01x07 - Precarious Products

[bunniefuu]

[mysterious music]

- Did you know that
there was once a time

when your fridge could be fatal?

- Just imagine you're so
afraid of your refrigerator,

you gotta keep it outside.

- Do you remember when
holiday decorations were made

from toxins?

- It has this beautiful effect,

but in reality,
it's a death trap.

- It's like a
Christmas nightmare.

- Or when monkeys
arrived by mail?

- You'd open the box and
that monkey would jump out

and bite the first
person it sees.

[monkey growls]
- Wild, wild stuff.

- These are the things we
used to do for fun, for money,

or maybe out of boredom,

that we'll never see again.

Were they dangerous? Certainly.

Deadly? Occasionally.

But boy, wasn't it exciting?

[dramatic music]

These days, it seems
like you can get

anything you want delivered
straight to your door,

but back in the day, there
were things you could get

through the mail that
would never fly today.

- In 1888, the first Sears
Roebuck catalog comes out

and it is absolutely
no exaggeration to say

that this will become
the Amazon of its time.

- [Announcer] Mail
order catalogs

offer a far greater assortment

than you could ever find
in any store in America.

- The joys of internet shopping
today would not be possible

without the mail order catalog.

You could get anything
and everything.

If you needed some new
soap, maybe a new outfit,

you could even get a house.

But you know what
else you could get?

Dynamite.

[expl*si*n booms]

- [Henry] Sears sells
dynamite for as little

as 13 cents a pound,
less than $5 today.

- They actually say, verbatim,

"Dynamite is, in our
opinion, an excellent agent

for removing tree stumps,"

and it's hard to argue that
it wouldn't get the job done.

- There's no training,
there's no regulations,

and so to cover their
risk, Sears says

they'll include a safety
brochure for the amateur.

- You could be blowing
up a tree stump

as per the suggestion,

or you could be doing who
knows with your dynamite.

- Imagine being able to add
dynamite to your Amazon cart.

- It's amazing to think there
was a time when your neighbor

down the street could just
start blasting off dynamite.

For most of us, dynamite
is just something

we've seen in cartoons.

- Eventually, Sears
stops offering dynamite,

noting that to conform
with the insurance laws,

it has been forced to
stop selling expl*sives.

- [Henry] Sears isn't the only
place you can get wild items

through the mail.

- The golden age
of the comic book

is the 1930s, '40s and '50s.

This is where America is
introduced to superheroes

like Captain America,
Superman, Batman,

Wonder Woman.

- One of the most iconic
elements of classic comic books

of the time, are really
these over the top ads.

I mean, you can order
things like x-ray specs,

Whoopee cushions,
and even live pets.

- For 18.95, a company
in Miami Beach,

Florida will send
you a real, live

squirrel monkey in the mail.

- A monkey coming
through the mail

with no real instructions
about its care, its food.

It says actually that they
can eat anything you eat,

and also they love lollipops,

which probably don't
exist in the jungles

from which they come.

- Most customers think
they're getting a cute,

furry little creature.

They are completely unprepared
for what they're getting

and what the challenges will be.

- Squirrel monkeys require
an insane level of care.

And two common squirrel
monkey traits:

throwing feces and
frequent masturbation.

- [Henry] But still,
squirrel monkey fever

sweeps over the United
States in the '60s and '70s.

- As many as 173,000 squirrel
monkeys are imported from Peru

and Columbia during
this time period.

- This would never happen today.

There are so many regulations

about sending live
animals through the mail.

[monkey chattering]

- When they arrive, they're
hungry, they're angry.

- You'd open the box and
that monkey would jump out

and bite the first
person it sees.

- And there's just
reports about, you know,

someone's aunt getting bitten,

a kid getting bitten,
just like, it's nuts.

- It's probably no surprise
that by the late '70s,

the ads for live monkeys, they
disappear from comic books.

I can't imagine there were
too many repeat customers.

- Combing your
hair seems like one

of the least dangerous
things you could do,

but there was a time when it
could be the most dangerous.

- These days, it seems like
everything is made from plastic.

In the 19th century, it didn't
exist, they used ivory.

- The problem with ivory is

that it comes mostly
from elephants,

and they have to be hunted

and then their ivory
has to be harvested

and shipped to
the United States.

All of that makes
it very expensive.

- [Henry] Manufacturers
have little else to turn to.

Not only is ivory good
for everyday items,

it is the only
material durable enough

and elegant enough for high-end
products like piano keys

and billiard ba*ls.

- In the 1860s,
billiards is starting

to evolve from a purely
upper class leisure pursuit

to more of a kind of
middle class amusement.

So this billiards company,
Phelan & Collender,

put out this call,
anybody that can come up

with a substance
that will allow us

to make billiard
ba*ls more affordable,

we will pay you $10,000.

- [Henry] An inventor named
John Wesley Hyatt comes up

with just the thing.

- He combines different
materials, wood pulp, camper,

cellulose, shellac, and alcohol.

He succeeds in creating
this durable, lightweight,

and versatile material.

Essentially created
synthetic plastic.

- [Henry] Hyatt patents
the material as celluloid.

- [Announcer] Celluloid,
a cheap, plentiful

and manmade
substitute for ivory.

- Since it can be mass produced,

you can actually add coloring,

you can give it a
different luster.

You can make it look shiny.

It could look more
like tortoise shell

by adding different
additives to it.

So celluloid not only was
a substitute for ivory,

but it could be enhanced.

- Celluloid is a
miracle material.

It's used for everything
from billiard ba*ls

to eyeglass frames,
to hair combs.

- It just has one problem.

Celluloid is really flammable.

- It's possibly one of the
most combustible things

on planet Earth.

It will go up fast
and it will go up hot.

- When celluloid
is exposed to heat,

it can quickly release a gas

that can result in an expl*si*n.

- In the late 1800s, an
ivory comb would run you

around $10, which
doesn't sound like a lot,

but that's $350
in today's money.

So when celluloid comes along

and offers combs for less
than $1, people are ecstatic.

- These combs are everywhere.

Women use decorative combs
to hold their hair in place.

Men are combing their beards.

- But this is the time
before electrification.

There's gas lamps everywhere.

When people cooked,
they cooked on a hearth

or they cooked on a stove
where there's flames.

- And these combs, made of
this combustible material,

would just light up

and it would be a catastrophe.

- In Pittsburgh, an 82-year-old
man is combing his hair

near a gas stove and
his comb explodes,

setting his beard
and hair on fire.

- In one incident, a comb
explodes with such force

that it throws a woman
back several feet,

leaving her banged up

with horrible burns
on her face and neck.

- There's many reports of
people losing their eyelashes,

their eyebrows, their hair.

Soon, there are these
crazy headlines

like, "Comb, Cause of Death,"

"Beware the Celluloid Comb."

This stuff is nasty business.

- [Henry] But what makes
this material so combustible?

One of its main ingredients,

nitrocellulose.

- Nitrocellulose is chemically
related to g*n cotton,

which is related to gunpowder.

- But g*n cotton is
way more powerful.

So basically what this means is

that people are combing
their hair with an expl*sive

more dangerous than gunpowder.

- Wild, wild stuff.

- Despite the dangers,
celluloid combs continue

to be produced for decades
until more versatile

and less expl*sive
plastics were introduced

in the 1920s and '30s.

- Now, I don't know about
you, but when I was a kid

and I came home from school,
I went right to the fridge.

Little did I know what
dangers lurked in there.

- In the early 1900s,

the way people
kept food fresh is

they had a device
known as an ice box,

and a ice deliverer
would go down the street

in a horse drawn wagon and
deliver them a big block of ice.

- But ice has a big problem.

It melts and the ice boxes

aren't particularly
well insulated,

so the ice is gone
every day or two

and you have to replace
it before the food spoils.

- This is a pretty
crappy system.

It produces its own
kind of rot and flies.

It's not a good situation.

- [Henry] But then in 1918,

automobile pioneer William
Durant has a breakthrough.

- He mass produces
a home refrigerator

for the very first time, really
making ice boxes obsolete.

- Today, everyone has a fridge,
we take it for granted.

But back then, it's
like a miracle.

Suddenly you don't have to
worry about your food going bad.

- The electric refrigerator
becomes a must-have appliance

for every American.

And in the early


of the American public has
an electric refrigerator

in their home.

By the end of the decade,
it's half the country.

It really is the epitome
of the American dream.

Any food you want at any
time, no icebox required.

- [Henry] What's at the core
of this huge innovation?

- Let's think a little
bit about a refrigerator.

It's an insulated box
and it's kept cool

because it's refrigerant.

Some coolant, if you will, is
traveling through the inside

and keeping the inside cool.

- The refrigerants in
these machines is ammonia,

methyl chloride,
and sulfur dioxide.

In other words, poisons.

- Once these refrigerators
make it into people's homes,

problems start, in
that the compressors

start leaking toxic gas.

- Sulfur dioxide can cause
loss of vision and skin burns.

Methyl chloride, just a
few hours of exposure

can lead to death.

- In just a handful of
months in 1929 in Chicago,


from refrigerator leaks.

There's even
refrigerator leak in 1937

that causes an evacuation
in the White House.

The leak is so severe it
turns the roses in one room

from red to white,

I mean completely destroys
the pigment in them.

- Families started putting them

outside the house just
in case a leak occurred.

- Just imagine you're so
afraid of your refrigerator,

you gotta keep it outside.

Refrigerator companies are
getting so much bad press.

They really begin to wonder

if it's gonna like,
k*ll their sales.

- [Henry] A year after
the Chicago tragedies,

thanks to a chemical engineer
named Thomas Midgley Jr.,

a new coolant is
developed, Freon.

- Tom Midgley says Freon
is the way of the future.

It is a cooling gas that is
safer and it's non-flammable.

And to demonstrate it
in front of a crowd,

he inhales a huge amount of
Freon and he blows out a candle.

Perfect, right? No, not perfect!

Tom, Freon is not
safe to inhale.

You don't do that.

- [Henry] Freon becomes the norm
for the next seven decades,

and is also instrumental

in the creation of
air conditioners.

- Eventually, scientists
come to understand

that Freon depletes
the ozone layer.

In 2015, scientists

and governments alike
begin to phase out Freon

in favor of other coolants.

- I have a good relationship
with my fridge these days,

but perhaps tonight,
I will sleep

with one eye open, cast
towards my kitchen tonight

just to make sure

that I don't go out in the
stupidest way imaginable.

Here lies Brian Quinn,
k*lled by a fridge.

- Did you know that there
are tons of everyday items

that were invented
by the US military?

Like the microwave oven,
duct tape, super glue,

and one very famous insecticide.

Or should I say infamous?

- The American
military has a problem.

It's fighting a w*r in the
Pacific in a tropical zone.

- [Henry] During World w*r II,

American soldiers are
under attack, by insects.

- Bugs, and their insect
born diseases are almost

as much of an
enemy as the enemy.

- A Swiss chemist uncovers

this new chemical
compound called DDT,

and this stuff is great.

It's a powerful insecticide,

it doesn't irritate human skin,

and it remains effective
for up to 30 days.

- DDT becomes the allied
forces' insecticide of choice.

- [Henry] DDT comes home
from the w*r a hero,

and it's about to
become the product

for domestic use in American
suburbs and farmland.

- By 1945, DDT goes
on sale as sprays,

as powders, as mist.

It's for sale in grocery
stores, department stores,

hardware stores.

DDT is everywhere
and it's a hit.

It's used on livestock,
in farms, and in crops.

People are eating
foods sprayed with DDT.

- [Narrator] Used right,

it is absolutely harmless
to humans and animals,

but to insects, it is deadly.

- Dry cleaners were adding
it to their solutions

to ward off moths.

- In the US alone,

over 1.3 billion
pounds of DDT are sold

during the 30 years that follow.

- At the height
of its popularity,

DDT is used all over, on the
body as a lice treatment,

sprinkled directly
onto the skin and hair,

on clothing and
bedding to k*ll insects

and prevent disease, sprayed
on walls, furniture,

mattresses, and floors.

- [Narrator] All
people have to do is

to press the patented
top like this.

- It's used in public spaces
like schools, hospitals,

and theaters, and most
famously on suburban lawns.

- America's lawns, gardens,

and farms have
never looked better,

but it takes years
before anyone realizes

that this comes at
a very high price.

- DDT, it seemed like
such a miracle cure all,

but over time, they
realize that, oh my God,

there's health effects
involved in using DDT.

- DDT can lead to hormonal
disruption that can lead

to cancer, diabetes,
male infertility,

impair neurological development,
and neurological diseases.

- By the time all these
hazards have been discovered,

people have been eating food,
spraying their own clothes,

treating their homes
with DDT for decades.

- When we were kids, we would
hear the DDT truck coming

and it would be spewing out
literally a thick, gray cloud

of DDT-infused smoke

and the game was, who could
get closer to the pipe?

Looking back, not a good idea
running around in a cloud

of DDT, but it was sure fun.

- As fate would have it,

by the 1970s, DDT
fell out of favor,

not because of
what it was doing,

but because of what it wasn't.

Insects developed
an immunity to it.

- Who doesn't love the scent
of freshly laundered clothes?

But did you know that

before most houses had
modern washing machines,

doing laundry wasn't
just time consuming,

it was surprisingly dangerous?

- In the early 1900s,
laundry is a tedious chore.

It can take hours or even days.

First, you have to soak
your laundry overnight.

Then, you have to rub,
scrub, and scour.

And then to dry your clothes,
that's an entire production.

- What most people
have in their homes is

something called the ringer.

Two rollers with a hand crank.

You feed your wet clothes
between the rollers

and turn the hand crank
to squeeze the water out.

- The thing about that is it
went at the speed of a person.

- Luckily, in 1911, the
process gets a huge upgrade

when the first motorized
ringer is produced.

- No more tedious hand cranking,

the motorized version
feels like a godsend.

It becomes a must-have.

- Companies are racing to
create this new home appliance.

One company even calls
it the Hired Girl.

In their peak year
producing these in 1948,

they're pumping out 2,000
of these machines a day.

- With the addition
of the motor,

the ringer gets much faster,

but you still have
to feed your laundry

by hand into automated
motorized ringers.

- The leap from going
from the mechanical ringer

to the electric ringer is
like hopping on a Ducati

the second you took the training
wheels off your bicycle.

It's a whole new
world of danger.

- When you iron a shirt,
you may put a few pounds

of pressure on the iron,

but to dry that same shirt,

the ringer puts up 800
pounds of pressure.

That's enough to break
the bones in your body.

- If you get your
hair, or your jewelry,

or God forbid, your fingers
caught in a mechanical ringer,

stop turning it,
roll it backwards.

Problem solved.

If you get your
hair, or jewelry,

or worse, your fingers
caught in a merciless,

nonstop electrical ringer,
you're going down.

This powered machine will
not stop for anything.

It has no safeguards.

- I don't even wanna imagine
what a hand would look like

after it gets put
through the ringer.

You have so much damage to
the skin, to the muscles,

the tendons, the bone itself,

that there's really
nothing you can do.

There's no way to put
that back together.

- This is where the term
"put through the ringer"

originated from.

- [Henry] An industrial
version comes along

called the Mangler.

- If you wanted to wash the
towels and sheets at a hospital

or a hotel, you
needed the Mangler.

- It even caught the
imagination of Stephen King,

who wrote a short story
called the Mangler

that was eventually
turned into a film.

- It was about one of these
machines becoming possessed

by a demon and really
just wreaking havoc

on everyone around it.

- Eventually, automatic
washing machines come

around in the 1950s that
control the entire process.

But these modern washing
machines are too pricey

and frankly, they're
not built to last.

Laundromats come into play,

but a lot of people want
to do the laundry at home

and ringers stay
around until the 1980s.

- People hung on
to their ringers

long after they
probably should have.

- Laundry's not the only thing

that can create
stress in a home.

Consider the holidays.

If you think they're tough
today, you won't believe

what people put themselves
through in the past.

- Christmas really begins
gaining traction in America

in the mid-1800s, becomes an
integral part of our lives.

And with celebrating Christmas

comes the rise of
Christmas paraphernalia.

- Americans go big,

they get Christmas trees
as tall as their ceilings

and decorate them
from top to bottom.

- Decor of all kinds
flood the market,

including artificial snow.

- The original fake snow was
cotton, and cotton is cheap

and plentiful, and so many
houses had cotton strewn

all about the place
to look like snow.

There's one problem though,
cotton is incredibly flammable.

- This is the era
before electric lights.

People are illuminating
their trees with candles.

- You have a dry tree that
could go up like a match.

Now you put flammable
cotton all over it.

It's a Christmas nightmare.

- Manufacturers have
to replace cotton,

they have to find a safe
artificial snow alternative.

- They try things
made out of salts

and they try things
made out of minerals.

And eventually
the eureka moment,

someone has found
something that is white.

it looks like snow,

and best of all, it's
completely fireproof.

The substance: asbestos.

- [Henry] At the time,

asbestos is considered
a marvel, renowned

for its flame
retardant properties.

- [Narrator] What has
been your experience

with these asbestos
cement sidewalls?

- Well, we've been very pleased.

- Asbestos is not an
unfamiliar product.

It had been around
for a long time.

It's used in insulation,

on roof tiles, in
cigarette filters.

- Asbestos is a wonder product
and demand for it takes off.

Between the 1930s and 1960s,

asbestos is found in
every Christmas household,

boxes are sold for
five to 10 cents a box.

That's cheaper than
artificial garland.

- You'd sprinkle it on trees,

you'd run it across your mantle.

You made little triangles on
your windows to simulate snow.

- Asbestos becomes this
popular thing to the point

where Hollywood turns to it.

You're seeing it in Christmas
movies, "It's a Wonderful Life."

- Yeah!

Hello, Bedford Falls!

- You're seeing it
in "Wizard of Oz,"

one of the most classic
movies of all time.

It has this beautiful effect.

These actors are surrounded
by it, inhaling it.

The producers, directors,
behind the scenes people,

the stage crew, they're
all surrounded by asbestos

because it's so great and
it looks so good on film,

but they don't know that in
reality, it's a death trap.

- We've since learned
that if a little bit

of it gets lodged in your lungs,

it can lead to inflammation.

And at larger scales, cancer.

- Asbestos is an incredibly
valuable fire retardant product,

and when it's in a large block

or big chunks on its own,
it's really not too harmful.

It's most harmful
when it's broken down

into small airborne fibers,

like in the case of maybe
fluffy bits of snow.

- Asbestos finally becomes
a thing of Christmas past

during World w*r II, not
because of health concerns,

but because it's
needed in Navy ships

for its fire retardant
capabilities.

- Between 1900 and


of asbestos were used,

and at its height, it's found
in about 3,000 products.

- After the w*r,

companies replaced asbestos
in Christmas decorations,

but that didn't stop
it from showing up

in some very unexpected places.

- Who remembers talcum
powder? Cool, clean,

and with a scent that made
everything feel fresher.

We used it on babies, after
baths, even in our shoes,

because for
generations it seemed

like the gentlest
thing in the world.

Imagine learning how
very wrong we were.

- In the late 19th century,
there is this new desire

to be clean, but our households
haven't caught up yet.

We don't have showers at home.

We don't have changes
of clothes every day.

- Talcum powder is
this miracle product.

You wanna smell good, you
wanna absorb some moisture,

you wanna relieve your chafing,

you wanna help your
baby who's irritated

with a rash, Talcum powder.

- [Henry] Talcum
powder is so effective

at keeping babies
dry and rash free,

it's almost immediately
marketed as baby powder.

- The writing on the container
was flowery and sweet.

It was usually white
with a little bit

of a pink ribbon on it.

It had a great smell you equate
with babies, with childhood.

- It was always on
the changing table.

In the '70s when I grew up
and had little brothers

and sisters, it was
a critical element.

That's what you did right before
you closed up that diaper.

- Almost every baby
born from the 1900s

to the 1990s had talcum
powdered dumped in its diaper.

Everybody grew up with it.

Imagine a baby, you change
the diaper five times a day,

multiplied by countless
babies born in a year.

- Probably like enough
talcum powder to fill up

the biggest football
stadium in the country.

- [Henry] But what exactly
is this magic powder?

- It's a good question.

So if you were looking at
a bottle of talcum powder,

it may not have
all the ingredients

because people who
are manufacturing

it have gotten this
material from a mine.

- Talc is a natural mineral
made up of magnesium,

silicone, and oxygen,
all natural, all safe.

The problem is that
when talc is mined,

it sometimes gets
cross-contaminated by a material

that is harmful to humans:

asbestos.

Like the fake snow, the
dangers of asbestos stay hidden

while talcum powder

floods the homes of
Americans everywhere.

- Think about the last 40
years and how much time

and money we've spent trying

to eliminate asbestos from
our buildings, right?

And in reality, we were
dumping this on our kids.

- Never in a million years
would we think something

as simple, as pure,
as good smelling,

and as effective as
it was could hurt us.

- [Henry] But in the 2000s,
a rise in cancer rates

and a flurry of
court cases reveal

just how dangerous
baby powder can be.

- Talc just seems so innocuous,

and then you learn that
they could give rise

to an increase in cancer.

Talc on its own,

if it didn't have the asbestos,
it was pretty wonderful.

- Baby powder is still around,
but it's a lot less toxic,

thanks to baking
powder and corn starch.

You know, there's
another product

that you probably have in your
home, a popular disinfectant?

For much of the 20th
century, it was used in a way

that will definitely
surprise you.

- It's 1918 and America
is in the grips

of the Great Spanish
Flu pandemic.

Almost 700,000 Americans die.

That's more than the deaths
in World w*r I, World w*r II,

Korea, and Vietnam combined.

- Americans were desperate
to end this pandemic.

There was all kinds of policy
measures like preventing

people from spitting
in the streets.

Poster campaigns,
wear your mask,

but there was actually a
product that did quite a bit

to end the pandemic.

It's one you probably have
in your household today:

Lysol.

- Lysol is invented
in Germany in 1889,

and it's really designed to
help fight the cholera epidemic

that they were fighting there.

Finally, it finds
its way to America

and is introduced into that
world as a miracle germ k*ller.

It's successful,
and because of that,

Lysol earns a place,

sort of in every American
cabinet across the country.

- By the year 1920, the flu
pandemic is largely over.

Thanks Lysol, great job.

But now the manufacturers
had a big, big problem.

- Now that everyone's healthy
and they're not getting sick

and they aren't seeing people
dying all over the place,

maybe they're not gonna go out

and buy as much Lysol, they'll
just have the same canister

up in their shelf
for maybe a year

or two years, three years.

- [Henry] At this
time, Lysol is owned

by a different company
called Lehn & Fink,

and they're looking for a new
way to market their product.

- Women in the 1920s bought
most of the household products.

- So these manufacturers started
thinking maybe these women

would buy Lysol
for their bodies.

- Lysol comes up with a
fairly novel solution.

They say, you can use
Lysol for feminine hygiene.

- Wrap your head around this.

These ads for Lysol were
effectively saying, like,

here's this household
cleaner and just dilute it

and then you can put it

in your most intimate
parts of your body.

- These days, it seems like
a very clearly bad idea,

but it's not like there was
a feminine hygiene aisle

at CVS in 1920.

This was a new idea.

You know, hygiene in
general was a new industry,

so it became a very successful
feminine hygiene product.

- [Henry] That's likely
because the advertising

includes testimonials
that appear

to be from medical
professionals.

- In this era, people were
really intrigued by science,

and so if you had somebody who
said, "This is a good product,

and it'll keep you healthy,
and was made in a lab,"

people were very primed
to believe in that.

So the ads include these
female doctors saying,

"We approve of this treatment,"

but those doctors were
completely made up.

The nutty part is, that
wasn't ill*gal at the time.

- The Pure Food and Drug Act
of 1906 does regulate food

and drugs, but it does not
regulate household products.

So Lysol doesn't fit into that,

and the worst thing that could
happen is they would have

to pay a fine from anywhere
from like $500 to $2,000.

- [Henry] Without regulations,

the advertising strategy
is very effective.

- Since Lysol was widely
available, cheap, private,

you did not have to speak
to a doctor about it.

Lysol was the top
feminine hygiene product

from the '30s all the
way to the 1960s.

- I think they were
also enabled by the fact

that there was a lot
of kind of nervousness

and modesty about talking
about these things.

So women were not about
to go start asking a lot

of questions or even really to
talk with their friends about

what they were buying this
product and for what purpose.

- In 1969, Lysol is
acquired by another company

that decided selling it

for feminine hygiene is
probably not the best strategy,

and it's still one of
the most popular brands

in America today.

- By the 1930s, a new household
hazard was on the horizon,

a popular line of dishware

that you probably didn't
want in your home,

let alone on your
dining room table.

- By the 1930s,

attitudes towards dishware is
starting to change somewhat.

The Laughlin Pottery Company
in east Liverpool, Ohio,

they had been making dishes

and China since the 1870s.

- They are actually
producing 10%

of the country's dinnerware

all from that one factory.

- But when the Great Depression
hits in the late 1920s,

people don't have expendable
income to buy really beautiful,

ornate, bone China
and expensive dishes.

- This really directs a
cultural shift to minimalism.

You're just looking
for the most practical

versions of things you can get.

- [Henry] But the Laughlin
Brothers don't want

to churn out boring
white dishes.

So in 1936, they introduced
an affordable, sturdy,

and colorful line of
tableware called Fiestaware.

- Yellow, red, cobalt
blue, and green.

It was really like dinnerware
you had never seen before.

- Fiestaware is one
of these amazing hits.

Within a decade and a half,


sold in the United States.

- Fiestaware really
brings this sense of

what, at the time, was
a very modern design

into your dinnerware, and
it had to seem exciting

and different compared
to the dinnerware

with all the ornate patterns
that had come before.

- I remember we would
go down to Florida

and my grandma used to
serve stuff on Fiestaware.

It was kind of part of
the whole experience.

It's warm, there's palm
trees and sunshine,

and this beautiful,
brightly glazed Fiestaware.

- [Henry] And how do you
achieve such beautiful colors?

- The colorant that
was used in the glaze

was based on uranium.

Yes, that material
is radioactive.

- This is the same uranium

that now you need protective
gear to handle in any form.

- People are eating food
off of a radioactive plate.

When they started using uranium

and uranium oxide, it had to
seem like a miracle product.

Not only does it
protect the dish,

but it really makes it vibrant.

Before World w*r
II, look, uranium

and uranium oxide is
going into glassware,

it's going into punch bowls.

Consumers are loving it.

- [Henry] In the 1930s, people
have heard of radioactivity,

but most of them don't
realize how harmful it is.

- People didn't know
they were being harmed.

Uranium isn't one of these
things that if you touch it,

your hand is going to
burn or you can smell it.

The danger is the exposure,
the long lasting exposure.

So if you're using
this plate every day,

or your teacup every day,

you're constantly getting
exposed to radiation.

- This is bad stuff.

One study showed that
just drinking out

of a red Fiestaware
teacup is the equivalent

of getting 2,500 dental
x-rays, the kind that you have

to wear a lead apron for.

- [Henry] Despite the danger,

lawmakers don't restrict
the production of Fiestaware

until the 1940s.

- During World w*r II,

production of uranium
glazed Fiestaware comes

to a halt, but not for the
reasons you might think.

Fiestaware is actually a
stymied by the w*r effort.

The US government seizes
the company's uranium stock

and restricts all use of it to
nuclear weapons development.

- So basically,
Robert Oppenheimer

and the Manhattan Project
are using the same material

that's on your dinner table.

- And like a lot of things
when they're first introduced,

uranium oxide ultimately was
gonna be one of those things

that was maybe a little
too good to be true.

- Now, after the w*r, Fiestaware
returns to stores, this time

with depleted uranium.

And then finally in 1973,
without any uranium at all.

- Turns out a little radiation
hasn't stopped collectors

from buying vintage Fiestaware.

Danger never looked so stylish.

- If ever America
needed a pop of color,

it was during the gray
days of the 1800s.

And one specific color came
with a little extra pop.

- Now you can go to an
interior design firm

and see 800 different
variations of red,


variations of white.

But at this time in history,
there is not a lot of options.

- Dyes were largely based
on natural products.

Ironically, the hardest
color to make was green.

- Adding color is
very, very expensive.

Old cloaks that are worn by
royalty were only made possible

by crushing bugs, hundreds

and hundreds of bugs
to get the color.

- This is the industrial
revolution, which means

that there's a lot of
industrial pollution.

People don't have a lot of
green spaces around them.

So the idea of bringing
the natural world indoors

is incredibly appealing.

- To the rescue comes
something called Shields green.

It was invented

by a Swedish chemist
named Carl Wilhelm Shield.

This is bright,
vibrant, green pigment

and it becomes
incredibly popular.

- People want products that
reminds them of nature.

Shields green shows up in
clothing, in wallpaper,

in art, in false flowers.

- Green, from having
been so expensive

and so hard to make,
was now inexpensive.

Everywhere you looked,
Shields green was present,

but it was very dangerous.

- Shields green was
made from something

called copper arsonite.

- Copper arsonite.

It's like arsenic,
and that has poison.

- Arsenic is
naturally occurring,

but repeated exposure to these
chemicals even on the skin is

where you get
yourself into trouble.

- People reacted
really differently

depending on their age, on
their degree of exposure.

A teenager might feel
a little bit ill,

somebody else might pass out.

Somebody else might
get violently ill.

- If they have a small exposure

'cause it's just
our handkerchief,

well, they're gonna
have a mild response.

But if it's a dress, well,
their skin's gonna be irritated

and maybe it gives
rise to oozing sores.

- [Henry] Shields green is also
dangerous when it's inhaled.

- Shields green can also
release poisonous arsenic fumes,

and these can wreak
all sorts of havoc.

- People start getting
sick, rashes, vomiting,

nausea, dizzy spells.

Some people even die.

And what do they
all have in common?

Exposure to Shields green.

- Napoleon died in a room

that was painted
with Shields green.

Many years later,
the room was examined

and people think maybe he
died from exposure to it,

but when they reexamined him,
a modern x-ray analysis found

that there really wasn't
enough to k*ll him.

- But it's crazy to think that
people were getting k*lled

because of their wallpaper.

- By the time the federal
government gets around

to regulating arsenic,

Shields green is
basically out of fashion.

- [Henry] But decades
later, the impact

of Shields green is
still being felt.

- In 1950, the American
ambassador to Italy,

Clare Boothe Luce, is on
a trip and she falls ill.

- [Henry] Espionage
is suspected,

but ultimately ruled out.

- She was staying
in a hotel room

where the ceiling was
painted with Shields green.

There was a washing machine
installed on the floor

above her, and when it
shook, it made little pieces

of the paint fall into her
bed, which she inhaled.

- As recently as April of


of France removed four
books that date back to 1855

because there were concerns

that the bright, emerald
color in those covers

could be laced with arsenic.

- America has a rich legacy
of product innovation,

and looking back even
with the best intentions,

things haven't always gone
right, like monkeys by mail,

exploding combs, and
poisonous wallpaper.

But maybe those gambles
paved the way for the ideas

that did transform everyday life

and made our hazardous
history so inspiring.