Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio, Hello Unhappy Friday. I am Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio, Hello Unhappy Friday. I am Holly Frye and I'm Tracy V.

Wilson.

Wilson.

And we talked about Margaret E.

And we talked about Margaret E.

Knight this week.

Knight this week.

We did Okay, we got to talk about the picture. I Yeah, if you do a search anywhere for Margaret E. Knight, there's one picture this shows up, and it's not her. It seems to me like, obviously not her. It's a very beautiful woman who looks very glamorous but also casual, and she looks like she's wearing like a shirt from maybe the nineteen forties, long after Margaret had passed. I don't know where this photograph came from or why it proliferates as the image of her. I found exactly one image of her.

We did Okay, we got to talk about the picture. I Yeah, if you do a search anywhere for Margaret E. Knight, there's one picture this shows up, and it's not her. It seems to me like, obviously not her. It's a very beautiful woman who looks very glamorous but also casual, and she looks like she's wearing like a shirt from maybe the nineteen forties, long after Margaret had passed. I don't know where this photograph came from or why it proliferates as the image of her. I found exactly one image of her.

Ever.

Ever.

It was from a very very old newspaper, and it's when she was quite advanced in years, and it's like her standing in her workshop, surrounded my machinery. And it is obviously not a woman that looks like the woman in this photograph.

It was from a very very old newspaper, and it's when she was quite advanced in years, and it's like her standing in her workshop, surrounded my machinery. And it is obviously not a woman that looks like the woman in this photograph.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, and the woman in the photograph all her hair, her top, everything, it is not from the era that this woman actually lived in. It is like nineteen forties, is what it looks like. I don't know why that happened. I kept I was starting to think I had taken crazy pills, because I was like looking all over going who is this woman doing reverse Google image searches for her? I don't know who that woman is in the photo that is used all the time. I only found one instance of like a reputable place going, hey, we took that picture down because that seemed wrong, but we don't know what it is. And that was like on an article by the Smithsonian. I don't know why that picture became the one. Someone shared it somewhere and everybody picked it up, but that's it. Not I went down the same rabbit hole that you did, because I was like, this looks like it would have been a picture of one of my grandmothers, which is decades too recent to be this person. Yes, And so I went down a very similar rabbit hole of like the Google image search and the like. There's a website called teni dot com where you can search images and try to figure out and the earliest results that I saw there were from like twenty fourteen, and all of them were supposedly they were all they were supposedly hurt, and I was like, this, this seems like a real it's a real person.

Well, and the woman in the photograph all her hair, her top, everything, it is not from the era that this woman actually lived in. It is like nineteen forties, is what it looks like. I don't know why that happened. I kept I was starting to think I had taken crazy pills, because I was like looking all over going who is this woman doing reverse Google image searches for her? I don't know who that woman is in the photo that is used all the time. I only found one instance of like a reputable place going, hey, we took that picture down because that seemed wrong, but we don't know what it is. And that was like on an article by the Smithsonian. I don't know why that picture became the one. Someone shared it somewhere and everybody picked it up, but that's it. Not I went down the same rabbit hole that you did, because I was like, this looks like it would have been a picture of one of my grandmothers, which is decades too recent to be this person. Yes, And so I went down a very similar rabbit hole of like the Google image search and the like. There's a website called teni dot com where you can search images and try to figure out and the earliest results that I saw there were from like twenty fourteen, and all of them were supposedly they were all they were supposedly hurt, and I was like, this, this seems like a real it's a real person.

This doesn't it. It's not this person.

This doesn't it. It's not this person.

I found exactly one article that seemed to be trying to figure out who this person was, and speculated that it was a different Margaret E. Knight, who did exist and served in probably the Women's Army Corps or something similar during World War Two, which would have been the right age for this person.

I found exactly one article that seemed to be trying to figure out who this person was, and speculated that it was a different Margaret E. Knight, who did exist and served in probably the Women's Army Corps or something similar during World War Two, which would have been the right age for this person.

But I found the same thing.

But I found the same thing.

But it's like, we think, shrug, yeah, but and like nothing I could find that actually identified who this person was. So yeah, it's a little bit different from the conversation that we had about Rebecca Crumpler, who we talked about. There are no known pictures of her, but there are other There are pictures of other women that are used as pictures of her. Those other women, though, are at least contemporary the same era as her, and had other common traits. Like most of the other women that, like the pictures are used, they're all black women, all from about the same area, all working in medicine or nursing in some way. But here we have Margarety Knight and we don't know who from a different time period that came from. We don't know where. It's weird, it is weird, and it's there are a few different things that I think part of the problem is that I mentioned in the episode towards the end, like I wish we knew more about her from her own perspective, and we don't have a lot of that, And so I think people have really pieced a lot together over the years, you know, Like I found myself looking at a lot of patent filings to get essentially her own language, which was all very mechanical and technical, but like, and that one interview from Woman's journal is really the one that like is the foundation of a lot of other articles about her, but they don't really articulate anything beyond you know, sort of her recollections of things, right, And so it is a little bit tricky, which is why I found myself down many rabbit holes of like when was the Eastern paper Bag Company founded? And there have actually been two, because there was another that was founded later, which gets confusing also, and there was like a patent court case different from the kind that she was embroiled when with Charles Annon, where the paper bag company sued another bag company for a process that they were using that Eastern said it had patented, but Eastern wasn't using that patent and they weren't using that process, and so the other company was trying to argue, like, you can't tell us we can't do it, you're not even using it. And actually the judgment was like, no, they can't tell you you can't do that, And it doesn't matter if they're making the bags or not. It's just another fascinating thing. But again, that's not about her. So it was a little bit a little bit kooky and tricky to try to find stuff like even the name of the person that she went into business with to found that company. His name is never mentioned in anything like anything, so I don't know who that was. If we knew that, we could trace down some other stuff, I think, which explains in many ways why Margaret Knight's story gets a little muddled in various places, like even in her obituaries. They didn't have enough to go on that they didn't feel compelled to make some stuff up or fill in some blanks themselves, right, which I understand, But also it is I love her story because I love the idea of someone that just can't help but make stuff and invent things. I hate that that started because she had to witness something horrific when she was just a kid. Yeah, but I certainly admire the fact that her reaction was not like, Okay, I'm going to live in this trauma forever. I'm going to figure out a way to try to fix this, which is really admirable in a twelve year old. Look at you, they're shuttle in hand. There is so I don't. This is a piece of my desk decor. But as we started working on this, I was like, I literally have a shuttle which I think is from a machine loom. It definitely has like metal points on either end. It looks exactly like others I looked at during the process.

But it's like, we think, shrug, yeah, but and like nothing I could find that actually identified who this person was. So yeah, it's a little bit different from the conversation that we had about Rebecca Crumpler, who we talked about. There are no known pictures of her, but there are other There are pictures of other women that are used as pictures of her. Those other women, though, are at least contemporary the same era as her, and had other common traits. Like most of the other women that, like the pictures are used, they're all black women, all from about the same area, all working in medicine or nursing in some way. But here we have Margarety Knight and we don't know who from a different time period that came from. We don't know where. It's weird, it is weird, and it's there are a few different things that I think part of the problem is that I mentioned in the episode towards the end, like I wish we knew more about her from her own perspective, and we don't have a lot of that, And so I think people have really pieced a lot together over the years, you know, Like I found myself looking at a lot of patent filings to get essentially her own language, which was all very mechanical and technical, but like, and that one interview from Woman's journal is really the one that like is the foundation of a lot of other articles about her, but they don't really articulate anything beyond you know, sort of her recollections of things, right, And so it is a little bit tricky, which is why I found myself down many rabbit holes of like when was the Eastern paper Bag Company founded? And there have actually been two, because there was another that was founded later, which gets confusing also, and there was like a patent court case different from the kind that she was embroiled when with Charles Annon, where the paper bag company sued another bag company for a process that they were using that Eastern said it had patented, but Eastern wasn't using that patent and they weren't using that process, and so the other company was trying to argue, like, you can't tell us we can't do it, you're not even using it. And actually the judgment was like, no, they can't tell you you can't do that, And it doesn't matter if they're making the bags or not. It's just another fascinating thing. But again, that's not about her. So it was a little bit a little bit kooky and tricky to try to find stuff like even the name of the person that she went into business with to found that company. His name is never mentioned in anything like anything, so I don't know who that was. If we knew that, we could trace down some other stuff, I think, which explains in many ways why Margaret Knight's story gets a little muddled in various places, like even in her obituaries. They didn't have enough to go on that they didn't feel compelled to make some stuff up or fill in some blanks themselves, right, which I understand, But also it is I love her story because I love the idea of someone that just can't help but make stuff and invent things. I hate that that started because she had to witness something horrific when she was just a kid. Yeah, but I certainly admire the fact that her reaction was not like, Okay, I'm going to live in this trauma forever. I'm going to figure out a way to try to fix this, which is really admirable in a twelve year old. Look at you, they're shuttle in hand. There is so I don't. This is a piece of my desk decor. But as we started working on this, I was like, I literally have a shuttle which I think is from a machine loom. It definitely has like metal points on either end. It looks exactly like others I looked at during the process.

It's heavy.

It's heavy.

Can you imagine that getting shot off of a machine that had like pneumatic power to it?

Can you imagine that getting shot off of a machine that had like pneumatic power to it?

Yeah, to your face.

Yeah, to your face.

Like, this is like lawn dart level of head injury. Yesh, scary Yeah, scary. Now people are gonna be like, Tracy, show me the thing I don't. You can find pictures of antique machine looms online super duper easy. Tracy does not need to show us. But it's exactly like the or her shuttle. Yeah, I mean it's I hope nobody was like, why are you explaining how a loom works to us? But like, I feel like if you don't understand what's happening with the weave, it's hard to understand what the shuttle does, right, And so it's like the thought of this shuttle just whipping off of there because a thread snapped is because what that means too, is that if you're the one working that machine, it's probably not you that's getting hit. It's probably the person to your right or left on the line. Yeah, it's your neighbor on the next machine, which is really upsetting to think about because then like a machine has failed and you feel like it was your fault that they got injured. Like, there are a lot of layers of things that she kept people from having to experience because as a twelve year old, she's like, why has nobody fixed this?

Like, this is like lawn dart level of head injury. Yesh, scary Yeah, scary. Now people are gonna be like, Tracy, show me the thing I don't. You can find pictures of antique machine looms online super duper easy. Tracy does not need to show us. But it's exactly like the or her shuttle. Yeah, I mean it's I hope nobody was like, why are you explaining how a loom works to us? But like, I feel like if you don't understand what's happening with the weave, it's hard to understand what the shuttle does, right, And so it's like the thought of this shuttle just whipping off of there because a thread snapped is because what that means too, is that if you're the one working that machine, it's probably not you that's getting hit. It's probably the person to your right or left on the line. Yeah, it's your neighbor on the next machine, which is really upsetting to think about because then like a machine has failed and you feel like it was your fault that they got injured. Like, there are a lot of layers of things that she kept people from having to experience because as a twelve year old, she's like, why has nobody fixed this?

Yeah, a twelve year old having to work in a mill. That is just heartbreaking to me.

Yeah, a twelve year old having to work in a mill. That is just heartbreaking to me.

I know that is not an uncommon story, yeah, but it still just breaks my heart. And I really I don't want a dog on people who talk about like she died with less than three hundred dollars. Like, if you've listened, there is a Memory Palace episode about her, and that's kind of part of the end, and it is pitched is very sad. But to me, I'm like, what do you mean she lived independently? She didn't, She wasn't carrying debt nobody. She lived her life exactly that she wanted at a time when like if she had said I want to be an inventor when I grow up, and I just want to live independently and I don't want to get married, I don't know if she wanted to get married. We know nothing about her personal life, but like, you know, I'm just gonna do my thing forever and live in my machine shop and make stuff. People would have been like, honey, you can't do that, right, Well I did. Look, I did totally did that thing you said was impossible. Right to me, it's maybe that's a point of view thing where I'm like, that doesn't sound sad to me. That sounds like now, No, I would have been sadder if she had amassed a great deal of wealth and then had no obvious air and people fought over it and it got squandered away on nothing or like given to companies. Yeah, we've occasionally talked about various people on the show before who like they wanted to do a thing and they spent their life doing a thing and they never got rich off the thing, but like they were doing it. And we've like occasionally heard from people who were like, I don't know why you framed this as a failure, And I'm like, I don't think we did right, Like, uh, you know, not with incredible wealth doesn't feel like failure to me.

I know that is not an uncommon story, yeah, but it still just breaks my heart. And I really I don't want a dog on people who talk about like she died with less than three hundred dollars. Like, if you've listened, there is a Memory Palace episode about her, and that's kind of part of the end, and it is pitched is very sad. But to me, I'm like, what do you mean she lived independently? She didn't, She wasn't carrying debt nobody. She lived her life exactly that she wanted at a time when like if she had said I want to be an inventor when I grow up, and I just want to live independently and I don't want to get married, I don't know if she wanted to get married. We know nothing about her personal life, but like, you know, I'm just gonna do my thing forever and live in my machine shop and make stuff. People would have been like, honey, you can't do that, right, Well I did. Look, I did totally did that thing you said was impossible. Right to me, it's maybe that's a point of view thing where I'm like, that doesn't sound sad to me. That sounds like now, No, I would have been sadder if she had amassed a great deal of wealth and then had no obvious air and people fought over it and it got squandered away on nothing or like given to companies. Yeah, we've occasionally talked about various people on the show before who like they wanted to do a thing and they spent their life doing a thing and they never got rich off the thing, but like they were doing it. And we've like occasionally heard from people who were like, I don't know why you framed this as a failure, And I'm like, I don't think we did right, Like, uh, you know, not with incredible wealth doesn't feel like failure to me.

No, I mean, I think.

No, I mean, I think.

The reason it probably feels like a failure when people are considering it is that today that's the gold standard of achievement. Right, you got rich because you were so smart, but like there's wealth and richness that has nothing to do with dollars and like having the life that you wanted and apparently, I mean that doesn't sound like she would have been suffering or struggling in any way financially. That sounds like a pretty sounds that sounds rich to me. Like she got to enjoy her life, do what she wanted. She answered to no one essentially, I mean, that's like that's unheard of today. There aren't that many people that can make a life where they they don't have to work for somebody else. There are a handful, and that's great. But like that and supporting yourself that way, doing the one thing you have loved since you were a little kid sounds great. That sounds like success to me. I hope we find another picture of her that is really of her. I think that one that I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure about the rights on it, because I feel like there's like the newspaper thing sometimes causes other Oh it should have expired theoretically, but it may have been part of like renewals on group batch images and stuff. So I don't know, but I do really love and I hope maybe we use one of the sketches from one of her patent applications. Maybe the blanket, because it's so funny to me to see the horses kicking up dirt as part of the illustration of how it works.

The reason it probably feels like a failure when people are considering it is that today that's the gold standard of achievement. Right, you got rich because you were so smart, but like there's wealth and richness that has nothing to do with dollars and like having the life that you wanted and apparently, I mean that doesn't sound like she would have been suffering or struggling in any way financially. That sounds like a pretty sounds that sounds rich to me. Like she got to enjoy her life, do what she wanted. She answered to no one essentially, I mean, that's like that's unheard of today. There aren't that many people that can make a life where they they don't have to work for somebody else. There are a handful, and that's great. But like that and supporting yourself that way, doing the one thing you have loved since you were a little kid sounds great. That sounds like success to me. I hope we find another picture of her that is really of her. I think that one that I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure about the rights on it, because I feel like there's like the newspaper thing sometimes causes other Oh it should have expired theoretically, but it may have been part of like renewals on group batch images and stuff. So I don't know, but I do really love and I hope maybe we use one of the sketches from one of her patent applications. Maybe the blanket, because it's so funny to me to see the horses kicking up dirt as part of the illustration of how it works.

I think it's great.

I think it's great.

The skirt would be great, except it just looks like a big round thing with buckles on it. So Margaret Knight, I salute you because you sound incredibly smart, and I hope you were a delight to be around. We don't know much better personality, Like I said, but I'm very thankful because I mean, we're still using, you know, machine made flat bottom shopping pegs today. They are a standard part of life. And I'm sure somebody may have figured it out, but she was the one who did it, so I'm very grateful. This week, one of the things we talked about was Henry Martin, Robert and Robert's Rules of Order, brought on just by my curiosity of like, who was this Robert person. There were some moments during research that I almost slowly backed away from all of this, Right, was it all the we don't really know their thing about slavery and a lot of people have made this kind of a fairy tale. Yeah, that's one of the I read a whole paper again. The paper was written in twenty twelve. There is a biography that came out after this where the whole thing was like, this is a giant hole. Not all of his papers are in the Library of Congress. Some of the papers seem to have been closely guarded by the family. There are some parallels to me between Henry Martin, Robert and Emily Post. So Emily Post, big bestseller of etiquette stuff. She and descendants made the Emily Post Institute, who like continue sort of putting out those works and also maintaining the image of Emily Post. Right, So the Roberts Rules Association was formed by his direct descendants in nineteen sixty. It is still made up of direct descendants and seems to have been very protective of, like Henry Martin Roberts's image, what papers have been available for historians and biographers to have access to. So this new biog that just came out a couple of years ago, the writing on it started back in the fifties by somebody who was talking directly to family members and had more access to family papers than anybody else has. But that person died and then the work was finished much more recently by somebody else. And I feel like that the things that were pointed out in this paper from twenty twelve, the Elusive Henry Martin Robert a Historical Problem in the Journal National Parliamentarian by Donald Fishman, I really felt like this new book did not resolve any of the things that that paper pointed out, is like stuff that we just don't know.

The skirt would be great, except it just looks like a big round thing with buckles on it. So Margaret Knight, I salute you because you sound incredibly smart, and I hope you were a delight to be around. We don't know much better personality, Like I said, but I'm very thankful because I mean, we're still using, you know, machine made flat bottom shopping pegs today. They are a standard part of life. And I'm sure somebody may have figured it out, but she was the one who did it, so I'm very grateful. This week, one of the things we talked about was Henry Martin, Robert and Robert's Rules of Order, brought on just by my curiosity of like, who was this Robert person. There were some moments during research that I almost slowly backed away from all of this, Right, was it all the we don't really know their thing about slavery and a lot of people have made this kind of a fairy tale. Yeah, that's one of the I read a whole paper again. The paper was written in twenty twelve. There is a biography that came out after this where the whole thing was like, this is a giant hole. Not all of his papers are in the Library of Congress. Some of the papers seem to have been closely guarded by the family. There are some parallels to me between Henry Martin, Robert and Emily Post. So Emily Post, big bestseller of etiquette stuff. She and descendants made the Emily Post Institute, who like continue sort of putting out those works and also maintaining the image of Emily Post. Right, So the Roberts Rules Association was formed by his direct descendants in nineteen sixty. It is still made up of direct descendants and seems to have been very protective of, like Henry Martin Roberts's image, what papers have been available for historians and biographers to have access to. So this new biog that just came out a couple of years ago, the writing on it started back in the fifties by somebody who was talking directly to family members and had more access to family papers than anybody else has. But that person died and then the work was finished much more recently by somebody else. And I feel like that the things that were pointed out in this paper from twenty twelve, the Elusive Henry Martin Robert a Historical Problem in the Journal National Parliamentarian by Donald Fishman, I really felt like this new book did not resolve any of the things that that paper pointed out, is like stuff that we just don't know.

We don't know what he thought about any of this.

We don't know what he thought about any of this.

So that was a thing that made me kind of want to back away slowly because I was like, is there something happening here that is being concealed?

So that was a thing that made me kind of want to back away slowly because I was like, is there something happening here that is being concealed?

Don't know.

Don't know.

Next thing that made me want to back away slowly, there is stuff that has been put out by the current Robert Rules Association that refers to Henry Martin Robert just as the General in a way that had a tone of like a lot of deference and almost hero worship to me, and also sort of the implication that everybody knows who the General is without specifically naming him. And I was like, that's a little weird. Next thing that almost caused me to back away slowly. There is a brief biography of him that was written in nineteen fifty five and reprinted in nineteen ninety three by someone named Ralph C. Smedley, And I was like, who is Ralph C. Smedley? And the answer is the founder of Toastmasters International. Now, if you are in Toastmaster's International, I am not criticizing you personally. However, especially in the years after Holly and I joined the podcast, we got emails from people who described themselves as active in toast Masters International and rather than listening to and engaging with the content of our podcast. They had counted the number of filler words that we used and sent us an email with the total number of the filler words and an explanation of how bad filler words are. And that caused me to have preconceptions about Toastmaster's International.

Next thing that made me want to back away slowly, there is stuff that has been put out by the current Robert Rules Association that refers to Henry Martin Robert just as the General in a way that had a tone of like a lot of deference and almost hero worship to me, and also sort of the implication that everybody knows who the General is without specifically naming him. And I was like, that's a little weird. Next thing that almost caused me to back away slowly. There is a brief biography of him that was written in nineteen fifty five and reprinted in nineteen ninety three by someone named Ralph C. Smedley, And I was like, who is Ralph C. Smedley? And the answer is the founder of Toastmasters International. Now, if you are in Toastmaster's International, I am not criticizing you personally. However, especially in the years after Holly and I joined the podcast, we got emails from people who described themselves as active in toast Masters International and rather than listening to and engaging with the content of our podcast. They had counted the number of filler words that we used and sent us an email with the total number of the filler words and an explanation of how bad filler words are. And that caused me to have preconceptions about Toastmaster's International.

And so when I realized that.

And so when I realized that.

This biography was by the founder of toast Master's International.

This biography was by the founder of toast Master's International.

Also by the.

Also by the.

Way it is titled The Great Peacemaker, I was like, oh, no, am I going to upset the toast Masters people and the Roberts Rules people. And I had sort of a and then I was like, the only way out is through continuing on with this. There's just a lot of writing about him that has a tone that I would call almost fawning in how it talks about him, and just.

Way it is titled The Great Peacemaker, I was like, oh, no, am I going to upset the toast Masters people and the Roberts Rules people. And I had sort of a and then I was like, the only way out is through continuing on with this. There's just a lot of writing about him that has a tone that I would call almost fawning in how it talks about him, and just.

This careful, careful control of his image seems a little fishy to me.

This careful, careful control of his image seems a little fishy to me.

In this biography, Ralph Smedley also frames him as having prevented or stopped a million fights, and I was like, hey, Ralph Smedley, did you never see two people get into a big fight about some point of parliamentary procedure? I would argue, sure, he prevented a lot of fights by giving people an organized way to have meetings and disagree with each other. But they're sure are people that have big arguments about the finer points of parliamentary procedure.

In this biography, Ralph Smedley also frames him as having prevented or stopped a million fights, and I was like, hey, Ralph Smedley, did you never see two people get into a big fight about some point of parliamentary procedure? I would argue, sure, he prevented a lot of fights by giving people an organized way to have meetings and disagree with each other. But they're sure are people that have big arguments about the finer points of parliamentary procedure.

Something I had in.

Something I had in.

The episode that I took out because it is funny to me, but I also did not feel like it was actively contributing to the episode in the way that I wanted. It is a pair of Webster's defines. Webster's defines parliamentary law as the rules and precedents governing the proceedings of deliberative assemblies and other organizations. Webster's defines a deliberative assembly as a non legislative organization that conducts meetings according to parliamentary law. And I was like, Webster, you just went a circle there. Again, there are legislative bodies that do use Robert's rules, not Congress.

The episode that I took out because it is funny to me, but I also did not feel like it was actively contributing to the episode in the way that I wanted. It is a pair of Webster's defines. Webster's defines parliamentary law as the rules and precedents governing the proceedings of deliberative assemblies and other organizations. Webster's defines a deliberative assembly as a non legislative organization that conducts meetings according to parliamentary law. And I was like, Webster, you just went a circle there. Again, there are legislative bodies that do use Robert's rules, not Congress.

Though.

Though.

Have you ever played Nomic? That's all I could think of through this whole episode. Now, So Nomic was do you know what it is? No? It was a game that was created in nineteen eighty two by Peter Suber, and it kind of makes me think about Robert's Rules of Order in a different way because the point of nomic is that the participants in it can change the rules as they go to essentially craft whatever they want. But it's all based on like kind of a parliamentary procedure of participation, where it's like, I move that this immutable rule, which means that would take precedence over a mutable rule, be made mutable. Everybody can vote on it, and then that rule can then be changed on the next round. I'm doing a very simplified version. It's the point of it. The point of the game is to show kind of the problem of sets of rules, right, because as you continue to develop and massage the rules, it is always at some point going to contradict itself. Okay, yeah, because once you know, you start getting into especially specificities of like no, when player three turns to the right, all other players have to consider this, you know, point of order whatever, and eventually things like that are just going to lock into themselves in a way that doesn't make sense anymore. But that's all I could think of with Robert's Rules of Order, and wondering whether or not he ever reached a point during the various new version and revisions he did where he was like, uh, oh, I gotta I gotta rework my parameters here because I have gone too far.

Have you ever played Nomic? That's all I could think of through this whole episode. Now, So Nomic was do you know what it is? No? It was a game that was created in nineteen eighty two by Peter Suber, and it kind of makes me think about Robert's Rules of Order in a different way because the point of nomic is that the participants in it can change the rules as they go to essentially craft whatever they want. But it's all based on like kind of a parliamentary procedure of participation, where it's like, I move that this immutable rule, which means that would take precedence over a mutable rule, be made mutable. Everybody can vote on it, and then that rule can then be changed on the next round. I'm doing a very simplified version. It's the point of it. The point of the game is to show kind of the problem of sets of rules, right, because as you continue to develop and massage the rules, it is always at some point going to contradict itself. Okay, yeah, because once you know, you start getting into especially specificities of like no, when player three turns to the right, all other players have to consider this, you know, point of order whatever, and eventually things like that are just going to lock into themselves in a way that doesn't make sense anymore. But that's all I could think of with Robert's Rules of Order, and wondering whether or not he ever reached a point during the various new version and revisions he did where he was like, uh, oh, I gotta I gotta rework my parameters here because I have gone too far.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There, I read some descriptions of him that that you know, described him as a little pedantic, which I mean, if if a thing you want to do is write rules about how to have good meetings, it makes sense.

There, I read some descriptions of him that that you know, described him as a little pedantic, which I mean, if if a thing you want to do is write rules about how to have good meetings, it makes sense.

I was like, did we need that description?

I was like, did we need that description?

Right?

Right?

We have it in the in his body of work.

We have it in the in his body of work.

But then also it does seem like during his lifetime he was like, like, what, whatever your organization organization is, this is like a template for you to use. If something in it is not working for your organization, you don't have to stick to it just because it's what I said in the rule.

But then also it does seem like during his lifetime he was like, like, what, whatever your organization organization is, this is like a template for you to use. If something in it is not working for your organization, you don't have to stick to it just because it's what I said in the rule.

Yeah, there's a lot.

Yeah, there's a lot.

There's some stuff that is outlined in Robert's rules that you'll see on quick Reference, the guides and stuff that makes total sense to me that I feel like can be a really good way to structure a meeting, like calling the meeting to order. Having an agenda can be very helpful to make sure things are on track. Uh, dealing with the old business or stuff that was from the prior meeting, dealing with anything remnants from that before moving on to the new stuff. Having any debates any other thing that's happening and then adjourning the meeting makes sense to me when you get into the different types of motions that can be introduced, and which ones can be debated, and which ones can be amended, and which ones take precedence over other ones. A lot of times in some of the quick references, there's basically a table, and that is where my brain starts to kind of swim.

There's some stuff that is outlined in Robert's rules that you'll see on quick Reference, the guides and stuff that makes total sense to me that I feel like can be a really good way to structure a meeting, like calling the meeting to order. Having an agenda can be very helpful to make sure things are on track. Uh, dealing with the old business or stuff that was from the prior meeting, dealing with anything remnants from that before moving on to the new stuff. Having any debates any other thing that's happening and then adjourning the meeting makes sense to me when you get into the different types of motions that can be introduced, and which ones can be debated, and which ones can be amended, and which ones take precedence over other ones. A lot of times in some of the quick references, there's basically a table, and that is where my brain starts to kind of swim.

In terms of how this all actually works.

In terms of how this all actually works.

In our four age meetings back in the nineteen eighties, we were not down in the nitty gritty of different types of motions to be introduced. To me, it was more like practice for the kind of business meetings we might have as an adult, which is kind of funny because my adult life has included i think think zero zero organizations that have been running their meetings with Robert's rules. Because even though I live in Massachusetts, I've only lived in cities in Massachusetts, not in a town that is having town meeting. I haven't been in an hoa. Like there was technically an HOA in at the neighborhood that I lived in when I had a house outside of Atlanta, but like that was a very laid back hoa, it was not running any kind of specific meeting like that in.

In our four age meetings back in the nineteen eighties, we were not down in the nitty gritty of different types of motions to be introduced. To me, it was more like practice for the kind of business meetings we might have as an adult, which is kind of funny because my adult life has included i think think zero zero organizations that have been running their meetings with Robert's rules. Because even though I live in Massachusetts, I've only lived in cities in Massachusetts, not in a town that is having town meeting. I haven't been in an hoa. Like there was technically an HOA in at the neighborhood that I lived in when I had a house outside of Atlanta, but like that was a very laid back hoa, it was not running any kind of specific meeting like that in.

Terms of Robert's rules.

Terms of Robert's rules.

I do, however, know people who are like on the board of a nonprofit or they are part of a really established organization that has been around for one hundred and fifty years that is conducting business meetings using Roberts rules. Like there are are people and still just kind of ironic to me that my four h meetings were preparing me for something I didn't actually use. Well, I think here's here's my takeaway always on Robert tools, because I remember I don't remember what class it was in high school that I think we had to like really study them. And I remember at the time thinking, as a rebellious kind of a jerk kid, what the hell are we doing this for? And my teacher, who was very very patient, was like, yeah, like I get it. You're probably you know, not going to govern some meeting like this, but there could come a time in your life where you have a work meeting or you have this and you don't have to follow these rules, but just knowing them is going to make you better prepared to even do those And I was like, right, all right, all right, yeah, and.

I do, however, know people who are like on the board of a nonprofit or they are part of a really established organization that has been around for one hundred and fifty years that is conducting business meetings using Roberts rules. Like there are are people and still just kind of ironic to me that my four h meetings were preparing me for something I didn't actually use. Well, I think here's here's my takeaway always on Robert tools, because I remember I don't remember what class it was in high school that I think we had to like really study them. And I remember at the time thinking, as a rebellious kind of a jerk kid, what the hell are we doing this for? And my teacher, who was very very patient, was like, yeah, like I get it. You're probably you know, not going to govern some meeting like this, but there could come a time in your life where you have a work meeting or you have this and you don't have to follow these rules, but just knowing them is going to make you better prepared to even do those And I was like, right, all right, all right, yeah, and.

She was not wrong.

She was not wrong.

Yeah, I would say the culture of our workplace does not include having agendas for meetings in many contexts, which I often think having an agenda might would help.

Yeah, I would say the culture of our workplace does not include having agendas for meetings in many contexts, which I often think having an agenda might would help.

But that's just me sometimes just me anyway.

But that's just me sometimes just me anyway.

I I don't know what person I would have thought would be the author of Robert's Rules of Order. Now that I know that it was an army engineer, that makes a lot of sense to me because there are aspects of it that are sort of applying an engineering mindset to like social behavior. I think one of the papers that I read for this had something similar also, So yeah, was not what I was expecting in hindsight makes sense. So happy, Happy Friday. Whatever's happening over your weekend, I hope it is great. You know, if you have a meeting to go to, I hope nobody in your meeting is abusing Robert's rules to get their own way. I hope any rules following in the meeting is leading to the end of having a better meeting. We'll be back with a Class Aassic episode tomorrow, which I think is going to be the Pig War, and we'll have something brand new on Monday. Stuff you missed in history Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I I don't know what person I would have thought would be the author of Robert's Rules of Order. Now that I know that it was an army engineer, that makes a lot of sense to me because there are aspects of it that are sort of applying an engineering mindset to like social behavior. I think one of the papers that I read for this had something similar also, So yeah, was not what I was expecting in hindsight makes sense. So happy, Happy Friday. Whatever's happening over your weekend, I hope it is great. You know, if you have a meeting to go to, I hope nobody in your meeting is abusing Robert's rules to get their own way. I hope any rules following in the meeting is leading to the end of having a better meeting. We'll be back with a Class Aassic episode tomorrow, which I think is going to be the Pig War, and we'll have something brand new on Monday. Stuff you missed in history Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.