Constant Wonder

Christmas Traditions from the Archbishop of Constantinople to Department Store Parades

Guest: Judith Flanders, writer and social historian, primarily focused on Victorian era, author of “Inside the Victorian Home,” “The Invention of Murder,” and, “Christmas: A Biography."

Christmas has had nearly 2000 years of evolving traditions, cultures, and practices.  While we all might think our way of celebrating the holiday is the “right” way to do it, there are actually as many differences as you’d expect with 2000 years of history.

 

A Russian Tradition

Guest: Kim Balaschak, retired collector of Russian New Year’s Tree Ornaments

Kim Balaschak’s Russian New Year’s ornament collection started as a way for her to feel a bit of the holidays in Russia. Over the years, it’s become a chronicle of Russian history. It’s now at The Museum of Russian Art

Judith Flanders shares all the types of Christmas traditions that have arisen in the almost 2000 year history of Christmas. Kim Balaschak explains the Russian tradition of New Year's Ornaments.

Kris Kringle Nabs Cash! A Cunning Christmas Crime

Guest: Alex Palmer, author of "The Santa Claus Man: The Rise and Fall of a Jazz Age Con Man and the Invention of Christmas in New York," published in 2016, but the paperback version just came out on November 1st of this year.

John Duval Gluck started the Santa Claus Association, which answered children’s Christmas letters to the fat man and connected them with philanthropists who could help. But corruption was the downfall of this Progressive-Era showman.

 

Johnny Appleseed: The Eccentric Man Behind the Great American Legend

Guest: Howard Means, journalist and author, "Johnny Appleseed: The Man, the Myth, the American Story"

Johnny Appleseed, born John Chapman, was a pioneer of the American frontier, and an eccentric one at that. He's a larger-than-life figure with a story we've all helped to promote and expand. His history, though, is a bit more complicated than the Disney biopic lets on.

John Duval Gluck founded the Santa Claus Association to answer the letters children sent to Santa but was caught embezzling large amounts of the association's funds. And, the myths behind the man Johnny Appleseed.

Great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, Lucinda Hawksley, shares how Dickens kicked off the Victorian obsession with Christmas when he published, "A Christmas Carol." Ainissa Ramirez shares how the Henry Bessemer made railroads and our modern celebration of Christmas possible.

Philip Homan describes how Kittie Wilkins became a millionaire in the late 1800s by trading horses. Zoe Lucas of the Sable Island Institute reveals the wonders of a place where there are more feral horses than people.

UW's Cecilia Aragon went from extremely fearful of heights to acrobatic pilot. Keith O'Brien shares the stories of lesser-known "fly girls" who flew alongside Amelia Earhart in the 1920s and '30s.

Owen Stanwood follows the path of the Huguenots, who, in the 1600s, were driven from France for their religious beliefs and scattered all over the world. Maria Konnikova explained how confidence man Gregor MacGregor fooled hundreds into setting sail for a fake country.

Smog Strangles London

Guest: Kate Winkler Dawson, Associate Professor, Journalism, The University of Texas at Austin, and author, "Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City"

When a thick black smog blanketed the sky in December of 1952, Londoners assumed it was just another fog. After all, inversions were common. So no one really cared. Until so many bodies piled up that the morgues had no place to put them. Listen to the story of the perfect storm, and how the press about a brazen serial killer distracted the government and the public from protecting London from the pollution that killed over 4,000 people. 

 

Capturing Air Pollution to Create Ink

Guest: Anirudh Sharma, Co-Founder, Graviky Labs, and creator, Air-Ink

Anirudh Sharma captures CO2 emissions from tailpipes and turns it into fine artists' ink.

Kate Winkler Dawson, University of Texas at Austin, describes one of the worst environmental disasters in British history and why no one cared. Anirudh Sharma extracts carbon from the air to make printer ink.