March & April 2021

MAGAZINE

MARCH & APRIL 2021 AN ABOLITIONIST IN OHIO

IN THE LIMELIGHT

TO BETTER CARE FOR THE SICK

IN THE SHADOW OF PROVIDENCE

Frederick Douglass’s 1854 Speech in Hudson

Kelleys Island Quarries

Cleveland Clinic Celebrates a Century

A Courtship During Cholera

Page 22

Page 28

Page 34

Page 40

MAGA ZINE

Cover: Abolitionist Frederick Douglass gave the 1854 commencement address at Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio. This portrait of him was painted about 1845. See page 22.

National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Vol. 60, No. 2

Contents M A R C H & A P R I L 202 1

22

An Abolitionist in Ohio— Frederick Douglass’s 1854 Commencement Address at Western Reserve College

28

Kelleys Island Quarries— 400 Million Years in the Making

34

Cleveland Clinic at 100— To Better Care for the Sick

40

In the Valley of the Shadow of Providence— Courtship Letters from the Ohio Cholera Epidemic of 1849

EDITORS

Bill Eichenberger Tom Wolf CONTRIBUTORS

Ella Acker t Randy Edwards Erin Esmont Marci Rich Tom Staf ford Charles Wash

I N E AC H I S S U E

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

Erin Wingfield O hio Histor y Conne c tion

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

2 4 4 6 15 16 17 20 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

THANKS TO OUR OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION STRATEGIC PARTNERS:

Postmaster: Please send address changes to: Echoes Magazine, Ohio History Connection, Ohio History Center, 800 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43211-2474 Entire contents © 2021 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.

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

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An Abolitionist in Ohio

22 28

FREDERICK DOUGLASS’S 1854 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE By the 1850s, Frederick Douglass was already a nationally known advocate for abolition. His July 12, 1854, commencement address at Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio, was a raw, yet intellectual defense of the literal humanity of African Americans.

Kelleys Island Quarries 400 MILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING The story of limestone and the Lake Erie Islands goes back 400 million years. Quarrying on Kelleys Island began in the 1830s. By the early 1900s, ships were transporting more than 500 tons of Kelleys Island limestone every year to booming industrial ports like Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit.

Cleveland Clinic at 100 TO BETTER CARE FOR THE SICK When Cleveland Clinic opened in 1921, it was a new kind of medical center: a not-for-profit group practice dedicated to patient care and enhanced by research and education. The efficacy of this model has been on display ever since, with Cleveland Clinic responsible for medical breakthroughs in cardiac care, dialysis, breast cancer and many other specialties.

34

In the Valley of the Shadow of Providence

40

COURTSHIP LETTERS FROM THE OHIO CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1849 Letters written over the summer of 1849 between 29-year-old Rev. Charles G. Meredith of northern Kentucky and 21-year-old Sarah Simmons of Cincinnati reveal romance blooming amid a climate of anxiety and uncertainty brought on by a raging epidemic that took the lives of some 8,000 Cincinnatians by summer’s end.

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3

FROM OUR EDITORS Preserved by the Ohio History Connection, the Glacial Grooves on Kelleys Island illustrate the amazing power of the glaciers that moved over much of Ohio beginning about 24,000 years ago and scoured deep grooves into the native limestone that you can still see there today. The massive continental glacier stayed in Ohio for another 10,000 years.

While many people visit the Glacial Grooves, fewer follow the North Shore Loop Hiking Trail at adjacent Kelleys Island State Park to discover the old north quarry stone crusher, now an overgrown ruin and a fascinating bit of industrial archaeology. In Kelleys Island Quarries—400 Million Years in the Making on page 28, author Randy Edwards takes you back to the heyday of the stone crusher and the Kelleys Island quarries that helped fuel booming industrial lake ports like Cleveland, Buffalo and Detroit.

For the past year, health care and health-care professionals have been regularly in the news with very good reason, though Cleveland Clinic, founded in 1921, has been making health-care headlines for a century now. In Cleveland Clinic at 100—To Better Care for the Sick on page 34, Editor Bill Eichenberger looks at the origins and history of this leader and innovator in the health-care field, an Ohio institution whose reputation and impact extend far beyond the borders of the Buckeye State.

In the summer of 1849, Rev. Charles G. Meredith, a Methodist circuit rider in northern Kentucky, courted 21-year-old Sarah Simmons of Cincinnati during a raging cholera epidemic that led to the deaths of about one in 14 Cincinnatians at the time. Tom Stafford’s In the Valley of the Shadow of Providence—Courtship Letters from the Ohio Cholera Epidemic of 1849, on page 40, shares their story. One hundred and seventy-two years later, the uncertainty of the times and the resulting sense of anxiety come through clearly in surviving letters between them—a reminder that we’re not the first to experience anxiety, uncertainty or loss in the face of an epidemic.

Finally, as the nation grappled with slavery in the decade before the Civil War, abolitionist Frederick Douglass was invited to address students graduating in 1854 from Western Reserve College, then in Hudson, Ohio. In An Abolitionist in Ohio— Frederick Douglass’s 1854 Commencement Address at Western Reserve College on page 22, Charles Wash, director of the Ohio History Connection’s National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, shares the story of the famed Black leader’s speech.

Stay safe and happy reading,

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,

“ How do you celebrate Passover, Easter or Ramadan in your household?”

Here are some of your responses: PASSOVER Weeks in advance of Pesach (Passover), we cleaned the house, never leaving even a crumb of chametz, leavened foods. Mom sealed away our remaining chametz and dishes, and covered the counters. The rabbi “sold” our chametz to a non-Jew. The night before, Mom hid Cheerios throughout the house. With lights off, we huddled around a candle and passed from room to room, hunting those last bits of chametz. With a feather, we swept them into a kerchief wrapped around a wooden spoon. We recited blessings then and in the morning, when we burned it all in a coffee can.

Though the holiday lasts eight days, our celebrations peak on nights one and two, when we gather for the seders: didactic meals of unleavened bread called matzah, four glasses of wine, and symbolic foods arranged on a decorative plate. The text of the Haggadah structures our night around prayers, rabbinic teaching and songs to help fulfill the commandment, “In every generation a person must view themself as if they had left Egypt.”

The youngest begins the seder by singing “The Four Questions.” The meal concludes with a last bite of matzah,

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Your Story? the afikomen, hidden by the children and ransomed back for small prizes.

We close the seder by singing, “One Little Goat,” a parable of generational oppression and divine liberation. Each of us chooses and gives voice to one character. We remember how Mommom and Poppop z”l, sadly long passed, played the “fire” and the “butcher.”

—Jacob Labendz, Youngstown

EASTER AT MT. ZION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH The challenges of the last 11 months have caused our church to rise to a whole new level of commitment to serving God’s people and our community. We have not had public worship in our sanctuary since March 15, 2020. Normally, we would have two packed services on Easter Sunday.

However, for Easter 2021, given the need for continued health precautions, we are planning an outdoor drive-in service for the entire church family and community.

We are building a stage on our parking lot for the band and the pulpit and have the praise team social-distanced on the ground in front of the stage. We did this once in October on a beautiful Sunday, when it was about 50 degrees and it was well attended and well received. We are praying for similar weather on Easter.

Our goal is to allow the people of God to join together in one place for worship.

We have been broadcasting our worship service each Sunday on Facebook Live and via Zoom. Our Easter service will be a significant first step to bring us back to regular public worship.

—Rev. Paul Hobson Sadler Sr., Cleveland

RAMADAN We have a pre-dawn meal together, share in the cooking and break our fast together at sunset. Ramadan is also usually a highly social time as we invite friends and family to break fast together and meet for prayers at the mosque every night. Last year and likely this one as well, Muslims have had to try to

SPRING HOLIDAYS

stay socially and spiritually engaged in different ways. We have made use of YouTube talks, Zoom parties and FaceTime with grandparents. We have started praying the night prayers in a congregation of five rather than 500.

In place of feeding friends and family, we have donated to food pantries and helped with distribution for the hungry.

Although we miss the mosque and our beautiful community and look forward to returning soon, we have also learned that the essence of Ramadan lives within our hearts.

—Dr. Wahida Abaza, Dublin

SEDER WITH FRIENDS We grew up in in the 1970s in a city in central Virginia with a small Jewish community, so having others to celebrate holidays with was important.

Each year, our moms would cook.

Then we would sit down to read the Haggadah (the story of the Jews’ liberation from Egyptian oppression) and perform the rituals associated with the storytelling. Then we would eat a great meal often featuring brisket and punctuated by adult conversation and the children’s shenanigans. We competed to see who could endure the sting of the tallest pile of horseradish (a symbol of the bitterness of slavery) atop a chunk of matzo (unleavened bread).

Then there was the search for the afikomen. That is a piece of matzo from the ceremonial plate surreptitiously hidden by the adults somewhere in the house. The finder gets a prize.

Competition is fierce. One year, our friends’ middle son hid a “decoy” afikomen to throw us off. Then he produced the real one and claimed victory. Apparently, he had identified the real hiding place before the hunt started. I seem to remember there was a bit of a kerfuffle around “proving” which one was real, and the adults intervened to decide the winner (who received chocolate).

—Ruth Sternberg, New York City

EPIC EGG TOSS After our traditional family meal on Easter Sunday, we move outside for a somewhat unusual event. We have a group of athletic and competitive individuals, so it is no wonder that we took an Easter egg-toss game to the next level. What started as gently tossing hard-boiled eggs in the back yard became an affair where we toss eggs over a two-story home. This requires a group effort. One person with a strong arm is positioned in the front yard. Another family member stands in the side yard to relay information to the waiting crowd in the back yard. The receiving group in the back yard scrambles for position to catch the flying eggs. The goal is to catch the eggs without causing them to crack.

Some eggs survive several tosses, while others are smashed on the ground or in someone’s hands more quickly. The game is over when all the eggs are in pieces and can no longer be thrown.

Needless to say, our family is never able to enjoy egg salad or deviled eggs after our celebration is over.

—Kay Scott, Columbus

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: The Baby Boom turns 75 this year. All you boomers out there, what were your favorite television shows between 1946 and 1970?

Your favorite actors? Television personalities?

Email your story responses (50 to 150 words) by March 12 to echoes@ohiohistory.org or, if you follow us on Facebook, send us a Facebook message.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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In the News OHIO HISTORY DAY CHAMPION SPONSOR

Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage, Helps Ohio History Day 2021 Go Virtual Each spring, thousands of students across the state gear up to bring history to life at the Ohio History Connection’s annual Ohio History Day program. For a second year, they’ll be exploring the past in true 21st-century fashion—using technology to do it all from home.

“We announced the decision early this year to conduct all 10 regional contests and the state-level contest virtually to ensure a safe and fun program experience for students and families,” says Samantha Rubino, unit manager for Ohio History Day. FOR GRADES 4–12

Ohio History Day is a year-long research program for grades 4–12.

Students pick a topic and develop a project, eventually culminating in 10 regional contests in March, followed by the state contest in April, where they present their work for evaluation and feedback to a panel of judges. The year 2020 was the first time Ohio History Day contests were held virtually because of the onset of COVID-19, and the History Day team had three days to move three regional contests from in-person to virtual.

Despite the change in platform

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and quick turnaround, ultimately the team was able to hold five regional contests and the state contest virtually, with no drop-offs in student participation.

“Not holding the contest was never an option. The students had worked so hard all year and we owed it to them to host the contest,” says Rubino.

“One of the reasons we were able to pivot so quickly and successfully last year is because of our sponsor, Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage, whose support gives us the ability to be flexible and adaptable.”

SIMILAR TO 401(K)

Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage, has been the Champion Sponsor of Ohio History Day since 2017. For more than 30 years, it has helped individuals and families save for education after high school.

CollegeAdvantage is a 529 Savings Plan offered and administered by the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority, an office of the Ohio Department of Education.

529 Plans are tax-advantaged savings programs that work similarly to a 401(k) where your contributions are invested in mutual funds or other investments. Your investments grow tax-free, and withdrawals for education-related expenses like tuition, room and board, books and computers remain tax-free as well.

“The Ohio History DayCollegeAdvantage pairing is a natural affiliation,” says Tim Gorrell, executive

director of the Ohio Tuition Trust Authority and Ohio’s 529 Plan. “Ohio History Day inspires young scholars to research and learn more about the abundant historical facets of the great state of Ohio while promoting Ohio’s rich heritage and traditions. CollegeAdvantage welcomes the opportunity to support and encourage these brilliant young minds as they expand their academic horizons.”

In addition to providing essential financial support for Ohio History Day as Champion Sponsor, CollegeAdvantage also sponsors an award category at the state-level contest that gives prize winners the opportunity to start planning for their future education. The History of Education Award is given to one junior and one senior project in any category that focuses on the history of education in the United States, and the student winners receive a $250 savings bond to begin a 529 Plan.

“Regardless of whether a student’s family has started saving for higher education or if they already have an account, winning the [History of Education] award can be the impetus that starts them to saving or provides additional funds to augment an existing

Ohio History Day

Angela D’Souza at work on her Ohio History Day project ## plan,” says Gorrell. “We take great pride in providing some monetary assistance as students pursue their higher education goals and objectives.”

“Thanks to CollegeAdvantage’s continued support, this year’s Ohio History Day contests will be even more engaging and fun for students

than last year,” says Rubino. “We’ll showcase the students’ work, and provide an opportunity for them to attend an optional judge interview, get feedback and be recognized for all their hard work. Along with CollegeAdvantage, we’re eager for this year’s virtual contests to begin, and we look forward to engaging

with new and returning students from across the state.”

Do you have a future historian in your family? Visit CollegeAdvantage.com or call 800.233.6734 to explore planning tools, calculate the cost of your child’s or grandchild’s college education and learn about the

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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THE NEXT 10 YEARS

Sustainability: Our Strategic Commitment

by Ben Garcia This April 22 marks the country’s 51st Earth Day, an annual day of organizing for environmental and species health and conservation.

The Ohio History Connection is responsible for over 5,000 acres of land across our 50+ historic sites.

One of these, Cedar Bog Nature Preserve near Urbana, is Ohio’s oldest state-owned preserve and the site of the state’s greatest floristic diversity.

Our natural history collections hold 29,181 cataloged specimens, spread among fossils, rocks and minerals, plants, insects and other arthropods, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes. In addition, more than 215,000 specimens are on long-term loan to The Ohio State University’s Museum of Biological Diversity. Our curators, David Dyer and Erin Cashion, track the impact that humans have had on Ohio’s environment and natural diversity.

As a natural history organization, we hold evidence of the existential threat climate change poses to our state. And so, in our recently passed strategic plan, we made the commitment to be a carbon-neutral organization by 2030, applying the lessons of history and joining thousands of other organizations in modeling a new approach to resource management.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC SUSTAINABILITY

The Ohio History Connection’s strategic plan can be accessed on our website at ohiohistory.org/plan, under “Our History.”

The three strategic priorities we identified in the plan are sustainability, equity and relationshipbuilding. Environmental sustainability is one part of the sustainability

8 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2021

equation. The other is economic sustainability. In addition to our ambitious conservation objectives, we have set an equally high bar for our future economic strength.

Specifically, we have outlined a plan to triple earned and contributed revenues by 2030—growing earned revenue from 8% of our operating budget to 24%, and increasing philanthropic donations from 5% to 15%. This will allow us to amplify the impact of the State of Ohio’s annual support, weather future economic downturns and make necessary investments in infrastructure and visitor or customer experience.

We exist to serve the people of Ohio through our programs, services and sites. Visitor and customer experience is the foundation of our reputation; it sustains us and will drive support.

We are well on the way to becoming one of the nation’s top three state history organizations, with the addition of the new Warren G. Harding Presidential Library & Museum to our historic site network and the recent restoration of the Harding Home in Marion. We are planning future investments in the visitor experience across our sites, working with site partners to create unforgettable exhibits and programs and connecting Ohio’s history to national and global histories.

Sustainability is a key priority for us because it ensures our collective future. The greatest legacy we can pass on to the next generation of Ohioans is an understanding of our history, in all its diverse complexity, and a thriving environment in all its complex diversity.

Ben Garcia is deputy executive director and chief learning officer for the Ohio History Connection.

Sustainability is a key priority for us because it ensures our collective future.

Located between Springfield and Urbana, the Ohio History Connection’s Cedar Bog Nature Preserve is a National Natural Landmark and a notable example of a marl swamp that contains a white cedar stand preserved in virgin condition.

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9

St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, Canton

savings plans available to you.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Recent Ohio Additions to the National Register of Historic Places AKRON • SUMMIT COUNTY B.F. GOODRICH COMPANY HISTORIC DISTRICT (CANAL PLACE) 520–540 S. Main St., 115–123 W. Bartges St.

Added to the National Register for its part in the history of commerce, industry and invention, Akron’s B.F. Goodrich Company Historic District comprises eight structures on 32.51 acres, the earliest dating to 1907.

The company was founded in 1871

Caldwell Downtown Historic District, Caldwell

as Akron Rubber Works, becoming B.F. Goodrich Co. in 1874 and incorporating in 1880. It was the first of the Big Four rubber companies associated with the 20th-century automotive age, which also included U.S. Rubber Co. (Uniroyal), founded in 1892 in Connecticut; Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., founded in 1898 in Akron; and Firestone Tire and Rubber Co., founded in 1900 in Akron.

Goodrich developed several advances in the rubber industry. It was the first rubber company to add tread design to its tires and provide additional tire strength and durability through use of integrated cotton fabric layers. B.F. Goodrich scientists invented vinyl in 1926 and created synthetic rubber in 1937. The company created the first tubeless tire in 1946.

 Noble County Courthouse

J. Marr FAIA, and completed under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration. More than 50 other 19th- and early-20th-century buildings associated with the settlement, commercial growth and architectural history of the village from 1858 to 1969 stand on streets surrounding the courthouse.

CANTON • STARK COUNTY

CALDWELL • NOBLE COUNTY CALDWELL DOWNTOWN HISTORIC DISTRICT Roughly bounded by Spruce, West, Plum, Bridge and East streets

Located in southeastern Ohio, Noble County was the last of Ohio’s 88 counties to be organized, in 1851.

Caldwell was purposely platted as the county seat, and the Caldwell Downtown Historic District is the commercial and historic core of the village. The original town plat features a public square with the 1934 Noble County Courthouse at its center. The three-story Second Renaissance Revival-style building was designed

by New Philadelphia architect Charles

ST. JOSEPH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH COMPLEX 2427 Tuscarawas St. W.

A landmark on the historic Lincoln Highway, Canton’s St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church Complex comprises a combination church and school built in 1902; the 1918 rectory; and St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, built from 1921 to 1932 in the Italian Romanesque style. The church is the work of Edward T. P. Graham, a Bostonbased master architect who was active for six decades. All of the buildings in the complex remain in active use for their original purposes. The late-19th- and early-

B.F. Goodrich Historic District

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All photos on pages 10–11 courtesy State Historic Preservation Office

20th-century neighborhood within a six-block radius of St. Joseph was established at the same time as the church and continued to develop until the Great Depression, when most building stopped until after World War II. Remaining lots were filled in quickly after the war.

COLUMBUS • FRANKLIN COUNTY OHIO BAPTIST GENERAL ASSOCIATION HEADQUARTERS 48 Parkwood Ave.

TOLEDO • LUCAS COUNTY THE BROER-FREEMAN BUILDING 622 Jefferson Ave.

The former home of Toledo’s longest-operating jeweler, BroerFreeman, established in 1877, has been added to the National Register for its association with the history of commerce and architecture in 20th-century Toledo. Conceived during the prosperous 1920s, it was designed in the trending

This 1906 house became state headquarters of the Ohio Baptist General Association in 1957. During the turbulent 1960s, when school desegregation, civil rights and the Vietnam War divided the country, the association, headquartered here, addressed these issues in the context of Christian beliefs and the broad concepts of freedom and justice, guiding member churches  The Broer-Freeman Building

 Ohio Baptist General Assn. Headquarters

in the important civil rights issues of the day. The Ohio Baptist General Association was established 125 years ago, in 1896. Two of its founding regional districts had been among the first Black Baptist associations in the country: the Providence Association (1834) and the Union Association (1836). Both were active in abolition and the Underground Railroad. The former headquarters served until 1996, and the association remains active today. The building was identified as eligible for the National Register through a 2018 study of places associated with the 20th-Century African American Civil Rights Movement in Ohio by the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office.

Moderne style of the time by local architectural firm Mills, Rhines, Bellman and Nordhoff. Opened in 1930, the store reflects the heyday of upscale retail in downtown Toledo. The richly appointed interior features wood-paneled walls, mirrors and crystal chandeliers evocative of leading fine jewelry stores in other major American cities of the time.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

State Supports Historic Rehabilitation Projects The Ohio Development Services Agency has awarded $26,523,083 in Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits for the rehabilitation of 51 historic buildings in 11 communities.

Together, the projects are expected to leverage about $259 million in private investments in Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Lakewood, Marble Cliff, Middletown, Painesville, Salem and Toledo.

CATALYST FOR INVESTMENT

“Twenty-four rounds of this program have proven that historic preservation is a catalyst for investment in our downtowns and neighborhoods,” says Lydia Mihalik, director of the Ohio Development Services Agency. “These historic buildings will be a part of our recovery, providing homes for Ohioans and job opportunities during the rehabilitation and long after, when new businesses move into the buildings.”

The awards assist private developers in rehabbing historic buildings in downtowns and neighborhoods. Many of the buildings are vacant today and generate little economic activity. Once rehabilitated, they are expected to drive further investment and interest in adjacent property. Developers are not issued the tax credit until project construction is complete and all program requirements are verified.

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION

The Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit program is administered in partnership with the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office, which determines whether a property qualifies as a historic building and whether the rehabilitation plans appear to comply with the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation, a set of guidelines used nationwide to encourage work that is sympathetic and appropriate to historic buildings. Find a full list of the projects receiving Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits at development.ohio.gov. Click on “News,” then “News Releases,” then “2020” and “State Supports 25 Historic Rehabilitation Projects.”

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OHIO HISTORICAL MARKERS

Sharing a Wider Story The Ohio History Connection’s brown-and-gold Ohio Historical Markers have been a familiar sight across the Buckeye State for more than 60 years. Now we’re issuing a special call for new markers that we hope will share a wider Ohio story.

“We’re making a special effort to include more voices on Ohio Historical Markers,” says marker program coordinator Laura Russell.

SPECIAL CALL

Russell says that through May 1, the Ohio History Connection is inviting applications from all 88 counties for new Ohio Historical Markers that share Ohio-specific stories of underrepresented people and communities.

“In particular, we’re looking for markers about people of color, immigrant communities, women, LGBTQ+ Ohioans, underrepresented faith-based communities as well as people with disabilities,” Russell says.

“We want to share more such stories through Ohio Historical Markers, and in the process, build and strengthen relationships between these communities and the Ohio History Connection.

“In addition, we’re encouraging counties that currently have fewer than 12 Ohio Historical Markers to submit applications,” she says. “The program hopes that such counties will look to their rural and underserved communities and use this special call to share their history on a new historical marker.”

Counties that currently have fewer than 12 Ohio Historical Markers

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are Allen, Ashland, Athens, Auglaize, Clark, Coshocton, Crawford, Darke, Defiance, Fairfield, Fayette, Fulton, Guernsey, Harrison, Henry, Highland, Hocking, Holmes, Huron, Jackson, Lawrence, Madison, Meigs, Monroe, Morrow, Noble, Paulding, Pike, Preble, Putnam, Richland, Sandusky, Scioto, Seneca, Van Wert, Vinton, Wayne, Williams and Wyandot.

HOW DOES THE OHIO HISTORICAL MARKER PROGRAM WORK?

Members of a local community (the local sponsor) decide on a topic in local history that they would like to commemorate with an Ohio Historical Marker.

The local sponsor does the necessary research to draft a short piece of text for the marker, secure a location for the marker and raise funds for its manufacture. The local sponsor submits a completed application to the Ohio History Connection, where staff work with the local sponsor to fact-check and refine the marker text.

Ohio Historical Markers range in cost from about $3,000 to $4,000. Some applicants may be eligible to apply for grants that help defray the cost

through one of three current markergrant programs. Ohio Historical Markers are produced at Sewah Studios in Marietta, Ohio, and are shipped directly to the local sponsor.

During this special call, only proposals addressing the specified topics will be considered.

Applications are due May 1, 2021.

The next deadline to apply for Ohio Historical Markers on all topics is expected to be May 1, 2022.

“Successful applications can require a lot of work to pull together,” Russell advises, “so now is the time to start gathering all the requested materials and drafting the requested statements and text.”

QUESTIONS?

Contact Ohio Historical Markers Coordinator Laura Russell at 614.297.2360 or lrussell@ ohiohistory.org. Find application forms, price lists, grant criteria, sample submissions and answers to frequently asked questions at remarkableohio.org, where you can also explore the more than 1,750 existing Ohio Historical Markers.

MANY OPPOSED HER VIEWS

Lucy Stone

Many people in her audiences opposed her views. They commonly disrupted her lectures. Sometimes they would shout her down. On other occasions, people would throw Bibles and claim that she was violating God’s word. Stone had studied both Greek and Hebrew at Oberlin and personally translated several Bible passages about the roles of men and women. She concluded that the accepted view was incorrect. She was raised in the Congregational Church, but many Congregationalists disagreed with her findings. The church eventually expelled her, and Stone joined the more tolerant Unitarian Church.

Lucy Stone (1818–1893) was a prominent leader of the women’s rights movement in 19th-century America.

Stone was born on Aug. 13, 1818, in Massachusetts. Stone became especially unhappy as a child when her brothers received a formal education while she did not. Her father justified this by his interpretation of the Bible. Although still a child, Stone decided that she would learn Hebrew and Greek when she became an adult so that she could translate the Bible correctly.

ENROLLED AT OBERLIN

Despite her father’s refusal to allow her to receive an education, she read everything that she could find. In 1839, she enrolled at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary. Four years later, she had earned enough money through teaching school and serving as a private tutor to enroll at Oberlin College in Ohio. Oberlin was the first college in the United States to admit both African Americans and women.

Stone graduated in 1847. The college asked her to draft a commencement address. However, a man was to read her speech because many people viewed it as unseemly for a woman to address a public audience. Stone refused to write the address.

After her graduation, Stone returned to Massachusetts, and began a career fighting for the rights of women and African Americans. She gave her first speech on women’s rights in 1847. In 1848, she joined the American AntiSlavery Society and traveled across the North urging people to oppose slavery. Some abolitionists opposed Stone’s views on women’s rights and contended that Stone took support away from African-American rights by linking them to women’s rights.

As a compromise, Stone agreed to give speeches on abolitionism on weekends and speeches regarding women’s rights on weekdays.

Lucy Stone spent the late 1840s and the early 1850s traveling across the United States, hoping to build support for both abolition and women’s rights. On a trip to Cincinnati in 1853, she met Henry Blackwell, a businessman. Stone and Blackwell married in 1855.

Stone refused to take her husband’s last name. She was one of the first women in the United States to retain her maiden name upon becoming married. For a number of years, women who retained their maiden name upon marriage were sometimes referred to as “Lucy Stoners.”

While residing in Cincinnati, Stone testified on the behalf of Margaret Garner, a fugitive slave who murdered one of her young children to prevent her return to slavery.

In 1857, Stone retired from public speaking so that she could take care of her infant daughter. In that same year, the family moved from Ohio to New Jersey.

Stone remained out of the women’s rights debate until the late 1860s, when she again began to give lectures. She was upset that the 14th Amendment, which gave African Americans equal protection under the law, and the 15th Amendment, which gave adult African American

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

OHIO HEROES

Lucy Stone

men the right to vote, did not also apply to women of all races. Stone helped found the American Woman Suffrage Association, which lobbied for women to have the right to vote. At the same time, another group of women, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, established the National Woman Suffrage Association.

The American Woman Suffrage Association later merged with the National Woman Suffrage Association.

AN EDITOR OF THE WOMEN’S JOURNAL

In 1873, Stone and her husband became editors of The Women’s Journal, a weekly newspaper that argued for women’s rights. Stone preferred serving as editor to lecturing. While she was an advocate of women’s rights, she enjoyed remaining at home with her family. Her commitment to women’s rights, however, did not waver. In 1879, Massachusetts allowed women to vote for school board members. Stone was a resident of Boston, and city election officials denied her the right to vote unless she adopted her husband’s name. She refused. Stone died in 1893, 27 years before women would gain the right to vote nationally.

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

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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David Simmons (Years of Service 1976–2020), a historian who first served as National Register Manager in the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office and later as editor of the Ohio History Connection magazine, and an expert on historic bridges.

269 YEARS OF SERVICE

Seven Longtime Employees Honored Seven longtime Ohio History Connection employees have been named employees emeritus or emerita.

“The emeritus or emerita designation recognizes and honors the outstanding employee whose dedicated service has resulted in significant contributions to Ohio history,” says Ohio History Connection Executive Director & CEO Burt Logan. “The bar for attaining emeritus or emerita status is intentionally set high to ensure it is awarded only on those rare occasions when an employee’s impact on Ohio history has been truly exceptional.”

Mike Follin (Years of Service 1984–2020), known to Ohio Village on to Echoes Magazine is visitors as Dr. Balthazar and mayor with everyof membership!

Ohio Village and a longtime member of the Ohio Village t and delight someone Singers;

with a year of John Haas (Years of Service 1992–

2020), an Ohio History Connection

HOES MAGAZINE archivist highly knowledgeable ul bimonthly publication about military history and Civil War and other military records; Ohio history stories, events ivities andPriscilla muchHewetson more (Years of Service 1974–2020), music

REE ADMISSION historian and longtime citizen of Ohio and founding member toric sites andVillage museums of the Ohio Village Singers;

DISCOUNTS Kim Holstein (Years of Service 1987–2020), posthumously named History Store purchases, Administrative Assistant IV Emerita; events and workshops Debbi Huff (Years of Service 1987–

memberships atnamed 800.686.1545 2019), Human Resources Director Emerita; history.org/echoesgift.

Tom Rieder (Years of Service 1970–2020), a reference archivist and the Ohio History Connection’s go-to person for matters of stategovernment history; and

14 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2021 card below with your gift recipient.

Ad for “Meet the Innovators…” Campaign Wins Creative Best Award The Ohio History Connection’s Premium Membership advertising campaign, pictured below and seen throughout 2020 in tourism magazines and digital kiosks in downtown Columbus, has been awarded the Best of Category award for copywriting in the 2020 Creative Best awards sponsored by the Columbus Society of Communicating Arts.

redit (top to bottom): Dan Wynn Archive • NASA • The Ohio State University Archives • The National Annie Oakley Center at the Garst Museum, Greenville, Ohio

In a November 2020 presentation, Logan recognized six recent retirees and Kim Holstein, a longtime employee who passed away unexpectedly in 2020. They are:

THE RIGHT WORDS

Ohio History Connection member Gregor Gilliom of Versatile Words in Columbus created the copy used in the advertising campaign.

The Columbus Society of Communicating Arts Creative Best Awards honor the year’s most ambitious creative work in professional writing, design, photography, video production and more. Hundreds of entries compete for the annual awards, named by a panel of guest judges, this time hailing from Cleveland, Mexico City and Milan, Italy.

Give it all with an Ohio History Connection gift membership!

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 Home & Memorial

46. William Henry Harrison Tomb

55. Our House Tavern

25. Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries & Nature Preserve

49. Buffington Island Battlefield Memorial Park

Some Ohio History Connection museums and attractions have reopened. Others remain closed. Before traveling, visit ohiohistory.org/sites or call 800.840.6127 to confirm what’s open, hours and any special requirements.

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

LEARN AT HOME

Ohio History Center, Columbus

Each time new COVID-19 information becomes available, we reevaluate our operations. For us, at the center of this decision are your health and safety and the health and safety of our staff, volunteers, visitors and community.

With that in mind, we’ve made the decision to keep the Ohio History Center & Ohio Village closed and offer online-only programming through the end of April and possibly beyond, reviewing that as new COVID data becomes available. Although the center and village are closed, you can still enjoy Ohio History Center & Ohio Village programs and events online from the comfort of home.

We’ll continue to host virtual programs online until it’s safe to gather in person, and will continue to reevaluate each

16 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2021

month. Meanwhile, find online events hosted by the Ohio History Center & Ohio Village in coming weeks on pages 17–19.

For the latest on upcoming events, sign up for our weekly Enews at ohiohistory.org/enews, visit our online calendar of events at ohiohistory.org/calendar or find upcoming Ohio History Center & Ohio Village online programs and register for them at ohiohistory.org/virtual.

Questions? Email info@ohiohistory. org or call 800.686.6124.

Our online Ohio History Store remains open. Shop 24/7 at ohiohistorystore.com.

Find engaging and educational resources to keep students learning at home. ohiohistory.org/learnathome

Get the most current news and updates about Ohio history!

Sign up for our weekly Enews at ohiohistory.org/enews.

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

Online Events DISCUSSION SERIES

After Uncle Tom’s Cabin— Black Voices for Justice Z WEDS., MARCH 3 F 7–8 P.M. RSVP FOR LINK Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 In writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe drew on a tradition of Black Americans sharing their own stories and writing against slavery.

This monthly discussion series considers some of the important writers in this tradition, from the 19th century to our own time. Later, Stowe became increasingly concerned with women’s issues, and the series examines questions of gender justice, too. MARCH 3: Charles W. Chesnutt & Alice Dunbar Nelson. APRIL 7: Richard Wright.

MAY 5: Langston Hughes. Led by Xavier University Professor Emeritus John Getz, Ph.D., and co-leaders. Find suggested readings at stowehousecincy.org. $5.

800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Medical Marvels & Mishaps THURS., MARCH 4 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Have you ever wondered how medical practices and treatments have changed over time? Explore some highlights from three centuries of medical practices, abnormalities and innovations in an engaging discussion with educator Andrew Hall. Be forewarned: This program is not for the faint of heart (or stomach)! $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual OHIO HISTORY DAY

Regional History Day Contests SAT., MARCH 6, 13, 20 & 27 9 A.M.–12:30 P.M. STATE CONTEST SAT., APRIL 24 Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Join middle and high school students competing in regional Ohio History Day contests. This year promises creative and

thought-provoking historical research centered on the theme Communication in History: The Key to Understanding. $10 advance registration. 800.752.2619 or ohiohistory.org/historyday SAT., MARCH 6 Region 2 4 Counties: Ashland, Crawford, Erie, Huron, Marion, Morrow, Ottawa, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca and Wyandot Region 7 4 Counties: Auglaize, Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby Region 9 4 Counties: Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross and Scioto SAT., MARCH 13 Region 1 4 Counties: Allen, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lucas, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Williams and Wood Region 5 4 Counties: Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Holmes, Jefferson, Stark, Tuscarawas and Wayne Region 6 4 Counties: Delaware, Fairfield, Fayette, Franklin, Knox, Licking, Madison, Perry, Pickaway and Union Region 8 4 Counties: Adams, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland and Warren SAT., MARCH 20 Region 10 4 Counties: Belmont, Coshocton, Guernsey, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble and Washington SAT., MARCH 27 Region 3 4 Counties: Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Medina and Summit Region 4 4 Counties: Ashtabula, Geauga, Mahoning, Portage and Trumbull SAT., APRIL 24 State Contest

Ohio Local History Alliance Regional Meetings SAT., MARCH 6, 13, 20 & APRIL 10 & 17 Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio Local History Alliance and Regional Hosts Statewide 4 Love local history? Meet others who do, too.

Register for an online Ohio Local History Alliance Regional Meeting. These annual gatherings of local historians, museums and related organizations take place online starting Sat., March 6. This year’s virtual meetings follow a format similar to past in-person meetings, with skill-building sessions, regional business meetings and sharing time. Donation. Advance registration required: ohiolha.org or ohiolha@ ohiohistory.org. Here’s the schedule: SAT., MARCH 6 Regions 5 and 10 / East 4 Counties: Carroll, Columbiana, Harrison, Holmes, Jefferson, Stark, Tuscarawas, Wayne, Belmont, Coshocton, Guernsey, Monroe, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble and Washington SAT., MARCH 13 Regions 3 and 4 / Northeast 4 Counties: Cuyahoga, Lake, Lorain, Medina, Summit, Ashtabula, Geauga, Mahoning, Portage and Trumbull SAT., MARCH 20 Regions 8 and 9 / South 4 Counties: Adams, Brown, Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton, Highland, Warren, Athens, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Meigs, Pike, Ross, Scioto and Vinton SAT., APRIL 10 Regions 2 and 6 / Central 4 Counties: Ashland, Crawford, Erie, Huron, Marion, Morrow, Ottawa, Richland, Sandusky, Seneca, Wyandot, Delaware, Fairfield, Fayette, Franklin, Knox, Licking, Madison, Perry, Pickaway and Union SAT., APRIL 17 Regions 1 and 7 / West 4 Counties: Allen, Defiance, Fulton, Hancock, Henry, Lucas, Paulding, Putnam, Van Wert, Williams, Wood, Auglaize, Champaign, Clark, Darke, Greene, Logan, Mercer, Miami, Montgomery, Preble and Shelby

Special thanks to Champion Sponsor Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage

March is Women’s History Month.

Follow the Star Z to Women’s History Month programs in this issue of Echoes Magazine.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

17

World War I Display Highlights MARCH 30

History and Public Health— Reflecting on One Year of COVID-19 WEDS., MARCH 10 F 6–7:15 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Hear Dr. Mysheika Roberts of Columbus Public Health, Dr. Paul Rega, University of Toledo Medical Center Advisor for Disaster Preparedness and Dr. Frederic Bertley, president and CEO of COSI, reflect on one year of managing and responding to the impact of COVID-19. Moderated by Ohio History Connection Director of Cultural Resources Megan Wood, they’ll discuss the importance of a science-based approach; how past pandemics have informed the development of treatments and vaccines; and ongoing work to manage the pandemic and overcome disparities as the vaccine is rolled out. $20, $5/Ohio History Connection member, Free/Ohio History Connection premium member. Advance registration required. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Monocles & Brandy SAT., MARCH 20 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 21+? Mix some vintage drinks along with our mixologist as we bring murder and mayhem surrounding the 1890s Ohio Village Monocles & Brandy Society straight to you! Become a detective and help villagers solve a grisly

18 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2021

murder before it’s too late! Register and you’ll receive recipes in advance plus a link to the presentation about two hours before it starts. Alcohol not provided. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required: 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual HISTORIAN-IN-TRAINING—PRE-K

Springtime Plants and Flowers FRI., MARCH 26 F 10–10:30 A.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Spring is in the air! Sign up for this live online activity for ages 3–6 with some of our museum educators and a few days after the program you’ll receive a Historian-in-Training kit with related activities for your little historian to try. $10. Advance registration required

by March 22. Kits arrive 7–10 days after registration ends. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

World War I Display Highlights TUES., MARCH 30 F 7 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

Join museum interpreter Michael Fouts to learn about some of the items in the Ohio History Center’s display commemorating the role Ohioans played in the Great War. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MARCH 31 F NOON–1 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Read and discuss books about the American presidency and enjoy lunch-hour discussions at this free book club. Bring your lunch if you’d like. MARCH 31: One Man Against the World by Tim Weiner. 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.

Understanding the Climate Crisis THURS., APRIL 15 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Confused about climate change? Learn about the role climate change has played throughout Earth’s history and how the current climate crisis came to be, with Ohio History Connection Natural History Curator Erin Cashion. She’ll discuss the challenges we’re now facing and the whys and hows of climate adaptation and resilience. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Once Upon a Cocktail SAT., APRIL 17 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 21+? Explore the origins of some now-watered-down fairy tales that

Ohio Local History Alliance Regional Meetings MARCH 6, 13, 20 & APRIL 10 & 17

served as grim morality tales in their day.

Create drinks along with our mixologist as we bring the dark, strange and twisted world of fairy tales to life. Register and you’ll receive recipes in advance plus a link to this online program about two hours before it starts. Alcohol not provided. Advance registration required. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory. org/virtual HISTORIAN-IN-TRAINING—PRE-K

Play Ball!

FRI., APRIL 23 F 10–10:30 A.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Ohio’s sports history is amazing! Sign up for this live online activity for ages 3–6 with some of our museum educators and a few days after the program you’ll receive a Historianin-Training kit with related activities for your little historian to try. $10. Advance registration required by April 19. Kits arrive 7–10 days after registration ends.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

The Mysterious Beheading of Pearl Bryan THURS., APRIL 29 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 When a headless woman’s remains were discovered near Cincinnati in 1896, police had a problem. In the days before fingerprinting or DNA, lack of a head made it tough to identify her.

Thanks to a sharp-eyed shoemaker, the

victim was identified as Pearl Bryan, a 22-year-old Indiana woman who’d recently learned she was pregnant. Her lover, Cincinnati dental student Scott Jackson, had suggested she come to town so he and his roommate could “fix” the problem. Delve into this Queen City case with Cincinnati Enquirer Investigative Reporter Amber Hunt, co-creator of the Accused podcast. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

Read Echoes Magazine online any time. Visit ohiohistory.org/ memberechoes and enter your member number.

PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Drinks of the Speakeasy SAT., MAY 8 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 From 1920 to 1933, Prohibition sent alcohol from bars and taverns to secret watering holes. 21+?

Travel back in time to a world of bathtub gin, flappers and speakeasies and mix some of the drinks of the time along with us. Register and you’ll receive recipes in advance plus a link to the presentation about two hours before it starts. Alcohol not provided. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

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.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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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 COVID-19 pandemic, in-person programs may be subject to rescheduling or may move online. Before traveling to attend any program, we recommend that you first visit ohiohistory.org/sites or call 800.840.6127 to confirm hours and any special requirements.

site of the Octagon, which will be open daylight to dusk both days, with staff on hand from noon to 4 p.m. each day to answer questions. Please wear a mask and practice social distancing. 800.840.6127 or ohiohistory.org/octagon

NORTHEAST OHIO \NORTHWEST Most programs and events at Ohio History Connection sites currently require advance registration. To register or confirm that a specific program will take place as scheduled, call the number or visit the website listed after each program below.

Our online calendar offers more up-todate information about programs and events at Ohio History Connection historic sites and museums. Find it at ohiohistory. org/calendar.

Most Ohio History Connection historic sites and museums are managed by local partner organizations. Masks are required at all indoor locations and are highly encouraged in outdoor locations. Please practice social distancing and proper hand washing.

Questions? Call 800.840.6127.

CENTRAL NORTHEASTOHIO

Octagon Earthworks Open House SUN., APRIL 11–MON., APRIL 12 7 A.M.–8 P.M. Octagon Earthworks, 125 N. 33rd St. on the grounds of Moundbuilders Country Club, Newark 4 Explore the 2,000-yearold Octagon Earthworks built by American Indians, a part of Newark Earthworks, the largest set of geometric earthworks ever known. A National Historic Landmark and Ohio’s official prehistoric monument, the Newark Earthworks served social, ceremonial and astronomical functions for the people of the Hopewell Culture who built them. Octagon Earthworks encloses 50 acres with eight walls, each about 550 feet long and five to six feet high. This is a special opportunity to explore the full

20 Echoes | MARCH & APRIL 2021

SPEAKER SERIES

The Oberlin Colony SAT., MARCH 6 F 11 A.M. School House, Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Hear Amanda Manahan of Oberlin Heritage Center in a presentation on the communal Oberlin Colony, founded in 1833. Check Historic Zoar Village on Facebook for event updates. Free. 800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com SPEAKER SERIES

Zoar Archaeology SAT., APRIL 3 F 11 A.M. School House, Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Learn about archaeology at Zoar, home of a 19th-century communal society, with Nathan White of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Check Historic Zoar Village on Facebook for event updates. Free.

800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

Maifest SAT., MAY 8 F 11 A.M.–5 P.M. Zoar Village, Zoar 4 Beers, Brats and Bands! Celebrate the arrival of spring with a traditional German festival. Savor German food and drink including Cleveland Kraut and brats and German potato salad from Canal Tavern of Zoar, plus craft beers from Lockport Brewery and Royal Docks Brewing Company in the Beer Garden. Enjoy German bands and choirs, games and make-and-take art projects for kids, a Western Reserve Carriage Association parade, German car show, speakers and more. Check Maifest on Facebook for the latest event information. $5, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.262.6195 or historiczoarvillage.com

NORTHWEST

NORTHWEST OHIO SECOND SATURDAYS R 4 KIDS

Around the World with Col. Webb Hayes SAT., MARCH 13 F 9:30–11:30 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Kids may stop by anytime from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. for a craft or activity inspired by Col. Webb Hayes, son of President Rutherford B. and Lucy Webb Hayes, and his travels around the world.

MARCH 13: Russia. This free open-housestyle event is especially for grades K–3, though kids of any age are welcome to participate. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MARCH 31 F NOON–1 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Read and discuss books about the American presidency and enjoy lunchhour discussions at this free book club.

Bring your lunch if you’d like. MARCH 31: One Man Against the World by Tim Weiner.

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.

RETRO ROUNDTABLE

Telling Stories through Artifacts SAT., APRIL 3 F 9:30–11 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Bring an artifact such as a family heirloom, item of clothing or letter, and share its story with the group. Each participant will have 10 minutes. Observers are welcome to attend and hear the fascinating stories behind these items. Free.

To present, you must preregister. Contact Julie Mayle at 419.332.2081 ext. 239 or jmayle@rbhayes.org. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Hayes Easter Egg Roll SAT., APRIL 3 F TIME TO BE ANNOUNCED Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Enjoy outdoor kids’ activities inspired by the famous White House Easter

Egg Roll started by President Rutherford B. Hayes. Details to be announced. Free. In the event of inclement weather, the event will be canceled. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org RETRO ROUNDTABLE

Telling Stories through Photos SAT., APRIL 10 F 9:30–11 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Bring a photo and share its story. Head of Photographic Resources Gil Gonzalez will open by sharing five images from the Hayes Presidential Library & Museums prints and photographs collections. You’re invited to bring photos of your own and share the stories behind them. Each participant will have 10 minutes.

Observers without photos are welcome to attend and hear the fascinating stories behind these pictures. Free. To present, you must preregister. Call Julie Mayle at 419.332.2081 ext. 239, or email jmayle@ rbhayes.org. Questions? 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Kids Days @ Hayes SAT., APRIL 24 & MAY 8 F 11 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Enjoy a monthly event for fourth through sixth graders. APRIL 24: Earth Day. MAY 8: Mother’s Day Tea. $7/ child. No cost for adults who bring kids to this program. Advance registration required

by April 21. 800.998.7737, jeardly@rbhayes. org or rbhayes.org

SOUTHEAST NORTHWEST OHIO

Fiber Artisans Fair SAT., MARCH 13 F 9:30 A.M.–4 P.M. Campus Martius Museum, Marietta Spend the day with experts and hobbyists in the fiber arts field and have your questions answered about weaving, knitting, quilting and more. This is your opportunity to seek advice from other fiber arts enthusiasts, share techniques and shop the many artisans offering items for sale during this event. $7, $4/student.

800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org

Insider’s Tour SAT., MARCH 20 & APRIL 17 F 1:30–3:30 P.M. Campus Martius Museum, Marietta Join historian William Reynolds for a tour of the Campus Martius Museum focusing on the lives and possessions of some of

the Marietta-area settlers who figure in David McCullough’s book, The Pioneers.

Step inside Gen. Rufus Putnam’s 1788 home preserved inside the museum. See what the famed Coonskin Library consisted of and learn more about its librarian, Ephraim Cutler. Limit 10 participants. Advance registration required. $10 + museum admission: $7, $4/student, Free/Ohio History Connection member or age 5 & under.

800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org

Visit the Shanty Boat Folks FRI., APRIL 2 F 10 A.M.–4P.M. Campus Martius Museum, Marietta The shanty boat has landed! Visit the shanty boat docked at the Ohio River Museum and step back into the 1930s for a look at what it was like to live on the river during the Great Depression, when many people were left without jobs or homes and the river offered new opportunities.

Building floating homes out of salvaged materials, the shanty boat folks traveled from river town to river town looking for work. These were the original floating tiny houses, now almost extinct. 800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org BROWN BAGGIN' THROUGH HISTORY

Major Pauline Cushman, Spy of the Cumberland Z FRI., APRIL 2 F NOON–1 P.M. Campus Martius Museum, Marietta Hear Valerie Hamill share the story of Pauline Cushman, the only female Civil War officer. Born in the South and raised in Michigan, Cushman was 30 years old when she dressed in men’s clothing and was sent deep into enemy territory, where she was shot at, captured, labeled a spy and sentenced to hang. Three days before her scheduled execution, she was rescued by Union troops. This program is free thanks to the generous support of Washington County Public Library. Advance registration required. Limit 30 participants.

800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org

SOUTHWEST OHIO SOUTHWEST

Maple Syrup SAT., MARCH 6 F NOON–4 P.M. RAIN DATE SAT., MARCH 13 F NOON–4 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon 4 In this practical class with Keith Bengtson of Fort Ancient, learn about Native, colonial, traditional and modern techniques of

March is Women’s History Month.

Follow the Star Z to Women’s History Month programs in this issue of Echoes Magazine.

making maple syrup, with stations focusing on each of these approaches. See tools ranging from birch-bark buckets to modern pipeline systems. We’ll compare historic and modern methods, boiling down sap in both a cast-iron 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

Winter Tree Identification SAT., MARCH 13 F 10:30 A.M.–NOON Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon 4 See a presentation by Lynn Johnson, Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist, and learn to identify trees after the leaves have fallen, and how animals and plants adapt to winter conditions. A hike will follow, offering a firsthand look at how nature adapts to the season. In compliance with state guidelines, we will practice social distancing. Advance registration required. $7, $6/senior or student, Free/Ohio History Connection member.

800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

Mask-Making from Nature SAT., APRIL 17 F 10:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia and Lebanon 4 Artist Pam Hall will show you how to use various sizes, shapes and textures of objects from nature to create a finished mask. This creative, 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

Wildflower Discovery Tour SAT., APRIL 24 F 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 will practice social distancing. Advance registration required. Limit 12 participants. $7, $6/senior or student, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

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In order to better understand the role that Ohio played in the national abolitionist movement, it is critical to discuss how it was viewed by one of the most distinguished abolitionists in American history.

Frederick Douglass, about 1845

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National Portrait Galler y, Smithsonian Institution

An Abolitionist in Ohio

FREDERICK DOUGLASS’S 1854 COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS AT WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE BY CHARLES WASH

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bolitionism is a well-known, yet often misunderstood chapter in American history. Many of

us are familiar with a few of the main figures of the abolitionist movement such as William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimké, John Brown and even Harriet Tubman.

These figures and others fought feverishly against the institution of slavery all over the country, on both moral and economic grounds.

However celebrated these icons have been in places like New York and Massachusetts, the role that Ohio played in the overall movement is too often downplayed or sometimes completely overlooked as we tell of the exploits of these great men and women.

To better understand the role that Ohio played in the national abolitionist movement, it is critical to discuss how it was viewed by one of the most distinguished abolitionists in American history. This giant of the abolitionist movement was Frederick Douglass, one of the greatest orators of the 19th century— arguably the Age of Oration—who delivered a very consequential speech at Western Reserve College in Hudson in 1854.

Douglass is often viewed as the most important and visible figure in the American abolitionist movement. Known for giving unfiltered and blistering speeches against the peculiar institution of slavery and its supporters, Douglass made numerous stops in the state of Ohio. In fact, he made several trips to Cleveland specifically to speak to the city’s hyperactive African American abolitionists directly.

These abolitionists, whether formally organized or not, were largely ignored as the early movement was too often defined as a mostly white, religious movement, while African Americans and women were characterized as passive observers. The attention that Douglass brought to this part of the state forced people to view them and Ohio differently.

DUE CREDIT Although Douglass’s visits to Ohio highlighted the passion and dedication of the African Americans associated with the movement, they were not typically given due credit for their full contributions to both the local and national abolitionist movement.

Douglass, being formerly enslaved, was himself for a period among those relegated to the shadows until he joined the “organized” movement. He fully understood the internal mechanisms at play and the rabid discrimination African Americans in Ohio faced at the time, and wanted to connect this powerful branch with the rest of the movement to ensure it would continue to grow in size and intensity. Ohio would be crucial in that respect.

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The speech he gave on July 12, 1854, in Hudson, Ohio, was in some regards similar to the more wellknown speech he gave in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852, titled, “What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” but was decidedly less fiery.

Douglass’s Ohio speech was a commencement address titled “The Claims of the Negro, Ethnologically Considered: An Address Before the Literary Societies of Western Reserve College.” It was a raw, yet intellectual defense of the literal humanity of African Americans.

At this juncture of the 19th century, there were numerous arguments being invented to justify not only the continuation of slavery, but also the racist and discriminatory laws, or Black Codes, created to prevent African Americans from fully participating in all that the country offered its citizens.

For example, there were claims that Blacks in general were not fully human, but only a lesser civilized subset of the human family, not possessing true manhood. This pseudo-scientific stance was buttressed by assertions that Blacks were more closely related to primates than whites and that any form of civilization that appeared on the continent of Africa was only borrowed through their beneficial contact with Europeans.

The explanation for ancient Egypt’s high level of civilization, which no one doubted, was that it wasn’t truly a part of Africa and the inhabitants were more closely related to those of the Mediterranean and the ancient Levant, not Black Africa.

This completely removed any semblance of the African presence and influence from one of the world’s greatest civilizations, again relegating Blacks to passive observers in world history.

CATERED TO STUDENTS AND FACULTY Douglass’s Ohio speech was written within this racially intolerant context and catered specifically to the sensibilities of the students and faculty of Western Reserve College, now known as Case Western Reserve University.

Douglass opined that the students present for the address were going to be the next generation of leaders, so he was careful to challenge them by stating that, “. . . the neutral scholar is an ignoble man. Here, a man must be hot, or be accounted cold, or, perchance, something worse than hot

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Douglass published his 1854 speech at Western Reserve College.

or cold. The lukewarm and the cowardly will be rejected by earnest men on either side of the controversy.”

The idea was to use all of the tools at his disposal— history, ethnography, linguistics and religion—to prove the “oneness of humanity.” Once African Americans are viewed as being equal to whites in the eyes of God, then all other arguments have to fall by the wayside. He clearly articulated that the credibility of the Bible was at stake.

Due to a combination of the heavy evangelical ethos of the college and the antislavery environment of northern Ohio at the time, there was a great interest in hearing Douglass speak. His reputation was of a speaker who never held back and spoke very directly to those who would offend and to those who would defend.

Library of Congress

At the start of his address, Douglass said “Surprised as I am, the public are no less surprised, at the spirit of independence, and the moral courage displayed by the gentlemen at whose call I am here.”

This speech would be his first commencement address, but he ensured it concentrated on the most important question, which, as he put it, was the relation between Black and white. Although very straightforward and unafraid, his speech and delivery was not only a defense of the basic humanity of African Americans, but also a call to heed common sense.

He wanted those in attendance and others around Ohio to recognize the contributions of Blacks to the broader movement. He did so by connecting them to the efforts of Black leaders who contributed to Great Britain’s ending slavery in the West Indies through the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

In his speech, Douglass said that the question of “whether the rights, privileges and immunities enjoyed by some ought not to be shared and enjoyed by all” “is the same old question which has divided the selfish, from the philanthropic part of mankind in all ages.”

THE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF ABOLITIONISM He was known for often citing the propensity of African Americans to herald Toussaint L’Ouverture’s revolution in Haiti and how they looked to him as the perfect example of abolitionism. Douglass alluded to the fact that he did not want the largely white, “organized” abolitionist movement to lose sight of its history and those who had already helped lay the foundation from which they built their work.

Much the same way he repeated the phrase in his 1852 speech, Douglass recited on multiple occasions in his Ohio speech the phrase, “This great sin and shame on America.”

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SAH Archipedia | Barbara Powers

Library of Congress

Charles Wash is executive director of the Ohio History Connection’s National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center in Wilberforce.

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Read the full text of Frederick Douglass's 1854 speech at Western Reserve College at ohiohistory.org/douglass1.

The Library of America published all three of Douglass’s autobiographical narratives—Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave; My Bondage and My Freedom; and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass—in an omnibus edition edited

by Henry Louis Gates Jr. “Writing with eloquence and fierce intelligence that made him a brilliantly effective spokesman for the abolition of slavery and equal rights,” the publisher writes, “Douglass shapes an inspiring vision of self-realization in the face of monumental odds.”

In an 1865 eulogy of President Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass wrote that Lincoln “was emphatically the Black man’s President: the first to show any respect to their rights as men.”

Library of Congress | Historic American Buildings Survey

That “great sin and shame” wasn’t just the perpetuation of the institution of slavery, but was also the sociocultural, economic and political exclusion of African Americans from most basic applications of American life. He witnessed it in all facets of life, including the abolitionist movement itself, and did not hesitate to point it out.

In David Blight’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, the author “has drawn on new information held in a private collection that few other historians have consulted, as well as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s newspapers.” Of the book, the Boston Globe writes, “David Blight has written the definitive biography of Frederick Douglass … a powerful portrait of one of the most important American voices of the nineteenth century.”

Frederick Douglass’s 1854 speech to the students and faculty of Western Reserve College was not only a clear and concise call for the end of neutrality in the debate over slavery, but also a demand to recognize the humanity and contributions of Blacks to the movement and world history.

In that moment, Ohio became a focal point in the debate surrounding the people of conscience abandoning their supposed neutrality and speaking out against all that was wrong in American society.

Frederick Douglass spoke on July 12, 1854, outside the chapel at Western Reserve College in Hudson.

The 1836 chapel, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, still stands on the campus of today’s Western Reserve Academy.

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Western Reserve Academy Chapel, Hudson OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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Kelleys Island Quarries

400 MILLION YEARS IN THE MAKING

BY RANDY EDWARDS

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nyone who has spent a bucolic summer’s day on Kelleys Island, Lake Erie’s laid-back cousin to the more raucous Put-in-Bay, might be surprised to learn that this peaceful retreat for anglers and sailors once was rocked by blasting and rang with the sounds of sledgehammers, stone crushers and Shay locomotives hauling tons of limestone along narrow-gauge railroads to the shore.

The island, the largest on the American side of Lake Erie’s western basin, was actively quarried, off and on, for most of two centuries. At its peak in the early 1900s, more than 500 people worked in the stone business there, in the quarries, the limekilns and associated trades, including coopers, blacksmiths and locomotive repair. During this time, at least 500 tons of stone were shipped annually to ports throughout the Great Lakes.

The importance of quarrying—as an economic driver and a source of community identity—is evident in this bit of writing that first appeared in 1874, most likely in the local paper: “Whatever superiority Put-in-Bay may have or claim in the way of a summer resort can never equal the solid advantages the stone business secures to us even in a pecuniary point of view,” wrote A.S. Kelley. “While in a moral point, we have but to point to the score of saloons that have sprung up at Put-in-Bay, since the place has become famous as a summer resort, to decide most unequivocally in our own favor.”

BEGAN IN THE 1830S Most histories of the island’s quarry industry begin in the 1830s, when early settler John Clemons first laid eyes on short rocky cliffs on the north shore and saw the potential for chopping them into building materials for the growing cities along the Great Lakes.

But the history of the limestone archipelago we know as the Lake Erie islands begins 400 million years earlier, when a shallow tropical sea covered the area, depositing the soft sediments and the remains of marine life that eventually formed a dense, blue rock that became known as Columbus limestone.

That limestone would prove highly marketable to a number of competing companies in the early days of settlement, and labor was readily available from the waves of immigrants crossing the country from Ireland, Italy and Eastern Europe, says Leslie Korenko, curator of the Kelleys Island Historical Association museum and author of six books on the island’s history.

Quarry work was difficult and dangerous.

All photos courtesy of Hayes Presidential Library & Museums and OhioLINK. Most are by early 20th-century Sandusky photographer Ernst Niebergall.

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Narrow-gauge train tracks ran throughout the quarries. Just to the left of center in this photo is a stone crusher that’s one of the few quarry structures still standing, now an overgrown ruin.

Brownhoist cranes like this one used in the quarries were made in Bay City, Michigan.

General Superintendent Hugh Brennan, center, flanked by Kelley Island Lime & Transport Co. office and store employees.

Quarry workers pose with the big Atlantic steam shovel.

At the North Dock, crushed stone was stored in bins or “pockets” until ships or barges docked for loading.

At the West Dock, steel and wooden trestles supported railroad tracks high above Lake Erie.

Lima Locomotive Works of Lima, Ohio, built Shay locomotives for Kelley Island Lime & Transport Co. The first was the Norman Kelley.

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Two girls pose on glacial grooves uncovered in the quarry.

“In the early days, the stone was blasted out with black powder and long fuses put into holes drilled by men with sledges and hand drills,” writes Norman E. Hills in a 1925 history of the island.

“Then, the large pieces of rock were broken by sledges in the hands of the workman and loaded by hand into wagons.”

LATER MECHANIZED By the end of the 1800s, most of the smaller quarries had been consolidated under the ownership of the Kelley Island Lime & Transport Co. (The company dropped the “s” from Kelleys.) The company linked the quarries with narrow-gauge rail and began mechanizing the production.

By 1947, Kelley Island Lime & Transport Co. controlled about 40% of the island’s real estate, Korenko says, at the heart of which was one connected quarry that stretched more than a mile.

The stone was shipped to Cleveland, Detroit,

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Buffalo and other Great Lakes ports and served many purposes. Dimension stone, for building, was used in churches, municipal buildings and fine houses, including some on Cleveland’s Millionaires Row. In 1875, stone from Kelleys Island was hauled 400 miles to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, for use in the construction of the American side of the great Soo Locks.

It was also used for municipal piers, breakwaters and road-building, and was an important part of the region’s steelmaking industry as demand increased for flux stone to make the blast furnaces more efficient.

The heyday of quarrying on Kelleys Island ended with the Great Depression, although it has been revived now and then, most recently by Lafarge North America, which leased the quarry in 2004 and pulled stone out for a few years but has since shut down its Kelleys Island operation. Lafarge (now known as LafargeHolcim), continues to

“N. Kelley & Company sell much stone. Lime, Pier, and Building of the best kind known.

The Kelley Island Lime Company in trade. Will sell lime and stone ‘till their fortune is made.”

From “A Directory in Verse,” by Sarah W. Rush, in The Islander, a local newspaper (1876–1877). The entire poem is included in A History of Kelleys Island by Norman E. Hills.

A Shay locomotive travels along the Stone Dock pier, where stone was loaded onto vessels and shipped to Great Lakes ports.

quarry limestone for construction materials on the Marblehead Peninsula, just 3.5 miles across the water from the island.

FEW REMAINS Today, very little is left of the great industrial operations, except for vast holes in the ground, some of them filled with water, others dry and covered in eastern red cedar. Korenko says bits of twisted railroad track can still be found in the woods, but the ties were salvaged by locals after the quarries shut down.

There are a few relic structures of note, and they’re worth a visit. The most prominent is the old north quarry crusher building on the North Trail Loop at the state park. Stone was crushed here and emptied into rail cars, which would then be hauled to the dock and emptied directly into the holds of ships. Farther along the trail, an old dynamite shed boasts walls two feet thick.

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Norman E. Hills was considered an authority on the geology and history of Kelleys Island, and in 1925 published A History of Kelleys Island, Ohio. The book was reprinted in 1982 by the Kelleys Island Historical Association. In 1933, the Sandusky Register wrote that Hills was “the historian of Kelleys Island … a diligent geological student he finds delight in the examination of the rocks and glacial grooves of the island.”

The Kelleys Island Historical Association, which operates the Kelleys Island History Museum, has a website at kelleysislandhistorical.org.

Remnants of an isolated limekiln and the southside crusher building are located on private property but can easily be seen from the road.

And at Crafts Lakeview Lane Motel, there are a few small cabins that once served as worker housing.

For the most part, though, the island’s industrial past is overgrown with trees and vines, quiet but for the songs of birds and the constant lapping of the waves against the shore.

Randy Edwards is a freelance writer who lives in Columbus.

North Dock cranes loading building stone onto barges.

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GLACIAL GROOVES At the edge of Kelleys Island’s North Bay, across the road from the state park campground and beach, is a National Natural Landmark 10,000 years in the making.

Glacial Grooves, administered by the Ohio History Connection since 1932, features a nearly 400-foot display of limestone bedrock gouged by the great Wisconsin Glacier, which flowed into northern Ohio from Canada about 24,000 years ago and retreated (not so hastily) 10,000 years later.

Similar striations, gouges and scratches exist elsewhere in the glaciated world, but the grooves on Kelleys Island are the best-known example in North America, and their discovery contributed the best direct evidence to scholarly acceptance of 19th-century theories of continental glaciation.

Had this geological feature been discovered in an earlier, less scientific age, it might be the source of a fine fable about a giant potter who discarded a ribbon of partially molded clay, where it dried in the sun. Instead, it was quarriers in the 1870s who removed the layers of soil and till and uncovered bedrock with deep, sinuous grooves, at least one of them deeper and longer than those on display today. The foreman of the company was so moved by this remarkable example of nature’s force that he had the Great Groove photographed before it was cut into building stone and hauled off for sale.

In 1923, as the quarrying operations were winding down, the Cleveland Museum of Natural History acquired the remnant grooves that would become a state memorial a decade later. The original exhibit was only 35 feet long, but additional excavation in 1971 revealed the extent of the grooves we know today: 396 feet long, up to 34 feet wide and a maximum depth of 15 feet.

What extraordinary forces of nature carved this sedimentary sculpture? The short answer is the power of continental glaciation. The details are more complex and sometimes in dispute. The prevailing theory is that large rocks, under the pressure of mile-thick ice, were dragged across the Devonian bedrock like giant rasps. More recent theories suggest the grooves were carved by rivers of sediment-laden meltwater released by the melting glacier.

Reality may well encompass both.

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Photo: Courtesy Cleveland Clinic Postcard: Courtesy Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections

The Cleveland Clinic at 100 TO BETTER CARE FOR THE SICK BY BILL EICHENBERGER

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n the muck and chaos of the Western Front during World War I, three Cleveland doctors came together to help revolutionize battlefield medicine, to create the forerunner of what became M*A*S*H units, which in turn planted the seed for the trio’s founding in 1921 of the Cleveland Clinic.

In Rouen, France, Frank E. Bunts, George Crile and William E. Lower were part of the Lakeside Unit, so-called because they had privileges at Cleveland’s Lakeside Hospital before the war.

In her 1938 book, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Amy Rowland explains how the battlefield proved the perfect laboratory for group practice.

“While at Rouen these three men reviewed their own experiences and considered the benefits which accrued to patients in a base hospital where they commanded the services of the internist, the surgeon, the specialist, the pathologist, the bacteriologist, the nursing service, the x-ray department, and had the advantages resulting from researches into shock, gas poisoning, infection, etc., which were under way in many hospitals.”

Knitting all those disciplines together into one entity would become their life’s work.

“What a remarkable record Bunts, Crile and Lower have had all these years,” Crile wrote in his wartime journal on Aug. 27, 1918. “We have been rivals in everything, yet through all the vicissitudes of personal, financial and professional relations we have been able to think and act as a unit.”

Upon their return from the Great War, the trio began to formulate a plan for creating a group practice similar to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which opened in 1914. With John Phillips, M.D., and attorney Edward C. Daoust they formed the Association Building Co. to finance and build their new clinic.

CLEVELAND CLINIC CHARTER On Feb. 5, 1921, the team signed the clinic charter, which read: “The purpose for which said corporation is formed is to own and conduct hospitals for sick and disabled persons; and in connection therewith, owning, maintaining, developing and conducting institutions, dispensaries, laboratories, buildings and equipment for medical, surgical, and hygienic

Left: Dr. Yuki Nosé of the Cleveland Clinic, and Professors Donald F. Gibbons and James Anderson in 1974, examining an artificial heart developed at the Cleveland Clinicin the 1950s. Overlay: Vintage 1950s postcard with map of Euclid Avenue and University Circle showing location of the Cleveland Clinic.

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Examining the new type heart pump designed and built for researchers at Cleveland Clinic Hospital in 1961 by Curtis Industries Inc. are (left to right): Howard Abrams, executive vice president of research and development for Curtis Industries; Doctors Willem J. Kolff and Wolfgang Seidel of Cleveland Clinic; Nathan Lieptz, key plant manager for Curtis Industries; and Frederick D. Brown, chief technician in Dr. Kolff's laboratory.

Courtesy Cleveland Clinic

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Courtesy of Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Special Collections

Rescue workers frantically attempt to save victims of the 1929 Cleveland Clinic fire, now referred to simply as “The Disaster,” by escorting them out of the building’s second floor down ladders.

care and treatment of sick and disabled persons, engaging in making scientific diagnoses and clinical studies in, carrying on scientific research in, and conducting public lectures on, the sciences and subjects of medicine, surgery and hygiene, anatomy and kindred sciences and subjects …”

Crile, Bunts, Lower and Phillips incorporated the Cleveland Clinic Foundation as a not-for-profit and opened the clinic on Feb. 28 in the four-story Clinic Building at East 93rd Street and Euclid Avenue.

Doctor James B. Young is currently the clinic’s chief academic officer. He says the clinic in 1921 “was perceived of as a potential threat to the old-fashioned, private practitioners of medicine. Before the clinic, there was no unified health care.”

The clinic flourished in its early years. A 140-bed hospital, laboratories and a pioneering diabetes treatment unit were built. Patients and visitors included William Randolph Hearst, Charles Lindbergh and government officials from the United States and abroad.

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THE DISASTER But in 1929, tragedy struck. Volatile nitrocellulose X-ray films stored in the basement of the outpatient clinic combusted, sending a cloud of poisonous gas throughout the building, killing 123 patients, visitors and caregivers, including one of the founders, John Phillips.

“We call it simply ‘The Disaster,’” Young says, “because yes there was an accident, a fire, but that was not the overwhelming thing that happened. A huge, billowing, toxic cloud was what killed so many people.”

The testimony of clinic staff provided to an attorney afterward makes for harrowing reading in To Act as a Unit: The Story of the Cleveland Clinic, compiled by Alexander T. Bunts and George Crile Jr. (both sons of the founders) to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the clinic in 1971.

But if The Disaster tested the clinic’s resilience, it passed the test quickly. The headmistress of the Laurel School across the street from the clinic donated a former dormitory building so the clinic could reopen, which it did in a remarkable five days’ time.

The Cleveland Clinic’s first 100 years have been marked by the institution’s continued growth and innovation.

a Unit, the authors relate that by 1971, “More than 60 percent of the patients who come to the Clinic live elsewhere than in the Greater Cleveland area.”

Breakthroughs have included the development of coronary angiography, the first published coronary artery bypass, key discoveries in the field of hypertension and statin research, the refinement of kidney dialysis, artificial organs research, improvements in established techniques in urological surgery, brain surgery, transplantation and in the technology surrounding them.

The progress has been steady over 100 years, the clinic’s reach at first local, then regional, then national.

“And now, the Cleveland Clinic has an international presence,” Young says. “The Cleveland Clinic Canada opened in 2007, the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi in 2015. The Cleveland Clinic London is scheduled to open this year.”

Just as the founders envisioned.

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FINDING SOLUTIONS “Doctors Arda Green and Irvine Page, along with Maurice Rapport, discovered in 1948 a compound they named serotonin, which has been shown to have an effect on tumor formation and neurotransmission,” Young says.

To learn more about the Cleveland Clinic’s rich history, see “One Hundred Years” at its website: my.clevelandclinic.org/landing/centennial. The clinic has also compiled a timeline at my.clevelandclinic. org/about/history.

“And in the 1950s, Willem Kolff was the guy who really developed, along with Yukihiko Nosé and Satoru Nakamoto, the dialysis technique. Kolff was very creative. He even adapted a Maytag washing machine that diabetics could use at home.” (Nosé was also involved with the clinic’s development of the artificial heart.)

George Crile: An Autobiography was published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. in 1947, four years after his death. (The volume was compiled posthumously by Crile’s wife, Grace.) The publisher described Crile as an “internationally acclaimed surgeon and brilliant researcher, particularly in the therapy of shock.” Crile describes his duty during both World Wars and at the clinic. He also writes of his travels to Europe, Asia, Africa and Alaska.

That drive toward innovation came directly from the founders, Young says.

“The people Crile brought on board were pretty incredible. Armenohie Lamson worked as a medical illustrator for Crile before he founded the clinic.

She had come over from Turkey in the early 1900s and became quite the skilled medical artist.”

Cleveland may be its home, but the clinic was never meant to serve only northeast Ohioans. In To Act as

George Crile

Frank E. Bunts

The Cleveland Clinic’s first 100 years have been marked by the institution’s continued growth and innovation.

William Edgar Lower

John Phillips OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

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June 30, 1849, letter from Rev. Charles G. Meredith to Sarah E. Simmons of Cincinnati

In the Valley of the Shadow of Providence COURTSHIP LETTERS FROM THE OHIO CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1849 BY TOM STAFFORD

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n 1833, when five-year-old Sarah Simmons had been without her mother for two years, Ohio’s most influential thinkers were focused on the unseen force behind the first wave of Asiatic cholera then sweeping the state.

That Aug. 16, two decades before the advent of germ theory, Miami University Professor of Natural Philosophy John W. Scott pronounced his conclusions in The Cholera, God’s Scourge for the Chastisement of the Nations.

He called the disease “a special visitation of God’s providence”—an avenging angel sent to punish the United States for a dirty laundry list of sins: permitting slavery; mistreating aboriginal citizens; excessive drinking; extreme political partisanship; and a failure to keep the Sabbath holy.

“Not since the flood,” he declared, “has the earth been swept by so universal a scourge … a divine judgment.”

CHOLERA’S SECOND COMING Sixteen years later, that consensus belief would deepen the suffering of Sarah Simmons and others who endured cholera’s second coming.

Her angst emerges, strangely enough, in courtship letters of 1849 and reprinted last year in Meredith Family History: Photos and 19th Century Letters of Sarah Eliza Simmons Meredith.

Mrs. Meredith’s great-granddaughter, Ann Meredith Wilson, born in Springfield, Ohio, worked on the book almost until the day of her death on April 2, 2020, in Australia. Months later, her son and co-author, John, presented it to the Heritage Center in Clark County, Ohio, where the courtship letters were discovered in a farmhouse attic in 1976.

Sarah Simmons was the daughter, granddaughter and eventually the wife of circuit-riding Methodist preachers. Her childhood was steeped in a religious tradition and shaped by sentiments her father, the Rev. William Simmons, expressed seven months after his wife’s passing.

At a time when he confessed to being “often impulsed with the thought that my departure from this world will be sudden,” he asks that his only child be shown a “good example of religious instruction” and exposed to the works of Methodist icons John Wesley and John Fletcher early in life.

Letters courtesy of Clark County Historical Society, Wilson Family Collection

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He then commands “all my friends, as they shall answer to God,” to enforce a list of shall nots.

They should not “indulge her in the vanities of dress or fashions;” provide instruction in painting or instrumental music; or ever permit her to read novels “of any kind on any account.”

In addition, she is not to be allowed to grow into “what is falsely called a lady,” but rather to be “brought up in industry.”

MORE FEAR THAN CONVICTION In a 1904 autobiographical sketch that would have pleased her father, Sarah, then 76, says her religious impulses sprang “more of a fear than a conviction for sin.”

That led to haunting childhood experiences.

“I remember at Marietta hearing a minister preach on the judgment,” she writes. That night, beset by fears of the apocalypse, “I got up and went to the window several times to see if anything was coming.”

She also was anxious to achieve the kind of heartfelt conversion 19th-century Methodists anticipated for the truly saved. Repeated failures ended in tears until the night “I arose and kneeled beside my bed,” and felt “a divine fire.” Even the next morning, “It seemed

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too sacred to talk about,” she writes, until she opened the Bible to the passage “Behold now is the day of salvation.”

The price of that salvation would weigh heavily on her mind in the summer of 1849, when she turned 21, cholera closed in and a first letter arrived from the 29-year-old Rev. Charles Gorsuch Meredith.

John Wilson, co-author of the Meredith history, describes theirs as a “whirlwind romance” with a strange twist, which Meredith apologized for in his letter of June 30.

“It is no marvel that you were surprised on receiving a note from me to you, almost an entire stranger, whose sacred calling, as well as holy profession, should ever guard him from any step that would bring upon him censure from a pious mind.”

TAKING THE GOSPEL ON THE ROAD More striking and descriptive of broader history, of course, are their exchanges about the plague around them. She was writing from hardhit Cincinnati, where 8,000 would perish that July 12, 1849, letter from Sarah E. Simmons to Rev. Charles G. Meredith

1850 German caricature of a French “Cholera-Preservative Woman,” depicting the clothing and devices she and her dog use to ward off the disease.

Library of Congress

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summer. He was across the Ohio River, traveling on horseback to take the gospel to scattered and suffering settlements in Kentucky’s Lewis and Mason counties.

Returning to his home base after completing a circuit, he writes “Since I left this place, death has called away many of the inhabitants of Maysville, which should be a warning to survivors to be always ready” (for judgement).

Sarah’s return letter of July 12, announces that “death is all around us. Yesterday a young man died next door, of Cholera (which) has also taken away a brother beloved, a co-labourer of yours, and his wife and child, the Rev. Martin Wolf.”

Then comes a fearful sentence: “Oh that we may be prepared by holy living for triumphant dying.”

Eight days later, a shaken Charles writes that “all flesh is grass” and tells Sarah he has taken on hazardous duty—an additional two cycles on the circuit—so that a colleague, Brother Chalafont, “might remain in this city with his family.”

He then passes along better news of what would be a common reaction in suffering communities: “I have heard of a revival going on … under the labors of one of the local preachers …. Twenty-five have joined and 15 professed conversion; the interest manifest in the meetings is great.”

Then on Aug. 4, with the disease breathing down her neck, Sarah pours out her soul: “This past week has been one of severe trial and bereavement. Dear friends, Mothers, Sisters, and her husband died within ten hours of each other. Though there are telegraphic wires and a railroad from here to (Springfield), they were both dead and buried before they could get the word here … So soon does this monster do his work.”

THY WILL BE DONE When she adds “yet I desire to say ‘Thy will, not mine,’ Oh Lord, be done,” she invokes the words Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke when he ponders impending crucifixion.

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”

One cannot help to think that the faithful, fully aware of the following sentence in the gospel, identified with it: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

Sarah and Charles survived the summer, and the letters for the remainder of the year are filled with talk of

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arrangements for their Dec. 4 wedding and details about setting up a household.

Charles died five years later, leaving Sarah with two sons, as her father had been left with one daughter.

In a condolence note to Sarah, a member of Charles’s family muses on the “mysterious” nature of Providence in regards to Charles’s passing.

Sixteen years later, that same mystery would produce one of the most profound musings about Providence in American history by a man who was riding a legal circuit in 1849.

In his Second Inaugural Address, Lincoln suggested that the Civil War itself—with its nearly unbearable weight of death and destruction—might be God’s punishment on the nation for the sin of slavery.

In a conclusion that seems to echo John W. Scott, Lincoln writes: “As was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.’“

Tom Stafford spent 35 years as a reporter at the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun, 20 of those writing more than 1,000 local history stories for weekly publication. He continues to write a Sunday column for the paper in retirement and does freelance reporting for WYSO in Yellow Springs.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

To read two newspaper articles by Tom Stafford about the subjects of this story, do a keyword search for Tom Stafford Sarah Meredith Cholera.

To learn more about Ohio’s cholera epidemics, do a keyword search for Ohio History Central Cholera and Ohio in the Time of Cholera by Karen Robertson.

Find the full text of James Scott’s The Cholera, God’s Scourge for the Chastisement of the Nations at ohiohistory.org/cholera1.

“The Specter of Cholera in Nineteenth-Century Cincinnati” by Matthew D. Smith, published by The Filson Historical Society and Cincinnati Museum Center, is available at ohiohistory.org/cholera2.

The Cholera Years: The United States in 1832, 1849 and 1866 by Charles E. Rosenberg is written with “an urgent sense of the drama of the epidemic years” and is “as absorbing for general audiences as it is for the medical historian.”

Aug. 4, 1849, letter from Sarah E. Simmons to Rev. Charles G. Meredith

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I Wish I’d Been There THE INVISIBLE MANSIONS OF WASHINGTON AVENUE

BY MARCI RICH

To walk along Elyria’s Washington Avenue is to walk among fashionable and influential ghosts.

Out of the vast forested acreage once owned by Charles Arthur Ely, a scion of Elyria’s founding family, emerged a 19thcentury boulevard of grand mansions.

Ely’s own manor, built in 1862, was once the glittering North Star of the area of Elyria known as Evergreen Point—the site of magnificent gardens, lavish parties and charming croquet games.

Titans of industry, judges and merchants once owned these estates, but over the years, many of them, including the brick mansion of Frank Smythe, president of the Thew Automatic Shovel Co., were razed and replaced by apartments and parking lots.

Thankfully, several gems remain, including the clapboard colonial of Edgar “Daddy” Allen. The philanthropist founded a children’s hospital; later, with funds from the Ohio General Assembly and Rotary organizations, he was instrumental in forming the National Society for Crippled Children, a precursor of Easter Seals.

The Shingle Style mansion of bicycleseat inventor Arthur Garford, called “The Hickories,” abides as a museum of the Lorain County Historical Society, a stellar Lorain County attraction.

AN ARCHITECTURAL TRICK OF THE EYE But one notable manor cannot be seen from the street. It is there and not there, an architectural trick of the eye.

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Hidden behind the Washington Avenue Christian Church’s brick edifice, subsumed when the church was constructed in 1952, is the Italianate-style home of William Graves Sharp, originally built by merchant George R. Starr in 1857.

The entrance of the church was once the home’s recessed side porch; its middle window was the front entrance. Inside, many features— decorative moldings, marble fireplaces, a grand staircase— are enjoyed by the church today.

One artifact from the Sharp years is visible from the street: a fabulous gingko tree, said to be one of the largest of its kind in the world. Here’s a description from the March 2, 1952, Cleveland Plain Dealer: “The grounds of several acres slope back to the river valley ... Among the magnificent trees here is a widespreading ginkgo, imported from China. Seeds and shoots from it were taken by Mr. Sharp and numerous descendants of this tree flourish today in the nation’s capital.”

Also visible on the lawn is an Ohio Historical Marker, dated Sept. 3, 2020, honoring the illustrious man who once lived there.

ELYRIA’S FATHER OF AIRMAIL Lawyer William Graves Sharp, a U.S. representative from 1908 until 1914, proposed legislation authorizing the use of airplanes to carry the mail, although Congress did not immediately enact the visionary idea.

(Today, Sharp is considered the “Father

of Airmail.”) President Woodrow Wilson appointed Sharp the U.S. ambassador to France; he arrived in Paris on Sept. 2, 1914, months after the start of World War I, when, wrote James B. Thomas in Down Through the Years in Elyria, the Germans were “at the gates.”

The ambassador served with distinction until April 14, 1919.

Thomas wrote that Sharp “welcomed General John J. Pershing when he came to Paris with the first American troops. He greeted President Wilson when he came to Paris, the first president to go to Europe. He attended the Peace Conference.”

To understand what the ambassador’s home was like in its heyday, one need only walk across the street.

Horace Starr, George’s brother, had

constructed a mirror-image mansion that is now home to Lorain County Historical Society’s Lorain County History Center. I’ve spent many hours in its library conducting research, but I wish I’d been there—and in its illustrious, hidden twin across the street—during Elyria’s gilded age.

Marci Rich is a freelance writer and author of Looking Back at Elyria: A Midwestern City at Midcentury, published by the History Press.

Marci Rich

Courtesy Lorain County Historical Society

Upon his return to the Elyria home he shared with his wife, Hallie, and their children, Sharp tended to his business interests. He enjoyed something of a polymath’s career: Thomas described him as “a scientist interested in astronomy … a journalist [and] industrialist” who also studied the geological formations in Elyria’s Cascade Park. After Sharp’s death on Nov. 17, 1922, many luminaries attended his funeral.

Left: Home of Ambassador William Graves Sharp, 301 Washington Ave., Elyria, Ohio, about 1936. Right: Horace C. Starr House, home of the Lorain County History Center, at 284 Washington Ave., Elyria.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE To learn more about The Hickories Museum at 509 Washington Ave. and the 1857 Horace Starr House at 284 Washington Ave., now the Lorain County History Center, visit the Lorain County Historical Society website, lchs.org.

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She Wouldn’t Take No for an Answer THE LIFE OF ELL AMAE SIMMONS

YO U N G E Y E S O N T H E PA S T BY ELL A ACKERT

I first became involved in Ohio History Day as a middle school student, and was drawn to researching the stories of “forgotten” women, first in the British women’s suffrage movement and then in the Salem witch trials.

Last year, I decided that I wanted to focus on local history. A family friend gifted me the autobiography of Dr. Ellamae Simmons (1918–2019), and I was immediately intrigued by her story, which also happened to perfectly fit the 2019 History Day competition theme, Breaking Barriers.

Simmons was the first African American woman in the United States to specialize in allergy immunology medicine and grew up in my hometown of Mount Vernon, Ohio.

BROKE BARRIERS My research on the life of Simmons began with her autobiography, Overcome: My Life in Pursuit of a Dream. I was enthralled by her life experiences and ability to break barriers in nearly every stage of her life. My curiosity was stoked by the limited information on her, as well as the lack of recognition for her in our shared hometown. Both would pose challenges as I worked on my project.

I chose to compete in the paper category for Ohio History Day as I believed it was the best format for me to explain the many facets of her life as both a medical student and professional. I focused my research

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on three key areas of her life: her time as a medical student both before and after World War II, as a nurse during World War II and as a doctor.

Narrowing the scope of my research allowed me to find sources that were relevant to her experiences, instead of blindly searching for anything that would pertain to her life specifically.

Some topics I looked into included the challenges Black nurses faced during World War II, as well as prominent philosophies regarding racial inequality at the time. I was fortunate to have access to the Kenyon College library to find texts pertaining to these topics.

OVERCAME CHALLENGES From a young age, Simmons was very interested in entering the medical field. After graduating from Mount Vernon High School in 1936, she first applied to The Ohio State University’s nursing program. She was rejected on the sole basis of her race, she writes in her autobiography.

A family friend told her about historically Black Hampton University in Virginia.

After graduating from Hampton’s nursing school, she joined the United States Nursing Corps. While serving as a nurse in World War II, Simmons was chosen as one of eight African American nurses tasked with integrating Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training Camp. These nurses were the first in United States history to care for white soldiers.

After World War II, Simmons pursued her master’s degree at The Ohio State University, the school that had previously barred her from its nursing program because of her race.

Unfortunately, although she had been admitted to the school, she was initially prevented from living in campus housing. After advocating for herself, Simmons became the first African American woman to live on The Ohio State University’s campus during the academic school year.

SPECIALIZED IN ALLERGY IMMUNOLOGY She then received her doctorate in chest medicine from Hampton University. Simmons began to specialize in allergy immunology medicine as a resident at the National Jewish Hospital. She later earned a position at Kaiser Permanente in 1965, becoming the first African American woman to specialize in allergy immunology.

Simmons did not confine her accomplishments to the medical field and higher education. While living in California, Simmons integrated the prestigious neighborhood of Presidio Heights in San Francisco. When she was initially barred from buying a house in the neighborhood, one of her white colleagues at Kaiser purchased the house and deeded it to Simmons.

Simmons then joined the Mutual Real Estate Investment Trust, a group focused on desegregating communities that routinely blocked minority ownerships.

Simmons overcame the many barriers in her life by taking action.

By not taking “no” for an answer, she steered the course of her own life and blazed a trail for others.

MARKER PL ANNED IN MOUNT VERNON As the History Day competition was coming to a close, I learned that a member of Mount Vernon City Council, Tanner Salyers, had formed a committee to create an official historical marker honoring Dr. Simmons to be placed on the town square.

My experiences with Ohio History Day have made me passionate about telling the stories of those who have been overlooked or forgotten. I look forward to learning and sharing many more.

Courtesy Kaiser Permanente

Digital Kenyon, Knox County Black History Archives

I was able to join the committee and worked throughout the summer with Kenyon College English Professor Jené Schoenfeld to write the text that will appear on the marker. To further share her story, I am working with Mount Vernon City School District third-grade teachers on an article about Dr. Simmons that will be included in a local history workbook for third-grade students.

Ellamae Simmons as a nurse during World War II (left) and as an employee of Kaiser Permanente, circa 1980s.

Ella Ackert is a junior at Mount Vernon High School. She is very involved in the music department, playing trumpet in several different bands.

She also studies classical voice. Ella has participated in Ohio History Day three times. She enjoys taking advanced-placement and college history and English classes and plans to major in history at a four-year liberal arts college.

LEARN LEARNMORE MORE

Ellamae Simmons’s memoir, Overcome: My Life in Pursuit of a Dream, traces the “unforgettable tale of a little black girl from a small Ohio town who dared to dream above her station.” The memoir “captures the larger history of Black people in America, from the arrival of Ellamae’s ancestors aboard a slave ship in 1775, to the electrifying election of the nation’s first African American president.”

By not taking no for an answer, she steered the course of her own life and blazed a trail for others.

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Reviews

Shop our Ohio History Store at ohiohistorystore.com for this book and more.

BOOK

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company: A Photographic History, 1898–1951 by S. Victor Fleischer In its 1919 book, The Story of the Tire, the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company wrote, “There is scarcely an article in the world today supplying human needs that is more nearly universally used than rubber. It is made to serve civilization in thousands of ways.”

Harvey Firestone concurred in his 1932 book, The Romance and Drama of the Rubber Industry, writing, “Without it (rubber), no factory could run, no modern building could operate, no fast railroad train could travel across the country, and no steamship could sail the high seas.” In addition, “No home could be conducted in the modern sense without the articles and implements of rubber that are made for daily use. From the first cry of the newborn babe until the last slow march

to the grave, things made of rubber are indispensable to our modern life.”

This University of Akron Press photographic history includes more than 200 rare images from Goodyear’s voluminous—roughly 60,000 images—archives, one of the first corporate photograph collections ever established. Author S. Victor Fleischer certainly knows his way around an archive, having worked as a professional archivist for over two decades, researching, writing and preserving local history.

He offers readers six chapters— spanning the company’s first 53 years—with titles such as “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Carriage, Car, and Cycle Tires,” “Off the Beaten Path: Truck, Tractor, Train, and Plane Tires,” “Gentle Giants: Goodyear Airships in War and Peace” and “The Right Tool for the Job: Goodyear Mechanical Goods for Home, Office, and Industry.”

In his Conclusion, Fleischer writes, “More importantly than the company itself, perhaps, the photographs highlighted in this volume and the larger collection capture a cross section of the communities where the company manufactured, sold and utilized its goods, particularly Akron and northeast Ohio.”

—Bill Eichenberger, Echoes Magazine

Below Left: Teams of workers at the Goodyear California plant make pontoons of rubberized fabric for the military during World War II. Below Right: Goodyear’s renowned team of balloon pilots, Ward T. Van Orman and Carl K. Wollam, pose in front of the Goodyear III before the 1924 National Balloon Race in San Antonio.

University of Akron, University Libraries

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This Akron rubber worker was photographed for The Ohio Guide, published in 1940 by the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection), statewide sponsor of the Ohio Writers’ Project. The Depression-era project employed writers and others under the auspices of the federal Works Projects Administration.

Explore many more photos of Ohio in the 1930s that were taken for The Ohio Guide at ohiomemory.org. Click on “Collections,” then choose “Ohio Guide Collection.”

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

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Commodore Oliver Perry featured in Perry’s Victory, painted by William Powell of Cincinnati