Mrs. America

or they are born with the privilege they need to ascend. Others, like William Shakespeare once said, have greatness thrust upon them. Take Susannah for example. She was born in eighteen sixty to a humble family of Ohio farmers, but her parents eventually moved the family to Silver Lake, Kansas when she

was about twelve. Susannah was smart, too, very smart. She had taken several college level classes while still in high school, allowing her to skip her freshman year at Kansas State Agricultural College and become a sophomore, and it was during her time there when she met the man she would one day marry, Louis Psalter. Louis had come from an important political family in Kansas and was working on getting

his degree in law. Sadly, Susannah had no choice but to drop out of college several weeks before graduation after coming down with the serious illness. She and Louis got married after she finished school, and together they moved to the brand new city of Argonia, Kansas. It was so new that Susannah not only gave birth to their first child there, but also to the first baby born in town.

Susannah made waves in other ways as well. She joined the Women's Christian Temperance Union and evangelical organization dedicated to helping women and girls through the adoption of social moral policy reforms. Two areas of intense focus for the group where pro ambition and women's suffrage. Though not everyone agreed with their beliefs or their tactics, the group worked tirelessly

to get women the right to vote. Susannah also carried her passion for the group's work to the Prohibition Party, where she advocated for the legal abolition of alcohol, believing it to be the foundation of society's ills. Amidst all her activism, though Susannah and Lewis continued to grow their family as well as its political cash Argonia was incorporated in eighteen eighty five, and her father was elected shortly after as its first mayor. Her husband joined him as

city clerk. Two years later, women in Kansas were given the right to vote, but only in municipal elections. The Women's Christian Temperance Union was thrilled. A few men in town. On the other hand, we're not. The time had come to elect a new mayor, and for the first time anywhere, a woman was on the ballot. Susanna Assaulter had suddenly become a player in local politics, much to the surprise of everyone. On election day, she found herself with the full support of the w c t U and the

local Republican Party, all of whom voted for her. Those votes were then counted that night. Susannah, the farm girl from Ohio had just made history as the first female mayor in the United States and possibly in the world. There was just one problem. She had no idea she was even running. At the time, it was not a requirement for the full list of candidates to be published ahead of time. The w c t U had even backed a completely different person in the race until it

found out about Susannah's candidacy. It turns out that several men in town had put her on the ballot as a joke, expecting her to lose. They had wanted to send a message to all other women with dreams of going into politics, don't Instead, their little prank backfired. Upon discovering the last minute edition, the city officials asked Susannah if she would accept the position if elected. She agreed

to serve pending the outcome of the election. The Women's Christian Temperance Union immediately pulled their endorsements of their original candidate to support her instead. Not much happened in the years Susannah Salter served as mayor of Argonia. The rest of the country, however, made her single term a perpetual top story. Papers from places as far away as Sweden wrote about how wonderfully she dressed and how surprised they

were at the skillful way she conducted herself in office. Unfortunately, journalism today hasn't changed much when it comes to covering women in positions of power. But one thing's for sure. If you're going to pull a prank, you better make sure it doesn't push back. Everyone's looking for a quick fix, a pill or a potion to cure what ails them. The ancient Egyptians made medicines from willow and fig worked was a plant used across the UK to treat leg wounds. Unfortunately,

not all remedies were so helpful or natural. In Europe during the Middle Ages, entertainers traveling from town to town would often find themselves with nowhere to perform. Theaters might be shut down, so live performances, such as circuses or those that were put on by acting troops, had to find other ways to make ends meet. Many pivoted to selling cure alls to the crowd. These medicine shows would roll into town, glass bottles rattling in the backs of

their wagons. Those with the knack for salesmanship would hawk miracle elixirs, which promised everything from hairy growth to curing sianica. As the practice matured and made its way to America, entrepreneurs got bolder and more creative. Perhaps the most famous of them was snake oil liniments. It was said to cure anyone who drank it of rheumatism, toothaches, spraying, and frostbite, among countless other ailments. In reality, these concoctions were made

with drugs like opium, cocaine, and alcohol. They didn't cure anything, and in many cases made a person feel even worse. As a result. It gave rise to a brand new term, the snake oil salesman, a moniker that has come to describe anyone peddling fake medicines to hapless buyers. But one man claimed to have found a miracle herb in his travels. His name was Thomas Harriet, an English astronomer and translator who graduated from Oxford University in the late sixteenth century.

Harriet had studied maritime navigation, focusing on how to traverse the Atlantic Ocean in order to reach the New World using the stars as a guide. He also had a passion for languages, specifically those of the indigenous tribes of America. In fact, with the help of two members of the Roanoke tribe, he was able to translate their Carolina Algonquin language. They had come to England from Roanoke Island off the cost of North Carolina at the request of Sir Walter Riley.

Riley had asked them to describe the area and what future explorers would face once they arrived. In the early fifteen eighties, Riley had begun preparations for another expedition to Roanoke, and he needed help. He turned to Harriet, who came on board Riley's team as a math tutor, navigational expert, accountant, and a translator. Harriet made the journey in five He wrote about his experiences on the island a few years later, describing the miraculous herb he had encountered, called upp a Walk.

He titled his essay A Brief and True Report on the newfound Land of Virginia. According to Harriet, up a walk, when breathed in by the Roanoke tribes members cleansed their bodies. It opened their pores and purged their airways of mucus, preventing them from catching diseases. The Roanoke also believed their gods favored the herb. They would dry it out and grind it into a fine powder before tossing it into the air, hoping to appeal is the deities watching over them.

If a storm approached the island, the tribe members would throw the upp a Walk in the air and the water, then hold hands, chant and dance to pacify the gods they believed were responsible. But the most common practice regarding upp a walk was in burning it and inhaling the smoke. The roanoke had crafted pipes out of clay through which

they would let the smoke flow throughout their bodies. It seemed to make them superhumanly healthy, which intrigued the English settlers, who had traveled such a long way and only grown sicker. It took roughly another century, but by sevent hundred the herb Thomas Harriet had praised so poetically in his correspondence became a major cash crop for Europe. It then found its way to places like Cuba and the Caribbean, where

it's spurred entire industries. Lots of people still enjoy up a walk today, but we're far more aware of the hazards it can pose. It doesn't make our skin clearer or fend off diseases. In fact, it tends to make us worse. Harriets himself died from cancer, which many historians believe he contracted from over using it, the miracle cure he had fallen in love with tobacco. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe

for free on Apple Podcasts. Or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show and you can learn all about it over at the World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye