Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Pennsylvania Read online

  In the 1975–76 season, though, the Flyers went back to the finals a third consecutive time . . . and they got clobbered, losing four games to none to the Montreal Canadiens.

  The Flyers made the playoffs every year for the next 12 years, making it to the finals three more times but not winning the Stanley Cup. From 1989 to 1995, they didn’t make the postseason even once, but since then, they’ve begun another run—the Flyers have missed the playoffs only once since 1995.

  Flyers Facts

  •The Flyers have seven players in the NHL Hall of Fame, including legends Bill Barber, Bobby Clarke, and Bernie Parent.

  •The team has the record for the most ties in a single season: 24 in 1969–70. The Flyers also hold the record for the longest undefeated streak (ties included), going 35 straight games without a loss in 1979–80.

  •The Flyers weren’t the first hockey team to play in Philadelphia. In fact, Pittsburgh’s first NHL team—the Pirates, who played from 1925 to 1930—were also Philadelphia’s first hockey team. The Pirates moved to Philly for the 1930–31 season and were renamed the Philadelphia Quakers, but they were so bad that they folded after a year.

  •The most famous Broad Street Bully was defenseman Dave “the Hammer” Schultz. He wasn’t huge—just 6’ 1” and 185 pounds—but he was a vicious hitter and was famous for getting into fights. Schultz still holds the record for the most penalty minutes in a single season: 472 . . . almost eight full games’ worth.

  It’s a Zoo Out There

  There are about 60 mammal species found in the hills, woods, and rivers of Pennsylvania. Here’s a rundown of the most common.

  Black Bears

  Although black bears were once hunted to near-extinction, there are about 15,000 of them in Pennsylvania today. And some of those are among the largest on record: in the last few years, hunters have routinely brought in males that weighed more than 800 pounds. (The largest black bear ever—hunted in North Carolina in 1998—weighed 880 pounds.)

  Wild Boars

  Hikers in the Pennsylvania wilderness often come across wild boars, pigs with long tusks curling out from their snouts. The boars typically weigh about 300 pounds, but aren’t native to North America—they were brought from Europe in the 1500s. Today, about 3,000 of them roam in Pennsylvania.

  Coyotes

  Most people think of coyotes as an animal common to the western United States, but over the last 30 years, coyote populations have been steadily growing east of the Mississippi River. The first photographic evidence of them in Pennsylvania came in 1930, and today, there may be as many as 30,000 populating the state.

  Bobcats

  Bobcats, the only wild feline predators in Pennsylvania, average three feet in length, about 15 inches in height, and weigh 30 pounds. They were hunted almost to extinction by the 1960s, but were protected from 1970 until 1999, and today there are an estimated 3,500 bobcats living in the Keystone State.

  Eastern Spotted Skunks

  Unlike the classic stripped skunk, these skunks have white, broken stripes on their bodies that make them look spotted. They’re found almost exclusively in the southwestern part of the state, and are rarely seen even there. Eastern spotted skunks are smaller than other species—adults average just 15 inches in length—but they still carry a powerfully offensive spray.

  Whales

  Incredibly, whales—most often fin and right whales—sometimes enter the Delaware River, and have been seen as far north as Philadelphia. (Seals, porpoises, and loggerhead sea turtles have also been seen navigating the Delaware.)

  For more Pennsylvania animals, turn to page 293.

  Did You Know?

  Beavers used to roam in great numbers all over Pennsylvania, but by the late 1800s, they were completely wiped out by trappers. Then, in the 1910s, they were reintroduced and protected and, by the 1930s, were back to healthy numbers. Today there may be as many as 30,000 living in the state, most of them in the northern counties.

  An Erie Feeling

  . . . in the Erie Triangle.

  Town: Erie

  Location: Erie County

  Founding: 1795

  Population (2008): 104,000

  Size: 28 square miles

  County seat: Yes

  What’s in a Name?

  An American Indian tribe known as the Eriez were the first people to live in the area. When European settlers moved in, they shortened that to Erie and named the region after the tribe.

  Claims to Fame:

  •Field and Stream magazine has called Erie one of the top-20 family fishing spots in the United States.

  •In 1784, the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Iroquois Confederacy (with whom the Eriez were associated), handing over some of the Iroquois’ land to the United States. Part of it fell on the border between Pennsylvania and New York, and since the border wasn’t clearly defined in those days, both states laid claim to it. The land included a 202,000-acre parcel, nicknamed the Triangle Lands or the Erie Triangle, which provided a potential port on Lake Erie. Further complicating things: Massachusetts and Connecticut also claimed the Triangle, citing colonial-era laws called “sea-to-sea” charters that technically allowed them to expand as far west as they wanted. All four states argued their cases to the federal government, but in the end, Pennsylvania got the land. Why? Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts already had access to Atlantic Ocean ports, but Pennsylvania was landlocked. That didn’t mean Pennsylvania got the Erie Triangle outright, though: the federal government sold the state what is now Erie County for $152,000—about 75 cents per acre.

  •Erie is part of the Rust Belt, a region that stretches from Michigan to upstate New York—an American manufacturing center until the decline of the steel industry in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, Erie continues to get most of its revenue from manufacturing. Its main industry: plastics, with four of the top 50 U.S. plastics companies located in Erie.

  •Famous Erie natives: Tom Ridge (former Pennsylvania governor and congressman, and onetime secretary of the Department of Homeland Security), Pat Monahan (lead singer of the band Train), and Ann B. Davis (Alice on The Brady Bunch).

  •Erie has two nicknames: Gem City, because of Presque Isle Bay’s sparkling water; and Flagship City, because it was the home port of Commodore Oliver Perry’s flagship, the Niagara, one of nine American ships that defeated the British during the War of 1812’s battle of Lake Erie.

  The Great Innovator

  Everyone’s heard the story about Benjamin Franklin flying a kite during a thunderstorm and proving that lightning and electricity were the same. But his discoveries and inventions extended beyond just science to politics, civic improvements, meteorology, and everyday life.

  The Biggies

  Given how many things Benjamin Franklin invented, it’s a wonder he had time to help found a nation. Here’s a sampling: He invented bifocals, the lightning rod, and the Franklin stove—a safe, metal-lined furnace that created fewer sparks than old fireplaces, circulated heat, and used less wood. Those are among the most famous, but he also developed a flexible catheter for his brother who suffered from kidney stones, a chair with a reversible seat that could function as a stepladder, an odometer to measure postal routes, a “long arm” mechanical device to pluck books from high shelves, and swim fins. Franklin didn’t patent any of them, though. Instead, he put them all in the public domain so that everyone could use them.

  Politics

  •Franklin also created America’s first political cartoon. It was the “Join, or Die” drawing of a cut-up snake that illustrated an editorial in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. The editorial encouraged the New England colonies to fight together in the French and Indian War. Later, reprints of the cartoon were used as a rallying cry during the American Revolution.

  Concerns Around Town

  •The first fire department—the Union Fire Company in Philadelphia—and fire insurance to cover “houses” (both businesses and homes) were Franklin’s ideas.


  •Franklin formed a club of friends and business associates, called the Junto. Together, they developed the first public lending library in America: the Library Company. Franklin and the other Junto members each paid a fee to be members of this library, and the money was used to buy books. The organization (now called the Library Company of Philadel-phia) is still around today.

  Healthy Living

  •Long before people figured out that eating citrus fruit could prevent diseases like scurvy, Franklin was touting the advantages of daily servings of fruit. “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” is one of his most famous sayings, but Franklin also claimed that oranges, limes, and grapefruit were healthy, especially for the gums and skin.

  Time and Weather

  •Franklin was the first to recognize that most storms on the East Coast came from the southwest, and he was the first to map and describe the Gulf Stream.

  •We can thank (or blame) Franklin for Daylight Saving Time. When he was a diplomat in France, Franklin published a whimsical article for the Journal de Paris, bemoaning the fact that since no one in France got to work before noon, thousands of pounds of candles were wasted at night. He then listed ways to take advantage of sunlight. One of his suggestions was adjusting the clocks to include more hours of daylight. (He also suggested rationing candles and ringing church bells at dawn, so no one is sure whether or not he was serious.)

  Music

  •A music lover, Franklin created the glass armonica, an instrument in which a rod held spinning glass bowls of different thicknesses. When a musician rubbed the glass with wet fingers (much like you’d “play” a wine glass), the bowls emitted different notes. Franklin once said, “Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the most satisfaction.”

  Did You Know?

  Pittsburgh boasts the only trio of identical bridges in the United States. They’re called the “Three Sisters” and span the city’s Sixth, Seventh, and Ninth streets. All three yellow suspension bridges were built between 1924 and 1928 by the American Bridge Company, which still has its headquarters outside Pittsburgh.

  The bridges are better known by their commemorative names: the Sixth Street bridge honors Roberto Clemente, Seventh Street is called the Andy Warhol Bridge, and the Ninth Street bridge is named for Rachel Carson.

  The Pittsburgh Vaccine

  In 1954, Dr. Jonas Salk introduced his polio vaccine to the world, putting the city of Pittsburgh at the forefront of the development and testing of what many people considered a “miracle” medicine.

  Polio has been around for thousands of years. Ancient Egyptian art shows children with withered limbs using canes, and many historians believe that Roman emperor Claudius walked with a limp as a result of having polio as a child. The first cases of the virus weren’t reported in the United States until 1894, though, when 132 children in Vermont came down with the disease.

  Over the next five decades, polio became one of the most feared and mysterious diseases in America. It wasn’t the most deadly; many more people died of influenza and pneumonia. But polio seemed to appear without warning and affected mostly children. There was also no cure, and no precautionary measures seemed to ward the disease off completely. By 1952—the height of the polio epidemic in America—58,000 cases were reported, and parents, scientists, and government officials clamored for anything that would relieve the suffering. That’s where Jonas Salk and Pittsburgh came in.

  “Salk” of the Earth

  Jonas Salk was born in New York City in 1914. The child of Russian immigrants, Salk was the first in his family to go to college. He attended the City College of New York and then medical school at New York University, where he got involved with a research group investigating the influenza virus.

  Two decades earlier, in 1918, a strain of influenza had killed a staggering 25 million people worldwide, including thousands of American soldiers fighting in World War I. When World War II began in 1939, the U.S. government stepped up efforts to create a flu vaccine to protect its soldiers abroad. Scientists had recently isolated the germ that caused influenza, and Salk worked with microbiologist Thomas Francis Jr. (first at NYU and then at the University of Michigan) to develop a flu vaccine for American soldiers. Their vaccine used killed strains of the flu virus and laid the foundation for much of Salk’s later polio research.

  Into the Pitt

  In 1947, the University of Pittsburgh offered Salk a job: head of the medical school’s Virus Research Lab. The goal for Salk and his team (which included Francis and other researchers from around the country) was to develop a safe and effective polio vaccine.

  Over the next five years, Salk made some incredible discoveries. First, he managed to isolate the specific germs that caused polio and found that there were actually three strains of the virus. Then he figured out how to create killed forms of each strain and include them in a single vaccine that prevented polio infection. By proving that killed strains of the virus could create the antibodies necessary for immunization, Salk also proved one of his own longstanding theories: that killed virus vaccines could be just as effective as muted live virus vaccines, which contained weakened (but live) germs and ran a risk of infection. This went against the popular opinion of the time, which dictated that only a muted form of a live virus would work.

  Salk’s team wasn’t the only research group looking for a polio vaccine, and they got some outside help from other scientists who made important discoveries of their own. In particular, researchers in Boston discovered how to grow the poliovirus in human tissue. This meant Salk’s laboratory tests could be more accurate. (He’d been using monkeys.)

  Human Guinea Pigs

  By 1952, Salk was satisfied that his vaccine was finished, but so far, it had worked only in the laboratory. It was now time to test it out on humans. His first subjects: his wife and three sons. None showed any ill effects, and none contracted polio.

  Next, he expanded the clinical trials to a large group of schoolchildren. Since his goal was to see protective polio antibody levels rise in their blood, Salk also needed a control sample. He found it in a group of children at the D. T. Watson Home, about 12 miles outside of Pittsburgh, who had recovered from polio.

  The first children outside of Salk’s family to receive the polio vaccine (which Salk called the “Pittsburgh Vaccine”) were from the city’s Arsenal Elementary School on 40th Street. When the notices went home about the coming vaccine trials, eager parents returned the permission slips in droves.

  Over the next year, more than 15,000 children around Pittsburgh took part in the clinical trials. And in 1953, Salk and his colleagues expanded their experiment to 1.8 million children throughout the United States, Canada, and Finland. By 1955, the scientists were satisfied with the vaccine’s results: it was 70 percent effective against the first strain of polio and 90 percent effective against the second and third strains.

  Immediately, mass immunization campaigns sprang up across the United States. And by 1957, the number of reported polio cases had dropped by about 85 percent. By 1994, polio had been nearly eradicated in the United States.

  No Success Without Controversy

  Jonas Salk never patented his vaccine; he wanted the entire world to benefit from his discovery. But Salk wasn’t without his critics. He often gets credit for developing the “first” polio vaccine, but in reality, his was just the first to find mainstream success in the United States. In 1950, Hilary Koprowski, a doctor and researcher from Poland who eventually settled in Philadelphia, introduced a live oral vaccine that proved successful in trials. Koprowski had neither the funding nor the backing of a major institution to bring his vaccine to the American public, but he used it in other countries, including Zaire, where a quarter of a million children received the inoculation.

  Cures for the Future

  Koprowski’s efforts also inspired Albert Sabin, a researcher at the University of Cincinnati, to develop his own live oral polio vaccine in 1957. Salk’s vaccine worked to prevent the debi
litating effects of polio, but it didn’t always protect against the initial flu-like symptoms. Also, it required booster shots. Sabin’s vaccine, on the other hand, prevented the disease altogether and required only one dose. For almost 30 years, Sabin’s oral vaccine was the most widely used means of preventing polio. But in 1999, the U.S. Public Health Service recommended that doctors return to using Salk’s killed-virus vaccine in order to prevent the handful of polio infections caused by the live-virus version.

  In 2005, the University of Pittsburgh hosted a symposium honoring the 50th anniversary of the vaccine’s development. The speakers included the university’s researchers, polio experts, and even Jonas Salk’s son, Peter, who also became a doctor and researcher. He has spent most of his professional career researching vaccines for the HIV and AIDS viruses.

  Did You Know?