{"id":14041,"date":"2020-03-30T12:39:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T16:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phillyhistory.wpengine.com\/?p=14041"},"modified":"2020-03-30T12:39:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T16:39:27","slug":"crafting-pennsylvania-steels-macho-myths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/2020\/03\/crafting-pennsylvania-steels-macho-myths\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting Pennsylvania Steel’s Macho Myths"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Dedication of the Steel Statue, Sesquicentennial International Exhibition, August 4, 1926 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Charles Walker\u2019s gritty diary<\/a> of labor in the bowels of an Aliquippa, Pennsylvania steel mill helped popularize the \u201cmen of steel\u201d macho. Four years later, the same steel manufacturer that employed Walker, Jones and Laughlin, upped the ante commissioning a giant statue for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition, the world\u2019s fair in Philadelphia. This grandiose sculpture, \u201cthe Spirit of Steel,\u201d featured three classically-inspired heroic males making steel, the central figure holding a winged I-beam aloft, an offering to the world.<\/p>\n

These heroic, men-of-steel interpretations further solidified the legend of the Pennsylvania steelworker as American folk hero. The fictional legend<\/a> of Joe Magarac would take it even further. In 1931, Owen Francis introduced a comic-strip-style, Paul Bunyanesque man-of-steel in Scribner’s Magazine<\/em>. This gentle immigrant giant would \u201cappear out of nowhere to protect steel workers from molten steel and other dangers\u201d in the mills. Magarac was both management and labor-friendly, working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year enthusiastically squeezing out steel railroad rails \u201cfrom between his fingers.\u201d<\/p>\n

These exaggerated, overwrought masculine images of the American steel worker came to an abrupt halt in the 1980s, when American steel manufacturing was caught off guard when \u201cGermany, Japan, and other steelmaking nations built brand-new capacity\u201d leading to a sharp decline in production, employment and optimism. It resulted in a halving of industrial employment and the collapse of the entire industry. By the end of the 20th<\/sup> century, Pennsylvania\u2019s \u201cout-of-date steel plants\u201d and the laborers who had perpetuated the legend had all but disappeared.<\/p>\n

Steel’s bleak future would have been unimaginable on the sunny Wednesday afternoon of August 4, 1926 when visitors to the Sesquicentennial in deep South Philadelphia considered the day’s options. In the stadium, one could watch the \u201cMounted Police Gymkhana,\u201d an \u201cexhibition of relay racing, rescue racing, Roman riding, pyramid riding, mounted wrestling, trick riding and platoon formation.\u201d A \u201cSuper-Contest of Rodeo Champions,\u201d also scheduled in the stadium, promised \u201cthe greatest context of brain and brawn \u2026 ever witnessed.\u201d In the Sesqui Bathing Pool the Women\u2019s Swimming Championships were underway. In the Sesqui auditorium, the Philadelphia Orchestra performed Brahms symphony No. 1 in C Minor. And at 2 o\u2019clock, that busy day, a crowd gathered for the steel statue’s dedication. There, in the promenade extending Broad Street into the fairgrounds the Sesqui\u2019s own military band provided music before speeches by Mayor Kendrick and steel executives before Gloria Vittor, the five-year-old daughter of sculptor Frank Vittor, yanked the cord releasing drapery over the gigantic grouping.<\/p>\n

The Inquirer<\/em> described the heroic figure and it\u2019s setting: on the right side of the monumental figure \u201cstands a furnaceman, exerting his strength to tilt a huge ladle of molten steel into ingot molds. On the left side there is a smith swinging a huge hammer and typifying the traditional worker in iron and steel. Flames from the furnaces sweep up around the legs of these three figures. On the pedestal on which they stand there is done in bas-relief<\/em> a series of striking sculptural pictures of scenes in the steel industry; men working\u00a0 before open-hearth furnaces; others chipping steel and loading it upon \u2018buggies;\u2019 trains of cars hauling coal and iron ore, fleets of steel barges transporting products upon the\u00a0 interior rivers;\u00a0 blast furnace plants in operation and rolling mills pouring forth tongues of flame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Steel Statue under construction by Bostwick Steel Lathe Company, July 7, 1926 (PhillyHistory.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That night, \u201cfifty 500-candle power searchlights, concealed in the base of the group [flooded] multi-colored rays of light upward around the pedestal and the stalwart figures of the steel workers,\u201d added the Pittsburgh Gazette Times. <\/em><\/p>\n

The Italian-born sculptor Frank Vittor had established himself in Pittsburgh eight years prior to the Sesquicentennial. Vittor \u201ccreated the individual plaster pieces in his Pittsburgh studio using live models in order to realistically depict the muscles and facial details,” we learn from\u00a0historical curator Nicholas P. Ciotola, “He then shipped the completed work by freight trains to Philadelphia, where he assembled it and coated it with a composition of wax, oil, and paint to protect the plaster from the elements. When unveiled, The Spirit of Steel<\/em> weighed two tons and stood towering ninety feet high – taller than all of its surroundings on the event grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vittor received a gold medal from the Sesquicentennial Exhibition Association for his sculpture. He would attract other opportunities to glorify the story of steel. In the 1930s, Vittor received a commission \u201cfor what would become his most lasting tribute to the industrial might western Pennsylvania,\u201d four figures: pioneers<\/a>, transportation<\/a>, electricity<\/a>, and, of course, steel<\/a>, for the pylons of Pittsburgh’s George Westinghouse Memorial Bridge.<\/p>\n

Unlike the monumental plaster \u201cSpirit of Steel\u201d at the Sesquicentennial, these were carved in stone.<\/p>\n

[Sources: Making Steel<\/a>, Stories from PA History, ExplorePAHistory.com (WITF and PHMC); Clifford J. Reutter, \u201cThe Puzzle of a Pittsburgh Steeler: Joe Magarac\u2019s Ethnic Identity,\u201d Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine<\/em> 63 (January 1980); Nicholas P.\u00a0 Ciotola, \u201cFrom Honus to Columbus: The Life and Work of Frank Vittor,\u201d in Italian Americans: Bridges to Italy, Bonds to America<\/em>. Edited by Luciano J. Iorizzo and Ernest E. Rossi, (Teneo Press, 2010); \u201cSteel Industry Statue at Sesqui-Centennial Dedication Wednesday,\u201d Pittsburgh Gazette Times, <\/em>August 1, 1926; \u00a0\u201cSteel Men to Give Statue Wednesday, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, August 1, 1926; [Daily Schedule] The Sesqui-Centennial International Exhibition, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, August 4, 1926; Statue \u201cSteel\u201d Unveiled, The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, August 5, 1926; Frank Vittor [obituary] The Philadelphia Inquirer<\/em>, Jan 25, 1968.]<\/span><\/p>\n

For more about the story of Pennsylvania steel, see this post: “Men Of Steel<\/a>.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Walker\u2019s gritty diary of labor in the bowels of an Aliquippa, Pennsylvania steel mill helped popularize the \u201cmen of steel\u201d macho. Four years later, the same steel manufacturer that employed Walker, Jones and Laughlin, upped the ante commissioning a giant statue for the Sesquicentennial Exhibition, the world\u2019s fair in Philadelphia. This grandiose sculpture, \u201cthe […]<\/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-14041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14041","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=14041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.phillyhistory.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}