Annie Edson Taylor: the Women Who Jumped the Niagara Falls in a Barrel (#4)

Let's Learn About... #4 - Annie Edson Taylor: Annie Edson Taylor (1838-1921): the Women Who Jumped the Niagara Falls in a Barrel

Charlotte 0:14
Hello, and welcome to a new episode of Let's Learn About podcast - where you learn all sorts of random stuff about random... stuff!

Ellie 0:24
Learn all the things you want to know, that you didn't know you needed to know.

Charlotte 0:28
I feel like we need to come up with a proper tagline because it changes every single episode.

Ellie 0:33
That's part of the fun of it though, isn't it?

Charlotte 0:35
In my case it comes out more and more rambley each time.

Ellie 0:39
Maybe by Christmas we can see how rambley we can get it and then decide.

Charlotte 0:47
So if you didn't listen to the last episode, please go and listen to it because it was incredible; we heard the story of the Great Emu War of Australia in the 1930s.

Ellie 0:59
It is the greatest moment of history ever, and you really need to go listen to it!

Charlotte 1:04
If that doesn't intrigue you, then what's wrong with you? But today we're going to go back to another story of a woman in history. It was a random woman that I came across earlier; I was just searching for people who just have great stories and I came across this woman, and her story is just the weirdest thing that I have heard. She sounds a little bit kind of all over the place. So I will just go straight into it - you probably haven't heard of her, but this is the story of Annie Edson Taylor.

Ellie 1:52
What a name!

Charlotte 1:53
What a great name. So Annie Edson Taylor was born in 1838 and she died in 1921, and she was an American school teacher who... are you ready for this? On her 63rd birthday she became the first person to survive a trip over Niagara Falls inside a barrel.

Ellie 2:19
Wait... WHAT?! Hang on, wait, hang on, wwwwww.... that's not where I thought the story was going to go!

Charlotte 2:31
I said, I told you it's a bit of a funny one! I will get into it in a minute - I'll go through a little bit of her life - but the reason why she was kind of... she's not really famous because I've never heard of her before, but she decided to throw herself over Niagara Falls in a barrel in order to make money, but it never really made her very much money. So I will go straight into her stories; her Iife started in quite a tragic way, it was a series of events that wasn't ideal. Her father owned a flour mill and he died when Annie was only 12. However, because he owned this mill he had enough money for the family to live comfortably pretty much for their whole life. However, she... I think Annie was one of these people where she's a bit of a nomad. Like today, I feel like she'd be one of those people who lives in a camper van and travels all over the place. She decided to go on to become a schoolteacher, and during her studies she met David Taylor, who she married and they had a son who died in infancy which, you know, was quite common to happen during that time. But the sad thing was that her husband died soon after.

Ellie 3:54
Oh, no!

Charlotte 3:55
Yeah, so Annie wasn't in a great place. When she was widowed she spent a few years jumping between jobs and she just couldn't settle in one place, and this was when the start of her nomad lifestyle started; she started jumping all over the place. She eventually ended up in Michigan where she hoped to become a dance instructor, so a little bit different school teacher, and there were no dance schools in the area at the time so she decided to open her own. She put a bit of money into opening her own dance school, but then shortly after she didn't want to do that anymore, so she decided to move somewhere else to teach music.

Ellie 4:36
She's like the modern day millennial - jumping from job to job, taking a gap year...

Charlotte 4:44
Yeah, and then she did stop teaching music and moved to Texas to do something. I'm not even sure what she did there. And then she moved again to Mexico City, where she went to live with her friend and she tried to find work there and she was like, right, I need to try and find some work because I'm just travelling all over the place at this point. However, she was still unsuccessful, and she still couldn't find work, so she moved back to Michigan where she started. Back in Michigan, she realised that she had to do something to make some money, otherwise she would end up in the work house and she's used to her family being quite, you know, they were comfortable on the money that their dad left them, but she just didn't want to stay there. So it was either: she needed to get a job for good or end up in the work house. So, with money in mind, she decided that the one thing she would do to make money is to try and do something newsworthy, which would be to be the first person to ride over the Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Ellie 5:49
How do you go from teacher, to dance teacher, to music teacher to barrell riding over Niagara Falls?

Charlotte 6:01
I don't know, I don't know.

Ellie 6:02
Annie is not okay!

Charlotte 6:04
No, no. So she decided to make her own custom barrel for her trip; it was constructed of oak and iron and she padded it with a mattress, and there were several delays in the launching of this barrel, particularly because no one wanted to be part of her potential suicide. So if her barrel failed and she died, no one wanted to be a part of that. If she actually died and ended up accidentally committing suicide, nobody wanted to be part of that, which I mean is understandable.

Ellie 6:37
I feel really mean for laughing, but every single time I'm like "what?".

Charlotte 6:41
Yeah, I know. So two days before her attempt, they decided, of course, to put a cat in her barrel and throw a cat over Niagara Falls; over one of the smaller - there's like a smaller waterfall called the Horseshoe Falls, which makes up Niagara Falls - they decided to put a cat in her barrel, and throw it down Niagara Falls to see if the cat survived. Luckily it survived, so they were on! They were just like "cool! We're on, we can do this now, we can put a woman in it now that a cat has survived".

Ellie 7:18
Yeah, no, the cat didn't lose all of its nine lives! Cat tested, human approved. Let's go!

Charlotte 7:24
Yeah. So they then decided that on the 24th October 1901 - which was her 63rd birthday - that would be the day that they would throw her over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. So the barrel was put over the side of a rowboat, and she climbed inside along with her lucky heart shaped pillow - like that would make any difference if she was to fall and die, her heart shaped pillow would make all the difference - and they screwed on the lid, and her friends use a bicycle tyre pump to compress it.

Ellie 7:59
Hang on, wait, hang on. Did you just say they put a lid on the barrel?

Charlotte 8:04
Yeah, a lid. So she didn't fall out, basically.

Ellie 8:08
I just have this picture of her in the barrel, like that scene in The Hobbit where all the dwarves are in the barrels going down the river and they're just hanging out the top. They put a lid on her?

Charlotte 8:19
That's what I imagined too. Yeah, they put a lid on it so, you know, in case the barrel goes upside down or something, she doesn't just fall out the bottom.

Ellie 8:28
Oh God this story gets weirder.

Charlotte 8:31
It does! So they use a bicycle tire pump to compress the air inside the barrel so she can breathe. And then they plugged the hole with a cork so water couldn't get in it, obviously. And then they set it... they just set it adrift down the river towards Niagara Falls. And then the current eventually took the barrel over the side and she actually went down Niagara Falls in her barrel - and it was Horseshoe Falls, the same place where they took the cat over, and this place has now become the main place where most daredevil stunts happen. So when people go to Niagara Falls to do their own daredevil stunts, this is now where it happens. So this woman started a whole thing.

Ellie 9:16
She was the modern day trendsetter.

Charlotte 9:19
Yeah, so when the barrel got to the bottom, the rescuers reached it shortly after, and she was discovered alive luckily, and she was completely uninjured or like relatively uninjured apart from a cut on her head, which is amazing.

Ellie 9:36
Clearly that heart shaped pillow didn't do its job. Oh, dear what a shame.

Charlotte 9:43
And apparently the trip itself only took 20 minutes, but it was... it just says "it was some time before the barrel was discovered"? I don't know what that means. How long was she just lying in a barrel, waiting for someone to come and get her?

Ellie 9:59
You kind of almost want a film recreation of her experience from inside the barrel. Like make it a VR experience or something.

Charlotte 10:11
Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah.

Ellie 10:13
And literally do it to the timescale in which she got in the barrel, to the moment she is released, and just let people experience that. Because she must have just been bobbing along quite merrily, bit of a fall, and then bobbed along again with a bit more of an injured head than she had previously. Oh my word.

Charlotte 10:33
Yeah, so even though she was okay, and she had managed to do it, she clearly didn't like the experience very much because she... afterwards she told the press, this is a direct quote: "if it was with my dying breath, I would caution anyone against attempting the feat. I would sooner walk up to the mouth of a cannon knowing it was going to blow me to pieces than make another trip over the falls". So clearly it wasn't a very enjoyable experience for her, she would rather be blown up by a cannon.

Ellie 11:05
Now that's just weird to me; who wouldn't want to be put inside of a barrel - nailed inside - and sent over a waterfall? She's clearly insane.

Charlotte 11:15
So despite doing all of this for monetary gain - she was literally only doing this because she wanted to make money - she briefly earned a little bit of money speaking about her experience, like people would pay her to come and do talks about her experience. But apart from that, she was never able to build much wealth from it. So don't really see what the point was? She ended up writing a memoir about her experience, and returned to Niagara Falls to try and sell it to people around there, and they were like "see that big thing there? I fell down there in a barrel". However, this is a part of the story that I just love. I mean, it's not an ideal situation for Annie but it just adds some drama to the story; her manager that was working with her on selling this memoir decided to run away with the barrel! So they were using the barrel as like a thing, where they were like "this is the exact barrel that I, you know, fell down the Niagara Falls in" but her manager nicked the bottle, and she ended up using most of her savings towards private detectives who were hired to try and find the barrel again.

Ellie 12:33
Just leave the barrel alone!

Charlotte 12:36
Yeah, but no, she actually used most of her money hiring private detectives to go and find the barrel. It was eventually located in Chicago, only to then permanently disappear again sometime later, and she never got it back. So not only did she spend all of her wealth that she built up doing this, to hire private detectives to go and find it, it then just went missing again and she never got it back. So, that's fun!

Ellie 13:03
I mean, priorities much?

Charlotte 13:06
Yeah I know, like she did this to make money and then ended up losing all the money to get the barrel back.

Ellie 13:13
I think her and her... well, I mean her and the barrel went through some stuff so I can see why that'd be an attachment to it. But still, at some point... it's just iron and wood, leave it alone woman!

Charlotte 13:25
Yep. So she spent her final years still trying to make money, trying to be a proper little entrepreneurial spirit; she would pose for photographs with tourists, she had her own little souvenir stand by Niagara Falls, where she would pose for photos with tourists. She also attempted to earn some money from the New York Stock Exchange. She briefly talked about how - this is what makes me laugh - she briefly talked about doing the plunge again in 1906. So five years later, she briefly considered doing it again because she was so desperate for money. That just didn't happen. She, I don't know, they must have just decided against it, considering she was 63 when she first did it, so she must have been, what, 68?

Ellie 14:13
Do you think someone nudged her and went: "Do you remember what you said last time you went over the falls? Yeah, maybe don't do it again. Maybe?"

Charlotte 14:23
And also probably - by this point remember, she still didn't have a barrel back because it disappeared - they'd have to build it again. And then she also attempted to write a novel. I'm assuming that didn't happen. And then she tried to reconstruct the 1901 plunge down the Niagara Falls on film; they tried to reconstruct it and make a film of it, which they did, and no one ever saw it. So they just never distributed it anywhere. They made this reconstruction on film, and then just never distributed it, so no one ever saw it. And that was pretty much just the end of Annie; she then died in 1920.

Ellie 15:09
Good innings.

Charlotte 15:10
At the age of 83, so lived a decent life, yes. And she since been the subject of many things in pop culture, including... do you know the book 'Room' by Emma Donohue?

Ellie 15:23
Yeah.

Charlotte 15:24
She has apparently written a short story based on this, which I really want to read now. I'm intrigued to find that. If I find it, I'll put a link to it in the notes.

Ellie 15:35
Or if anyone else knows what the book is, let us know.

Charlotte 15:39
Yeah! There's also been TV shows, books, museum exhibits, and all sorts of things dedicated to her where they're retelling her story; National Geographic have done some little features about her.

Ellie 15:56
That's really cool.

Charlotte 15:58
She's just one of those women where she's not famous - I feel like she didn't really do anything enough to be famous, considering she died in like 1921.

Ellie 16:10
And not every barrel related injuries.

Charlotte 16:12
Yeah, it's so... she's one of those people that has one of these stories that is just so fun. She must have just been... I mean, I assume she must have been a little bit all over the place if she would decide "oh, I might go and do this, even if I might die".

Ellie 16:32
Either that, or she was just very bored.

Charlotte 16:36
Probably that too. I mean, considering she was doing so many different jobs, and she was flitting from city to city and between states, and she was trying to find work anywhere, she clearly just wanted something interesting to do. And, I mean, she's kind of admirable in the fact that she came up with this random thing and actually...

Ellie 17:00
... started a whole chain like other daredevils doing the same thing.

Charlotte 17:04
Yeah! The same waterfall that makes up Niagara Falls is now the place where all these daredevil stunts happen, and I bet a lot of them wouldn't have happened if she hadn't done that.

Ellie 17:18
Exactly. You kind of think that if she'd have maybe been... if maybe, I don't know, YouTube or Instagram was around back in the day, she could have gone viral. So in many ways a woman ahead of her time.

Charlotte 17:28
Yeah, but the only way that they could try and share it was by doing talks and writing a memoir that she couldn't sell because her manager stole her barrel.

Ellie 17:40
I'm sorry, that's still one of the best bits of that story. Did they ever find the barrel though? That's what I want to know.

Charlotte 17:46
I don't know.

Ellie 17:47
Do you think that his descendants have been secretly passing the barrel down generation through generation?

Charlotte 17:55
I wonder if that barrel still exists?

Ellie 17:58
It might do.

Charlotte 17:59
I this is something I want to find out. Maybe I'll go and try and find out after this episode, see if this barrel still exists.

Ellie 18:07
"Have you seen this barrel?"

Charlotte 18:07
Might be in a museum somewhere for all we know.

Ellie 18:09
We can start a campaign - "Have you seen this barrel?"

Charlotte 18:12
Yes. But yeah, I just thought her story is just so interesting, because it's not even anything that wildly special. You know, like when we talked about Sarah Churchill and she's had this life that is just roller coaster after roller coaster, she's just got a regular life. She was just a normal person who was a teacher, who just went and decided to do this completely reckless thing.

Ellie 18:38
And for that I will always admire her.

Charlotte 18:41
Yeah, and I just love it.

Ellie 18:43
Well, sometimes even the most everyday of people can surprise you. And that's what we love about life, is the random strangers that decide to do something crazy, if for nothing else... boredom, pure boredom.

Charlotte 19:00
And I hope to learn more about them by doing research for this podcast.

Ellie 19:06
We should set up our own trivia night and use it to teach all the people about all these amazing stories. Or alternatively, we will just do more episodes of this podcast.

Charlotte 19:18
Probably easier!

Ellie 19:19
Wow, after that shenanigan filled episode, I cannot wait to hear what you're going to come up with next week, because I think I may have a new one to top!

Charlotte 19:32
No, I still think the the Great Emu War is the winner so far.

Ellie 19:35
Well, in which case you, and also our listeners, will have to tune in next week to see what topic we can randomly come up with.

Charlotte 19:43
Yeah, yeah. If you want to learn more about this story, or any of the other topics that we've talked about on the show, head to learnaboutpod.com and all of our notes will be there. You can listen to all the episodes there as well. Or you can find links to our social media and our Spotify and things over on the website as well.

Ellie 20:05
And if you guys have got a topic that you want us to cover that is equally as intriguing as emus and crazy barrel ladies, let us know on Twitter and Instagram! We are @learnaboutpod on both channels.

Charlotte 20:19
Feel free to let us know any topics because we would love to hear them, because obviously we we're only two people. We can only come up with so many different topics, and if you've got things that we would never even consider talking about, then I'd love to hear them, and we can discuss them. So yeah, we'll see you next week with another episode.

Ellie 20:40
See you next week. Bye!

Charlotte 20:43
Bye!