0:04

So rewarding new I'm on

0:06

a city bus with author Amy Hillharth

0:09

to talk about a civil rights pioneer.

0:12

So she was, she was riding through this neighborhood,

0:14

right, Yes, she was. Transportation

0:17

was not integrated and had

0:19

she had trouble before? Much everybody

0:21

had had some trouble in the past.

0:24

Now, I know you think you know who we're talking

0:26

about here, but no, we're not in

0:28

Montgomery, Alabama, and we're not talking

0:31

about Rosa Parks in the nineteen fifties.

0:33

We're in New York City and we're talking

0:35

about the eighteen fifties. They

0:38

tell her to get up, and she resists. Yeah,

0:40

she said no. And I'm pretty

0:43

sure you've never heard of this woman. Her

0:45

mark on history has all but disappeared.

0:48

And she's not alone. In

0:50

this episode. We'll also tell you the story

0:53

of the first black Major League Baseball

0:55

player, and no, his name

0:58

is not Jackie Robinson. To

1:00

rewind a few decades, you know, from

1:03

nineteen forty seven back to eighteen eighty

1:05

four actually, and will introduce you to

1:07

the woman who ruled Hollywood one

1:10

hundred years ago. At several points,

1:12

she was the highest paid director in the

1:14

industry, the highest paid female,

1:16

a man, woman or child. As one reporter

1:19

put it, I'm mo Rocca and

1:21

this is mobituaries, this

1:31

moment the forgotten

1:34

forerunners Jesse.

1:39

The other day, one of the fine

1:41

citizens of our community is as Rosa

1:44

Parks, was arrested

1:46

because she refused to give

1:48

up her seat for a white

1:51

passenger. That was the Reverend

1:53

doctor Martin Luther King Junior, speaking

1:56

about the Montgomery bus boycott in

1:58

nineteen fifty five. Off

2:00

when civil rights icon Rosa Parks

2:03

stood her ground by sitting,

2:05

but another African American woman struck

2:08

her own blow for justice a false

2:10

century earlier. She's

2:12

really the Rosa Parks of New York, and most

2:15

New Yorkers, most Americans, have no

2:17

idea. Her name was Elizabeth

2:20

Jennings, and Amy Hillharth

2:22

wrote a book about her called Streetcar

2:24

to Justice. Last summer,

2:26

Amy and I retraced Elizabeth's

2:28

footsteps around the once infamous

2:31

Lower Manhattan neighborhood known

2:33

as Five Points. You may remember

2:35

it was the setting of the Martin Scorsese film

2:38

Gangs of New York, The

2:40

Five Points, Murderer's

2:42

Alley, brickbat Mansion,

2:45

The Gates of All. I think it

2:47

was the dirtiest, most

2:50

disgusting place imaginable.

2:54

I think if you think of the worst smell you've

2:57

ever smelled, and multiplied

2:59

by a thousand on a second,

3:01

have you been on the sea train lately? Amy's

3:04

right, City life was especially

3:07

filthy. Back then the streets

3:09

were covered in horse manure, with wild

3:11

hogs running a rampant alongside open

3:14

sewers. No surprise, life

3:16

expectancy was only forty years

3:18

old. Amy and I met up

3:20

on a sweltering day, just like

3:22

it was on July sixteenth, eighteen

3:25

fifty four, when Elizabeth headed

3:27

to church to practice the organ with the

3:30

choir. She was wearing these long

3:32

sleeved jacket

3:35

over a long dress that went down

3:37

to her ankles, with

3:39

layers of petticoats and choruses

3:41

and so on. Must have been miserable.

3:44

You know, I'm taking advantage of the fact that this is audio

3:46

only. I'm wearing shorts and I'm still

3:48

hot. In

3:53

other words, Elizabeth Jennings

3:55

is an upstanding churchgoing woman,

3:57

a school teacher, no less. All

4:00

she wants to do is board a horse drawn

4:02

street car, the public transportation

4:05

of the day, with her good friend Sarah

4:07

Adams. But certain rules

4:10

got in the way. In New York City, like

4:12

most northern cities at the

4:14

time, there was both

4:17

dejoe legal and sort

4:19

of de facto segregation

4:22

and discrimination. Leslie

4:24

Alexander is a history professor at

4:27

the University of Oregon and has written

4:29

about the black experience in New York. In

4:31

the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they

4:33

had particular street cars that

4:36

were designated as colored street

4:38

cars. Now, a black person could ask

4:41

to board the cars designated for white

4:43

people, but if any white

4:45

person on that particular car objected

4:48

to the presence of a black person, you,

4:50

in theory, would be ejected. Remarkably,

4:56

we know exactly what happens that day

4:59

from contempt Brainy's news accounts. Jennings

5:02

is running late and the first car to arrive

5:05

is for white passengers. There are

5:07

empty seats, so Elizabeth climbs

5:09

aboard, but the conductor says,

5:11

hold it, you need to wait for the next

5:13

car with your people in it. That

5:16

other car does pull up, but it's full.

5:19

Elizabeth isn't budging, She's

5:21

bold in a variety of ways.

5:24

Here's Professor Alexander reading Jennings's

5:26

own detailed account published

5:28

at the time in the New York Daily Tribune.

5:31

I answered again and told him I was a respectable

5:34

person born and raised in New York,

5:36

did not know where he was born. The conductors

5:39

an Irish immigrant, that I had never

5:41

been insulted before going to church, and

5:43

that he was a good for nothing, impudent fellow

5:45

for insulting decent persons while on their way

5:47

to church. He then said I should come and

5:49

he would put me out. She does not

5:52

mince words there. All of those

5:54

things were incredibly important messaging

5:56

right in the nineteenth century to say I

5:59

was born in this country as

6:02

a result of my birthright, I have a

6:04

right to be an American citizen and have a

6:06

right to be treated as such, and I'm

6:08

a respectable person. Then things

6:10

turn physical. I

6:16

told him not to lay his hands on me. He took

6:18

hold of me, and I took hold of the window sash and held

6:20

on. He pulled me until he broke my

6:22

grasp, and I took hold of his coat and held onto

6:24

that. The conductor calls in a reinforcement

6:27

the street car's driver. I screamed

6:29

murder with all my voice, and my companions

6:32

screamed out, you'll kill her. Don't

6:34

kill her. The two men have pushed Elizabeth

6:36

down off the street car, but guess what,

6:39

she climbs back onto that street car

6:41

again. Unable to overpower

6:44

her, the driver heads full speed

6:46

to the nearest police officer. The

6:48

officer doesn't listen to Elizabeth's

6:50

plea. Instead, he forcibly

6:52

pushes her off the street car and

6:55

onto the ground. She's really

6:57

beaten up. Her clothes are torn, She's

6:59

covered with Bruce's Jennings

7:02

refers to the men as monsters

7:04

in human form, but it turns

7:06

out they messed with the wrong person. Well,

7:09

there's no question that Elizabeth Jennings came from

7:11

an activist tradition. Both

7:14

of her parents very heavily involved in

7:16

the antislavery cause. Throughout her

7:18

entire life, she would have been hearing all

7:21

kinds of political discussions

7:23

and debates taking place. Hers

7:29

was a prominent family. Elizabeth's

7:32

father, Thomas Jennings, is believed

7:34

to be the first African American to

7:36

hold a patent for an early

7:38

version of dry cleaning. It made

7:41

the family considerably wealthy, and

7:43

Thomas did this in eighteen twenty

7:45

one, before slavery was fully

7:47

eradicated in New York. That

7:49

wouldn't happen until eighteen twenty seven,

7:52

but the legacy of slavery in New York

7:55

was still being felt decades later.

7:57

Probably the most significant salient

8:00

challenge that black people

8:02

in the North were facing was as the result

8:05

of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen

8:07

fifty, maybe the most

8:10

despicable piece of legislation in

8:12

our history. The Fugitive

8:14

Slave Act mandated that runaway

8:16

slaves be returned to their owners.

8:19

It became the perfect pretext for abducting

8:22

free blacks from the North. The

8:24

North essentially became sort of open season

8:27

for a process where black folks are

8:29

being rounded up and kidnapped on the streets and

8:31

sold into slavery. I mean it's horrifying,

8:34

yes, all the more remarkable

8:36

then that, during such a precarious

8:38

time for black Americans, Elizabeth

8:41

Jennings and her father decided

8:43

to sue the Third Avenue

8:45

Railroad Company. Here's

8:47

author Amy Hill Hearth, and

8:50

they passed a hat in the church. Everybody

8:52

pitched in, and then they went to look

8:54

for lawyer. Their first choice was unavailable.

8:57

So the lawyer that they do find,

8:59

as name that's familiar to presidential

9:02

history, buffs that's right. And

9:09

this is how I found out about the

9:11

Elizabeth Jennings story. You see,

9:13

I have a thing for obscure nineteenth

9:16

century presidents. All the guys between

9:18

Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, lots of facial

9:20

hair, usually from Ohio. One of them was

9:22

knocked off by an anarchist, another by an aggrieved

9:25

office seeker. If you've watched me on

9:27

CBS Sunday Morning, you've probably seen

9:29

me do reports on a few of them. Anyway,

9:31

one day, I was rifling through one of my

9:34

presidential trivia books, because that's what

9:36

I do on the weekends too, on wine and

9:38

I read about our episodes Heroin

9:40

and her legal representation by

9:42

a future very obscure nineteenth

9:45

century president Chester Alan

9:48

Arthur. Yes, our twenty first

9:50

president, and he was twenty four years

9:52

old, and he actually

9:54

only been practicing law for

9:57

about six weeks. He's really wet behind

9:59

the ears he was. Arthur would go

10:01

on to grow mutton chops that would humble

10:03

any Brooklyn hipster. Quick

10:06

side note. Decades later, when he

10:08

was in the White House, he was accused of having

10:10

actually been born in Canada,

10:12

the original Berther conspiracy. You

10:15

can learn all about that in my story online.

10:17

But back to this story, In

10:19

spite of his youth, chet Arthur was

10:21

up to the task of defending Elizabeth

10:24

Jennings. Arthur was an abolitionist

10:26

and he worked closely with her and her

10:28

father on legal strategy. Instead

10:31

of pursuing a criminal case, they

10:33

decided to bring the suit to a civil

10:35

court. With a civil case, it would fix

10:38

the situation for everyone, not just

10:40

find justice for her. So they weren't looking for a conviction

10:43

for assault. What they were looking for

10:45

was change. That's right. So

10:51

if Jennings sought damages and one

10:53

a new standard would be set for integrated

10:56

transportation. The case was

10:58

argued in Brooklyn before ay of white

11:00

men. Jennings case was

11:02

bolstered by eyewitnesses and her

11:05

own first person account, but

11:07

perhaps just as important, before

11:09

deliberations, the judge reminded

11:12

the jury that, according to statute,

11:14

rail companies, and there were a bunch of them

11:16

in New York City, were required

11:18

to carry all respectable passengers

11:21

there's that word respectable again, who

11:23

were sober, well behaved, and

11:26

free from disease. This language

11:28

might sound antiquated to you, but

11:31

it's the all that strikes me. The

11:42

jury sided with Elizabeth

11:44

Jennings and awarded her two hundred

11:46

and fifty dollars. The Third Avenue

11:48

Railroad Company was found liable

11:51

and moved quickly to integrate their cars.

11:54

The other rail companies were put on notice

11:56

that they could be sued as well. At

11:58

what point is in New York's these transportation

12:01

system fully integrated well. Some

12:03

historians say that that was the first

12:05

major step after the

12:08

Civil War, there was legislation

12:10

that was passed that made it official.

12:13

The case received national attention

12:15

in antislavery papers. The

12:18

New York Daily Tribune ran the headline,

12:21

a wholesome verdict. Was she

12:23

celebrated for a while? Yes, she was for

12:25

about twenty five years. It was tremendously

12:28

significant. That's Leslie Alexander

12:30

again. You know, in the nineteenth century,

12:33

the idea of women

12:36

of any race being

12:38

involved in an outspoken

12:40

way in political matters of any

12:43

kind was extremely

12:45

controversial. So for

12:48

her to take a stand in

12:50

the way that she did and then allow

12:53

her story and her name to

12:55

be associated with this very public

12:57

case was a huge deal.

13:00

After the court case, Elizabeth Jennings

13:02

led a rather private life and her

13:04

name slowly faded from history. She

13:07

continued teaching and even opened the

13:09

city's first black kindergarten. She

13:12

also married Charles Graham. They

13:14

had a son, but he died as a

13:16

young child. Jennings

13:19

name briefly appeared in the newspapers again

13:21

due to the political rise of Chester.

13:24

Alan Arthur, that once wet

13:26

behind the ears lawyer was elected vice

13:28

president in eighteen eighty. Then

13:30

he became president upon the assassination

13:32

of James Garfield. Elizabeth

13:36

Jennings died on June fifth, nineteen

13:38

o one. I didn't expect

13:40

to find much, but there were at least a few

13:42

short obituaries. Here's

13:45

the New York Times with the headline aged

13:48

colored teacher dead. Missus

13:50

E. J. Graham was prominent in ante

13:52

bellum raced troubles. Here the

13:55

item takes note that her whole

13:57

life was devoted to the improvement

13:59

of her race. Why don't people

14:02

know her name? She was just not a person

14:04

who was sort of self seeking or self

14:06

interested. She wasn't a person who

14:08

was promoting herself or her story in

14:10

that regard. So, you know, I think

14:12

that's part of it. But I'll tell you honestly,

14:14

I think on a deeper level, the

14:18

primary reason we don't know Elizabeth

14:20

Jennings story is that it

14:22

doesn't fit with the narrative

14:25

of the story that we like to tell

14:27

about the North. So in order

14:29

to know about Elizabeth Jennings, you

14:32

have to know that slavery existed in the North.

14:34

You have to know that slavery existed in

14:37

the North for almost as long as it did in the South.

14:39

You have to be willing to acknowledge that the

14:42

legacy of slavery haunted

14:44

the black population in the

14:46

North for generations. But

14:49

we do have to be willing to

14:51

sort of, you know, pull back the curtains

14:53

and have an honest conversation. So

15:01

where are we at the corner

15:03

of Pearl and Park

15:06

Row. You in Lower Manhattan.

15:09

If you do visit the site of the Elizabeth

15:11

Jennings incident, you won't find a

15:13

monument or even a placard. The

15:16

street corner is actually dedicated to

15:18

Ira, a fugitive Joseph Dougherty,

15:21

but thanks to the persistence of some

15:23

local school children, there is

15:25

now an honorary street sign for

15:27

her a few blocks away. Wait, what's

15:30

up there? Okay,

15:32

it says Elizabeth

15:35

Jennings Place. The

15:38

day we visited, it was covered

15:41

up under scaffolding. But

15:43

those who know Elizabeth Jennings story.

15:46

Still hope that one day this remarkable

15:48

woman will finally earn a more prominent

15:51

place in history out

15:53

in the open. What I would really love

15:55

to see my dream is a statue.

16:04

Now, there is a statue commemorating

16:06

baseball's great number forty two, Jackie

16:09

Robinson, But what about

16:11

the player who made history years before

16:13

him?

16:26

The story of our next forgotten forerunner

16:29

brought me to Toledo, Ohio. When

16:31

I got into town, I was feeling a little peckish.

16:34

What's the best thing about Toledo? Well,

16:37

Tony Packles for number one, and so

16:39

I hit up legendary Hungarian hot

16:41

dog joint Tony Paco's. No,

16:44

this isn't an ad I've just always

16:46

wanted to eat there ever since I was a kid

16:48

watching Mash and heard Toledo and

16:50

Jamie Farr's Clinger character rave

16:53

about the place. Hey. Incidentally, if you

16:55

ever in Toledo, Ohio and a Hungarian

16:57

side of town, Tony Packo's greatest Hungarian

16:59

hot with chili peppers thirty five cents.

17:02

Tony Pacos is famous for its buns.

17:07

The walls of this restaurant are covered

17:09

with hot dog buns autographed

17:11

by all the luminaries who've eaten at Tony

17:14

Paco's ever since Burt Reynolds

17:16

started the tradition in the early nineteen

17:18

seventies. Bob Hope, Patti LaBelle

17:20

okay, So Walter Mondale's right next

17:22

to tiny Tim Don Shula. Oh

17:24

there's Jibbie Reynolds, Penn and Teller

17:26

signed the same bun I love Aria

17:29

Speedwagon at the share

17:32

the buns. So that's manager Frank

17:34

Petersburger. They've got plenty

17:36

of Frank's here, but surprisingly no Burgers,

17:41

even though the food is delicious. Tony

17:43

Pacos isn't the legend I'm here to profile.

17:47

I'm in Toledo to learn about the first

17:49

African American man to play Major

17:51

League Baseball, And no it's

17:53

not this guy nineteen forty

17:56

seven. It was the Brooklyn Dodgers

17:58

Abbott's Field, Jackie Robinson,

18:00

given the challenge by Dodger owner Branch Rickey,

18:03

and he accepted. Jackie

18:09

Robinson is most certainly

18:11

not forgotten. When he walked

18:13

out onto Ebbott's Field to play for

18:15

the Brooklyn Dodgers, he changed

18:18

history. But technically

18:20

speaking, he wasn't the first. According

18:23

to this plaque right outside Toledo's

18:25

minor league ballpark. Here we go Moses

18:28

Fleetwood Walker. In eighteen eighty

18:30

three, Walker joined the newly formed Toledo

18:32

Bluestockings and became the first African

18:35

American Major league ballplayer when

18:37

Toledo joined the Major

18:39

League sanctioned American Association

18:42

the following year. Now this deserves

18:44

a holy Toledo and here on this is

18:46

considered Moses Fleetwood Walker square.

18:48

That's Rob Worsinski, the communications

18:51

guy for the current minor league team. Here

18:53

the beloved Toledo Mudhens. Mash

18:56

fans may remember that Jamie Farr wore

18:59

a Mudhens jury from time to time

19:01

on the show. But back to Moses.

19:03

When you ask people who was the first man of

19:05

color who played the top flight pro

19:07

baseball in America, everybody will say

19:10

Jackie Robinson. But in

19:12

order for a color barrier to

19:14

be broken, one head to be set up in the first

19:16

place, and it was Moses Fleetwood

19:19

Walker whose mere presence on the diamond

19:21

invited the backlash that would bar

19:23

black players from baseball for decades

19:26

afterwards. Moses

19:34

Fleetwood Walker was born on October

19:37

seventh, eighteen fifty six, in Ohio

19:39

and played baseball at Oberlin College

19:41

and at the University of Michigan. Before

19:44

long, he was playing for the minor league Toledo

19:47

Bluestockings as the team's catcher,

19:50

barehanded in those days. Soon

19:52

after, Toledo's team got promoted

19:55

to the American Association, and

19:57

at the time in eighteen eighty four, the American was

20:01

top flight pro baseball in America.

20:03

While there were other black players who joined

20:06

team rosters, including Walker's

20:08

own brother, Moses, was the

20:10

first, but there were no celebrations

20:13

around this milestone. Just

20:15

like Robinson Wood, later on, Walker

20:18

faced intense racial bigotry.

20:20

There were also threats of lynching his

20:23

own pitcher ignored his signals.

20:26

Walker couldn't have been all that surprised.

20:28

Just the year before, future Hall of

20:30

Famer and Chicago player Cap Anson

20:33

unsuccessfully protested Walker's

20:35

participation in the game Moses

20:41

Fleetwood. Walker's time and the majors

20:43

was short. During his time with

20:45

Toledo, he batted two sixty three

20:48

with only one hundred and fifty two at bats.

20:51

As a catcher in the eighteen eighties, baseball

20:53

was a very dangerous position to play, and

20:56

actually he ended up having a

20:58

series of injuries that season. Played

21:00

in a fraction of the games. Toledo

21:03

released him that same season. Walker

21:06

went on to play in other leagues. While

21:09

catching for the Newark, New Jersey Little Giants,

21:12

he was paired with an African American pitcher

21:14

named George Washington Stovey. In

21:17

eighteen eighty seven, they were set to

21:19

play against Chicago and

21:21

cap Anson. This time,

21:23

Anson flat out refused to play

21:26

if the black team members were put on the field.

21:29

Newark gave into his demands

21:33

soon after, baseball officials across

21:35

the board decided not to sign any

21:38

more black players the

21:40

color line had been drawn. Post

21:47

baseball, Walker held a variety

21:49

of jobs, but eventually got in

21:51

trouble with the law. After stabbing

21:53

a man to death during a drunken racial

21:55

altercation. He was acquitted. He

21:58

did end up in jail later on for

22:00

mail fraud. At the

22:02

same time, the injustices he'd experienced

22:05

inspired him to get angry and political.

22:08

He wrote a book advocating black emigration

22:11

to Africa. He had some success

22:14

in business, but when he died in

22:16

nineteen twenty four at the age of sixty

22:18

seven, there was barely any acknowledgement.

22:22

But some proud Ohioans are

22:24

trying to change that. Saturday

22:26

is Moses Fleetwood Walker's birthday,

22:29

and thanks to a new state law,

22:31

he'll be honored on that day every

22:33

year. Toledo is doing its part to

22:35

keep his name alive. At the ballpark.

22:38

Oh my god, it's a Moses Fleetwood Walker bobblehead.

22:41

And he's right next to Jamie Far. He's

22:43

between two different Jamie Fars and just

22:46

across the street at a bar called Fleetwoods.

22:49

And it's not named after Fleetwood Mac all

22:51

right, so we're entering Fleetwood's tap

22:53

room. I mean, this looks like a pretty serious

22:55

place for draft beer. Forty eight different

22:58

types on tap. Hello, there's this picture. There's

23:00

a big picture of Moses Fleetwood Walker And once

23:02

people know the story behind the face, they're

23:05

impressed. Yeah, that is incredible. Oh,

23:07

Jackie Robinson was the first. That's pretty cool.

23:10

Goal. Moses. You can't help

23:12

but think he died, I'm guessing,

23:14

not knowing that he would ever be acknowledged

23:16

as as special or important. It

23:19

really was a guy who just loved the game of baseball.

23:21

He wanted to play it. Moses

23:28

Fleetwood Walker and Jackie Robinson

23:31

bookends to a sixty three year

23:33

long journey baseball

23:36

researcher Larry Lester may have put it

23:38

best when he wrote, while Walker

23:40

failed to lead his people to the promised

23:42

plan, Robinson delivered

23:44

his people. Both men wrestled

23:46

with Jim crow Fleet bruised

23:49

his knuckles and lost the early rounds.

23:51

However, Jackie later bloodied his nose

23:54

and won the fight. Next

23:59

up, the Woman who ran Hollywood

24:02

one hundred years ago. Now,

24:14

let's travel back to the earliest days

24:16

of Hollywood, somewhere between nineteen

24:18

ten and nineteen twenty, to the story

24:20

of one of silent filmdom's most prolific,

24:23

yet almost completely forgotten

24:25

directors. How much does this historical

24:28

amnesia bother you? I mean, it's infuriating.

24:31

It's absolutely infuriating, and film

24:33

historian Shelley Stamp is here to set

24:35

the record straight. One critic at the

24:37

time talked about the three great minds

24:39

of early Hollywood, two of whom

24:41

will be familiar to most people who

24:43

don't know anything about early cinema

24:46

d W. Griffith and Saal speA Mill And

24:48

the third great mind was Lois Webber, not

24:50

Lewis Lois Webber. She

24:53

was the first American woman to direct

24:56

a feature film, A nineteen fourteen

24:58

adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant

25:00

of Venice. She was also one

25:02

of the stars. This all took

25:04

place before movies even had sound.

25:07

Shelley Stamp wrote the book Lowest Webber.

25:10

In early Hollywood, she was

25:12

the highest paid director in the industry,

25:14

the highest paid female, a man,

25:16

woman, or child. As one reporter

25:18

put it, she was respected. She negotiated

25:21

very lucrative contracts when she formed her own studio,

25:23

so you can see she was right up there with names

25:26

that we associate with the

25:28

fathers of American cinema at

25:30

the time, and their legacy endures

25:33

and hers does not. Last

25:38

year, a mere three percent of studio

25:41

films were directed by women, and pay

25:43

inequity is a persistent issue. But

25:46

in the Hollywood of one hundred years ago, Lowest

25:48

Webber was one of the most respected and

25:51

highest paid directors. I

25:53

know, it's like I'm describing some mythical time

25:55

and place like Camelot that just poof

25:58

disappeared. I mean, did this really happen?

26:00

Well, I think the first thing to emphasize is that, yes,

26:03

Webber was the most prominent female

26:05

director during this time, but there was lots of other female

26:08

filmmakers during this time. Right, she wasn't a unicorn,

26:10

she wasn't an anomaly. And the

26:12

early years of the industry were

26:15

open to many people. Right.

26:17

When film began in

26:20

the early decades of the twentieth century, it became

26:22

really popular, really fast. So there

26:24

was an incredible need for movies.

26:26

I mean it sounds like a land rush or something, right,

26:28

No, seriously, this is open terrain.

26:31

And you know, once the industry solidified in LA

26:33

around nineteen thirteen, LA

26:35

became an incredible magnet for women

26:37

in particular, and

26:42

Lois Webber was one of those women. She

26:45

was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania,

26:47

in eighteen seventy nine and started

26:49

off as an accomplished pianist. She

26:52

then moved on to the theater as an actress, and

26:54

that's where she met her husband, Phillips Smalley.

26:57

He started working in the movies first, but

26:59

she very soon joined him and

27:01

they worked together as a collaborative team.

27:04

She wrote the scenarios,

27:06

they acted together on screen, often

27:08

playing husband, wife or romantic

27:10

partners, and then they co directed Who

27:12

is Leading Home Here? Initially

27:15

their build as the Smalley's and their build as

27:17

a couple, but within four

27:19

or five years. Weber is clearly

27:23

the dominant creative force. But as Shelley

27:25

told us early on, Webber was

27:27

not a unicorn, wasn't even the first

27:30

in her field. In fact, the actual

27:32

first woman to direct films, really

27:34

one of the first filmmakers period, was

27:36

Alice G. Blachet of France. We're

27:39

talking about the eighteen nineties. She

27:41

eventually opened a US studio in New

27:43

Jersey with her husband, right around the time Webber

27:45

was getting her own start. I don't think

27:48

it's any exaggeration to say that

27:50

women were at the beginning

27:53

of the formation of film language. Here

27:55

is an article August fourth, nineteen

27:58

sixteen Lois Webber's are

28:00

of first magnitude from the Nashville,

28:02

Tennessee in I mean the middle of the country,

28:06

you know, is surprised. It's not. Variety

28:08

is not a trade journal. Low

28:10

As Webber ranks with the greatest directors

28:12

in the profession, and whose success confutes

28:15

any argument of women's inability

28:17

to fill posts in a man's

28:19

field. I mean she was a very important finger.

28:22

Webber was also prolific.

28:25

She directed over one hundred short

28:27

films and in one year alone, when she

28:29

was Universal's top director. She wrote

28:31

and directed ten feature length

28:33

films. This is an extraordinary

28:36

productivity. I can't really even imagine. I think, by

28:38

contemporary standards, it's impossible to imagine.

28:40

I mean, these days, you

28:42

know, you wait for your favorite director

28:44

to make a movie once every three years. Well,

28:47

you know, the reporters that saw her on set

28:49

during these years, they talk about how how

28:52

decisive she was, how in command she

28:55

was. She had her script in her hand and she was issuing

28:57

orders, and everybody would come to her for

29:00

every little detail about wardrobe, about sad,

29:02

about everything. I mean, I think she just

29:04

worked incredibly hard. She's

29:07

prolific. Is she innovative? So she's

29:09

not a cookie cutter director.

29:11

She's not a director that's prolific because

29:13

she's turning out the same thing again and again and again. She

29:15

takes on all of these very controversial

29:18

social issues of her day. She's known

29:20

as this director who took on birth

29:22

control and poverty and religious

29:24

hypocrisy. But equally important,

29:27

I think is her visual storytelling, which

29:29

is extraordinary. One of Weber's most popular

29:31

early short films is called Suspense.

29:34

It's from nineteen thirteen. What she's

29:37

doing is adapting

29:40

of what at that time would have been a really well

29:43

known formula called the last

29:45

Minute Rescue, basically Liam Neeson

29:47

movie. Yes, yes, the early

29:49

Liam Neeson. This is pre taken

29:53

right by nineteen thirteen. By the time

29:55

she takes it on, it's a very well known formula.

29:58

She gives her film a generic title to tell

30:00

us that she's taking on this formula and

30:02

that she is going to better

30:04

the master at his own game. Shelley

30:11

and I watched the film together. It's

30:13

only ten minutes long. And let me tell you,

30:16

suspense is gripping

30:18

and what's happening here. One of the hallmarks

30:21

of the Last Minute Rescue is that you have the

30:23

woman on the phone with police

30:25

or her husband, and often the phone line

30:27

is cut, and so that cross

30:29

cutting back and forth of the phone call is a key element

30:32

of suspense. What whatever does is she puts

30:34

the three elements together in

30:36

the frame. Yes, I see it. The screen is split

30:38

in three. There's the wife at home on the phone,

30:41

the husband at work, and the intruder

30:43

coming further and further into the house right

30:46

sawing the phone line, peeking through the door.

30:49

So we see all three elements at once, and there he is

30:51

looking right at us. A tramp

30:54

is prowling around the house and

30:56

he's good and bad guy's good in

30:58

this and she's on the phone, and that's Lois Webber

31:00

playing the woman. She wrote it. She started

31:03

it as she's directing it. How did Lois

31:05

Webber present if she were

31:07

to walk in here, would you think, well, there

31:10

she is, that's a groundbreaker or she's a radical?

31:12

Absolutely not, No, she had what that

31:14

is What I think is really interesting about her. Her

31:16

persona was that of

31:19

a kind of very dignified,

31:22

married, white, middle class

31:24

woman. She really presented herself

31:27

that way. But I think that

31:30

persona was a way for her to

31:32

tackle the issues that she tackled.

31:35

She describes herself as a

31:37

missionary in several places

31:40

that I've seen. Well, she took that description

31:42

very seriously. Early in her career when

31:44

she was pursuing music, she

31:46

was involved in evangelical

31:50

work in New York, and she really

31:52

saw cinema as she said, it's

31:54

it's a meeting where I can preach to my heart's content.

32:00

One of the issues that she tackled on film

32:03

was birth control. In

32:05

nineteen sixteen, Margaret Sanger

32:07

opened the first birth control clinic in America,

32:10

That same year, Weber directed a film

32:12

called Where Are My Children, which

32:15

was considered so controversial that

32:17

Universal preface to the film with a

32:19

big, full screen warning to parents not

32:21

to let their children watch the film unsupervised.

32:25

The studio also defended the film subject

32:27

matter by pointing out that birth control

32:29

had been in the news fair

32:32

warning to this audience. Though the film's

32:34

point of view has not aged well

32:37

at all, her take on

32:40

legalizing contraception is very mired in

32:42

the eugenics of the period. She said,

32:44

media case for legalized contraception

32:47

for largely for women

32:50

living in poverty and for immigrant

32:52

population. So that's a sort of classic eugenics

32:54

argument, right, And that's one

32:56

half of the film. The other half of the film is

32:59

vilifying wealthy, privileged

33:01

white women who repeatedly use

33:05

abortion to avoid pregnancy.

33:08

They're not propagating the right stock. Absolutely,

33:11

they're not propagating the right stock. And

33:13

so the reproductive

33:16

politics of this film are pretty

33:18

distasteful from a contemporary point

33:20

of view, right, you know, we can't really shy

33:22

away from that fact. But

33:25

they were relatively typical

33:27

of the time. Lois Webber

33:29

was not part of some fringe No no

33:32

Now, Lois Webber didn't earn recognition

33:34

just for her directing. Just when

33:36

I thought nothing else would surprise me, I

33:38

learned about her political career. In

33:44

nineteen thirteen, feigned Hollywood

33:46

director Lois Webber gained

33:48

national attention for another

33:51

role. She was mayor of the Universal

33:53

City. Yes, Universal City, the

33:55

home of Universal Studios. Any

33:58

family that's been lucky enough to take a trip to

34:00

Los Angeles and we went as a family

34:02

in nineteen eighty when I was in the fifth grade,

34:04

hopefully took the Universal Studios tour

34:06

where you see the Psycho House and you know, Jaws

34:09

comes up and you think it's gonna bite you. What

34:11

they don't tell you on that tour. The city

34:13

once had a mayor, a female mayor,

34:16

seven years before women gained the

34:18

right to vote nationally. What was this

34:21

about? Was this a big Hollywood publicity

34:23

stunt kind of but it was an important

34:25

publicity stunt. Right. Universal

34:27

City imagines itself as

34:30

a place where work in life are

34:32

combined. Right, that making motion pictures

34:34

is so fun, that it's it's

34:36

a community. You live there and you work there together,

34:39

and so part of that is having a mayor. But Webber

34:41

runs on an all female ticket

34:44

with other women, other Universal stars running

34:46

as distric attorney and police chief. And

34:48

some of the publicity was really negative, right about

34:51

women taking over the Universal

34:54

city, and the Amazons, the Amazons

34:56

and you know they hate men and all all

34:58

this sort of stuff. Now it gets a little calm implicated

35:00

because Webber didn't win this election, but the

35:02

guy who did left the studio six months later,

35:05

and she took over the job a largely

35:07

ceremonial post. Really, I don't think it

35:09

had any real function, but I think it

35:11

was an important ceremonial post and

35:13

that it demonstrated to the world

35:16

that Universal was led by

35:18

a woman. So why don't we know Lois

35:20

Webber's name? What happened? I

35:23

think there's a whole bunch of complicated things that happened

35:25

with her decline. Once we get into the twenties,

35:27

once we get into the height of the jazz age entertainment

35:30

and Hollywood in particular shifts to more

35:33

escapism. Lois Webber doesn't do escapist

35:35

and she doesn't do escapism, and she's out of stab. But

35:38

there's a bunch of other stuff that's going, yes,

35:43

yes, which are well, what happens

35:46

is by the early twenties.

35:48

The movie industry is incredibly profitable.

35:51

So so guess what power

35:54

consolidates. I'm

36:00

a managing like a bunch of cigar choppers,

36:02

like guys like the monopoly man, coming

36:04

in and going all right, all right, all right,

36:07

ladies, step aside, because now

36:09

this is getting serious. There's big money here,

36:11

and this is a man's job. That is basically

36:13

what happens. I mean, the studios in order

36:16

to buy up Holly Theater chains had to borrow

36:18

a lot of money from Wall Street, and

36:20

in doing so they sort of bought into

36:22

a corporate culture which was highly

36:24

male and as a result,

36:28

disvalued, forgot about female

36:31

filmmakers. So and it happens really fast.

36:33

You know, by the late twenties and early thirties,

36:35

when the first histories of Hollywood are being written, there

36:38

is no mention of Lois Webber or any

36:40

of the female filmmakers. It's all about the female

36:42

stars. It's all about Pickford and Swanson. Great,

36:45

but they are forgotten very

36:48

very fast, in a sort of effort

36:51

to as you say, legitimate the industry.

36:53

You know, step aside, ladies, Well you know, we're

36:55

gonna make this very profitable industry

36:58

legit you could say women in Hollywood

37:00

went the way of silent films. The

37:07

Jazz Singer premiered in nineteen twenty

37:09

seven, talkies became all

37:11

the rage in the following decades.

37:14

Women directors were the exception

37:16

to the rule. There was Dorothy

37:18

Artisner. She was a big deal in

37:20

the nineteen thirties and forties. Then

37:22

in the nineteen fifties, Hollywood actress

37:25

Ida Lapino you know her from crossword

37:27

puzzles, moved on to directing films

37:29

and later television. And to this

37:32

day, female filmmakers are told, well,

37:34

it's never been done before. You're gonna have to reinvent the

37:36

wheel. Oh my goodness. You know, I

37:38

don't think a woman can direct a big budget

37:41

film. I don't think a female lead can carry

37:43

a picture. I don't think a film about so called

37:45

women's issues can be successful. These

37:47

arguments were one a hundred years ago, and

37:49

yet we're still fighting about them because we've forgotten.

37:52

It's a lot easier to imagine something as possible

37:54

if you know it's happened before. Absolutely,

37:57

that's why history matters. We talked

37:59

about the forces that made it difficult

38:01

for Lois Webber. Did she retire

38:04

at one point, she did not retire. To

38:06

her credit, she

38:08

made her last film in

38:10

nineteen thirty four, which was her

38:13

one and only sound picture. She took

38:15

a boatload of generators to

38:17

Kawai. She shot the first film on location

38:20

on Kawaii. Jurassic

38:23

Park was shot. You can't even imagine

38:26

doing that. I mean, it's it's phenomenal.

38:28

So she That was her last film in nineteen

38:30

thirty four. She died five years later in nineteen

38:33

thirty nine, and in those intervening five years,

38:35

she continued to write

38:37

scripts. She continued to try to get films made.

38:40

She never gave up, even in industry

38:42

that was became very inhospitable to

38:44

women, Just

38:52

like we did for Elizabeth Jennings and Moses

38:54

fleetwood Walker. We tracked down

38:56

the newspaper coverage of Lois Webber's

38:59

passing. She didn't get a ton

39:01

of ink in the major papers, with one exception,

39:04

a big front page item in the Los Angeles

39:06

Times penned by famed gossip

39:09

columnist had a Hopper. Hopper

39:11

paid tribute by writing, I

39:13

don't know of any woman who has had a

39:15

greater influence upon the motion picture

39:18

business than Lois, or

39:20

anyone who has helped so many climb

39:22

the ladder of fame, asking for

39:24

nothing but friendship in return. Hopper

39:27

added, I have a feeling she wasn't

39:29

sorry to leave this world for a better

39:32

one. Shelley Stamp

39:34

hopes for a better legacy for Lois

39:36

Webber. I feel confident that over

39:39

the long haul, the histories of Hollywood

39:41

will be rewritten to feature

39:43

her and all of the other women that were active at

39:45

the beginning industry. But the more films

39:48

that come out and the more textbooks

39:50

that get rewritten, the more at

39:52

tension that's paid to her. I think

39:55

we can correct this amnesia. These

39:59

are the story of just three forgotten

40:01

four runners, the Pioneers

40:03

before the Pioneers.

40:05

But in any story of firsts and four

40:08

runners, you've got to be careful. We

40:10

talked about Elizabeth Jennings as the Rosa Parks

40:13

of New York Parks is one of the most

40:15

famous symbols of the Civil rights struggle,

40:17

But nine months before her arrest, a

40:19

woman named Claudette Colvin did the

40:22

very same thing. And as

40:24

far as Moses fleetwood Walker well, baseball

40:27

researchers recently came across the story

40:29

of William Edward White he

40:31

played one Major League game in eighteen

40:33

seventy nine for the Providence Grays

40:36

White was actually a former slave,

40:39

but lived his free life as a white man.

40:42

So was he really the first? I

40:44

don't know. Maybe proving who was first

40:46

isn't as important as we think. Maybe

40:49

it misses the point that all these people,

40:52

whether they were first, second, or one

40:54

hundred and second, had guts

40:57

and made things at least a little bit

40:59

better for the people who came later, sometimes

41:02

much later. Of course, that

41:04

depends on us remembering their

41:07

stories next

41:24

time. On Mobituaries, The

41:27

Unforgettable Audrey Hepburn,

41:30

Were you aware that the day of your inauguration,

41:33

Audrey Hepburn died? No, you

41:35

didn't know that. No. I

41:38

certainly hope you enjoyed this mobid

41:40

Be sure to rate and review our podcast.

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You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook

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You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever

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you're getting your podcasts. This

42:00

episode of Mobituaries was produced

42:02

by Meghan Marcus. Our team

42:04

of producers also includes Gideon

42:06

Evans, Kate mccauliffe, Meghan Deetree

42:09

and me Morocca. It was edited

42:11

by Ashley Cleek and engineered

42:13

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42:16

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42:27

music is written by Daniel Hart and

42:29

as always, undying thanks to Rand

42:32

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42:42

It's mo. If you're enjoying Mobituaries

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