Welcome to the History Tricks where Annie resambles to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

Hello, it is Jessica today. Susan is on her annual New England vacation in lieu of a 30-second summary and explanation.

This is one of our lost episodes. We had done some research for this episode way back in the first year of the show 10 years ago.

When we were covering Betty Crocker, we thought, hey, what about covering Aunt Jim Maima?

And for assorted reasons, we did not think it was such a good idea at the time. Mostly, we felt that we needed to learn more, frankly.

But since then, we've done quite a few episodes about women of color, some of which intersect with this episode.

And I would ask you, please, please listen to some or all of those, particularly Ida B. Wells, Mary Terrell, Fannie Lou Hamer,

and Hadi McDaniel. Also, our episode on 1950s housewives. And heck, Betty Crocker. History is an octopus.

Also, I have a cold, ideally, just a cold, and I know my voice is scratchier than normal. I'm sorry about that. I blame the air conditioning. And now on with the show.

Let's talk about Aunt Jim Maima. But first, let's drop her into history. In 1889, the Eiffel Tower built for the Exposition Universal first opened to visitors.

It would be the tallest man-made structure on earth for the next 41 years.

Frederick Douglass noted abolitionist and frequent appear in our episodes was named the Minister and Chief Consul to Haiti.

The Wall Street Journal began publishing. The Nintendo company was founded. Yes, you heard me to produce a card game.

Nelly Bly left on her journey around the world to try to beat the character Phillyus Fox time in Jewels Burns around the world in 80 days.

Born this year, Adolf Hitler, Charlie Chaplin, and Zerna Sharp, future author of the Dick and Jane books.

Died this year, Bill Star, the poet Robert Browning, and Jefferson Davis, former president of the Confederate States of America.

And in 1889, at the theater, the recently trending spokeswoman for Aunt Jim Maima products crossed the footlights and into the American grocery store, where she's been for 131 years.

On that fateful day in 1889 in St. Joseph, Missouri, a white entrepreneur named Chris Rutt had indeed fallen into a rut.

With the grand visions and limited knowledge, common these days to many internet startups, this former newspaperman and his business partner had sunk most of their money into a bankrupt flower mill.

Not to make lofts out of it or a distillery like two young men would be guilty of today, but brace yourselves to sell a flower out of weird.

But not like their predecessors, who sold flower as a commodity, you know, barrels of flower, just like every other kind of flower, sold in bulk to people who sold a lot of flower.

Ho-hom, big yawn. There's too much competition. That's why the mill went bankrupt in the first place.

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