L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 20 L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018 LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers,  April brings showers and an as s ortment of Italian Connec- tions... Author Gay Talese once wrote that as a young man he "was caught between the gravi- tational pull of two worlds. How A merican could I feel w hen growing up in a home headed by a proud an assertive father who spoke English with an accent, who restricted our family record player to Italian operas and who, failing to get our town's school board to include Ovid and Dante in our classroom studies, nearly convinced me that I should retal- iate by not reading the works of Shakespeare? "Italy was giving art to the world when those English were living in caves and painting their faces blue!" my furious and defensive father often declared to me during the war years. It was a time when most Ameri- cans saw Italians as ditch dig- gers or gangsters or Fascists, and when my pubescent paranoia, augmented by my father's Anglophobia, persuaded me that Shakespeare was indeed partly to blame for the lowly status of Italians in America." I do not recall the part about "painting their faces blue," but out in California my father Vin- cenzo was imparting this same nugget of historical information, that he and his "paes ani" believed all Anglo influenced School board in the USA had omitted in their text books. *** April 1906, the Metropolitan Opera Company on a National tour arrived by train in San Fran- cisco a few days before April 18th. On the evening of April 17th Bizet's Carmen was sched- uled at the old Opera House, then located on Mission Street. This performance w as to spotlight Caruso in one of his bes t roles . S an F rancis cans turned out in large numbers and the be-jeweled audience enjoyed what the critics called a notable performance to a notable house. After the conclusion of the performance, Caruso, in high s pirits , approached baritone Antonio Scotti, and invited him to go to North Beach for some spaghetti or fun, however they did go out together and returned to their hotel rooms at the Palace Hotel around 3:00am. Caruso w ho w as s ound as leep, w as aw akened at 5:12am by the earthquake and was so bewil- dered and confused, all he could do w as pace around the room.His first concern, after he gathered his senses, was his voice, He opened his bedroom window and started to sing to the dazed crowd that assembled a few floors below. Still fright- ened, but assured that his voice was not harmed, he vowed he would never come to San Fran- cisco again. In his own words he declared "San Francisco was an "Hell of a place" and he would take Mount Vesuvius anytime. He died in 1921, never setting foot in San Francisco again. *** Disaster struck the White Star Liner "Titanic" in April 1912, when she struck an ice- berg and sank with the loss of over 1,500 lives, It was an Ital- ian, Guglielmo Marconi, born April 25, 1874 in Bologna, Italy and h is invention "Wireles s Telegraphy" (S hip-to-s hore radio) that caused Marconi to be hailed as the "World's Greatest Benefactor" after that aw ful night, April 14, 1912, when the supposedly indestructible Titanic hit a mas s ive iceberg in the North Atlantic, quickly sinking it into the icy waters. M ore than 1,500 of its approximately 2,200 passengers were drowned in less than three hours. The Titanic's "Marconi Wireless" operator himself went dow n w ith the s hip, but not before he sent out an SOS signal of distress. The survivors were picked up by the SS Carpathia, another radio-equipped ship which had heard the distress call. Unfortu- nately, although several other s hips had been nearer to the Titanic than the Carpathia, they lacked radio equipment and did not hear the SOS. Marconi preferred the radio to "Wireless Telegraphy" because the signal which were sent out radiated in all directions, but 1912 radio was still a novelty. An American Marconi wireless station was located in the Wana- maker Department Store window in New York, at the time the most powerful commercial radio station in the world. The station was surrounded by glass walls. Each day Wanamaker shoppers and curious people stopped to watch an operator sit at a desk wearing earphones and tapping a telegraph key. More people still had to be convinced that radio was more than an interesting novelty. Disaster proved that it was an important modern inven- tion. On April 14, 1912, while the Marconi operator was listening idly to dots and dashes, he sud- denly picked up this shocking message:"SOS Titanic ran into an iceberg. Sinking fast. This message had come from the SS Olympic which was nearby in the North Atlantic Ocean, 1,400 miles away from New York and Wanamaker Department Store's window.  Within hours, the news spread across the country and thousands of people were concerned. Presi- dent William Howard Taft desig- nated the store window, Ameri- can M arconi s tation, as the official radio station to obtain information. He ordered all other stations to close down to prevent conflicting signals. Wireless was "just a novelty" no more. A lmos t immediately that same year, Congress passed a law which made it mandatory for all ships carrying passengers to install radio equipment. It also required the s hip ow ners to employ licensed persons to oper- ate the radio equipment. *** Boston's North End with its delightful pastry shops and Ital- ian restaurants is synonymous with the early beginnings of America history. The North End is Boston's oldest neighborhood, however, in the early 1700s it was not yet Boston's "Little Italy." Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston in 1706, and his father made snaps and candles in his shop on Milk Street. Paul Revere's house still stands in the N orth End and is the oldes t building in downtown Boston. Paul Revere, with family roots in the Piedmont region of Italy, took his famous midnight ride, immortalized in vers e by Longfellow, in April 1775 and hung his lanterns, "one if by land and two by sea" in the Old North Church Belfry, which gave start to our War of Independence and birth of our nation. Paul Revere was a great metal craftsman. In 1801 he founded a small compa- ny, which is still alive and thriv- ing, Revere Copper and Brass, Inc. The Old North Church is still an active Episcopal church. The Old North Church Gift Shop is a non profit organization w ith many unique gifts and orna- ments. All proceeds support the work of the Old North Church.

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