Echoes Magazine | March & April 2022

MAGAZINE

MARCH & APRIL 2022 STODDARD-DAYTON

“WORTH THE SACRIFICE”

FIELD OF DREAMS

BOOKS THAT WORK

Nothing Goes Farther or Faster

John Brown’s Ohio Raiders

East Canton’s Clearview Golf Club

Some Favorite Reads from Our Staff

Page 24

Page 30

Page 36

Page 42

MAGA ZINE

Cover: William Powell (1917–2010) designed, built and owned East Canton’s Clearview Golf Club. See page 36.

Courtesy of the William Powell family

Vol. 61, No. 2 EDITORS

Contents J A N U A R Y & F E B R U A R Y 2022

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None Goes Farther or Faster— The Dayton Motor Car Co.

30

“The Result Will Be Worth the Sacrifice”— John Brown’s Ohio Raiders

Bill Eichenberger Tom Wolf CONTRIBUTORS

Fiona Boyd Katherine Leonardi Alan March Marla Ridenour

36

Field of Dreams—William Powell and the Clearview Golf Club

42

Books That Work—Essential Reading

Kieran Rober tson Audrey Ronayne

I N E AC H I S S U E

Michael Williams ADVISORY BOARD

Donna DeBlasio Youn gstown St ate Unive r sit y

Nishani Frazier Miami Unive r sit y

Rober t G enheimer Cin cinn ati Muse um Ce nte r

Stephen G eorge O hio Histor y Conne c tion

Alex Hastie O hio v. the World

G eorge Ironstrack Miami Unive r sit y

Chester Pach O hio Unive r sit y

Roger Pickenpaugh Historian an d Auth or

Daniel Rivers T he O hio St ate Unive r sit y

Truda Shinker O hio Histor y Conne c tion

2 4 4 6 15 16 18 19 46 48 50

Contents From Our Editors What’s Your Story?

In the News Historic Sites & Museums At the Ohio History Center & Ohio Village Online Events Featured Events & Exhibits I Wish I’d Been There Young Eyes on the Past Reviews

Echoes Magazine (ISSN 0012-933X) is published bimonthly and distributed by the Ohio History Connection as a benefit of Ohio History Connection membership.

Editorial Offices: Ohio History Connection, Ohio History Center, 800 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43211-2474 Phone 844.836.0012 Email echoes@ohiohistory.org Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Echoes Magazine, Ohio History Connection, Ohio History Center, 800 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43211-2474 Entire contents © 2022 by the Ohio History Connection.

All rights reserved. Nothing may be reprinted or electronically reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. The Ohio History Connection accepts no responsibility for facts and opinions expressed by the authors.

THANKS TO OUR OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION STRATEGIC PARTNERS:

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Contact us at membership@ohiohistory.org or 800.686.1545 to share your new address.

The Ohio History Connection is a

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24

None Goes Farther or Faster THE DAYTON MOTOR CAR CO. By 1908, Dayton’s John Stoddard was the 11th largest automaker in America. His factory turned out 1,400 cars a year, each one, in the words of the Dayton Daily News, “an auto missionary of convincing power.”

“The Result Will Be Worth the Sacrifice” JOHN BROWN’S OHIO RAIDERS

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Under the shadow of nightfall on Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown led 21 men across the Potomac River into the Virginia village of Harpers Ferry. Seven of them came from Ohio, not including John Brown and his sons. Brown, an ardent abolitionist, believed that slavery could only be ended through violence. He was there to collect weapons from a federal military arsenal and recruit to his militia the many free Black men in the vicinity. By the end of December, Brown and 16 of his men would be dead.

Field of Dreams WILLIAM POWELL AND THE CLEARVIEW GOLF CLUB

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Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001, East Canton’s Clearview Golf Club remains the only golf course in the United States designed, built and owned by an African American.

The spirit of its developer, the late William Powell, motivates his daughter, Renee, and son, Larry, to preserve what is in essence their father’s Field of Dreams.

Books That Work ESSENTIAL READING

42

We asked a variety of our Ohio History Connection staffers to share which books they rely upon most for their jobs and why. Their answers cover a wide range of titles, some recent and some classics.

These titles are among the essential tools of the trade, or what one of our colleagues has dubbed “books that work.”

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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FROM OUR EDITORS When William Powell first put his shovel into the earth in East Canton to begin building his Clearview Golf Club in 1946, the odds for his ultimate success must have seemed slim to none, and Slim, as they say, had just left town.

Powell (see page 36) thought of designing and building his golf course because he found himself, as an African American recently returned from serving his country in the Air Force during World War II, barred from playing most courses in Ohio.

Change in golf was slow to come.

Joseph Bartholomew began his career as a golf course architect by designing the Metairie Golf Club in his native New Orleans in 1922. But because of the club’s segregation policy, he, as a Black man, was never allowed to play the course or even practice on it.

The Professional Golfers’ Association of America would not eliminate its “Caucasian-only clause” from its Bylaws until 1961, 15 years after Powell first broke ground at Clearview. All of which makes Powell’s contribution to the sport even more remarkable.

Speaking of remarkable Ohioans, all Dayton businessman John Stoddard knew how to do, it seems, was manufacture the highest quality products in whatever field of endeavor he chose. Stoddard began his business career in 1862, manufacturing linseed oil with his brother, Henry, and Charles Grimes. Within four years Stoddard & Grimes had added varnish, paints, oils and window glass.

In 1869, Stoddard teamed with John Dodds to manufacture agricultural implements. The company’s line of “Tiger” products was the industry’s mark of excellence. They made the very best rakes, press drills, disc harrows and the like. Quality was rewarded: The Tiger Rake sold more than 200,000 units by 1890.

In the 1890s, Stoddard diversified to take advantage of the popularity of the bicycle, manufacturing the top-of-the-line Tiger and Tigress bikes, the Cygnet and the Tempest. At the turn of the century, Stoddard and his son, Charles, turned their attention to automobiles. (See page 24.)

William Powell and John Stoddard were both pioneers, but even today it’s likely few Ohioans know who they were and what they did. We’re pleased to bring you their stories. But the fierce abolitionist John Brown is quite a different case. He was well known during his day and, after his raid on the armory at Harpers Ferry, the subject of songs and poems.

Remembering Brown a year after his raid, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “They all called him crazy then; / who calls him crazy now?” Soldiers from Massachusetts marched to a popular hymn with the words, “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave / He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord, / His soul goes marching on!”

Poet Julia Ward Howe refined the song, which would become the Union anthem, Battle Hymn of the Republic. After the war, Frederick Douglass, in a speech at Storer College in Harpers Ferry, praised Brown: “His zeal in the cause of my race was far greater than mine—it was as the burning sun to my taper light.”

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What’s In every issue of Echoes Magazine, we feature the stories of Ohio History Connection members and other Ohioans to stoke memories and shed light on our shared past.

For this issue, we asked,

“ What do you remember about John Glenn orbiting the earth or Neil Armstrong’s moon landing?”

Here are some of your responses: HISTORIC RECOVERY I became aware of the space race in 1957, when my family named a new puppy “Sputnik.” Also, my high school science teacher told the class that “during your lifetime, there will be a man on the moon.” Five years later, I served on the USS Forrestal, which was one of three carriers stationed on orbit from the Atlantic Coast to Africa for John Glenn’s recovery. President Kennedy sent James Funkhouser from NASA to brief us on the importance of the Friendship 7 mission and how it fit into the quest of landing a man on the moon. Among my duties was typing the Air Group’s daily newsletter, and I kept copies from Feb. 20 and 21. Although splashdown ultimately occurred near the USS Randolph and I did not see John Glenn on that historic day, I feel blessed to have been a small part of this historic event.

—Richard J. Miller, Westerville

UNFORGETTABLE I was a teen who had just arrived at Bluffton College for a weeklong Farm

Bureau camp on the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We all gathered in the student union that evening to watch, on a large black-and-white television, Neil Armstrong’s first steps. Camp counselors served green cheese and green sodas. Although we were only 30 miles from Armstrong’s hometown of Wapakoneta, this moment was more significant to me as a native of Upper Sandusky, where Neil had lived for a couple years as a teen. While there, he was a Boy Scout friend with my family physician and had his first job cleaning vats at Neumeister’s Bakery. It was an evening I will never forget.

—Pete Sanderson, Columbus

A HUSH SETTLED OVER THE HALLWAYS I was a second-year music teacher at Central Elementary School in Fairborn, Ohio. February 20 was a Wednesday.

I met my six third-grade classes that day. Several teachers brought small TV sets to put in their classrooms for viewing John Glenn’s flight. There was excitement in the building as students entered their classrooms. Rooms with a TV opened their rooms to classes without one. A hush settled over the hallways. Inside each classroom, expectations were high. The students quietly waited to watch the historic event unfold. I went on my Wednesday rounds, slipping into a classroom to watch from the back of the room before going to my next classroom. For many of the students, their fathers were pilots at the nearby Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. After lunch, the quiet returned to the building as all watched the return of John Glenn safely to earth. I had witnessed history.

—Evalind Pickering, Springfield

HOMETOWN HERO I live and grew up in John Glenn’s hometown of New Concord. I was five years old at the time of his first orbit. John’s boyhood home was just

SPACE MILESTONES

up the street from my home. His parents were still living there and my grandmother (on my mother’s side) rented the upstairs apartment from Mr. and Mrs. Glenn. Even though I was only five, I do remember what a big deal it was when John and Annie came home to a huge parade after his orbit. New Concord was packed with people and television crews, especially surrounding the Glenn home. I know my grandmother had a terrible time getting to her upstairs apartment because of the crowd. The town was decorated with banners hanging from every building and store. People were sitting on rooftops to watch the parade. It was more excitement than we had ever seen. Everyone was so proud of their hometown hero. I must add that my dad, Donald Castor, was first cousin to Annie. His father and Annie’s father were brothers. In 1998, our family was sent a special invitation from NASA to attend the launch of John in the space shuttle. Several of us flew to Florida and had VIP seating to view the launch. What a great day that was! Then we all were treated to dinner out with Annie Glenn and her son, Dave, and daughter, Lyn. Stop by our town and tour the John and Annie Glenn Museum in his original home. It is a real treat for young and old.

—Brenda Castor Higgins, New Concord

PROPRIETY The evening of the moon landing, I was watching it on TV with my husband, Bruce, and his father, the Rev. Ernest Bigelow. Little Danny, cuddling in my arms, got hungry, so, being a proper daughter-in-law, I took him into another room to nurse him. While we were there—you know the rest! Neil Armstrong came down, stepped onto the moon’s surface, said his immortal words and then, then, I brought Danny back into the TV room and heard all about it!

NASA

Your Story?

Astronaut John Glenn gives the ready sign during Mercury-Atlas 6 pre-launch training activities in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Jan. 23, 1962.

WHAT’S YOUR STORY? We want to know your stories, so in every issue of Echoes Magazine we ask you a question, then run selected answers in the following issue. Here’s the question for May & June: May is Historic Preservation Month. What’s your favorite hometown landmark? Describe it to us or send us a picture.

Email your story responses (50 to 150 words) by March 10 to echoes@ohiohistory.org or, if you follow us on Facebook, send us a Facebook message.

—Ann C. Bigelow, Somerset

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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In the News office, Emporium and more village establishments and meet villagers old and new, all eager to share their stories.

MUFFINS SEASON OPENER APRIL 16

Sports fan? On Saturday, April 16, at 1 p.m., catch our Ohio Village Muffins playing base ball (yes, two words) by 19th-century rules in their season opener at Muffins Meadow in Ohio Village.

Ohio Village APRIL 2—MAY 15

Spring Weekends at Ohio Village In one small town in the Buckeye State, William McKinley is still president: Ohio Village. Our recreated 19th-century community springs to life on weekends with a special preview just for Ohio History Connection members Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 3, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (See page 17.)

Starting April 9, Ohio Village opens to all every weekend through May 15 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except Sunday, April 17, when the Ohio History Center and Ohio Village will be closed. Visit this spring and explore the one-room school, pharmacy, bank, newspaper

Visiting one of our sites (see page 15) can be a great family day trip that doesn’t require a lot of parental planning!

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Ohio Village is just north of the Ohio History Center at I-71 and 17th Avenue (Exit 111) in Columbus. On spring weekends, enter through the Ohio History Center museum. Ohio Village is included with Ohio History Center museum admission. Ohio History Connection members enjoy free admission.

Questions about visiting Ohio Village this spring? Call 800.686.6124 or visit ohiohistory.org/ohiovillage.

Saturday, May 21, through Sunday, Sept. 4, you’ll find Ohio Village open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday. Watch for more about Ohio Village in the May & June Echoes Magazine.

CONESTOGA

May 15 Fundraiser Benefits Ohio Village Since 1986, Conestoga has provided fundraising support for the Ohio History Connection, and this year is no different. Mark your calendars now for this year’s fundraiser, It Takes a Village, on Sunday, May 15, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Ohio Village.

Conestoga has chosen Ohio Village as its focus for this year’s event with the goal of raising money to help support its reimagination and reinterpretation. By creating a diverse set of village storylines offering a more complete depiction of times in Ohio’s early history, Ohio Village will become one of the Midwest’s premier living history attractions.

OUTSTANDING PACKAGES

This year’s Conestoga fundraiser will feature great food and drink, a performance by Urban Strings and a raffle for outstanding packages containing such popular items as dining and lodging gift cards and tickets to popular attractions and cultural events. Tickets are $100/person. Event underwriting opportunities are available.

As the volunteer fundraising support group for the Ohio History Connection, Conestoga has raised more than $748,000 since its founding to support Ohio History Connection exhibits, programming and initiatives such as the COVID-19 Hardship Relief Fund.

TICKETS

Visit ohiohistory.org/ conestoga for further event details and information on how to order tickets, or contact Abby Reynolds of the Ohio History Connection’s Development Office at 614.297.2320 or areynolds@ ohiohistory.org.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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MEMBERSHIPS MAKE

Great Gifts!

Support Ohio history while giving the gift of day trips and weekend fun to your family and friends.

Across the state, the Ohio History Connection oversees

58

historic sites and museums located in

4

40

33

historic sites

12

museums

5,000

9

archaeological sites

300

8

canal locks

4

major bridges

counties, which include:

natural history sites

2

acres of land

buildings built from 1788–2013

boats

THE NEXT 10 YEARS

Cultural Resources

by Megan Wood The Cultural Resources Division of the Ohio History Connection is largely responsible for our collections, exhibits and historic site system. Our team includes archivists, architects, archaeologists, educators, engineers, curators, collections managers, graphic designers, librarians, project managers, registrars, site managers and others. This multidisciplinary group is pulled together to protect Ohio’s cultural resources—any evidence or indicators of past human and natural activities.

Here are three projects that we’re working on that will have major activity this year. Each connects to our strategic priorities.

SUSTAINABILITY: COLLECTIONS FACILITY

Visit ohiohistory.org/giftmembership or call 800.686.1545 for more info.

MAKE HISTORY HAPPEN.

Become a Volunteer Do you love history?

Become a volunteer with the Ohio History Connection!

Great for youth 12 and up, adults, social and corporate groups and retirees!

CONTACT US FOR MORE INFO volunteer@ohiohistory.org 614.297.2500

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After years of planning and advocacy, we’re building a new collections facility that will be off the north driveway of the Ohio History Center campus in Columbus. (See Echoes Magazine, January & February 2022, page 10.) The current facility is not sufficient to protect the treasures of Ohio history, and this new facility will allow for more sustainable management of our collections. What does that mean? Not only will this be a LEED-certified building, but the ability to safely house the collections onsite will reduce the number of resources we have to devote to monitoring and maintaining the older off-site buildings that currently house our collections and the staff time required to deal with issues that arise regularly. We expect to break ground in the next few months.

EQUITY: SCHOENBRUNN VILLAGE 250TH ANNIVERSARY

A longer-term project for the exhibits staff has been to renew the stories of sites that focus on American Indian history. That initiative has come together with the 250th anniversary of our Schoenbrunn Village site in New Philadelphia. Spearheaded by

Megan Wood is director of the Ohio History Connection’s Cultural Resources Division. our amazing partner, the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum, the local committee is kicking off the celebration in May. Additionally, we’re producing new exhibits that were developed in consultation with the Delaware tribes, the Moravian Church and the site staff.

This approach to exhibits means that we involve the people whose stories we’re sharing.

RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING: ULYSSES S. GRANT BICENTENNIAL

This year also marks the 200th birthday of Ohio-born General and U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.

Working together with our site management partners, Historic New Richmond Inc., the U.S. Grant Homestead Association and other local stakeholders, celebrations for Grant’s big birthday will happen throughout the coming months.

(See page 10.) We invite you to visit all three Grant sites—the Grant Birthplace in Point Pleasant and the Grant Boyhood Home and Grant Schoolhouse in Georgetown— during this bicentennial year.

Right: Schoenbrunn Village, New Philadelphia

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GRANT BICENTENNIAL

This is Your Life, U.S. Grant

Events Commemorate Grant’s 200th

SAT., MARCH 19 • 6 P.M. Georgetown United Methodist Church, 217 S. Main St., Georgetown 4 Attend a performance inspired by Grant’s childhood and his Georgetown neighbors, featuring the Gaslight Theater Players and Grant living history specialist Dr. Curt Fields as Ulysses S. Grant.

April 27, 2022, marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, lieutenant general of the United States Army and 18th president of the United States. Grant was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio, and his boyhood was spent in nearby Georgetown, Ohio, where he lived for 16 years, longer than any other place in his life. Georgetown is the location of his boyhood home and the schoolhouse he attended.

Historic New Richmond Inc., which manages the Grant Birthplace for the Ohio History Connection, and Georgetown’s U.S. Grant Homestead Association, the organization that manages the Grant Boyhood Home and Grant Schoolhouse for the Ohio History Connection, have planned a series of events recognizing Grant as a great Civil War general, two-term civil rights president, author of the greatest military memoir, statesman and most popular American of the second half of the 19th century.

Here’s what’s coming up this spring:

Birthday Party SAT., APRIL 23 • 11 A.M.–5 P.M. New Richmond 4 New Richmond Business Association, Renaissance New Richmond, New Richmond Military Museum, New Richmond VFW, Historic New Richmond Inc. and local businesses welcome you to a village-wide birthday party, with five riverside restaurants, three gift shops and community organizations all offering Grant specials.

Grant Birthplace Activities SAT., APRIL 23 & SUN., APRIL 24 10 A.M.–4 P.M. U.S. Grant Birthplace, 1551 State Route 232, Point Pleasant 4 See reenactors demonstrate what camp life was like for Union troops. Get a look at the typical gear of a soldier. Hear a wandering storyteller share tales of the New Richmond doctor who delivered Grant, local abolitionist lifeways that influenced Grant, and the travels of Grant's Birthplace.

Cake-Cutting Ceremony

U.S. Grant Homestead Association

SAT., APRIL 23 • 4 P.M. U.S. Grant Birthplace, 1551 State Route 232, Point Pleasant 4 What's a birthday without cake? Join us as we celebrate Grant's 200th with a slice of cake.

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Grant Birthplace, Point Pleasant

Forget-Me-Nots Dance Company SAT., APRIL 23 • 3 P.M. U.S. Grant Birthplace, 1551 State Route 232, Point Pleasant 4 Forget-Me-Nots Historic Dance Company demonstrates social dances popular when Grant was born. Learn the steps and join in!

Grant’s Birthday Proclamation WEDS., APRIL 27 • 2 P.M. U.S. Grant Birthplace, 1551 State Route 232, Point Pleasant 4 Attend the presentation of proclamations by dignitaries, and enjoy tours and light refreshments.

President Ulysses S. Grant Birthday Bicentennial Dinner WEDS., APRIL 27 • 6 P.M. Norlyn Manor, 4440 State Route 132, Batavia 4 Attend a special presidential dinner celebrating the bicentennial of Grant’s birth. Dinner, prepared by an all-star team of chefs from Clermont County, will be inspired by a presidential menu of the 1860s, as well as by menu items that would have been found on the plates of Union soldiers during the Civil War. Hear a Union army band and see local actors portray Grant and Lincoln. $75/person.

Proceeds support Grant Birthplace educational programs. Advance registration required by April 13 at discoverclermont.com/grant.

Three Grant Sites to Visit in Ohio

Grant Boyhood Home, Georgetown

Grant Schoolhouse, Georgetown

Women in Grant’s Life

On April 30 at noon, lunch will be available for purchase in the Fellowship Hall of Georgetown United Methodist Church, across from the Gaslight Theater.

THURS., APRIL 28 • 7:30 P.M. Georgetown United Methodist Church, 217 S. Main St., Georgetown 4 Hosted by the Brown County Historical Society, Civil War historian Chris Burns looks at the strong, influential women who helped shape Grant’s life.

U.S. Grant Remembers Bethel FRI., APRIL 29 • 6 P.M. Living the Word Church, 402 W. Plane St., Bethel 4 Hosted by the Bethel Historical Society, Dr. Curt Fields as Ulysses S. Grant recalls his family's time living in Bethel, Ohio, in the early 1840s, while Ulysses was a student at West Point. Hear music played

by Civil War musicians Steve and Lisa Ball.

U.S. Grant 200th Birthday Celebration SAT., APRIL 30 • BIRTHPLACE 10 A.M.–5 P.M. • BOYHOOD HOME 10 A.M.–4 P.M. Point Pleasant and Georgetown 4 The Grant Birthplace in Point Pleasant and Georgetown’s Grant Boyhood Home and Grant Schoolhouse will be open for tours.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: ULYSSES S. GRANT

An Interview with General Grant SAT., APRIL 30 • 10 A.M. Gaslight Theater, 110 E. State St., Georgetown 4 Hear Vice Adm. Sean Buck, superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, talk with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, portrayed by Dr. Curt Fields.

IN HIS OWN WORDS: ULYSSES S. GRANT

A Conversation with President Grant SAT., APRIL 30 • 2 P.M. Gaslight Theater, 110 E. State St., Georgetown 4 President Grant created the U.S. Department of Justice to enforce basic rights for African Americans, then under siege by Ku Klux Klan terrorism. In 1875, he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act—later overturned by the Supreme Court—ending separation in public accommodations and more. This program with Dr. Charles Calhoun of Greenville, North Carolina, author of The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, and Dr. Curt Fields as President Grant focuses on Grant’s support for freedpeople.

Band Concert SAT., APRIL 30 • 7–9 P.M. Courthouse Square, Georgetown 4 Bring a chair or blanket and enjoy a military band concert on the square, followed by a light show and fireworks.

In event of rain, the concert will move indoors to Georgetown's Gaslight Theater.

Many of these events will include musical presentations and the programs may be adjusted. Please contact Nancy Purdy at 937.378.3087 to confirm times and seat availability before you travel. For more information, visit discoverclermont.com/grant.

The Ohio History Connection and local partners Historic New Richmond Inc. and the U.S. Grant Homestead Association preserve three historic places that are associated with General and President Ulysses S. Grant, all near the Ohio River east of Cincinnati: the U.S. Grant Birthplace in Point Pleasant, the Grant Boyhood Home in Georgetown and the nearby Grant Schoolhouse, also in Georgetown. Point Pleasant and Georgetown are about 35 to 40 minutes apart. With some planning, you can easily visit all three Grant sites in one trip. Ohio History Connection members enjoy free admission.

U.S. GRANT BIRTHPLACE 1551 State Route 232, Point Pleasant 513.543.9149 ohiohistory.org/grantbirthplace Tour the birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War general and twoterm U.S. president. See how the Grant family established themselves in southern Ohio in the early 19th century and hear the fascinating story of the house and its travels.

U.S. GRANT BOYHOOD HOME 219 E. Grant Ave., Georgetown 877.372.8177 ohiohistory.org/granthome U.S. GRANT SCHOOLHOUSE 508 S. Water St., Georgetown 877.372.8177 ohiohistory.org/grantschool Explore young Ulysses S. Grant’s life by visiting his school and his boyhood home, restored to its appearance in 1839, the year Grant left for West Point.

At this National Historic Landmark, hear from the young man himself as he describes growing up in rural Ohio, and learn how his early days formed the character of a future general and president.

Memberships make terrific retirement gifts, since many people have “travel more” on their wish lists!

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Where’s Grant’s Birthplace?

Ulysses S. Grant’s place of birth is Point Pleasant, Ohio, though Grant’s Birthplace hasn’t always been in Point Pleasant. For a time, asking “Where’s Grant’s Birthplace?” was a little like asking “Where’s Waldo?”

Until 1888, Grant’s Birthplace was where it had stood all along: in Point Pleasant, on the Ohio River.

In August, Henry T. Chittenden visited it there and bought it for the 1888 Ohio Centennial Exposition in Columbus. By Aug. 24, Grant’s Birthplace was on the state fairgrounds.

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In 1896, Grant’s Birthplace moved into a new home on the state fairgrounds, where it remained for 40 years.

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In January 1937, the Ohio River flooded. For a time, Grant’s Birthplace was in the Ohio River.

Then it traveled down the Ohio to Cincinnati, where it was exhibited near the 1888 Centennial Exposition of the Ohio Valley and a “showman” invited visitors “to pay and enter.” *

The exposition took place on the fairgrounds Sept.

4–Oct. 19. Throngs of people in town for a huge gathering of Civil War veterans Sept. 10–14 visited Grant’s Birthplace there.

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After the exposition, Grant’s Birthplace stood on the grounds of the Ohio State Fair for eight years.

In 1936, the birthplace was trucked in pieces back to Point Pleasant, where it was reassembled and dedicated on Oct. 4, though that’s not the end of our story.

Dried out and re-restored, it’s been at home on its original site in Point Pleasant ever since. Today Grant’s Birthplace is open to visitors under the auspices of the Ohio History Connection and Historic New Richmond Inc. Plan your visit at ohiohistory.org/grantbirthplace.

*EDITOR'S NOTE: Apparently this didn't go so well. From the Aug. 20, 1888, Columbus Dispatch: “It [the birthplace] was a few weeks since taken from its site at Point Pleasant, Ohio, and conveyed by raft to Cincinnati and put on exhibition, not on the exposition grounds, but several squares away on the canal—a poor site with miserable approaches. The people who went to the exposition were all of them disappointed, when they inquired for the Grant homestead, to be informed that it was not on the grounds; the commissioners had refused to buy it and make a free exhibition of it and they had declined to allow a fee to be asked for admission to it if it were put on the exposition grounds by the owner. The latter has consequently become very disgusted with Cincinnati and has about made up his mind that beer is more appreciated there than historical relics.” | Some tell of a national tour or that it was in Goodale Park for the Sept. 10–14, 1888, G.A.R. Encampment in Columbus, though 1888 Columbus Dispatch accounts say it left Cincinnati on or after Aug. 20, arriving on the state fairgrounds Aug. 24 for the Sept. 4–Oct. 19 Ohio Centennial Exposition. An 1896 Dispatch story says it had stood there “during all the time since.”

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 CML images courtesy Columbus Metropolitan Library. Present-day photo courtesy Erin Bartlett. All other images from Ohio History Connection Collections.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Recent Ohio Additions to the National Register of Historic Places AKRON • SUMMIT COUNTY  AKRON BEACON JOURNAL BUILDING 44 E. Exchange St.

The 1930 Akron Beacon Journal Building is associated with the history of journalism in the Rubber City.

Knight Newspapers, a family-owned publishing company founded in Ohio, was headquartered in this building for many years. Charles L. Knight (1867–1933) and son John S. Knight (1894–1981) assembled a team of journalists who influenced social reform and economic growth in Akron through editorials and involvement on key boards and committees.

As Knight Newspapers expanded through acquisitions, Akron managers and journalists moved on to other markets, carrying this same formula to other cities. Knight was known for its journalistic success, and Knight newspapers in Akron, Detroit and Charlotte received four Pulitzer Prizes in 1968. In 1974, Knight merged with Ridder Publications to form KnightRidder Newspapers, until 2006 the nation’s second-largest newspaper publisher.

COLUMBUS • FRANKLIN COUNTY  FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 444 E. Broad St.

Completed in 1931, First Congregational Church is locally significant as an example of the Late Gothic Revival style associated with master architects John Russell Pope (1874–1937) and Howard Dwight Smith (1886–1958). A nationally known New York architect, Pope designed many large public buildings, notably the Jefferson Memorial, National



Archives and National Gallery of Art, all in the nation’s capital, though his firm completed fewer than 10 church designs. The supervising architect for First Congregational Church was Howard Dwight Smith of Columbus, who designed some of central Ohio’s most notable buildings, including Ohio Stadium and Columbus City Hall.

COLUMBUS • FRANKLIN COUNTY  OHIO BELL SOUTHWESTERN HEADQUARTERS 150 E. Gay St.

Beginning in 1928, Columbus served as headquarters for the southwestern division of the Ohio Bell Telephone Co. The 1973 Ohio Bell Southwestern Headquarters was designed by Columbus architects Brubaker/Brandt.

The city’s first Late Modern highrise, it reflects a shift in architectural design trends, notably the repetition of window units to the point of abstraction at the corners, creating the paradox of a concrete building without solid corners. In much of the Buckeye State, Ohio Bell was then a household name, and the Southwestern Headquarters is a monumental expression of corporate modernism with its structure expressed in the overall design, a significant lobby, repetitive floors of open offices around a central service core and top-floor executive offices.

EAST CLEVELAND • CUYAHOGA COUNTY  GARFIELD TERRACE APARTMENTS 13344 Euclid Ave.

The 1905 Garfield Terrace Apartments building is an example of the terrace apartment property type.

Designed by George H. Steffens in the Tudor Revival style, it reflects the broad pattern of suburban

All National Register photos courtesy State Historic Preservation Office

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development in early 20th-century East Cleveland, which grew as the expanding middle class migrated out of the city center to terrace apartments like this one that offered “the most privacy and convenience at the most affordable rental.” Generous porches offered more light and open space and the design blended well with surrounding single-family homes.

SIDNEY • SHELBY COUNTY

 ZENAS KING BOWSTRING BRIDGE Benjamin Trail, Amos Lake, Tawawa Park Erected in 1879 on a major northsouth highway in western Shelby County, the Zenas King Bowstring Bridge was repurposed in 1913 to cross a small stream running through a farm lane there. Bridges like this one once dotted Ohio. Now one of just two known to remain in our state (the other is on the grounds of Ohio Village in Columbus), this bridge is of state-level significance in the area of engineering.

It’s an example of the patented tubular bowstring bridge designed by Zenas King in the 1860s, made by Cleveland’s King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Co. until about 1880. King’s design was inexpensive, simple to fabricate and highly successful, often the first iron bridge that county commissions and municipalities chose to build.

An indication of its success was the selection of King’s design for use on the grounds of the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.

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OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

13

Frances Bolton Goes to Washington Frances Payne Bingham was born on March 29, 1885, in Cleveland. Her family was wealthy, which allowed Bingham to attend private schools in Cleveland, France and New York.

In 1907, Bingham married Charles Bolton. Her husband eventually became a member of the United States House of Representatives from Ohio. He remained in Congress until his death in 1939. In a special election, Bolton’s former constituents elected Frances Bolton to assume her husband’s seat.

SERVED FROM 1940 TO 1969

Frances Bolton remained in the House of Representatives until 1969, serving 14 consecutive full terms. She was the first woman in Ohio elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and one of four members of her family to serve in Congress. Her maternal grandfather, her husband and her son also served. In the House, Bolton played an active role.

MARCH IS WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH

Ohio Women in the U.S. House of Representatives As of the 2020 election, Ohioans have elected 11 women to the U.S. House of Representatives, though have never elected a woman to the U.S. Senate. They are: Frances Payne Bolton * Resident: Cuyahoga County * 15 Terms from 1940 to 1969 Mary Rose Oakar * Resident: Cuyahoga County * 8 Terms from 1977 to 1993 Jean Spencer Ashbrook * Resident: Licking County * 7 Months from June 1982 to January 1983

14 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

Cleveland Memory | Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University

OHIO STORIES

She was responsible for 61 separate bills, most of which involved education and public health issues. One of her most important contributions was sponsoring a bill, the Bolton Act, in 1943 that created the United States Cadet Nursing Corps.

SCHOOL OF NURSING

Following her service in the U.S. Congress, Bolton returned to Ohio where she assumed an active role in philanthropic efforts across the United States.

In Ohio, she served as a trustee of Lakeside Hospital, Lake Erie College and the Central School of Practical Nursing. In honor of Bolton’s numerous contributions to the nursing profession, trustees at Case Western Reserve University named their school of nursing in her honor, the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Bolton died in Lyndhurst, Ohio, on March 9, 1977.

This biography is from Ohio History Central, our online encyclopedia of Ohio history. Discover many more stories of Ohio history at ohiohistorycentral.org.

Marcy Kaptur * Resident: Lucas County * 20 Terms from 1983 to Present

Mary Jo Kilroy * Resident: Franklin County * 1 Term from 2009 to 2011

Deborah Pryce * Resident: Franklin County * 8 Terms from 1993 to 2009

Joyce Beatty * Resident: Franklin County * 5 Terms from 2013 to Present

Stephanie Tubbs Jones * Resident: Cuyahoga County * 5 Terms from 1999 to 2008 Jean Schmidt * Resident: Hamilton County * 4.5 Terms from 2005 to 2013 Betty Sutton * Resident: Summit County * 3 Terms from 2007 to 2013 Marcia Fudge * Resident: Cuyahoga County * 7 Terms from 2008 to 2021

LEARN MORE

Learn more about each of these Ohio women who’ve served in Congress and others who’ve held state or national office at the website of Baldwin Wallace University’s Center for Women & Politics of Ohio, bw.edu/centers/ women-and-politics-of-ohio.

Information courtesy of the Baldwin Wallace University Center for Women & Politics of Ohio.

O HI O HIS TO RY CO NNEC T I O N

Historic Sites & Museums NORTHWEST OHIO 1. Armstrong Air & Space Museum 2. Cedar Bog Nature Preserve 3. Cooke-Dorn House 4. Fallen Timbers Battlefield Memorial Park 5. Fort Amanda Memorial Park 6. Fort Jefferson Memorial Park 7. Fort Meigs 8. Fort Recovery Museum & Monument 9. Glacial Grooves Geological Preserve 10. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums 11. Indian Mill 12. Inscription Rock Petroglyphs 13. Johnston Farm & Indian Agency 14. Lockington Locks

NORTHEAST OHIO 15. Custer Monument 16. Fort Laurens 17. McCook House 18. Museum of Ceramics 19. Quaker Yearly Meeting House 20. Schoenbrunn Village 21. Shaker Historical Museum 22. Tallmadge Church 23. Youngstown Historical Center of Industry & Labor 24. Zoar Village

SOUTHWEST OHIO 33. Adena Mansion & Gardens 34. Davis Memorial Nature Preserve 35. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve 36. Fort Hill Earthworks & Nature Preserve

CENTRAL OHIO

37. Harriet Beecher Stowe House

SOUTHEAST OHIO

38. John Rankin House 39. Miamisburg Mound

47. Big Bottom Memorial Park 48. Buckeye Furnace

26. Hanby House

40. National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center

27. Logan Elm

41. Paul Laurence Dunbar House

50. Campus Martius Museum

28. Newark Earthworks

42. Serpent Mound

51. John & Annie Glenn Museum

29. Ohio History Center & Ohio Village

43. Story Mound

52. Leo Petroglyphs & Nature Preserve

30. Shrum Mound

44. U.S. Grant Birthplace

53. National Road & Zane Grey Museum

31. Wahkeena Nature Preserve

45. U.S. Grant Boyhood Home & Schoolhouse

54. Ohio River Museum

32. Warren G. Harding Presidential Sites

46. William Henry Harrison Tomb

55. Our House Tavern

25. Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries & Nature Preserve

Before traveling, visit ohiohistory.org/sites or call 800.840.6127 to confirm what’s open, hours and any special requirements.

49. Buffington Island Battlefield Memorial Park

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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P R O G R A M S & E X H I B I T S AT T H E

Ohio History Center & Ohio Village

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some Ohio History Center & Ohio Village programs have moved online.

See page 18. Before traveling to visit the Ohio History Center & Ohio Village, we recommend that you first visit ohiohistory.org/sites or call 800.686.6124 to confirm hours and any special requirements.

Common Greens Winter Market SATURDAYS THROUGH APRIL 16 9 A.M.–NOON Indoors on the Plaza Terrace, Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Common Greens Winter Market features 30+ producers who grow or make everything they sell. At the market, you’ll find Ohiogrown produce, meats, dairy, eggs, baked goods and a variety of artisanal food products, all produced locally and brought to market at the peak of freshness.

Preorder and/or shop onsite at the market! commongreensohio.org PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Monocles and Brandy SAT., MARCH 19 • 7–9 P.M. Ohio Village, Columbus 4 Sample drinks of the Victorian era with our mixologist as murder and mayhem unfold in Ohio Village, our recreated 19th-century community. Apply your detective skills to help solve the grisly murder before it’s too late. Alcohol and your personal sampling glass are included with admission. $40, $35/Ohio History Connection member.

Advance registration required. You must be 21+ to attend. 800.686.1541, reservations@ohiohistory.org or ohiohistory.org

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Spring Thaw SAT., MARCH 26–SUN., APRIL 24 • WEDS.–SUN. 10 A.M.–5 P.M. (MUSEUM CLOSED SUN., APRIL 17) Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Visit the museum and enjoy special Ice Age-themed programming daily during spring break.

Try hands-on activities, examine fossils of Ice Age mammals and discover what Ohio was like 11,000 years ago. Included with museum admission.* 800.686.6124

Ohio Village Spring Weekends SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS APRIL 2–MAY 15 10 A.M.–5 P.M. • (CLOSED APRIL 17) Ohio Village, Columbus 4 Spring has sprung in our recreated 19th-century community, where William McKinley is president and Gibson Girl-style shirtwaists are trending. Explore Ohio Village on weekends through May 15, included with Ohio History Center museum admission.* Ohio History Connection members enjoy free admission. 800.686.6124 HISTORY AFTER HOURS

Night in the ’90s SAT., APRIL 23 • 7–10 P.M. Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Relive the 1990s! Jam to classic hits provided by our DJ, play popular games of the ’90s, enjoy classic beverages of the decade and more. Snacks and cash bar. $25, $20/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required. You must be 21+ to attend. 800.686.6124 PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Speakeasy SAT., MAY 7 • 7–9 P.M. Ohio Village, Columbus 4 Travel back to the 1920s and 1930s, to a world of bathtub gin, flappers and speakeasies. Learn how Prohibition sent alcohol from bars and taverns to secret watering holes. Discover

clandestine establishments behind the respectable facades of Ohio Village and sample drinks of the time. You must be 21+ to attend. $40, $35/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required. 800.686.1541, reservations@ohiohistory.org or ohiohistory.org ANNUAL CONESTOGA FUNDRAISER

It Takes a Village SUN., MAY 15 • 4–7 P.M. Ohio Village, Columbus 4 Mark your calendar now for Conestoga’s annual fundraiser benefiting the Ohio History Connection. Ohio Village is Conestoga’s focus for this event, with the goal of raising monies to help support creation of a diverse set of Ohio Village storylines that offer a more complete depiction of times in Ohio’s early history. $100/ person. Advance registration required.

614.297.2320, areynolds@ohiohistory. org or ohiohistory.org/conestoga

FEATURED EXHIBITS • • •

Ohio—Champion of Sports ONGOING Ohio—Champion of Sports features more than 70 stories and 35 oral histories covering more than 25 sports ranging from baseball, football and basketball to roller derby, skateboarding and e-gaming. The exhibit showcases the Ohio athletes, coaches, owners and fans at the center of the action and explores sports through the themes of Character, Adversity, Innovation, Identity, Tradition and Victory—values that relate to the human condition—to connect a broad audience to Ohio’s national sports history. You can test your basketball skills at the Wall of Hoops, record a “victory dance” to share with family and friends and record your own “One Minute Legends” sports story.

Votes for Women— 100 Years of Change ONGOING Votes for Women commemorates the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment. Through the voices of Ohio women, explore women’s activism in the suffrage movement and other related social movements—such as voting and citizenship—from the 19th

*Museum admission is $13; $11/ages 60+; $7/ages 4–12.

Ohio History Connection members and ages 3 & under enjoy free admission.

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Monocles and Brandy

It Takes a Village

MARCH 19, OHIO VILLAGE, COLUMBUS

MAY 15, OHIO VILLAGE, COLUMBUS

century to the present. Featured are a suffrage parade blouse, jacket and sashes worn in the 1910s by Mary Stuart Andrews of Warren, who worked for the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association, and a suffrage parade banner made in 1910 by Columbus Sign Co.

Ohio History Center Hours Museum WEDS.–SUN. 10 A.M.–5 P.M. CLOSED MON.–TUES.

1950s—Building the American Dream

CLOSED SUN., APRIL 17

ONGOING Get a look at life in the 1950s. Peek in the closets and snoop in the drawers of a real, fully furnished Lustron steel house made right here in Ohio. From the contents of the cupboards to the news on TV and the toys in the yard, this hands-on exhibit is a fascinating journey back in time.

OPEN SAT. & SUN. 10 A.M.–5 P.M.

World War I Display ONGOING See equipment, weapons, uniforms and memorabilia commemorating the centennial of World War I.

Creative Ohio—Artists, Artwork & Their Inspiration ONGOING Through pieces from Ohio History Connection collections, explore the artwork, inspiration and creative processes of four Ohio artists—Paul-Henri Bourguignon (1906–1988), Emerson Burkhart (1905–1969), William Hawkins (1895–1990) and Josephine Klippart (1848–1936)—and create your own artistic masterpiece.

Ohio Village APRIL 2–MAY 15 CLOSED SUN., APRIL 17

Third Floor Research Room OPEN BY APPOINTMENT ONLY ohiohistory.org/learn/archives-library WEDS. 12:30–3 P.M. THURS. & FRI. 10 A.M.–3 P.M. CLOSED SAT.–TUES.

Plaza Cafe OPEN WEDS.–SUN. 11 A.M.–2 P.M. The Plaza Cafe serves grab-n-go salads, sandwiches, sides and desserts, coffee, tea, juices and Pepsi products. Ohio History Connection members save 10% at the Plaza Cafe.

Support provided by the Erika Bourguignon Charitable Trust

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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NOW OPEN

AT T E N D FROM A N Y W H E R E !

Online Events Open 11 a.m.–2 p.m.

Wednesday–Sunday SERVING GRAB-N-GO:

• Salads • Sandwiches • Sides • Desserts

• Coffee • Tea • Juices • Pepsi Products

Ohio History Connection

MEMBERS SAVE 10% at the Plaza Cafe!

THE POWER OF VOICE

PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Stories Within the Story

Once Upon a Cocktail

WEDS., MARCH 2 • ONLINE DISCUSSION 7–8 P.M. • RSVP FOR LINK Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 Join Dr. Renea Frey and Dr. John Getz of Xavier University to discuss the stories of George Harris and Cassy within Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Find links to suggested readings at stowehousecincy.org. $5. Advance registration required. 800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MARCH 30 & APRIL 27 • NOON–1 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted

by Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 See page 21.

THE POWER OF VOICE

Two Directions for Black America WEDS., APRIL 6 ONLINE DISCUSSION 7–8 P.M. RSVP FOR LINK Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 Find links to suggested readings at stowehousecincy.org. $5. Advance registration required. 800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Have you misplaced your Passport to Your Ohio History booklet? Contact

the membership department and we’ll send you another one!

18 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

SAT., APRIL 9 • 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Join us from the comfort of home to create drinks along with our mixologist as we bring the dark, strange and twisted world of fairy tales to life. Learn about the grim origins of many popular fairy tales, which often served as morality tales in their day. Register and you’ll receive recipes in advance plus a link to the presentation about two hours before it starts. You must be 21+ to attend.

Alcohol not provided. $10, $5/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required. 800.686.1541

F E AT U R E D O H I O H I S T O R Y C O N N E C T I O N

Events & Exhibits Due to the evolving status of COVID-19, we recommend that you call the number or visit the website listed after each program to confirm hours and any special requirements before you travel.

Many programs and events at Ohio History Connection museums and attractions currently require advance registration. To register, call the number or visit the website listed with each program.

Our online calendar offers more upto-date information about programs and events at Ohio History Connection museums and attractions. Find it at ohiohistory.org/calendar.

M asks are required indoors at all Ohio History Connection sites.

Most of our museums and attractions are managed by local partner organizations who set their own requirements for outdoor areas.

Questions? Call 800.840.6127.

STATEWIDE STATEWIDE OHIO HISTORY DAY

Regional History Day Contests SAT., MARCH 5, 12, 19 & 26 & APRIL 2 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. See fourth- through 12th-graders present their history projects, competing for a chance to move on to our April 23 statewide History Day competition.

MARCH 5: Cleveland, Piqua & Rio Grande.

MARCH 12: Columbus. MARCH 19: Bowling Green, Cincinnati & Sandusky.

MARCH 26: New Concord. APRIL 2: Youngstown. Get details at 800.686.6124, 614.297.2526 or ohiohistoryday.org.

Special thanks to Champion Sponsor Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage, and to Sponsor William K. Laidlaw Jr. Memorial Endowment Fund.

Ohio Local History Alliance Regional Meetings

Region 6 History Day Contest

SAT., MARCH 5, 12, 19 & APRIL 2 & 9 9 A.M.–4 P.M. Active in local history? Register now for the Ohio Local History Alliance Regional Meeting in your vicinity. These annual gatherings of local historians and others active in local historical societies, museums and related organizations start Saturday, March 5. This year’s theme is Be the Change. Each meeting includes a session related to the theme, plus additional skill-building sessions; reports from the Ohio Local History Alliance and the Ohio History Connection; an opportunity to share what your organization is doing; and a tour of a nearby museum or site.

Advance registration required. MARCH 5: Southwest (Region 8) in Cincinnati and Southeast (Region 10) in Caldwell.

MARCH 12: West Central (Region 7) in Wapakoneta and South Central (Region 9) in Chillicothe. Register by March 4. MARCH 19: East Central (Region 5) in Dennison and Central (Region 6) in Columbus. Register by March 11. APRIL 2: North Central (Region 2) in Tiffin and Northeast (Region 3) in Chagrin Falls. Register by March 25. APRIL 9: West Central (Region 1) in Defiance and Northeast (Region 4) in Sebring. Register

by April 1. Get full meeting details and register at ohiolha.org. Questions? Call 614.297.2538.

Columbus Metropolitan Library, 96

SAT., MARCH 12 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. S. Grant Ave., Columbus 4 Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 2 | Counties: Delaware, Fairfield, Fayette, Franklin, Knox, Licking, Madison, Perry, Pickaway and Union. 800.686.6124, 614.466.9335 or ohiohistoryday.org NORTHEAST OHIO

NORTHEAST OHIO

Region 3 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 5 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland 4 Counties: Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Medina and Summit.

800.686.6124, 216.721.5722 ext. 1503 or ohiohistoryday.org

Pi(e) Day SUN., MARCH 13 • 11 A.M.–4 P.M. Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Pi is the mathematical constant of 3.14. Celebrate International Pi Day (March 14), one day early with a different type of pi(e). On March 13, the Zoar Bakery will be selling fresh, delicious whole pies, as well as a selection of frozen ones. Can’t wait to dig in? Don’t worry—we’ll also have slices to enjoy on the spot. The Zoar Store will be open, too, with a selection of baking mixes and teas to complement your pie.

Pre-ordered pies available. 800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

Region 4 History Day Contest CENTRAL OHIO CENTRAL OHIO

State History Day Contest SAT., APRIL 23 • 8 A.M.–5 P.M. Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware 4 Elementary, middle and high school finalists from regional History Day contests compete in Ohio’s State History Day Contest. This year promises creative and thought-provoking historical research centered on the theme Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. $20. Advance registration required by April 11. 614.297.2526

SAT., APRIL 2 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Youngstown State University, Youngstown 4 Registration Deadline: March 11 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 18 | Counties: Ashtabula, Geauga, Mahoning, Portage and Trumbull. 800.686.6124, 330.941.1601 or ohiohistoryday.org

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Zoar Village Opening Day

State History Day Contest

APRIL 2, ZOAR

APRIL 23, DELAWARE

Zoar Village Opening Day SAT., APRIL 2 • 11 A.M.–4 P.M. Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Explore one of early Ohio’s most unusual communities. Now a National Historic Landmark, Zoar was settled in 1817 by religious separatists from Germany who formed a unique communal society there in 1819 that lasted until 1898. Visit on opening day and enjoy 10% savings in the 1833 Zoar Store and fresh baked goods from the 1845 Zoar Bakery. $10, $5/ages 13–17, Free/Ohio History Connection member includes admission to eight historic buildings.

800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

Zoar Homeschool Day FRI., APRIL 22 • 9 A.M.–2 P.M. Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Students will learn how the 19th-century Zoar Separatists prepared for spring through hands-on activities including a bread relay, butter churning, planting seeds and tinsmithing.

Visit the blacksmith, dairy, laundry and many other buildings to learn about the history of Zoar and the German religious separatists who settled there. $7/student or adult, Free/age 5 & under.

One free adult admission per family.

Advance registration required by April 17.

800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

Maifest SAT., MAY 14 • 10 A.M.–5 P.M. Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Welcome spring with a traditional German festival in this National Historic Landmark village settled

by Germans. Enjoy Cleveland Kraut, brats and German potato salad and drinks, plus

20 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

music, self-guided tours and activities for kids. A German car show starts at 10:30 a.m. $5, Free/age 12 & under.

800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

FEATURED EXHIBITS • • •

The Wandering Years— The Early History of the Shaker Historical Society FRI., JAN. 7, THROUGH SUN., MAY 1 WEDS.–FRI. 11 A.M.–5 P.M., SAT. & SUN. NOON–5 P.M. Shaker Historical Museum, Shaker Heights 4 Featuring archival materials, objects from Shaker Historical Museum collections and stories from early trustees, this special exhibit will take you back in time to meet the group of residents whose passion about collecting and preserving local history led them to form the Shaker Historical Society in 1947.

202.271.6703 or shakerhistory.org NORTHWEST OHIO

NORTHWEST OHIO

Region 7 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 5 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Piqua Junior High School, Piqua 4 Registration Deadline: Feb. 16 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: Feb. 16 | Counties: Auglaize, Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby. 800.752.2619, 937.773.2522 or ohiohistoryday.org

Second Saturdays R 4 Kids SAT., MARCH 12, APRIL 9 & MAY 14 9:30–11:30 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Enjoy monthly activities for kids in grades K–3 inspired by the 200th birthday of President Rutherford B. Hayes, which is coming up in October.

Each month features a different activity highlighting an important time in the president’s life. These events are openhouse-style, so kids can stop by any time between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. Free.

800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Spring Forward Experience SUN., MARCH 13 • 5 P.M. Armstrong Air & Space Museum, Wapakoneta 4 Get a preview of the new virtual tour being released on the Armstrong Air & Space Museum website March 16. Enjoy refreshments and gallery talks before the presentation by the museum’s curator and educator, who’ll talk about the new online tour and share the story of Neil Armstrong’s wild ride on Gemini VIII. Advance registration required.

RSVP to dkindell@armstrongmuseum.org.

800.860.0142 or armstrongmuseum.org

Region 1 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 19 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green 4 Registration Deadline: March 4 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 4 | Counties: Allen, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Hardin, Henry, Lucas, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Williams and Wood. 800.686.6124, 419.372.8643 or ohiohistoryday.org

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Sat., April 23 • 7–10 p.m.

Hayes Easter Egg Roll

Night in the ’90s

APRIL 16, HAYES PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY & MUSEUMS, FREMONT

Region 2 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 19 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Terra State Community College, Fremont 4 Registration Deadline: March 4 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 4 | Counties: Ashland, Crawford, Erie, Huron, Marion, Morrow, Ottawa, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca and Wyandot. 800.686.6124, 419.625.3834 or ohiohistoryday.org CONFERENCE

Yesteryear’s Essentials Revisited—Fads & Fashions of the Federal Era FRI., MARCH 25 • 7–9 P.M. SAT., MARCH 26 • 8 A.M.–9 P.M. SUN., MARCH 27 • 8 A.M.–4 P.M. Fort Meigs, Perrysburg 4 Learn about clothing of the Federal period, roughly 1790 to 1830, through lectures, workshops and classes at this weekend conference. Weekend pass $75. Advance registration required.

800.283.8916 or fortmeigs.org

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MARCH 30 & APRIL 27 NOON–1 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Read and discuss books about the presidency at this free book club. Bring your lunch if you’d like. MARCH 30 & APRIL 27: Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

The Presidential History Book Club meets in person and online. For information on joining virtually, contact Dustin McLochlin at dmclochlin@rbhayes.org.

Hayes Easter Egg Roll SAT., APRIL 16 • TIME TO BE ANNOUNCED Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Kids are invited to an afternoon of fun! The Hayes Easter Egg Roll replicates the White House Easter Egg Roll that President Rutherford B. Hayes started in 1878. Kids are asked to bring three hard-boiled, colored eggs to use in the traditional egg games, which take place on the lawn of the Hayes home. Those ages three to 10 may also bring a pre-decorated egg to enter in the decorated-egg contest. The Easter Bunny will make an appearance and be available for photos with kids. Free.

800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Fort Meigs After Dark FRI., APRIL 22 • 8–10 P.M. Fort Meigs, Perrysburg 4 Take a candlelight lantern tour to see what a soldier’s life was like after nightfall during the War of 1812 on the Ohio frontier. Readings from soldiers who lived through the drama enrich this walk through the camps, guard posts and watch fires. $15, $12/senior, $10/ child. Advance registration required.

800.283.8916 or fortmeigs.org

Jam to classic hits provided by our DJ, play popular games of the era, enjoy classic beverages from the 1990s, and more.

Snacks and cash bar Advance registration required ohiohistory.org/afterhours 800.686.1541

Our progressive cocktail parties pair authentic adult beverages with experiences of days gone by.

Monocles & Brandy • March 19 Ohio Village Once Upon a Cocktail • April 9 Online–Attend from Anywhere!

Drinks of the Speakeasy • May 7 Ohio Village Advance registration required ohiohistory.org/cup 800.686.1541

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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SOUTHEAST OHIO

SOUTHEAST OHIO

Region 9 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 5 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. University of Rio Grande, Rio Grande 4 Registration Deadline: Feb. 18 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: Feb. 25 | Counties: Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross, Scioto and Vinton. 800.686.6124, 740.245.0593 or ohiohistoryday.org

Region 10 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 26 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Muskingum University, New Concord 4 Registration Deadline: March 10 | Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 10 | Counties: Belmont, Coshocton, Guernsey, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble and Washington. 800.686.6124, 740.826.8273 or ohiohistoryday.org

Buckeye Furnace Spring Festival SAT., MAY 14 • 10 A.M.–4 P.M. Buckeye Furnace, near Jackson 4 Vendors, food, fun and kids’ activities. Free.

740.384.3537 or buckeyefurnace.org.

SOUTHWEST OHIO

SOUTHWEST OHIO Also see Ulysses S. Grant Bicentennial Events on pages 10–11.

Region 7 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 5 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Piqua Junior High School, Piqua 4 Counties: Auglaize, Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby. 800.752.2619, 937.773.2522 or ohiohistoryday.org

Statehood Day Celebration SAT., MARCH 5 • 10 A.M.–4 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Ohio became a state in 1803, though not without conflict. Step back to 1802 and witness the fiery debate over statehood between territorial governor Arthur St. Clair and Rep. Thomas Worthington. Free performances in the visitor center at 11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Tour Worthington’s 1807 Adena Mansion every 30 minutes on the hour and half hour from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Designed by Benjamin Latrobe, “America’s first architect,” Adena is

22 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

managed for the Ohio History Connection

by Adena Mansion & Gardens Society.

800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

Under One Roof— The African American Experience in Music Hall SUN., MARCH 6 • 4 P.M. Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 Opened in 1878, Cincinnati Music Hall is a National Historic Landmark. African Americans have made their mark there from its inception, as builders, politicians, athletes and performing artists of all kinds.

Jazz greats from Duke Ellington to Billie Holiday, as well as the earliest R&B and rock musicians immortalized on King Records, performed in the South Hall, one of the nation’s premier ballrooms. In the North Hall, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Ezzard Charles fought some of his most important bouts, while on the main stage in Springer Auditorium, 19th-century stage shows and 20thcentury operatic divas helped break the color barrier. Experience the history of African Americans whose determination and artistry helped forge the ethos of Cincinnati and lay the foundation of American music. Presenter Thea Tjepkema is a preservationist, historian and archivist who serves on the Friends of Music Hall board and blogs about Music Hall history for the group’s website. $7. 800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Maple Syrup SAT., MARCH 12 • NOON–4 P.M. RAIN DATE SAT., MARCH 19 • NOON–4 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon In this practical class with Keith Bengtson of Fort Ancient, learn about Native, colonial, traditional and modern techniques of making maple syrup, with stations focusing on each of these approaches. See tools ranging from birchbark buckets to modern pipeline systems.

We’ll compare historic and modern methods, boiling down sap in both a castiron kettle and a stainless-steel evaporator.

Please dress comfortably for this outdoor program. $7, $6/senior or student, Free/ Ohio History Connection member.

800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

Scrapbooking Crop FRI., MARCH 18 • 9 A.M.–9 P.M. SAT., MARCH 19 • 9 A.M.–9 P.M. SUN., MARCH 20 • 9 A.M.–4 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe 4 Join us for 31 peaceful hours of crafting, and scrap those wonderful memories of families, friends, vacations and more.

You’ll be set up with a personal six-foot table and have electrical and Wi-Fi access.

Vendors will be on hand on Friday and Saturday with interesting booths, and everyone will receive a welcome gift and be eligible for door prizes. We’ll spread out for social distance, and masks are required if you’re away from your assigned seat. $130 for three-day retreat or $60/ Friday, $60/Saturday, $25/Sunday. Friday and Saturday include lunch, dinner and snacks. Sunday includes snacks. Advance registration required. 800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

Region 8 History Day Contest SAT., MARCH 19 • 9 A.M.–5 P.M. Cincinnati Museum Center, Cincinnati Papers, Documentaries & Websites Deadline: March 2 | Counties: Adams, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland and Warren. 800.686.6124, 513.287.7000 ext. 7201 or ohiohistoryday.org

Mask-Making from Nature SAT., MARCH 26 • 10:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon Artist Pam Hall will show you how to use various sizes, shapes and textures of objects from nature to create a finished mask. This fun, hands-on activity is suited for ages eight through adult. A variety of natural materials will be available, and you may also bring your own. All participants in this outdoor program will have their own materials and practice social distancing to meet state guidelines. Advance registration required. $10 material fee + regular site admission: $7, $6/senior or student, Free/Ohio History Connection member.

800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

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SPRING BREAK

Heirloom Plant Sale SAT., MAY 7–SUN., MAY 22 WEDS.–SAT. 9 A.M.–5 P.M. SUN. NOON–5 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Shop more than 80 types of herbs, tomatoes, vegetables and flowers raised before the days of industrial farming, along with metal art and some hanging baskets. Plant sale admission is free. Shop early for best selection.

800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

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Mother’s Day Tea

MARCH 25–27, FORT MEIGS, PERRYSBURG

SEMI-COLON BOOK CLUB

The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together SAT., APRIL 23 • 10 A.M. Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati Gather to discuss The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee.

The Semi-Colon Club was a literary discussion group that Harriet Beecher Stowe joined while living in Cincinnati.

Our Semi-Colon Club discusses the issues that make up Stowe’s legacy, from the 19th century to the present day. $5. Advance registration required.

800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org/ semi-colon-club.html

Wildflower Discovery Tour SAT., APRIL 23 • 10:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon 4 Learn about early spring flowers and plants on this annual hike through the woods and prairie at Fort Ancient with Rick Hoffman and other Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists. In accordance with state guidelines, we’ll wear masks and practice social distancing. Limit 20 participants. $7, $6/senior or student, Free/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required. 800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

SUN., MAY 8 • 2–3:30 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Join us in your Sunday best to honor and celebrate the special women in our lives. Tea and assorted desserts will be served. Local historian Mary Anne Brown will talk about the women of the Worthington family, and Executive Director Kathy Styer will share a brief history of tea parties. $20. Advance pre-paid registration required by May 5.

800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com/ tickets

Enjoy special Ice Age programming daily!

WEDS.–SUN., MARCH 26–APRIL 24 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Closed Sun., April 17

ohiohistory.org/center 800.686.6124

FEATURED EXHIBITS • • •

Six Special Exhibits ONGOING • WEDS.–SAT. 9 A.M.–4 P.M. National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, Wilberforce 4 On exhibit: African Americans Fighting for a Double Victory; Behind the Mask— Black Power in Comics; Queens of the Heartland; Rhythm of Revolution; and What’s in Your Attic? Selections from Our Permanent Collection, including a special mini-exhibit, Playing with Identity—Selections from the Lillian M. Bartok Black Doll Collection. Included with museum admission: $6, $5/ senior, $3/ages 6–17, Free/Ohio History Connection member or ages 5 & under.

Masks and social distancing required.

800.752.2603 or ohiohistory.org/ naamcc

Barefeet Studio

Fads & Fashions of the Federal Era

Let Us Help You Create

A Day for the History Books We offer a unique wedding experience you can’t get anywhere else. events@ohiohistory.org ohiohistory.org/weddings 614.297.2475

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Three models of StoddardDayton automobiles from 1904, 1910 and 1911. The 1904 model was a prototype.

Ohio History Connection

None Goes Farther or Faster

THE DAYTON MOTOR CAR CO.

BY MICHAEL WILLIAMS

J

ohn Stoddard had never gotten anywhere by half measures. Two years after obtaining his law degree, he abandoned the legal profession for business. Since

becoming a manufacturer, he had adopted three different product lines in succession: paints and varnishes, agricultural implements and bicycles. Stoddard achieved success with each and became one of the wealthiest and most respected businessmen in Dayton.

Now, at age 66, he was jumping in with both feet once again. This time he changed the name of his company to the Dayton Motor Car Co., but the Stoddard name was too well associated with success to abandon. The cars he built would be labeled Stoddard-Dayton.

Dayton Metro Library

In 1903, Stoddard sent his son, Charles, to Europe to study the methods and designs of automakers on that continent. Upon his return, Stoddard re-tooled his factory to produce a highly engineered car for the small market of affluent Americans who purchased automobiles.

After producing a handful of prototypes in 1904, Stoddard manufactured 125 cars in 1905.

Left: A portrait of John W. Stoddard, president of the Stoddard Manufacturing Co., circa 1897, eight years before he would turn his manufacturing might to producing automobiles.

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Dayton Metro Library

Dayton Metro Library

Left: A Stoddard-Dayton automobile at the company’s race "headquarters" in Waco, Texas, in 1909.

Right: Three auto enthusiasts take a ride in a Stoddard-Dayton car, circa 1905–1913.

QUALITY WAS AN OBSESSION Quality was an obsession at Stoddard. Ninety-three percent of each automobile was made in house.

Top-of-the-line models received 28 coats of paint, each hand-sanded and rubbed smooth. Every car was road-tested, then workers disassembled the engine, re-honing the cylinders and checking the valves. After reassembly, the car was road-tested again before being approved for sale.

In 1906, production rose to 385, in three models from a 15-horsepower runabout for $1,250 to a 35-horsepower limousine for $3,200. By 1908, Stoddard was the 11th largest automaker in America.

His factory at the corner of Third and Bainbridge in Dayton turned out 1,400 cars, each one, in the words of the Dayton Daily News, “an auto missionary of convincing power.”

OFF TO INDIANAPOLIS An early convert was Carl Fisher, who established a dealership in Indianapolis. In a memorable stunt, Fisher hitched one of his new Stoddards—engine removed—to a huge balloon emblazoned “StoddardDayton” and floated it over Indianapolis for an hour and 40 minutes, waving to gawking spectators from behind the steering wheel.

Stoddard and his son believed that competition provided the most convincing way to showcase the quality of their automobiles. A Stoddard roadster was the only gas-powered car to finish the 1907 Glidden

Tour with a perfect score. At a hill-climbing contest in Los Angeles, a 1908 Stoddard took first place, beating the previous record by 20 seconds.

When Fisher and three partners built a two-and-ahalf-mile speedway in Indianapolis for the express purpose of racing automobiles, Stoddard went all in to compete at its opening three-day meet in August 1909. Not only did Stoddard send five two-man racing teams and eight cars to the meet, the entire Dayton Motor Car workforce boarded a special 17-car train for Indianapolis.

AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT But their spirits were dashed before the first test run. As the race cars paraded toward the speedway, mechanician Clifford Littrell in Stoddard Car 19 recalled that he had left a wrench behind and prepared to hop off to retrieve it while paused at an intersection. Just then the car lurched forward and Littrell fell off onto his back and was run over by the following car. Littrell lingered for nearly two days before he died, leaving behind a wife and a two-year-old daughter.

Hours after Littrell’s death on June 19, 1909, the Speedway’s gates swung open for Day One of the meet. The first race was a two-lap sprint. Louis Schwitzer—at the wheel of that same Stoddard Car 19—roared out to an early lead and never relinquished it, winning the Speedway’s first motor car race, averaging nearly 58 miles an hour.

Dayton fans who made up over a tenth of the

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Dayton Metro Library

A group of employees in front of a building at the Stoddard Manufacturing Company in Dayton. The company manufactured cars from 1905 to 1913.

16,500 in the stands cheered their hearts out.

Stoddard’s entries in the remaining races did not match that initial success, but they were lucky in another way—they all survived. As the meet progressed, the racetrack deteriorated. Before the three-day meet ended, track conditions led to accidents that killed four racers and two spectators and injured several others. Saturday’s culminating 300-mile race was halted to end the carnage.

different engines designed by Henry J. Edwards, the company’s British-born chief engineer. Building this staggering variety in its six-story main factory in downtown Dayton was neither speedy nor costeffective, as the company strove to maintain its reputation for quality. More troubling was the fact that Stoddard borrowed more than $6 million to acquire the parts and materials to meet its overly ambitious production targets.

Three days later, Charles G. Stoddard issued a statement. “We have decided after careful consideration to abandon automobile racing entirely for the present.” Until racing was made safer, it was “detrimental to the industry,” because it exaggerated the dangers of driving an automobile at normal speeds. The Stoddards did not want to endanger the lives of their drivers or risk injuring spectators.

In June 1910, the newly formed United States Motor Co., headed by Benjamin Briscoe, acquired Stoddard and Courier for $4.25 million in stock in the new corporation. Stoddard-Dayton was expected to be the premier line in a stable of formerly independent brands that included AldenSampson, Briscoe, Brush, Columbia, Maxwell and Gray Marine.

THE NEXT GENERATION In 1908, Ford premiered its Model T, which sold for just $825. Stoddard found the need to respond, and in June 1909 incorporated the Courier Car Co. to produce inexpensive cars and trucks for the suddenly expanding mass market. In 1910, Courier rolled out two models, the smaller two-seater priced at $1,050. “Don’t buy more car than you need,” its ads advised.

However, Stoddard erred in producing more models than it needed, a total of 20 with four

John Stoddard would retire, while his son Charles moved to corporate headquarters in New York City to become the new company’s first vice president.

U.S. Motors was in trouble from the start. Unaware of Stoddard’s debt, Briscoe wasted funds on building headquarters in Manhattan. The Courier and Maxwell budget lines competed against each other, and his remaining brands sputtered toward their demise. Stoddard enjoyed its last moment in the sun.

THE PACE CAR AT THE FIRST INDIANAPOLIS 500 Fisher had repaved the Indianapolis Speedway with

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David Berry | Wikimedia Commons

bricks and held its first 500-mile race on Memorial Day 1911. He drove his resplendent white Stoddard to pace 40 race cars around the track to a rolling start.

Although Stoddard production topped 25,000 in 1912, the U.S. Motors board forced Briscoe to resign in November, and the corporation went bankrupt soon afterward. Maxwell purchased Stoddard’s plant and assets just in time to sustain damage from a devastating flood in March 1913. Three models built that year were the last to roll onto streets bearing the Stoddard-Dayton name. After that, the experienced Dayton workforce made parts and chassis for Maxwell, primarily in a modern plant constructed in north Dayton. In 1925, the newly organized Chrysler Corporation inherited these facilities, and the north Dayton factory later became home to Chrysler’s Airtemp division, producing air conditioning units for cars.

John Stoddard passed away in 1917 at age 79 in his Queen Anne-style mansion atop Steele’s Hill overlooking downtown Dayton and the Great Miami River. His son, Charles, and his widow, Susan, both died in 1921, and a married daughter sold the Stoddard mansion, which was leveled to make way for Dayton’s Masonic Temple.

After five decades of manufacturing success, the Stoddard name had nearly disappeared, apart from a street near their former home and the front grills of some finely engineered old automobiles “found in the garages of many of the wealthiest Americans” as its ads had once proclaimed.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

Did you know that famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright proudly drove a Stoddard-Dayton through the streets of Oak Park, Illinois? You can read the quirky story at ohiohistory.org/ wright1.

See a 1908 Stoddard-Dayton in person and learn more about the automobile at Carillon Historical Park, 1000 Carillon Blvd. in Dayton.

For information and hours, call 937.293.2841 or visit daytonhistory.org.

Right: The six 1908 models of the Stoddard-Dayton automobile ranged in price from $1,700 to $4,500.

The cars were designed primarily for the luxury market.

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Dayton Metro Library

Michael Williams is a freelance writer and the author of several articles on 20thcentury American history for Timeline, the History News Network, Echoes Magazine and World War II History. He co-authored The Industrial Hobarts with Peter C. Hobart and wrote a non-fiction reader for middle school students titled 10 Great People, Places and Inventions.

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Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

“The Result Will Be Worth the Sacrifice” JOHN BROWN’S OHIO RAIDERS BY KIERAN ROBERTSON

U

nder the shadow of nightfall on Oct. 16, 1859, John Brown led 21 men across the Potomac River into the Virginia village of Harpers Ferry. Brown, an ardent abolitionist, believed that slavery could

only be ended through violence—so he was building an army. He hoped to collect weapons from a federal military arsenal in Harpers Ferry while recruiting to his militia the many free Black men in the vicinity.

Unfortunately, by the end of December, Brown and 16 of his men would be dead.

Seven of the men involved in the raid on Harpers Ferry came from Ohio, not including John Brown and his sons. Brown was born in 1800 in Connecticut, but came to Ohio at a young age. Here, his anti-slavery father planted lifelong abolitionist beliefs in Brown.

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

Fellow Ohioan John Henri Kagi became one of Brown’s earliest and closest allies.

Kagi, born and raised in Bristol, Ohio, was sent to school in Virginia, where he began teaching. At the age of 19, when Kagi made his abolitionist beliefs clear to the local community, he was forced to leave.

THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT In 1854, Congress passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, declaring that laws regarding slavery in the Kansas and Nebraska territories would be decided by their residents.

In reaction, settlers on both sides of the issue raced to the west. Brown was well-known for his part in the ensuing fight known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

Kagi and Brown became friends in Kansas, traveling in many of the same abolitionist circles. Kagi would serve as Brown’s adjutant general at Harpers Ferry.

In the spring of 1859, Brown rented the Kennedy Farmhouse, just outside of Harpers Ferry. He gave a false name to the neighbors, who would have recognized him as the violent abolitionist from out west.

Brown planned and plotted as the raiders he and Kagi had recruited arrived and got to know each other. Many of the men lived in the attic so that locals would not notice the suddenly growing population of the farmhouse.

Left: Poster for a lecture by journalist S.K. Donavin (1831–1902) titled The Raid, Capture, Trial and Execution of John Brown. Above: John Brown, about 1847.

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Library of Congress

A postcard depicting John Brown being arraigned before Judge Richard Parker in 1859. Brown was famously arrested for his unsuccessful raid on the armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, (now West Virginia) that year. He was found guilty of treason and hanged for his crime.

Back in Ohio, a man named Dangerfield Newby was packing his bags to join Brown. In his early thirties, Newby would be one of the oldest men in Brown’s group of raiders. Newby was born in Virginia, the son of an enslaved woman and a local slaveholder.

Newby’s father decided to free his children, including Dangerfield, and send them to Ohio.

to be with their mother. It was there that they met John Brown as he passed through in early 1859, helping to transport freedom seekers from Missouri.

That summer, the two boys bade their mother goodbye and set off to meet Brown’s growing army.

When Newby was sent to Ohio, he was separated from his wife and children, who were held in bondage by a different slaveholder. Newby began raising funds to buy their freedom, but when he traveled to Virginia with the money in hand, the slaveholder decided to change his price.

One of these men was Shields Green, a formerly enslaved man, born in Charleston, South Carolina.

Green escaped bondage and made his way north to Ohio, settling in Oberlin. Green was a widower, but he had a child whom he was forced to leave behind in Charleston.

Newby was still working to raise additional funds for these malicious demands when he met Brown as he passed through Ohio. Deservedly angry and ready to act, Newby slipped away to join Brown’s growing movement.

Known as “The Emperor” because of his large stature, Green became friends with Frederick Douglass.

Before his raid, Brown met with Douglass, who declined to be involved, believing Brown wasn’t following the correct path to abolition. It is said that Green was at this meeting and chose to follow Brown despite the dangers.

FROM IOWA TO HARPERS FERRY Edwin and Barclay Coppock were both born in Winona, Ohio, but as teenagers they moved to Iowa

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Meanwhile, on Ohio’s northeast coast, three more men were planning to join Brown on his raid.

Also living in Oberlin at this time were Lewis Sheridan Leary and John A. Copeland. The two men were

Most sources believe that it was Leary who first met Kagi as he came through Oberlin looking for new recruits for Brown’s growing movement. Interested in what Kagi was saying, Leary spoke to Copeland.

Without a word to their families, the two men slipped away and made it to Brown’s hideout just in time, arriving on Oct. 12.

Brown had spent that summer trying to convince his men to take on an impossible task. They knew that to raid Harpers Ferry was to approach a certain death. But as Kagi had said a year earlier, “the result will be worth the sacrifice.”

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry started out well. The raiders came into town, cut telegraph wires and took the night watchmen hostage. They took the arsenal and rifle factory, and began to take more hostages from the village.

SHOTS RING OUT

This photograph depicts Samuel and Jane Harper, two formerly enslaved people who were part of the group John Brown guided from Missouri in early 1859. This is likely the same trip Brown was on when he met the Coppocks.

about the same age, and Leary’s sister was married to Copeland’s maternal uncle. Leary and Copeland were recruited nearly last minute by Kagi on a trip to Oberlin.

Leary was born in North Carolina to a free Black family. He was well-educated as a young man, and very interested in music. Despite this interest, Leary took on his father’s business of harness making.

Leary came to Oberlin as a young man and married Mary Patterson, an Oberlin graduate. The two had one daughter.

OBERLIN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY Copeland was also born in North Carolina to a free family. He moved as a young boy to Oberlin with his parents. From 1854 to 1855 he attended Oberlin College, where he became involved in the Oberlin Anti-Slavery Society.

Leary was also a member of the Oberlin AntiSlavery Society. Accordingly, in 1858, both men were involved in the well-known OberlinWellington Slave Rescue, only further cementing fiery abolitionist feelings.

Unfortunately for Brown and his men, shots eventually rang out, and word spread throughout the town that abolitionists had arrived. Armed locals began to surround the arsenal. A train came through the village, and Brown let it pass, thus allowing its riders to call for help. Soon the Marines arrived.

Before reinforcements had a chance to get to Harpers Ferry, Brown could have escaped with a cache of weapons and the lives of most of his men.

Unfortunately, he delayed. It is believed he was waiting for local enslaved men to rebel and join him. However, Brown had done no groundwork in Harpers Ferry—no one knew he was coming or what his intentions were. Understandably, most were hesitant to join him in the confusion and violence that ensued.

The first of Brown’s men to fall at Harpers Ferry was Newby, shot by a local farmer who had come to put down the rebellion. Standing alongside Newby was Green, who quickly took down the farmer.

Newby was carrying letters from his wife that day.

In these letters, she wrote of his plans to free her, saying, “There has been one bright hope to cheer me in all my troubles, that is to be with you, for if I thought I should never see you, this earth would have no charms for me.”

Leary and Copeland were assigned to guard the rifle factory under Kagi’s command. Certain he could not hold the factory any longer, Kagi led his men to retreat across the Shenandoah River. Kagi and Leary were gunned down, and Copeland was captured.

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Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

Left: Photograph showing the home of abolitionist John Brown in Osawatomie, Kansas, 1921. Following passage of the KansasNebraska Act in 1854, Brown—a vehement opponent of slavery—moved to Kansas with five of his sons, intending to help make Kansas a free state. Middle: Harpers Ferry in the 1860s. The arsenal can be seen in the front of this image, with the bell tower.

Right: A number of John Brown’s sons would serve in the Civil War he had predicted.

Edwin Coppock was positioned in the arsenal with Brown, where he stayed until forced to surrender to federal forces that had been called in to calm the uprising. It is said that while he was in the arsenal, Coppock had a clear shot at the leader of these federal forces—Robert E. Lee. Had he shot, he could have fatally wounded the future Confederate general.

THE CONSPIRATORS ON TRIAL Brown and his raiders were jailed and tried quickly in Virginia, where popular sentiment was turned harshly against them. All of the captured men were sentenced to death, including Coppock, Green and Copeland. Barclay Coppock, the youngest of the raiders, escaped. During the Civil War, he served for the 4th Kansas Volunteer Infantry. He died when crossing a bridge the Confederates had rigged to collapse.

Edwin Coppock’s uncle came to Virginia to retrieve his body, and a well-attended funeral was held in Winona. Eulogies framed his death as a conflict between Virginia and Ohio, or North and South.

Within a few weeks, mourners became angry that Coppock’s body would lie forever in a casket made

by Virginians. They exhumed his body, transferred him to a new coffin and held a new funeral in the county seat of Salem, where a monument stands to Coppock today.

While awaiting his fate on the scaffold, Copeland communicated with his family in Oberlin through eloquent and insightful letters. Like many of the raiders he was imprisoned with, Copeland believed he had fought for a noble cause, and he was ready to die for it. He wrote on his last day, “And now, dear ones, if it were not for those feelings I have for you— if it were not that I know your hearts will be filled with sorrow at my fate, I could pass from this earth without regret.”

With his family still enslaved in the South, Green had no relatives to correspond with. He did however, send messages to Brown in his cell before he was executed. On the day Brown died, Green is said to have sent a message saying, “I am glad that I came and I am unafraid to die.”

A CORRUPT SYSTEM Stereograph view of a bridge at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (once Virginia). Harpers Ferry is at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers.

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

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The treatment Copeland and Green received after the raid demonstrates how many additional factors they had to consider because of the system they were fighting. Neither could be comforted by family visits before their death (Copeland’s family risked

their own freedom stepping onto Virginia soil). After their deaths, Virginia Gov. Wise would only release their bodies to a white man, so they were ultimately sent to Winchester Medical College. Nevertheless, the residents of Oberlin held a memorial service for all three of their fallen residents that winter, and erected a memorial in their honor.

signed on for Brown’s offensive—including five Black men and two of Brown’s own sons— is both fascinating and touching. His careful re-creation of the bloody events of October 16, 1859, the day of Brown’s disastrous raid on Harpers Ferry, is both suspenseful and heartwrenching.”

As Brown walked to the gallows, he handed the guard his final message for the nation. The paper read, “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had as I now think vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done.”

West Virginia Public Broadcasting produced and aired Harpers Ferry and John Brown in 2009. The half-hour documentary “focuses on Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (previously Virginia). The first section explores the birth and history of this pre-Civil War, industrial town. The second section focuses on the abolitionist, John Brown, and his raid on the armory and town of Harpers Ferry.”

Brown was right. Not long after his death, violent disagreements about slavery plunged the United States headfirst into a civil war. In fact, Brown’s much-publicized execution helped tear the North and South apart.

When the Civil War ended, John Brown, John Henri Kagi, Edwin Coppock, Shields Green, John A. Copeland, Dangerfield Newby and Lewis Sheridan Leary had been gone for over five years. But the mark that these Ohio men made on their nation would never diminish.

Kieran Robertson is curator for manuscripts at the Ohio History Connection.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

Listen to historian Matthew Pinsker briefly discuss “Bleeding Kansas” for the History Channel at ohiohistory.org/Brown1.

The Abolitionists aired on PBS (American Experience) in January 2013. It’s available now on DVD. The three-hour documentary brings to life “the intertwined stories of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké, Harriet Beecher Stowe and John Brown.” John Brown’s Holy War was also produced by PBS.

Visit ohiohistorycentral.org, our online encyclopedia of Ohio history, for profiles of John Brown, John A. Copeland Jr. and Lewis S. Leary.

The National Park Service encourages you to visit Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, where you’ll find yourself “at the confluence of history and nature. Experience a flash point that ignited the Civil War. Find your story in the struggle for freedom, education and civil rights. Explore the rolling Blue Ridge mountains and rushing waters of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.” Visit the Harpers Ferry website at nps.gov/hafe/index.htm.

The John Brown House in Akron is a museum operated by the Summit County Historical Society. Visit the John Brown House’s website at summithistory.org/john-brown-house.

Brown’s family rented the house from 1844 to 1854. For an in-depth discussion of Brown’s life, you can also visit summithistory.org/ abolitionist-john-brown.

The Christian Science Monitor named Tony Horwitz’s Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War one of the best nonfiction books of 2011. “Horwitz’s description of the little band of idealists and adventurers who

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36 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

Courtesy of the William Powell family

Field of Dreams WILLIAM POWELL AND THE CLEARVIEW GOLF CLUB

BY MARLA RIDENOUR

The question had many layers, and the second Black woman to play on the LPGA Tour certainly grasped them all.

Courtesy of John Stewart/ St. Andrews New Links

Implied was the 2020 awakening of racial injustice following the murder of George Floyd, bathing the world in the spotlight of discrimination that the late William Powell experienced firsthand. But also included was the state of Clearview Golf Club in East Canton, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2021 and which club pro Renee and her brother, Larry, its superintendent since 1971, fight to keep afloat.

Courtesy of the William Powell family

“I wish I could ask him,” his daughter, Renee Powell, replies.

Courtesy of the William Powell family

W

hat would William Powell think of what is going on?

PGA of America

The fact that Clearview remains the only golf course in the United States designed, built and owned by an African American and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001 is a powerful distinction. But the singularity of that accomplishment might sadden William Powell, who died Dec. 31, 2009, at age 93.

HELPING HANDS Some in the world of golf, including Jim Nantz of CBS Sports and American professional golfer Michelle Wie West, have fought to help the course on U.S. Route 30 between Canton and Minerva remain a beacon of inclusivity.

But the course still needs upgrades, with plans for a $1.5 million irrigation system and a $2 million training facility that will include a museum and banquet area. Clearview H.O.P.E., a free therapeutic and recreational program for female veterans that Renee founded in 2011, will hold its Friday gatherings there.

Top: Golf was a family affair for the Powells and their three children.

Middle: William and Renee Powell in 2008 at the University of St. Andrews honorary degree ceremony in Scotland. Bottom: Renee Powell in her navy blue PGA of America blazer. She was elected to the PGA of America in 1996 and inducted into the PGA of America Hall of Fame in 2017. Upon her induction into the Hall of Fame, Renee said, “To be inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame alongside my father is extremely special, as he was my only instructor over these many years.”

Left: As club professional at the Clearview Golf Club, Renee Powell regularly gives golf lessons.

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PGA of America

Renee Powell, who was the first woman head professional at the Silvermere Golf Club in Surrey, England, during the early 1970s, returned home to become the head golf professional at her father’s Clearview Golf Club. She is shown here giving a lesson.

The spirit of William Powell motivates Renee and Larry to preserve what is in essence their father’s Field of Dreams.

The grandson of Alabama slaves, William Powell grew up in the only Black family in Minerva. He said during a 2006 interview with the Akron Beacon Journal that they weren’t ostracized, but the area was a hotbed of racism.

“When I was a little kid, every Halloween the Ku Klux Klan would march in full regalia. They’d burn crosses on the corner in front of the grocery store,” Powell shared.

Taking up golf at age 9 as a player and caddie, Powell attended Wilberforce University and was a member of the men’s golf team that traveled to face Ohio Northern at Lost Creek Country Club in Lima, Ohio, in 1937. That marked the first interracial college golf match in the U.S. Wilberforce prevailed, and won the rematch.

ACCEPTING EVERYONE During World War II, Powell served in a segregated Army Air Corps unit that hauled and loaded bombs.

While overseas, he played some of the best golf

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courses in England and Scotland. But when he returned to Ohio, Powell was not afforded the same access. So he decided to build a club that would accept everyone.

He saw a newspaper advertisement for an overgrown 78-acre dairy farm with two barns and a silo. When he applied for a GI loan, he was turned away by several banks. Powell found two Black doctors to become his partners, and his brother Barry, an Army officer, took out a second mortgage on his home. Even then, they had to pay cash.

Powell cleared the land himself, removing six-foot fence posts with his bare hands. He wrote in a February 2007 newsletter, The Clear View, that the farm was so weeded, rabbits and pheasants were plentiful and hunters regularly trespassed, making him fear for the safety of his wife and children.

“I can understand why people told my wife she was married to a loony because I was driven by some uncontrollable ambition to build this golf course,” he wrote in the newsletter. “It was exciting … I am lucky to still be alive because the Man above had to be doing things I couldn’t do alone without the capital and in a hostile environment.”

Clearview opened as a nine-hole course in 1948 and expanded to 18 in 1978, but even with a second job at the nearby Timken Corporation, Powell had to cash in two insurance policies to fund the second nine.

“All those things have happened because of the sacrifices my whole family has made. So my responsibility and my obligation is to bring everything full circle here. Those are my goals, that’s where I am. That’s where I stand now.”

TROUBLE AT SCHOOL

A SIGNIFICANT PART OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Denied PGA of America membership because of his race, Powell was finally granted honorary membership in 1998 that was retroactive to 1961, when the organization lifted its Caucasian-only clause. Powell and his family have been honored worldwide, with Renee’s achievements deserving of a museum of their own.

Her father’s vision of building a course where everyone could play might resonate more now in the wake of Floyd’s death.

“I went to grade school here and the third grade was the worst year of my education. I had so many problems with teachers and with kids because of the color of my skin, so I started the fourth grade at St. Benedict’s,” she says.

Taught golf by her father, Renee won several amateur trophies in her teens, and captained the women’s golf teams at Ohio University and The Ohio State University. In 1967, she turned professional. In 1996, she was the first woman of color elected to membership in the PGA of America.

HONORED BY ST. ANDREWS In 2008, Renee Powell received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, the first woman golfer chosen and the third American after Jack Nicklaus and Charlie Sifford.

In 2015, when the 260-year-old Royal & Ancient Golf Club in St. Andrews, Scotland, dropped its all-male rule, she was one of seven women chosen as an honorary member and one of only two Americans.

Those honors touch Powell because of her father’s experiences during the war.

“They treated him as a normal human being,” she says.

In 2016, female students at the University of St. Andrews played a tournament for the Renee Powell Cup. In 2018, the university named its newest residence hall Renee Powell Hall.

“I think of myself, in the home of golf … any golfer at some stage wants to make a pilgrimage to St. Andrews,” Renee explains. “I walk down the street and people know me there. I walk down the street in East Canton and I don’t think they know me.

“It’s creating a greater awareness and making people think and realize there are so many historical things that have happened,” Renee says. “Clearview is such a significant part of American history. It’s not so much golf history, it’s not so much Black history, it’s American history. A lot of times we, as citizens of this country, know very little about our history.”

Powell wouldn’t say if her dad would be disappointed that Clearview is still the only course designed, built and owned by an African American.

“My dad didn’t build it to be the only. He built it to create opportunities because opportunities weren’t there,” she says.

“Back when my dad was coming along, women weren’t very welcome … juniors, Blacks. My dad found it very despicable that a nice, clean, wonderful sport of golf … people did not have the opportunity to play it.”

As she considers Clearview’s 75th anniversary, Powell pictures her father with the hand-seeder around his neck.

“You can’t have too much seed in it and you churn it and you walk back and forth,” she says. “I see it every day and I think, ‘There’s no way I could do that.’

“I guess if you’re so determined to make a change in society … it also shows you what one person can do and what each of us can do. Each of us can do something to make a difference in our country and in society in general. It’s just that he did a huge thing.”

Marla Ridenour has been a sports reporter at the Akron Beacon Journal since 1999. She has worked at the Dayton Daily News and The Columbus Dispatch before that, sometimes as the only woman on a beat, including the Cleveland Browns. She has helped advance the careers of many other female reporters and received many awards from groups such as the Associated Press Sports Editors, the Pro Football Writers of America and the Golf Writers Association of America.

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Courtesy of John Stewart/St. Andrews New Links

William and Renee Powell at the St. Andrews Golf Course in Scotland.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

If you’d like to play Clearview Golf Club, learn more about William Powell or donate to the Clearview Legacy Foundation, visit the club’s website at clearviewgolfclub.com.

To learn more about Renee Powell, read M. Mikell Johnson’s The African American Woman Golfer: Her Legacy. The book “identifies over 300 women and their lives in golf. The author also profiles prominent golfers such as Althea Gibson, who crossed the LPGA color line; Helen Webb Harris, who created the first club for Black women golfers; and Ann Gregory, who broke the USGA whites-only clause in women’s golf.”

Right: Professional golfer Renee Powell with the Ohio Historical Marker for Clearview Golf Club.

The club opened in 1948 and the marker was dedicated in 2001.

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Courtesy of the William Powell family

Richard Michelson—author of the children’s book Twice as Good: The Story of William Powell and Clearview, the Only Golf Course Designed, Built and Owned by an African American—discusses the life and achievements of the golf pioneer on WGBY television’s program, Connecting Point. Listen at ohiohistory.org/clearview1.

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Books That Work ESSENTIAL READING BY OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION STAFF

I

f you work at a newspaper, more than likely you have dog-eared copies of The Associated Press Stylebook and The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. You probably refer to them every day.

If you work at a history museum in Ohio, then you are likely familiar with two classic books about our state’s history, Ohio: The History of a People by Andrew R.L. Cayton and Ohio and Its People by George W. Knepper.

These titles are essential tools of the trade, or what one of our colleagues has dubbed “books that work.”

We asked staffers of the Ohio History Connection which books they relied upon the most and why. Here are their answers:

BONE UP ON SKELETONS As a natural history curator at the Ohio History Connection who works on identifying animal bones, there are a few go-to books to help on the journey to correctly identifying specimens. The two classics in the field are Mammalian Osteology and Avian Osteology, by B. Miles Gilbert, Michael Martin and H.G. Savage. I have worn-out copies of both these volumes on my shelves. I also still have my first copy of Mammalian Osteology— which is now a stack of 425+ loose pages since I wore out the binding from overuse.

I see a lot of cow, horse, pig and sheep bones and teeth come in the door. I always keep a copy on hand of The Anatomy of the Domestic Animals, by Septimus Sisson and James Grossman. It was first published in 1910 but it’s still the go-to resource for domestic mammals.

So what to do if you find a mastodon or mammoth bone!?

These do turn up in Ohio from time to time, and the best book to use is yet another older classic: Osteology for the Archaeologist: No. 3—The American Mastodon and the Woolly Mammoth. No. 4—North American Birds, by Stanley J. Olsen. These books are always good starting places when taking on an identification; however, comparing to a skeletal collection is the best way to confirm the correct species. We’re fortunate to have a good comparative osteology collection here at the Ohio History Connection!

—Dave Dyer, Natural History Curator

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Photos by Jamie Marsh | Ohio History Connection

Dave Dyer

STORYTELLING THROUGH GRAPHIC NOVELS My interest in history has always been rooted in the stories of people, and using those individual stories to illustrate larger historical events and themes to build empathy around, and for, people in the past and in the present. This is one of the reasons I’ve been intrigued by graphic novels.

The graphic novels that introduced me to the power of the medium were Maus I and Maus II. I first read Maus in the mid-90s or so, shortly after it won the Pulitzer Prize. Created by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman, Maus tells the concurrent story of Spiegelman’s experience interviewing his father about his experience as a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor.

MetaMaus, published in 2011, digs into Spiegelman’s research and oral history recordings with his father, giving us a deeper look into the work that went into developing Maus, as well as an understanding that the culmination of historical research can look a variety of ways, even a graphic novel.

—Stacia Kuceyeski, Director, Outreach Division

THE HISTORIAN’S FORMULA As a curator and historian, I find that most of the books I keep on my desk year after year are contextual in nature—they cover large swaths of American history in broad strokes and include explanations of generational cause and effect.

When thinking about cities and housing, I always turn to The Metropolitan Revolution by Jon Teaford and The Color of Law

by Richard Rothstein.

Rothstein presents an argument against the concept of de facto segregation by proving that federal policies were in fact the root cause of segregation across the entire United States.

As I’ve recently jumped into a study of queer history, I’ve added a few new volumes to the shelf—A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski and Transgender History by Susan Stryker. However, I think my favorite has to be Transgender Warriors by Leslie Feinberg. Feinberg uses a mix of the personal and the academic in a way that truly makes readers question the basis of their own ideas.

And then there are the books that help shape the way I tell history on my own. First is Bloody Lowndes

by Hasan Kwame Jeffries. Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings by Brian Purnell is one I often look back to as a guide for formatting a successful written piece that combines storytelling and purpose.

I also always keep a copy of Walking with the Wind

by John Lewis, just to know it’s there. As a young historian, this book drew me to the history of social movements, and it reminds me that famous historic figures are still people—just like you and me.

—Kieran Robertson, Manuscripts Curator

CONTEMPORARY POLITICS As a former congressional staff member, I couldn’t resist reading John Boehner’s recent On the House: A Washington Memoir. The Ohio congressional delegation in the 1990s and early 2000s was known for having clout and seniority. Boehner was right in the thick of things, which we know led to his becoming the first U.S.

Stacia Kuceyeski

Kieran Robertson

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House speaker from Ohio since Nicholas Longworth.

Boehner’s memoir is entertaining and honest.

One of the few good things that emerged from the year 2020 was Robert Putnam’s The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. Putnam, a Port Clinton native, teamed up with another Harvard colleague, Shaylyn Romney Garrett, to produce this incredibly insightful book comparing our current era to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century. I recommend The Upswing to anyone who wants to better understand America.

There are a lot of voices that have emerged since the murder of George Floyd in May 2020 which have important stories and perspectives to share. When the Stars Begin to Fall: Overcoming Racism and Renewing the Promise of America, a 2021 book by Theodore R. Johnson, caught my attention for several reasons. First of all, the cover image of the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965 is stunning. The photo was captured by Canton native James Karales, who received his master’s degree from Ohio University (there’s always an Ohio tie!) and had a successful career as a photographer.

Second, Johnson is terribly compelling. His approach to race relations sounded somehow more optimistic and complete with remedies that could appeal to a broad swath of Americans.

Johnson combines his own personal history with the stories of others to condemn racism as a crime of the state and an existential threat to all of us. When the Stars Fall is grounded in history, well-researched, with a nice mix of public policy and the humanities.

Johnson does an impressive job building

his case for national solidarity and exceptional citizenship. That doesn’t lend itself to a quick sound bite, but Johnson’s story is a compelling one that left me feeling both better informed about our past and yet just a little bit more hopeful for the future.

—Todd Kleismit, Director of Community & Government Relations

BOOKS ABOUT THE MUSEUM TRADE In my work at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in History Museum Studies, Learning From Museums

by John Falk and Lynn Dierking was essential in museum education and has stayed essential for me to reconnect to throughout my professional life. This book helps to situate the place that museums have in a person’s path of lifelong learning.

While my job has taken me in lots of different directions, I still see myself as an educator and someone who needs to communicate concepts in an engaging manner. The Good Guide: A Sourcebook for Interpreters, Docents, and Tour Guides by Alison Grinder and E. Sue McCoy brings me back to those essentials about identifying key messages and themes and illustrating them in interesting ways.

The Ohio History Connection has been doing a lot of work with Federally Recognized Tribes with historic ties to Ohio. In that work, I often seek out reading recommendations, and our director of American Indian Relations, Alex Wesaw, recently introduced me to Do All Indians Live in Tipis? by the staff of the National Museum of the American Indian. It’s a great reference guide, and we’ve also used it around the dinner table with our kids to deepen their understanding of American Indian history.

—Megan Wood, Director, Cultural Resources Division

Megan Wood 44 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

PENOLOGY AND CRIMINOLOGY As a social historian of penology and criminology, I think one of the most interesting trends of the past decade has been the rise of amateur true crime.

Often neglected in the many podcasts and Instagram profiles dedicated to the lurid details of true crime is historical analysis and quality sources. Thus, much of my reading of the past few years has targeted the crossroads of criminal justice, the spectacularism of crime and punishment and the various actors who participate in these systems.

Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison is still a philosophical and historical classic that catapulted the history of penology to new heights, but it’s my copies of Pieter Spierenburg’s The Spectacle of Suffering, Paul Friedland’s Seeing Justice Done and Julius Ruff’s Violence in Early Modern Europe that are falling apart from continuous use.

For case studies, I highly recommend Ordinary Men

by Christopher Browning, Mastery, Tyranny, and Desire by Trevor Burnard and A Decent, Orderly Lynching by Frederick Allen. Whether it’s the veterans of Nazi Reserve Police Battalion 101, plantation owner Thomas Thistlewood or the Montana vigilantes, all help plumb the depths of the human condition.

an amazing compendium of information about the Buckeye State. Published before interstate highways, it includes points of interest in many localities that might not make the guidebooks today.

I have a dog-eared copy of The 88 County Maps of Ohio, published in the 1980s by the Ohio Historical Review, handy for choosing the road not taken. I also like the DeLorme Ohio Atlas & Gazetteer, which divides our state into 79 large-scale maps showing where all the back roads go.

I frequently refer to various Ohio county histories and county atlases of the 1870s through the 1920s and vintage Ohio city directories. Finally, I’m interested in Ohio’s built environment, and two classic books I’ve referred to repeatedly are Early Homes of Ohio, by I.T. Frary, and American Architecture Since 1780: A Guide to the Styles, by Marcus Whiffen.

—Tom Wolf, Communications Manager and Writer and Editor, Echoes Magazine

More light-hearted but no less interesting or important reads have been Swearing by Geoffrey Hughes, Dressing Renaissance Florence by Carole Frick and Washing Away of Wrongs: Song Ci by M. Clement Hall. Each brings a new perspective to how the criminal justice system shaped the daily lives of our ancestors—though censorship, sumptuary laws and medical science—and how those changes have throughlines to society today.

—Trevor Rhodes, Educational Content Coordinator

EXPLORING OHIO I regularly refer to Ohio History Central (ohiohistorycentral.org), the Ohio History Connection’s online encyclopedia of Ohio history, especially useful to me for fact-checking. Similarly, I love the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, first a book and now available online, too (case.edu/ ech). The Ohio Guide, compiled by the Writers’ Project of the Works Projects Administration, is

Trevor Rhodes Todd Kleismit OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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I Wish I’d Been There

AN ICONIC TOY — WHO COOKED UP THE EASY-BAKE OVEN?

BY AL AN MARCH

When I was a young man, something less than 14 years of age, I approached my father with an important question.

Dad was sitting on the tall swivel chair at his drafting table, in the basement of our Victorian brick house in Sayler Park, the westernmost neighborhood of Cincinnati. He was Harry V. March, named for his grandfather, Dr. Harry A. March. Being born on St. Patrick’s Day, Dad was always known as Pat. I asked Dad, “Kenner has sold millions of Easy-Bake Ovens, right?” Dad had been working for Kenner Products Co. at 912 Sycamore St. in Cincinnati for about a decade.

Without moving his eyes from his work, he said evenly, “Yes, they have.”

“And you invented the Easy-Bake Oven, right?” I asserted the knowledge I’d

carried my entire life.

“Yes, that’s true,” dad said, continuing to move his pencil across the paper.

“Then why aren’t we rich?” It made sense to me that my father’s invention, which sold millions of toy ovens, would have made us rich. We weren’t.

A REGUL AR PAYCHECK Dad turned to me and shared the sort of fatherly wisdom that helps sons grow into men. He said, “Because Kenner gave me a regular paycheck every week.”

I tried to digest the logic. Dad was simply an employee who did work for Kenner Toys. Some ideas were good and made the company money. Some ideas were not so good and didn’t make money. Dad accepted a regular paycheck to avoid the ups and downs of an inventor’s life.

The next 40 or so years whizzed by.

FAKE NEWS? In early 2010, I read an obituary in the Cincinnati Enquirer with the headline, “Easy-Bake Oven Inventor Ronald Howes Dead at 83.” I was astounded!

That was Dad’s title. I drove to his place 10 minutes away to ask him about it.

Wikimedia Commons

Yes, he knew Ron Howes. He’d worked with him. And yes, Howes had worked on the Easy-Bake Oven. Then he

46 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

Left: Kenner initially wanted to name its new product the Safety-Bake Oven, but regulators refused because the toy had not yet established a record of safety.

shared more about the story than I had known before.

Shortly after Dad arrived at Kenner in 1963, one of the Steiner brothers who owned Kenner (I don’t recall if it was Joe or Al or Phil) had come back from the annual toy fair in New York. He had the idea that kids should be able to make their own pretzels at home. He shared his idea with Kenner’s research and development team. Discussion ensued.

BAKING PRETZELS Kenner’s engineers discussed kids baking pretzels. They were concerned with heat and safety. Dad told me that Ron Howes offered to develop a method to create pretzels using safe enzymes. The result wasn’t satisfactory. The research and development engineers realized that light bulbs were already in the household. Dad designed a metal reflector that shrouded a 60-watt bulb and concentrated its heat.

The reflector would be installed in a thermally resistant polystyrene housing which (sort of) resembled mom’s oven.

The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

Dad’s explanation didn’t satisfy my sense of outrage. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t upset about someone else getting credit for his invention. To him, it just wasn’t a big deal. He said that Kenner rarely put an employee’s name on patents for ideas they developed. It was just their business model. It didn’t bother him. Dad was a “live and let live” kind of guy.

Dad left Kenner in 1977 to work for Playskool Toys, then Brunswick Sporting Goods. He retired from Diconix, a subsidiary of Kodak in Beavercreek, Ohio.

Wikimedia Commons

Kenner’s Easy-Bake Oven hit the market in 1963. The toy cost $15.95 ($127 today after being adjusted for inflation). Despite the steep cost, Kenner sold 500,000 units in the first year. The Easy-Bake Oven was not the first toy of its kind. The toy train manufacturer Lionel sold an oven designed for 6- to 9-year-olds as early as 1930.

A LIFETIME OF ENGINEERING

Alan March is a lifelong

In his lifetime of engineering, my dad had been awarded a few patents and worked on other patented ideas. He was more than an engineer, he was an inventor, a world-class model maker, an artist and the most well-read engineer I’ve ever met. He always had a child-like curiosity about the world and everything in it.

Cincinnatian. He is a founding member and past president of the Greater Cincinnati Police Historical Society & Museum.

Retired from the Cincinnati Police Department after 33 years, he is now the history and museum consultant for the Delhi Historical Society in Hamilton County. His published works include Trying to Do My Duty, published in Timeline magazine, about the amazing life of Cincinnati police lieutenant John Poppe.

On that day in 2010 when I was shocked to learn others shared my father’s title as inventor of a worldfamous toy, he shared another lesson.

“Success has many fathers,” he said, “but failure is an orphan.” So, Pat March and Ron Howes are among the many fathers of the very successful Easy-Bake Oven.

Dad died just seven months after Ron Howes passed away. I still think about that day more than a half-century ago when he, Ron Howes, the Steiners and the other creative people at Kenner Products Co. cooked up the idea for a toy kids could use to make their own snacks. I wish I could have been there.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

For more information—much more!—about Kenner toys, visit kennercollector.com, which features a company timeline from its inception in 1947 through 2000, the year parent company Hasbro shut its Cincinnati operations.

Leave a Legacy Passionate about preserving history for future generations?

Consider including the Ohio History Connection as a beneficiary in your estate plans. Our staff can help you choose options that best fit your needs.

Call 800.647.6921 to learn more.

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How the Courtroom Became a Crime Scene T H E U N J U S T CO M M U N I C AT I O N I N T H E S A M S H E P PA R D T R I A L S YO U N G E Y E S O N T H E PA S T BY FIONA BOYD, K ATHERINE LEONARDI AND AUDREY RONAYNE

In the fall of 1954, Sam Sheppard was convicted of murdering his wife, Marilyn.

With the press corrupting the case, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Our research concludes that the Sixth Amendment, which gives persons the right to an impartial jury and fair trial, wasn’t upheld during the Sheppard trials.

Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections

Sam Sheppard lived in Bay Village, Ohio, with his wife, Marilyn; son, Samuel Reese "Chip" Sheppard; and

the family dog, Kota. He worked as an osteopathic surgeon at Bay View Hospital. On the night of July 3, 1954, the Sheppards were entertaining the Ahern family, who left around midnight. The following morning, the mayor of Bay Village, a close friend of the Sheppards, received a call from the Sheppard household.

A panicked Dr. Sheppard explained the events that occurred the past night.

He claimed to have found Marilyn, who was four months pregnant, in a pool of blood. Sheppard explained that he had heard noises from the first floor and gone to investigate. He was shortly chased out of his own house by a man he described as a “bushy-haired attacker.”

This bushy-haired man beat Sheppard until he was unconscious outside his home.

“WHY ISN’T SAM SHEPPARD IN JAIL?” After a flurry of police investigations, many people began to believe this mysterious killer was Sheppard himself. No proper investigation of the crime scene was completed. To exaggerate the murder and convince citizens Sheppard was guilty,

The Sheppard family in 1964, left to right: Sam Jr.; Sheppard’s second wife, Ariane; and Sam, three years before Sheppard’s conviction was overturned. Sam Sheppard had been released on bond when this Cleveland Press photograph was published.

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the press began reporting falsities and opinions in the newspaper about the case. Cleveland Press Editor Louis Seltzer was sure of his guilt, holding Sheppard’s infidelity against him. Sheppard looked even more suspicious after he refused to take an immediate lie detector test due to the pain sustained from neck injuries.

Headlines swamped the local newspapers: “Testify in Death, Bay Doctor is Ordered,” “Rejects Lie Test,” “Someone is Getting Away with Murder,” “Why Isn’t Sam Sheppard in Jail?,” “Quit Stalling, Bring Him In,” “Why No Inquest? Do it Now, Dr. Gerbert” and ‘‘Justice to Sam Sheppard.”

The police even issued a statement calling Sam Sheppard a “bare-faced liar.” Soon public sentiment had turned against him.

During the first trial in December 1954, Sheppard hired an attorney named William Corrigan. Corrigan said that Sheppard sustained serious injuries that only could have been inflicted by an intruder. On July 30, 1955, Sheppard was escorted to the City Hall, where 100 reporters awaited his arrival.

MOTIVE: INFIDELIT Y? The main argument for the prosecution was based on Sheppard’s motive of infidelity. The district judge claimed Sheppard

Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library Special Collections

committed five independent federal constitutional violations. The jury convicted him of second-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison.

Sheppard continued to profess his innocence throughout 10 years in jail and met with a new defense attorney, F. Lee Bailey. Bailey convinced the United States Supreme Court to grant Sheppard a retrial. During the retrial, the rampage of negative editorials toward Sheppard continued.

More front page headlines included “But Who Will Speak for Marilyn?” and “Too Much Time Lost!” Reporters were noisy at the trial and the public address system proved to be inadequate. Information about deliberations, intended to be confidential among the jurors, was printed in newspapers. Although the media bombed the case, Bailey managed to win. Sheppard was found not guilty in November 1966.

Sheppard lived with his freedom for less than four years. He died in April 1970 of liver failure.

In 1999, Sheppard’s son tried suing the State of Ohio for wrongful imprisonment of his father. The unsuccessful case gained notoriety across the United States, inspiring documentaries, books and articles about the trial and Sheppard’s life.

Fiona Boyd is an eighth grader attending Near West Intergenerational School in Cleveland. Fiona likes to read, cook, ice skate and spend time with friends. She’s a fan of any Marvel movie or series and true crime podcasts. Fiona is a co-founder of her school’s student council and volunteers at Kids Book Bank and MedWish International. She would like to be a doctor or lawyer.

Sam Sheppard, center, talks with his lawyer, F. Lee Bailey (left), as Ariane Sheppard looks on. Bailey had just concluded his final arguments in Sheppard’s second murder trial in 1966.

Katie Leonardi is an eighth grader at Padre Pio Academy in Lakewood.

She enjoys cross-country running, Irish dance and debate. Her free time is spent connecting with friends and playing with her younger sisters and two Labrador retrievers. She hopes to continue her immersion into history topics and the research process next year in high school.

Audrey Ronayne is an eighth grader at Laurel School in Shaker Heights.

A former Birchwood School of Hawken student through seventh grade, Audrey enjoys social studies, history and learning about world events. She also likes writing, science and art. When she is not in school, Audrey enjoys playing ice hockey, field hockey, yoga, spending time with her friends and family and traveling.

LEARN MORE

Upon its publication in 2001, Kirkus Reviews described James Neff’s The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case as a “multilayered treat for crime buffs.”

Publishers Weekly called The Wrong Man a “brilliant, well-written story” and averred the book was “easily the best of the true-crime genre so far (this year).” Neff was a longtime reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a columnist there from 1981 through 1986.

There are several documentaries about the Sam Sheppard murder trial at YouTube.com, mostly a half hour or hour in length. Here are some of the better documentaries: Dr. Sam Sheppard: A Murder Trial that Shocked America (Biographics), The Puzzling Case of Marilyn and Sam Sheppard (BuzzFeed) and Bludgeoned to Death (True CSI).

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Reviews

Shop our Ohio History Store in person at the Ohio History Center or online at ohiohistorystore.com for this title and more.

BOOK

Joe Nuxhall: The Old Lefthander and Me by John Kiesewetter Rarely do athletes play for just one team their entire career anymore. Free agency has seen to that. From 2003 to 2019, Edwin Jackson pitched for 14 different teams, the very definition of a “ journeyman” and an emblem of modern sports. Have glove, will travel.

So where does that leave Cincinnati Reds pitcher and broadcaster Joe Nuxhall, who, except for parts of two seasons, was associated with one team for close to 64 years? That remarkable record made Nuxhall—“the old left-hander”—the most beloved figure in Cincinnati sports history.

Thankfully, Cincinnati journalist John Kiesewetter recorded all of his interviews with and about Nuxhall, and preserves the stories in Joe Nuxhall: The Old Lefthander and Me. In the first chapter of the book, Kiesewetter describes his love for the Reds, of Nuxhall in particular, his children’s devotion to the club and the star player and broadcaster. “For the first time,” Kiesewetter writes, “in this book you’ll read Joe’s comments on players, managers, owners and on all the fun he had on and off the air.” The chapter

headings give the reader an excellent idea of what they’ll find inside The Old Lefthander and Me, including “Tell Us About the Old Days,” “Pranks for the Memories,” “If You Swing the Bat, You’re Dangerous!” and “The Nux Hall of Fame.”

Who was the best Reds first baseman?

Ted Kluszewski? Frank McCormick? Lee May? Tony Pérez? Nuxhall played with all of them. Choosing a shortstop is also difficult for Nuxhall. Roy McMillan? Leo Cárdenas? Dave Concepción? Barry Larkin? This is the stuff Hot Stove League debates are made of.

In “Pranks for the Memories,” Kiesewetter recounts the time comedian Jonathan Winters stopped by the radio booth during a rain delay at Dodgers Stadium to impersonate Whip Willis, a fictitious Reds pitcher from the 1919 championship season. Willis told Nuxy, “Oh, everything I had broke. I’m broke now. I just went through everything I had. I was a fool … I put all my money in used chickens. Don’t ever put your money in used chickens.”

Readers may not realize how close Reds general manager Dick Wagner was to firing Nuxhall after the 1970 season. John

Soller, the Reds broadcast director in 1970, recalls, “I remember Wagner asking me if we should keep Nuxhall.

Should we keep Nuxhall?” If Wagner had gotten his way, Kiesewetter writes, “There would have been no Marty and Joe.” Thank God he didn’t get his way.

—Bill Eichenberger, Echoes Magazine

Cincinnati Reds

Rhodes/Klumpe Reds Hall of Fame Collection

Left: Joe Nuxhall met his new Reds radio partner Marty Brennaman in a Dayton photo studio on Feb. 1, 1974, Brennaman’s first day on the Reds payroll. They broadcast Reds games together for 31 years, before Nuxhall went part-time after the 2004 season.

Right: Joe Nuxhall at spring training in Tampa, Florida.

50 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2022

Ulysses S. Grant was born in this home near the Ohio River in Point Pleasant, Ohio, 200 years ago on April 27, 1822. Grant’s Birthplace is one of three Ohio History Connection sites associated with Grant’s early life that you can visit in Clermont and Brown counties, just east of Cincinnati. See pages 10–12.

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