The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 511 - Jessie Daniel Ames

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds examine Jessie Daniel Ames. ONLINE SHOW DECEMBER 16SourcesTour DatesRedbubble Merch

What? It didn't sound like you were going to do it properly. You're listening to the dollop on the All Things Comedy Network. This is a weekly American History Podcast. You are a riddle, sir. Where each week, I... Week is not in this enough. Dave Anthony, read a story.

Nobody would call this a week intro. It's a year husband, Garrett Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. That's right, ladies and gentlemen. We've fused history and comedy here with the dollop. Coming back after a quick message from Coca-Cola. There's absolutely no way anybody knew it did not already turn it off. First time listener to this podcast.

I think it's important that we make it really clear. Was that clear or was that just disappointing? Somebody took comedy and somebody took history and somebody put a penis in something and finished it. They had a baby. This is the dollop. There you go. All right.

What are we doing? Ads? What's next? What? Dates? Hold on. Come on, man. Time is money.

I don't have a lot of time today. No. Mime is money. What a dumb thing. What did you say? What did you say? I'll tell you. I will tell you.

Ladies and gentlemen, imagine history and comedy running into each other at full speed and smushing. Okay. So... Ladies and gentlemen, imagine if Pauly D was history and Snooki was comedy. They're in the smushroom. This is the dollop. God damn it.

On an all-new dollop. And called it, quote, his jam-packed. Jam-packed? I'm the fucking hippo guy. Steve, okay. My name's Gary. My name's Gary. Wait.

Is it for fun? And this is not going to come to Tickly Podcast. Okay. This is like ad-on. On a five-part coefficient. My room's a place. Now hit him with the puppy. You both present sick arguments.

You both present sick arguments. No, sleep, don't hit Pau. That's like don't hit Pau. Actually, part... Hi, Gary. No. Nicely done, my friend. No.

No. Ronda. Ronda in the corn. November 2nd, 1883. Year of our Lord. Jesus Christ. Or is he just known in Spanish? Jesus.

Jesus Cristo. Christo. Come on, buddy. Come on. Jesse Harriet Danielle was born in Palestine, Texas. Wow. A Palestine... Yeah.

I get... I understand why they got rid of it. I'm sure they've talked about changing that name. I'm sure. Yeah. Can't still be there. Is this a female human? This is a female human.

Okay. Yeah. Laura Marie Leonard and her father, James Malcolm Daniel. Sure. James is a railroad worker. Do we need middle names? I don't know. What's the angle?

They just put them in a lot back then. But do we even need them now? I mean, I guess you need it now a little bit. You need them. I mean, we need a number. You need them. I think now because when you go to search... It's a little much.

You go to search for someone online. A little much. I already don't like the premise. I don't like you searching for people. No, I don't like it. Gareth Walker Reynolds. Well, I don't want that revealed. So he was a railroad worker originally from Buffalo, New York.

He met Laura in 1876 while working on the railroad in Camden, Indiana. And then from what I remember, his train went in her tunnel and then they had Jesse. He mailed in a little less. He eventually had an opportunity with the I and GN railroad and she very reluctantly followed him to Texas. Okay. She was nervous to leave Indiana. She didn't like Palestine, Texas.

Sure. To her, it was, quote, swarming with unkept railroad workers and filled with black faces. Oh, my God. Damn. I was like, oh, I got a joke. And then you hit me with that part. I was like, God, I don't even want to touch this anymore. Damn.

She'll fit right in it. She'll fit. Yeah. Perfect. Just slide right into that, baby. Most quotes are going to come from the book revolt against chivalry by a Jacqueline down hall. So all right.

Unless I say otherwise, just stop it. When Laura arrived, she explained the area. This is how she saw it. Quote, rain, rain and everything awful. Wow. So welcome to town. Wow. Hi.

How are you? Have you seen our town slogan? Rain, rain and everything awful. I mean, she probably hadn't been there too long. Probably a week ago. It was just raining when they got there. Yeah, it was raining. Yeah.

But that's, you know, that'll permanently pay. Everything awful. Does it always rain? Everything awful. As we know about Texas. A bunch of poem. Well, that's what we think of Texas. You think it just rain.

Rain, rain. Yeah, of course. Yep, absolutely. Yeah. All that water. When they first arrived, they lived in a hotel. Then they moved out of the hotel and into one end of a warehouse in the train depot. Go back to that hotel.

It seems like you had a better situation when you were just living like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone 2, Austin, New York, rather than going to the, well, this is our part of the warehouse. We just did a curtain over the. It's what I call a bait and curtain. Boy, I'm glad we don't have that room in that building we had before with beds. You know what I hated was the bed. The bed was awful.

Really difficult to adjust. And may I say the shower. The shower was something that I will not miss. Yes. All right, everyone put your head on the slabs. I'm going to sleep on this crate now, papa. Good night, my dear. Dream of a hotel room.

So a decade before Palestine was, I'm sure someone's going to say I'm saying it wrong because Texas changed the name of the. I'm sure. It's Palenstein. You damn shit. A decade before Palestine was dominated by the Ku Klux Klan. Okay. But reconstruction in the area had ended and it was pretty much just a town for white people.

So she was like, I don't want to go there because of all the black faces, but then in reality, it's just all white people. Well, but there were black people. It was split. It was as all the towns were. Sure. A railroad and then everyone's the other side. Sure.

Sure. So in 1872, the International and Great Northern Railroad was extended there, pushing Palestine into the new industrial south. People even started to referring it to as the new Palestine. So there you go. Right. Railroad jobs. Sure.

New faces. Right. Jesse was their third child. Okay. Her arrival made things much harder on the family. By the time of her birth, their domestic life was becoming more and more difficult while they do live in a warehouse. When did people start realizing you can pull out?

Is there a religious reason or is it just that they were like? Well, not as fun. Right. But still, the way that they're like, oh man, another one. Whoa. Where do they keep coming from? It's like you could try to do something to, you know what I mean? Well, you know that's not a recommended way to not make babies.

It's way better than going, you know. You could get a condo back then. You could? Yeah, you could. So what's the deal? I don't know. And are those reusable? Yeah, I believe you wash them and put them on the rack.

That's fucking crazy to say. I'm going to dry my rubbers. Let me just leave them up there. You could back then. We're doing socks and gizregs today. Sorry, Carl. Carl, will you put out your condoms so we can fuck later? That's right.

All hanging on that side. Here we go. I got seven. I got seven. Do you never know? Storm's coming. Bring in the condoms. Oh, dearie me.

Oh, lord. This one's not fully clean. Well, that's sorry. I got up there. Oh, okay. That was me, daddy. I'm just telling you. I mean, imagine the comfort.

Lewis is hanging up his rubbers. Look at that. Well, they had a big night. Boy, oh boy. Looks like you'll really use the shit out of those, Lewis. Yes, I did. We had a big night last night. You certainly are far.

I got into the math. Oh, what? Math? So, yeah, so they had another kid. Everything gets more harder. She's one of their dick tupperwares. Yeah, that's right. Surely after she was born, they moved to Overton, a tiny railroad crossing northeast of Palestine.

Okay. And then they had a fourth child, James Malcolm Jr. Come on. They like it. They like it. No, they don't. They said it was a burden. Yeah, but again, there's a way.

There's preventative measures. You how? You pull out. No, but that's just again. Get it like a Murphy bed. Pull it out. God made the penis so it wouldn't come out when you... Not true.

Or... Damn these spikes. So, Overton, a very poor area. Sure. Tons of physical violence, death and disease. Great. Great place for a family. People were...

Can we go back to our warehouse corner? People were desperate and violent. Jesus. Out of a handful of businesses in town, about 38% were saloons. Oh my God. That's Vegas numbers. That is Vegas numbers. That's a fun town.

That's everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. People love to use their guns. Violence against black people was most common. The black and white towns were separated by an abandoned brick kiln. By a kiln? Abandoned brick kiln.

So, it's just like you're setting up soccer goals in a yard. You're like, this kiln here's the goal line. And then, yeah. Can't travel. On the other side. Is where... That's probably where the smoke went. They probably blew that way most of the time.

So, then they go, okay, black people, you live over there. Near the kiln smoke. Kiln. This is a theory. Yeah, this is my theory because usually the black people would have to live in the worst part. Right. So, that would be...

How big is this kiln? You're telling me you're an 18th. I've never been outside. Oh, my God. I thought you were the expert. No. I have no idea. I just live in books.

So, lynching reached a record high during Jesse's childhood. One lynching in particular stuck with her forever because they said a black man was hung and then his eyes were burned out with hot irons. Oh, my God. God, Lord. The barbarism is just... Yeah, the barbarism is crazy. I'm real.

If you've looked, you've seen the pictures of the celebrating lynchings and... Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's horrific. Yeah. Additionally, epidemics of diphtheria, smallpox, and typhoid fever rampant, regular waves of them coming through the town. Great. Jesse's mom worked...

Laura worked... Yes, Fauci was still around. Yeah. Fascism. Sorry. Sorry. Fauciism. Fascism.

You know what I'm saying? Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yes. Yes. Jesse's mom, Laura, worked as a nurse and assistant to the town's only doctor, so she's seen it all. Sure.

Right? Okay. She would leave home for two or three days at a time, returning as Jesse remembered it, quote, dark around the eyes, pale, and silent. Yeah, just shaken. Yeah. Yeah. What are you talking about with hospital workers now where you're just like they're coming home

like, mother of God. Yeah. How was your day? I saw everybody die. There's a new unsolved mysteries. Okay. It's on Netflix. They made a new one.

I've been watching that. I'm going to cry during the whole thing. Do you want caramel popcorn? Audibly. I can't... Not hosted by that other guy. It's a new guy now. I can't feel it.

There's two seasons. I can't feel anything anymore. All right. I asked how it was. We're good. Oh, they didn't find this guy either. I'm dead inside. Quiet.

Please unsolved mysteries. Okay. Thank you. This is the noise I make now. A miss. Yeah, so she's not having a good time. Sure. This all made awareness...

It sounds like a good childhood. Yeah, yeah. Well, as I was saying, it made the awareness of mortality a normal thing for anybody growing up there, you know, just there. Babies are dying all the time. Okay. In Texas. Not anymore, Jack.

Those are the old days. Now they're going to... Not a one to waste it now. They'll still die just when they come out now. Well, our work will be over. Like the Lord said, once they're in the park, Fire a number. Yep.

Once they're in the park, that's the end of it. Just got to get them out. Just like pizzas in the arms of delivery drivers. Once it leaves the shop, not my problem. Get them going. There we go. Two by two, three by three. Not something I'm going to care about for long.

That's nice. Two by two, four by four. I like babies. I want some more. Keep them coming, keep them coming. We want all the kids. Don't you worry. We're going to rid you of laws that prevent this.

Each little baby gets a special kiss. That's the new Texas anthem. Did you read that? It's horrible. It's good for part of it. Part of it works. Great. Okay.

Thank you. So Jesse had a sister, Lulu, her best friend died. They put her in Lulu's dress and put her in a room, quote, heavy and sickening with odor. They put her in like her dead friend's dress. Isn't that cool? I think her friend didn't have a nice dress, so they buried her in Lulu's dress. Or maybe they just put her in it for display, and then they took it off her and gave it back to Lulu.

I don't know. I don't want any more answers to the question. The Daniels were outcasts in the town. The what? The Daniels. Oh, at least the Daniels. The Daniels. That's a better name.

So they're outcasts. Aside from being Yankees, which is obviously a problem, it's Texas, it was mostly, however, due to James Daniel's intellectual curiosity, during a time when everyone went to church, James was an aggressive religious skeptic and identified as a non-believer. It's like that video. Have you ever seen that video where the wrestling fan is in the bleachers and he's talking to wrestlers, and he's like, it's still real to me, damn it? And they're like, it's cool.

It's cool, man. It's kind of real still. It's that. It's that where you're just like, may I please still just have a veil in peace? Isn't it weird that he made us all and that it seems like we have enough questioning? We're good. Yeah, so he's, I mean, I can imagine he's probably the only atheist in the town, right? That should be a TV show.

Oh, my God. When the only atheist comes to town, like a Dr. Quinn medicine woman, but with a guy, I was like, do you really think he did that? He doesn't seem that. Of course he did. Why wouldn't he? He's got magic hands, stupid. So James was self-educated.

He took books very seriously. There are always books around in the house. He attached. That's his problem. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's dumb. He attached the hopes of the success of his kids to his hopes of the future.

So he's like very invested in. You do well and dad will be okay. And then dad will have hope. Dad will be okay if you do well. If you don't do well, daddy has no hope. Do you understand? He dies inside like mommy. Everything, everything that daddy desires lives on your shoulders.

You will bring me joy. You're everything. But. Screw this up and dad will explode. How could it go wrong? Dad will explode. Dad will die of tears. So both Jesse and her sister Lulu soaked up their dad's intellectualism and religious skepticism.

Okay. Jesse felt that Lulu was the favorite daughter. Okay. Lulu was quote smart, dainty with long brown curls. Long brown eyes. That's what you're going to say. She got long brown eyes. Daddy, they hurt.

Her eyes go down below her chin. They're like the clocks in the Salvador dolly picture. My eyes are long and brown, papa. Just keep being pretty like you are. Yeah, you know her. She's the girl with those beautiful locks and those eyes that go down to her knees. And long blue hair. Long blue hair, big brown, leaky eyes.

So a small dainty with long brown curls and blue eyes as she was a little lady. Okay. In the eyes of her father, she was also according to Jesse quote, the only brilliant one in the family. You know, you're the only brilliant one in the family. Morning, Jesse. That's tough. Well, look at my little smart angel in the three dummies.

Lulu, stand here on the number one position crate again. There you are. And have your waffles. And here's some gruel for the rest of you losers. Oh, Lulu, you are so mighty. He doesn't believe in church, but he's like, why would I go to somewhere to look to a God when I have one out of my four children? And three dummies.

Instead of three wise men, three losers. Now pick them after Lulu, you losers. So Jesse was second fiddle to Lulu's brains and beauty. Okay. And now dad was also very insensitive and domineering. Jesse said he never really seemed to see her quote, except as a splendid foil for the beauty of his favorite child. Thank God you're here.

It's like you're the, it's sort of like you're the control group in an experiment. You're what happens with a nothing and then it's good for scale to present this beautiful object. Lulu, you are so perfect. Well, here comes my little angel. Oh God. Oh, I'm sorry. You're just so ugly.

I didn't realize next to Lulu there that you were, you seem like a wild animal. You are just a blank canvas and Lulu is a Michelangelo. Good Lord. Look at her. And then next to you, it's just, it's, you're sick. Lulu, you are so precious. So she's feeling rejected. By the way, the rest of that song is like the Coco Cabana.

Oh, sure. Yeah. So she's feeling rejected by her own family. Any reason why? I don't know. There's no reason. There's no reason. It's clearly in her head.

Yeah. Jesse tried hard to make friends in town. She befriended the daughter of a Jewish woman who ran a boarding house for transients. Okay. Because a lot of it, Texas issues right there. Yep. In Palestine, no less. Yeah.

Jesse would go to the boarding house to play with the poor kids there. And she became friends with black and white kids. And they'd play together equal regardless of their race and gender. Just everyone having a good time. Sure. All the poor. Sure. Right.

Right. And she finds happiness there at the boarding house. But unfortunately, short lived because her friend moved away. And once again, she was back to playing just in her house with her siblings. Okay. If you can call Lulu a child. Yes. If she isn't, Lulu's 150.

What? Inside. Jesse didn't understand. Jesse didn't understand why her brother could do and get away with things she couldn't. So at nine, she was questioning why boys made the laws that she had to comply to, but they didn't have to live up to the same. Jesse, hi. I work for the indoctrination board.

Hi. We'd like you to come in this camp for a little while. You're going to spend a summer here and we're going to find a way to unlearn these questions in your little head. Okay. Yeah. Someone has given you the idea that thinking stuff like that is okay. Yeah.

But the men made the rules and the boys made the rules and you need to follow them. And this camp will be a good way for you to learn how to do that. No. Yeah. I don't. Getting a little lippy. I know. I just was going to ask a question.

I don't like that. No. You're here to not do that. Okay. Questions are for thinking, never forgetting answers to. It's something you're going to learn when you're in here. Okay. I don't.

Yeah. I just want... Do you like your stuff? Yeah. We'll burn it. What? Don't ask questions. I...

Get in here. Okay. Great. Are there any... What? It feels like, again, this feels so much like the start of a question and I just know you wouldn't do that. Okay.

We're going to give you the tools to learn to just accept realities. Don't rock the boat. Okay? Is there a lady supervisor? What the fuck is coming out of your mouth right now? It feels like question marks. Okay. Yeah.

There you go. That's the spirit. All right. We got a new one. So she withdrew into her father's library. When Grover Cleveland was elected president in 1892, her father gave her permission to stay up all night to raise the flag in honor of the election. But how long does it take to raise a flag?

I don't know the whole... At the whole sense. Put your back into it, goddamn it. Stay up all night to raise a flag. I read it. None of it made sense. That's why I put it in. Yeah.

What are you... What? Can I stay up all night to raise the flag? Are you slurred? The election of Grover Cleveland. Grover Cleveland, this is a big night for us. And again, it just points to how little was actually happening. Nothing.

Nothing was happening. We'll stay up all night and put the flag up and you're like, oh my god, give me an advert calendar until said day. It's so... It's such a crazy idea, like... So she was staying... You're going to be telling your grandkids about this night, you understand? The night that Grover Cleveland was president and you got to raise the flag.

You stayed up all night long. All night. Just holding that flag. On that Grover High. Getting ready. Got that natural Cleveland buzz. Yeah. Did you hear?

Grover Cleveland won. Holy... Fuck! I just can't... This is the saddest thing we've heard yet. I don't think that's fair. It's pretty sad. That's not fair.

I mean, maybe it was a simpler time and that was better. I mean, you know, it was the new iPhone. Oh my god! Yeah, that's right. She talked about it for years. Yeah. And I got to raise the flag. Oh, you're going to love this story.

This is a real banger. I stayed up all night. She was up all night. Grover Cleveland had just been elected. You're not going to believe where this goes. I have a question? Yes. Why didn't she just go to sleep and wake up early and raise the flag at home?

Yeah. All right. Apparently this guy doesn't remember the night Grover Cleveland got elected. Sleep was not on the docket, my man. Okay. It was a wild, wild time. Yeah, it just seems like... We were up for about a week straight.

We put the flag up and down. It was nuts. Oh my god. I was... We still talk about it. And once a year we go out there and we put it up again just to sort of relive it. We wear the same clothes we wore that night. Yeah.

We've been doing that for a decade. It sounds awful. I'm just, you know, putting it out there. It's quite a night. I'll tell you a night to remember. It's not often when you go, this is the peak of my existence, but that night I was... I looked at my wife and I said, this is it. It was.

God, I remember it so well. So when Lulu graduated high school, her father took her on a trip to see the Chicago World's Fair. Just her and her dad. Huge. Just her and her dad. Sure. Another event that drove home who the favorite was.

Wait, he took Lulu. Sorry. He just took Lulu. He did not take Jessie. She'll tell you what it was like. It'll be great. She's going somewhere wonderful. Ugly girl stays home.

Brutal. Yeah, brutal. So he's just, you know, clearly this is the favorite. Next he decided Lulu needed to go away to college. So she's now 16 and he does not want her to just fall in love and spend the rest of her life in Overton. But he doesn't like the idea of being away from his favorite daughter. Oh no.

What is the angle here? So he decided. We're both going to college. I'm going to college with you Lulu. It's fine. Daddy really loves you and he thinks. I'll just comb your hair during classes. It'll be fine.

So he decided to move the entire family to Georgetown, Texas where she was going to go to school. Okay. So Georgetown is 25 miles north of Austin and it's home to Southwestern University. It was good for the Daniel family. They attended lectures and other events. There's a little more intellectualism going on. Lulu, you sit in the car and we'll strap the rest of the family to the top like furniture.

Lulu and Charlie went to the university. Jesse attended the college's private primary school. Sure. They now had the luxuries of being able to get water from a hydrant instead of a well. Oh man. They had tin cans of milk in an ice chest. Oh man. Yeah.

Boobs are really an ice chest for milk if you think about it. And meat options are more extensive than fried chicken because there was a market that sold steak. So really, a lot of things that you would just assume were already things were happening for them. Welcome to the city. You can have water and milk and ice and something that's not fried chicken. You could put ice in a bucket instead of holding it in your hands.

Hold on now. She's fainting. She's fainting. Dave was going to put the flag up for Cleveland until today. But Georgetown, one of the most violent spots in Texas. Okay. It's all that meat. Brutal Indian Wars and then there was the Great Fear which in 1862...

The Great Fear was a thing? Yeah. That's what it was called. It culminated in 1862 with the, quote, largest mass lynching in U.S. history, the illegal execution of 171 people in four counties. Only white people could label that the Great Fear. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. It has a good POV that is relatable to everyone involved. Yeah. So there was also the glorified violence of retaliation and that was essentially with the cattle industry, you know, all kinds of stuff. What do you mean? It was like... Fighting over land and fucking...

Right. So everyone is just... I mean, there's violence is just all violence. Violence and violence and violence. Right. Okay. James' high expectations were a problem. Lulu knew her dad was, quote, vicariously starting college with her.

Oh, my God. It's creepy as shit. It's like if Van Wilder was your dad. So as much as Jesse is like, well, this fucking sucks, I'm afraid of a daughter, Lulu is like... She's also like, I can go through my own... Lulu is like, dad... He sucks. I'm a favorite daughter.

Dad, we should do it, babe. Lulu, can I take out your eyes and put them in my head? Here we go. Let's swap eyes. He's just going to like single white female his daughter. I was thinking maybe I'll have your curls and wear the same dress. We're both Lulu's. Does that sound good, Lulu?

I'm not talking to myself. Can you call me Lulu too? Call me Lulu too. Call me Tulu. Tulu. Tulu. Yeah. I mean, this is clearly...

Where's the mother? The mother is still around. The mother's still around, yeah. So she's just like, well, all right. Okay, this is how it is. You're going to be her now. Enjoy. Yeah, this is...

It's emotional incest. That's what this is. It's what we call... Oh, Jesus. It's a horrid term. It's a good term for it. So... It's like...

Purity balls. Yeah, it's a little purity ballish, yeah. For Lulu... He has a purity baller. Yeah, he's a baller. Purity baller. Baller. Let's just go with baller.

Sure. It's the same things on the HBO show. Yeah. For Lulu and Charlie, having their father close did not work out. Neither could live up to their father's high demands. Not perfect. Charlie... You lied to me, Lulu.

Dad, I really just... Yeah, I'm just trying to... You lied, Lulu, when you said you would be everything I ever wanted and needed. I had a picture in my head and you did not live up to it. Your father should leave class, Lulu. What about my dress, Professor? Is it nice? It's super strange what's happened.

I started off crazy and now I look back at that as so normal. Oh, I have curly locks and blue eyes. All right. Not sure how to... They didn't teach me this. I'm the best. I'm the prettiest. All right.

I'm better than everybody here. Okay. Well, this is... You know, we're trying to learn about... I know. Okay. We're learning. Right.

I'm a big girl. Okay. This is my dad. So Charlie got tired of the constant thrashings he would get from James and... Jesus. So he's like, you're perfect. You didn't do well. You will be beaten.

At the age of 15, halfway through his freshman year, he dropped out and ran away to California. 15. So Lulu graduated, but she didn't get great grades, she didn't get high honors. So she was now a disappointment to James. I'm just... You know, I'm picturing like when she comes home, like, well, well, well, look who's not perfect. Yeah.

I'm picturing Brando in Apocalypse Now, like, you said you'd be... That's right. ...everything I needed. That's right. Dad, is that you? He lied to me, Lulu. He putting water on your face? Yeah, he lied to me, Lulu.

That's probably exactly right. So Lulu gets married and then just kind of... We're getting married. Got very distant from the family, very quickly, like, okay, okay, I'll be over here. James was just beside himself, just without cheer, without happiness. No joy left in James. Sure. Well, his wife's like, okay.

Anyway, I'm married to you, and I'm here, and I'm your wife. There's no purpose to talking to anyone. I'm, honey, hi. So I've been married to you for a while. We have... I'm gonna put this cauldron on my head and go lay in the yard for a while. Okay. I hate my wife.

What? No. So, Jesse jumps at this opportunity. She can win over her father. She's like, this is it. She enrolls in college at the age of 13. Everyone was doogie-houser. Due to what he saw as the failures of his other two children, James was not enthusiastic

about her college. Okay, great. Love it. Low bar. On the day she left for college, he told her, quote, young lady, I am sending you to college because there is nothing else to do with you. Ra-ra. The first time you fail in your classes, you come out of school and go to the kitchen.

Oh, my God. I do not expect you to graduate if your sister could not handle the strain. There is no reason to believe that you will do so as well. Wow. So it's not even like on a level of... I'm not even that it was subtle before, but now it is... I mean, he's clearly just like, you will do worse, Lulu's way better. There's no way if you couldn't do as well as Lulu, you can't, it's impossible.

It's a literal impossibility for you to do what Lulu has done, which is not good. You have already failed at college. But like a chance to go to a class first. Do you understand that it would be... Well, that's how we're going to know when you'll learn how to bake a pie. Yeah, great. Because once you go into the class, two, three months, you'll be cooking in the house because that's all you're good for, you're not Lulu.

Right. Okay. Well, I'll go to college. I will fail at college. Say it with me. No. Say it with me. I will fail at college.

No. Say it. I'll fail at college. There you go. That's my girl. You're not. You're not as good as Lulu, are you? I...

We're good. I'm glad we didn't name you Lulu, too, as we thought. I'm running, but I'm far away from the house now. Stop talking. Can't go far enough. I smell failure. So Jesse is determined to excel. This actually motivates her more.

This great speech you're taking. The goal was to beat my sister. So she's basically... Interesting family dynamic he's created. I mean... It's like a family of Olympians. Yeah, he's really created a fucking nightmare. Yeah.

Yeah. But her college experience is very restrictive. Women at Southwestern were segregated into the ladies' annex. The ladies' annex? It's just a... Annex. It's just a... They just have those...

It's a section for ladies. Sure, okay. So I'm sure everything's lesser. Sure, right, right. Now, these books don't have pages, but that's not gonna stop us, ladies. We will overcome that. It has more restrictions. So between that and her father's strict rules forbidding her from going to any college social

functions. No parties, no nothing. And she has to wear her sister's old clothes. Oh my God, this clothes thing is really weird. She was, quote, cut off from the intimacies of girlhood and thrown back upon books for companionship. So by the time her senior year rolls around, her father relaxes her restrictions, but then it's too late.

She already has like a complex... She was never at any event, so she's scared to go. She's totally freaked out by the social aspect of... He's a good dad. He's been a good dad. Yeah, yeah. He's... He's really just set them up for...

He's a good dad. For... Totally. Great. Yeah. So she ends up with a reputation because she wouldn't go to anything, so everyone thinks she hates boys. Okay.

So no dudes pursue her at all. Okay. Everyone's just like, not that one. Okay. The only woman in her family who could have been a role model was her father's half-sister who had graduated from medical school that had been started by a suffragist and she then became a member of the Working Woman Society, but after all that, James thought she was, quote, degraded and unsexed.

After all what? After everything she had done. Oh my God. So that's why he's like... She did not much. She'd gone to medical school and that was started by a suffragist and then gone to do activism stuff. Yeah.

So she was just like, oh my God. But she's not been banged. All right. She's not been banged. It's not worth it. But you wouldn't let anyone fuck and enough. He, as I read him, I just get a lot of, my alcoholism spidey senses go off. Okay.

He's just got an alcoholic vibe to him. Sure. Or what we call back then a vibe. So upon graduating, Jesse was considered a spinster. So you cannot win? No, you absolutely cannot win. Right. So you're on the track, the normal woman track, which is go to school to look for a husband.

Right. That's the only reason you would be there. Right. And since she wasn't doing that, then everyone thought she was, you know. She believes herself. She thinks that she's an old maid. It says she's got, I'm an old maid at 19. Okay.

I am washed up. Okay. Am I an old maid? You? Yeah. Oh yeah. I know. You're, yeah.

I feel that. But she moves him back with her, she moves back in with her dad. Oh no. Yeah, I know. And then CBS picked it up for a season of inappropriate dad and daughter. Dead inside fish out of water. James was miserable and disappointed in all of his children. Why?

I mean, because he like created a horrible system. No, it's their fault. How did I end up with four huge losers? Well, no, one. There's one. There's one. Well, the youngest one. Baby Chuck.

Jamie. He's got some, he's got some hope for Jamie. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Listen to your daddy. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. Listen, everyone else in this family is bullshit. You Jamie. No.

Jamie, you, you. No. You with you. You're the chosen one. No, daddy. You're the reason I had three prior. I had to have three losers to know what a winner smelled like. Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.

Jamie, shut up. Jamie. Because your daddy loves you and you will fix everything. Shut up, Jamie. It's. Shut up. Daddy. It's like a curse.

Daddy needs you to do good. Jamie. So he hates that Lulu is married now and living in the same town because he hates seeing quote, her love for another man. Standing around with. Jesus Christ. You can't even make a joke that's weirder. Imagine being a dad, being like, there she goes with that guy again, rubbing my face

in it. We get it, Lulu, you married someone who's not your daddy. The trail. So he decides to put in a transfer to Laredo, which is a town on the Mexican border. I'm leaving town. My daughter's rubbing her love in my face. This is what people do when they break up with someone. Yeah, it's great.

They move. So Lulu, look, I can't be around you anymore. Obviously it's breaking up his heart. You're my dad. I don't want to. I can't be around you anymore. Are you in or are you out? You have to pick your husband or your dad husband.

So they move there. Jesse loves Laredo. She loves the weather, the palm trees, the Mexican music. Also the Latina women are openly flirting with men like she loves it all. And pretty soon she had a suitor, a friend of her father's. He's an army surgeon. He's very handsome and he's 13 years older. He's 13 years older.

Okay. I assume very normal for the time. Yeah. Actually, maybe that's a little too. Too normal? Yeah. A little young for you, isn't he? Yeah.

Shouldn't he be like 60? He should be dying. He described him as, quote, an exotic man of the world from New Orleans. Their romantic involvement was put on hold, though, because Jamie Daniel got into a fight at a baseball game and during the scuffle he was hit with a baseball bat and killed. Oh my God. No, the special one. Oh no.

So now, now this isn't in here, but this is my thought. The only kid that he's put all of his hopes in dies young, so he can always now go. He was going to be the best president we'd ever had, but then some time cop killed my boy. He came here to stop him because Jamie would have united everyone in the perfect way. He was the one the painting spoke of. The Laredo Daily News headline, quote, Cloud of Morning prevails over the city. Yanks lose by two.

The paper said after he was struck with a bat, he staggered a few feet, said, somebody help me, and then collapsed face down dying instantly. Oh God, I hate that. I know. I don't want to be aware enough to have that thought. I want to, that's too, I want to, I want to, if that's me. Oh, you don't want to have that thought. I don't want to be like, hey, I'm dying.

I want to be like, oh, dead, I'm dead. I would imagine they're, somebody help me is just a terrible last phrase to have. You know what I mean? It's like you're so, to be so desperate and yet have the aware with all to be like, I need help. And yet it's probably so, such a common one. Oh, damn it. It's probably one of the most common ones.

Stop. I don't like that. Besides, is that a clown? This clown hurt me. Famous last words. That's what I'm saying. That's why your last words got to be crazy. I've said this before on the show, but you've just got to be like, Rainbow Sherbert, come

on, hurry. Yeah, I agree. So yeah, so one attacker was charged with murder, but then not prosecuted. So even, you know, makes it even worse, right? Right. With the, the, the newest favorite child gone, James was quote, out of his mind with grief. He paced and got debilitating migraines. So Laura slowly takes over the responsibility of keeping the family going.

Meaning that she just treated all the kids like shit. I'll handle this. Who's the best now? I, oh no, I know what to do. You're all big losers. Every one of you is a big disappointment. It's not, it's like you don't do it. Like it's like you don't believe it.

Lulu was, Lulu was great, but then she married that guy and I'm jealous. It's like you don't believe it. Like it's just like you're. Shut up, Jamie. You don't know. Shut up, Jesse. You don't know shit. Yeah.

Your head's full of what it's a matter of. If you can't go have sex with your books, that would probably please you greatly. Even though I do like this gentleman you've been seeing, he seems good for you. Nope. Oops. I miss dad. Well, shut up, you stupid asshole. Nobody cares.

No. Fuck you. Yeah. I don't know. I do like you. Something like that. Yeah. You're shit.

You're worse than shit. Okay. If someone ate shit and shit, that's you. Get out of here. I'm kicking out of the house. This is making me. Stay here. It's making me sadder.

There's soup on the stove. Okay, that, that. Get some soup on the stove. You need supper. I'll get better. No, you won't. So, James leaves the railroad and starts working at a phone company. Good.

Seems like the right time for him to be working. Jesse resumed her relationship with the army surgeon, and then they got married in 1905. His name was Roger Post Ames. Sure. Yep. Very normal. Little name. No problem there.

Mm-hmm. Jesse was thrilled about the marriage, and for the first time, she felt desired. Okay. Cool upbringing. Yeah. Literally, the first guy that came along and said, wow, love is great. The first guy was slightly nicer. Nurture is amazing.

Yeah. The newlyweds headed to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where. Oh, where are you, honeymooning? Oh, you're not even gonna believe it. Let me guess, Mississippi. Do you like mosquitoes? I sure do. That's where the Ames family had a summer home.

Now, Roger's Irish family immediately disproved of Jesse. Disapproved. Did not like. Okay. What's the problem with her? Well, they saw her as a socially inferior to Roger. Sure. And they were worried that she would threaten their quality of life because they all depended

on Roger for financial support. I feel very bad for Jesse. Yeah. It feels like everywhere she turns, there is just people who want to make her feel alienated and not. Yeah, but she's also unconsciously attracted to that. Right. Like, you know.

We all are. Yeah. So immediate, just total hostility towards her. So much so that they cut their honeymoon short and moved to New Orleans. Wow. Yeah. Okay. When she went to a bank to try to open up an account, she was very upset to find out

she could, she could not quote, open an account. The cashier looked at me and asked if I had my husband's permission. I hit the ceiling. I said, no, it's my money. Then I found out about laws governing married women. So she was basically like, it was better to be a single woman because I could have an account. Now I can't have an account as a married woman.

God damn. Always like property with white dudes. It's such a fucked up. Right? Well, I own you now so you can't do anything. What about the stuff I did before? Lay in the yard. No.

I do not think so. You can't do that. Not off leash. No, you're property now. That's why we got married. I own you. That is crazy. Yes.

So throughout their courtship and marriage, their sex life was difficult to non-existent. Great. Good. Roger warned Jesse that he had syphilis. Oh, shit. When? When do you bring that up in the courtship? That would be a deal breaker.

I can't bang. Man, it feels like. Well, that can bang, but your nose is going to fall off. I'm really good at banging. I don't know if I'm lose nose forever good, but. He later warned that he was impotent. He's syphilitic and impotent. Yeah.

Is that how? That's a fucking combo. That's a combo. Yeah, no, that's good. The odds of that are when I did get it up, I got a bad disease. The one time I got hard, wouldn't you know it? I got the bye bye nose. Jesse thought this was all an attempt to get her to break off the engagement, so she hung

in there. What again? What is happening? That's another crazy angle. He thinks I'm going to leave over his dead penis. But also she's afraid of intimacy, so this kind of works for her. This is a very strange relationship. Shortly after they moved to New Orleans, a yellow fever epidemic broke out and Roger

was ordered to the Jackson Barracks to tend to the sick in the military. He sent Jesse back to Texas, so this is just a week after they arrived in New Orleans. She felt like she'd been sent away, that he thought he'd made a mistake and she'd failed him. I wonder where that feeling is coming from. I don't know where she could possibly come up with her being inadequate from this situation. Not all this in 1907, so they still see each other, they had a son in 1907, so it did happen. So they had a syphilis bang?

I don't know if he actually had syphilis, because it never comes up again. You know I could probably do one now, it's not inflamed. What are you? On weekends, I'm unsyphilitic. I'm going to fuck you with John's penis. So it sounded like a wonderful conception, quote, much against Roger's desire and wish, he knew he could not support a family, ashamed of the situation, I forced the issue, I was desperate.

No, I'm going to finish, no, no. You will fuck me. You will fuck me. No. Okay. Somehow. So they have a beautiful baby, ready to have two caring parents in a normal household. And somehow it does not improve the marriage.

Interesting, babies normally do that. It gets worse. I know. So Roger was consumed by work and his family, who not only took up his time, but most of his income. Sure, yeah. He wasn't familiar with the concept, really, he's a lot of money. Oh no, his other, all the people he's taken care of, the other aims.

The Irish people who disapprove. Yes. Right. Jesse believed they were trying to, quote, blacken my reputation and letters to him and in loose talk to everyone. So. So the family's just trying to take her down, right? Yeah, they're like, look at this, Hussey, right?

Monster. Sure. So they're, they're, they're apart most, mostly apart. They're rarely together. Great. Um, as Jesse wrote, quote, this is the picture of our married life. I would leave him somewhere in New Orleans, Puerto Cortez, Puerto Barrios. At the end of my rope, I could not live away from him.

I could not live with him. I always returned in hope and job. I was always sent away in despair. I could do this marriage. It's how bad it is. I could probably pull this off. I just take him to Vegas or New Orleans and then when I get pissed, I come back. Things came to head in 1910.

Roger's sister gave him an ultimatum. Leave his wife and son or never return to Pascagoula to see his family again. I mean, it's a little late down the line, isn't it? What a crazy, could you imagine being like you have to leave your wife and kid? Kid? Or it's us? The kid part is crazy. People do that with like spouses.

I feel like that happens. But yeah, with a kid to be like, and you're done being a dad to that kid. That's it. Move on. You made a mistake. And the kid's like two and a half now. Oh, so it's fine. He's basically grown up.

They raise themselves. So Roger had had it and he responded by leaving both his family and Jesse. I'll show everyone. And he went to Porta Barrios Guatemala and got a job as a doctor for the American Council and the United Fruit Company. So he's out. That's it? Yep.

Bye-bye? Yep. Okay. So now. So Jesse and her son Frederick moved in with Lulu and her husband, who are very well off. Sure. Well, Lulu's perfect. Yes.

Well, how could she not be? You've seen her curly brown eyes. But their relationship isn't great between the two sisters. Sure. I remember what that's from. Jesse believed Lulu presented a bad model for women, quote, a clinging vine, a parasite, which was sustained by love and patronage of men. That's nice.

That's a nice thing to say. It's my sister. She's basically a love parasite. So anyway. Her father was opposed to women's suffrage and Jesse's growing feminism. So James is just like. What's happened? She's clearly.

Right. Has feminist ideas, like what the fuck is this world. I wonder why. I wonder why. I don't know. What about the situation that she's been around really, I think, would spur on something like this? I don't know what would make her like that.

Father's constant need for control over every dial of her existence. Oh, interesting. So he tells her, he tells her to go stay with her husband in Guatemala, even though she did not like it there. It's amazing to be like, I'm just sick of men telling me what to do. I don't feel like that's okay. Oh, shut up. Go to Guatemala with your husband.

I'm saying I'm revolting against it. Don't be stupid. Yeah. Yeah. It's fucking crazy. Men can't tell what to do. Go live with your surgeon husband in Guatemala who doesn't like you. And she hates Guatemala, so, quote, stay with your man and don't let the doctor know for

one minute, but that you are having the best time you've ever had. Oh, Mike, what a fucking, I mean, your daughter. Not only will you go down there with him, you will act like you're fucking loving it. Daughter, daughter, look, go pretend to be happy in Guatemala for your life. He's a man. He can't take the idea of you not being happy. Can you just fucking help him? You're an actor in his play.

Do what I demand. So her father actually died in 1911. And the cool thing is, is that, you know, his wife did go to church and on his deathbed, he agreed to be baptized. All right. Oh, fucking everything I believed in, I'll just let it go right now. That's, I'm going to pull that. They did to my grandmother.

That's a great move at the very end. My born again Christian uncle did that to my grandmother. All right, I'll go to his kingdom like just, yeah, as a Hail Mary. So pisses me off. They like, when she was dying, they baptized. Yeah, they were like, yeah, she was like, okay, and I was just like, oh, fucking life. She was like, yeah, all right. It's a safety move.

It is. So you get there and there is this white bearded dude, well, someone spent their life talking shit, didn't they? But I got it just under the wire. You barely did. That's right. You hit a three pointer at the buzzer. I'm Doug Flutie.

I mean, again, I don't mean, but again, it is the absurdity of the idea that you can, I mean, why go to church your whole life if the option is on the table for the last minute to just be like, ah, yeah, dunk me, fuck it. 100%. Yeah, yeah, dunk me real quick. Go Evan. Sure. Fuck it.

Let's go. But I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday and I would get on, I did everything. I went to, I had everything, my culminate, the bottom. Yeah. And all he did was just get dunked in water on his last day of life. Rules are rules. Hey, what are you, what do I tell you? I said, if you, if you acknowledge it at the very end, you're in, you didn't have to spend

your whole life going to church. Huh? Come on in. It's a party. No one in here got dunked as a baby, as a dying senile old bag either way. I don't care. Do I get a better seat or? It's the exact same.

What the fuck? All your work. I'm a priest and I'm going to be sitting here with this lifelong heathen. That's right. If you say at the very end you're on board, boom, here you go. This is heaven. So. All right.

So the dad is. Gone. He's dead. So she would, she would go down to Guatemala frequently as much as good to see Roger as they're still married. Sure. She tried to convince him to return, but he's just, yeah, he doesn't want to be around his family.

He doesn't want to deal with any of this shit. I hate everyone now. Although Frederick, Frederick was unplanned and unwanted by Roger in 1912. She became pregnant again and they had a daughter named Mary. Good. I definitely throw another kid at this problem. I like how she's like, I'll create the exact same environment I grew up in. In August of 1914, Jesse had what she described as the only, quote, happy and contented time

in her married life. Roger seemed to have found peace with his life and situation. They had a very, very pleasant visit. She returned home pregnant with her third child and then she found a house for them and began planning reconciliation with Roger. So she's like, like he. Planning with him on board or sort of. Go with him.

Yeah. Like he, whatever happened. He like came to peace with it. I wrote the fuck was going on. Sure. Yeah. It seems good. Okay.

Right. So then I went through this with my parents. It's not. It's not. Well, it didn't, it wasn't good anyway. Cause November 15th, he died from black water fever, water fever. It's from black water. By the way, now black water fever is something different in this day and age.

I did look it up. Let me look up again. I think it's malaria. It's a severe clinical syndrome characterized by intravascular, whatever. Renal failure. Well, it sounds really, really bad. It's, it's some kind of. Medically speaking, your insides quit.

Yeah. It's. Yeah. Yeah, it's a rapid pulse, high fever and chills, extreme prostation and a rapidly developing anemia. And the urine is black. Oh, there you go. I'm out.

Hey, it's liquorice. I'm out. Hey. Hey. Jimi over here is pissing liquorice. Hey, I got the black squirts. It's. Want to see my impression of an oil geyser?

It's one of the less common yet most dangerous complications of malaria. So there you go. Okay. So basically you died of malaria, but there's a better name because this sounds the most horrible way to go. Yeah. Jesus Christ. With the blackness.

Well, good news is everything's fine. Bad news is you're pissing black. My urine's black. Yeah. So that can't be bad. I would like to say goodbye. Bye, everyone. Okay.

So he's dead because of the tension between Jesse and Roger's family. She doesn't go to the funeral and Roger has a very big estate, but she only gets $1,000. Okay. And she doesn't have the energy to fight for anymore. Okay. So at the age of 31, she's a widow with three kids. So she's looking for what to do and she's always been sort of into serious social issues, you know?

Right. She was on it, right? So she goes into the women's suffrage movement. Right. Joins up. Also, at the same time, her mom had inherited a phone company from James. James? Her mom inherited a phone company.

It's like UHF. Well, phone companies are new and he had bought the company right before he got sick and died. Okay. In one of his weird moments. So I'm buying a phone company. All right. Good night. What the fuck did he say at the end?

Well, Laura becomes a businesswoman with the phone company. Okay. And the local paper described as, quote, a pioneer businesswoman in a field of great corporations and cold-blooded men. Okay. So rare. It's a woman owns a business. It's fucking rare.

Right. Jesse saw her mother like her as a victim of her dad. Right. Her mother had given her like a fighting spirit and unlike her father, she supported Jesse's like rising political. She was like, look, I don't know what you're doing, but I know it's against your dad and I love that. So let's go.

That's great. So Jesse joins up with her mother. She starts as a bookkeeper and then she moves to manager on day-to-day operations. So she's, you know, becoming a boss at the company also. So it's two, it's basically two business-owning women. Running a, okay. At this time period. And they butt heads a lot.

Laura is still. You can't do that publicly though. What did I tell you? All they do is argue these women. Laura, the big thing, they fight over, Laura still goes to church. Jesse's like, not into church. Sure. Laura worked in a nice secluded office while Jesse had to work amongst all the telephone

operators. So it's just a, it's definitely a hierarchy going on. Sure. And then a lot of the male workers just wouldn't respond to having female bosses. Right. So that made it harder for her. Sure. No, could you have a, could you whisper to a man and then he tells me what to do or

how does this work? Cause you said it right to my face and I'm confused cause you're a woman. Yeah, right. So I don't understand. I'm not sure. You don't know how man-woman works, do you? Yeah, this is not at all. Pretty bad at this.

You, how do we do this? Cause I have to tell you what to do but you're my boss. Talk to a woman to her. A woman to talk to her. I tell a woman. You tell a woman to tell her to tell a man to tell us what to do. Oh, I like that. Yes.

It's the game of telephone. Okay. It should work great. So they want you to use a man to talk to them. She said she won't do that. I don't want to hear it from you. Oh Jesus. She said she won't do that.

So apparently she won't do that. Tell that woman to tell that other woman to tell us that through a man. Yeah, I think you don't work here anymore. So they don't think you work here anymore. Yeah. All right, well we're fine. Good working for you sir. Been a hell of an employment.

You're on a tight ship my man. You're a dude. He's not. Guys, guys, guys. So, you know, an angry customer storms in the office one day, upset his phone a bit, got off for an overdue bill, and he said to Jesse, quote, if you were a man, I would like to cuss you out. And Jesse said, quote, now don't let that stop you.

You just come right in here and get it off your chest, and then he just quietly paid and left. I love that that's like, that is, I mean, if you're trying to dissuade women from working in a man's world, being like, I'd berate you if you were the other gender is not like, that's like, great, good, this is way better than, damn it, I'll pay the bill. So yeah, so there's two women running a successful company. Jesse realized she's good at being assertive, and she can organize and administration stuff. So she's getting more and more into the women's coverage movement.

And at the time, there's a lot of pushback against women voting, if you can imagine. Women with other women, right, there's women that don't. So it's kind of a status thing in a way, man. Well, there's, you know, I mean, a ton of this is just class, you know, right, right. Jesse said most married women, quote, didn't see any advantage of the vote because they were taken care of, and working women kept their mouth shut because they're worried about losing their jobs. What a fertile environment for creative people that feel secure.

That's a really good system. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to Amazon. That's right. The Georgetown suffrage group relied on their own resources to build support. Jesse realized they need outside help, and she sent pleas to the state association headquarters, and eventually the men's suffrage league helped.

We're fighting for men's rights. I just reading this, and it was like, oh, we need help. That's not true. Yeah. Sorry, they were a men's rights. It was a men's suffrage league. No, not for men's. Yeah, right.

Okay. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It's just the idea. I would just love to see a men's suffrage. Men deserve the rights of women. What the fuck are you talking about? Man have been, white men have been second class, white men have, listen, we're sick.

We want, what do we want? We have everything. I don't know. We have a really good group. What do we fight for? Yeah. Oh, we don't want any other organizations. Yeah.

Yeah, we did it. Yeah, dudes. So, on February 22nd, 1970, 1917, the two groups co-sponsored Georgetown's first public meeting on women's suffrage. State president, Emily Fisher Cunningham was the featured speaker, and then she became a mentor to Jesse and pushed her to start a column in the local paper, which Jesse started, women's suffrage notes in the Williamson County Sun. So she started, you know, become a voice, right?

In May 1917, Jesse was a featured speaker at the Equal Suffrage Association Conference in Waco, and then she was elected treasurer of the association. So she's a very vocal political activist and figure in the movement. Anti-suffrage just circulated her, so the people against women voting circulated a family portrait of her reading to her three kids. Oh, Dave's saying no more. I don't even need to know what it's saying. It's a disgusting image, disgusting idea.

Ugh, ugh, those poor kids. Is it too late to get those thoughts out of their brains that she put in there? Because they were pointing out that only, quote, old maids, unhappy married women and childless married women wanted the vote. What? So they're like, there's no man in this picture. So obviously these broken people want the vote. It's, again, they are good at fighting.

You know, like, they're like rock climbers where you're like, oh, there's nothing to grab onto. And then they're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, I think I could kind of pull myself up a little bit with it. Like, I mean, they're just like on the fly, just like, yeah, she wants it because there's no man. She's unbroken. Do you want broken souls voting?

I don't think we do. Yeah, because it's easier to come up with like evil stuff that it is positive stuff. Yes. Yeah. And it's advantageous to be the people who can always pivot, too, you know. On June in 1919, Texas ratified the 19th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying the right to vote based on sex. Not color.

Yeah. White ladies. And in October of 1919, Jesse founded the Texas League of Women Voters and was elected the first president. In the final months of winning back the right to vote, of winning the right to vote for women, the right lashed back. If you can imagine. Sure.

There's also a nationwide labor action going on and then there are black groups forming to like, you know. So the right is seeing this as sort of a crest of a wave. A lot going on. Right. They're very upset about it. Right. And the red summer resulted, which we've talked about here, which is like riots and murder

and black people being attacked everywhere. Again, the name is really could be a lot worse. We chose. Texas Senator Bailey then started a campaign for governor that was simply about attacking black people, labor and women's suffrage. Still pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good.

It's like platform now. Platform. Yeah. What's your platform? No blacks. Women's. More white people stuff. Damn workers.

Fuck them. Two suffragettes were elected to a dam resolution committee, which Bailey called, quote, a conclave of six sissies and two sisters. Good stuff. Right on time. And not that much different than today. No. Really not.

No. Still dealing with voting issues in major, major ways. Bailey's campaign manager warned the women to be ready for, quote, stretchers where the occasion will demand them. I'm sorry. I'm going to go ahead and call that a violent threat. What are you talking about? Well, stretchers.

Maybe he's saying they'll get ill from the bad food. I'm talking about pants, stretchy pants. So he's saying that's crazy. He's saying that they're going to get beat. Yeah. In the streets. Cool. Yeah.

Yeah. What a cool. Yeah. I guess you're right. Why would they fight for something? Yeah. It's really weird. It seems like things are fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Bailey was defeated in the primary and Jesse became a delegate for the DNC. Soon, Bailey was out of state politics altogether. Women won the right to vote and over 26 million women voted in the 1920 presidential election. So she's had this goal for a long time. Ever since she raised that flag overnight. That's right.

She's been a leader for a long time. So she's like, what do I do next? Well, there was something from her childhood that scarred her and she set her sights on that lynching. Okay. So in 1924, she became the director of the Texas branch of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. So she wants to end the myth that white women need protection from black men.

Right. Okay. It's all, I mean, it's getting into lynching and what it actually is and the societal stuff. It's all very common. But the basic idea being, black men are getting lynched because they're being... Protected. ...demonized and this mythology about their sexuality and all this shit. And then women, by being, they're almost like a token in this thing.

It's like, well, obviously some women call the blow the whistle and stuff. But it's almost like, well, they're just an object off to the side that needs to be protected. Because they're a lie. If you were... So a lot of the rational... If you were a quote unquote sexually attacked by a black man, then, well, your life's not going to get better. The town's still going to treat you like fucking shit.

Like a lot of the rationale is based around black men are coming for white women, essentially. So they're able to operate that as a preventative move in a way or even a reactionary move. I forget. What's his name? Yeah. Well, there's tons of stories of that where it's like, you know, it's one little thing, but it is like, yeah, it's protective of... You earn a white woman's feelings and they're like, I'm not necessarily, but they're also

terrified. And then the white woman is essentially almost like... An object. Yeah. She becomes an object in that scenario. It's just about men's... So she's talking about pulling that thread and like... Yeah.

She wants to unravel the whole fucking thing. Paradigm, right. Which is fascinating because that's like, well, this is going to be complicated, hard to do. So in 1929, she became the director of the CIC Women's Committee, but you know, it doesn't pay well. She starts to have a job, so they end up selling the phone company to have money. In 1930, she founded the Association of Southern Women for Prevention of Lynching, the ASWPL.

It's committed to finding the main reason that lynchings happened and to prevent them. So big spoiler, they found racism was a big cause. Shocking. Yeah. Unbelievable. Right? I always thought it was just justice, but yeah, amazing. They also, like I said, they believe it's profoundly harmful to white women.

So they said about swearing public opinion and appealed to white women. So they realized, like, okay, so we have, because white women are also sort of a victim in this, that if we get appealed to them and then we can change it, right? Which is a fascinating angle. Well, I mean, yeah, because they're like, changing people's minds rationally will take forever. What we're going to do is make them think that, right. Yeah.

And then you don't have to go directly at racism, right? You can go, yeah. So they start talking to, they just start hitting the streets and they're going on and they're talking to people and they're writing articles, but it's a messaging campaign. And you know, they do this over years, but they ended up getting 40,000 signatures of Southern women to end lynching. And of course, the petition drive, there's threats and, you know. I mean, honestly, if you were to be like, if we had to pick a race and gender to start

hanging from threats, who do you think it would be? Like, obviously, you'd feel like, hey, white guys, no, no, no, not us, right? But so they're constantly trying to undercut it because, yeah, white, white, white. And you know, they get letters and one guy wrote, quote, you may have yourself a black if you want one, but do not force them on others. If you want a Negro man, OK, otherwise, lay off white supremacy. Even then, it's like, no, dude, that's the thought process we're trying to get rid of. Like, it's like, obviously, you want to have sex with a black man, you know.

Well, Jesse said, quote, I have always been curious about the white mentality, which assumes that only segregation and the law against intermarriage keep white women from preferring the arms of a Negro man. I mean, like everything else, just this like paranoia. I mean, again, I don't know why white people are so in fear of things getting taken away from them. It's like, that's not what's happened. Where this fear comes from, as far as like, you know, I mean, they just want to be able,

they just want to be able to be racist and say the same shit they've always said and not be taught. Until the end of time. And just do everything. The CRT thing is like, oh, you don't want to just, you just don't want anybody to know the truth. Yeah. And I'll come as down to this, parents who say the N word in their house don't want their

kids learning that they're bad. Even beyond that, I think there is this theory that it is that the level of white guilt will crush a generation of white people. And it's just like, so be like, at some point, you have to reconcile reality. You can't keep saying happy Thanksgiving every fucking year. Like at some point, you have to be like, hey, look, that's all things bullshit. It's all bullshit. It's totally fucking, there was no great dinner.

But they don't, they don't want to. I know because people are like, but the yams and the cranberries. Yeah. Yeah. Grandma likes Thanksgiving. You built everything up on lies. Yeah. And then you're like, yeah.

But why not, why not when you do the Santa reveal, also do the Thanksgiving reveal? Yeah. When you're a kid down, you're like, look, this dude, he comes here with chimney. It's bullshit. Okay. Also, the big dinner we have around the end of November, it's actually me. Okay. So Finn already got that.

Like that stuff. I'm sure. But I mean, you should do the reveal like there's no tooth fairy. They're not leaving quarters under your pillows. Also Thanksgiving was based upon us taking land and taking resources from, and killing. He still believes in the tooth fairy. Well, good. So it took a while, but in 1936, the public no longer accepted lynchings.

81 state, regional and national organizations endorsed the ASWPL anti-lynching platform. And in 1940, for the first time in the state's history, no lynchings were recorded in Texas. Wow. Crazy. So they kind of changed. Yeah. She changed. I mean, essentially it was her.

Like she pushed. I mean, there were, there's obviously other anti-lynching groups, but she went after this mindset that wasn't. She got white women. Going after. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's, yeah, there's lots of work being done towards ending lynchings,

but like did a huge slice of that pie was convincing white women that it was wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So Jesse left Texas to retire in North Carolina, but she returned to Texas in 1968 to live with her younger daughter, Lulu Daniel Ames. Oh, wow. Jesse died in a moment. You'll be perfect.

You're the best daughter in the family, little Lulu. You're better than all your siblings, Lulu. You're going to come with mommy, Lulu. You live in my shirt pocket. So Jesse died in ammonia in Austin on February 21st, 1972. Lulu quote, she never let anyone get close to her. And when they seemed to be getting close, that was when she broke it off or she put the veneer on thicker, the shell.

Because of the time and place she grew up, Jesse always connected epidemics that killed many and the spread of mob violence. Sources for this. What a great last line, you prick. Sources for this. First of all, Ron Placone did the research and wrote it up. Ronnie Boyd. Jesse Daniel Ames, the changing character of lynching, and Jacqueline Dowd Hall revolting

against chivalry, Jesse Daniel Ames and the women's campaign against lynching, Britannica.com, Southwestern University. And yeah, that's it. Well, I mean, yeah, the idea that she dies with a shell around her in a way makes total sense because of her fucking fucked up father. Yeah, I mean, that's just going to happen. You have to protect yourself and the way to protect yourself is to just cut people loose as soon as you can.

Yeah. Don't let people get close. Yeah. That's my philosophy. Yeah, yeah, no. That's why you don't even know my middle name is Walker. Oh, shit. I didn't, yeah, you fucked that up big time.

Now we're married. Oh, good. Yeah, that's how it works. Yeah, it just is amazing the way that every issue we have seems to just be constantly pendulum like, I mean, it is just, it's constantly in fluctuation. And I mean, you do realize through like this show that, you know, the second that you have a win or rights, they are immediately coming to take them away. And so it's when you get complacent and rest on your laurels of these rights that you start

to go, holy, what, holy fuck, abortion is going to be illegal, you know, and we're living in that time in many ways where the, we've peaked as far as the rights that we've had when it comes to protest and all these, they've learned, they've learned ways to stop the movements and it's peaking now with, with the protest. I mean, protesting is becoming an illegal act. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there's tons of say. So how are we, this is what they're saying.

How the fuck are they going to change things when they're afraid to go to the streets and protest? Yeah, that's right. I mean, that's, they know. And not that it's a luxury, but in the previous times, you know, you could, the system would wilt under the will, but when you silence the will or you silence the whistleblowers or you silence the megaphones, these people who would be there normally to start revolutions when you get rid of their voices, you are like, it does feel aimless and mindless.

And you do need to remember that it's calculated. It's not that like people aren't pissed and people don't want, they just don't see the example in front of them on how to do it. You don't see the example of how to make change anymore. I mean, one of the biggest revolutions that took place in my lifetime was when they've got Burger King chicken fries. That was like, when I was like, this is a goddamn movement. But you know, you have those less and less now.

Yeah, no, that's absolutely right. So I did good. You're a bummer. We should also mention that soon on Patreon, we have a few things we actually put up there a commentary on the, which one was it, the Falcon and the Snowman Falcon and the Snowman we did a commentary. So if you want to watch the Falcon and the Snowman with our commentary, that's up on Patreon.

We also are going to start doing the quizzes where Dave will start giving me dollop quizzes on Patreon. And we'll see how I do on those. There'll be some small ups up there. Some small ups. So there's more Patreon stuff coming. Yeah, we're putting more Patreon stuff. There's also, we should point out that on Patreon for a dollar, you can have an ad-free

experience. And yeah, so if you want that, and you might want that because, you know, we've had a different couple of years with the podcast since the pandemic. So there might be an ad popping up in the middle of the show, which I'm sure people will not be happy about. But again, for a dollar, go the Patreon route and then you won't even notice. And then are we doing another? Oh, the San Diego one will go up next week, right?

San Diego or Vegas. San Diego or Vegas. So yeah, so this is our last episode of this year then, right or no? I think so. Who gives a shit? It doesn't matter. Anyway, we would just, you know, to everyone, even if it isn't the last episode, it's a weird time.

It is? Yes. It's a weird time. Continue to hang in there. And yeah, like Dave said, we're on tour and all that stuff, so come see us. We love you. I love you. I'm looking at me.

I love me.