Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania
Page 20
Did You Know?
Between 1947 and 1969, the U.S. military sponsored Project Blue Book—a secret operation to investigate UFO activity in the United States. Over 22 years, project officials looked into 12,618 reports of UFO sightings. Most of those were discounted as hoaxes or natural events (like stars or lightning). But 701 reports remain unexplained—16 of them in Pennsylvania.
Getting in Toon
This town is always ahead of the curve.
Town: Altoona
Location: Blair County
Founding: 1849
Population (2008): 49,500
Size: 9.8 square miles
County seat: No
What’s in a Name?
Local Cherokee Indians called the area Allatoona, meaning “high lands of great worth” because the city is situated high in the Allegheny Mountains. However, the name may also come from the German city of Altona. (Many Germans settled in the area.)
Claims to Fame:
•Altoona was laid out in 1849 by employees of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The site was originally a switching point and maintenance stop before trains climbed into the mountains. The town’s economy is still largely train-based, with rail yards and train repair facilities.
•It’s home to the minor league baseball team the Altoona Curve, who don’t take themselves too seriously. Some of their promotions have included Erik Estrada Night, Awful Night (featuring onion bobbing and a gallbladder giveaway), and “A Salute to Quitters.”
The Fight for the Wyoming Valley
During the days of the American Revolution, the states often battled each other for territory. Case in point: the 18th-century fight between Pennsylvania and Connecticut for the Wyoming Valley, a conflict known as the Pennamite-Yankee War.
Yours, Mine, or Ours?
The problems began in the 17th century, when King Charles II of England gave two groups the same plot of land. In 1662, he granted the founders of the Connecticut colony an area be-tween the 41st and 42nd parallels, going indefinitely west from the coast (since no one back then knew how far inland the new colonies would stretch). Nineteen years later, in 1681, he gave William Penn a plot that included the one he’d given to Connecticut. And within the borders of this doubly gifted plot was the Wyoming Valley, a fertile arch-shaped area about 20 miles long in what is now northeastern Pennsylvania.
Farmers from both colonies soon flocked to the region. The first Connecticut settlement was near modern-day Wilkes-Barre. Pennsylvania, however, felt that the land lay inside its borders. Neither colony was happy about the other moving in on its territory, but for about 70 years, there seemed to be enough land for everyone. And by 1754, the two states were distracted by other things: in particular, the French and Indian War.
Fight!
In the meantime, rich deposits of coal were found in the Wyoming Valley, making the place even more appealing to both sides. When a new group of Connecticut settlers arrived in 1769, the local Pennsylvania sheriff, determined to stake a claim for his colony, arrested them for trespassing. The newcomers left, but returned the following year with a militia and built a fort. So the sheriff assembled a larger group and drove them off again.
This just made the Connecticut settlers even more determined to occupy the Wyoming Valley. They contacted a group of ruthless frontiersmen who were promised land for their help and asked for their protection. With those men as bodyguards, the Connecticut “Yankees” (as New Englanders were called in those days) took over the Wyoming Valley, built forts, and dug in. They renamed the place Westmoreland and declared that it was part of Connecticut.
The battle continued, but dissipated a little when the American Revolution began. Some men continued fighting in the Wyoming Valley, but many others (both Yankees and Pennsylvanians, also known as Pennamites) joined General George Washington to fight the British. Pennsylvania’s governor, John Penn, the grandson of William Penn, remained loyal to King George III, which only increased the animosity between Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
Battle of the Butlers
In 1778, Major John Butler, a British loyalist stationed at New York State’s Fort Niagara, led a group of 400 British soldiers into the Wyoming Valley to clear the region of Connecticut settlers. He also added several hundred warriors from the Iroquois Confed eracy to strengthen his numbers.
On the other side, Colonel Zebulon Butler—no relation to John—of Washington’s Continental Army happened to be at home in the Wyoming Valley on furlough. He saw the approaching army and raised his own militia of 300 men to march on John Butler’s force. On July 3, 1778, Zebulon Butler met his enemy on open ground, forming a thin line to defend the valley. But because the invading enemy was much larger than his group, this proved to be a fatal mistake.
Wyoming Valley Massacre
Zebulon Butler’s group fired just three volleys before they were flanked by John Butler’s American Indian allies and overwhelmed. The battle lasted less than an hour and resulted in 200 of Zebulon Butler’s men being taken captive. (The rest escaped.)
John Butler let the Indians take control of the prisoners. Whether he knew what would happen to them or not is debatable, but during the night, all but two of the prisoners were killed. The two who escaped spread the story that British and Indian troops had massacred the men of the Wyoming Valley.
The End
This was unwelcome news for the American colonists, already angry at the British and distrustful of their Indian neighbors. American poets wrote memorials to the men, which made the feud and the valley famous. And after hearing of the massacre, George Washington sent soldiers to destroy Iroquois villages.
After the Revolutionary War ended, a 1782 Congressional commission ruled that the Wyoming Valley belonged to Penn-sylvania. (Because the commission met in secret and kept no notes, the reasons for choosing Pennsylvania over Connecticut remain a mystery.) Bolstered by Congress’s decision, the State of Pennsylvania sent troops to evict the Connecticut settlers. In turn, the angry Yankees declared that neither Pennsylvania nor Connecticut had any authority over Westmoreland—it was an independent state.
Of course, that didn’t work, either, and the back-and-forth bickering lasted another few years. Both sides eventually came to an agreement in 1788: per the Congress’s decision, Pennsylvania would keep the land but agreed to let the Connecticut farmers stay and to recognize their property rights. Pennsylvania separated the Wyoming Valley into a new county—Luzerne.
Did You Know?
Pennsylvania is the only state that was once home to two Catholic saints. (Only four Americans have been canonized by the Catholic church.) The first was Saint John Neumann, who was Bishop of Philadelphia and opened the first parochial school in the United States in 1852. The second was Saint Katherine Drexel.
Drexel was born in Philadelphia in 1858 and came from a wealthy, philanthropic family—her father founded Drexel University in 1891. She decided early on to devote her life to helping other people and concentrated her efforts on educational opportunities for American Indians and African Americans. Over the course of her life, Drexel opened more than 60 schools, including a mission school in New Mexico and Xavier University in Louisiana, the only black Catholic college in the United States at the time. (Today, the college admits non-Catholics and people of other races.)
Bandstand Boogie!
Before MTV and music videos, there was American Bandstand. In its 37 years on the air, the show racked up some fascinating numbers.
1st
Record played on the national show: “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” by Jerry Lee Lewis.
3
The number of new songs reviewed during each show’s “Rate-a-Record” segment. Three teenagers from the studio’s audience would rate the new tunes, and the kids also coined the oft-repeated “It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it” if they liked it. This part of the show was vitally important to record producers: A good score on “Rate-a-Record” meant the viewing audience would rush out and buy the record, almost
always sending it to the Top-10 charts. But a bad rating didn’t always spell disaster—in 1963, the then-unknown Beatles got a low Rate-a-Record rating for their song “She Loves You.”
4
Hosts in Bandstand’s history. Bob Horn was the first—he was the one who invited teenagers to come to the studio and dance with the music. In 1956, after Horn was arrested for drunk driving, the studio fired him and hired Tony Mammarella. Soon after, though, Dick Clark took his place. Then in 1989, for the show’s final season, David Hirsch took over for Clark.
6
The Philadelphia TV channel (originally WFIL, now WPVI-TV) on which American Bandstand premiered in 1952. First called just Bandstand, it ran from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, when teenagers were getting home from school. The show went national in 1957 and changed its name to American Bandstand. It aired on ABC, and by the end of its first year, 64 stations around the country carried the show.
14 years
The minimum age for dancers on the show; 18 was the maximum. They were all local kids from around Philadelphia, and about 60 of them were part of the “Committee”—regulars who appeared on every show during the 1960s and became role models for American teenagers. Becoming a regular was fairly easy: anyone who appeared on the show and received fan mail could be one.
35
Number of songs featured on each program.
69 cents
The average cost of a 45-rpm record in Philadelphia in the 1950s. The fact that records were so inexpensive was one reason for the show’s success. In the 1950s, teenagers had more disposable income than ever before (a result of the economic prosperity that followed World War II), and by spending a lot of their money on 45s (which had one song on each side), they became the dominant consumers in the music industry.
500
The number of fan letters received by Arlene Sullivan and Kenny Rossi, one of the show’s most popular couples, during an average week. Sullivan was always surprised by her appeal. She said, “I danced on a TV show. Nothing I did was different than what kids were doing in their basements.”
1959
The year Congress began investigating what became known as the “payola scandal.” Payola was an illegal practice whereby record companies paid disc jockeys to play their songs on the air. American Bandstand and Dick Clark were investigated because both were so prominent in the field. In the end, Clark had to give up his financial interests in the recording business and stop accepting gifts from record companies. (He’d once accepted a fur stole and expensive jewelry from a record company president.)
1964
Year ABC moved production of the show from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. Dick Clark actually facilitated the move; he wanted more time to work on other projects and to be closer to the center of the entertainment industry in Hollywood. After-ward, American Bandstand began airing only one day a week.
1989
Year American Bandstand went off the air.
Bandstand Bits
•Philadelphia-based singers Fabian, Frankie Avalon, and Bobby Rydell all got their big breaks on American Bandstand. They often filled in for acts that dropped out at the last minute, and the exposure gave their careers a tremendous boost.
•Before Dick Clark took over as host in 1956, American Bandstand allowed only white teenagers in its audience and on its stage. One of the first changes Clark made was to integrate the show. He insisted that it was only logical, since so many of the artists who appeared on the show were African Americans.
•Only one performer didn’t lip-synch during his appearance on the show: B. B. King on January 3, 1970.
•Today, the Top-10 countdown is a common feature on radio and music television stations, but American Bandstand was the first to use it.
•The show’s theme song was called “Bandstand Boogie.”
•Between 2002 and 2005, NBC ran a prime-time drama called American Dreams. Set in the early 1960s, it told the story of Philadelphia’s Pryor family. The main character—16-year-old Meg Pryor—was a regular on American Bandstand. The show’s producer: Dick Clark Productions.
Did You Know?
As mentioned on page 93, when it came time to choose the name of Philadelphia’s hockey team in 1967, the managers held a newspaper contest; Flyers won, but they wanted an “official winner.” So all the ballots that had picked that name were put into a box, and one was drawn. The winner: nine-year old Alec Stockard—except he had misspelled it as “Fliers.”
James Buchanan Gets No Respect
So maybe he wasn’t the greatest U.S. president. But he was the only one from Pennsylvania.
James Buchanan, who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861, had the misfortune of presiding over the dissolution of the country as it careened into civil war. As a result, history has not judged him kindly—he’s generally ranked in the bottom tier of presidents, and some consider him the worst president. But that doesn’t mean he’s not interesting.
The Early Years
Buchanan was born on April 23, 1791, in Franklin County, near in a place called Cove Gap. Buchanan attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he was once expelled for “bad behavior” (he often disrupted class). He begged to be read-mitted, promised his teachers he’d shape up, and ultimately graduated with honors in 1809.
Buchanan Builds a Résumé
Although he was most famous as president, Buchanan served in a number of other positions on his way up the political ladder. He was elected a state representative in 1814 and, beginning in 1821, served five terms as a U.S. representative. He also was Andrew Jackson’s minister to Russia and the Secretary of State during James Polk’s administration. (Polk wanted to nominate him to the Supreme Court, but Buchanan refused.) Franklin Pierce appointed him as minister to Great Britain in 1853.
A Reluctant Nominee
Buchanan had hoped to be nominated for president in 1844 and again in the next two elections, but the Democratic Party passed him over each time. His nomination for president finally came in 1856 after delegates went through 17 rounds of nominations before agreeing on him. One of Buchanan’s major selling points was that, because he’d been out of the country as the minister to Great Britain, he wasn’t tainted by America’s major controversy of the time: slavery. Still, as much as he wanted to be president, he was reluctant to accept the 1856 nomination, writing, “Before many years, the abolitionists will bring war upon this land. It may come during the next presidential term.” Despite that concern, he took the nomination and won the presidency.
It’s Not Easy Being Doughy
Buchanan was known as a “doughface”—a term that meant a man from the North who was sympathetic to the South—and in fact, he blamed most of the nation’s troubles with slavery on Northern abolitionists causing trouble. At the start of his administration, Buchanan learned that the Supreme Court was about to hand down a proslavery verdict in the case of Dred Scott, a slave who sued to have the court free him. Instead, the court (led by Justice Robert Taney) sided with Scott’s owner and declared that because Scott was black and thus not a U.S. citizen (neither freed blacks nor slaves were allowed citizenship at the time), he couldn’t sue anyway.
Buchanan hoped the Dred Scott decision would settle the slavery issue . . . but of course, it didn’t. Instead, it ignited even further controversy (most notably, whether Kansas should be admitted to the Union as a free or a slave state) and threw Buchanan into a battle with his own party. This split the Democratic Party by the election of 1860, when two Democrats ran for president: Buchanan had bowed out, and the two who remained were Stephen Douglas from the North and John C. Breckenridge from the South. The party’s split all but assured victory for the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln.
Worst Presidential Blunder Ever
By the end of Buchanan’s term, it was clear that a number of Southern states were planning to secede, and as president, he needed to do something. So, on December 3, 1860, he anno
unced to Congress that even though it was his opinion that states could not legally secede from the Union, the federal government couldn’t stop them, either.
Less than three weeks later, South Carolina withdrew from the Union, and by February 1861—a month before Buchanan’s term ended—six more states had withdrawn and formed the Confederate States of America. The first shots of the Civil War, at South Carolina’s Fort Sumter, were fired on Buchanan’s watch on January 9, 1861.
How important was Buchanan’s choice not to take action? In 2006, a group of historians assembled by the University of Louisville called his refusal to do more to halt the dissolution of the Union as the single biggest presidential blunder in history.
Passing the Buck
Buchanan, who had accepted the presidency with reservations, seemed delighted to pass it on to Lincoln in March 1861, telling the 16th president, “If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel [leaving it], you are a happy man.” By that time, Buchanan was already so unpopular that the Senate drafted a resolution condemning him. His presidential portrait was removed from the Capitol rotunda for fear it might be vandalized.