Not Another History Podcast
We are Cindy and Katie, and every two weeks we bring you a random theme and offer several of our favorite historical events loosely based on that theme. We are basically just living out our old lady fantasies of rocking on the front porch together, drinking, and gossiping about people who are already dead. Music: The Life of a Divorced Bumblebee by Josef Bel Habib (www.epidemicsound.com). Design: canva.com
Not Another History Podcast
3 French Hens
In honor of the holiday season, we are re-releasing our 12 Days of Christmas special! For the next 12 days, we will re-release one episode a day, each one with our own spin on the classic holiday theme, "The 12 Days of Christmas."
Katie tells us all about Hen Fever.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me three French hens, hence and cindy. Would you be surprised at all to know that the term french isn't really specifically referring to a specific breed of hen, but rather just referring to anything foreign?
Speaker 2:that was so poorly timed. Wait a minute. So we're using the word french just to refer to anything that's not english, english, no english, go on.
Speaker 1:So, and it's. It's also believed that it's. It could be a play on the word. So the latin word for uh, chicken is like uh, a golem. So and and that's very similar to the Latin word Anything pertaining to France is garlic, so chicken, france, so on. Now, cindy, you've heard of the beanie baby bubble have you?
Speaker 2:you've heard of the beanie baby bubble. I have no, I used to have a lot of beanie babies. I don't know where they went.
Speaker 1:I think my mom threw them all out when I moved out. That's too bad, because now they're worth nothing. You've heard of the housing bubble yeah, yep the dot-com bubble. Have you heard of the chicken bubble?
Speaker 2:that's chicken pox. Thank you very much, and it's called pus, not bubbles, sorry that was no, no.
Speaker 1:But on a more serious note, like our children, children are never going to have to have chicken pox.
Speaker 2:That occurred to me a couple of years ago for the first time. It never hit me that my child will never have to deal with chicken pox.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like a rite of passage in childhood. I remember eating my own body weight in popsicles when I had chicken pox, because I had them in my throat. Yes, yes, yes, oh yeah. Oh, the good old days. Good old days Getting so itchy. Now we just have COVID.
Speaker 2:Delta Omicron Omicron.
Speaker 1:Omicron, Umicron, Everybody.
Speaker 2:Cron. You say it Momicron, I say it Momicron.
Speaker 1:Back to the chicken bubble. Between 1845 and 1855 in the United States there was hen fever. No, not like saturday, like saturday night fever. Although some might say it was just as popular and perhaps even more contagious, it was not actually an illness of any variety. Instead, it was a craze for all things chicken, started by queen victoria. I feel like she's very much a trendsetter in her time. Because of her we have the white wedding dress, the engagement ring and now obsession with chickens, afc.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, we're getting to that, oh, okay. Seat, okay. Well, we're getting to that, okay. So in 1852, queen victoria received seven exotic hens from china. She was so excited by these little fluffy birds that she built an elaborate chicken coop for them, which she eventually did fill with other types of exotic animals. And what she did fill with other types of exotic chicken, and she would reportedly spend hours in the coop just sitting, relaxing, drinking tea and watching the little hens rung amongst her skirts. She would very carefully decorate each egg that was laid and then send them to royalty around Europe to show off her wealth and her new hobby.
Speaker 2:You know how around the holidays you always get that gift from a distant relative and you're just kind of like let's all see what Uncle Stephen sent. Can you imagine people during this time like let's see what Queen Victoria sent us oh, it's another egg. Oh, let's see what queen victoria sent us oh, it's another egg. Let's all pretend to be really excited. Make sure the next time we see her at court you tell her how lovely the egg was make sure you say thank you, make sure you take the chicken with you.
Speaker 1:Just pull it out of the the closet, just. You just have to have it with you for 45 minutes when you see her, and then you can, you put it away just have it out, when she visits exactly so her preoccupation with her little feathered friends spread like wildfire amongst the lower classes, as her perchance for poultry was disseminated by newspapers. And it wasn't before long before this new craze swept across the Atlantic to America.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute, sorry, the chicken craze or the decorating the?
Speaker 1:egg craze, oh. No, the chicken, the collecting exotic chickens craze, oh okay, that one by 1849, boston had its very first poultry exhibition, where reportedly 10,000 spectators showed up and there were nearly 300 exhibitors.
Speaker 2:I mean to be fair. I did also do that episode on the Battle of Bull Run where people showed up to watch the Civil War. Not surprised people showed up to watch a bunch of chickens well, these are all like chicken enthusiasts.
Speaker 1:I mean it's, it's, it's the 18, it's almost 1850, like. What are you going to be doing with your time besides breeding chickens and raising chickens and seeing chickens exhibited you?
Speaker 2:could read the book of children's mirth or go to a chicken show mirth without mischief.
Speaker 1:And I have to say, cindy, like I read up a little bit of up on the boston poultry exhibition, well, first of all, you can still go to it, they still have it. Yes, it's not in boston anymore, it's outside boston. It has been canceled for the 2021 year due to COVID, unfortunately. However, I think maybe next year we should go. I'm just saying.
Speaker 2:I'm getting our tickets right now.
Speaker 1:I was absolutely fascinated by the gentleman who started the poultry exhibition. He was a man by the name of Dr John C Bennett, and to say he's a colorful character is a bit of an understatement. He had commanded a company for the Union in the Civil War. He was an advocate of the health benefits of the tomato.
Speaker 2:He was a tomato advocate.
Speaker 1:He was. He was a tomato advocate A tomavocate. He was a tomavocate An advocato.
Speaker 2:An advocato.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. He was, in addition to being an advocato, he was a pioneer in the use of chloroform as an anesthetic.
Speaker 2:He was a serial killer. I'm not a serial killer, I'm just a pioneer of the use of chloroform.
Speaker 1:He was a leader of the Latter-day Saints movement until he was expelled for adultery. He also helped to found some medical colleges, but then ended up selling medical diplomas, and he also bred chicken.
Speaker 2:Wow, a real Renaissance man.
Speaker 1:So the the boon in chickens. It continued like into 1855, at its peak, at its Zenith, people were spending up to a dollar per egg, which in modern money that's about 30 dollars american. What? I said three thousand dollars, no, not that, and then a breeding pair of birds, of exotic exotic birds, would set you back $120, which again in today's money is about $3,600. To kind of put things into perspective, if you really want to get an exotic it's a bantam, a Chinese bantam it's going to cost you $4.19.
Speaker 2:Stocking stuffers Adding to your Christmas wishlist.
Speaker 1:There you go. So by 1855, the market for these birds had just been. It had been absolutely flooded with eggs and chickens, and there was just no real market for them anymore. I found one disgruntled chicken salesman, chicken. They call him a chicken boss, but that didn't seem right either.
Speaker 2:That sounds so right? No, that sounds. If I'm going to be selling chickens, I am absolutely calling myself the chicken boss. Can you just see the TLC show now? Chicken boss, chicken boss, some angry guy in upstate New York, I'm the chicken boss.
Speaker 1:Because we know Ice Road Chicken Truckers was already taken. So this is what one purveyor of poultry is quoted as saying in 1855. It's useless to try and sell them. You can't give up on them. No one will accept them. You can't starve them to death because they'll aggravate you. They'll become fierce and dangerous and they will knock down the strongest closet door. You can't kill them because they are as tough as a rhino and live tenaciously like a cat.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute, is this? I mean they're describing chickens or they're talking about feminists back in the day?
Speaker 1:No, he's talking about chickens?
Speaker 2:No, that's how they refer to suffragettes. Suffragettes.
Speaker 1:Tough as a rhino, scrappy as a cat, can't give them away, can't lock them in a closet, can't do anything with them. They just want to vote. And that, cindy, is the story of hen fever.
Speaker 2:Ah, ah, ah ah, staying a chicken, staying a chicken, ah ah, ah ah, staying a chicken.
Speaker 1:Chicken, you're a fine girl, what a lovely chicken you'll be.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be a chicken. I don't want to be a chicken. So shake your butt.