Groundhog Day's Very Weird Origins (1877)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 1 February 2024

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s February 1st. This day in 1877, the first Groundhog Day ceremony is held in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania — in which a small rodent’s shadow determines long-term meteorological forces.

Jody, Niki and Kellie discuss how this ceremony came to be, and some of the very weird elements, from elixirs of everlasting life to secret societies pulling the strings.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:09.0	This day February 1st, 1877, the first Groundhog Day celebration.
0:16.9	It is held at Goblers Knob.
0:19.4	What is up with these names?
0:20.4	I mean.
0:21.4	From back in the day.
0:22.4	It is. Let back in the day. It is...
0:23.0	Let's just get through this.
0:25.0	It is held a gobblers knob at Puxatani, Pennsylvania, the town where it is famously
0:29.9	still held and according to tradition if people know if a groundhog comes out of its
0:34.2	hole on this day and sees its shadow it gets scared and runs back into its burrow which means
0:38.6	that there's going to be six more weeks of winter weather and if there's no shadow
0:42.4	then that means hey spring is on the way sooner
0:45.7	than that I don't really belabor this intro because we can get into the story of how this
0:50.0	tradition came to be and it is very fascinating but also I will say and maybe I'm
0:54.3	not the alone who didn't know this but some of the backstory and the traditions
0:56.9	surrounding this are very weird and it also makes me question how reliable a
1:01.2	groundhog is at predicting long-term meteorological
1:04.4	forces. I don't know just me color me skeptical but we will get into it it is
1:08.9	fascinating nonetheless here as always Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Welsley.
1:14.5	Hello there. Hello Jody. Hey there.
	...

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