Twisted Teachers
Twisted Teachers
Twisted History Snippet: Paul Revere and Prohibition
In this episode, we’re giving you a quick but rich dive into two very different moments in American history. First, we’ll revisit Paul Revere’s legendary midnight ride—what really happened, the myths versus the facts, and why his ride became such a powerful symbol of resistance. Then, we fast-forward to the 20th century and explore Prohibition: the reasons it was enacted, how speakeasies thrived, and why the ban on alcohol ultimately failed.
There are surprising connections between both eras: rebellion, resistance, and the American spirit of defiance.
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Kim and Jen
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SPEAKER_00:Hey, hey, Twisted listeners.
SPEAKER_01:Twisted historians.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I like that even better. Twisted historians. That just rolls right off the tongue. Twistorians. Oh, Twistorians. All right. Welcome, Twistorians. We are here today to start kind of a new series every once in a while. We have conspiracy theories, we have true crime, and now we're going to have like the truth, the real truth behind some historical events, things that we were taught in school, but maybe with a different twist. So I guess I'm going to start, Kim, by asking you what you remember about Paul Revere. Yeah. The British are coming like everybody else. So after the costly, very expensive French and Indian War, Britain is broke and King George III wants his American colonies to help with the bill. So Parliament starts imposing taxes. So I'm sure you all remember some of these different taxes. The Stamp Act, 1765. You want to print anything, and I mean anything, even America, you want to print anything. Kind of like our tariffs. Because they don't have any representation in Parliament. They're being ruled from across the ocean, but by men who do not know them, don't represent them. And it's becoming increasingly aware that they don't really respect the colonists.
SPEAKER_01:Hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Sounds so familiar. Sorry. There's going to be a lot of little parallels in here. So Boston is like the epicenter of the resistance. This is where the Sons of Liberty is formed. It's a secret system. and was formed to oppose the British politics, and it's stirring rebellion. They're not just writing angry letters with their feather pens. They're organizing protests. They're publishing propaganda, and they are actually tarring and feathering tax collectors, and I am not endorsing that action.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, my God. That's always been... The
SPEAKER_00:worst, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because...
SPEAKER_00:And I don't remember ever really understanding what tarring and feathering meant in elementary school. I didn't realize how incredibly... painful and horrific that is. Do
SPEAKER_01:we, did you have a description of it? Um, not
SPEAKER_00:quite handy. Hold on. Let's go. Let's, let's get some of the. Yeah. Tarring and feathering. It's a form of public punishment and humiliation where a person is stripped naked or to the West or not to the West or to the waist. Tarring and feathering is a form of public punishment Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It was a brutal and painful form of vigilante justice, and it was primarily used in colonial America to publicly shame individuals. It's hot pine tar. It wasn't... It doesn't come off, does it? I mean, it's not... So here's what my article says. It's not always deadly, which means it is sometimes deadly. So while not intended to be lethal, the process could cause severe burns, obviously, blisters and skin damage, and then you obviously have to worry about infection. So it was a common form of punishment during the American Revolution, particularly... particularly against British officials and those perceived as loyalists. It also saw other uses in historical periods and contexts, including even after the Civil War and even during World War I. I asked
SPEAKER_01:if they can take it off, and it says it can be quite difficult and painful to remove. The process involves applying hot or cold tar to a person's body, followed by covering them in feathers. Attempts to remove the tar can cause further injury including skin burns, blistering, and even the peeling of skin.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, it's awful, awful. So please no, not condoning, tarring, and feathering. Yeah, I don't, yeah, okay. No, I don't think anybody is. So one of their most visible stunts that they did, the Sons of Liberty, is the Boston Tea Party, which we all have heard about, that happened in December of 1773. They disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians. They boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. It's about a million dollars worth of tea in today's money. In today's standards. Okay. Yeah. And of course, the British government is going to respond and they're going to respond with fury. So in 1774, they, Britain, enacts a series of punitive laws designed in their mind to bring the rebellious colonies, especially Massachusetts, to heel. Like we're going to make them behave. So they close the harbor until the dumped tea is paid for. They replace local government with royal control. They allow British officials accused of crimes to be tried in Britain instead of in the colonies. And then the Quartering Act. And here's where things get personal. Colonists are now required to house British soldiers in their own homes without consent. So based Basically, you wake up one morning, someone knocks on their door, and they're here to move into your house. What amendment was that? Eat your food.
SPEAKER_01:It was an amendment. I remember teaching that. Quarterly soldiers. That happened a lot in the Civil War as well.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I mean, can you just imagine like you wake up and like, hey, I'm here to stay. I'm going to eat all of your food and I'm going to spy on your family while I'm here. And so this isn't really just only about taxes. It's about control. So the colonies are doing everything they can. They're sending petitions. They're protesting peacefully. They formed the first Continental Congress in September of 1774. It's a meeting of colonial delegates that are trying to organize a unified experience. Not a unified experience, a unified response. But it's clear by early 1775, this isn't working. British isn't the British are not going to back down, and neither are the colonists. So by April, British General Thomas Gage, he's stationed in Boston. He's given secret orders. He's told, march to Concord with your troops. Seize the weapons that the colonists have bought. been stockpiling. And while you're at it, go ahead and arrest those two troublemakers that have been hiding in nearby Lexington, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. But here's what Gage doesn't know. His every move, this British general, his every move is being watched. So the Sons of Liberty have eyes and ears everywhere. They're spying. Some say that in Gage's own household, there were spies. And historians now believe that it was Dr. Joseph Warren, who was a Boston physician and revolutionary leader. He was receiving intelligence directly from someone close to Gage's wife, basically somebody gossiping. And one of Warren's most trusted messengers is Paul Revere. He was a silversmith, an artisan, and a political just firebrand. But he wasn't a lone actor. Everybody seems to think that it was Right. Right.
SPEAKER_01:wonder if he was just louder i did the third amendment was to prevent the quartering of soldiers i just wanted to go ahead and
SPEAKER_00:yeah thank you for tying that bow
SPEAKER_01:on that um um so why do we know why we just talk about him so
SPEAKER_00:there was a poem that was written by by longfellow henry wadsworth longfellow and he narrates this midnight journey to warn the colonists about the british advance and it's called paul revere's ride and it's a it's a popular ballad And it's meant to mimic the galloping of a horse. And it begins with the famous line, listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. So it's going to recount Revere's urgent journey, but he's taken artistic license in the retelling of the story. As always happens with history. Yes. And so, you know, we've heard that and that poem was taught and people have the wrong misconception So Dr. Warren, he gets word the British are moving that night, and his mission is to warn Hancock and Adams in Lexington and then in Concord. So Revere and his fellow writer, William Dawes, are dispatched separately to ensure that at least one is able to make it through. Revere goes by boat across the Charles River to Charleston, and Dawes goes the long land route. But before Revere even gets on his borrowed horse, who was named Brown Beauty, he makes a plan. If I don't make it, they'll still need to know about what route that the British are going to take. So he instructs his friend to hang two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church. One if by land, two if by sea. That's a big part of that poem. And that now famous signal is for backup riders. It's not for the town people. And it worked. So despite the stories, Revere did not ride through town yelling at the top of his lungs, the British are coming, the British are coming. Because for starters, all of the colonists, guess what they are, technically? British. So at the time, they would not have understood that as a threat. And more importantly, the mission required stealth. They couldn't risk British patrols hearing them. So he wasn't riding through, the British are coming, the British are coming. He's riding through the night. He's stopping at every house he can, like knocking on the door and quietly whispering. He alerts the militia known as the Minutemen, farmers and tradesmen who could be ready to fight in that minute, 60 seconds. And meanwhile, Dawes is doing exactly the same on a separate route, but neither of them makes it alone. So outside Lexington, when they have congenial joined and met up, the two men meet a third man, Dr. Samuel Prescott, who is a young patriot who joins them on the journey to Concord. But on a dark country road in Lincoln, they're ambushed by a British patrol. Dawes escapes, but his horse bolts, and he's forced to walk back. Revere is actually captured, interrogated at gunpoint, and loses his horse. And only Dr. Prescott makes the leap, literally. He jumps his horse over a stone wall and vanishes into the woods and he is the only one of the three to actually finish the ride and reach Concord. Wow. So by morning, thanks to the warning, Lexington and Concord are actually ready. When the British arrive, the first shots of the American Revolution are fired on the green in Lexington and we still don't know who fired first. Eight colonists die, but the real surprise is what happened next. As the But why? Again, we already touched on this a little bit. Why do we remember Paul Revere and almost no one else?
UNKNOWN:Why?
SPEAKER_00:In 1861, over 85 years after that ride happened, a poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote,"'Listen, my children, and you shall hear of the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. It's catchy, it's rhythmic, it's dramatic, and it is deeply inaccurate. Revere was never alone. He did not finish the ride, he didn't shout the phrase, and he wasn't even the bravest of the three people.'" But Longfellow's goal was not actually about historical precision. It was written to inspire patriotism. He wrote it on the eve of the Civil War to remind Americans of a time when people fought together for a shared cause. Revere became a legend because he fit that narrative. One man, one horse, a ride that changed everything. Yeah. So history isn't always about what's happened. It's about what we choose to remember. Yeah, William Dawes, he died largely unrecognized. His name is missing from most, if not all, textbooks. Samuel Prescott, the one who actually was able to warn Concord, was captured by the British later and died in a prison ship, mostly forgotten. There was a girl, Sybil Ludington, just 16. She rode 40 miles to warn troops in New York. She got no poem, no statue, no lanterns. Thank you. And even Brown Beauty, the horse that Revere borrowed, was never, ever returned. So, you know, the real story of the Midnight Ride is a lot more messy. It's much more inspiring than what we learned in elementary school. It's not just about one person. It was about a network of patriots who worked together in the shadows, risking their lives for a chance at liberty. And maybe that's the lesson we need the most, that revolutions are not won by heroes on horseback. They're won by people, ordinary and extraordinary, who act when it matters. So funny fact, I thought about how different this would be today. Right. In what context? Well, like just silly things like the old North Church's lanterns. They're probably like smart bulbs now and maybe they would have been different colors that were flashed, you know. Yeah. You know, maybe Revere tried calling an Uber since he had to borrow a horse. Maybe he would have started with an Uber. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:It really wasn't an Uber driver. It was a kidnapper.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, and then think also, they would have just been able to tweet or use threads or Instagram or TikTok or Snapchat to spread their message. Nobody would have to ride through on horses. I
SPEAKER_01:wonder if they did any research on that woman. What was her name? Sybil
SPEAKER_00:Ludington.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting. There's always a woman in the midst of all these war stories, or at least one that we hear about. But there were many women who were disguised as men and fought Yeah. Oh, that's cool. because I was interested in this. I guess we had just talked about the no phone policy. And then I was looking and I'm like, I've always been fascinated by prohibition and speakeasies. And so I thought that would be kind of fun to talk about. And one of the reasons is because one of my favorite movies is Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe. And it was based on some of the things that really happened. The idea of banning alcohol at this point wasn't new in the 1800s. There were temperance movements, but why would they want alcohol to be banned? So in 1826, the American Temperance Society is founded. Largely, there's a lot of women in this. 1851, Maine passes the first state-level prohibition law. And then 1919, the 18th Amendment is ratified. In 1920, prohibition begins, and the Volstead Act enforces it. So why was there a push to ban booze? And it wasn't just about drinking. And if we think about this, it's still true that many believe that alcohol was destroying families, increasing crime, and undermining moral values. Religious groups, women's movements like WCTU and rural America all saw alcohol as a corrupting urban force. Also, one of the things, too... The rate of infidelity was increasing and abuse. So men were going out to the saloons and then coming back and abusing their wives. I guess that was on the rise because they weren't used to... I guess they were overindulging.
SPEAKER_00:I guess that... I mean... Some people get mellow when they drink. Some people get mean when they drink. It's really, you know, when people can go and drink to excess, things like that are going to happen.
SPEAKER_01:Right. When we were in London, we went on the Jack the Ripper tour and they, she talked a lot and it wasn't about prohibition, but she was just talking about how many people were full on alcoholics during that time. All right. So as soon as they banned it, Drinking never stopped. Okay. America got creative. And then speakeasy is where they started, like in the back rooms of places. And, you know, you'd have to go downstairs. And speakeasy was meaning they couldn't say it out loud. They had to say the secret word in a very whispered voice. So they spoke easily. Oh. So
SPEAKER_00:they were hidden. It could have been speak whisperly. Yes. That wouldn't have had the same ring. Speak whisperly.
SPEAKER_01:No, it definitely would not have. And It's a lot of syllables. So this is how they operated. They had passwords and peepholes. They had to whisper passwords, hence the term speakeasy, like I just said. Hidden entrances, behind soda shops, laundromats, even church fronts, disguised glassware. So this is kind of where the cocktail came about because a lot of people at this point were just drinking straight alcohol. So they felt like they were disguising the alcohol in things like teacups, coffee mugs, cocktail glasses help conceal the contents because that's what that was not normal so cocktail really was born within the speakeasy so a couple of famous ones 21 club the green mill and chumleys and every once in a while like we've there's speakeasies around town just as like a you know a fun thing to go to so there's a certain culture that went along with speakeasies so the charleston dance you would see people doing this dance in the speakeasies because it was was definitely a symbol of a form of rebellion. So in addition to drinking, they would do the Charleston. This is where cocktail innovation happened. So bartenders started using mixers. So bartenders started mixing strong liquor with juice, honey, and bitters to hide the taste and strength of the bootleg alcohol.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Oh,
SPEAKER_00:not to try to hide it so that if somebody saw me drinking it, they didn't know I was drinking alcohol, but because Because the alcohol that was being made was not as high quality.
SPEAKER_01:Because the connotation of the alcohol would be probably in a little cup. But if they have a really fancy glass with a yellow drink, cocktails were not a thing. Right. So it looked different. And then women started frequenting the speakeasies. With legal alcohol gone, the underworld stepped in. So this is where you have Al Capone. He was the king of the bootleg alcohol He made over$100 million a year at his peak by bootlegging, right? George Remus... a former lawyer, and he was called king of the bootleggers. Cary Nation, axe-wielding temperance warrior, famous for smashing saloons pre-prohibition. So here's some other facts. Okay, so this blew my mind when I was doing the research. So the government started poisoning industrial alcohol to deter bootlegging, killing over 10,000 people.
SPEAKER_00:Dang, I never knew that. That's not a part that's...
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Really ever talked about.
SPEAKER_01:Great producers began selling wine bricks with a warning, do not add yeast or you'll accidentally make wine. Doctors prescribed whiskey for ailments as a prescription. Oh. So they were getting away with it. So... this did not work the way they thought it was going to work. So it affected local businesses such as breweries, distilleries, and bars. Many jobs were lost. Distributors, delivery drivers became smugglers. Milk trucks carried gin. Grape growers, the wine industry was nearly destroyed. Some of them survived. Prohibition was meant to reduce crime, but organized crime skyrocketed. And then it goes back to In Some Like It Hot, which is Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe. They play jazz musicians who witnessed the mob hit. And it was an obvious nod to the St. Valentine's Day massacre during the Prohibition era. They flee disguised as women joining an all-female band and chaos ensues. So basically, that's where I was like, that's interesting. Because the Valentine's Day massacres where they lined all the people up and shot them. And I don't know the particulars about that. In 1933, the 21st Amendment repeals prohibition. The
SPEAKER_00:1929 gangland execution in Chicago, where seven members of the North Side Gang were murdered by assailants disguised as police officers. This event was orchestrated by Al Capone's South Side Gang, and it was a brutal display of power during prohibition aimed at eliminating Yeah, I think it's interesting
SPEAKER_01:because... We still have the same issues with alcohol. And it just shows that once you take something away, people are going to find a way to get it. But there was a culture in the speakeasies. There was the definite like... The way they conducted themselves, like I said, the dancing, the music, the openness of women in that time, the flappers, like that was a big deal. They were able to be in public more. And it's just sad that, you know, one of the reasons was the abuse and the infidelity. But that's my snippet, my history snippet.
SPEAKER_00:It kind of goes, it takes, you know, it's back to that pendulum of everything moving from one extreme to the other, like this happened, so cause and effect turns into so many other pieces of that.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think the biggest takeaway is the government poisoning the industrial alcohol. Yeah. I mean... Wow. Yeah. I mean, that just blows me away. All right. Well, that's our Twisted Snippet on history.
SPEAKER_00:Our Twistorians. All right, everyone. Well, stay twisty. Bye. Bye.