? Yep. Okay. So she talked to them and so she started prison reform in not only her own country but several countries. Everywhere but I don't see the King of America there. The King of America was not there. She did not talk to America. America didn't

give a fuck about prison reform. Still don't. As I say that treks. Elizabeth Frikes maybe could have jumped across the pond and. Yeah but she didn't. I mean it's hard to. It's not her fault. It's hard to get on a boat for months when you're giving birth to 11 children. I am busy constantly being pregnant. Yeah I mean she was a grandmother. See sickness and pregnancy probably not a great combination. Yeah so she did not hop across the pond. However she did start prison reform so we're going to end the book by saying quote. Perhaps like Elizabeth Frikes you might think about how good you feel when you are kind. Of course you may decide to bring kindness in your own life in very different way indeed. But whatever you decide to do let's hope it is

something that will make you a happier person. Just like our kind friend Elizabeth Frikes. So everybody go out and reform your local prisons and jails. I mean now it's I mean she sounds like a pretty admirable person. I don't know anything about her other than like I said I remember. Yeah no. I remember this one vaguely from when we were kids but I don't know that her names popped up in the rest of my life. Yup and so here we go. I'm going to read directly from her Wikipedia page now. Sure. She supported efforts by Queen Victoria, the emperor's Alexander the first, Nicholas the first of Russia and was a correspondence of both wives to the emperor's mother. In commemoration of her efforts she was depicted by the Bank of England on five pound

notes in circulation between 2002 and 2016. Damn so she was literally their five dollar bill. She was their fucking money for a minute. She was that influential. That's the five pound note. That's the Abe Lincoln spot in America. Yup. So good for you Elizabeth Frikes. Yup. Although funny enough she was taken off of the note in 2016 to be replaced with Winston Churchill. Oh yes maybe. Good old Winston. Which now makes me a little sad but you know. And so she was a Quaker yeah. But yeah so she was a Quaker. She was fucking. So they got somebody a hundred percent drunker than Elizabeth Frikes to be the new five pound. A hundred and fifty percent. Winston Churchill was one of the books, Value Tales books, that's sitting there but I have. Oh

do you have Winston Churchill. I have a Winston Churchill in this series. Which I bet does not talk about his raging alcoholism even a little bit. Probably not. And again I have Eleanor Roosevelt in mind. That's your like. I sometimes make it my happy place. So I'll do it eventually but I want to do it in correspondence with. We won't add this in. But yeah but this book definitely is a sad and timely reminder that our prison system a hundred percent sucks. Like I said I watched the most recent episode of The Problem with John Stuart on Apple TV Plus where he literally did a whole episode on the prison industrial complex and how desperate need for change that we need things. Yeah well apparently she did not hop across the pond because

they actually now because of her half prison reform and not only her own country but several others. Well nicely done Elizabeth Frikes. But yeah she started with Newgate prison and kind of moved on from there. And like again her family was stupid rich. At one point her husband like became bankrupt and it still didn't matter because they were still stupidly rich. It's fine. But yeah it's like so she's came from a family of Quaker bankers and then married into a different family of Quaker bankers. So they were all about nothing but money and oats. Money but she's still focused on going into prison. Yeah she and she actually like had a more toned down life. But we've had those similar stories of these people who who are privileged who do decide to

to help people even at the lesion like people in prison especially back in these days. Holy shit. Yeah I mean the first thing she did was just take one look at it go back to her house and like fucking round up clothes and shit just to bring before she did anything else. It's like she tried she brought these people fucking perv. Dirty women and rags. Yes and they were like and she was like oh hell no you need to get these men out of here. Yeah that can't be good. That can't be good. So she was really. We need to limit all the sexual assault to only the prison guards. Yelp and again she even tried to limit that by having like women supervisors. Right now there are there are always ways to mitigate these situations. It's funny how they don't seem to stick

in some institutions. So yeah it goes on and it talks about how she influenced different acts of parliament and how the first one like didn't really do shit and she was really mad about it. Yeah the frustration of trying to change. Yeah and so she had to like do it again by passing another prison act. Don't make me pass another prison act. She changed conditions on penile transport. Like it was a big thing and again she had like an army of women who helped her at this point. You said penile. Sorry I'm immature. You're a child Jamie. But yeah so she worked on reform for these prisoners who were just being transported and fucking dumped. She was like no you actually have to like

fucking switch this up. Yeah they were the prisoners were taken away in open carts so they were humiliated and thrown. Yeah they got the pelting rotten food treatment and all that kind of thing. All of that shit. So she actually was the one who was like no you need to put walls up. These people don't need to be humiliated for a final time. Right. So she actually was the one who put a stop to that shit at least for women because a lot of the the shit that she could implement a lot of it was just for women although some of the widening prison reform was for the men as well. But then later on they're like oh well some of the stuff that works could eat just as easily work over on the other side of the wall.

So yeah so she worked on widening prison reform. She set up welfare and homeless establishments and shelters. Elizabeth quote Elizabeth also helped the homeless establishing nightly shelters in London after seeing a body of a young boy in winter in 1819 through 1820. So she's like yeah kids maybe shouldn't freeze to death. Yeah you know it's like just because you're poor doesn't mean you should freeze to death and die. That's not the that's not the way of Victorian England. Nope in 1840 she opened up a training school for nurses and her program inspired Florence Nightingale. There you go. Another one of the women on my my list. I'm sure we will get to her. We will get to Florence Nightingale eventually. I love

Florence Nightingale. So I guess yeah Elizabeth Fry gets the official train so history thumbs up as a not shitty person. As a not shitty person. Somebody who actually tried to make the world a better place knowing that she started as a as a poor little rich girl makes it even better that she could have just lived a life of luxury and privilege and never thought about anybody else and she didn't she instead directed her energy so those people who need it and and yeah and pretty much she didn't take a life of poverty by any means but she but she was generous and you know kind to other people so there you go. And yeah she was and she was again she how did they describe because they actually described that in this book I think they added a lot of weird shit in her

biography. Well those I figured out those last page biographies are often just as full of shit as the the children's book stuff. Yeah like the Columbus one was utter nonsense. They sum up some stuff and like they added some stuff about her husband didn't always approve of her activities but he promised not to not to interfere and it's like what the fuck. Well you gotta you made that up. You gotta bring the husband. Again I did not read that on her Wikipedia page so I don't but again I don't know where that came from or even why they would fucking add it for any reason it doesn't even make sense but what they called her was a plain Quaker. She didn't she wore the actual traditional Quaker garb. Yeah like her parents were like rich Quakers and she was like no

I want to be a plain. I'm a fundamentalist. Got it. She dressed in plain clothes and gave up all of her personal adornments. All right well listeners give up all of your fancy clothes and personal adornments and you know go help out somewhere to someone. Well or you could just take it as hey let's just be kinder to one another and make the world a better place. And fight for prison reform. And fight for prison reform because that shit's important. We definitely need it. You know to this side if you want to hear the John Stewart thing go on YouTube and look for that clip. Really good interviews and talks about it. So once again if you are listening to us now you can go to chainsawhistory.com to hear even more all of our regular episodes all of our full

back catalog bonus episodes and articles are available for our subscribers and we hope you'll check us out. If you are into Dungeons and Dragons you can go to the website backstab.com to find some of the latest stuff I did. For example I got into Irish folklore and made a more accurate version of the Banshee than is presented in the Monster Manual which was fun. And I did a video that has Sean Connery singing a love song. You can find it on my website backstab.com. So I think that's pretty much it for us. Okay yeah a special thanks to our sound engineer Kevin here at Raven Sound Studio. Thanks Kevin. And the reason we don't sound like we did in season one. And we'll see you on the flip side of this. Bye. Bye.