Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania (27 page)

Welcome to Mister Rogers' neighborhood and one of the cleanest cities in the United States. (Yes, really!)

Town:
Pittsburgh

Location:
Allegheny County

Founding:
1758

Population (2008):
313,000

Size:
58.3 square miles

County seat:
Yes

Settler John Forbes, a general in the English army, named the new settlement Pittsburgh after British statesman Sir William Pitt. However, Forbes was actually Scottish, so he may have intended for the city's name to be pronounced “Pitts-burrah,” like the Scottish city of Edinburgh.

Raised around opera music in his South Philadelphia home, this Keystone Stater went on to become one of the most celebrated singers in the United States
.

I
talian conductor Arturo Toscanini once described Mario Lanza as having “the greatest voice of the 20th century,” and entertainment columnist Hedda Hopper wrote that he was the only person she'd heard who could “double for Caruso.” But since his sudden death in 1959 at the age of 38, Lanza has faded from the limelight. At one time, though, the Pennsyl vanian was a rising movie star. Test what you know abut him with this true or false quiz.

False.
Lanza was born January 31, 1921, in Philadelphia as Alfredo Arnold Cocozza. He spent his first 20 years known as “Freddie.” The stage name came later, when studio heads thought he needed a name that was easier to spell and pronounce. “Mario Lanza” is a masculinization of his mother's maiden name, Maria Lanza.

True.
Lanza spent a few years in the army during World War II, and after he was discharged, he moved to New York to focus on
his musical career. There he performed on a CBS radio show called
Great Moments in Music
and eventually set off on a concert tour. In 1947, at a performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Lanza caught the eye of Mayer, who signed the singer to a seven-year film contract. Lanza's first film: 1949's
That Midnight Kiss
, which was set in Philadelphia. The movie also featured Kathryn Grayson—who had been sitting with Mayer the night he discovered Lanza. (Rumor has it that, even though they made a couple of films together, Grayson and Lanza never got along; she considered him a hothead and a drunk.)

False.
Lanza started to find fame in the early 1950s after he played opera singer Enrico Caruso in 1951's
The Great Caruso
, but on the set of the film
The Student Prince
, he ran into trouble. According to biographer Armando Cesari, Lanza and director Curtis Bernhardt butted heads on the very first day of rehearsals: Bernhardt wanted Lanza to restrain his emotional delivery, and Lanza stated that he “had no intention of following such ridiculous orders” and left the set. Lanza demanded that Bernhardt be replaced, but the film's producers balked and Lanza responded by not showing up to work the next day. That got him fired (though tabloids speculated that it was because he'd gotten chubby). Eventually Lanza worked out a deal where he sang the movie's songs, which another actor lip-synched.

False.
Lanza's last American movie,
Serenade
, wasn't as
successful as his earlier films, so he left the United States for Europe, where he performed in several concerts and made his last two films:
Seven Hills of Rome
and
For the First Time
. But Lanza's health had been declining for years, likely the result of heavy drinking. On October 7, 1959, when he was just 38 years old, he had a heart attack and died in Rome. Rumors at the time suggested that Lanza's heart attack had been fabricated and he'd actually been assassinated for refusing to perform for mob boss Lucky Luciano. But Lanza's family always denied it.

 

 

On
page 122
, we introduced Bethlehem Steel, one of the most dominant (and now defunct) companies in Pennsylvania's history. Here's another giant company that went boom—and then bust
.

Claim to Fame:
Revolutionizing rail travel throughout Pennsylvania and the United States

Business Giant:
For much of the 20th century, this railroad (called “the Pennsy”) made more money than any other American railway—and was the largest publicly traded company in the world. At one point, its budget was larger than that of the U.S. government.

The massive Pennsylvania Railroad started out modestly in 1849 with a short line between Harrisburg and Lewiston, but its founders (led by chief engineer J. Edgar Thompson) envisioned a railway between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. By horse, it took at least three days to make the 350-mile trip, but a railroad could cut that time by a third—a windfall for manufacturers in western Pennsylvania who needed to transport their products to Philadelphia for export. It took five years, but in 1854, the Pennsy ran its first train from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. The trip took just 13 hours.

At stops between the two cities, the railroad constructed hotels and train stations to accommodate travelers. The Logan House in
Altoona was among the most luxurious. It was four stories high and included a barbershop, three lounges, and a large dining room where an employee banged a gong to let travelers know when trains were departing.

After the success of the Pittsburgh–Philadelphia line, the railroad kept growing. The company bought or leased lines to Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis. By the 1920s, the Pennsylvania Railroad ran more than 6,500 trains every day over 28,000 miles of track.

The relationship between laborers and management at the Pennsy was notoriously poor, and the company's leaders ran into many problems with strikers and unions. A walkout in 1877 (called the Great Railroad Strike because it included workers from several states) turned violent in Pittsburgh when a mob of angry workers clashed with the state militia; 45 people were killed and one of the railroad's stations burned down. Yet the Pennsylvania Railroad also had a reputation for being one of the safest companies in the country. Its trains used air brakes (which allowed an operator in the train's cab to control the brake, rather than an external brakeman), its signals were electric, and the company created an entire testing division to check its equipment.

The Pennsylvania Railroad remained a titan of transportation until 1968, when it merged with the New York Railroad. That new company didn't last long—just 870 days later, it declared bankruptcy. But Amtrak bought many of the Pennsy's trains and rail lines, and it still runs some of the same routes.

How well do you know Pennsylvania's state symbols?

1.
The Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources calls the state animal “undoubtedly one of the most influential species of wildlife in Pennsylvania.” What is it?

A.
White-tailed deer

B.
Groundhog

C.
Red fox

2.
Milk is Pennsylvania's state drink, and dairies in the Keystone State produce more than a billion gallons of milk every year. Where does Pennsylvania rank in milk production compared to the other U.S. states?

A.
First

B.
Fifth

C.
Seventh

3.
What's the state bird?

A.
Riffled grouse

B.
Ruffed grouse

C.
Ruffled goose

4.
The state fish is also Pennsylvania's only native species of trout. What is it?

A.
Blueback trout

B.
Cutthroat trout

C.
Brook trout

5.
Governor Gifford Pinchot chose the mountain laurel as the state flower in 1933. What color are its petals?

A.
Blue and white

B.
Pink and white

C.
Pink and blue

6.
Pennsylvania's state fossil is the trilobite, a group of ancient creatures that included some of the first-known animals to have what sense?

A.
Vision

B.
Hearing

C.
Taste

7.
Fireflies are Pennsylvania's state insects. For what purpose do the animals use their bioluminescence?

A.
Lighting their way

B.
Finding food

C.
Attracting mates

8.
Pennsylvania adopted its state song in 1990. What's it called?

A.
“Pennsylvania”

B.
“Long Live PA”

C.
“The Great Keystone State”

9.
As a tribute to its railroad history, Pennsylvania has a state train: the K4s steam locomotive. When did those trains first take to the track?