Summary of Behind the Scenes Minis: Stairs and Trains

Overview of Behind the Scenes Minis: Stairs and Trains

In this minisode, Tracy and Holly reflect on the research trips and behind-the-scenes detective work that shaped two recent Stuff You Missed in History Class episodes: one on the Bunker Hill Monument and another on Elizabeth Blackwell. They share field notes, accessibility observations, historical corrections, and a few hilarious frustrations with old sources, misinformation, and modern bureaucracy.

Bunker Hill Monument: Field Trip, Quotes, and the Judge’s Order

Why the visit happened

• Tracy went to the Bunker Hill Monument after seeing news reports about historical quotes being removed from park signage.
• The articles were confusing and often contradictory, so she visited in person to see what the exhibit actually contained.

What she found

• The monument climb involves nearly 300 steps.
• Tracy climbed all the way up, albeit slowly, and found the ascent manageable but the descent more difficult because it was harder to tell how far down she still had to go.
• She noticed a floor grate she did not trust and avoided stepping on it.
• The site offers a live camera view from the top in the lodge to make the monument somewhat accessible, since there is no elevator.

Historical and interpretive takeaways

• Rangers emphasized that “liberty” meant different things to different people in the Revolutionary era and beyond.
• A ranger talk mentioned the legend that Lafayette placed the cornerstone in the wrong spot and it was quietly moved at night so he would not be embarrassed.
• Tracy also saw a musket-firing demonstration.

The legal context

• While she was away, a judge ordered the government to stop removing additional content from park signs under the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order and related Interior Department directives.
• Tracy notes that she could not get direct answers from the National Park Service because the web form response was effectively a permission/access denial.
• She speculates that the quote about suffrage may have been left because it was framed more optimistically than the other contested text.

Elizabeth Blackwell: Museum Hopping, Plant History, and Source Problems

The trip that inspired the episode

• Holly’s research on Elizabeth Blackwell began with an exhibition about plants at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
• Getting there involved an early-morning train trip from Birmingham, plus a spontaneous decision to go after realizing the direct weekend train was unavailable.
• She visited several museums in one day, including:
  • The Ashmolean Museum
  • The Bodleian Library’s Weston Library
  • The History of Science Museum
  • The Story Museum
  • Other related stops across Oxford

Main themes from the exhibit

• The exhibit traced how understanding of plants has changed over time.
• It also addressed:
  • Botanical illustration and classification
  • The environmental effects of collecting and breeding plants
  • The role of colonialism in botanical acquisition
  • How decorative plants were often taken from Indigenous cultivators

The Story Museum highlight

• Holly was pleasantly surprised by the Story Museum, which balanced child-friendly elements with exhibits that also spoke to adult readers and literary fans.
• One exhibit, the Story Arcade, focused on the history and evolution of storytelling in video games, which she found especially moving.

Research Notes, Corrections, and Quotable Misogyny

Bruce James’s paragraph on women writers

• The episode included a lengthy quote from Bruce James’s Lives of Eminent Men of Aberdeen about women writing books.
• Tracy and Holly react strongly to how openly misogynistic it is, especially because Elizabeth Blackwell was the only woman in the book.
• The passage dismisses women’s intellectual work and argues they should remain “helpmates” rather than public thinkers.

What it reveals

• The quote captures the hostile attitudes women like Blackwell faced.
• At the same time, the hosts note that Blackwell also had support from many scientifically minded men who endorsed her work.
• They suggest James may have been trying to hedge his criticism so as not to anger other men in his audience.

Corrections and historical cleanup

• The episode clarified that Elizabeth Blackwell was not actually from Aberdeen, despite the misinformation that circulated during her lifetime.
• Tracy mentions that Janet Stiles Tyson, who corrected much of the Blackwell historical record, began her PhD in her mid-60s.
• They also note that Blackwell’s work included things people once classified as plants but would not today, such as:
  • Corals
  • Fungi

A fun archival surprise

• The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says there is apparently no surviving copy of Alexander Blackwell’s A New Method of Improving Cold, Wet, and Clayey Grounds.
• Holly found it on archive.org, though likely via scanned microfilm rather than a surviving original print copy.

Broader Reflections

• Both hosts talk about how museum visits and direct site visits help resolve confusion from secondary sources and news reports.
• They also discuss how historical interpretation changes over time, especially when public monuments are used to tell more complicated stories than just a battle or a single figure.
• Holly notes that she came back from the England trip with lots of photos, emails to herself, and new episode ideas.
• Both hosts close by encouraging listeners to make their own small adventures—whether museum trips, bookstore crawls, or day trips—whenever possible.