Lore - Episode 124: To Die For

Episode Date: September 30, 2019

Everyone wants to look good. And while there’s nothing wrong with beauty, sometimes people have made sacrifices—both willing and unaware—in the pursuit of it. After looking through the pages of history, though, that hasn’t always been a good thing. ——————— Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources Lore News: www.theworldoflore.com/now Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com Access premium content!: https://www.lorepodcast.com/support See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We give impossible so much power. It stops us from reaching our goals, changing our lives, or just getting through the day. Defy impossible with something more powerful. Your next step fueled by our expert advice. Because ATB sees possibilities. So what impossible thing will you do today? Close on a major business deal? Get your kids out the door on time?

Try ATB, and let's discover what's possible together. The claims were extraordinary. It would chase away your problems, make all your dreams come true, and fix the things that you didn't even know were wrong. It was the sort of thing you might find in an Instagram ad, except this item was on the market over a century ago. Dr. James P. Campbell had created The Magic Pill. It was a wafer that claimed to target all those pesky skin conditions

that folks wanted to get rid of. Blackheads, redness, dry patches, and even freckles. But it offered more, according to the ad that ran in newspapers around 1890. Dr. Campbell's complexion wafers were supposed to smooth out facial disfigurement and soften harsh angles. It promised to lift your spirits, help your appetite, and clear up any painful rheumatism that might be troubling you. Headaches, hay fever, indigestion, you name it.

Dr. Campbell's complexion wafers could do it all. Except you know the truth, right? There are no magic pills. No silver bullets guaranteed to solve our problems. No easy fixes to the cards we've been dealt. Yes, a lot of those conditions or issues can be helped. But today we know just how expensive and complicated it is to do that. That didn't stop others from selling the same sort of product, though.

In 1893, an ad ran in the Spokane Daily Chronicle that declared, Beautiful women use Dr. Sim's complexion wafers. And like all the other ads, it preyed on that ancient eternal desire that all of us have deep down in our core. We long for beauty and will do almost anything to reach it. History is full of stories of desperate people who have lined up for the latest and greatest in items designed to bestow beauty. And right alongside them, there have been enterprising individuals

ready to offer new and improved ways to achieve it. But if you dig deep enough, you'll notice one thing that all those tales have in common. Beauty isn't just a luxury that most people strain themselves to reach. It's to die for. I'm Aaron Mankey. And this is Lore. Carl Schiele invented green.

Not the color, mind you. We can find green all throughout nature, making it one of the most common colors in the world. But Carl was looking for a way to apply that color to other objects. And in 1775, he figured it out. It was a pigment based on a recipe of chemicals that included copper. And when it was released, shields green could color almost anything.

Book covers, soap, the leaves on artificial plants, wallpaper, and clothing. The trouble wasn't how useful the pigment was or just how many items in a person's life could suddenly become bright green. It was the key ingredient in the pigment. Arsenic. Now, thanks to a century or more of mystery novels and detective shows, most people know that arsenic is a toxic substance.

But in 1775, that was sort of an afterthought. If arsenic was used in a product, folks generally assumed that it wasn't going to pose a threat. But oh, how wrong they were. By the mid-1800s, shields green was coloring countless items in the world. In 1861, a young woman named Matilda Schurer worked at an artificial flower maker, crafting those fake vines and leaves into headdresses for customers to buy.

And she helped them stand out by dusting them with a powdered version of the arsenic based green pigment. Over an 18 month period, Matilda went from healthy to horribly ill. Her fingernails were bright green, as were the whites of her eyes. Then on November 20th of 1861, she became so sick that she vomited up green liquid. When the doctor checked her,

she told him that her vision had become tinted green. Weeks later, she was dead. This dangerous pursuit of beauty wasn't a new thing though, even back in the 19th century. We can find examples as far back as ancient Egypt to find the same delicate balance between toxic chemicals and good looks. But for the Egyptians, their weakness was eyeliner. According to historians, everyone from the lowest of servants

to the pharaohs themselves used heavy, dark eyeliner on a daily basis. The recipe was a mixture of black and green powders, although I can't find evidence that the green was achieved with arsenic. What it did contain though, was almost as bad. Scientists working with ancient Egyptian artifacts from the Louvre have determined that the eyeliner actually contained two different types of lead, which were not used just as makeup, but to treat scars and other skin issues.

And amazingly, some studies have shown that it might have been helpful. Lead, it turns out, has a way of breaking down the DNA of bacteria and stimulating the immune system. But too much of anything is never a good idea. The trade-off is that lead is toxic in large quantities. Had the ancient Egyptians managed to live longer lives than their average of 40 years, that constant daily exposure to lead might have created newer, more deadly health problems for them. And they wouldn't be the last.

The Roman poet Ovid left us detailed accounts of how Roman women used a powdered white lead known as Cirusa as a foundation for the rest of their makeup. It was a substance that had been around for a very long time and remained in practice long after the Romans were gone, which is why, just four years after taking the throne, England's Queen Elizabeth I reached for it. She had become queen at the age of 25, but a few years into her reign, she contracted smallpox,

which left her face scarred forever. The white lead powder might have left her face looking a bit too white, but it smoothed out her blemishes as well. This is why every painting of Queen Elizabeth I shows a pale-faced woman, because she felt the need to paint her face white. There was a downside, though. Over time, that lead powder had a way of corroding the skin beneath it, which necessitated using more and more as the years went by,

and that much lead caused other problems, such as hair loss and a deterioration of her mental health. She slowly poisoned herself over the years, and today, most historians agree that it was Elizabeth's use of white lead powder that ultimately killed her. As the years passed by, lead fell out of use in favor of arsenic. Powdered versions of the toxic mineral were used to whiten faces and treat lice-infested hair.

Some women used it to redden their cheeks, while others found medicinal uses for it. And then, of course, Carl Schiele's green pigment entered the picture. But it was worse than that. Those beauty wafers I mentioned at the start of today's episode, the active ingredient in all of them was arsenic. Snake oil salesmen all across America and Europe were packing up poisonous biscuits and selling them as a beauty aid.

Not because they wanted to harm people, of course, but because they assumed most customers would gladly deal with a little poison if it meant clearing up their acne or indigestion. Whether or not the wafers actually worked is hard to tell, but we can't deny the truth they've left behind. When it comes to looking good, some people will literally do anything. It started as a legend.

Stories were whispered, and then they were spread, and then finally everyone bought into it. What happens on the internet, it's surprising but understandable. In 10th century China, though, it was remarkable. The stories tell of an emperor whose concubine danced on a golden stage that had been built in the shape of a lotus flower. But it wasn't the dancing that went viral, so to speak. It was her feet.

According to the legend, before the dance began, this woman had compressed her feet into a more slender, pointed shape. Whether or not the tale is true, its influence is unmistakable. For the next 900 years, China would become home to the unusual practice of footbinding. And let me be completely upfront with you here. Footbinding is a deep cavernous topic with hours of history and details, and I can't cover all of that for you today.

At the same time, it's a painful subject, and one with a lot of nuance and passionate opinions. Yes, it was a practice of violence against women. Yes, it was a form of social oppression. And yes, it was something that Chinese women felt powerless to reject for nearly a thousand years. But it's also the perfect example of that old human tendency to place the pursuit of beauty in fashion

over common sense and physical well-being. And that's why I want to briefly mention it today. What was footbinding? Over simplifying it, it was the process of binding women's feet in order to deform and control their shape. At the height of its popularity, the binding process would begin between the ages of two and four years old, where the four smaller toes would be bent under the foot

and then held there with long cloth wrappings. As the foot grew, it would be broken repeatedly to allow those toes to continue curving under the foot. Eventually, growth would slow, and it would no longer be necessary to re-break the foot. But the women who suffered through this would still need to keep their feet bound and cloth for the rest of their lives.

Understandably, this sort of guided mutilation had consequences. It became difficult to walk, and because of that, women became less mobile than men. Oftentimes, the bindings would cut off circulation, leading to rotting wounds and infected skin. And if the infection spread to the bones of the toes, they would often fall off, something that aligned just fine with the beauty standards of the day.

Brutal, but true. Some infections were so bad, though, that they were known to spread throughout the rest of the body. Some historians believe that close to 10% of foot-bound women eventually died from complications with the process, and those that survived were much more susceptible to health problems as they grew older. Remember, though, that this was done to reshape feet

into an ancient ideal of beauty. But while the legend of the Emperor's Dancer dates back to the 10th century, there's an older Chinese story about a king who finds a tiny shoe and announces his intention to marry whoever could fit their foot inside. And if that sounds familiar to you at all,

that's because historians think it's one of the oldest roots of the Cinderella fairy tale on record. But the Chinese weren't the only culture attempting to bind and contain the human form. Elsewhere around the world, women have been strapping themselves into corsets in order to shape their figure. It's a practice that's centuries old,

with simple technology that didn't change much during that time. But in the mid-19th century, something happened. In 1828, a French designer introduced a new feature for corsets, metal eyelets and laces. Today, I think they're taken for granted, but in the early 1800s, this was revolutionary. It allowed women to adjust and tighten their corsets

whenever they needed or wanted to, giving them so much more control than ever before. But as you might expect, that control came at a price. Tighter corsets led to restricted airflow, causing many who wore them to faint in public. The medical community spoke out against them, but it was like shouting into the wind.

This was Victorian society, after all, and the corset had become a symbol of a woman's restraint and virtue, those who didn't wear them were considered promiscuous by their peers. But prolonged use of overly tight corsets had a tendency to deform a woman's ribcage, compressing it and reducing the space inside for internal organs. Understandably, many women experienced shortness of breath, indigestion, and the atrophy of their back and stomach muscles.

For those who insisted on wearing their corsets too tight, it was quite a price to pay. Like I said, people will go to great lengths to be beautiful. Whether it's at the hands of an oppressive societal expectation or a choice made willingly on their own, humans have been making sacrifices on the altar of fashion for almost as long as we've been around. Sometimes, though, there's more involved,

an added layer that makes the pursuit of beauty more complex and acceptable. But new layers bring new complications, new opportunities for failure and abuse and suffering. And when that happens, it turns a simple sacrifice into a burnt offering. Music When it comes to performance art, there are few as beautiful as ballet. Whether it's the elaborate set design of the Boston Ballet's rendition

of The Nutcracker, or the simple strength of each dancer's movement, ballet is filled with beauty. But a century and a half ago, that beauty came with a price. Today, we have workplace safety requirements and better modern technology. But in the middle of the 19th century, things were a bit more precarious. Stage elements and sets were known to collapse, sometimes in the middle of performances and sometimes right on top of dancers. And in an era when most theaters were built mainly of wood,

fire was a constant risk. That's not all that had a tendency to burn, though. It turns out that the traditional costumes worn by ballet dancers had a tendency to catch fire, and not the sort of fire that starts small and slowly eats away at the fabric. No, these fires were instant and all-consuming. And when there was a person inside that outfit, you can imagine how deadly that could become.

Part of the problem was the dress itself. They were made of thin, airy muslin, cotton netting, and gauze, all of which were open-weave fabrics that were practically born to burn. But the other problem was that in the middle of the 19th century, interior lights were all gas-based. Everywhere you saw the bright glow of light, you were looking at an open flame. And when you put a dozen or more women on a stage that's lit by a series of small gas lamps, well, you can see how dangerous it quickly gets.

On the night of September 14th, 1861, those risks were put to the test in the Philadelphia venue known as the Continental Theater. The dancers were planning to take the stage that night to perform Shakespeare's The Tempest, and theater owner William Wheatley had hired an English set designer to bring the shipwreck scene to life. All 1,500 people in the audience watched as the seas began to rise and rage. As it did, the dancers rushed off the stage to change out one outfit into another, and they had to do it quickly.

They needed to help the character Alonzo welcome the shipwreck survivors to Prospero's Island. Inside the dancers' changing room, gas lamps had been set beside large mirrors, which helped to amplify the light. According to one report, some of the dancers chose to hang their dresses on the mirror frames because their shape made them effective hooks. But that put them far too close to the open flames. As the storm raged on in front of the audience, a scream filled the theater, and a brilliant orange glow flared up behind the set pieces.

Backstage, one of the dancers, a young woman named Zealia Gale, had caught fire, and in her panic she had rushed out onto the stage, her entire body engulfed in flames. Witnesses claimed to have seen her flesh melting off her limbs before she toppled off toward the audience. Wheatley panicked. He ordered the main curtain to be drawn across the stage, but that only hid the visual portion of the tragedy from the people in the seats. He attempted to calm them, but the screams from behind the curtain were overwhelming and terrifying. Not knowing what else to do, he urged the crowd to exit the theater, which they promptly did.

But the dancers' backstage didn't have the same chance to escape. Tragically, Zealia wasn't the only one to catch fire. She was part of a family of dancers from England, and three of her sisters were also in the continental with her that night. When her dress began to burn, all three of them rushed to help her, only to catch fire themselves. Panic broke out in the dressing room. While Zealia bolted toward the stage, the others began to run madly around the room. One of the sisters reportedly crashed headfirst into one of the large mirrors, which covered her body in a spiderweb of deep, bloody cuts.

Another forced one of the windows open, perhaps hoping for someone to rescue them. But after a few terrifying moments, that open window became a tempting exit. Multiple dancers threw themselves out the window and plummeted to the pavement below. Witnesses on the street claimed to hear the sounds of bones breaking as the young women landed. Others inside rushed after Zealia, crashing off the stage and into more mirrors. It was chaos, fueled by fire, and ruled by terror. When the tragedy was over, many of the dancers were carried to local buildings for medical care, including a tavern, some houses, and a nearby hotel.

But after the chaos subsided, all of them were transported to the Pennsylvania hospital, where physicians fought to save as many as they could. In the aftermath of a tragedy such as the one that took place inside the Continental Theater, it would be easy to go looking for someone to blame. Amazingly though, William Wheatley, the owner, avoided any public or legal accusations. According to everyone inside at the time, he simply did what he was able to do, and probably saved all of them from a larger catastrophe. But the dancers weren't so lucky.

Of the ten ballerinas who were part of the production that night, eight of them died as a result of their injuries. All four of the Gale sisters were among them. Most people want to look good. We make an effort, at least, and I'm not sure I know anyone personally who enjoys leaving the house without first making themselves presentable. Maybe it's vanity, or perhaps it's something deeper, something more than we can put into words.

Looking back through the pages of history, it's clear that beauty has been a priority for a very long time. And again, that's not a bad thing, and I don't want anyone to feel shamed or attacked just because they enjoy looking good. But what history does teach us is that oftentimes, humans have chosen beauty over safety, and the results have been tragic. From poisonous makeup in the ancient world to the modern trend of fake braces applied at home with toxic materials,

there doesn't seem to be an end to the ancient tradition of damaging ourselves in order to look perfect. The clues have been in our fairy tales for centuries, and they're in the news today, leaving me to wonder if we'll ever catch on and correct ourselves. But humans are notoriously slow to learn things. You would think that the tragedy at the Continental Theater in 1861 would settle the issue of safer ballet costumes once and for all.

But that's sadly not the case. Even in France, where the old traditional dresses and set pieces were banned in favor of fire-resistant alternatives, there were those who resisted. One was a dancer named Emma Leverie. She was the daughter of a prominent ballerina and a wealthy father who studied at the Paris Opera School. And while it was said that she wasn't the most beautiful young woman in the school,

her technique and grace were second to none. Everyone who watched her dance walked away certain that Emma would be a star. And they were right. She made her debut appearance at just 16 years old as the lead in La Sille Fide, and from there her career climbed higher and higher. After that, she was taken under the wing of renowned ballerina and choreographer Marie Taglioni. If there was one bright flame in all of ballet in the middle of the 19th century, it was Emma Leverie.

In 1860, an 18-year-old Emma pushed back against the new rules regarding fire safety. The new costumes were fire-resistant, sure, but the chemicals they had been treated with also made them look filthy and stiff. Emma wanted to maintain the high standards of her predecessors, and this new rule was cramping her style. That decision would come back to haunt her, though. In November of 1862, while rehearsing for a performance, Emma's skirts brushed over one of the stage lamps and caught fire.

She panicked and ran around the stage for a few moments before someone was able to catch her and put out the flames. Emma's wounds weren't deep, but they covered roughly half her body, including her waist, back, thighs, and arms. Worse yet, the laces of her corset had caught fire as well, melting into her flesh. For the next two days, Emma couldn't move, instead remaining inside her dressing room while wrapped in what must have felt like miles of bandages. There were other issues, too.

Taglioni, her tutor, had rubbed makeup grease on Emma's burns in the immediate aftermath because she somehow believed that the oil would soothe the wounds. Instead, it contributed to the infection that was about to bloom all over her body. The months of rest and recovery that followed allowed Emma a chance to rethink her negative attitude toward fire-resistant ballet costumes. But even the tragedy of her own accident and the suffering she had to endure didn't compete with her desire to maintain the old standards. If ever I dance again, she told her friends,

it won't be in one of those ugly new dresses. Sadly, she never had the chance to stand by those convictions. On July 26th of 1863, over eight months after her encounter with the flames, Emma Leverie passed away. But although she herself was resistant to a safer future, her death spurred much needed change in the industry she loved so much. Gas lamps were redesigned to be safer, and theaters began to store wet blankets backstage,

just in case they were unexpectedly needed. Emma Leverie might have been a shining star in her field, but it's clear that her true legacy was reminding everyone else of the importance of priorities. Fashion and beauty might very well be important, but they're not worth dying for. I hope you've enjoyed this bizarre and tragic tour of the intersection between fashion, folklore, and the human desire for beauty.

But there's one more story I'd like to share with you, and I think you're going to love it. Stick around now for a new episode of Fashion and Beauty. I hope you've enjoyed this bizarre and tragic tour of the intersection between fashion, folklore, and the human desire for beauty. And I think you're going to love it. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it. For the last 16 years, visit flyporter.com.

Porter, actually enjoy economy. Ignorance can be deadly. As we discussed earlier, the factory workers who colored those floral headpieces with shields green unwittingly poisoned themselves. After the tragic death of Matilda Shurer, a representative from the Ladies Sanitary Association stepped in to investigate her workplace, and what she found was heartbreaking.

After testing some of the artificial leaves that the women were using in the headpieces, it was determined that one complete headdress had enough arsenic in it to kill about 20 people. More troublesome, one of the full dresses that were made at the facility was found to contain about 900 grains of arsenic, which is magnitudes more than the five grains that were considered lethal. And this sort of toxic workplace was just one of many. You didn't have to look far to find others like it across the east coast of America, back in England and in major European cities as well.

Fashion, it seems, was an industry fueled by poison, which leads me to one of the most disturbing examples of them all. Felt Hats Today we can make felt a number of ways, but in the middle of the 17th century there was only one option, beaver pelts. If you've ever wondered why there were so many fur trappers all across Canada and the western half of North America in the early 18th century, that's a big part of it.

Beaver pelts were highly sought after because they made the French hat industry possible. Their origins date back as far as the 1300s actually, but it wasn't until the mid 1600s when they really became popular in France. Two centuries later, England caught on and the demand exploded. But beaver hats were expensive because of the laws of supply and demand, but also because they were difficult to make. The first step was to felt the fur, and at some point in the distant past,

some creative individual discovered that camel urine was the perfect solution to use to break down the fur and make it feltable. But as production increased, some workmen in France began to use their own urine, and that's when something happened. Legend says that the urine of one particular worker appeared to be vastly more effective than all his peers. After interviewing the man, they discovered why.

He had been taking medicine for syphilis, a medication that contained a powerful active ingredient, mercury. Naturally, the entire industry took notice, and soon enough, every felt-hat factory was using an orange-colored solution called murcuric nitrate. But before you decide that things couldn't get any more disgusting, let me tell you about the felting process. First, the beaver pelts were matted with that orange solution

before shaping the material into a large cone. Then it was boiled to shrink it. After it was dry, it was ready. But boiling water creates steam, and when that water contains massive amounts of murcuric nitrate, you can imagine how toxic that steam would have been. It's said that in facilities that use the orange solution, that poisonous steam would collect on the ceiling

before raining down on the workers below, covering them with mercury. Steam is also incredibly easy to inhale, and anything suspended in that steam will flow right into a person's lungs. It didn't take long for exposure to these chemicals to have an effect on the workers, but because they were afraid of losing their jobs,

they chose to stay quiet and endure it all. But while that guaranteed that they could earn a living, it came at a tremendous cost. Side effects of all that mercury poisoning included trembling limbs and hands. In the town of Danbury, Connecticut, where hat-making had become a massive industry, those tremors were known as the Danbury Shakes.

It was a clever name for an insidious condition, and it was only the harbinger of something darker to come. As the symptoms grew worse, they included hearing loss, red fingers and cheeks, bleeding in the mouth, hair loss, bleeding from the ears, and more. Other symptoms were more invisible, but no less significant,

insomnia, shyness, memory loss, and a loss of coordination. And then there were the violent mood swings and overall paranoia. The technical term for the condition is erythism, but to most people it was just madness. And because people are so very good at association, that madness soon became deeply tied to the occupation

where it was far too common. If someone was unstable or behaved erratically, it was assumed that they worked in a hat factory. But it did something else. Unlike arsenic poisoning among dressmakers, or Elizabethan nobles and their lead face paint, the tragic, mercury-based condition embedded itself so deeply in popular culture

that it's still referenced today. In fact, without it, we wouldn't have one of the most memorable and endearing character names in all of literature. The eccentric and unpredictable host of the most bizarre tea party imaginable. The Mad Hatter This episode of Lore was written and produced by me,

Aaron Mankey, with research by Taylor Hagridorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life. Also, make two other podcasts as well. You can find them on Amazon Prime Video,

and I think you'd enjoy both of them. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. And you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on in the world of Lore over in one central place, theworldoflore.com, slash now.

And while you're at it, you can follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, just so you don't miss a single episode of Lore. And if you're interested, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.

I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.