School of Humans.

Hello, my precious filth fans.

I know I haven't had a new episode in a couple of weeks, but I've been sick, I've been traveling, blah blah blah.

Excuse, excuse, But I promise starting next week we're going to have some new episodes.

We're gonna have an episode on toilet paper.

Yeah, a whole episode about wiping your butt.

Got some episodes on syphilis coming out, and also about straw hats.

It's gonna be huge.

In the meantime.

This isn't history, per se.

I mean it's kind of more recent history.

But I really want to do a story about the time Hooters had an airline.

Do you guys remember that Hooters air It was a very brief period of time.

It was in two thousand and three, two thousand and three, about two thousand and six they had one.

Which is crazy because like the executives at Hooters saw nine to eleven and they're like, we got to get into the plane business.

Maybe planes were cheap at the time.

I don't know, but I do want to do a story about Hooters are as an American filth episode.

So if you are someone whoever flew on Hooters there, Please let me know.

I know it only flew to a few locations like Atlantic City and Myrtle Beach, you know, the only two places anyone would ever want to go.

But if you ever flew on Hooters air, can you please send me a message on our Instagram at American Filth Pod or you can stalk me on my Instagram send me a DM.

Whatever I do think this American Filth episode about Hooters There will be my life's work and it will complete me, so let me know.

But in the meantime, here is one of my favorite episodes about cheese, and I swear we'll be back next week with new stuff.

What do we know about the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson?

Well, to sum up, he's on the twenty dollars bill to celebrate his long legacy of being a moody, bitch en slave owner who committed a shit ton of genocide against the indigital people.

Yes, that is a very truncated biography, but I also think it's pretty accurate.

He got the nickname of Old Hickory during the War of eighteen twelve.

At that time, he was an inexperienced, hot headed general, but when he got in order to evacuate a battle, he made sure all of his soldiers could make the trek.

He even gave up his horse for the sick and injured and just walked on the ground with his own legs.

Wow, such a nice guy.

The Creek Indians had a very different name for him.

They called him sharp Knife because of his inability to compromise on anything and being a violent, hard ass bitch.

During the Creek Civil War, half of the Creek wanted to attack the United States settlements on their land, but the other half wanted to ally themselves with the United States, so he's got to lose their land.

Jackson was in charge of bartering peace between them, and he made sure that everyone was punished, even the Creeks who had allied themselves with the United States.

At the end of it all, the United States took twenty three million acres of their land.

So that's just a little you know, background on Andrew Jackson.

What a guy.

But in this episode, we're meeting up with him in eighteen thirty seven, at the very end of his presidency.

At this point, he was less of a sharp knife and more of a dull blade.

And less old hickory and more like a soggy old log.

He was getting up there in age and feeble after serving eight controversial years in the office of the presidency.

He wasn't doing too good.

He had a bullet lodged in his chest.

He was falling apart after years of being an angry son of a bitch.

Yeah, that's a diagnosis.

And while his legacy reeks of human suffering, he also left his office literally reeking.

That's right.

When Martin Van Buren took over the presidency after Jackson in March of eighteen thirty seven, he made a big change.

He said that food was banned during presidential receptions because of Jackson's last big party.

He left the White House reeking of cheese.

This is American filth.

I'm your host, Gabby Watts.

Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history.

Today's episode a Tale of Two Cheeses.

Wow, did you guys like that intro?

How I went from a reek to human suffering to wreaking of cheese?

Was it a weak transition?

I don't care, but yes.

Andrew Jackson's last public appearance as president was alongside a massive wheel of cheese at the President's House, which, by the way, that's what the White House was called until nineteen oh one.

And he had invited all of Washington, DC and beyond to come and feast.

Here's a letter that Jackson wrote on February fourth, eighteen thirty seven, inviting a friend to the party.

And I did paraphase it a little bit to make it less boring.

It goes, my dear sir.

The third of March is approaching with great joy, before which I hope to see you here.

By then I intend to have eaten my large cheese presented by my friends of the state of New York.

Can you be here and partake of the feast?

It will be my last and only public day.

Oh jolly day getting that wheel of cheese.

All right, so I keep talking about this cheese.

Do you want to guess how big the cheese was?

Make your guesses now, Okay, it was fourteen hundred pounds.

Wow.

It was like a literal wheel of cheese.

Like you could use it as a wheel, you know.

And if you did use it as a wheel, you could wheel it through the filth filled streets of Jacksony in America, and then it would smell exactly like blue cheese.

Amazing here, Yeah, that's right, I'm coming for the blue cheese.

I'm a hater.

But just to tell you a very important thing.

The cheese that Jackson had it was a cheddar.

And while cheese doesn't have to be fresh, yes, it's good to age it.

I suppose by the time that there was this big cheese party, this cheese had been sitting in the entry hall of the President's House for over a year.

M yummy, So where did these fourteen hundred pounds of cheese come from?

Thanks for asking this cheese.

It was a gift.

This cheese was created by a dude named Colonel Thomas Meecham from Sandy Creek, a small town in New York State.

He's a rich dude with a dairy farm.

His farm and processing plant was about a mile from the railroad, and meetchim he actually wasn't the biggest fan of Andrew Jackson.

In fact, he was a supporter of Henry Clay, Jackson's Whig opponent, and so Meetcham wanted to show Jackson how amazing New York State was at industry and making stuff kind of out of spite, like, hey, a bunch of people who don't support you can do amazing things.

And you know what, I got these fancy buildings, and I got industrious people at my disposal.

We're gonna make something grand for you.

That's right, I'm gonna make a big fucking cheese for you.

Also, let me say it's important for men who are getting older to have hobbies, So thanks Meachum.

Anyway, Meecham went about making a big ass cheese starting in September of eighteen thirty five.

He had a carpenter make special equipment to facilitate the making of the cheese, and he was able to source the milk and curds from his one hundred and fifty dairy cows.

After many milkings and many curdings and boils and toils, finally the cheese was completed, all fourteen hundred pounds of this curdled beauty, and Meecham the cheese overlord.

He was like, well, I'm not going to just make Jackson a cheese.

I'm going to make some other cheeses for some other dudes.

So he made four smaller wheels a mere seven hundred pounds for Vice President Martin Van Buren.

The Governor of New York and the mayors of New York City and Rochester.

But plot twist, guys, this ginormous wheel of cheese was actually a hack gift.

That's right.

It had been done before.

Another president had also received the big cheese about thirty years before.

That's right.

On New Year's Day eighteen oh two, Thomas Jefferson opened the doors of the President's house and was alarmed when he was greeted by a parade of Baptist presenting a colossal cheddar.

All right, so let's just leave Andrew Jackson's cheese where it is.

I'm going to go on a very long tangent about Thomas Jefferson's cheese that comprises most of the episode, but this cheese is more interesting.

So here we're with Thomas Jefferson.

Now, you know, he was a founding father.

He was the third President of the United States.

I think when we look back at Thomas Jefferson, a lot of us will say that he was a bad dude, especially given the Sally Hemming situation, but also when he was still alive, a lot of people didn't like him as well.

Unlike George Washington, who was universally beloved by most Americans.

People had a lot of opinions about Thomas Jefferson, especially when he took the office of the presidency in eighteen oh one.

Some people thought he'd been France too long and was basically a French infidel who liked to fucking eat croissants.

Disgusting.

But another thing was that Thomas Jefferson was a big proponent of the separation of church and state, and that also didn't sit well with people.

They were like, God has good judgment, why are you not asking him about taxes and stuff.

They saw the separation of church and state as a huge threat to religious citizens.

But the thing is a lot of people applauded the separation of church and state, even religious people.

One big supporter was the Baptist John Leland.

Leland was from Massachusetts and was a Baptist clergyman, and when he was young he had lived in Virginia for about fourteen years preaching there.

He might have met Thomas Jefferson and they might have, you know, had some brunches and talked about ideas.

Their relationship is not exactly known, but from the start was a big Thomas Jefferson proponent.

Because of the separation of church and state stuff.

And that was for a variety of reasons, because, first of all, Leland was like, that will ensure religious freedom.

Also, state support of religion is idolatrous, so not even good for religion.

And the thing is he was a Baptist, which was, in his opinion, a persecuted minority of Massachusetts.

So separation of church and state also made sure that not one religious sect got to make all the rules.

It was like, ha, you can't exclude us just because we're loser Baptists.

So when Leland returned to Massachusetts in seventeen ninety one, he settled in Cheshire and started preaching in a mask quite a following, and then he turned all of those Baptists into Republicans who would support someone like Thomas Jefferson.

He was like, fuck, that was federal Ascama.

And when Jefferson was running for president, Leland campaigned super hard for him.

And then when Jefferson won, Leyland was like, yes, I am partly responsible for him becoming president.

He was so excited about Jefferson being president.

He said, quote, the greatest orbit in America is occupied by its brightest orb.

What a simp And So after Jefferson won, Leland was like, I want to give him a nice gift to quote, honor his republicanism and his support of religious liberty.

And as y'all know, what's the gift that won't stop, giving a giant wheel of cheese.

So Leland sent a directive to the ladies of his congregation and was like, hey, ladies, sorry to inconvenience you real quick, but I need y'all to oversee the making of a big ass cheese.

And then he reached out to the rest of the town of Cheshire.

His directive to them was to quote, whoever owned a cow, to bring every court of milk given on a given day, or all the curd it would make to the great cider nil.

And then Leland made a little joke.

He was like, if you're going to contribute, just so you know, I do not want the milk of any Federalist cows.

He he he he.

He was like, I don't want to taint the cheese with any of those nasty cows, any of those loser cows quote, lest it should leave the whole lump with a distasteful flavor.

So the date was decided.

The cows were brought to the cider mill.

On July twentieth, eighteen oh one.

A local engineer built all the cheese stuff you need for a big cheese, and once the ladies of the congregation had received all the ingredients, they started making the Goliath.

And during the cheesemaking process, everyone stood around singing hymns to the cheese baby.

Once the cheddar was completed, it was four feet in diameter, twelve point five feet in circumference, and twelve inches thick.

It totaled about twelve hundred pounds, and at that point it was the biggest cheese anyone in the US had ever seen.

Leland called the cheese the greatest cheese ever put to press in the New World or old.

The final touch was to engrave the cheese with Jefferson's seal Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

And then came the matter of actually delivering the cheese.

Remember they're in Massachusetts, and they got to get to Washington, d c.

But Leland was gonna make sure it was gonna be a grand procession.

We'll be back after these soothing advertisements.

After the cheese was made, Leland wasn't just gonna put that shit in a box and send it via the mail.

Also, making this cheese was such an astonishing feat that Leland planned to take the cheese on tour.

He and some members of his congregation left in late novem Umber eighteen oh one for the first leg of the journey.

They put the cheese in a sleigh to start the five hundred mile journey to Washington, DC.

By sleigh, the cheese arrived at a port of the Hudson River, and then it went on a sailboat called a sloop to New York, and then it went to Baltimore, and then finally it went by wagon to Washington.

Everywhere it went, huge crowds gathered, and Leland made speeches about religious liberty.

In Baltimore, a traveler recounted seeing the cheese.

He said, quote, the curiosity of the inhabitants of Baltimore was universally excited.

Men, women, and children flocked to see the mammoth cheese.

Even gray bearded shopkeepers neglected their counters and participated in the mammoth infatuation.

So yes, the cheddar was being called the mammoth cheese and Leland the mammoth priest.

But then is part of the reason it was dubbed that was an insult, because while there were plenty of people who were super stoked to see the cheese, the cheese was also being politicized and mocked by critics, particularly by federalists.

They're like, this mammoth cheese is ridiculous, and honestly, it's a very embarrassing gift to give the president.

Republicans are so embarrassing.

For example, when the cheese was loaded up in New York, a newspaper mockingly wrote that there are some bakers in New York now making a giant piece of bread, and that there was someone in Albany making a giant bottle of ale.

And the article was like, now, mister Jefferson's friends, they may not only have cheese, but bread, cheese, and porter mayor.

Honestly, I don't really know why that's an insult.

That sounds great.

The cheese finally reached Washington, DC on December twenty ninth, eighteen oh one.

A huge crowd gathered and Land made a speech upon his arrival, where he touted the separation of church and state, saying we must have prohibition of religious tests to prevent all hierarchy.

And then on New Year's Day eighteen oh one, Leland went directly to the President's house to deliver the cheese in person to President Jefferson.

He knocked on the door and out came the President, and then there was a little impromptu ceremony.

Leland again made a little speech.

He said, the cheese was not made by his lordship for his sacred majesty, not with a view to gain dignified titles or lucrative offices, but by the personal labor of free born farmers, without a single slave to assist for an elective president of a free people.

That's right.

God had no hand in making this cheese, the same way he should not have any hand in local politics.

And then he said, we wish to prove the love we bear to our president, not by words alone, but indeed and in truth.

That's right, people, if you really love someone, why are you not making them one thousand pounds of cheese?

Now, how did President Thomas Jefferson feel about accepting this mammoth cheese?

Well, he did seem to accept the gift with some awkwardness.

First of all, he had a policy where he could not accept gifts, so he actually paid two hundred dollars for the cheese, and after Leland gave his speech, Jefferson also gave one.

But it's orient thing.

This might have been an accident.

Some people think that he was so shocked by the cheese arriving at the house that he accidentally received it in person instead of doing what he had originally planned, which was just to give Leland and his crew a nice thank you note.

But since Leland and members of his congregation and the cheese were just all there, Jefferson might have felt pressure to also give a speech.

So it seems that some people think he took the letter that he wrote and quickly changed it to the second person and turned it into a little announcement so as not to insult Leland.

This is what Jefferson said about the mammoth cheese.

It was quote extraordinary proof of the skill with which those domestic arts which contribute so much to our daily comfort are practiced by them.

And then he sliced off a big hunk of that big ass cheese.

So woohoo, he finally received the cheese.

But the thing is this event, this impromptu ceremony, caused a lot of issues.

Okay, because Jefferson usually didn't make speeches.

It was very rare, and so his Federalist opponents were very insulted by him doing this.

They were like, wow, Jefferson is giving a public announcement to the cheese, but when he communicates to Congress, he only deigns to write a letter.

Wow, cheese over Congress.

Fucking unbelievable.

And again the Federalists thought this cheese was insane.

Like once Leland and his party left, Jefferson was having a meeting with some Federalists.

Allegedly, these federalists thought the cheese was extremely dumb and called it a monument to human weakness and folly.

So Thomas Jefferson getting a big cheese from some people in Massachusetts.

It's a silly story.

And some historians think that this event was completely inconsequential in US history.

But come on, it's a mammoth cheese.

How could that be inconsequential.

But other people think that Jefferson receiving this curty gift might have encouraged him to write a letter called the Wall of Separation, which just reiterated separation of church and state.

And they think that the cheese prompted this because it was written on the same day as he got the cheese.

That Wall of separation letter says, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that the Act of the whole American People, which declared that their legislators should make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

That was a lot of words together, but basically he's just saying, yes, separation of church and state.

Ten out of ten.

But blah blah blah.

Politics, la la la la.

The real question is what happened to that cheese.

Well, no one is exactly sure.

Some people think that the cheese was eaten on Independence Day in eighteen o two and eighteen oh three.

Some people think that servants would cut pieces off of it and would eat it as a little snack from time to time, And then other reports said that by June eighteen oh two the cheese was already spoiled, so there's a lot of maggots inside of it, and a sixty pounds of it had to be cut off and tossed.

But there is some reason to think that the cheese was there until like eighteen oh four, because there's this fun story where a senator in eighteen oh four named William Plummer was at the President's house having dinner with Jefferson, and Plumber said it was a fine meal.

Quote His dinner was elegant and rich, except for the cheese, which was that very cheese from Leland.

When Plumber ate this cheese, he said that it was quote very far from being good.

Some people think that a little time after this, the cheese was completely expired and the rest of it was finally dumped in the Potomac River.

So yeah, so wasteful.

Thomas Jefferson didn't eat all of his cheese.

Kind of rude.

Honestly, if I'm getting twelve hundred pounds of cheese, I'm eating that cheese.

But that would not be the fate of Andrew Jackson's cheese.

Let's go back to Colonel Meacham.

I remember his cheese instead of twelve hundred pounds, is fourteen hundred Wowa wow.

That additional two hundred pounds represents thirty years of innovation.

Anyway, after Meacham completed the cheese, like Leland, he had to take it to Washington, DC, and again he was gonna make sure it was a big ass hubbub along the route.

So Meechim and his crew started their journey in November eighteen thirty five.

He was a bit of a showman, so for the first leg of the journey, he got this big wagon and painted it with bright colors and had twenty four horses pull the wagon that had the cheese in it, and then the cheese went by boat.

Once they reached Port Ontario.

When the cheese and Colonel Meacham were on the boat, allegedly he had a band play with cannons firing.

This cheese went through New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore where all these people would come out and see the cheese.

Wow.

Amazing.

Once Meacham and his crew reached d C, he was taken to the President's house to formally present the cheese.

This time it was also New Year's Day, but eighteen thirty six, and as a thank you to meet him for the cheese, Jackson wrote a letter that was basically like, oh my God, thank you for this cheese.

It really shows how New York State is amazing at stuff.

I agree you are great.

I love when people labor.

Great job.

After the cheese was presented.

It sat in the entry hall of the President's House for about a year, but then finally it was time to feast.

The feast day when Jackson invited everyone DC to come eat the cheese was going to be on George Washington's birthday, February twenty second, eighteen thirty seven, and again this was going to be Jackson's last public appearance as president.

A notice had been written in a Washington newspaper that said, we understand the President designs to offer this great cheese, which is finally flavored and in fine preservation, to his fellow citizens who visit him on Wednesday next the President from New York will be sir in the hall of the President's mansion.

And Wow, when you're invited to come eat some cheese at the President's house, you gotta do it.

You gotta go.

Everyone in DC was taking Jackson up on the invitation.

Men, women, and children from every social class descended upon the President's House ready to eat.

Even before they got to the entry hall, they were already assaulted with the smell.

One newspaper wrote, there arose an exceedingly strong smell, so strong as to overpower a number of dandies and laxadaisical ladies.

And here's a fun thing.

None other than Mark Twain wrote about the party in a Washington newspaper.

He said, the President's house was thrown open.

The multitude swarmed in the Senate of the United States adjourned, the representatives of the various departments turned out representatives, and swarms left the cap all for the purpose of eating cheese.

The court, the fashion, the beauty of Washington were all eating cheese.

Officers in Washington, foreign representatives, and stars and garters, gay, gorgeous, joyous and dashing women in all the pride and pomp of wealth were eating cheese.

Cheese.

Cheese.

Cheese was on everybody's lips and in everybody's mouth.

All you heard was cheese, All you saw was cheese, All you smelt was cheese.

It was cheese, cheese, cheese.

Streams of cheese were going up the avenue in everyone's fists.

Balls of cheese were in hundreds of pockets.

Every handkerchief smelt of cheese.

The whole atmosphere for half a mile was infected and reeked of cheese.

Mark Twayne is really painting a picture that there was a lot of cheese.

And the thing is, there were so many people coming to the President's house to eat the cheese that the house got overrun.

People who couldn't get through the front doors were hurdling themselves through the windows just so they could get a window bit of that chedda And even though this cheese was perhaps the worst charcooterie board ever to exist, they devoured the cheese in about two hours.

Anyway, while all these people came to the President's House seat the cheese, Jackson was so feeble that he just sat down the whole time and eventually had to leave during the devouring of the cheese.

And so he got Vice President Van Buren to step in, and he was like, yeah, you shake everyone's hands.

I'm tired now.

And then in the aftermath, the smell was so bad because as people had been going to get the cheese, you know, the cheese was falling apart.

There was debris all over the ground, and then that debris got stomped into the carpets.

And for months and months after this, the President's house reaped.

And not only did it reak, the smell of cheese also attracted a bunch of pests and bugs South had an even bigger bug problem than usual during this time.

So yeah, those were the two cheeses that have been given to our presidents.

And so far as I know, since Jackson's mammoth cheese, no other president has personally received a large wheel of cheese.

That being said, though, cheese has gotten bigger and bigger.

Like if you were so moved by this story that you were like, hmm, I want to give a gift of big ass cheese to President Biden, You're gonna have to make an even bigger one.

Like cheese tech has really expanded since Jefferson and Jackson's time.

For example, in nineteen eleven, at the National Dairy Show in Chicago, a cheesemaker presented a twelve thousand pound cheese right the other one for twelve hundred fourteen hundred is twelve thousand pound cheese.

Apparently at the time President Taft was there and he was like, damn, that's a big ass cheese.

He also said that it tasted good.

But the thing is, people still call big cheeses mammoth cheeses, so that's stuck.

But that twelve thousand pound cheese, that's a teeny tiny baby cheese.

Compared to what's been made later.

Cheesemakers in Wisconsin in nineteen eighty eight made a cheddar that was forty thousand pounds, but unfortunately for Wisconsin, they got beat.

The current Guinness Book World record holder for largest cheese cow's milk is held by a Canadian cheesemaker.

That cheese is fifty seven, five hundred and eighteen pounds.

Oh.

That shows the power of socialized medicine.

This has been another episode of American Filth.

As always we learn a lesson, and I think the lesson today is if you want to break into the White House, it seems an easy way to do that would be to present the president with a large thing of cheese as a ruse, because apparently in the past you could just walk right up there and be like, here's a cheese, thanks so much.

American Field is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.

I'm your host, Gabby Watts.

This episode was written a mixed by me.

The theme song is by me and Jesse Niswanger.

Amelia Brock is the show senior producer, and our executive producers are Virginia Presscod, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley.

Please like, and subscribe to the podcast, where if you listen, leave a review, if it's nice or if it's not nice, make it funny.

And also you can follow the show on Instagram at American Filth Pod.

Bye School of Humans.