{"id":12918,"date":"2018-11-06T10:33:01","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T15:33:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=12918"},"modified":"2018-12-22T12:16:40","modified_gmt":"2018-12-22T17:16:40","slug":"a-fresh-take-on-the-hoagie-origin-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2018\/11\/a-fresh-take-on-the-hoagie-origin-story\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fresh Take on the Hoagie Origin Story"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Hog Island Shipyard, 1918. (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFar across the low-lying meadows the great fringe of derricks rises against the sky,\u201d wrote Christopher Morley<\/a> in his love note to Hog Island.<\/p>\n

\u201cPast the crumpled ramparts of old Fort Mifflin, motors and trolley cars now go flashing down to the huge new shipyard.\u201d Morley stood in awe of \u201cthe marvelous stretch of fifty shipways, each carrying a vessel in course of construction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHog Island is a poem, a vast bracing chant of manly achievement in every respect,\u201d he wrote. “Nothing less than a \u201cmarvelous epic of human achievement.\u201d<\/p>\n

[Clarification:\u00a0women were among the 35,000 employed at Hog Island<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps some day, there will come some poet great enough to tell the drama of Hog Island as it ought to be told,” added Morley. “The men who gritted their teeth and put it through will never tell. They are of the old stalwart breed that works with its hands. As they talk you can divine something of what they endured.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe there is a more triumphant place on earth than Hog Island these days,\u201d wrote Morley. \u201cShips are the most expressive creatures of men\u2019s hands . . . it was hard to resist the thought that each of them has a soul of her own and was partaking in the general exultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

On August 5, 1918 they christened the first Hog Islander, the Quistconck<\/em>. The tenth was launched in April 1919, five months after the war ended. Not a single one of the 122 Hog Islanders served in World War I, though many did serve in World War II. Fifty eight of those ships would be lost, many to German submarines.<\/p>\n

Even before Hitler declared war on the United States, Germans seized The City of Flint<\/em> while transporting cargo of tractors, grain and fruit to Britain. After its release, the ship returned to service until January 1943 when it was sunk by the Germans. The vessel\u2019s \u201camazing career came to an end. . . in the mid-Atlantic,\u201d reported the Inquirer<\/em>, \u201cwhen an enemy torpedo ripped into her rusting sides.”<\/p>\n

Before dawn on May 21, 1941, midway between Brazil and Africa, another German submarine stopped the Robin Moor<\/em>. Chief Officer Melvin Mundy of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania insisted the transport ship only had \u201cordinary merchandise for South African Ports.\u201d But, according to Mundy, German commander Jost Metzler kept saying: \u2018You have supplies for my country\u2019s enemy and I must therefore sink you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Metzler gave the Robin Moor<\/em> twenty minutes. Mundy pleaded for more time to evacuate the passengers, which including a young child and an elderly couple.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019Well, maybe I\u2019ll give you 30 minutes,\u201d said Metzler.<\/p>\n

At 6:32 a.m., the German submarine \u201cfired 33 shells into the Robin Moor<\/em> from her deck gun. The ship went down in 18 minutes. Then the submarine fired volley after volley from her anti-aircraft guns at floating cargo until it all sank.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
710 North 48th Street, July 2, 1954 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Germans provided the life boats with three days\u2019 worth of food and water. Then, according to Mundy, \u201cthe submarine pulled away . . . and disappeared beneath the surface. The sea churned violently, and the boats bobbed in the smoldering wreckage.\u201d Adrift for 13 days until discovered, the 35 passengers and crew were \u201cdrenched by torrential rains, scorched by a broiling sun and in constant fear of death.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, one can well imagine Philadelphia\u2019s hesitant reaction to The Saturday Evening Post’s<\/em> article about the submarine as \u201cThe Noblest Sandwich of Them All,” published a decade after the war\u2019s end. Celebrating the \u201csubmarine\u201d as \u201ca noble edifice\u201d as \u201cthe king of all sandwiches?\u201d No thank you.<\/p>\n

Sure, submarine sandwiches were available from as many as \u201c4000 places in the East and Midwest.\u201d Some called them heroes, grinders, poor boys, garibaldis, wedges, bombers, zeppelins and rockets, but Americans in no less than 68 out of 100 cities knew them as \u201csubmarines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

For good reason, Philadelphians, most especially the 35,000 who had worked at Hog Island, as well as their friends, families and colleagues, harbored no interest in celebrating the submarine. They had their own unique name for America\u2019s sandwich of choice: the hoggie, or as everyone would eventually spell it\u2014and say it\u2014the hoagie.<\/p>\n

Sometimes victory comes in unexpected packages.<\/p>\n

[Sources: Christopher Morley, Travels in Philadelphia<\/em> (David McKay, 1920); \u201cCity of Flint Sunk by Sub; 17 Are Lost,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, March 21, 1943; \u201cAll Robin Moor Victims Saved; Tell of Sinking,\u201d Inquirer<\/em>, June 17, 1941; \u201cRobin Moor Survivors Tell Story of Suffering,\u201d Inquirer, June 14, 1941; Amanda Schaffer, \u201cLost at Sea on the Brink of the Second World War<\/a>,\u201d The New Yorker<\/em>, May 28, 1916; Food Timeline: sandwiches<\/a>; Edwin Eames and Howard Robboy, The Submarine Sandwich: Lexical Variations in a Cultural Context, American Speech<\/em>, Vol. 42, no. 4 (Dec., 1967)].<\/span><\/p>\n

Also see:\u00a0The Hoagie is Venerable (but not as historic as we\u2019ve been led to believe.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFar across the low-lying meadows the great fringe of derricks rises against the sky,\u201d wrote Christopher Morley in his love note to Hog Island. \u201cPast the crumpled ramparts of old Fort Mifflin, motors and trolley cars now go flashing down to the huge new shipyard.\u201d Morley stood in awe of \u201cthe marvelous stretch of fifty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12918\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}