Behind the Scenes Minis: Censorship Cats

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Behind the Scenes Minis: Censorship Cats"

Stuff You Missed in History Class – iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Holly Frey & Tracy V. Wilson
Date: March 6, 2026

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Episode Theme & Purpose

This "Behind the Scenes Minis" episode dives into the fallout from recent controversies over historical signage at Independence National Historical Park—specifically, the President's House site—and the broader issues of government-led historical censorship and public memory in U.S. National Parks. The hosts reflect on changing narratives, audience feedback, and tie in recent research on French art, censorship, and anarchism, as inspired by their main episode on Théophile Steinlen. The overall tone is conversational, thoughtful, and occasionally humorous, staying true to the show’s blend of historical rigor and personality.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. President’s House Signage Controversy

• Event Recap: Tracy describes the rapid changes regarding which historical panels were removed, damaged, or restored at the President’s House site due to an executive order requiring reassessment of certain historical content in national parks.
  • "[Panels] looked like something that was supposed to be permanent that was, like, physically torn apart... if they were damaged in any other way, that has to be repaired, and all of that has to [be] put back up." – Tracy (04:00)
• Physical & Logistical Barriers: They discuss the practical difficulties of restoring signage during a blizzard and after damage, acknowledging that some reasons for delays may be valid but suspecting ulterior motives to suppress certain historical truths (04:25-05:10).
• Content Targeted: Tracy highlights that the most detailed information about slavery at the site was conspicuously slow to be restored, suggesting selective censorship (05:10-05:50).

2. Political Backlash & Listener Reactions

• Impossibility of “Apolitical” Stance: The hosts reflect on critical emails urging them to “stop being so political,” clarifying that their kind of historical interpretation is directly challenged by current political leadership.
  • "There is no apolitical response to the President of the United States targeting the field that you work in. There's just not." – Tracy (08:25)
• Value of Confronting Difficult History: Holly invokes William Blake’s writing to argue for embracing uncomfortable historical truths, stating that confronting evil or wrongdoing is what gives goodness its value.
  • "It devalues the good things we have done to ignore the bad things that have happened as well." – Holly (10:16)

3. National Park Executive Orders: Broader Effects

• Political Motivations: Tracy notes that although the executive orders claim to focus on policies from the Biden administration, the President’s House site was largely developed during the George W. Bush era—the implication being that the orders are less about accuracy than political messaging (16:21-17:27).
• Suppressing Progressive History: The hosts enumerate examples of erased content:
  • Glacier National Park lost signage about climate change (17:54)
  • Acadia National Park removed references to Wabanaki cultural significance
  • Fort Sumter erased content on rising sea levels and the Lost Cause myth
  • Stonewall National Historic Site had "transgender" and "queer" scrubbed from its website and lost its rainbow flag
• Public Pushback & FOIA Requests: QR codes installed at parks for public commentary yielded both practical suggestions and vocal objections to historical whitewashing, as uncovered by Sierra Club's FOIA requests (20:42-22:10).

4. Community Responses & Documentation Efforts

• Save Our Signs: Tracy shares that grassroots projects are cataloging and archiving removed signage to document the ongoing censorship (22:11-22:43).

5. Théophile Steinlen, Art, and Anarchism

• Correct Attribution: The hosts clarify confusion between Steinlen and Toulouse-Lautrec, emphasizing Steinlen’s focus on pacifism and social critique in both art and life (32:02-32:36).
• Anarchism Explained: Holly provides context for the political philosophy of anarchism, noting its complex history and misperceptions. She links Steinlen’s beliefs more to idealistic community care than to violence.
  • "A lot of anarchy is about actually taking care of one another." – Holly (24:16-24:20)
• French Theatrical Censorship as Protest: Amusingly, Tracy recounts 19th-century French theatergoers shouting censored lines from printed scripts, likening it to Rocky Horror Picture Show audience participation (25:13-26:27).

6. Cats, Posterity, and Pop Culture

• Global Spread of “Chat Noir”: Holly observes the proliferation of “Chat Noir” cafés worldwide as an homage to Parisian bohemian culture and Steinlen’s art (26:28-27:08).
• Antiques Roadshow Anecdote: A story of a guest unknowingly keeping a valuable Steinlen lithograph on her porch because she "didn’t like cats" (27:19-28:43).

7. Steinlen’s Prison Narrative & Reflections on Incarceration

• Translation & Analysis: Holly shares a translated passage from Steinlen’s writings on the dehumanizing effects of incarceration, connecting it to present-day critique of prison systems:
  • "Man is an animal who, however unsociable he may seem, can only live in society. His confinement within four walls dulls his senses... there is a danger of intellectual death." – Holly (30:36)
• Relating to U.S. History: Tracy links this to their prior episode on Attica and systemic failures of incarceration (31:37).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On apolitical responses to censorship:
  "If we vocally say no, that's political. If we say nothing and adjust our content to align with this executive order, that is also political... There is no apolitical response to the President of the United States targeting the field that you work in. There's just not." – Tracy (08:05)
• On reckoning with history:
  "It devalues the good things we have done to ignore the bad things that have happened as well." – Holly (10:16)
• On French audience censorship protests:
  "This is the first Rocky Horror Picture Show and it's very political and I love this idea." – Holly (25:49)
• On anarchism:
  "A lot of anarchy is about actually taking care of one another." – Holly (24:16)
• On the effect of prison:
  "There is a danger of intellectual death." – Holly quoting Steinlen (30:36)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Signage Removal Logistics & Censorship Motivation – (02:41–06:00)
• Political Positioning & Listener Feedback – (07:08–10:25)
• Specific Examples of Censored Content at National Parks – (17:54–20:42)
• Public Pushback & QR Code Comments – (20:42–22:10)
• Community Efforts & Save Our Signs Project – (22:11–22:43)
• Anarchism & Art: Steinlen’s Legacy – (22:43–24:58)
• French Theater Protest Anecdote – (25:13–26:27)
• Chat Noir Cafés, Antiques Roadshow Story – (26:28–28:43)
• Steinlen’s Prison Narrative; Incarceration Reflections – (29:51–32:02)

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Episode Tone

Candid, empathetic, and irreverent in moments, Holly and Tracy balance seriousness about historical truth and the civic implications of censorship with humorous asides (especially regarding cats, anarchism, and pop culture).

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For Further Exploration

• Book recommendation: Upon the Ruins of Liberty: Slavery, the President’s House at Independence National Historical Park, and Public Memory
• Projects: Save Our Signs, Sierra Club FOIA on park commentaries
• Earlier SYMIHC episodes: The Attica prison uprising

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This summary is designed for those who haven’t listened to the episode, capturing context, nuance, and the hosts’ authentic voices.

Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

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[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

one mysterious black club owner Charlie Fitzgerald had his own rules.

[Holly Fry]

Segregation in the day, integration at night.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

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Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero?

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Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy B. Wilson And I'm Holly Fry. This week, we talked about the President's house site at Independence National Historical Park.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

How all the signs were taken down and some of them are up, not all of them. So you were on. You were on vacation. Otherwise, we would have had, like, a slightly different episode because of the timing of when things happened, because the whole thing really was completely and totally written. When the order came that the site had to be restored.

[Holly Fry]

Oh, yeah. We would have recorded already if that had not.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And that would have been weirder than the many progressive rounds of edits that I did on the thing before we actually recorded it. The tone of it became slightly different every time because what was being described in terms of the removal of things, like, it was. It was different depending on what was back up. And for a while, news reports from Philadelphia made it sound like everything had been put back.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Which I was kind. I was like, that's impressive. Because I knew, having seen what it looked like when the panels were taken down, that the metal ones, what was left was, like, the mounting display with adhesive all over it. And I was like, I don't know how they're gonna put those back up. Like, how is that even going to happen? This looks like something that was supposed to be permanent that was, like, physically torn apart. And I think that is at least part of why they were not put back up.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I think there are real reasons that you cannot have adhesive cure properly in subfreezing conditions during a blizzard. I think that's probably reasonable.

[Holly Fry]

Well, I also wonder, and you may have heard, but given the manner in which they were taken down, were they damaged?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I think some of them have been damaged in some amount in terms of, like, they have to be flattened back out. Right.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

They were pulled off, so they have to be flattened back out. They have to, like, the adhesive has to be taken off of the frames that were still hanging on the walls at the site. Like, that. Old adhesive has to be removed. New adhesive has to be put on there. The panels have to be flattened back out. If they were damaged in any other way, that has to be repaired, and all of that has to put. Be put back up. So I think it is probably really true that that was not something that could physically be done by the deadline that was initially set. I also feel like that fact allows the government to keep down the panels that they most wanted to take down in the first place, because that has, like, they have the most specific detail about slavery, specifically at the President's House. And then more generally at the end of the 18th century in the newly established United States. I went back through my pictures from when I made that trip to be like, do I have pictures from. From the President's house? I did not take any pictures of the President's house site. I did take a selfie of myself with the Liberty Bell, though. So it was a trip I took to Philadelphia where I walked all. All over creation. Yeah. So Independence National Historical park was specifically referenced in that executive order as something that's needing to be addressed. And one of the things in it says that at Independence National Historical park, where our nation declared that all men are created equal, the prior administration sponsored training by an organization that advocates dismantling Western foundations and interrogating institutional racism and pressured National Historical park rangers that their racial identity should dictate how they convey history to visiting Americans. Because America is purportedly racist. I went down a big rabbit hole trying to figure out what training that text is referencing.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Because that sounds to me like the most worst faith reading of a routinely normal.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Anti racism training.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

But I did not. I was not able to find out, like, what specific training had prompted that text to be in the executive order. We've gotten a really. A lot of, like, really great supportive email from listeners lately. We've also gotten a couple of people who have written to basically say, stop being so political.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So I just want to, like, spell it out. The President of the United States, which is the country that we live in and work in and are citizens of, has specifically called the kind of history that we talk about on the show improper ideology. Like, there is not an apolitical response to that.

[Holly Fry]

No.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

If we vocally say no, that's political. If we say nothing and adjust our content to align with this executive order, that is also political. That's not something we would do. I'm just saying that's a political move also.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

If we said nothing and didn't really change anything, that, too, is political. There is no apolitical response to the President of the United States targeting the field that you work in. There's just not.

[Holly Fry]

No, there's really not. And here's my thing, and this may be a little heady, and I invoke this all the time.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Okay.

[Holly Fry]

I don't understand the mentality of someone who wants to erase all of the uncomfortable and bad stuff from our history.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

And the thing that I always find myself going back to is the writing of William Blake, like the Blakeian ideology that you cannot, in fact, Be truly good. Unless you have been tempted by evil. Unless you have been, you know, someone who has had that moment where you have done something that maybe is not truly good. And it's recognizing those two things, existing and choosing the good thing as often as possible, that actually makes a man or a person or an entity good. And to me, that makes it so much more valuable. Like, that's why we need. That's part of why we need to reckon with all of the uncomfortable parts of our history. Yeah. It has no value to say we have always been great and everybody's always been great and we've always done things right. Because all that tells me is, like, great. You lived in a vacuum where you never were forced to, like, make any choices or do any growth. Yeah. Like, I don't. There's no value in that. That's a big fat, like, wad of frosting with no cake under it. Like, I don't. I don't understand it. So as much as I love frosting, listen, I'll eat a can of frosting. But what I'm saying is just, like, there's. It devalues the good things we have done to ignore the bad things that have happened as well.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Right, Right.

[Holly Fry]

And I don't know why anybody would want to do that unless they just cannot deal with reality.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, the draft of the outline from before the order came to put the stuff back up talked, like, more about what the content was that had been taken down and the fact that having been there, having looked at these signs, having read the text on them, I found them to be accurate and thought provoking and not something that would cause a person to, like, need to rip them down with crowbars. Unless maybe their feelings were so delicate and unregulated that any mention of slavery causes a tantrum about DEI or wokeness or political. Political correctness or whatever we are calling it nowadays.

[Holly Fry]

Mandatory therapy. Mandatory therapy for all. It's like, that should not. That should not be that upsetting. Yeah, it should be upsetting in the sense that it sucks that humans have treated each other badly, but it should not freak you out on that level.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. So there is a whole book about the President's House site. I have not read it, but I wanted to say that it exists. It's called upon the Ruins of Slavery. No, sorry. Upon the Ruins of Liberty, Slavery, the President's House at Independence National Historical park, and Public Memory. That sounds like it would be a very interesting read to me. It is just not something that I was able to read while working on this. There are also various books about Hercules, about Ona judge, about other people who were enslaved at President's House site. Lots of other information available. Foreign

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[Holly Fry]

Segregation in the day, Integration at Night

[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

when segregation was the law, one mysterious black club owner had his own rules.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We didn't worry about what was going on outside. It was like stepping in another world.

[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

Inside Charlie's Place, black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it.

[Holly Fry]

You saw the kkk.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform.

[Holly Fry]

The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him.

[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch and visit Myrtle beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time until now. Listen to Charlie's place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

A couple other things that kind of jumped out to me while I was working on this, like in the context that I was working on it. One is a lot of the focus of this executive order about removing signage from the parks, and all of that has seemed to be focused primarily on things that happened during the Biden administration. Like the specific order was look at things that happened since 2020. So since the last full year of the first Trump presidency. Like, that's the focus of what we're looking at. While this site, the President's House site was not dedicated until 2010, the vast majority of work on it was done during the presidency of George W. Bush. So it's like there's just been this big focus with the executive order specifically about Joe Biden, but like also an undertone of things that might have been done when Democrats were in the White House.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

But like vast majority of the work on the president's site, the President's House site was during the. The George Bush, George W. Bush presidency. Also Judge Cynthia Roof, a George W. Bush appointee. So her incredibly scathing order to put everything back begins with a quote From George Orwell's 1984, basically framing all of this as dystopian government overreach.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Also the kinds of information that have been taken down. I had a whole paragraph about this and I felt like this episode was getting really long and I wanted to try to rein it in a little bit. So the information that has been taken down at sites like, as examples, information about climate change and retreating glaciers has been taken down at Glacier national park, where receding glaciers are directly relevant to the park. Multiple signs have been taken down from Acadia national park in Maine, including ones on climate change and one on the site's cultural significance to the Wabanaki people. Signs about sea level rise at Fort. At Fort Sumter on the coast of South Carolina. Also directly relevant to Fort Sumter. Sea level rise signs have been taken down about that display, referencing the Lost cause Mythology of the U.S. civil War, which we've talked about on the show before. That was taken down from Nassau National Battlefield park in Virginia. So those are just examples. I learned, like, you know, as I was having to go through and continually revise this as things were changing before it got recorded. Lowell National Historical park in Massachusetts incorporates the Boot Cotton Mills Museum. It is a mill museum, like a factory museum. And the workers there were ordered to stop showing a film about what the conditions were like in. At the mills. Like the. One of the points of having a historical park at a. At a mill. It's not clear whether it's related to this executive order or some of the other executive orders, of which there are many, but the words transgender and queer were completely scrubbed from the Stonewall National Historic Site website. Yeah. And they were also forced to take down the rainbow flag, citing rules about what kinds of flags can fly at federal properties.

[Holly Fry]

Didn't they just put it back up, though?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Did I see that?

[Holly Fry]

Somebody just went and put one back up.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I'm not sure if they put it back up or if neighbors put it up adjacent.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, I mean, that is the most bonkers. Like, there's no way to reframe Stonewall.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Right. That isn't that.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, it's so bonkers.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. So, yeah, just all. All of those things that have been taken down, like, they all have the same. It's like it's not targeting information that's wrong. It's not targeting information that is inaccurate. It's all clearly targeting things that are considered to be, like, progressive left wing ideas.

[Holly Fry]

Right.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Rather than climate change, which is a scientific reality. Anyway. Anyway, we talked on the show about when the National Park Service had signs put up with a QR code that people could Submit their commentary. Yeah, we talked about that in an installment of Unearthed. That's connected to all of this with the executive order, the Sierra Club did FOIA requests to see what kinds of things people have put in. In these. These QR code things. Some of them are legit, like, legitimate needs that need to be addressed. Like the bathroom stall door is broken. The. The. There's not enough parking. Like, these are things I remember. I can't get the link to open right now while also running the thing that is recording our podcast, Gotcha. But, like, there's. There's stuff that people have submitted using these QR codes that are, like, actual legitimate things, that something is in disrepair that needs to be repaired or something similar. And then there's a lot of it, a lot of. A lot of comments where people have taken the opportunity to say, this directive is a whitewashing of history. And then there is a segment of them that are just. I would classify as trolling. So I think if you, like, Google something like Sierra Club foyer request, National Parks, you can get to these and read them yourself.

[Holly Fry]

Nice.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I can't get it to open right now. So, anyway, there are still a number of ongoing community efforts to document signs at the parks. Save Our Signs project is one of them. So, again, a lot of this is an ongoing, ongoing developing story. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

We also talked about Theophil Steinlen and his art and politics this week.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We did do that.

[Holly Fry]

One thing we didn't talk about was anarchism.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Okay.

[Holly Fry]

As a political concept.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Which I think is important because, listen, if you're a kid like me who grew up listening to the Sex Pistols, you have a different view of anarchy than a lot of other people.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Like, we.

[Holly Fry]

I think, especially in America, in the us we think of anarchy as always being very. About violence and destruction and, like, chaos. Chaos. Thanks, John Lydon. Irony there. Cause that's not what he is anymore. But really, when you look at the concepts of anarchy, historically, politically, there certainly were some parts of it that were interested in violence and overthrowing things by using violence. But a lot of it, and certainly the part of it that I think Theophil Steinlen was most attracted to was this idea that if you got rid of centralized government, and this is a little bit sweet and perhaps naive, that people could be taking care of each other without needing all of that fuss.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Which is a beautiful way to look at it. And it seems very much in line with the way he lived his life and his pacifism, more so than that. More kind of Violent approach to it. But I just. I wanted to point that out in some context as we talked about this this week, because like I said, if you're like me and you grew up in the 80s, anarchy was very much pitched as like, destroy everything.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Right. Just smash it. No, no, smash all of it. Smash them.

[Holly Fry]

No, no, Some. A lot of anarchy is about actually taking care of one another.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. Well. And I think a lot of it also sort of like acknowledges the harm that governments have done. Right. So even though we have a lot of things that I think are good that come from governments, sometimes we, like the harm that is done at the behest of governments can get less of a focus. I mean, not. Not with gigantic things like starting wars. People acknowledge that. But there's a lot of stuff that happens day to day on a smaller scale that I think anarchy kind of confronts more than a lot of people really think about.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, yeah. One of the other things I want to talk about is actually, to me, quite funny. It's in our show notes, but it's in a write up on EBSCO where they talked about all of those, like, French censorship laws that we kind of went through.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Oh, yeah.

[Holly Fry]

And one of them is this very funny thing that is described in that write up where theater censorship laws had played out in such a way that shows could not include certain portions of a script, but the plays that they were producing could still be printed in their original state. And what started to happen was that crowds would take their printouts and go to the shows and they would shout out the original versions.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That's amazing.

[Holly Fry]

And it kind of became this anti censorship demonstration. But to me, I'm like, this is the first Rocky Horror Picture show and it's very political. And I love this idea.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I was like, this is a weird Rocky Horror.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah, I love it, I love it. I love it so much. Just the concept of that and how that gets started and like that. This organically developed of people wanting to yell at the stage. The parts that the actors were leaving out. I envision. I don't know, I never found a write up on specifically any of these instances, but I envision actors taking a dramatic pause while they're like, your turn. And the audience yells out the part of the play that they can't say. I think that's brilliant.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

We talked a little bit at the end of the episode about chat noirs. Everywhere.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

When I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. Like, if you do an Internet search, you will find them in like small towns around the world.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

Where they're just like a cute cafe that somebody opened up. And they love, like, you know, this idea of. Of the late 19th century Paris Bohemian culture, or some of them just seem to really love that. That poster. And they want to base a whole color scheme around it. And others go all out and they try to replicate the time and stuff. So I think that. I don't know, part of me thinks it'd be fun to try to just do a tour of them, but that would never find them all.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I think.

[Holly Fry]

I love it. There is a very funny. I almost put it in the episode, but I didn't. Funny to me. Antiques Roadshow that features Ataya Phil Steinle.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Okay.

[Holly Fry]

And it is a lithograph. This woman initially thinks it's a painting, but it's a lithograph. And when the guy tells her it's a lithograph, she looks disappointed at first. And then he was like, no, it's still really valuable. But it's one of the original lithographs of. He did this dual cat portrait thing that is a summer cat and a winter cat. And the summer cat is kind of out. He looks like he's sitting out on the wooden. You know, what is the word I'm thinking of? You know, I don't know, like the. The thing that goes around your deck railing. Yeah, there you go. Railing. Railing evaded me. He looks like he's sitting on this wooden railing and he looks actually kind of grumpy. It's a great piece of work. And this woman has brought it to Antiques Roadshow. And the first thing she says is, I don't like cats. But she had been told it was valuable, so she kept it. Yeah, but because she didn't like cats, she had kept it outside on her porch for like 15 years. But it obviously was a very well covered porch. Cause it hadn't degraded much. Although the person that's doing the evaluation says kind of like, hey, you know, unfortunately, because this was framed directly against glass in probably varying weather conditions, that some of the lithographic material has stuck to the glass a little bit.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Oh, yeah.

[Holly Fry]

And kind of. But it was very funny. I think he evaluates it as being, like, worth 10 to $12,000. That he's like, do you like cats now? And she's like, yeah, I think so. And it's just this very funny exchange. But, like, anyway, one of the last thing I really want to talk about is that prison narrative again, because there is a lot of interesting writing in it. Some of it is very. Just Funny. I mean, I will say, when we think of a prison narrative today, we think of modern prisons, and this definitely seemed to be a more relaxed scenario than we would associate with prison today. Right. Like, these men were essentially living in a cell together, but it was like they had, like, furniture and tables and chairs, and, you know, people could come visit them, and people that visited them could bring them whatever food they wanted. And so they kind of had, like, they were isolated, and they were certainly, you know, not free, but they could have a lot of comforts of home there that we might not associate with it. So some of it is just, like, kooky anecdotes about their life in prison.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

But there was one passage that I read, and I haven't found a full English translation of it, so I had translated pieces of it with my, you know, sometimes murky, but overall, okay, French. And then I, you know, consulted some other friends that translate as well, and there was one passage that really, really struck me. And it's so pertinent to the way we all think about incarceration and how important it is to recognize the danger of incarceration creating a person that is not really gonna be able to participate in recidivism.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Oh, okay.

[Holly Fry]

Because they're changed so much by the experience. And that passage reads, man is an animal who, however unsociable he may seem, can only live in society. His confinement within four walls dulls his senses, his faculties, his organs. The brain, no longer stimulated by a succession of images, becomes numb. If the seclusion is prolonged and the prisoner does not find sustenance for his activity, there is a danger of intellectual death. And I really loved how poignant that was. So I just wanted to read it.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Holly Fry]

That it will ruin the person in ways that people probably were not considering. And that was sort of part of their whole, often very funny takedown of the whole justice system. It's like nobody's thinking stuff through. Nobody's right. They literally just want to tick boxes and say they did a thing to uphold the law, but they don't. They're not really considering the consequences of the way they carry that out, which is really interesting.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah. It's been a super long time, but we did an episode on the Attica prison uprising.

[Holly Fry]

Yes.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Back some years ago. And one of the things that we talked about was how, like, the system of prison was basically just leaving people worse off than they had been when they were sentenced to prison and not having a way to escape that cycle. And it reminds me of that.

[Holly Fry]

Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, Theophil Steinle. Now we all know who he is. He can get proper attribution for his

[Tracy B. Wilson]

beautiful work, not confuse him with Toulouse Lautrec.

[Holly Fry]

No, I understand it there. You know, if you had asked me,

[Tracy B. Wilson]

that's what I would have said.

[Holly Fry]

A lot of people would. Yeah, a lot of people would. And especially because they knew each other. They knew a lot of the same people. They were sometimes portraying similar subjects in their art. It makes sense.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, they had some similar subject matter of like their commercial art especially.

[Holly Fry]

For sure, for sure. But that is Theophil Steinlen. I hope that if this is your weekend coming up, you have time to look at beautiful art, whatever it is that touches your soul the most or inspires you, whatever fits your tastes. If you don't have time off, maybe sneak in some art. Looking online if you get a few minutes. It's always good for the soul. Or make art if that makes you happy. Nothing makes me feel more at peace than when I'm just making something. We hope that everybody is being kind to one another in these very, very stressful times we live in. Every human kindness helps, in my opinion. We'll be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode. Thanks for spending this time with us.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more for more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an iHeart podcast.

[Atlas Obscura Narrator]

Guaranteed Human.