The Dark Origins of the Treadmill and Why Oscar Wild was the Worst

“We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, We turned the dusty drill: We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, And sweated on the mill: But in the heart of every man Terror was lying still.” These are the words of famed master of the pen, Oscar Wilde, in his Ballad of Reading Gaol, referencing his time spent at Pentonville Prison for, ironically, mastering working with a different type of pen… As a brief aside, while many lament the initial thing that set forth a chain of events that saw Wilde imprisoned today, specifically his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, very surprisingly, unlike with the likes of the great Alan Turing and countless thousands others who were unjustly punished for their sexuality, it turns out there is a LOT more to the story of Wilde’s conviction that many a biographer skirts over, though to be fair this is in part because some elements of the original transcript from the original trial were only discovered in the year 2000. Reading through those, however, even in modern times and through a modern lens and sensibilities, Wilde would have almost certainly found himself behind bars, disgraced, and absolutely vilified pretty well universally on the interwebs. But we’re not here to discuss Oscar Wilde, the full story of his conviction was simply a rabbit hole we were previously woefully ignorant of, and will share more on later in the Bonus Facts if you’re interested as well- though fair warning, it’s quite dark and, oof. Never look too deeply into your heroes, especially when they are from the past, which was of course, the worst. But in any event, embedded in Wilde’s aforementioned poem, he references sweating on the mill. This was a device created by famed engineer Sir William Cubitt in the early days of Cubitt’s career, with the primary purpose of the surprisingly feature rich machine being both to punish prisoners in an excruciating way for upwards of 10 hours per day, while also isolating them in that task so that they could properly think about what they’d done wrong. While Wilde may have abhorred the machine, having been forced to march on it for a couple years, another famous master wordsmith, Charles Dickens, would praise it, writing, "It is a satisfaction to me to see that determined thief, swindler, or vagrant sweating profusely at the treadmill... [knowing] he is doing nothing all the time but undergoing punishment." Here now is the story of when humans first started exercising for fitness’ sake, as well as the rather torturous invention of the treadmill, which saw prison death rates ramp up considerably once implemented, but paradoxically also seemed to be a major health boon to those that survived their monotonous march. Author / Host: Daven Hiskey Producer: Samuel Avila 0:00 Intro 3:13 When Humans Started Purposefully Exercising 6:47 Prison Reform and Inventing the "Treadmill" 22:02 Inventing the Modern Treadmill 29:02 Cooking with Dogs 32:14 Oscar Wilde was the Worst Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices