“Butter Busts, Breakfast Champagne & The Great Turtle Takeover: Gilded Age Oddities” Part 2

0:00 Speaker 1: Welcome back, dear listeners to the Strange History Podcast, the

0:03 Speaker 1: show where historical accuracy holds hands with emotional chaos, and

0:07 Speaker 1: both of them have been sipping champagne since sunrise. Tonight,

0:12 Speaker 1: We're plunging into a double sized, velvet draped extravaganza of

0:15 Speaker 1: Gilded Age absurdity. This is the era where butter became

0:20 Speaker 1: a sculpting medium, turtles staged a citywide coup, dogs required

0:24 Speaker 1: etiquette training, hats became aerodynamic hazards, and love was broadcast

0:29 Speaker 1: through lighthouse morse code like a Victorian group text no

0:33 Speaker 1: one asked for. So refill your emotional support champagne, adjust

0:37 Speaker 1: your monocle, and mentally prepare to witness some of the

0:40 Speaker 1: most unhinged true stories. The wealthy elite hoped history would

0:45 Speaker 1: politely ignore. Spoiler. We did not ignore them. We wrote

0:49 Speaker 1: them down and were reading them out loud. Let's begin.

0:52 Speaker 2: Butter Busts and breakfast Champagne. The Gilded Age in meltdown mode,

1:00 Speaker 2: sculpture craze.

1:02 Speaker 1: Butter sculpting swept America like a dairy based fever. Dream

1:07 Speaker 1: State Fares featured full butter cows, butter cities, and a

1:11 Speaker 1: butter Abraham Lincoln, who tragically melted in a heat wave

1:15 Speaker 1: and traumatized children. One witness recalled mister Lincoln's face slid

1:20 Speaker 1: sideways like a sad ghost. Dairy art beloved, alarming, and

1:26 Speaker 1: definitely not lactose intolerant friendly?

1:29 Speaker 3: Is your butter simply sitting there? Being butter? Introducing Butter Mansion,

1:35 Speaker 3: the world's first luxury butter display case, featuring velvet interiors,

1:40 Speaker 3: gold pedestals, and climate control, cool enough to keep dairy sculpted,

1:44 Speaker 3: Dramatic and ready for admiration. Butter Mansion, because your butter

1:49 Speaker 3: deserves prestige.

1:51 Speaker 2: Dinner in the dark the sensory disaster.

1:55 Speaker 1: Before dark dining was trendy. Gilded Age elites tried it

1:59 Speaker 1: first and predictably failed spectacularly. Guests knocked over glasses, ate

2:05 Speaker 1: from decorative vases, and accidentally applied gravy where gravy should

2:10 Speaker 1: not go. A waiter later confessed, I have never heard

2:14 Speaker 1: so many apologies in total darkness.

2:18 Speaker 2: Lizzie Gleason's folding mansion.

2:20 Speaker 1: Bored Heiress Lizzie Gleason built a mansion that folded like

2:25 Speaker 1: a nightmare Ikia project. It was transported by train took

2:30 Speaker 1: days to reconstruct, and was home to several raccoons who

2:33 Speaker 1: refused eviction. One conductor described it as less a house

2:39 Speaker 1: more a traveling architectural prank.

2:42 Speaker 2: The Great Turtle Escape of Manhattan.

2:45 Speaker 1: One warehouse storing thousands of decorative turtles lost containment. The turtles, slow, confident, unstoppable,

2:54 Speaker 1: crawled into the streets. A banker blamed his lateness on

2:59 Speaker 1: a gentleman turdle blocking my path with great purpose. The

3:03 Speaker 1: turtles won. Society adapted breakfast wine the unofficial mourning beverage.

3:11 Speaker 1: Elite families drank champagne at breakfast for health. Doctors warned

3:16 Speaker 1: of mourning melancholy. Society responded by drinking more champagne. Gilded

3:22 Speaker 1: Age wellness was chaos but vibes.

3:26 Speaker 2: When fashion became fatal and the Etiquette Manual for Dogs.

3:31 Speaker 1: One Boston author wrote a full etiquette guide for dogs,

3:34 Speaker 1: covering napkin use, polite, gravy, signaling, and how to behave

3:39 Speaker 1: at multi course meals. A housemaid clarified the pug did

3:44 Speaker 1: not signal politely. He demanded with his eyes. Dogs wore boots, cravats,

3:50 Speaker 1: and more dignity than most dinner guests.

3:52 Speaker 2: Feather hat wars.

3:54 Speaker 1: Women's hats grew so enormous and bird covered that they

3:57 Speaker 1: blocked views, started arguments, knocked strangers unconscious, and endangered wildlife everywhere.

4:04 Speaker 1: One man wrote, during church, I was struck repeatedly by

4:09 Speaker 1: a hat of great hostility. Fashion historians still cannot explain

4:14 Speaker 1: the choices or the.

4:15 Speaker 3: Commitment introducing hat Shield, the world's first personal safety device

4:21 Speaker 3: engineered for social events involving dangerous hats. Protect your face,

4:26 Speaker 3: protect your pride, protect your proximity to ostrich feathers. Hat

4:31 Speaker 3: Shield elegance without concussion.

4:34 Speaker 2: Bathtubs, caviar boycotts, and dog powered transportation. The bathtub panic.

4:41 Speaker 1: Early bathtubs were accused of weakening moral character. A mayor

4:46 Speaker 1: banned them, then installed a marble tub in his office

4:49 Speaker 1: two years later.

4:51 Speaker 2: Suspicious the caviar protest.

4:54 Speaker 1: When the middle class discovered caviar, the elite staged a

4:57 Speaker 1: dramatic boycott. They deemed it common. Six months later, they

5:02 Speaker 1: quietly resumed eating it. Consistency, no drama always.

5:08 Speaker 2: The giant dog transportation plan.

5:12 Speaker 1: One businessman believed horses were outdated and proposed breeding Saint

5:15 Speaker 1: Bernard's the size of small automobiles to pull carriages imagine

5:20 Speaker 1: this a trial run dog sea, squirrel carriage obliterates, bakery proposal, rejected.

5:27 Speaker 2: Human chess, and lighthouse romance drama at maximum wattage.

5:33 Speaker 1: A host in Chicago used guests as chess pieces. They

5:38 Speaker 1: stood motionless for nine hours. Two queens fainted, a bishop

5:42 Speaker 1: plotted rebellion. One participant wrote, my ankles suffered, but never

5:48 Speaker 1: my social standing.

5:50 Speaker 2: The lighthouse marriage proposal.

5:52 Speaker 1: A love struck engineer flashed a marriage proposal across the

5:56 Speaker 1: bay using lighthouse morse code. Everyone saw it, the bride,

6:02 Speaker 1: the neighbors, the fishermen, the pigeons, and irritated tourist. A

6:07 Speaker 1: fisherman later complained the proposal was so bright, I thought

6:11 Speaker 1: the ocean was angry. She said yes. The neighbors said,

6:16 Speaker 1: please stop immediately, and that, Dear listeners, concludes this double shot,

6:21 Speaker 1: two part episode series of lavish lunacy, where butter melted, turtles, marched, hats, attacked, dogs,

6:28 Speaker 1: dined formally, and romance illuminated an entire coastline. Thank you

6:33 Speaker 1: for joining me. Join us next time for more true

6:36 Speaker 1: stories that feel like satire, fashion choices that defy physics,

6:41 Speaker 1: and scandals so dramatic even history said are you sure?

6:46 Speaker 1: And grab some breakfast wine and put down the butter

6:49 Speaker 1: bust and go subscribe. It's how we keep the lights

6:52 Speaker 1: on until then. Stay curious, stay dramatic, and if your

6:57 Speaker 1: dog prefers a napkin over a bowl, please support their choices.

7:01 Speaker 1: Dogs are people. Also, don't come at me cat people.

7:05 Speaker 1: We know cats rule the world.