The Great Onion Scandal

Onions are the only agricultural product where commodity futures cannot be traded in the United States. It all has to do with two men in Chicago, and a whole lot of onions.
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This is original content based on research by The History Guy. Images in the Public Domain are carefully selected and provide illustration. As very few images of the actual event are available in the Public Domain, images of similar objects and events are used for illustration.
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Script by THG
#history #thehistoryguy #food

[@johngregg5735]

Onions scandals should not be leeked to the press.

[@eileenspamer]

[@bartsanders1553]

Hey kid, beet it with the puns.

[@BonnieBlue2A]

scandalous would be scallion-esque ?

[@CAP198462]

Cheese, I’m getting tired of puns. Every comments section is just peppered with them.

[@joshuabessire9169]

Whey did you ❤️ him THG? You're just egging them on.

[@ZeusTheIrritable]

Is it weird that I would rather watch a short documentary about onion futures trading than nearly any network produced TV show?

[@katiesiouxlamoureaux7757]

Nope,I totally agree

[@rocarr180]

❤️🙏

[@ambercrombie789]

No. "Wisdom is known by her children".

[@danstevens2204]

That’s why we are here 👍🏻

[@JonesNate]

4:15 -- "But the market for butter spread thin..." Funny guy. -_-

[@ouroboris]

He definitely has a way with words 😆

[@Sniperboy5551]

His alliteration is also beautiful, his scripts are like poetry at times

[@Russia-bullies]

As I spread them thick,I don’t get why the guy is funny.

[@garandm1d]

... Spread thin... Eggs in one basket...That's why I love the history guy...

[@Bbbuddy]

So much fun has started with “two guys in Chicago.”

[@Metalkatt]

It’s A Hundred And Six Miles To Chicago. We Got A Full Tank Of Gas, Half A Pack Of Cigarettes. It's Dark, And We're Wearing Sunglasses

[@NoBSRecoverfacts]

Cringe

[@ZeusTheIrritable]

@@Metalkatt Hit It.

[@nancybaumgartner6774]

That, and “Florida man…”

[@davidkaplan2745]

You rapscallion, you.

[@lisaboban]

It takes a real talent to make commodity trading and onion farming into a fascinating story. Well done, sir.

[@pilotjoe4010]

You could say it has layers…

[@lisaboban]

@@pilotjoe4010 So many layers ☺️

[@Dogdrule]

Honestly, Planet Money did an episode on it years back that has stuck with me more than any other in a catalog of many hundreds of episodes. It's a fascinating tale despite seemingly dry elements like commodity trading and futures

[@ElementofKindness]

_"If making money is a crime, then I'm guilty."_ He didn't make money. He extorted money.

[@EddieVBlueIsland]

Only because dishonest people believed him

[@paulthiessen6444]

@@EddieVBlueIslandgreedy people anyways

[@bobbsurname3140]

​@@EddieVBlueIslandWere the onion farmers who didnt want their crop to become worthless dishonest?

[@AdamBechtol]

Good point.

[@jackmanatee3162]

We have an odd, kind of family heirloom. It's a still life painting of onions. The story goes that the painting belonged to a railroad VP in California who loved onions but for whatever reason could not eat them. Apparently the VP was a distant relative of the family. The painting was given to my father when he was a young man working in machining factory in the years before WWII. An odd story? Yes, and I've always doubted it's veracity. However it's a very nice painting. 😄

[@drewzero1]

That's fascinating! I can't eat onions and neither can my mother. I don't think I've heard of anyone outside my family that reacts to them.

[@jaymzx0]

I love family stories like this.

[@elizabethsohler6516]

@@drewzero1 I have a friend who can't eat onions. I believe he has diverticulitis.

[@wheressteve]

A multi layered family onion painting mystery sounds nice, we're still trying to find out what happened to Dad after he went to the store for cigarettes in 1973.

[@wheressteve]

Ji.bo.... 9

[@skyden24195]

So glad The History Guy mentioned, "Trading Places" because that movie immediately came to mind when discussing "future's commodities."

[@jburron]

Commodity futures.

[@timothysworld1028]

The most-accepted Chicago meaning is a word that comes from the Algonquin language: “shikaakwa,” meaning “striped skunk” or “onion.” According to early explorers, the lakes and streams around Chicago were full of wild onions, leeks, and ramps. Appropriate that Chicago played such a huge part in this story.

[@topherthe11th23]

@timothysworld1028 - Chicago was named by the Spanish after a line in a tragic love-poem wherein the hero realizes that though he loves a certain woman, they can never be together. So he says "You must go, Chica, go" (using "go" instead of "va" because it's in the border-dialect that briefly existed along the river that forms the border between Castile and Sussex).

[@Foolish188]

Ramps...Oh do I want some ramps right now. Once found a large patch deep in the woods behind our house as a kid. I swore my family to secrecy about the location, but my Mother told several people. A year later they had all been stolen. I will die with the secret of the locations of my current patches.

[@johnnixon4085]

​@Foolish188 I planted 100 bulbs 2 years ago. Last year I tasted a couple leaves. They're just coming up now, but I expect to be able to take enough leaves to make some ramp butter, and to hopefully get some seed to scatter. Hopefully next year I can take a few bulbs.

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@topherthe11th23 very few questions in etymology can be answered with the unwavering confidence you have put on display in your comment. It's foolish to accept either story as absolute fact, unless you can provide a definitive primary source (which I know you can't).

[@topherthe11th23]

@@tissuepaper9962 I have a manuscript on parchment, dated 1460. Unfortunately it is in such delicate condition that even merely taking a photograph of it could be detrimental to its preservation. Subjecting it to public examination must remain out of the question for now. This means that the best evidence you can get is my assurance that the manuscript exists, since you can't get any evidence to the contrary. This makes you honor-bound to believe what it says. This is how scholarship works. Best evidence available. (I.e. not "best evidence imaginable" which may not be possible.)

[@g3heathen209]

Mortimer and Randolph Duke would be proud.

[@DavidHBurkart]

Wouldn't that actually be Louis and Billy-Ray? Morty and Randy didn't recover from that until the 1990's following a windfall gift from a foreign prince!! 😂😂😂

[@constipatedinsincity4424]

That last joke has me crying 😢 I don't know why!

[@palehorseman8386]

I'm surprised that box office futures was even considered given how infamous Hollywood accounting is.

[@skyden24195]

That is probably why it was considered, i.e., given how infamous Hollywood accounting is.

[@dom1310df]

It brings a tear to my eye that politicians can't put the same effort behind solving real problems as they did to stop trade in onion futures.

[@vinnynj78]

I love that little nod to Trading Places at the end. On a side note people selling short on major films released in 2023 could have made a fortune.

[@inthefade]

Just shorting Disney world have been a good idea

[@russcrawford3310]

Layers? ... like an ogre? ...

[@skyden24195]

You know what else has layers? Parfaits. Everyone likes a parfait. Ask anyone if they'd like a parfait. Ain't no one gonna say, "No, I don't want no parfait."

[@Maudit_Anglais]

Good one !

[@Whatsinmygreygarage]

Cake! Cake has layers!

[@spvillano]

Ogres, onions, you mean smelly and make people cry?

[@noneyabizz8337]

Guy turned good later, that's not normally how bad onions work.

[@guessundheit6494]

And south american drug lords put money into their communities. So what's your point?

[@DavidHBurkart]

😂😂😂

[@eldorados_lost_searcher]

You could say that he had layers to his personality.

[@BTScriviner]

A lot of those robber barons/shady capitalists turn to philanthropy later in life.

[@pgtv14]

Steals a boatload of money and gives (some) of it away to boost his own reputation. Real nice guy he was -_-

[@dwbiggly6907]

What’s better than French onion soup? Vampires love onions. My cousin vacationed in Transylvania for two weeks and wore a ring of garlic around his neck. The next year he returned to Transylvania but couldn’t find garlic to make a necklace. He made one out of onions. We never saw him again.

[@robertsaget6918]

This happened to my wife but in Spain. The last time I saw her she was walking away with two vampires wearing expensive suits who gave me a plane ticket home.

[@mimisor66]

He's probably still there, farming onions...😊

[@Youser999]

I wore an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time... 😂

[@NelsonZAPTM]

Was it a brown onion? Or one of the white ones that was fashionable at the time?

[@danwolf307]

Thank you!😂

[@emceeboogieboots1608]

Here it is! Onya Abe 👍

[@TTOS69]

What. The. Fck. Are you from the 1800s??

[@PhilWithCoffee]

I was looking for this lol

[@thetangieman3426]

Having grown onions at scale, actively traded commodities futures, and secretly desiring the cheat code to large piles of money this story is one of my all-time favorites, right up there with The Idles of March and the Manhattan Project.

[@caturdaynite7217]

One year Mom got me an onion for Christmas. I looked right at her and ate it raw. I still like onions and I learned a valuable lesson. Don't make Mama mad.

[@peterestrada9420]

Since I was a kid, I have eaten onions, like apples, but ☝️covered with Mustard & Black Pepper; Tomatoes, as well🤤😋🤣

[@peterestrada9420]

Salt & Watermelon 🍉 🧂 is pretty good too🤙😉

[@poetryflynn3712]

Ever hear of Vidalia onions? Supposedly they're sweet like apples!

[@sooz9433]

​They are! ​@@poetryflynn3712 The ones that are as big around as softballs but only an inch or so tall are the best ones.

[@tygrkhat4087]

@@peterestrada9420 My dad did that.

[@MrJamesjustin]

"...the market for butter was spread thin"? Ahhaha 😂 Sir, only you could get away with that.

[@handimanjay6642]

It brought tears to my eyes at how you peeled this subject, sliced then diced its many layers.

[@zyxw2000]

And then leeked the information to us.

[@mariabradley5585]

Lesson: Don't cry over spilled onions.

[@CAMacKenzie]

That Vincent Kosuga, he really knew his onions...

[@honodle7219]

This story brought tears to my eyes.

[@DutchBlackMantha]

So instead of preventing the same sort of market cornering to be done again, they just made it impossible for 2 very specific products.

[@spvillano]

And started an in-joke in the Adams family, where Gomez would comment on the price of pork bellies in multiple episodes.

[@V.Hansen.]

I can’t imagine being a farmer and then stealing from all the other farmers knowing how hard it is to stay afloat. What an actual pos. Makes me sick

[@jodyssey9921]

Ruthlessness is the most important quality if you want to be rich. That's why rich people are all assholes.

[@advicepirate8673]

If only the rest of us were willing to give people like that the one time payment in lead that they deserve. But most of us are no better, we have a system wherein mice happily vote for cats in the delusional hope that they will one day become the cat.

[@tissuepaper9962]

@@jodyssey9921 you have to step on other people's faces to make it up the ladder to wealth. There's a good reason why Jesus told the young rich man to sell all his possessions and give to the poor, and why it is said that a camel can be more easily be drawn through the eye of a needle than can a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. You can't get rich without screwing people, it's a simple fact.

[@pulaski1]

I'm not sure if there is a History Guy video to be made, but tobacco is the most valuable crop in the world for which there is no organized market or trading. I was briefly involved some years ago with one the largest tobacco brokers, which bought directly from farmers and sold to tobacco companies around the world. There is a lot more to supplying the different types of tobacco to the cigarette manufacturers than you could possibly imagine!

[@m39fan]

Lance is in fine form today.....

[@user-oh2hs6jh5x]

Welcome to class. The mid-term has been cancelled. Enjoy the weekend.

[@CAP198462]

But I spent all night studying for it 😢.

[@JeffreyGlover65]

​@@CAP198462I was gonna cheat off your answers...🤔

[@davea6314]

​@@JeffreyGlover65 You're suspended from school. 😜

[@danstotland6386]

Gee Thanks!

[@hobbyfarmer62]

I have always looked on futures trading as a sort of scam as it just seems to susceptible to stuns like this one.

[@Foolish188]

A very useful scam. For both farmers who can sell at a guaranteed profit and buyers who can buy at a guaranteed price, eliminating their risk of a higher price. Speculators provide the liquidity for the farmers and buyers.

[@spvillano]

Interestingly, just last week, Trump Media filed a complaint with the SEC claiming some mystery party was short selling Truth Social to manipulate the prices of their stock. Totally has to be true, can't be that a company that's losing tons of money has an overinflated stock value... Still, gambling and the stock market, ever a match made in the realm of the afterlife, such gambling working out ever so well in the 1920's.

[@topherthe11th23]

I'd heard of this but was waiting for an expert to peel back all the layers. Speaking of layers, the infinitely tangled complexities affecting egg-production are the reason the earlier commodity-trading in eggs mentioned from 3:53 to 5:00 died out. Every investor lacked the ability to digest all the layers in the egg-business.

[@joshuabessire9169]

I have some apples, would you like to buy them? Yes, please. That's how hard it should be to operate a Business. Also, dueling should be brought back. You might be able to say "buy my onions or else" 1 or 2 times but by number 10 you're surely missing an ear.

[@ArchFundy]

That dude sounds like a pirate to me. ^^

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

The Onion Pirate!

[@juliao1255]

...After all, don't all good stories have pirates? (Sorry, but someone had to say it.)

[@Pygar2]

@@TheHistoryGuyChannel This man really knows his onions!

[@jonmccormick6805]

@@juliao1255 Yes, and I was thinking it too!

[@andrewkillham3946]

This story brings tears to my eyes

[@BrilliantDesignOnline]

One of your best, definitely top ten. Can you imagine over 1000 gondola cars full of onions? I have ridden in a gondola car full of sweet potatoes. At about 50 feet long, that is about 9.5 miles long.

[@narveenaryaputri9759]

Chicago MEANS Onion in the Fox and Mesquaki language. They are the same people who named the major river of America the Mississippi, a Fox and Mesquaki word which means Plenty Of Fish.

[@Wordmama]

Now I can't get the smell of rotting onions out of my mind ...

[@Linusgump]

I was thinking the same thing. 🤮

[@alcedob.5850]

aw heck, got a flashback from 2020 when for like 3 months the only stink I could feel was the stink of rotting onions

[@thefixerofbrokenstuff]

My hat is of to you, the king of dad jokes.

[@scotto9591]

I really appreciate all the puns you sprinkled throughout this clip. Thank you for all that you do. We learn so much from you😊

[@NoahSpurrier]

I had a friend who was a chef. I once asked him what’s the most important vegetable. He said onions.

[@danktankdragkings7117]

as a professional prep cook 100% onion.

[@stevenschnepp576]

Beyond a shadow of a doubt. Just look at how many recipes are ruined without it, and how few substitutes for it there really are.

[@goodun2974]

Louisiana cooking relies upon what they call the Trinity: onion, celery and bell pepper.

[@wisecoconut5]

Totally. I am just an average home cook, but I keep 3 or 4 kinds of onions on hand all the time. Sweet, purple, yellow, leeks ( when available), and green onions. But shallots are great, too.

[@tygrkhat4087]

When I was a dishwasher, I hated to clean the bowls of French onion soup. I asked the chef why we served it, he said it cost $0.50 to make and we charged $8.50 a bowl.

[@edwardschneider2716]

Well done. Very interesting topic. Especially as I plant our own onions in 2024

[@mellissadalby1402]

Mr. Lance, I must say that you MORE THAN earn my devotion to your channel every week. You must be a tireless researcher to document so many stories so well with nary a break. I am truly in awe.

[@So-CalNevAri82]

Hey THG, my first time commenting. Love the Channel, great videos. This was a great video, super informative. I love onions, keep up the great content

[@matta5498]

Brilliant! Caveat Emptor!

[@CheshireTomcat68]

Man, this guy sure knows his turnips.

[@amadeusamwater]

Sort of like when the Hunt Brothers tried the same thing with silver.

[@rickhobson3211]

Fantastic episode! The ending elicited a healthy chuckle! Thank you for all your hard work getting to the root of the issue! You are no dim bulb!

[@earllutz2663]

Thank you again THG for another history lesson, this time on the onion. I am always impressed with your historical research.

[@BasicDrumming]

I appreciate you and thank you for making content.

[@ericmintz8305]

When I was in college (between the fall of 1966 and spring of 1970), there was a Great Winter Onion Shortage. The price of onions shot up, then they disappeared from the shelves. You couldn't get one for love nor money. It was a great day in the morning when they returned. Does anyone else remember this?

[@adrianbooth438]

But it was the style at the time!

[@tricotdiko1435]

I think Chicago means “Smells like onions” in local native tongue.

[@Torby4096]

Even more, bad smelly onions.

[@carguybikeguy]

4:23 I am commenting in the middle of the piece to express how delighted and amused I am by your well-placed and accurate puns. Thank you. You remind me of my HS physics teacher. All the dad-joke punny humor one could stomach and I was all there for it. Keep it up!

[@RechtmanDon]

One of the best editions!

[@thomasmacdiarmid8251]

A possible topic for another video - I long ago read in a book that in the 1800s, an investor set about cornering the market for rags used in making paper, but that just as he was completing a major step in the process, wood-pulp paper was made available and the market for rag paper was hopelessly undercut. I have not been able to find further information, and it may be an apocryphal warning story.

[@afigzr]

Thanks for another great video HG

[@costrio]

Onions with steak and mushrooms?...Yummy! Cue the Susan Christie song, "I Love Onions?"

[@parrotraiser6541]

Shorting has a finite reward, while it has a potentially infinite loss.

[@anonymous7386]

Hang on: the Ferris Beuller movie had a running joke referencing "The Sausage King of Chicago" - was that a reference to this guy? I never knew.

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

Chicago has a lot of kings…

[@gloriamontgomery6900]

It was this guy who killed his wife and put her in a vat of acid in his sausage factory. They found a ring and her false teeth which were enough to identify her

[@mrdanforth3744]

There was a screwball comedy called The Palm Beach Story that had a character called The Weenie King who made his fortune manufacturing weenies.

[@johnshinn6274]

This is my favorite channel. You’re the best. Have a great day and God bless you.

[@captbad9313]

Clever, thank you for the laugh and smile.

[@narveenaryaputri9759]

Delightful ! Absolutely delightful! Thank you specially for this one !

[@werre2]

Somehow I'm not surprised that this happened in Chicago

[@luannnelson547]

Here’s a butter and onion related experience for you: I grew up on a dairy farm in Georgia. My father and grandfather farmed together and had about 330 dairy cows. One unfortunate day, the cows broke down a fence and got into a neighbor’s empty field, which was rife with wild onions. Cows LOVE wild onions, but the resulting milk - pee-ew. Three days of milk had to be discarded, until all traces of onion smell were gone. I will never forget the odor and appearance of the curdled milk in the two big tanks, which as I recall held 3,000 and 5,000 gallons respectively. I still cannot eat French onion dip.

[@ProctorsGamble]

Another fascinating, well researched and cited story!

[@RonaldFigura]

The most-accepted Chicago meaning is a word that comes from the Algonquin language: “shikaakwa,” meaning “striped skunk” or “onion.” According to early explorers, the lakes and streams around Chicago were full of wild onions, leeks, and ramps.

[@jdavid50]

That was a delightful story. Thanks for sharing it.

[@guillermorodriguez836]

14:34 FCOJ but Pork Bellies were also part of the plot when Valentine was tested on when and what price to sell.

[@harryschaefer8563]

I often traveled with my family on the way to Port Jervis New York, through Pine Island New York, a town known for growing onions, in a broad flat valley of pure black soil. Listening to this episode, I wondered if Pine Island would be mentioned, and was not disappointed. The area is quite beautiful, and it is amazing how black the soil is.

[@WYO_Dirtbag]

Shrek would not approve of what these two guys did to mess up the onion market.

[@williamdavid3933]

Per usual I read the title of your episode and go wow how is that going to be interesting and then you go ahead and blow my mind about onions.

[@LouSlade]

What a wild ride about onions of all things. You sir, have a gift for making even the most obscure topics riveting.

[@staninjapan07]

What a fascinating look at onions, one of my favourite versatile vegetables. Thanks a lot.

[@valeriehowden471]

Trading Places is one of my favorite movies.

[@JimDean002]

I'm sure this video is Billy Ray Valentine approved

[@edkeaton]

My best friend thought that he was so smart. He said to me that onions were the only food that made you cry...then I threw a coconut at his face! 😂🧅🥥

[@johnfun3394]

I always wished I was smarter, never outsmarted anyone in my whole life.

[@anthonini66]

Two of my great passions coming together, onions and scandals.

[@kenneybis1097]

Amazing video brought a tear to my eye.

[@maximumcow]

you need a counter down in the corner tracking the puns. the chicken/egg episode would make it explode

[@helenel4126]

I'm sure this has been said, but this episode had me weeping.

[@johnthiel7422]

A whole lot of tears were Shedd

[@jackvoss5841]

Onions are said to be among the most nutritious of garden vegetables. When I was a kid, Mom would sometimes have a saucer of onion sections on the table. I gnoshed on onion along with other parts of the meal. When I worked with Boy Scouts on canoeing and camping expeditions, I would add onion sections to the meal. The boys liked them, and gobbled them down Courtesy of Half Vast Flying

[@chriscunliffe7450]

During my studies of Horticulture I stumbled upon the event known as Tulipmania involving the trading of rare tulips in The Netherlands , 400 or so years ago give or take ,some people lost fortunes speculating on the newest fashionable flower bulbs from the middle east

[@TheHistoryGuyChannel]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/e6PIdJqvaap2pqMsi=0qz730-Fy0J9qARb

[@braxtonnelson5375]

It's official: The History Guy can make any subject ap-peel-ing, no matter how many layers he has to unwrap.

[@nordan00]

I like onions. They taste good. Sometimes they make me cry, though.

[@J.A.Smith2397]

That's something to cry about

[@jaymondy]

They have all been good but this hits different.. well done! 👏👏

[@VetsrisAuguste]

Every time someone is getting rich, you can guarantee someone somewhere is getting screwed, being exploited or is indentured to make it possible.

[@texasdustfart]

I love how you mentioned the Abilene Reporter News as that is my local Newspaper.

[@DSAK55]

I use to drive through Pine Island, you could smell the onions in the air

[@Paladin1873]

A lot of onion farmers got skinned.

[@zyxw2000]

That's not an appealing story.

[@Paladin1873]

@@zyxw2000 🙂

[@odetomy]

I never knew there was an onion stock market scandal. lol. I a learning so much from these videos. Thank you so much for making these.

[@milosterwheeler2520]

All those onions dumped into the Chicago River must have been a interesting story in themselves.

[@kellybasham3113]

Love your videos

[@rockforehead3022]

Onions are perfect. They are without sin.

[@108u9]

Onion is pronounced “un-ion”. Union is pronounced “you-ion”

[@AdamBechtol]

:p

[@465maltbie]

That is weird, thanks for the explanation. Charles

[@semigoth299]

This makes me cry 😭