I know pet grooming, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th.
If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage. It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare.
Helping people live healthier lives. Hello. This is Hey Dude Shoes. This is an ad. But not for your ears, for your feet.
Are they listening? Good. Hey Dude Shoes are the squishiest, airiest, lightest go-to shoes you'll ever have the pleasure of introducing your toes to. So light, a butterfly could steal them. So soft, kittens seethe with jealousy. So cushy, your hands will curse your feet for all the love and attention.
Toes, you fit the jackpot of comfy. Hey Dude, good to go to. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show, including your stories.
Send them to OurAmericanStories.com. And we love telling stories about the past. Our next story comes to us from a man who's simply known as The History Guy.
His videos are watched by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube. The History Guy is also heard here at Our American Stories. The great vowel shift was the single greatest change in the history of the English language and has now become the official language in over 75 countries. As the title The Great Vowel Shift implies, this shifted the pronunciation of vowels from a softer to a harder sound.
Here's The History Guy with the story of The Great Vowel Shift and the making of modern English. Recently we did an episode on ketchup, and of course today ketchup is mostly made from tomatoes. And that led a viewer to send me a question about the English pronunciation of the word tomato and ask me, well, which one is correct? And that is a popular question because of a song written by George and Ira Gershwin for the 1937 Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie Shall We Dance? with the lyrics, you say tomato and I say tomato, you say potato and I say potato, let's call the whole thing off.
And the song says a lot of things about class and culture, but the real point of the song is that the difference is unimportant. I mean after all, tomatoes and tomatoes are the same thing. But how tomato and tomato came to be pronounced differently is an interesting historical question because history, surprisingly, affects language. And in the history of language, a change that would have changed the pronunciation of the word tomato, and virtually the whole of the English language, stands out as a shining example of the intimate connection between historical events and the words that describe them. The period of the rapid transformation of the pronunciation of English that was called the Great Vowel Shift, deserves to be remembered. The Great Vowel Shift, or GVS, refers to a period of radical change in how the English language is spoken. The shift roughly occurred in England between the mid 14th century and the 18th century, although some argue that it may have started earlier or ended later. The term itself was coined by Otto Jespersen, a Danish linguist and anglicist, whose focus at the time was on the history of language. Jespersen described the GVS in his 1909 work, A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles. The GVS represents the transition from Middle English to Modern English, and it mostly affected the so-called Long Vowels, although it affected some consonants as well.
The description of exactly how it occurred is still a matter of scholarly dispute, it didn't occur evenly over either geography or time, that is to say it affected Scotland and Northern England and Southern England differently and at different times, and it occurred in fits and starts over a period of centuries. But while other languages have undergone vowel shifts, the significant transformation in how English was pronounced over just a few centuries was, well, exceptional. As to the actual pronunciation differences, I'll largely leave that up to linguists to describe, but the shift significantly affected how words with long vowels were pronounced. The word bite, for example, with a long I, would have in the Middle English of Southern England been pronounced like the word beat, whereas beat would have been pronounced more like the word bade, which would have pronounced something like bought, and all that means that Geoffrey Chaucer and William Shakespeare would have had difficulty having a conversation with each other. While we modern English speakers can read Chaucer's Middle English and are usually forced to sometime in high school, Chaucer's pronunciation would have been almost completely unintelligible to the modern ear. The English of William Shakespeare after the great vowel shift, on the other hand, would be accented but quite understandable. That of course leaves the interesting question of how we would know how these words were pronounced differently since there's no sound recording from the time.
And the question is part of the reason that there's still disagreement over exactly how the GVS occurred, but it can be divined from clues, such as what words poets rhymed or playwrights used as pawns. Chaucer rhymed words that Shakespeare did not. Chaucer, for example, rhymed the word deaf, meaning you can't hear, with the word life, which was then spelled L-Y-F. Today the words life and deaf don't rhyme, but in Chaucer's time they did, they were pronounced deef and leaf.
Another example is how people spelled words in personal correspondence. Elizabeth I spelled deep, D-I-P-E, and need in I-D. This indicates that by her time, words spelled with E-E had already shifted pronunciation from the A sound of Middle English to the long E sound we use in modern English, from dep and ned to deep and need.
So her use of the spelling of Middle English, where I was pronounced E, indicates the pronunciation of early modern English after the great vowel shift. Two, there were scholars at the time noting some of the changes, and some even proposed new systems of spelling to represent the changes, and those can help us understand how the changes occurred. But while the question of how the shift occurred is interesting, the question of why is even more perplexing, and there's even less agreement among scholars about that, but somehow history changed language. What happened in England in the approximately 160 years between Geoffrey Chaucer's death and William Shakespeare's birth, that made it so that two acknowledged masters of the English language could not have understood each other speaking their own version of English? How did history transform language?
It's a difficult question to answer. There's little agreement because scholars can't even agree over when the great vowel shift began. One of the most significant factors that's been suggested to explain the rapid shift in language was population migration. Pronunciation varied in medieval England, where the typical person never wandered farther afield than a dozen miles from their home. Areas developed dialects, essentially regional languages. But events in the 14th century drove greater migration, and especially congregation in the cities, which then brought together people who had different accents and dialects, and the mixing of those changed the language.
Part of the reason goes back to Norman rule. After William the Conqueror's victory in 1066, the rulers of England primarily spoke French, albeit the more country bumpkin Norman French as opposed to Parisian French. For the following 300 years, the language of the court and government was French, while written language was mainly done in Latin. But some 95% of the population still spoke English. As the Norman rulers viewed English as a low and vulgar tongue, it went unregulated, and was mainly a spoken language rather than a written language. Combined with low population mobility, that led to the development of regional dialects, or at least a further diversion from dialects of old English.
Some linguists estimate that a common person in England in the 12th century would not be able to understand the English language spoken just 50 miles away. And you're listening to the history guy in a fascinating tale of the transformation of the English language. The story of the great vowel shift continues here on Our American Stories. Folks, if you love the great American stories we tell, and love America like we do, we're asking you to become a part of the Our American Stories family. If you agree that America is a good and great country, please make a donation. A monthly gift of $17.76 is fast becoming a favorite option for supporters. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now, and go to the donate button, and help us keep the great American stories coming.
That's OurAmericanStories.com. Hey you guys, this is Tori and Jenni with the 902.1 OMG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by NerdTech ODT. We recorded it at iHeartRadio's 10th poll event, Wango Tango. Did you know that NerdTech ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams, can help migraine sufferers still attend such an exciting event like Wango Tango? It's true! I had one that night, and I took my NerdTech ODT, and I was present and had an amazing time.
Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by NerdTech ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully, NerdTech ODT Remedipant, 75 milligrams, is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So, lively events like Wango Tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare Annual Enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we continue with our American stories and with the history guy and the story of the great vowel shift and the making of modern English. Let's pick up where we last left off. Some linguists estimate that a common person in England in the 12th century would not be able to understand the English language spoken just 50 miles away. But in the 14th century, people moved. The likely cause was the Black Plague.
The first known case of the illness in England was a sailor from Gascony in June of 1348. By December, the outbreak was estimated to have killed between 40 and 60 percent of the population. The impacts of this nasty population were profound, changing economics and culture, but could it change language? The initial reaction to the depopulation of the plague was for people to flee locations with high mortality rates, like London. But an interesting study published last year looking at data from medieval cities found a surprising result. Despite the devastation of the plague and periodic return of the illness, urban populations recovered to pre-plague populations by the 16th century. Further research on abandoned rural villages and deforestation suggests that rural populations decreased over the same period and took more than a century more to return to the pre-plague population.
The result is counterintuitive. The general thought would be that places harder hit by the pandemic would recover more slowly, both because their population was harder hit and because people would be reticent to return to high mortality areas. Instead, the data suggests that people moved from low mortality areas in the country to high mortality areas in the city. The conclusion is that factors such as quality of land and human infrastructure such as roads and trade routes affected migration more than mortality rates.
As the population decreased, people moved from more marginal land and land with fewer amenities to areas with better agricultural land and more amenities. The findings support the idea that southeast England, including London, saw a significant increase in immigration from the northern England following the pandemic. This conclusion is supported by records that have been accumulated by the Universities of York and Sheffield in England's Immigrants Database, which tracks immigration to England between 1330 and 1550. In the period following the plague, the resulting labor shortage meant a demand for labor, thus conditions and wages were relatively good compared to many places in Europe. That attracted immigrants from the rest of the British Isles, northwest Europe and even farther afield.
The research suggests that as many as one in every hundred people in medieval England was an immigrant. The result is not just a mixing of English dialects but of foreign loanwords over much of the period of the Great Vowel Shift. And loanwords, particularly French loanwords, are another part of the explanation. The Normans brought a huge number of French words into the English language, thousands of them. Those French words and pronunciations of course would transform language. For example, names for animals, cow, pig, sheep, although pronounced differently in Middle English than modern English, came from English.
But the names for their meat, beef, pork, mutton, were derived from French. Courts of justice were also conducted largely in French, so many Englishmen, while still primarily speaking English, also learned French. But why would this mix of languages cause a Vowel Shift hundreds of years after the Norman Conquest? Well the French used by the court developed into a unique form called Anglo-Norman. The Normans became increasingly anglicized over time. Norman nobles became increasingly likely to speak English as well as French. The loss of Normandy to Philip II of France in 1204 meant that Norman nobles started becoming more dependent upon their English holdings and divorce from the French court and customs. Increasingly, the people in power were speaking English but with a heavy French accent, and were speaking a version of French that was highly influenced by English.
And the people who were not in power wanted to sound more like the people who were in power because it was more prestigious. The effect of French loanwords on English pronunciation was further impacted by war with the French. The series of conflicts that would be called the Hundred Years War began in 1337. The war itself might have impacted language in a few ways, for example, causing migration based on the recruitment and movement of troops and the number of Englishmen who spent time on the continent fighting in the wars. But the war also created a resentment towards the French language as the language of the enemy.
Henry IV, who deposed his nephew Richard II in 1399, was the first English king for whom English was his mother tongue and he took his oath in English. This new aversion to French, even as the conversion of French-speaking nobles to English-speaking increased the use of loanwords, may have caused an overcorrection when the pronunciation of French-derived words was changed to sound less French. This overcorrection might explain why a language so influenced by Romance languages ended up being pronounced so differently from them. But this doesn't really explain why the change was so massive. Well, some linguists think that that might be explained by something called a chain shift.
Roughly speaking that means that a small change might cause a change somewhere else. For example, pronouncing a vowel one way differently might require then that another vowel be pronounced differently so that the two don't sound too much alike. Phonological systems tend to naturally seek economy and symmetry and while it's not as mechanistic as it sounds, what it means is that a small shift might have driven a chain of shifts that led to something large, like the great vowel shift. One result of the great vowel shift is that it partially explains why English is so, well, difficult. Spreading more or less haphazardly over time and geography, the great vowel shift did not apply uniformly to all relevant words. For example, the letter combination spelled E-A was pronounced EH in Middle English. Meat was met. It went through a phase where it was pronounced A.
Meat would have been mate. And then finally the long E sound it has today, meat, along with words like speak and beam. But some words got stuck along the way. Met became meat, but steak, which would originally have been pronounced stack, got stuck in the middle at steak with words like great, didn't move along to become steak. And a few other words took another shift to a diphthong or combined vowel sound to make words like bear and swear.
In Middle English those words would have all rhymed, but in Modern English that same vowel combination is pronounced three different ways. It was roughly over the same period that printing in England was standardizing spelling in English. Some of the new standardized spellings miss the effects of the G-V-S and thus many words in English are not written as they sound. In Chaucer's time the E at the end of words would have been pronounced, as would all consonants. Many of those sounds have become silent in Smokin' language, but the letters were still retained in printing. In other cases word spelling was changed and that obscured the relationship between them and the European languages from which they were derived.
There's more confusion as there's still many artifacts of Middle English. For example, the word Shire. Every Briton will tell you that Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire are pronounced Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Bedfordshire.
The reason is not laziness or dialect it's that the pronunciation of those names was set before the great vowel shift when Shire would have been pronounced Sheer. Those names are literally artifacts of England's past. And speaking of England's past, William the Conqueror's Doomsday book from which we have learned so much about England's past is pronounced Doomsday but spelled Domesday, D-O-M-E-S-D-A-Y.
Not because the Normans couldn't spell but because Dome was pronounced Doom before the great vowel shift. And so the Norman King who spoke French left us an artifact of Middle English. One of the most interesting things about the great vowel shift is that it didn't occur elsewhere on the continent. I mean all languages are subject to some amount of vowel shift but the French language for example hardly changed over the same period even though the French faced the same plague and the same war. The great vowel shift is an artifact of the uniqueness of English history, of Norman lords who spoke a bastardized form of French and of a language of a population that was considered so low class that it went unregulated only to rise again and have to find its own path. It's of a language that is permeated by foreign words whose foreign pronunciations at some points were considered desirable and at other points considered anathema as the nation found its identity. It represents a period where England went from a backwater vassal of the French to a great nation in its own right.
Of a period when the people moved from largely rural to much more urban. It is a language that is as complex as the history of the English people. So what about tomato and tomato? Well Chaucer likely would have pronounced it tomato except that tomatoes hadn't been introduced to England in Chaucer's time. Shakespeare would have recognized what a tomato was but he likely would have pronounced it with the short a and called it a tomato. And in modern English it was pronounced tomato for a very long time. It was nothing but an affectation of 18th century upper class Englishmen in southern England that turned chance, dance and castle into chaunce, daunce and castle and turned tomato into tomato.
And like the song implies maybe that difference isn't all that important and we don't really have to call the whole thing off. And great job as always by Greg Hengler for working and collaborating so well with the history guy. Great job on the production and my goodness what a tour de force of writing and performance. This is my favorite and there have been so many great ones.
The great vowel shift and the making of modern English here on Our American Stories. Hey you guys this is Tori and Jenny with the 90210 MG podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by nerd tech ODT.
We recorded it at I heart radio's 10th pole event. Wango tango. Did you know that nerd tech ODT remejepant 75 milligrams can help migraines sufferers still attend such an exciting event like wango tango.
It's true. I had one that night and I took my nerd tech ODT and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by nerd tech ODT remejepant 75 milligrams. Life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully nerd tech ODT remejepant 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like wango tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year. And UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65 you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop. But for small business insurance I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot.
And I stay cool and confident. See they're small business owners too. So they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. This is Al American Stories and we tell all kinds of stories here on our show as you well know. Up next a story from Andrea Luden from the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg Tennessee. That's right the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum.
At this museum they have 20,000 salt and pepper shaker sets and 1,500 pepper mills. Here's Andrea on how something like this ever got started. The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum started because my mother who was an archaeologist for most of her life was basically getting bored. We had moved to the US back in the 80s and so she was no longer affiliated with any universities in the States.
So she didn't have any projects or programs to work with. So she started looking for pepper mills because one broke at home and she wanted another pepper mill. And so we were searching for pepper mills and we would get another one and it would eventually break. And as she was searching for pepper mills she started running into salt and pepper shakers. And as she ran into more and more salt and pepper shakers she started to realize that you can trace our society changing over time.
So what was popular in the 20s changes by the 40s the 70s all the way until now. And that really got her passion going because she just wanted an object that's so simple that we all take for granted. But yet every single household in the whole planet has is also a snapshot of our history. And that's what's so fascinating.
It's not a car part. It's not photographs. It's something that's functional and the creativity behind them and the ingenuity in a lot of them is just amazing. So that's how the collection started. And so over the years she just started collecting more.
Now this was never, the intent was never to create a museum. The intent was just to find the creativity how unusual the artistry behind so many of these. And as time went by my mom started collecting more and more and she would pack them up put them underneath the house in boxes. And then one time one Christmas my brother got my mom a digital camera when they first came out. Now when they first came out you have to understand a digital camera the little chip card was 16K was the biggest one that you could get.
So nowadays that's barely a photo you could use on a website. So she would take pictures of them. She was cataloging them all so my dad would bring a box. She would unwrap them, measure, describe them and then pack them away.
But in the evenings she would leave a few out and she'll say oh look isn't this so cute. And we would be like ooh-ing and ah-ing and then we would you know come back home from work or from school. And we would be like so what did you find this you know today out of you know the the boxes and boxes of salt and pepper shakers.
And so sitting around the table like any family does we just started kind of you know chit-chatting and going like well wouldn't it be cool to like share this with people. And we were like well yeah but where will we do that what should we do. And and so slowly the idea formed of creating a museum and then the question was where do we put a museum like this. And at the time we were living in Texas and a friend of ours told us about Gatlinburg, Tennessee which we had never been to before. So we decided to do a quick trip and so we we came to the Smokies and fell in love and we thought oh my goodness this would be a perfect place to place a museum. And so in 2002 we moved from Texas to here and opened the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum. So she collected for about 35 years.
It was a family activity. We would go out and start looking for pepper mills and salt and pepper shakers. Back then you know 30, 40 years ago flea markets were the big thing and they were really nice and rich. Now flea markets are a great place to find socks but you don't really find what you used to find. What happened is over the years those kind of vendors moved into antique shops and antique malls and we've been to pretty much every single state in the U.S. And whichever antique shop or antique mall we would find we would definitely stop and we would start looking around at all the different booths and and it was fun. It's a scavenger hunt. A lot of people ask you know how how did she know what she had and what she didn't have and the condition. And one of the things that she always said is if you are a collector of anything you have an affinity with that whatever subject matter is. So if you are a baseball collector and you have 10,000 baseball cards you know exactly which cards you have and what condition they are or the ones that you're missing or if you're into comic books or anything like that.
You know it becomes part of you and your interest and a hobby that you research more and start to appreciate. I remember I was in a little town called Abingdon, Virginia. It's actually not too far from here and they had in the summertime they have an arts and crafts show and they also have like a vintage market. And I remember just walking and there was like this lady that had a booth of jewelry.
I'm a girl. Hey I love anything that's sparkly and fun and jewelry. So I'm like looking around and all of a sudden behind a bracelet and behind the pendant I see this black and white what looks like salt and pepper shaker earrings. And I'm looking at the lady really quick and I poke her face. Ma'am, excuse me, what are these things over here? And she pulls it out and she's like oh these are salt and pepper shakers. Oh they're salt and pepper shakers? Well that's so weird.
Isn't that weird? And she's like yeah they're kind of weird. And I'm like oh okay well how much are they? And she said 20 bucks. And I was like 20 bucks?
Oh okay I'll give you 15. And she was like okay I'll take it. Inside my heart was racing because I'd always heard about these earrings that are salt and pepper shakers. Literally they're salt and pepper shaker earrings.
They're the the screwback you know old-fashioned so you know they're dated 40s 50s you know and the screwback thingy and I'm like inside I'm jumping in outside I'm just like cool you know like oh you know I mean I would have paid 50 bucks for these. But I just remember and I'm like running back to my mom like you won't believe what I found. And so little moments like that but there are so many what's amazing about salt and pepper shakers is you get surprised even after so many years of collecting salt and pepper shakers we'll still run into shakers we've never seen before and just be completely blown away. So like some of the favorites are Mount St. Helen. So they actually make the Mount St. Helen volcano mountain out of the ashes of Mount St. Helen and it shows the volcano before it exploded and after it exploded.
So the the part that exploded the top part is one shaker and then the rest of the mountain is the other shaker. And then things like I like a lot of things are interactive also. So there is the Mona Lisa. And so the Mona Lisa lady she is the salt you take her out of the frame, and the frame is the pepper. I mean just that ingenuity just that surprise and you just go like, oh my goodness, who would have thought, and it's so it's always a surprise.
It's always always brings a smile to your face, and something you just want to share with others. And it was just neat because the other thing about going to antique shops and antique malls, when you're when you're younger person you're going with somebody who are in their, you know, 50s or 60s or something like that because that's about the age of my parents were is they you'll run into like, I would go with my dad, and you would run into tools, and I would be like hey dad what's this for, and then he would say oh well this would be used at a farm or on a ranch or in a factory or blah blah blah kind of a thing. So that's one of the fun things about going to antique shops and antique malls is it's walking down our history as a culture as humans, look at all these things that used to be used all those things are part of our history and legacy, and I think they're getting forgotten, but it's, it was just part of the, the extra bonus of the adventures of going in search of salt and pepper shakers is also to look back at our, our history in this planet. And you're listening to Andrea luden and she's talking to us from Gatlin Berg Tennessee, the home of the salt and pepper shaker museum.
When we come back, more from Andrea luden on salt and pepper shakers here on our American stories. Hey you guys, this is Tori and Jenny with the 90210 mg podcast. We have such a special episode brought to you by nerd tech ODT. We recorded it at I heart radio's 10th poll event, Wingo tango. Did you know that nerd tech ODT remejia pants 75 milligrams can help migraines suffers still attend such an exciting event like Wingo tango. It's true. I had one that night and I took my nerd tech ODT, and I was present and had an amazing time. Here's a little glimpse of our conversation with some of our closest friends. This episode was brought to you by nerd tech ODT remejia pants 75 milligrams life with migraine attacks can mean missing out on big moments with friends and family.
But thankfully nerd tech ODT remejia pants 75 milligrams is the only medication that is proven to treat a migraine attack and prevent episodic migraines in adults. So lively events like Wingo tango don't have to be missed. Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year, and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15 through December 7. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
It can seem confusing, but it doesn't have to be. Visit UHCmedicarehealthplans.com to learn more. UnitedHealthcare, helping people live healthier lives. I know everything there is to know about running a coffee shop, but for small business insurance, I need my State Farm agent. They make sure my business stays piping hot, and I stay cool and confident. See, they're small business owners too, so they know how to help you best. State Farm is in your corner and on it. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Call your local State Farm agent for a quote today. And we're back with our American stories. You've been listening to Andrea Luden from the Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where they have 20,000 salt and pepper shaker sets and 1,500 pepper mills. We left off with Andrea talking about what it was like searching for all of these salt and pepper shakers across this great country.
Back to Andrea. In searching for salt and pepper shakers, you also get to see not only antique shops and antique malls, but you see the small towns also. So the reason why we traveled so much is my mom, my dad, and I made jewelry. We would go to arts and craft shows around the country. And those shows are usually on the weekends, so during the week we would be going from one location to another, and it would usually be going from one state to another, so from Indiana to Ohio or to Pennsylvania or Michigan, and all of this during the summertime. So during the week, it would give us a great opportunity to look for antique shops, antique malls, and a lot of those places are found in the hearts and the main streets of these little towns in the middle of nowhere in these states.
So you had to get off the interstate and start searching. Also, as you look around in a map, just pull out a regular map, any map, it doesn't matter what map, and start looking at the little towns. And there are certain words in the town that will have a reference to salt, and that's pretty interesting because it turns out that a lot of the roads that we use were roads used for commerce, and one of the main things that was sold and traded was salt, because without salt, humans can't live. Without salt, your food would spoil, because this is before refrigeration, so it was a very important item and mineral that you needed.
So you have like Saltville, which of course it's a pretty basic, obvious name, you have Saltville, and then you have all these other names of towns that you can see, like anything that has lick on it, L-I-C-K, it has to do with a salt lick. That's because animals used to go there and they would lick the salt because they need the salt. The thing about salt and pepper shakers, it's like an onion, so it's not only these containers for salt and pepper, you start to peel one layer of the onion and then another layer and you get into more and more history.
The Romans had a whole road, their own interstate, it would be like Interstate 40 kind of a thing, called the Saltavia, and that was a road that was only having to do with commerce of salt. There's a time when salt was more expensive than gold, so it's really amazing when you start to go into the history of something that we all take for granted, that salt. And then with pepper, that's also another fascinating thing, because if it wasn't for pepper, Columbus would never have gotten on a ship and tried to cross the Atlantic to get to the Indies.
Because he ended up running into what he later called the West Indies, because he was trying to find India and the Spice Islands, because he was in search of pepper, as well as cinnamon and all of these other spices that we now take for granted, but it's so rich and flavorful. So it's just amazing what something so insignificant as a container of salt and pepper, what they actually represent. The creation, the forming of salt and pepper shakers is very American, in the sense of, there's always been a container for salt, but back in 1909, 1910, 1911, around that time, Morton, a gentleman by the name of Morton in Chicago and Detroit area, he came up with an additive that would help coat the little crystals of salt and allow it to pour. And that's when the Morton Salt Company became so famous with their slogan of when it rains, it pours. He, by finding an additive and creating this type of salt, he created a boom for salt shakers. And so that created a whole industry.
And so you have all these salt and pepper shakers from the early 1920s and 30s kind of thing. But then World War II happened. And with World War II, there was the occupation of Japan, which is really amazing because what happened with the occupation of Japan is the American government decided that they wanted to kickstart the Japanese economy. So they sent representatives from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, from all these factories of goods like teacups and kettles and dishes and things like that.
Pottery, porcelain, because Japan is very famous for its porcelain and pottery and artistry. So they sent these representatives over there to kickstart those factories back up again for only the American market. So they were creating items to be sold back in the United States.
World War II is over now. You have all of these servicemen that are coming back home. They have been traveling all over the world. So they come back home and everybody's pumped up. There's a new energy in the US.
This is in the late 40s, early 50s. You start to get into the tradition of the road trip. Let's get the family, everybody on the car and let's go. So they go.
Route 66 is born. Going to Florida is the big tradition as well. And along the way, they have to buy souvenirs. And what do they end up buying? Salt and pepper shakers.
Because it's also helping an economy getting boomed and coming up as well. So again, there's all of this history that is surrounded in something that we all take for granted that's sitting at your table. And it's just incredible how how one thing is connected to another through something as simple as salt and pepper. We have a lot of people that will come out of the museum and they were like, oh, my gosh, I saw this shaker that I haven't seen since I was five years old because my great, great aunt, she had them. And it brings these memories to people. It brings these family connections that they hadn't thought about in so long. And then they always go like, I wonder what happened with that set. Or they have it. You know, they'll say, I still have it.
I can't believe I saw it here. And it's just so neat to bring that connection back to to the family, because this is this is a labor of love. It's not like we're, you know, making riches here. We are sharing a passion and a love of an item that we don't think should be taken for granted because everybody has it in their house. Not everybody has a computer or has a purse or whatever. But everybody has this one thing that connects us all together.
And that's so cool. My mother passed away in 2015. She passed away at the age of 80. She had a very full life, a very rich and full life. I always said that if she had seven lifetimes in one lifetime, she would take everything to the extreme. So so she didn't let anything go to waste. She hated napping or sleeping because she didn't want to miss anything. Any time we would go on an airplane, you know, she would always be looking out the window. It's like she just loved it. She had a passion for living in a passion for this world and a passion for for this planet.
So she always lived to the fullest. And so when she passed away, she was the driving force behind all of this. And so for me personally, it was a stumbling block because all of a sudden it was like my motors were taken away from me. I started drifting. I didn't know where I'm going.
Now what? But being in the museum, definitely she's here. This is part of her. It will always be a part of her. And just continuing to make her dream an everyday thing. It's not that she ever wanted to become famous or be known like, oh, she's a salt lady. No, she just wanted to share with everybody what she found fascinating, you know, and she would say, look at this. Isn't this fascinating? And she would just get you contagious about whatever interesting thing that she found.
And there's so much hiding behind salt and pepper shakers. And so so it's been really neat and an honor to be able to continue her legacy with the salt and pepper shakers. And great job as always to Faith and a special thanks to Andrea Luden and also to her mom for, well, creating a daughter like she did and teaching her about the things that matter in life, which is to have passion for the small things and family. And my goodness, to have a daughter talk about a mother this way, it doesn't get better, folks. She had a passion for living, a passion for this world.
And by the way, though she got lost for a little bit, it became clear what she was going to do with the rest of her life and listen to Andrea's passion. It's infectious and it makes you want to just get up and start driving around with your family across country and stop in little towns and roam around in little shops. By the way, you can go to Gatlinburg and visit the museum. Again, 20,000 salt and pepper shaker sets, 1500 pepper mills and a whole lot of stories about this country.
The Salt and Pepper Shaker Museum, its story. And in the end, Andrea Luden and her mother's story here on Our American Story. Music Soon millions will make Medicare coverage decisions for next year and UnitedHealthcare can help you feel confident about your choices. For those eligible, Medicare annual enrollment runs from October 15th through December 7th. If you're working past age 65, you might be able to delay Medicare enrollment depending on your employer coverage.
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