Episode 122 (Hercules)

the memory palace

Nate DiMeo

Radiotopia, Publicradio, History, Natedimeo

4.8 • 7.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2018

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, from PRX, a curated network of extraordinary, story-driven shows.

Music

We start with Facing the Obstacles, from Robert Simonson's score to The Final Member.
Nice Breeze Isn't It? by Simon Rackham
The Things Left Unsaid, by Caleb Burhans.
View from a Balcony by Isorinne.
1979 by Deru.
The Julianna Barwick remix of This Will Destroy You's The Puritan.

Notes

I found this article by Chelsea Lenhart particularly useful.
As I did this one by Edward Lawler, Jr.
And this one by Kathryn Gehred.
As well as W.E.B. DuBois' The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study.
Fritz Herschfield's George Washington and Slavery, A Documentary Study.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the memory palace.
0:02.0	I'm Nate de Mayo.
0:03.9	Hercules was a real-life man.
0:06.6	There are a number of reasons we know for sure.
0:09.0	His name, just the one name just Hercules, shows up in tax records.
0:13.0	He's there among a list of taxable property.
0:15.8	In the census of slaves conducted in 1787, he is listed as a cook.
0:21.0	He is mentioned in a handful of diaries and letters.
0:24.0	There is a portrait that people think is him.
0:26.3	A black man and a white chef's coat.
0:28.8	His dark hair barely contained in his tight white chef's hat.
0:32.4	It is probably him.
0:34.0	But it could be someone else entirely.
0:36.0	But Hercules was a real man.
0:37.8	We have the evidence.
0:38.9	And we have that evidence, those records, the diaries, the probable portrait, because
0:43.1	George Washington owned him.
0:44.8	And when you are George Washington, people save your stuff.
0:47.8	They keep your writing.
0:49.1	They keep the diaries and letters that your friends and your family wrote.
0:52.8	Just in case you, first president, founding father, hero of the revolution, show up in
0:57.5	those diaries.
	...

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