Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

Not long ago, we did a topic because I had it on my list two times, and I said, we might have another episode about somebody who was somehow on my short list two times, and here it is today. This is about artist Tyrus Wong, who was born in China and brought to the United States as a child at a time when immigration to the United States from China was banned under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Then, over the course of just an extraordinarily long career, he worked across a range of media in a whole collection of industries. There was animation and live action film, commercial art, public art, greeting cards, and in the last years of his life, kite making in his personal workshop. He went by a few different names over the course of his life for some reasons we will get to, but as an adult he was pretty much known as Tyros. His friends, a lot of them called him Thai, and that's how he was typically credited on the films that he worked on, and it was Tyros Wang was how he signed his artwork. That is the name that we will stick with today. Tyros Wang was born wuan Ganyo on October twenty fifth, nineteen ten, in the village of Titian in the Guangdong Province of China. His parents were named Saipo and Li Si, and he was born during a tumultuous time in China. This was just a year before the start of the Chinese Revolution of nineteen eleven. This revolution led to the end of the Qing dynasty, which was China's last imperial dynasty. This uprising had grown out of ongoing issues of instability, including the Opium Wars of the mid nineteenth century, the First Sino Japanese War at the end of the nineteenth century, and the Russo Japanese War of the early twentieth century, matt gave Japan control over what had been Chinese territory in Manchuria. As an adult, Tyrus described his father as well educated, a man who knew a lot about things like poetry and literature and calligraphy, but their family was living in poverty, and eventually his parents decided that Tyrus's father would take him to the United States, where they thought he would have better opportunities. They kept in touch through letters after this, but Tyrus never saw his mother or his sister again. He left aboard the SS China in either nineteen nineteen or nineteen twenty. There were sources used in this episode that had each of those years. At this point, immigration to the US from China was outlawed under the Chinese Exclusion Act, which also made it illegal for Chinese people to become US citizens. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law that played major restrictions on who could enter the United States. It was originally written as a ten year ban, but then it was extended and then made permanent in nineteen oh two. The only exceptions to the Chinese Exclusion Acts immigration band were people like diplomatic official, students, and teachers traveling with certification from the Chinese government, as well as people who had already been in the United States prior to November seventeenth, eighteen eighty. However, a couple of things happened after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in eighteen eighty two that shifted how it could be enforced. One was the US Supreme Court's decision in United States versus wangkim Arc in eighteen ninety eight. That's another topic that's been on my episode list for a long time. Wangkim Arc had been born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, and he was denied re entry into the United States after a trip abroad. The Supreme Court in his case decided that the birthright citizenship provisions of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in the wake of the US Civil War, also applied to people born on US soil to Chinese parents. The other was the nineteen oh six San Francisco earthquake and fire, which we talked about on the show in November of twenty nineteen, and we just ran it as a Saturday Classic. San Francisco City Hall was destroyed along with all the records it contained, and this made it possible for people to say that they had been born in the US but could no longer prove it because their records had been destroyed in that fire. Children of US citizens who are born abroad are also eligible for citizenships, So this meant that, for example, a Chinese man could return to China and say his wife had given birth there, creating a paper trail for a child, who could then enter the US, whether it was really his own child or someone else's child using that identity. Of course, people had tried to immigrate from China to the United States using false identities long before this nineteen oh six earthquake, but the destruction of all those records led to an enormous increase in these kinds of entries into the country. It also sparked a trade in identities and papers as people tried to reunite with family members or help people they knew get into the United States. Chinese people being brought to the US under this kind of paper trail became known as paper sons or less often paper daughters. In response to this surgeon illegal entries into the country, the United States built an immigration station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, intended to identify and deport paper sons and other Chinese people who didn't meet the legal criteria for entry. While people from other nations also entered the United States through Angel Island, most were Chinese, and immigration inspectors were intentionally looking for reasons to keep Chinese people out. Arrivals from China to Angel Island were separated by sex and subjected to degrading medical exams before undergoing extensive questioning about their family history and their life in China. Their purported family members in the United States were then similarly questioned with those two sets of answers compared to see whether they matched. These were questions like what direction does your house face, how many windows does it have, how many stairs are there? What's the floor made of? What were the names of all your neighbors? Did any of them have pigs? How many pigs? Questions that were really detailed, really specific, and not necessarily something a typical person would actually know or remember. If you ask me how many windows my neighbor's house has, even visualizing it in my head, I don't know.

Not long ago, we did a topic because I had it on my list two times, and I said, we might have another episode about somebody who was somehow on my short list two times, and here it is today. This is about artist Tyrus Wong, who was born in China and brought to the United States as a child at a time when immigration to the United States from China was banned under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Then, over the course of just an extraordinarily long career, he worked across a range of media in a whole collection of industries. There was animation and live action film, commercial art, public art, greeting cards, and in the last years of his life, kite making in his personal workshop. He went by a few different names over the course of his life for some reasons we will get to, but as an adult he was pretty much known as Tyros. His friends, a lot of them called him Thai, and that's how he was typically credited on the films that he worked on, and it was Tyros Wang was how he signed his artwork. That is the name that we will stick with today. Tyros Wang was born wuan Ganyo on October twenty fifth, nineteen ten, in the village of Titian in the Guangdong Province of China. His parents were named Saipo and Li Si, and he was born during a tumultuous time in China. This was just a year before the start of the Chinese Revolution of nineteen eleven. This revolution led to the end of the Qing dynasty, which was China's last imperial dynasty. This uprising had grown out of ongoing issues of instability, including the Opium Wars of the mid nineteenth century, the First Sino Japanese War at the end of the nineteenth century, and the Russo Japanese War of the early twentieth century, matt gave Japan control over what had been Chinese territory in Manchuria. As an adult, Tyrus described his father as well educated, a man who knew a lot about things like poetry and literature and calligraphy, but their family was living in poverty, and eventually his parents decided that Tyrus's father would take him to the United States, where they thought he would have better opportunities. They kept in touch through letters after this, but Tyrus never saw his mother or his sister again. He left aboard the SS China in either nineteen nineteen or nineteen twenty. There were sources used in this episode that had each of those years. At this point, immigration to the US from China was outlawed under the Chinese Exclusion Act, which also made it illegal for Chinese people to become US citizens. The Chinese Exclusion Act was the first law that played major restrictions on who could enter the United States. It was originally written as a ten year ban, but then it was extended and then made permanent in nineteen oh two. The only exceptions to the Chinese Exclusion Acts immigration band were people like diplomatic official, students, and teachers traveling with certification from the Chinese government, as well as people who had already been in the United States prior to November seventeenth, eighteen eighty. However, a couple of things happened after the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed in eighteen eighty two that shifted how it could be enforced. One was the US Supreme Court's decision in United States versus wangkim Arc in eighteen ninety eight. That's another topic that's been on my episode list for a long time. Wangkim Arc had been born in San Francisco to Chinese parents, and he was denied re entry into the United States after a trip abroad. The Supreme Court in his case decided that the birthright citizenship provisions of the fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was passed in the wake of the US Civil War, also applied to people born on US soil to Chinese parents. The other was the nineteen oh six San Francisco earthquake and fire, which we talked about on the show in November of twenty nineteen, and we just ran it as a Saturday Classic. San Francisco City Hall was destroyed along with all the records it contained, and this made it possible for people to say that they had been born in the US but could no longer prove it because their records had been destroyed in that fire. Children of US citizens who are born abroad are also eligible for citizenships, So this meant that, for example, a Chinese man could return to China and say his wife had given birth there, creating a paper trail for a child, who could then enter the US, whether it was really his own child or someone else's child using that identity. Of course, people had tried to immigrate from China to the United States using false identities long before this nineteen oh six earthquake, but the destruction of all those records led to an enormous increase in these kinds of entries into the country. It also sparked a trade in identities and papers as people tried to reunite with family members or help people they knew get into the United States. Chinese people being brought to the US under this kind of paper trail became known as paper sons or less often paper daughters. In response to this surgeon illegal entries into the country, the United States built an immigration station at Angel Island in San Francisco Bay, intended to identify and deport paper sons and other Chinese people who didn't meet the legal criteria for entry. While people from other nations also entered the United States through Angel Island, most were Chinese, and immigration inspectors were intentionally looking for reasons to keep Chinese people out. Arrivals from China to Angel Island were separated by sex and subjected to degrading medical exams before undergoing extensive questioning about their family history and their life in China. Their purported family members in the United States were then similarly questioned with those two sets of answers compared to see whether they matched. These were questions like what direction does your house face, how many windows does it have, how many stairs are there? What's the floor made of? What were the names of all your neighbors? Did any of them have pigs? How many pigs? Questions that were really detailed, really specific, and not necessarily something a typical person would actually know or remember. If you ask me how many windows my neighbor's house has, even visualizing it in my head, I don't know.

I wouldn't pass this test. They were are meant to be unpassable as much as possible. Word about these interrogations quickly spread within the Chinese community, and people trying to enter the US would carefully memorize answers to prepare for them, and people also had to keep their memories of all the answers fresh because this process would be repeated if a Chinese person ever traveled outside the US and tried to return, or if their immigration status was questioned for some reason while they were in the US. This happened to Tyris Wong at one point when he crossed the border into Mexico to visit Tijuana as a young man, and then was stranded there for about a month.

I wouldn't pass this test. They were are meant to be unpassable as much as possible. Word about these interrogations quickly spread within the Chinese community, and people trying to enter the US would carefully memorize answers to prepare for them, and people also had to keep their memories of all the answers fresh because this process would be repeated if a Chinese person ever traveled outside the US and tried to return, or if their immigration status was questioned for some reason while they were in the US. This happened to Tyris Wong at one point when he crossed the border into Mexico to visit Tijuana as a young man, and then was stranded there for about a month.

When Tyros was brought to the United States, his father traveled under the name look Get and Tyrs was documented as Luktai Yau. When they arrived at Angel Islands, officials immediately separated the two of them from one another. Tyros's father had been in the US before, and he was processed and released. But for about the next ten year old Tyros was the only child at Angel Island. He had no idea where his father was or whether he would ever see him again. A month is such a long time for a child to be without a parent, especially in this kind of environment, but a lot of people who were detained at Angel Island were held for a lot longer.

When Tyros was brought to the United States, his father traveled under the name look Get and Tyrs was documented as Luktai Yau. When they arrived at Angel Islands, officials immediately separated the two of them from one another. Tyros's father had been in the US before, and he was processed and released. But for about the next ten year old Tyros was the only child at Angel Island. He had no idea where his father was or whether he would ever see him again. A month is such a long time for a child to be without a parent, especially in this kind of environment, but a lot of people who were detained at Angel Island were held for a lot longer.

Tyris was housed in a small barracks like building with triple bunk beds. He was assigned to a top bunk where it was always hot. He also just had nothing to do. At one point, a guard gave him some chewing gum and showed him how to chew it, and Tyros chewed it until it ran out of flavor, and then put it on top of the radiator, let it melt, caught it on a piece of paper when it slid to the bottom, and then put it on top again, over and over, just to try to pass time. In a documentary made later in his life, he said that Angel Island was miserable and that he hated it there. Ultimately, Tyrus and his father passed their interrogations and they were reunited For a while. His father worked for a cobbler in Sacramento, and then, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, he went to Los Angeles for work and he left Tyros behind. It was during this period that Tyrus started going by the name Tyros Wong. A teacher anglicized the name Tyros from his paper son name of Tai Yao, and he kept his original family name of Wong. Tyros seems to have started out trying to follow his father's instructions to behave himself, but after a while he started taking a day off school every week to go fishing, and then that progressed to skipping more days and then more than a month of just not going to school at all. He also got into various boyhood mischief, and after his school sent a report card to his father in Los Angeles. Soon Tyris got a letter with money for a train ticket and instructions to come to La immediately. As an adult, Tyros said that once he arrived, his father slapped him in the face for the way he had been behaving. That probably sounds horrifying, I know. When I heard him tell this story in a documentary, I was like, Oh, no, your relationship with your father must have been horrible. It wasn't.

Tyris was housed in a small barracks like building with triple bunk beds. He was assigned to a top bunk where it was always hot. He also just had nothing to do. At one point, a guard gave him some chewing gum and showed him how to chew it, and Tyros chewed it until it ran out of flavor, and then put it on top of the radiator, let it melt, caught it on a piece of paper when it slid to the bottom, and then put it on top again, over and over, just to try to pass time. In a documentary made later in his life, he said that Angel Island was miserable and that he hated it there. Ultimately, Tyrus and his father passed their interrogations and they were reunited For a while. His father worked for a cobbler in Sacramento, and then, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, he went to Los Angeles for work and he left Tyros behind. It was during this period that Tyrus started going by the name Tyros Wong. A teacher anglicized the name Tyros from his paper son name of Tai Yao, and he kept his original family name of Wong. Tyros seems to have started out trying to follow his father's instructions to behave himself, but after a while he started taking a day off school every week to go fishing, and then that progressed to skipping more days and then more than a month of just not going to school at all. He also got into various boyhood mischief, and after his school sent a report card to his father in Los Angeles. Soon Tyris got a letter with money for a train ticket and instructions to come to La immediately. As an adult, Tyros said that once he arrived, his father slapped him in the face for the way he had been behaving. That probably sounds horrifying, I know. When I heard him tell this story in a documentary, I was like, Oh, no, your relationship with your father must have been horrible. It wasn't.

As an adult, Tyros had a lot of fond memories of his father, describing him as very strict, but also as recognizing and encouraging Tyrus's interest in and aptitude for art. By this point, art was really the only thing that Tyros was interested in, the only thing he liked to do. His father taught him calligraphy and had him practice every night, using a paintbrush dipped in water to write on pieces of old newspaper because they couldn't afford paper or ink. When Tyrus's father found him playing baseball with some neighborhood boys, he made him stop because if Tyrs hurt one of his hands that could interfere with his ability to become an artist.

As an adult, Tyros had a lot of fond memories of his father, describing him as very strict, but also as recognizing and encouraging Tyrus's interest in and aptitude for art. By this point, art was really the only thing that Tyros was interested in, the only thing he liked to do. His father taught him calligraphy and had him practice every night, using a paintbrush dipped in water to write on pieces of old newspaper because they couldn't afford paper or ink. When Tyrus's father found him playing baseball with some neighborhood boys, he made him stop because if Tyrs hurt one of his hands that could interfere with his ability to become an artist.

And the idea that Tyros might study art or even become a professional artist was almost unbelievable within their community. Overwhelmingly, Chinese people in the United States were working as manual laborers or in restaurants or laundries, because those are the only jobs that were really open to them. When one of Tyros's middle school teachers brought up the possibility of getting a scholarship so that he could study at Otis Art Institute, his father was working at a gambling den and they were living in a boarding house.

And the idea that Tyros might study art or even become a professional artist was almost unbelievable within their community. Overwhelmingly, Chinese people in the United States were working as manual laborers or in restaurants or laundries, because those are the only jobs that were really open to them. When one of Tyros's middle school teachers brought up the possibility of getting a scholarship so that he could study at Otis Art Institute, his father was working at a gambling den and they were living in a boarding house.

Tyros did get that scholarship, though, and when it ran out, he really didn't want to go back to a typical school, so his father decided to borrow money to cover the cost of his tuition for the next term, insisting that Tyros had to work hard and apply himself to his study of art so that his father would know that this expense.

Tyros did get that scholarship, though, and when it ran out, he really didn't want to go back to a typical school, so his father decided to borrow money to cover the cost of his tuition for the next term, insisting that Tyros had to work hard and apply himself to his study of art so that his father would know that this expense.

Was worth it. Tyros worked as a janitor to help pay for his time at Otis Art Institute, which was the first professional school of the arts established in Los Angeles. In addition to studying the work of European masters. He spent a lot of time at the library studying Chinese art. He was particularly interested in the art of the Song Dynasty, which spanned from about nine sixty to twelve seventy nine. Landscapes were particularly important in Song Dynasty art, often portraying sweeping views of the natural world, with mountains and vistas overwhelming any people or built elements in the scene. Many of these works also used calligraphy like brushwork in an evocative way to suggest the details that were part of the scene. Shortly before Tyrus finished his courses at Otis Art Institute, his father got sick. When his father died in nineteen thirty five, Tyros was twenty five and at that point really on his own. We'll talk more about that after a sponsor break. While tyrs Bang was studying at Otis Art Institute, he was also starting to exhibit his artwork alongside other artists, especially other Asian artists. These included Hideo Date, who had been born in Japan, and Benji Okubo, who was born in California to Japanese parents. Today, the term Orientalist is more often used to describe artwork by Western artists that's been inspired by Asian art and culture, but at the time these young artists were known as the California Orientalists or the Los Angeles Orientalists. Together, Tyrus Wong and Benji Okubo founded the Oriental Artists group.

Was worth it. Tyros worked as a janitor to help pay for his time at Otis Art Institute, which was the first professional school of the arts established in Los Angeles. In addition to studying the work of European masters. He spent a lot of time at the library studying Chinese art. He was particularly interested in the art of the Song Dynasty, which spanned from about nine sixty to twelve seventy nine. Landscapes were particularly important in Song Dynasty art, often portraying sweeping views of the natural world, with mountains and vistas overwhelming any people or built elements in the scene. Many of these works also used calligraphy like brushwork in an evocative way to suggest the details that were part of the scene. Shortly before Tyrus finished his courses at Otis Art Institute, his father got sick. When his father died in nineteen thirty five, Tyros was twenty five and at that point really on his own. We'll talk more about that after a sponsor break. While tyrs Bang was studying at Otis Art Institute, he was also starting to exhibit his artwork alongside other artists, especially other Asian artists. These included Hideo Date, who had been born in Japan, and Benji Okubo, who was born in California to Japanese parents. Today, the term Orientalist is more often used to describe artwork by Western artists that's been inspired by Asian art and culture, but at the time these young artists were known as the California Orientalists or the Los Angeles Orientalists. Together, Tyrus Wong and Benji Okubo founded the Oriental Artists group.

Of Los Angeles. Throughout the nineteen thirties, these and other Asian and Asian American artists in California were really developing a full artistic movement. Wong's work during this period included murals on the walls and menu art for the Dragon's Den restaurant in Chinatown, which Eddie had opened in the basement of his Antiques tour. Benjiokubo and Hideo Date were part of this as well, and The Dragon's Den became famous for its decor and its food, and it became a popular hangout for Hollywood actors. Wong's artwork also appeared in exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago, including the first official International Exhibition of Etching and Engraving in nineteen thirty two and the International Exhibition of Contemporary Prints for a Century of Progress in nineteen thirty four. Other artists in these exhibitions included people like Henri Matisse, Marie Lawrensa, Pablo Picasso, and Vasily Kandinski, but in the nineteen thirty two catalog, Wong was listed only as tyrists, with no mention of his country of origin. Some of Wong's work during the nineteen thirties was for the government as part of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. This program was part of the collection of legislation, relief efforts, and other initiatives known as the New Deal, spearheaded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his administration as the US tried to recover from the Great Depression. At its peak in nineteen thirty six, this program employed more than five thousand artists. Wang created two paintings a month for exhibition in government buildings, along with some murals. In nineteen thirty seven, his work was included among the pieces that the US government sent to represent this federal project at the Paris Exhibition. But at some point Wang lost his position in the program when it was discovered that he was not a US citizen, and at that point it was also not legal for him to become one. On June twenty seventh of that same year, which was nineteen thirty seven, Tyrus Wang got married to Ruth Kim, something he later described as the most joyous moment of his life. Ruth had been born in California to Chinese parents, and she and Tyros had met at the dragons Den while she was working there as a waitress. In nineteen thirty eight, they had their first of three daughters, who they named Kay. Ruth played a huge part in Tyrus's career as an artist, including recommending that he worked for Walt Disney after their daughter was born. While Tyros was making some money through art commissions, he really wanted and really needed a steady job once he was married and had a child. In nineteen thirty eight, he was hired as an in betweener working on Mickey Mouse shorts. Most people hired to work as animators for Disney started out in the in betweener pool. This was considered to be the best way to learn to be an animator and specifically how to do it for Disney animation, but a lot of artists found and probably still find this to be a tedious and repetitive job. More senior animators would draw the key frames marking the beginning and the end of a character's motion, and then the in betweeners would draw all those frames that it took for the character to me smoothly from one key frame to the next. It's this very similar thing drawn over and over again. Yeah, little variation. Tyrus Wong really did not like this job. But then he heard that Disney was working on an adaptation of Bambie A Life in the Woods by Felix Salton, and this novel tells the story of a fawn named Bambi growing up in the forest, and it is interpreted as both an early environmentalist novel and as an allegory about the persecution of Jews and the rise of anti Semitism in Europe. The Nazis banned it as a Jewish propaganda in nineteen thirty five. Disney had started working on its adaptation of Bambie shortly after their first animated feature film, which was Snow White, came out in nineteen thirty seven, and from an artistic point of view, Disney was kind of struggling with it. These realistic, detailed backgrounds that had been part of Snow White just weren't working for a story that took place entirely in the forest with animal characters. Wong read the book and he liked it, and even though he'd only been at Disney for a couple of months, he thought that he'd be a better fit for Bambi than for the in Betweener Pool. On his own time, he made a set of small forest paintings, drawing on his own experience as a landscape painter and his study of song dynasty art, along with other influences, and then he took these paintings to Tom Codrick, art director on Bambie. While the backgrounds and snow white had been really detailed, Wong's examples for Bambi were a lot softer. They used calligraphy like brushstrokes to suggest things like leaves and the branches of trees, rather than tightly defining all of them. The characters that were drawn separately on animation cells stood out against this background. Wong's backgrounds also gave the forest around the characters a more evocative and almost mysterious atmosphere. His approach to this background art wound up influencing everything else about the film, including things like the dialogue and the score. Although Wong's work was used as an example all across the teams of people who were working on this film and played a huge part in how the final product looked and felt. In the three and a half years he was there, Wong was never actually introduced to Walt Disney. He also didn't get into a lot of specifics, but he did later say that he felt like some of the other people working at Disney treated him differently from everyone else, whether that was because of racism, professional jealousy, or a combination of the two, or some other thing. In May of nineteen forty one, while Bambi was still in production, unionized animators that Walt Disney productions went on strike. So this strike and the labor movement within the animation industry are really a whole other story, but the process of organizing a union and the decision to go on strike had been incredibly divisive among Disney artists. Some of the artists were deeply loyal to Disney and specifically to Walt or they felt like they were artists, not the type of workers who should form a trade union. Others, though, were fighting for a lot of the same things that have led workers in other industries to unionize, things like job security, more equitable pay structures, and reasonable working hours. Artists who weren't receiving on screen credit also wanted credit for their work, and a lot of people were really angry that they had never received long expected profit sharing. After the success of Snow White, Disney workers who wanted to unionize joined the Screen Cartoonists Guild, while Disney also had its own company union, called the Federation of Screen Cartoonists. Tensions escalated between these two groups of workers, and between the Screen Cartoonist Guild and Disney management. Art Babbitt, who was Disney's highest paid animator, left his position as president of the Disney Company Guild to join the Screen Cartoonist Guild and continue to work on organizing the other animators. Disney fired Babbitt along with a group of other employees who had joined the union, and the nineteen forty one Disney Animator strike started a few days later. This strike went on for five weeks, with President Roosevelt sending a federal mediator to try to negotiate.

Of Los Angeles. Throughout the nineteen thirties, these and other Asian and Asian American artists in California were really developing a full artistic movement. Wong's work during this period included murals on the walls and menu art for the Dragon's Den restaurant in Chinatown, which Eddie had opened in the basement of his Antiques tour. Benjiokubo and Hideo Date were part of this as well, and The Dragon's Den became famous for its decor and its food, and it became a popular hangout for Hollywood actors. Wong's artwork also appeared in exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago, including the first official International Exhibition of Etching and Engraving in nineteen thirty two and the International Exhibition of Contemporary Prints for a Century of Progress in nineteen thirty four. Other artists in these exhibitions included people like Henri Matisse, Marie Lawrensa, Pablo Picasso, and Vasily Kandinski, but in the nineteen thirty two catalog, Wong was listed only as tyrists, with no mention of his country of origin. Some of Wong's work during the nineteen thirties was for the government as part of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. This program was part of the collection of legislation, relief efforts, and other initiatives known as the New Deal, spearheaded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in his administration as the US tried to recover from the Great Depression. At its peak in nineteen thirty six, this program employed more than five thousand artists. Wang created two paintings a month for exhibition in government buildings, along with some murals. In nineteen thirty seven, his work was included among the pieces that the US government sent to represent this federal project at the Paris Exhibition. But at some point Wang lost his position in the program when it was discovered that he was not a US citizen, and at that point it was also not legal for him to become one. On June twenty seventh of that same year, which was nineteen thirty seven, Tyrus Wang got married to Ruth Kim, something he later described as the most joyous moment of his life. Ruth had been born in California to Chinese parents, and she and Tyros had met at the dragons Den while she was working there as a waitress. In nineteen thirty eight, they had their first of three daughters, who they named Kay. Ruth played a huge part in Tyrus's career as an artist, including recommending that he worked for Walt Disney after their daughter was born. While Tyros was making some money through art commissions, he really wanted and really needed a steady job once he was married and had a child. In nineteen thirty eight, he was hired as an in betweener working on Mickey Mouse shorts. Most people hired to work as animators for Disney started out in the in betweener pool. This was considered to be the best way to learn to be an animator and specifically how to do it for Disney animation, but a lot of artists found and probably still find this to be a tedious and repetitive job. More senior animators would draw the key frames marking the beginning and the end of a character's motion, and then the in betweeners would draw all those frames that it took for the character to me smoothly from one key frame to the next. It's this very similar thing drawn over and over again. Yeah, little variation. Tyrus Wong really did not like this job. But then he heard that Disney was working on an adaptation of Bambie A Life in the Woods by Felix Salton, and this novel tells the story of a fawn named Bambi growing up in the forest, and it is interpreted as both an early environmentalist novel and as an allegory about the persecution of Jews and the rise of anti Semitism in Europe. The Nazis banned it as a Jewish propaganda in nineteen thirty five. Disney had started working on its adaptation of Bambie shortly after their first animated feature film, which was Snow White, came out in nineteen thirty seven, and from an artistic point of view, Disney was kind of struggling with it. These realistic, detailed backgrounds that had been part of Snow White just weren't working for a story that took place entirely in the forest with animal characters. Wong read the book and he liked it, and even though he'd only been at Disney for a couple of months, he thought that he'd be a better fit for Bambi than for the in Betweener Pool. On his own time, he made a set of small forest paintings, drawing on his own experience as a landscape painter and his study of song dynasty art, along with other influences, and then he took these paintings to Tom Codrick, art director on Bambie. While the backgrounds and snow white had been really detailed, Wong's examples for Bambi were a lot softer. They used calligraphy like brushstrokes to suggest things like leaves and the branches of trees, rather than tightly defining all of them. The characters that were drawn separately on animation cells stood out against this background. Wong's backgrounds also gave the forest around the characters a more evocative and almost mysterious atmosphere. His approach to this background art wound up influencing everything else about the film, including things like the dialogue and the score. Although Wong's work was used as an example all across the teams of people who were working on this film and played a huge part in how the final product looked and felt. In the three and a half years he was there, Wong was never actually introduced to Walt Disney. He also didn't get into a lot of specifics, but he did later say that he felt like some of the other people working at Disney treated him differently from everyone else, whether that was because of racism, professional jealousy, or a combination of the two, or some other thing. In May of nineteen forty one, while Bambi was still in production, unionized animators that Walt Disney productions went on strike. So this strike and the labor movement within the animation industry are really a whole other story, but the process of organizing a union and the decision to go on strike had been incredibly divisive among Disney artists. Some of the artists were deeply loyal to Disney and specifically to Walt or they felt like they were artists, not the type of workers who should form a trade union. Others, though, were fighting for a lot of the same things that have led workers in other industries to unionize, things like job security, more equitable pay structures, and reasonable working hours. Artists who weren't receiving on screen credit also wanted credit for their work, and a lot of people were really angry that they had never received long expected profit sharing. After the success of Snow White, Disney workers who wanted to unionize joined the Screen Cartoonists Guild, while Disney also had its own company union, called the Federation of Screen Cartoonists. Tensions escalated between these two groups of workers, and between the Screen Cartoonist Guild and Disney management. Art Babbitt, who was Disney's highest paid animator, left his position as president of the Disney Company Guild to join the Screen Cartoonist Guild and continue to work on organizing the other animators. Disney fired Babbitt along with a group of other employees who had joined the union, and the nineteen forty one Disney Animator strike started a few days later. This strike went on for five weeks, with President Roosevelt sending a federal mediator to try to negotiate.

Ultimately, Disney did.

Ultimately, Disney did.

Recognize the Screen Cartoonists Guild and signed a collective bargaining agreement with the union. Disney was also forced to rehire Babbitt and some of the other animators who had been fired over their organizing efforts, but a lot of animators either quit or lost their jobs all of this, and one of them was Tyrus Wong, who was fired before production wrapped on Bambi, even though he hadn't participated in this strike. I am not sure of the details of why specifically he was fired, but it's described as having been in connection to all of this, even though he didn't participate. When Bambi was released in theaters, he was credited as backgrounds on a slide with nine other names. There was nothing in those credits to suggest how influential he had been on this film. A couple of months after the Disney strike ended, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II. On February nineteenth, nineteen forty two, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order in ninety sixty six, ordering people of Japanese ancestry, including Japanese American citizens born in the US, to be imprisoned at concentration camps located away from the West Coast. We have a two part episode on Executive Order ninety sixty six that came out in February of twenty seventeen.

Recognize the Screen Cartoonists Guild and signed a collective bargaining agreement with the union. Disney was also forced to rehire Babbitt and some of the other animators who had been fired over their organizing efforts, but a lot of animators either quit or lost their jobs all of this, and one of them was Tyrus Wong, who was fired before production wrapped on Bambi, even though he hadn't participated in this strike. I am not sure of the details of why specifically he was fired, but it's described as having been in connection to all of this, even though he didn't participate. When Bambi was released in theaters, he was credited as backgrounds on a slide with nine other names. There was nothing in those credits to suggest how influential he had been on this film. A couple of months after the Disney strike ended, Japan attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, drawing the United States into World War II. On February nineteenth, nineteen forty two, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order in ninety sixty six, ordering people of Japanese ancestry, including Japanese American citizens born in the US, to be imprisoned at concentration camps located away from the West Coast. We have a two part episode on Executive Order ninety sixty six that came out in February of twenty seventeen.

The people who.

The people who.

Were imprisoned under this executive order included Tyres Wang's artistic colleagues Benji Okubo and Hideo Date. Both of them were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Executive Order ninety sixty six didn't apply to Wong since he was Chinese not Japanese, but he and other people who were from China or other parts of Asia outside of Japan, was faced with the possibility of being mistaken for a Japanese person and imprisoned. He started wearing a button on his lapel to identify himself as Chinese. World War two and the mass incarceration of Japanese immigrants and their children disrupted the Asian art movement that had been developing in California over the previous decades. The artists who had been working and exhibiting together before the war really never came together in the same way again after the war ended and people were eventually released from the camps. We will get some more of Wang's work during and after the war. After a sponsor break. After being fired from Disney, Tyrus Wong was contacted by Warner Brothers Pictures about coming to work for them, but this wasn't to do animation work. It was for live action films. He was reluctant to do this at first because he did not have any experience working for live action movies at all. He took this job though, and he worked with Warner Brothers until nineteen sixty eight. He did a lot of concept art and pre production illustration work in this role, so he really helped to set the visual look and feel for a lot of movies. These included Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild Bunch, Sans of Yajima, and Anti Mame, along with many others. According to a profile of him at the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, he also participated in a strike of Warner Brothers artists and wound up being jailed overnight at one point during this strike.

Were imprisoned under this executive order included Tyres Wang's artistic colleagues Benji Okubo and Hideo Date. Both of them were incarcerated at Heart Mountain Relocation Center. Executive Order ninety sixty six didn't apply to Wong since he was Chinese not Japanese, but he and other people who were from China or other parts of Asia outside of Japan, was faced with the possibility of being mistaken for a Japanese person and imprisoned. He started wearing a button on his lapel to identify himself as Chinese. World War two and the mass incarceration of Japanese immigrants and their children disrupted the Asian art movement that had been developing in California over the previous decades. The artists who had been working and exhibiting together before the war really never came together in the same way again after the war ended and people were eventually released from the camps. We will get some more of Wang's work during and after the war. After a sponsor break. After being fired from Disney, Tyrus Wong was contacted by Warner Brothers Pictures about coming to work for them, but this wasn't to do animation work. It was for live action films. He was reluctant to do this at first because he did not have any experience working for live action movies at all. He took this job though, and he worked with Warner Brothers until nineteen sixty eight. He did a lot of concept art and pre production illustration work in this role, so he really helped to set the visual look and feel for a lot of movies. These included Rebel Without a Cause, The Wild Bunch, Sans of Yajima, and Anti Mame, along with many others. According to a profile of him at the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation, he also participated in a strike of Warner Brothers artists and wound up being jailed overnight at one point during this strike.

This wasn't his only job. He also started hand painting dinnerware for the Winfield Pottery Company in the late nineteen forties. This was connected to a rise in popularity of a style of home decor known as Chinese Modern, and he painted porcelain pieces with things like birds, flowers, and bamboo. There were no do overs in this hand painted dinnerware, so each design he created had to be done correctly on the first try, with no way to make adjustments or corrections afterward. In the nineteen fifties, Dick Kelsey, who he'd worked with at Disney, suggested he start designing greeting cards, specifically Christmas cards was something else he didn't really know much about. He had not been raised as a Christian, he'd not really celebrated Christmas. But his wife, Ruth, was a Presbyterian and had been a Sunday school teacher, and she had also studied literature at UCLA. So while Tyrs created the artwork, Ruth suggested themes and motifs and wrote inscriptions for the insides of the cards. The production schedule for greeting cards meant that he spent a lot of his time in the summers listening to Christmas music to set the mood, because every year's designs were due by the autumn of the previous year. Tyris Wong's Christmas cards became very popular and sought after, and they were also clearly identified as his designs. He signed each of them, and his contracts with greeting card companies specified that those signatures could not be removed. A lot of his earlier greeting card work was with regional publishers in California, and one of these publishers, Fiforgnia Artists, named Wong its Artist of the Year in nineteen fifty five. Some of these publishers also distributed cards through Hallmark, and by the nineteen sixties Wong was working with Hallmark directly. Greeting card companies also released display albums of his work with a brief biography, both as a sales tool and for collectors of his work. These Christmas cards continued to feature the evocative brushwork and Chinese style that had been part of his work on Bambi. Some of these designs were relatively secular, images of things like decorated tree boughs or a kitten playing with some string next to a sprig of holly, or some wintry scenes or fruit. Others were more explicitly religious, like angels or one that was one of his daughters praying by a lit candle, or marry Joseph and the infant Jesus together in a cave like grotto. Sometimes particularly popular cards would influence the themes of his future designs, like in nineteen fifty four, one of his cards depicted a shepherd and a flock of sheep under a tree that had just bright pink bows. I love them, they are very striking. Also on this as a very starry sky. This one card sold more than a million copies, and it led to additional bright pink foliage in subsequent years. He later said the greeting cards were the work that he was the proudest of. By the time Wong started working on the Christmas cards, things had changed somewhat for Chinese immigrants to the United States. China was allied with the United States during World War II, and in nineteen forty three, as the war was ongoing, Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and other laws that banned immigration from China and restricted the rights of Chinese people in the United States. The US still tightly limited the number of people allowed to immigrate to the US from China, but it became possible for Chinese people already in the US to seek citizenship. Tyris Wong became a US citizen three years later in nineteen forty six.

This wasn't his only job. He also started hand painting dinnerware for the Winfield Pottery Company in the late nineteen forties. This was connected to a rise in popularity of a style of home decor known as Chinese Modern, and he painted porcelain pieces with things like birds, flowers, and bamboo. There were no do overs in this hand painted dinnerware, so each design he created had to be done correctly on the first try, with no way to make adjustments or corrections afterward. In the nineteen fifties, Dick Kelsey, who he'd worked with at Disney, suggested he start designing greeting cards, specifically Christmas cards was something else he didn't really know much about. He had not been raised as a Christian, he'd not really celebrated Christmas. But his wife, Ruth, was a Presbyterian and had been a Sunday school teacher, and she had also studied literature at UCLA. So while Tyrs created the artwork, Ruth suggested themes and motifs and wrote inscriptions for the insides of the cards. The production schedule for greeting cards meant that he spent a lot of his time in the summers listening to Christmas music to set the mood, because every year's designs were due by the autumn of the previous year. Tyris Wong's Christmas cards became very popular and sought after, and they were also clearly identified as his designs. He signed each of them, and his contracts with greeting card companies specified that those signatures could not be removed. A lot of his earlier greeting card work was with regional publishers in California, and one of these publishers, Fiforgnia Artists, named Wong its Artist of the Year in nineteen fifty five. Some of these publishers also distributed cards through Hallmark, and by the nineteen sixties Wong was working with Hallmark directly. Greeting card companies also released display albums of his work with a brief biography, both as a sales tool and for collectors of his work. These Christmas cards continued to feature the evocative brushwork and Chinese style that had been part of his work on Bambi. Some of these designs were relatively secular, images of things like decorated tree boughs or a kitten playing with some string next to a sprig of holly, or some wintry scenes or fruit. Others were more explicitly religious, like angels or one that was one of his daughters praying by a lit candle, or marry Joseph and the infant Jesus together in a cave like grotto. Sometimes particularly popular cards would influence the themes of his future designs, like in nineteen fifty four, one of his cards depicted a shepherd and a flock of sheep under a tree that had just bright pink bows. I love them, they are very striking. Also on this as a very starry sky. This one card sold more than a million copies, and it led to additional bright pink foliage in subsequent years. He later said the greeting cards were the work that he was the proudest of. By the time Wong started working on the Christmas cards, things had changed somewhat for Chinese immigrants to the United States. China was allied with the United States during World War II, and in nineteen forty three, as the war was ongoing, Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act and other laws that banned immigration from China and restricted the rights of Chinese people in the United States. The US still tightly limited the number of people allowed to immigrate to the US from China, but it became possible for Chinese people already in the US to seek citizenship. Tyris Wong became a US citizen three years later in nineteen forty six.

It had also been illegal for Chinese people and people from some other nations to buy property in parts of the United States. A number of states had passed so called alien land laws, mainly starting after the end of World War One. These banned people who were not eligible for citizenship from owning.

It had also been illegal for Chinese people and people from some other nations to buy property in parts of the United States. A number of states had passed so called alien land laws, mainly starting after the end of World War One. These banned people who were not eligible for citizenship from owning.

Or leasing property.

Or leasing property.

In many areas, land deeds also included racially restrictive covenants, which banned the sale of a property to people of a specific race, and a lot of the US, racially restrictive covenants prevented property from being sold to black people, but in places with the larger population of other racial or ethnic groups, sometimes religious groups, these covenants often targeted them instead. The US Supreme Court struck down racially restrictive covenants as unconstitutional in Shelby versus Kramer in nineteen forty eight, and it did the same with alien land laws in Fuji versus California in nineteen fifty two. Once they were legally able to, the Wong family bought a house in Sunland, California, which is today considered part of Los Angeles. Even though the laws and covenants that had made it impossible for them to buy a house before had been ruled unconstitutional, finding one was still a difficult process for them. The family would find a suitable home, only to be told that it had already been sold, but then still see that it was on the market weeks later. Wong said that when they finally chose a house to buy, they made sure a neighbor would be okay with their living there before they even made an offer. In the nineteen seventies, Tyrus Wang retired from his work in commercial art. He had developed a shakiness in his hands that made painting more difficult. Instead, he started spending a lot of his time making kites, building on things he had learned from his late father while he was still a child. He used materials like bamboo, ritan, paper, and silk to make beautifully decorated, intricate kites, and then he would take them to Santa Monica Beach to fly. Once a month, he was oft in there with a whole collection of these kites, like flocks of birds or butterflies, or fish in different colors, or long centipedes, like one hundred different segments of centipede body, each of the segments made from a separate panel, and all of them separately constructed and balanced and decorated. In nineteen seventy eight, he and Ruth went on a trip to China, and after they returned, Ruth had a series of strokes, and after that she developed dementia. For about fifteen years, Tyros stepped away from public life almost entirely to take care of her. She died in January of nineteen ninety five, and their friends really wondered how Tyris would go on. He gradually returned to the public eye, though, and in the last years of his life, Tyrs Wong started getting some recognition for his earlier work. He had worked in so many different media, some of which we have not even touched on in this episode, like sculpture and scarf painting and book illustrations. For example, he illustrated a book called Footprints of the Dragon, a Story of the Chinese and the Pacific Railways by Vanya Oaks in nineteen forty nine. He and his work had come to be seen as kind of a bridge between different generations of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, as well as between the Chinese community and the greater communities of California and the United States.

In many areas, land deeds also included racially restrictive covenants, which banned the sale of a property to people of a specific race, and a lot of the US, racially restrictive covenants prevented property from being sold to black people, but in places with the larger population of other racial or ethnic groups, sometimes religious groups, these covenants often targeted them instead. The US Supreme Court struck down racially restrictive covenants as unconstitutional in Shelby versus Kramer in nineteen forty eight, and it did the same with alien land laws in Fuji versus California in nineteen fifty two. Once they were legally able to, the Wong family bought a house in Sunland, California, which is today considered part of Los Angeles. Even though the laws and covenants that had made it impossible for them to buy a house before had been ruled unconstitutional, finding one was still a difficult process for them. The family would find a suitable home, only to be told that it had already been sold, but then still see that it was on the market weeks later. Wong said that when they finally chose a house to buy, they made sure a neighbor would be okay with their living there before they even made an offer. In the nineteen seventies, Tyrus Wang retired from his work in commercial art. He had developed a shakiness in his hands that made painting more difficult. Instead, he started spending a lot of his time making kites, building on things he had learned from his late father while he was still a child. He used materials like bamboo, ritan, paper, and silk to make beautifully decorated, intricate kites, and then he would take them to Santa Monica Beach to fly. Once a month, he was oft in there with a whole collection of these kites, like flocks of birds or butterflies, or fish in different colors, or long centipedes, like one hundred different segments of centipede body, each of the segments made from a separate panel, and all of them separately constructed and balanced and decorated. In nineteen seventy eight, he and Ruth went on a trip to China, and after they returned, Ruth had a series of strokes, and after that she developed dementia. For about fifteen years, Tyros stepped away from public life almost entirely to take care of her. She died in January of nineteen ninety five, and their friends really wondered how Tyris would go on. He gradually returned to the public eye, though, and in the last years of his life, Tyrs Wong started getting some recognition for his earlier work. He had worked in so many different media, some of which we have not even touched on in this episode, like sculpture and scarf painting and book illustrations. For example, he illustrated a book called Footprints of the Dragon, a Story of the Chinese and the Pacific Railways by Vanya Oaks in nineteen forty nine. He and his work had come to be seen as kind of a bridge between different generations of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans, as well as between the Chinese community and the greater communities of California and the United States.

In two thousand and one, he was named a Disney Legend and recognized for his extensive contributions to the movie Bambie. In two thousand and six, he received the Windsor Mackay Award at the Annie Awards. That's an industry award by the Internationally Animated Film Association Hollywood. Windsor McKay, which we have talked about on the show, was a cartoonist and animator. We covered him in a two part episode in May of twenty eighteen. In twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen, the Walt Disney Family Museum hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work called Water to Paper, Paint to Sky, The Art of Tyriswong. He attended this exhibition at the age of more than one hundred.

In two thousand and one, he was named a Disney Legend and recognized for his extensive contributions to the movie Bambie. In two thousand and six, he received the Windsor Mackay Award at the Annie Awards. That's an industry award by the Internationally Animated Film Association Hollywood. Windsor McKay, which we have talked about on the show, was a cartoonist and animator. We covered him in a two part episode in May of twenty eighteen. In twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen, the Walt Disney Family Museum hosted a retrospective exhibition of his work called Water to Paper, Paint to Sky, The Art of Tyriswong. He attended this exhibition at the age of more than one hundred.

Tyros Wong died at home on December thirtieth, twenty sixteen, at the age of one hundred and six. Toward the very end of his life, he had participated in the making of a documentary about his life called Tyris. This was finished in twenty fifteen and nationally broadcast on PBS American Masters in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, he was honored with a Google doodle on his birthday. Clicking the kite in the corner of the doodle brings up a short animation about his life. There's also a forthcoming book about him called background Artist, The Life and Work of Tyros, which is planned for release in October. I thought about putting this episode off when I learned this book was on the way, But I've worked on this podcast for more than a decade, and at this point I know that when I try to do that, what really happens is the episode just never gets done. Yeah before anyone since suggestions, Yes, I've tried all kinds of list making and reminder setting and various strategies to keep this pattern from happening. I've learned what really needs to happen is to just go ahead and do the episode and not delay it for a future eventuality.

Tyros Wong died at home on December thirtieth, twenty sixteen, at the age of one hundred and six. Toward the very end of his life, he had participated in the making of a documentary about his life called Tyris. This was finished in twenty fifteen and nationally broadcast on PBS American Masters in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, he was honored with a Google doodle on his birthday. Clicking the kite in the corner of the doodle brings up a short animation about his life. There's also a forthcoming book about him called background Artist, The Life and Work of Tyros, which is planned for release in October. I thought about putting this episode off when I learned this book was on the way, But I've worked on this podcast for more than a decade, and at this point I know that when I try to do that, what really happens is the episode just never gets done. Yeah before anyone since suggestions, Yes, I've tried all kinds of list making and reminder setting and various strategies to keep this pattern from happening. I've learned what really needs to happen is to just go ahead and do the episode and not delay it for a future eventuality.

That is Tyrus Wong, who I love. Of course he's lovable. Do you also have lovable listener mail? I do, I have listener mail? So this listener mail.

That is Tyrus Wong, who I love. Of course he's lovable. Do you also have lovable listener mail? I do, I have listener mail? So this listener mail.

We've gotten a couple of notes on this topic, and I'm just going to read one of them, which is from Elaine. Elaine said, Hi, Holly and Tracy. You mentioned not being able to find an episode or remember doing one on the War of Jenkins Eer, but I thought I remembered hearing about it and it would have been from stuff you missed in history class. Please see attached screenshot. I found a four minute episode, so that must be a very old one with previous hosts. I'm surprised I remember a four minute episode just sharing. I'm thinking maybe it also came up in another episode alas I don't have a pet. Next time I write in, I'll get a photo of my friends rabbits. Thank you love the show, Elaine, So thank you Elaine, and to the couple other folks who sent us a note about this very old episode about the War of Jenkins Ear. I cannot remember exactly where this came up. It was in a past episode, and I was like, I feel like we have talked about this, and I can find no record of it that there is indeed a very old, four minute long episode of the show from the very very early days the show called why did England and Spain Fight over an Ear? That is not the episode. I could not remember though, because what I kept thinking was no, like, it's a thing that I worked on, and Holly and I were not involved in the show in any way until our names start showing.

We've gotten a couple of notes on this topic, and I'm just going to read one of them, which is from Elaine. Elaine said, Hi, Holly and Tracy. You mentioned not being able to find an episode or remember doing one on the War of Jenkins Eer, but I thought I remembered hearing about it and it would have been from stuff you missed in history class. Please see attached screenshot. I found a four minute episode, so that must be a very old one with previous hosts. I'm surprised I remember a four minute episode just sharing. I'm thinking maybe it also came up in another episode alas I don't have a pet. Next time I write in, I'll get a photo of my friends rabbits. Thank you love the show, Elaine, So thank you Elaine, and to the couple other folks who sent us a note about this very old episode about the War of Jenkins Ear. I cannot remember exactly where this came up. It was in a past episode, and I was like, I feel like we have talked about this, and I can find no record of it that there is indeed a very old, four minute long episode of the show from the very very early days the show called why did England and Spain Fight over an Ear? That is not the episode. I could not remember though, because what I kept thinking was no, like, it's a thing that I worked on, and Holly and I were not involved in the show in any way until our names start showing.

Up at the beginning of it.

Up at the beginning of it.

So if you're hearing an episode that says that starts off something like I Am Candace and I am Jane, we were not involved in the show production at that point. I think what I'm actually remembering is that for a while, in addition to doing this podcast, I attempted to do a whole additional podcast called This Day in History Class that was a day by day, approximately five minutes every day, episode on something that happened in history that day. There's definitely a jenkins Ear episode of This Day in History Class that I definitely worked on, and I think that is what I am remembering. So thanks to everyone who sent notes about this extremely old episode. The mystery is solved, question mark. I think it's solved anyway, So yes, thank you so much, Elaine, thank you to everyone else. If you would like to send us a note or at History podcastiheartradio dot.

So if you're hearing an episode that says that starts off something like I Am Candace and I am Jane, we were not involved in the show production at that point. I think what I'm actually remembering is that for a while, in addition to doing this podcast, I attempted to do a whole additional podcast called This Day in History Class that was a day by day, approximately five minutes every day, episode on something that happened in history that day. There's definitely a jenkins Ear episode of This Day in History Class that I definitely worked on, and I think that is what I am remembering. So thanks to everyone who sent notes about this extremely old episode. The mystery is solved, question mark. I think it's solved anyway, So yes, thank you so much, Elaine, thank you to everyone else. If you would like to send us a note or at History podcastiheartradio dot.

Com, and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. 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.

Com, and you can subscribe to our show on the iHeartRadio app or wherever else you'd like to get your podcasts. 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.