Stuff You Missed in History Class

This 2019 episode covers Thomas Cook, a pioneer of the idea of a travel agency to manage tourist holidays. But Cook was initially motivated by his support of the temperance movement and his deeply held religious beliefs. 

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Tracy and Holly talk about the proclivity for destruction that was part of the balloon craze. They also discuss cat trees and how hard it is to find one that's cute. 

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Cat litter, it could be argued, kicked off the pet products industry. After its invention in the 1940s, other inventors started to come up with products that today are standard in the homes of people with pets.

Research:

• Caminiti, Kasey. “Inside the Secret Lives of Pets With Allen Simon.” DuJour. https://dujour.com/life/allen-simon-founder-wee-wee-pad-pet-products/
• “Clays.” U.S. Geological Survey. https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2025/mcs2025-clays.pdf
• Crow, Frank. L. “Cat Tree.” Nov. 25, 1969. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/65/fa/30/1290601d5476ab/US3479990.pdf
• Edward Lowe Foundation. https://edwardlowe.org/
• Gross, Daniel A. “How Kitty Litter went from happy accident to $2 billion industry.” Washington Post. Feb. 2, 2015. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/you-wont-believe-how-old-that-kitty-litter-is/2015/02/02/9ecac9ea-a1b4-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html
• Holding, Ray. “Cassopolis Man Valet for 10,000 Cats.” The Kalamazoo Gazette. Sept. 4, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1145480706/?match=1&terms=Ed%20Lowe%20Kitty%20Litter
• “Kitty Litter.” (ad) The Ann Arbor News. Feb. 16, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/image/1178883937/?match=1&terms=Ed%20Lowe%20Kitty%20Litter
• “Kitty Litter Maker Selling Operations.” The New York Times. Sept. 13, 1990. https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/13/business/company-news-kitty-litter-maker-selling-operations.html
• “New Boon for Cat Owners.” Delaware County Daily Times. Nov. 16, 1949. https://www.newspapers.com/image/53207968/?match=1&terms=Ed%20Lowe%20Kitty%20Litter
• “PetProducts.com | CEO Allen Simon & Kevin Yamano, VP Business Development | Innovators.” LilaMax Media. April 23, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsHhyEcz-pQ
• Simon, Allen. “Allen Simon.” LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allen-simon-592115111/
• Simon, Allen. “Dog Toy.” U.S. Patent Office. Dec. 16, 2008. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/40/31/65/61af50ca84b654/USD583113.pdf
• Simon, Allen. “Scoop for Cat Littler.” U.S. Patent Office. Jan. 19, 1993. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c2/f4/01/b378f00dd92e8c/USD332675.pdf
• Simon, Allen. “Bristled Grooming Glove.” U.S. Patent Office. Jan. 28, 2014. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b6/83/22/143c9b9392d608/USD698159.pdf
• Thomas, Robert Mcg., Jr. “Edward Lowe Dies at 75; a Hunch Led Him to Create Kitty Litter.” New York Times. Oct. 6, 1995. https://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/06/us/edward-lowe-dies-at-75-a-hunch-led-him-to-create-kitty-litter.html
• United Press International. “Ed Lowe Owes His Fortune to Kitty Litter.” L.A. Times Archive. June 16, 1985. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-16-sp-2907-story.html
• “U.S. pet ownership statistics.” American Veterinary Medical Association. 2024. https://www.avma.org/resources-tools/reports-statistics/us-pet-ownership-statistics

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Ballooning became a huge fad starting in the late 18th century, and there was a surprising amount of rioting associated with it. Fervor, excitement, and intoxication in some instances, meant that balloon events were prone to get out of control.

Research:

• Bond, Elizabeth Andrews. “Popular Science and Public Participation.” From The Writing Public: Participatory Knowledge Production in Enlightenment and Revolutionary France. Cornell University Press. 2021. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctv310vktg.8
• Branson, Susan. “Scientific Americans.” Cornell University Press, 2022. Cornell University Press, 2022.
• Coxwell, Henry Tracey. “My Life and Balloon Experiences.” W.H. Allen. 1889. https://archive.org/details/mylifeandballoo02coxwgoog/
• Daily National Intelligencer. “The Balloon, and Conflagration of Vauxhall.” 9/14/1819. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83026172/1819-09-14/ed-1/?sp=2&q=vauxhall&r=0.48,-0.027,0.621,0.225,0
• Franklin, Benjamin. “Benjamin Franklin to Ingenhousz, 16 January 1784.” https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0310#BNFN-01-41-02-0310-fn-0005
• “Hot-Air Balloon: Jean-François Janinet (1752–1814).” https://www.getty.edu/publications/artists-things/things/hot-air-balloon/#fnref8
• Gillespie, Richard. “Ballooning in France and Britain, 1783-1786: Aerostation and Adventurism.” Isis, Vol. 75, No. 2 (June, 1984). https://www.jstor.org/stable/231824
• Glaisher, James. “Travels in the Air.” R. Bentley. 1871. https://archive.org/details/ldpd_7245144_000
• Holman, Brett. “The Melbourne balloon riot of 1858.” Airminded. 3/23/2017. https://airminded.org/2017/03/23/the-melbourne-balloon-riot-of-1858/
• Jackson, Joseph. “Vauxhall Garden.” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. LVII. No. 4. 1933.
• Keen, Paul. “The ‘Balloonomania’: Science and Spectacle in 1780s England.” Eighteenth-Century Studies , Summer, 2006, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Summer, 2006). https://www.jstor.org/stable/30053707
• Magazine Monitor. “Victorian Strangeness: The great balloon riot of 1864.” BBC. 8/9/2014. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-28674654
• Robbins, John. “Up in the Air: Balloonomania and Scientific Performance.” Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 48, No. 4, Special Issue: Performance. Summer 2015. Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24690309
• Robson, David. “The Victorians who flew as high as jumbo jets.” BBC. 4/20/2016. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160419-the-victorians-who-flew-as-high-as-jets
• Smith, Zoe. “Disaster at 37,000 feet.” University of Cambridge. https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/balloon-disaster
• Soth, Amelia. “Hot Air Balloon Launch Riot!” JSTOR Daily. 2/3/2022. https://daily.jstor.org/hot-air-balloon-launch-riot/
• Sparrow, Jeff. “Wrath and awe: a short history of balloons and their power to fire up mob fury.” The Guardian. 2/14/2023. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/15/wrath-and-awe-a-short-history-of-balloons-and-their-power-to-fire-up-mob-fury
• Sydney Morning Herald. “The Balloon Riot in the Domain: Death of Thomas Downs.” 12/19/1856. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12990254
• Sydney Morning Herald. “The Sydney Balloon.” Trove. 12/16/1856. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/12990120
• The Rhode-Island American. “Riotous Proceedigns.” 9/14/1819. https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83025442/1819-09-14/ed-1/?sp=3&q=vauxhall&r=-0.14,1.265,0.686,0.248,0
• Tucker, Jennifer. “Voyages of Discovery on Oceans of Air: Scientific Observation and the Image of Science in an Age of ‘Balloonacy.’” Osiris, 1996, Vol. 11, Science in the Field (1996). Via JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/301930
• Wroth, Warwick. “Cremorne and the Later London Gardens.” London. Elliot Stock. 1907.

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This 2018 episode covers the period in the late 1820s when north Georgia became the site of a gold rush that predated the California gold rush by two decades. It's also tied to some of the darkest parts of U.S. history regarding the treatment of Native Americans.  

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Tracy shares the surprising benefit of not having access to a lot of specifics regarding the work of Mary Golda Ross. Holly talks about Marjorie Merriwether Post being a serial monogamist.

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Marjorie Merriweather Post is most often mentioned today as the person who built Mar-a-Lago. But she was a unique figure as a woman who helmed a huge corporation when she was still in her 20s in the early 20th century.

Research:

• Britannica Editors. "C.W. Post". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Oct. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/C-W-Post
• “C.W. Post a Suicide in California Home.” New York Times. May 10, 1914. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1914/05/10/100089022.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&ip=0
• “The Diplomatic Legacy of Marjorie Merriweather Post.” National Museum of American Diplomacy. April 8, 2021. https://diplomacy.state.gov/stories/the-diplomatic-legacy-of-marjorie-merriweather-post/
• Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens. https://hillwoodmuseum.org/
• “Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post Is Dead at 86.” New York Times. Sept. 13, 1973.
• Gruson, Kerry. “Post Home for Sale for $20 Million.” New York Times. July 16, 1981. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1981/07/16/195929.html?pageNumber=59
• Martin, Roland. "Marjorie Merriweather Post". Encyclopedia Britannica, 8 Sep. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marjorie-Merriweather-Post
• Merolle, Guilhem. “Marjorie Merriweather Post’s most famous jewels.” Collectissim. Dec. 15, 2024. https://www.collectissim.com/en/marjorie-merriweather-post-most-famous-jewels/
• Reid, Jan. “C.W. Post.” Texas Monthly. March 1987. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/c-w-post/
• Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “American Empress: The Life and Times of Marjorie Meriweather Post.” Villard. 1995.
• Stuart, Nancy Rubin. “Marjorie Merriweather Post: The Philanthropic Heiress Who Built Mar-a-Lago.” Saturday Evening Post. November 14, 2023. https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/11/marjorie-merriweather-post-the-philanthropic-heiress-who-built-mar-a-lago/

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Mary Golda Ross was the first Indigenous woman in the U.S. known to have become an engineer. Her impact on the field of aerospace engineering is hard to quantify, because much of her work is still classified.

Research:

• Agnew, Brad. “Cherokee engineer a space exploration pioneer.” Tahlequah Daily Press. 3/27/2016. https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/golda-ross-left-teaching-to-support-war-effort/article_c500cbc4-eeba-11e5-9b57-2b127651fcb5.html
• Agnew, Brad. “Golda’ Ross left teaching to support war effort.” Tahlequah Daily Press. 3/20/2016. https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/golda-ross-left-teaching-to-support-war-effort/article_c500cbc4-eeba-11e5-9b57-2b127651fcb5.html
• Brewer, Graham Lee. “Rocket Woman.” Oklahoma Today. July/August 2018.
• Cochran, Wendell. “Cherokee Tear Dress Facts.” The People’s Paths. https://www.thepeoplespaths.net/Cherokee/WendellCochran/WCochran0102TearDressFacts.htm
• Hogner-Weavel, Tonia. “History of the Cherokee Tear Dress.” Cherokee Nation. Via YouTube. 9/15/2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90V5fM0DiMk
• Lake, Timothy. "Mary Golda Ross". Encyclopedia Britannica, 5 Aug. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-Golda-Ross. Accessed 21 October 2025.
• Margolis, Emily. A. “Mary Golda Ross: Aerospace Engineer, Educator, and Advocate.” Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/mary-g-ross-aerospace-engineer
• Museum of Native American History. “Historic Trailblazer: Mary Golda Ross.” Via YouTube. 12/17/2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzC14hGbPug
• National Park Service. “Mary G. Ross.” https://www.nps.gov/people/mary-g-ross.htm
• New Mexico Museum of Space History. “Mary Golda Ross: First Native American Aerospace Engineer.” Via YouTube. 3/31/2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT9r5trwZEs
• Oklahoma Hall of Fame. “Mary Golda Ross Induction Ceremony Video.” 11/22/2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bovabx6ITW4
• Rosengren, Paul Lief. “Mary Golda Ross: She Reached for the Stars.” IEEE-USA and Paul Lief Rosengren. 2025.
• Schroeder, Mildred. “A Far-out Cherokee Chick.” San Francisco Examiner. 4/16/1961.
• Smith, Betty. “Pure Cherokee Gold.” Tahlequah Daily Press. 6/26/2008. https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/archives/pure-cherokee-gold/article_44c0a25a-94e2-53d8-b80c-be1ff86305e7.html
• Viola, Herman. “Mary Golda Ross: She Reached for the Stars.” American Indian: Magazine of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Vol. 19, No. 4. Winter 2018. https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/mary-golda-ross-she-reached-stars
• Wallace, Rob. “Mary Golda Ross and the Skunk Works.” National World War II Museum. 11/19/2021. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/mary-golda-ross-and-skunk-works
• Watts, Jennifer. “John Ross: Principal Chief of the Cherokee People.” Tennessee State Museum. https://tnmuseum.org/junior-curators/posts/john-ross-principal-chief-of-the-cherokee-people
• Yang, John. “The cutting-edge work of Native American aerospace engineer Mary Golda Ross.” 11/26/2023. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-cutting-edge-work-of-native-american-aerospace-engineer-mary-golda-ross
• Zhorov, Irina. “Years Later, Miss Indian America Pageant Winners Reuniteg.” NPR Code Switch. 7/12/2013. https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/07/12/201537264/Years-Later-Miss-Indian-America-Pageant-Winners-Reunite

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This 2019 episode covers Alexandre Dumas, who wrote hundreds and hundreds of works, including “The Three Musketeers,” “The Count of Monte Cristo,”  and even a dictionary of cuisine.

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Tracy discusses the challenge of parsing all the nuance of the French Revolution. Holly talks about how little Clarence Birdseye shared of his interior thoughts.

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