Echoes Magazine May & June 2021

MAGAZINE

MAY & JUNE 2021 ON THE AIR

BUILT IN THE BOOM

ANYTHING WENT!

LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

Three Lives Shaped by TV

Cape Cods, Ranches, Split-Levels and More

Children’s TV Hosts of the Baby Boom

Ohio-Born Illustrator & Author Lois Lenski

Page 22

Page 26

Page 34

Page 40

MAGA ZINE

Cover: It's been 75 years since the baby boom of 1946 to 1964 got underway. Columbus photographer Herb Topy captured these shoppers at Lee's Jack & Jill Shop on Cleveland Avenue in 1947 or 1948.

Herb Topy Collection of the Columbus Jewish Historical Society

Contents M A Y & J U N E 202 1

22

On the Air— Three Lives Shaped by TV

26

Built in the Boom— Cape Cods, Ranches, Split-Levels and More

34

Anything Went!

Children’s TV Hosts of the Baby Boom

40

I Think I Can— Lois Lenksi’s Pen and Life Illustrated The Little Engine That Could

Vol. 60, No. 3 EDITORS

Bill Eichenberger Tom Wolf CONTRIBUTORS

Jerolyn Barbee Michael G ray John Kiesewetter Barbara Powers

I N E AC H I S S U E

Derek Pridemore Bill Schurk Tom Staf ford Loren Willhight 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

2 4 4 6 15 16 17 19 46 48 50

Contents From Our Editors What’s Your Story?

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

T he O hio St ate Unive r sit y

Erin Wingfield O hio Histor y Conne c tion

THANKS TO OUR OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION STRATEGIC PARTNERS:

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

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

2 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Moving?

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

The Ohio History Connection is a

Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @OhioHistory

On the Air THREE LIVES SHAPED BY TV

22 26

Ohio’s first TV station, WEWS in Cleveland, went on the air in 1947. Since then, TV has played a role in shaping the lives of Ohioans, growing up along with those born in the baby boom of 1946 to 1964.

Angela Pace of 10TV in Columbus; Rob Braun, son of Cincinnati TV host Bob Braun; and Cleveland TV and radio host Robin Swoboda share some TV memories.

Built in the Boom CAPE CODS, RANCHES, SPLIT-LEVELS & MORE Ohio’s population grew by a whopping 54% from 1940 to 1970, changing not just the number of Ohioans, but the whole look of the Buckeye State. That growth spread Cape Cods, Ranches, Split-Levels, new schools and houses of worship, shopping centers, malls, divided highways and more evidence of the postwar boom to nearly every corner of our state.

Anything Went!

CHILDREN’S TV HOSTS OF THE BABY BOOM Barnaby. Salty. Uncle Al. Captain Penny. Uncle Orrie. Captain Al. Flippo, the King of the Clowns. They were must-see TV for kids in the three-channel, black-and-white-TV world of the 1950s and early 1960s, depending on what stations you could tune in by monkeying with a V-shaped “rabbit ears” antenna in your part of Ohio. The shows were local, live and unpredictable.

34

I Think I Can LOIS LENKSI’S PEN AND LIFE ILLUSTRATED THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

40

Springfield-born author and illustrator Lois Lenski inherited a work ethic as strong as The Little Engine That Could, the children’s classic by Watty Piper she illustrated in 1930. Like that engine, her struggle would be largely alone and uphill.

She went on to become a Newbery Medal-winning children’s author while writing and illustrating nearly 100 books enjoyed by toddlers and teens from the 1930s through the 1970s.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

3

FROM OUR EDITORS If you’re about to turn 75 or know someone who is, congratulations! Last August, we observed the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. Nine months later, the 75th anniversary of the baby boom is getting underway.

As children of the boom in Ohio and nationwide begin reaching that milestone, they’re in good company. Many Ohioans born from 1946 to 1964, your editors included, are part of the biggest population boom in our state's history.

When we looked at the census numbers, even we were startled by the size and impact of the boom in Ohio. Though babies are just one part of the equation, the Buckeye State reached 1970 with 3.8 million more Ohioans than at war’s end in 1945. In 1945 numbers, that’s like adding an extra Athens, another Dayton and four more Clevelands over just 25 years.

In this issue, we share some boom-related stories. On page 22, in On the Air—Three Lives Shaped by TV, writer and editor Bill Eichenberger takes a look at childhood viewing habits of three Ohioans whose lives were shaped by television: Angela Pace, Rob Braun and Robin Swoboda.

In a story on page 26 that began with the simple question “Why are there so many ranch houses in Ohio?,” writer and editor Tom Wolf and architectural historian Barbara Powers look for evidence of the 1945 to 1970 population boom and the related baby boom of 1946 to 1964 in Ohio’s built environment.

Children’s TV hosts of the 1950s and 1960s were local before local was a thing. On page 34, Cincinnati television writer John Kiesewetter revisits the days of live local children’s TV and TV hosts on Ohio stations in Anything Went! Children’s TV During the Baby Boom, with photos of some favorites.

Finally, on page 40, Tom Stafford looks at the life and work of Springfield-born children’s author and illustrator Lois Lenski in I Think I Can—Lois Lenski’s Pen and Life Illustrated The Little Engine That Could.

Enjoy,

Traveling this summer?

Consider a Premium level membership for free admission at more than 1,000 museums. Visit ohiohistory.org/ reciprocal for details!

4 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

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 baby boomers,

“ What were your favorite television shows between 1946 & 1970? Your favorite actors? Television personalities?”

Here are some of your responses: GRIZZLY PETE Our family’s first TV arrived in the early ‘50s, B&W—small screen, but able to receive all three local Youngstown television stations. So I got to watch Howdy Doody and Kate Smith and Eddie Fisher, but my favorite was the Grizzly Pete Show. It aired on WKBNTV and featured Western movies with a live audience of pre-teens dressed in their finest cowboy gear, including hats and neckerchiefs, boots and spurs, and guns and holsters (yes, it was a different time).

During breaks in the movie, Grizzly Pete invited a “pawdner” down from the bleachers to try and outdraw him.

Grizzly always gave plenty of warning before he “slapped leather,” and the kids always won. The one time I was in the live audience, I was chosen to see who was quicker on the draw, me or Grizzly. My gun got stuck in my holster!

Grizzly Pete fumbled and delayed and stalled but finally had to pull his gun.

Your Story?

My 60 seconds of fame on live TV was a total embarrassment and evidently very traumatic if I can still remember it all these years later.

Bert Drennen, Broadview Heights

77 SUNSET STRIP Friday nights were special for me in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. That’s when I was allowed to have a soft drink and enjoy my two favorite TV shows. First came 77 Sunset Strip, a private-eye drama with Efrem Zimbalist Jr. as Stu Bailey, Roger Smith as Jeff Spencer and Edd Byrnes as “Kookie.” Byrnes sometimes stole the show with his hipster talk and frequent hair-combing.

Next came The Twilight Zone with Rod Serling inviting viewers to “the dimension of imagination.” This show often featured alien visits and time travel, but also provided valuable lessons about living in the “real world.”

Clay Cormany, Worthington

HUMAN REMOTES Television during the boomer era required “human remotes,” so we took orders from Dad as to what we were going to watch. Dad loved Westerns, so we watched them all. Who can forget those masks on The Lone Ranger and Zorro? A coonskin cap signaled Daniel Boone. Two brothers playing cards said Maverick was about to come on.

A man dressed in all black let you know Paladin was on Have Gun, Will Travel.

A tenderfoot learning the Western ways was all about Sugarfoot. Keeping the badge polished and the town in order was Wyatt Earp. That twirling rifle announced The Rifleman. Gunsmoke was always at the top of the list. A singing cowboy meant Roy Rogers was next. Finally, and never to be left out, were Clint Walker, Cheyenne, and Clint Eastwood, Rawhide. Are you singing those intro tunes? Needless to say, my son’s name is Clint.  Linda Young, Reynoldsburg

T V BOOM

CHIPS AND SODA POP

RIGHT, BROTHER BART?

Ah, the delights of television arrived when I was six in 1952. My parents splurged and bought the TV from our neighbors who had the first one on our block on the east side of Detroit.

Time on the tube was limited, but every Friday evening was party time.

Sometimes we enjoyed potato chips for special occasions but at least our bottle of carbonated beverage buoyed our spirits while we relaxed with our favorite programs. Rin Tin Tin fascinated me at the start of the evening, but after its conclusion the family joined me to watch Ozzie and Harriet. And what would the evening be without My Friend Irma and, for a year, I Remember Mama.

Saturday was for my parents, with Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca (I secretly enjoyed it) followed by The Lawrence Welk Show, when I disappeared to read a book in the bedroom I shared with my brother.

Sunday evening I looked forward to my discovery of classical music with the NBC Orchestra—what an introduction to a world that still surrounds me today.

Oops! I forgot that during the week I could squeeze in Howdy Doody and the puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie.

As Mr. Rogers later said: “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.”

There are so many in this era that were memorable. What initially came to mind were the several Warner Brothers cowboy shows like Cheyenne, Sugarfoot and, of course my favorite, Maverick. (“Right, brother Bart? Right, brother Bret?”) Then there were the family shows like Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. On Saturday nights we watched Lawrence Welk with our parents, and on Sunday nights The Ed Sullivan Show. In the early ‘50s, I remember one family in Oak Grove Place in Toledo, where I was born, had a color TV set, and if you were in their favor, you were invited to watch The Wonderful World of Disney as a guest. The favorite Disney series would include Davy Crockett and Zorro. And, finally, who could forget the comedy and variety shows of Jackie Gleason, Jack Benny or Red Skelton? Nothing like these exists today.

Thomas C. Sosnowski, North Canton

DEPUTY FIFE “My grandparents, Raymond and Gwendolyn Arnold, loved watching Matlock with Andy Griffith, Murder, She Wrote with Dame Angela Lansbury and The Price Is Right with Bob Barker in their later years. I remember every time we went to their house, one of those three shows was on. They also enjoyed Magnum P.I. with Tom Selleck, Bonanza with Pernell Roberts, who portrayed Adam Cartwright on the show, and The Andy Griffith Show with Don Knotts, who portrayed Barney Fife.

Ashley Morrow, Warren

David Keck, Howard

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 July & August: Lois Lenski was an award-winning children’s books author and illustrator best known for her illustrations for The Little Engine That Could. What are some favorite children’s books of your childhood?

What do you remember about them? Why are you fond of them?

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

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

5

In the News OHIO HISTORY FUND

CITY OF NEW FRANKLIN

Donations Fund $130,900 in Grants

$4,947 for Tudor House Digital Floor Plans and Section Blueprints. Built in 1928 as a private home, Tudor House is now a city-owned events center.

To remain a responsible steward, the city must maintain the house, preserve its historic appearance and plan for its future, impeded by the fact that only 30 of the estimated 126 pages of original blueprints survive. Using the grant, the city will re-create complete floor plans and sections on paper and in digital form.

The Ohio History Connection has awarded $130,900 in Ohio History Fund grants for history- and preservation-related projects to 14 organizations in the Buckeye State.

Recipients include: CENTER FOR COMMUNITY VOICES AT WYSO PUBLIC RADIO, YELLOW SPRINGS

$12,240 for the WYSO Digital Audio Archives Strategic Plan.

Using its grant, WYSO will engage an archives consultant to guide development of a master plan for cataloging and digitizing its collection of 5,000 audio recordings chronicling life in the Miami Valley between 1958 and 1990. The project is time-sensitive, as some of the collection is at risk of being lost due to physical deterioration and obsolete formats.

CITY OF HUDSON

6 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

$2,967 for the Shelby City Council Minutes Digitization Project. The city will digitize and transcribe about 5,800 pages of minutes, incorporation records and ordinances dating from 1863 to 1934. The 13 volumes containing the records are fragile. Grant funds will pay a professional digitization company to do the work. The goal is to make the information in these primary sources more accessible, as they record details of the city’s history, about which little has been written.

DIVERSE MEDIA ZONE, COLUMBUS

$15,398 for the documentary A Higher Law: The OberlinWellington Rescue. In 1858, John Price, an Oberlin resident and former slave, was captured by a federal marshal, pursuant to the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. A crowd of antislavery men from Oberlin and Wellington later freed Price and helped him escape to Canada. Using grant funds, the recipient will produce a halfhour documentary about this important event in Ohio history.

DUNHAM TAVERN MUSEUM, CLEVELAND

$10,200 for roof rehabilitation.

Designated a Cleveland Landmark and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Dunham Tavern is a stagecoach stop built in 1824 and is the oldest building on its original site in Cleveland.

Balancing budget constraints against the need to maintain a stable roof, the project will replace a section of the roof that is no longer cost-effective to repair.

Wikimedia Commons | Stu Spivack

$17,000 for Historic Old Hudson Township Burying Ground Restoration and Preservation. Part of the Hudson Historic District, the cemetery was established in 1808 and holds remains of notable citizens such as Owen and Ruth Brown, parents of abolitionist John Brown, and David Hudson, for whom the town is named. The project will result in professional conservation of about 150 headstones and markers led by an experienced cemetery conservator.

CITY OF SHELBY

to researchers and the general public through a partnership with Columbus Metropolitan Library. Grant funds will pay a digitization specialist to complete the project.

DECORATIVE ARTS CENTER OF OHIO, LANCASTER

$7,735 for the Rising Family Digitization Project. Acquired by the center in 2020, the Rising/Reece/ Peters family papers document everyday life among Lancaster’s leading families in the 19th century.

Digitizing the papers will make them widely and freely available

Cleveland’s Dunham Tavern Museum

GORMAN HERITAGE FARM FOUNDATION, EVENDALE

$10,583 for the Gorman Heritage Farm Historic Sign Project. The project will place approximately 60 signs around the farm to help visitors understand food production and identify farm buildings and equipment as well as give directions.

Grant funds will cover project staff time and the cost of creating the signs.

GREEN LAWN CEMETERY ASSOCIATION, COLUMBUS

$5,817 for the project Separate but Equal? Policies and Practices of African American Burials at Green Lawn Cemetery. The project will enable research on burials of African Americans at Green Lawn and share those findings with the public, in partnership with Columbus Metropolitan Library.

Grant funds will pay for time and travel of the principal researcher and a subscription to software that will be used to present project findings online.

LORAIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, LORAIN

$8,415 for the Latino Lorain History Project. The grant will enable the society to hire a staff member to administer an oral history project. Building on already strong relationships, its goal is to collect oral histories from older members of the city’s Latino community. In addition to indexed transcripts of interviews, a result of the project will be a virtual museum of the community hosted on the society’s website.

MALTZ MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE, CLEVELAND

$3,400 for antiracism training for volunteer docents. The museum “promotes an understanding of Jewish history, religion and culture and builds bridges of tolerance and understanding with those of other religions, races, cultures and

ethnic backgrounds.” To further its mission, the museum seeks to encourage docents to examine the biases they bring to their work.

Grant funds will be used to bring in an expert facilitator.

OVER-THE-RHINE MUSEUM, CINCINNATI

$16,286 for a historic structures report describing in detail the history of the building where the museum will be located and the diverse people who lived there over time. The next step in the organization’s development, the report will guide decisions about the building and, later, creation of exhibits.

TRUMBULL COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, WARREN

$12,045 for the project Saving Warren’s Urban Renewal Archive.

The grant will pay in part the costs of staff, equipment and supplies to preserve records of urban renewal in Warren and make them accessible.

The project will save about 750 documents that record vanished streetscapes and neighborhoods.

Once catalogued, they will be available in an online archive.

WATERVILLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY, WATERVILLE

$3,867 for the Wakeman Hall HVAC system. The new heating, ventilating and air conditioning system replaces a 20-year-old system that is at the end of its useful life. The new unit will provide better climate control for preservation of the historical materials kept in Wakeman Hall. Money the volunteer-run organization will save in repairs to a failing unit will instead be budgeted for other mission-related projects.

ABOUT THE OHIO HISTORY FUND

The Ohio History Fund is a competitive matching grants program funded entirely by Ohio

taxpayers’ voluntary contributions through the “check-off” on state income tax forms.

In 2006, creation of a tax check-off to fund a statewide grants program for history- and preservationrelated projects was identified as a priority by participants in the annual Statehood Day legislative advocacy event sponsored by the Ohio History Connection and nine partner organizations: Heritage Ohio, the Ohio Academy of History, Ohio Archaeological Council, Ohio Council for Social Studies, Ohio Genealogical Society, Ohio Historical Records Advisory Board, Ohio Local History Alliance, Preservation Ohio and the Society of Ohio Archivists.

It became a reality in 2011 when Gov. John R. Kasich signed Ohio’s two-year state budget into law.

The tax check-off first appeared on state income tax forms in 2012 for tax year 2011, and the first grants were awarded to 11 recipients across the state in 2012. Since 2013, the History Fund has made 94 grants totaling nearly $870,000.

YOU HELP MAKE GRANTS POSSIBLE

When you make a voluntary gift to the History Fund through the check-off on your Ohio personal income tax form, you help make grants like these possible. The History Fund is also aided by sales of Ohio History “mastodon” license plates and direct contributions to the Ohio History Connection for the Ohio History Fund.

Know of a worthy history- or preservation-related project that could benefit from an Ohio History Fund grant? Applications for 2022 Ohio History Fund grants are due Sept. 1, 2021. Find application forms and more information at ohiohistory.org/historyfund starting in mid-June or call 800.686.6124 or 614.298.2000.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

7

The Newark Earthworks Were Built to Be a Gathering Place

by Burt Logan Two thousand years ago, the Newark Earthworks, then a four-squaremile enclosure, were a gathering place for people from across North America. They walked and canoed hundreds, even thousands, of miles to participate in ceremonies and other sacred events. They brought with them copper from the upper Great Lakes, grizzly bear teeth from the Rocky Mountains and marine shells from the Gulf of Mexico. This pilgrimage undoubtedly served as a rite of passage and celebration in some yet-to-be-known form.

Then time moved on, and the Newark Earthworks became a different kind of gathering place.

For the past 111 years, the Octagon Earthworks, a part of the Newark Earthworks, have been a place where the members of Moundbuilders Country Club have enjoyed golf and other social amenities.

ANOTHER KIND OF GATHERING PLACE

THE SOUNDTRACK OF HUMANITY A Juneteenth Celebration with Dr. Ted McDaniel and Dr. Mark Lomax Hosted by the Ohio History Center ONLINE—ATTEND FROM ANYWHERE!

Sat., June 19 1–2:30 p.m.

Advance registration required:

ohiohistory.org/virtual

8 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Today, it is time for the Octagon Earthworks to become yet another kind of gathering place—a place where Ohioans and—by opening the door for World Heritage inscription— people from around the world, will gather. They will come to marvel at the human ingenuity that conceived, designed and built the largest earthen ceremonial structures in the world. They will marvel at how what many might regard as a primitive society built massive geometrical earthworks, basket-by-basket, that are so precise the circumference of a 1,200-foot-diameter circle is nearly perfect. They will marvel at how this same society mapped and understood the movements and position of the moon during its complex cycle that lasts 18.6 years. And, they will marvel at how this society combined its mastery of geometry and their knowledge of astronomy to build a ceremonial complex that attracted people from thousands of miles away.

Two thousand years ago, Newark was a spiritual and ceremonial epicenter for North America. Today, Newark can again be a regional, national and even international epicenter—this time as the destination for an educational pilgrimage to learn more about the rich heritage that has been handed down to us.

A PLACE OF AWE AND WONDER

The time has come for the Octagon Earthworks to again be a gathering place of awe and wonder, just as it was 2,000 years ago. In April, the Supreme Court of Ohio heard oral arguments of the appeal by Moundbuilders Country Club challenging the findings of the Fifth District Court of Appeals, which upheld the ruling by the Licking County Common Pleas Court that the Ohio History Connection has the authority to acquire the lease and that such acquisition is necessary and is for a public purpose. The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision later this year.

Until this world-renowned site is publicly accessible, I hope you will join us on one of the few days a year when we can fully access the Octagon Earthworks site. Upcoming open houses are on July 26 and Oct. 17. Learn more at ohiohistory.org/ octagon.

Burt Logan is executive director and CEO of the Ohio History Connection.

THE NEXT 10 YEARS

Relationship-Building: At the Heart of All We Do

by Ben Garcia My husband and I moved to Columbus from San Diego about 18 months ago. Six months after we arrived, the state issued stay-athome orders. And so, I have spent the majority of my time in this job working from our home, building relationships. My role provides many opportunities to connect with colleagues, site partners, tribal representatives, members of state and local governments, community advocates, donors, volunteers and others who together make up the matrix of relationships that keeps Ohioans connected to our histories and the history of our home state.

Many folks remark on the contrast between San Diego and Columbus when they learn that I am a recent transplant, and I understand why.

But as I think about the Ohio History Connection’s strategic priority of relationship-building, I am struck more by their similarities.

Both are cities that feel like groupings of small towns. Both are large enough to attract a mix of in-state, national and international residents who together create social and cultural (and culinary) options where anyone can expand a horizon without leaving town. Both exist in states with strong regional identities. And both are places where you can pick up the phone or send an email to just about anyone and get a response. The importance of relationships is a defining trait of both cities.

A STATEWIDE NETWORK OF RELATIONSHIPS

We wrote our strategic plan in the summer and early fall of 2020 and identified relationship-building as a priority for a couple of reasons.

One was that we were sitting in our respective homes, communicating over video and contemplating the social and economic toll of the pandemic. We understood that

our best strategy for thriving as an organization that is, at its core, a statewide network of relationships, was to strengthen those ties. In other words, to reach out rather than hunker down. Last summer we reached out to establish relief funds for local history organizations and provided additional resources and counsel to our site partners.

Like many of our peers, we moved our educational and historic preservation programs online to support educators, families, students and Ohio’s historic neighborhoods (through federal and state tax credits for repurposing historic buildings).

And our funders and members did the same for us, sticking by us during the hard times and helping us weather the storm in any way they could.

The second reason was that we were viewing the social upheavals, demonstrations and protests of the past year through the lens of history.

We took seriously our responsibility to contextualize the events of 2020 and early 2021 for Ohioans through exhibitions, educational programs, blog posts, articles and panel conversations. We hold the state’s archives, work with historic sites in every region of the state and provide services for all of Ohio’s 88 counties.

We are a multifaceted organization serving a broad set of constituents.

And relationships are what make things work during complicated times.

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

We need only look at history to know that taking relationshipbuilding seriously is the best approach to sustaining community, civility and shared identity.

THE BEST APPROACH

Disability advocates understand that universal design (a design approach that works for people living with disabilities) is usually the best design solution for everyone. We need only look at history to know that taking relationship-building seriously is the best approach to sustaining community, civility and shared identity. Go ahead and drop me an email at bgarcia@ohiohistory.org.

As a new Ohioan, I will definitely make time to reply.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

9

A History of Juneteenth

way for African American equality.

Finally, Lincoln worried that ending slavery would alienate any Union sympathizers currently in the South, further strengthening the Confederacy.

by Jerolyn Barbee and Derek Pridemore, National AfroAmerican Museum & Cultural Center Our current national conversation about race is leading many of you to want to dig deeper into the real stories of African American history. On June 19, many Black communities will commemorate Juneteenth. It’s hard to believe that this milestone of American history isn’t more well-known. The story of Juneteenth is an essential part of the history of the Civil War.

CONVINCED SLAVERY HAD TO END

But by the summer of 1862, Lincoln had become convinced that slavery had to end. Northern troops had firm control over the border states.

Lincoln was convinced that any Union support in the Confederacy would not persuade secessionists to rejoin the United States. And a growing number of Northerners began to believe that slavery was morally wrong. As Northern soldiers marched into the South, many of these men saw the real brutality of slavery for the first time. These soldiers wrote to their loved ones in the North about the injustice, prompting calls for the end of slavery.

During the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation made slavery’s demise one of the North’s principal war aims. But in the beginning, few Northerners or Southerners thought the conflict was about slavery. Southerners contended that the war was the result of the federal government’s refusal to respect the rights of the states. Northerners argued that the federal government had to protect and preserve the Union.

10 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Library of Congress

President Abraham Lincoln also sought only to preserve the United States. Lincoln refused to end slavery during 1861 and the first half of 1862 for several reasons. First, he believed that the United States Constitution prevented the president from seizing the property—enslaved Africans—of a citizen without due process. Second, Lincoln didn’t want to alienate the residents of slave states that had remained in the Union. These included Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware and Maryland. If these states joined with the South, thousands more men would join the Confederacy. Lincoln wanted to solidify the North’s control over these slaveholding states.

Third, Lincoln realized that many Southerners and Northerners would not support the end of slavery because it would pave the

Eventually, Lincoln decided that the federal government did have the right to hamper the South’s ability to wage war. He reasoned that the Constitution allowed the president to adopt measures during times of war to help guarantee a military victory. Lincoln decided that ending slavery would diminish the Confederate war effort, making

Emancipation Proclamation printed about 1888 by The Strobridge Lithographing Co., Cincinnati

his actions legal under the United States Constitution.

Lincoln drafted an initial version of the Emancipation Proclamation in July 1862, but he did not issue it to the public until Sept. 22, 1862.

Lincoln believed that U.S. citizens and other nations might negatively view his action unless some Union victories preceded it. Following the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, Lincoln finally had a critical Union victory in the East.

ORIGINATED IN TEXAS

Ohioans greeted the Emancipation Proclamation differently. Radical Republicans, like Sen. Benjamin Wade (see page 14), welcomed the document, as did Ohio’s abolitionists and Quakers. Others, especially those from workingclass backgrounds, were not as welcoming. Many feared that Blacks would flee the South, move to northern states, and take jobs away from white working people.

Some Ohioans serving in the Union military refused to fight a war to end slavery, so they deserted and returned home.

The Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the border states or in areas in the South that Union forces had conquered. Slavery did not end everywhere in the United States until the passage of the 13th amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865.

However, the news about the 13th amendment did not reach many southern plantations. Soon after the war, the state of Texas itself abolished slavery on June 19, 1865. On that day, there were still enslaved African Americans in Galveston and other cities. When Union General Gordon Granger came to Galveston to enforce the emancipation, word spread quickly, and a celebration ensued. Today, Texas and 44 other states recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday.

FREEDOM DAY

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

RAVENNA

To this day, the holiday is celebrated as Freedom Day or Juneteenth Independence Day by many African Americans, and by our institution.

The Ohio History Connection’s National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center held its first Juneteenth Jubilation at the museum grounds, bringing the community together with music, games, food, dancing, crafts and learning about our heritage. Each year, the museum celebrates Juneteenth to ensure that all Ohioans remember what it means to African Americans and to the history of our entire country.

Four Communities Receive Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grants

Riddle Block 9, 113-115 Chestnut St. • $109,440

Juneteenth represents one of the first steps toward equality for enslaved African Americans.

Although the unknown road ahead still meant another 160-year human rights struggle for African Americans, our ancestors on June 19, 1865, still yelled in unison, “We Are Free.”

This story was originally published in June 2020 as an Ohio History Connection History Blog post.

The Ohio General Assembly designated June 19 as "Juneteenth National Freedom Day" in 2009. Senators Hearcel F. Craig (D-Columbus) and Andrew Brenner (R-Powell) have introduced Senate Bill 78 to declare Juneteenth a paid state holiday in Ohio. The bill is a reintroduction of Senate Bill 334 from the past General Assembly, passed unanimously through the Senate.

Join us on June 19 when the Ohio History Center and National AfroAmerican Museum & Cultural Center host a virtual Juneteenth with the program Black Music, the Soundtrack of Humanity, featuring professors Ted McDaniel and Mark Lomax. See page 18.

Grants totaling $456,327 from the National Park Service’s Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grants Program have been awarded to projects in Painesville, Piqua, Ravenna and Van Wert through the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office. Ohio is one of eight states awarded Paul Bruhn grant funding. The grants will assist four Ohio Main Street communities with historic building rehabs. Projects awarded grants include: PAINESVILLE

Lake County National Bank Building, 30 S. Park Pl. • $94,330 A local financial hub since its completion in 1965, the former Lake County National Bank Building was recently vacated. The owner plans to revitalize it to serve Lake Erie College students, offering mixeduse space including residential. Paul Bruhn funds will go toward exterior rehab, including spot repointing of the brick, brick replacement where necessary and exterior cleaning.

PIQUA

S. Zollinger Co. Building, 101 S. Wayne St. • $95,000 Built in 1915 as a commercial grocery warehouse, the Zollinger Building has been vacant for over a decade. Owners plan to reimagine the space for mixed uses including residential and a ground floor market hall. Grant funds will help restore historic windows to operating efficiency and replace windows that aren’t historic with complementary replacements.

The 50,000-square-foot Riddle Block 9, built in 1911, will be readied for a variety of potential uses including commercial, office, retail, residential and light industrial. Paul Bruhn funds will return vacant residential and commercial spaces to active use, and the glass-roofed atrium will also be restored.

VAN WERT

The Kauke & McCurdy Block, 101 E. Main St. • $157,557 As part of an ambitious downtown initiative, the Van Wert County Foundation has been awarded Paul Bruhn funds to invest in the historic Kauke & McCurdy Block, once home to the local chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The grant will fund installation of a new elevator, vital to making the three-story building accessible and attractive for contemporary use. Plans include 16 new housing units and rehabbing 5,780 square feet of commercial space.

The Ohio Main Street Program, administered by Heritage Ohio, works with communities across the state to revitalize historic or traditional commercial areas.

Based in historic preservation, the Main Street approach was developed by the National Trust for Historic Preservation to save historic commercial architecture.

It has become a powerful economic development tool as well.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

11





 senior living through thoughtful site selection, design and amenities.

HISTORIC PRESERVATION

Recent Ohio Additions to the National Register of Historic Places

CLEVELAND • CUYAHOGA COUNTY

 ERIEVIEW HISTORIC DISTRICT Roughly bounded by Lakeside Avenue, Chester Avenue, East Ninth Street, and East 12th Street

AKRON • SUMMIT COUNTY

 A. SCHRADER’S SON INC. OF OHIO BUILDINGS • 705-711 Johnston St.

A. Schrader’s Son Inc. invented the Schrader Valve used in every modernday automobile tire and many bicycle tires. After the company built a functional distribution building at 705 Johnston St. in 1921 at the height of Akron’s rubber boom, demand for Schrader products grew rapidly and in 1926, Schrader hired Turner Construction to build the adjoining five-story warehouse. The warehouse is an especially well-preserved example of a building type called a “daylight factory,” characterized by reinforced concrete construction, large steel-sash windows and an open floor plan.

A massive Urban Renewal project launched in 1948 and completed in 1983, the Erieview Historic District has been added to the National Register of Historic Places for its association with the history of community planning and development in Cleveland and as a significant collection of modern architecture that includes works by prominent local and national firms of the era.

CANTON • STARK COUNTY

Formed by Jewish community leaders at the turn of the 20th century, the Oakwood Club finished an 18-hole golf course in 1915, then created a subdivision for members of the club abutting the fairway. Deed restrictions required substantial homes, with plans approved by an Oakwood Club committee

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS CUYAHOGA COUNTY

 OAKWOOD CLUB SUBDIVISION HISTORIC DISTRICT • 1538-1688 Oakwood Dr. and 1598 and 1681 Wood Rd.

 MCKINLEY PARK APARTMENTS 510 High Ave., S.W.

The McKinley Park Apartments building was completed in 1969

by Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority. Associated with Canton’s social and architectural history, the 11-story building houses 81 senior housing units in a Modernist tower.

Representing Stark Metropolitan Housing Authority’s mission of providing affordable and quality senior housing, it also illustrates federal design guidelines for senior housing at the time and the authority's commitment to a holistic program that encouraged independent 12 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021



to produce “conformity to the common improvement and beauty of the subdivision.” Situated along red-brick-paved Oakwood Drive are 15 Colonial Revival and French Colonial or Norman Revival style houses designed by noted Cleveland architects Howell and Thomas, along with other significant architects, among them John Sherwood Kelly, Charles Greco, Willard Hirsh, Charles C. Coleman, Almirall and Coughlin, and Wallace G. Inghram.

CUYAHOGA FALLS • SUMMIT COUNTY

 BERKSHIRE PARK HISTORIC DISTRICT Roughly bounded by Oakwood Drive, Roosevelt Avenue, Elmwood Street, Fourth Street, Third Street and Miller Court

Added to the National Register for its local architectural significance, the Berkshire Park Historic District features mainly Craftsman, Dutch Colonial and Tudor Revival style single-family bungalows designed by Akron architects Fichter and Brooker and built by Akron developer-builder Nathan M. Berk. Development began in 1923, when Cuyahoga Falls City Council approved the plat of “Nathan Berk’s Berkshire Park Re-subdivision,” including the styles of houses that represent Berk’s “Quality Homes.”

Berk died in 1929, and after the Great Depression and World War II, Cape Cod and other small house styles and

 All National Register photos courtesy State Historic Preservation Office



 types of the postwar era were added on vacant lots.

GREENFIELD • HIGHLAND COUNTY

 GREENFIELD COMMERCIAL HISTORIC DISTRICT • Roughly bounded by Jefferson, Washington and Mirabeau streets

The Greenfield Commercial Historic District has been added to the National Register for its local architectural significance and its association with the history of commerce in Greenfield from 1854 to 1967. The time period covers the arrival of the railroad and downtown’s early growth into a selfsustaining commercial center serving residents of Greenfield and the surrounding farming community in Highland, Ross and Fayette counties.

MARBLE CLIFF • FRANKLIN COUNTY

 LANMAN-INGRAM HOUSE 2015 W. Fifth Ave.

The Lanman-Ingram House is an example of Columbus architect Frank L. Packard’s early-20th-century suburban houses. An article in The Craftsman magazine described Packard as “a pioneer in the building of dwellings from local materials and in harmony with the landscape.” Its first two owners were successful business leaders in Columbus and the house reflected their tastes



and aspirations. William K. Lanman was treasurer of the Columbus Bolt Works Co. in 1908 when he commissioned Packard to design this house. William “Billy” Ingram, owner of the White Castle hamburger chain, bought it as his home in 1935 when he moved White Castle’s headquarters from Wichita, Kansas, to Columbus.

NEW LEXINGTON • PERRY COUNTY

 LUDOWICI ROOF TILE COMPANY

some already in the National Register, include the 1878 Starrett & Fried Block, 1893 Bushnell Building and its 1903 addition, 1906 Fairbanks Building, 1917 Heaume Hotel and the Lagonda National Bank Building, built in 1884 and remodeled in 1928. Also in the district are the 1918 Mad River Bank, 1956 WesBanco Building and 1961 Key Bank Building; Chakeres State Theatre, opened in 1927; and several smaller buildings of the period.

HISTORIC DISTRICT • 4757 Tile Plant Rd.

The Ludowici Roof Tile Historic District reflects the history of industry in New Lexington. Rooted in Germany and founded in Chicago in 1893, Ludowici acquired the New Lexington site in 1906. Still an active maker of custom clay-tile products, the New Lexington complex is the oldest and last Ludowici plant in operation and a place where oldworld artisanship survives today.

SPRINGFIELD • CLARK COUNTY

 SPRINGFIELD DOWNTOWN HISTORIC

WESTERVILLE • FRANKLIN COUNTY

 OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY CARNEGIE LIBRARY • 102 W. College Ave.

Completed in 1908 and in library use until 1954, Otterbein University’s former Carnegie Library has been added to the National Register for its association with the early 20th century Carnegie Library program, its role in the history of Otterbein University and its local significance as an example of Columbus architect Frank L. Packard’s library and educational design work.

DISTRICT • Roughly bounded by Columbia Street, Fountain Avenue, Main Street and Limestone Street

This group of 12 buildings reflects the history of commerce and architecture in downtown Springfield from 1878 to 1961. Key landmarks,



 OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

13

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

Ashtabula voters refused to re-elect Wade in 1839, but he was elected to the Ohio Senate once again in 1842. In 1847, Wade became a judge of the Third Judicial Court of Ohio and held this position until the Ohio legislature elected him as one of Ohio’s two United States senators in 1851. Wade remained a senator until 1869. He was a strong supporter of the Republican Party and believed that equal rights should be extended to African Americans. The Ohio legislature failed to re-elect Wade in the election of 1868.

WIDELY RESPECTED IN THE NORTH

OHIO HEROES

Benjamin F. Wade Benjamin Franklin Wade (1800– 1878) was a political leader from Ohio and a Radical Republican in the Reconstruction years after the Civil War. Wade was born on Oct. 27, 1800, near Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1821, Wade and his parents came to Ashtabula County, Ohio. He briefly taught school, although he never formally attended school in his life. He moved to Albany, New York, in 1823 to study medicine. He returned to Ohio in 1825 and studied law under Elisha Whittlesey. Wade passed the Ohio bar examination in 1828 and opened a law practice in Jefferson, Ohio.

KNOWN FOR HIS ABOLITIONIST VIEWS

In 1835, Wade went into politics and served as the prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula County from 1835 to 1837. Ashtabula voters elected Wade to the Ohio Senate in 1837 and 1838. As a state legislator, Wade favored the Whig Party’s platform and became well-known for his abolitionist views. He campaigned for the repeal of Ohio’s Black codes.

His strong anti-slavery stance offended many Ohioans.

Southern senators viewed Wade as one of their strongest opponents during the 1850s and early 1860s. He was a major opponent of the KansasNebraska Act, and his opposition and fiery oratory helped establish the Republican Party in Ohio. Wade became widely respected in the North for his views on slavery. Several Republicans wanted to see Wade as their candidate for the presidency in 1860, but Ohio Republicans eventually united behind Salmon P. Chase. Nevertheless, Wade still received three votes at the Republican National Convention in 1860.

During the Civil War, Wade remained in the Senate and chaired the Senate’s Special Committee on the Conduct of the War. Wade encouraged President Abraham Lincoln to subdue the Confederacy militarily, rather than seeking a quick end to the conflict through peaceful negotiations.

In 1864, Wade helped author the Wade-Davis Bill. This legislation required 50% of white Southern voters living in a seceded state to take the oath of allegiance to the United States before the state could apply for readmission to the Union.

The bill easily passed Congress, but President Lincoln refused to sign it.

The bill never became law.

NEXT IN LINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY

After Lincoln’s death in April 1865, Wade became a staunch opponent of President Andrew Johnson’s relatively lenient plan to reunite the country at the war’s conclusion. If the Senate had removed Johnson from office during his impeachment trial, Wade, as president pro tempore of the Senate, would have become the next president of the United States.

Upon completing his term in 1869, Wade remained active in government affairs. He served as a government director of the Union Pacific Railroad and also participated in a commission debating whether or not the United States should annex Santo Domingo. Wade also continued to practice law. He died on March 2, 1878, in Jefferson, Ohio.

This biography is from Ohio History Central, our online encyclopedia of Ohio history.

Discover many more great Ohioans and more stories of Ohio history at ohiohistorycentral.org.

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.

14 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

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

15

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

1890S ARE BACK STARTING JUNE 30

Ohio Village Reopens Soon Step into the 1890s when Ohio Village reopens for the 2021 season, starting with special Ohio History Connection members’ preview days Weds., June 30, through Sun., July 4, then opening to all visitors starting Weds., July 7, for an extended season that runs through Sun., Oct. 31.

MORE VILLAGERS, NEW STORIES

Starting this summer, you’ll find more villagers and artisans on hand daily to share new stories of 19th-century Ohio life. They represent the Ohio History Connection’s commitment to reinvesting in Ohio Village and an enhanced village experience.

A re-created 19th-century community, Ohio Village is at I-71 & 17th Avenue (Exit 111) on the grounds of the Ohio History Center in Columbus.

16 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Hours starting June 30 are 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. Admission is $13, $11/age 60+ or college student with ID, $7/ ages 4–12, Free/age 3 & under.

Ohio History Connection members enjoy free admission.

TIMED TICKETS

So we can ensure a safe experience for all, masks and social distancing are required on Ohio Village grounds and all visitors, including Ohio History Connection members, must have timed tickets. Order at ohiohistory.org/ohiovillage or 800.686.1541 starting Weds., June 16.

Enter Ohio Village through the Ohio Village arch in the north parking lot.

The Ohio History Center museum is expected to reopen later this year, on Sun., Dec. 26.

Reopening plans are subject to change based on the evolving COVID-19 status of Ohio and Franklin County.

Questions? Call 800.686.6124 or visit ohiohistory.org/openifo.

Clintonville Farmers’ Market SATURDAYS THROUGH NOV. 20 9 A.M.–NOON South Parking Lot, Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 The Clintonville Farmers’

Market features 60+ producers who grow or make everything they sell.

At the market, you’ll find fruits and vegetables, poultry, pasture-raised meats, cheese, honey and jams, baked goods of all kinds, eggs, grains, cut flowers and more, all produced locally and brought to market at the peak of freshness. Preorder and/or shop onsite at the market! clintonvillefarmersmarket.org

See whether our exhibits really do come to life!

Hosted by the Ohio History Center ONLINE—ATTEND FROM ANYWHERE!

Sat., May 15 7–8:15 p.m.

Advance registration required:

ohiohistory.org/virtual

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

Online Events AFTER UNCLE TOM’S CABIN

Black Voices for Justice— Langston Hughes: The Harlem Renaissance & Beyond WEDS., MAY 5 F ONLINE DISCUSSION 7–8 P.M. F RSVP FOR LINK Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted

by Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati Explore some of the important works in the tradition of Black Americans sharing their own stories, writing against slavery and for justice from the 19th century to today. Harriet Beecher Stowe became increasingly concerned with women’s issues after the Civil War, and we’ll examine questions of racial justice, gender justice and intersections between the two. Find suggested readings at stowehousecincy. org. Led by Xavier University Professor Emeritus John Getz, Ph.D., and coleaders. $5. Advance registration required.

800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

“No Man Calls Me A Fool”— The 1857 Ohio House and the Slough-Cadwell Altercation THURS., MAY 6 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 In 1857, Cincinnati Democrat John P. Slough assaulted Republican Darius Cadwell on the floor of the Ohio House of Representatives, an indiscretion that resulted in Slough’s expulsion from the legislature. Hear from Cincinnati native Richard L. Miller, author of the recent book John P. Slough: The Forgotten Civil War General (University of New Mexico Press, 2021), who uses the story of the Slough-Cadwell altercation to examine the political tensions that eventually tore the country apart in 1860. $15, Free/ Ohio History Connection member.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Drinks of the Speakeasy SAT., MAY 8 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 21+ Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Join us from the comfort of home as our Pleasures of the Cup

series goes virtual! From 1920 to 1933, Prohibition sent alcohol from bars and taverns to secret watering holes. 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

“Lifting As We Climb”—The Life & Legacy of Mary Church Terrell THURS., MAY 13 F 7 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, Wilberforce 4 Learn about suffragist and civil rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954), a graduate of Oberlin College whose 20th-century advocacy work is foundational to the Black activism movement. Terrell is profiled in the National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center exhibit Queens of the Heartland and the PBS American Masters series Unladylike2020. Join Dr. Treva Lindsey of The Ohio State University’s Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and Sandra Rattley, executive producer of Unladylike2020, for a lively discussion of Terrell’s life and a screening of the film about her. Free with required advance registration. 800.752.2603, InfoNAAMCC@ohiohistory.org or ohiohistory.org/naamcc

Night at the Museum SAT., MAY 15 F 7–8:15 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus Join us from the comfort of home as our annual Night at the Museum event goes virtual! Travel throughout the Ohio History Center with security guards as they attempt to keep the peace among all of the exhibits who have come to life.

Help guards solve a puzzle and determine the fate of the exhibits in this interactive and family-friendly program. $15, Free/

Ohio History Connection member.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual Sponsored by Ohio’s 529 Plan, CollegeAdvantage

African American Genealogy Workshop SUN., MAY 16 F 4–5:30 P.M. RSVP FOR LIVESTREAM LINK Online—Attend from Anywhere!4 Hosted by Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 Join experienced genealogist and Stowe House board member Thomas Jordan for an introduction to the skill and tools needed to investigate African American family history. $7. 800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Ohio’s Homefront—World War I THURS., MAY 20 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 World War I affected millions of people across the globe, and Ohioans were no exception. Millions of Ohioans on the homefront did their best to aid in the war effort, though there were also many who fought against government crackdowns on free speech and blatant persecutions of their fellow citizens. Join Ohio History Connection educators Andrew Hall and Michael Fouts to learn more about this turbulent time. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory. org/virtual

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MAY 26 & JUNE 30 NOON–1 P.M. See page 19.

HISTORIAN-IN-TRAINING—PRE-K

Inventors FRI., MAY 28 F 10–10:30 A.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Join our museum educators for a look at Ohio inventors and inventions. Sign up for this live online activity for ages 3–6 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 May 24. Kits arrive 7–10 days after registration ends. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

17

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

relatives—think uncles, aunts, cousins, everyone outside the direct-descendant line—to create a fuller tree with deeper roots that includes everyone’s story.

JUNE 1: The Search for Equity Through Genealogy. JUNE 19: Sisters Are Doing It for Themselves—Finding Women in the Family Tree. Find the full series schedule at ohiohistory.org/genealogy. June 1 workshop free to all with required advance registration. Eight-workshop series: $150, $120/Ohio History Connection member.

Per workshop: $25, $20/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/genealogy PLEASURES OF THE CUP

Drink, Eat & Be Merry

A Century of Sliders— Celebrating White Castle’s 100th Birthday FRI., MAY 28 F 6–7 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Founded in Wichita in 1921, White Castle has been headquartered in Columbus since 1934 and remains a family-owned business. Join us in celebrating White Castle’s 100th birthday on National Hamburger Day. Hear from White Castle founding-family members Erin Shannon and Maryann Kelley, who’ll share the story of this fast-food industry pioneer, along with curator Lisa Wood and moderator Megan Wood, both of the Ohio History Connection. See vintage items from the Ohio History Connection’s White Castle collection, and learn how White Castle revolutionized the fast-food business. $20, $5/Ohio History Connection member, Free/Ohio History Connection premium member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory. org/virtual Sponsored by White Castle

Genealogy Workshop Series— Where My Single Folk?

STARTS WEDS., JUNE 1 F 7 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 In this series of virtual workshops, explore how to research our unmarried, never married, divorced, widowed, adventurous

18 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

SAT., JUNE 12 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! • 21+4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Join us from the comfort of home as our Pleasures of the Cup series goes virtual! Create drinks along with our mixologist as we share 1890s foodie knowledge. Learn about some easy recipes that you can make at home, odd foods the Victorians loved to eat and how they cured hangovers. Alcohol not provided. Advance registration required.

You’ll receive drink recipes in advance plus a link to the presentation about two hours before it starts. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

Black Music— The Soundtrack of Humanity SAT., JUNE 19 F 1–2:30 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Celebrate Juneteenth with Dr. Ted McDaniel, retired OSU professor of African American music who’s a specialist in jazz history, and Dr. Mark Lomax II, critically acclaimed composer, recording artist, drummer, activist and educator. They’ll discuss Black music as a continuum, spirituals and blues as they relate to the foundation of global music, and Black music as a symbol of resistance in the 19th century and beyond. Hear Lomax perform Juneteenth-related selections from 400: An Afrikan Epic, a 12-album cycle he released in 2019 that shares the story of the Afrikan diaspora. $20, $5/Ohio History Connection member, Free/Ohio History Connection premium member.

800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual

HISTORIAN-IN-TRAINING—PRE-K

Prehistoric Animals FRI., JUNE 25 F 10–10:30 A.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 Mastodons, trilobites and Dunkleosteus, oh my! Join museum educators on a trip back in time for a look at some of the strangest creatures who ever lived in Ohio. Sign up for this live online activity for ages 3–6 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 June 21. Kits arrive 7–10 days after registration ends. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual SEMI-COLON BOOK CLUB

Calling Yankees to Florida SAT., JUNE 26 F NOON–1 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati 4 Harriet Beecher Stowe promoted Florida as a tourist destination in her 1873 book PalmettoLeaves. Join Stowe House volunteer Robin Gee for a discussion of Calling Yankees to Florida: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Forgotten Tourist Articles, edited

by John Foster Jr. and Sarah Whitmer Foster (Florida Historical Society Press, 2019). It features more of Stowe’s vignettes of Florida life, including her meeting with Mary Richards, an African American spy for the Union during the Civil War. $5. 800.847.6507 or stowehousecincy.org

Remembering Deaf Ohio Baseball Legend William ‘Dummy’ Hoy SAT., JUNE 26 F 7–8 P.M. Online—Attend from Anywhere! 4 Hosted by the Ohio History Center, Columbus 4 William “Dummy” Hoy, a native of Houcktown, Ohio, was the most accomplished deaf player in Major League Baseball history. Throughout his career he played on numerous professional teams, notably the Cincinnati Reds, and is one of several individuals credited with bringing hand signs to the umpire position. Join Steve Sandy, an expert on Hoy with more than 30 years of research experience, in a discussion on this influential Ohio athlete. $15, Free/Ohio History Connection member. 800.686.1541 or ohiohistory.org/virtual.

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.

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.

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 OHIO

Quarry Trail Hike SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS IN MAY & JUNE F 2 & 3 P.M. Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries & Nature Preserve, near Brownsville & Newark Meet at the museum patio for a guided hike of a portion of the half-mile Quarry Trail. Experience its unique features, including pits left by the ancient American Indians who came here to quarry flint. Please dress for the weather and wear appropriate shoes. Mask required. A donation of $5/person would be appreciated. Advance registration appreciated though not required.

800.283.8707, flintridgesitemanagertim@ gmail.com or ohiohistory.org/flintridge

NORTHEAST OHIO

NORTHEAST OHIO

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 Co. 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 OHIO

NORTHWEST OHIO

KIDS DAYS @ HAYES

Mother’s Day Tea SAT., MAY 8 F 10–11:30 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Kids can enjoy a Victorian Tea for Mother’s Day weekend. This event is especially for fourth through sixth graders, though kids of all ages are welcome. $7/child. No cost for adults who bring children to this program. Purchase required advance tickets at rbhayes.org. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org SECOND SATURDAYS R 4 KIDS

Around the World with Col. Webb Hayes SAT., MAY 15, JUNE 12 & JULY 10 9:30–11:30 A.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Enjoy a monthly activity for kids in grades K–3 inspired by the world travels of Col. Webb Hayes, son of President Rutherford B. Hayes and first lady Lucy Webb Hayes. These events are

open house-style, so kids can stop by any time between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. for craft supplies and instructions, a Second Saturdays passport and information about a place Webb visited and his time there. MAY 15: Japan.

Paint a cherry blossom tree on a mini canvas. JUNE 12: Ohio. Complete a scavenger hunt for summer shapes to use in making a banner. JULY 10: Cuba.

Paint rocks and use clay to carve out rock designs inspired by Cuba’s ancient Taino rock carvings. Free. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Presidential History Book Club WEDS., MAY 26 & JUNE 30 NOON–1 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Read books about the American presidency and enjoy lunchhour discussions at this free book club. Bring your lunch if you’d like.

MAY 26: Gerald R. Ford, by Douglas Brinkley. JUNE 30: JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917–1956,

by Fredrik Logevall. 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.

Verandah Concerts WEDS., JUNE 9, JUNE 23 & JULY 7 6:30–8 P.M. Free Old-Fashioned Ice Cream Social at 6:30 p.m. F Music Starts at 7 p.m. F Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Enjoy free outdoor concerts on the lawn of the Hayes home. JUNE 9: Fostoria Community Band plays concert band music. JUNE 23: Vocal ensemble Nostalgia performs songs of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. JULY 7: Cottonwood Jam String Band plays traditional acoustic string music. Bring a lawn chair or blanket. If there are

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

19

thunderstorms on concert night, the concert will be canceled. Get updates at 419.332.2081, rbhayes.org and on Facebook and Twitter at @rbhayespres.

800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Family Days at the Johnston Farm SAT., JUNE 12 & SUN., JUNE 13 NOON–5 PM. Johnston Farm & Indian Agency, Piqua The Johnston family farm comes alive with games and activities of days past.

Visit the 1829 Johnston home, take in the Historic Indian & Canal Museum and enjoy a leisurely ride on the historic Miami and Erie Canal aboard the 19th-centurystyle mule-drawn canal boat General Harrison of Piqua. $9, $4/student, Free/ Ohio History Connection member or ages 5 & under. Make this an early Father’s Day gift—each dad or grandfather will be admitted free June 12 and 13 when accompanied by his family. 800.752.2619 or johnstonfarmohio.com

Frohman Summer Series— Hands-On History WEDS., JUNE 16, JULY 14 & AUG. 18 10 A.M.–NOON OR 2–4 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Kids ages 6 through 11 will use historic photos from the museum’s Charles E. Frohman Collection to gain firsthand knowledge in history through STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) initiatives. Free with required advance registration. Space is limited.

Register for one program or the three-part series. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

GroveFest SAT., JUNE 26 F 10 A.M.–2 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Nature vendors will have booths with crafts and games for kids, and some will have live animals. Free.

800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

Independence Day Concert SUN., JULY 4 F 2–3:30 P.M. Hayes Presidential Library & Museums, Fremont 4 Celebrate Independence Day with this patriotic concert by the Toledo Symphony Concert Band, played from the verandah of the National Historic Landmark Hayes home.

Bring a chair or blanket for seating on the lawn. Free. 800.998.7737 or rbhayes.org

SOUTHEAST OHIO

SOUTHEAST OHIO

Insider’s Tour

See Base Ball (Yes, Two Words) Played by 19th-Century Rules!

2021 SEASON SCHEDULE ohiohistory.org/muffins or 800.686.6124

20 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

SAT., MAY 22 & JUNE 12 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 into Gen. Rufus Putnam’s 1788 home, preserved inside the museum. See what the famed Coonskin Library consisted of and learn more about librarian Ephraim Cutler. Limit 10 participants. Advance registration required. $10 + museum admission: $7, $4/student, Free/Ohio History Connection member or ages 5 & under. 800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org

Jazzin’ Up the Museums SAT., JUNE 12 F 6–9 P.M. 6 P.M. BOARDING F 6:30 P.M. DEPARTURE 9 P.M. RETURN Aboard the Valley Gem Sternwheeler, Marietta 4 Proceeds benefit Marietta’s Campus Martius Museum & Ohio River Museum 4 Enjoy a delicious buffet, including prime rib and chicken Madeira, on the sternwheel riverboat Valley Gem. Dance the night away to a live band playing favorites from the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Ticket includes your meal, musical entertainment and two-hour cruise on the Ohio River. Cash bar. $40/ person, $75/couple. Advance registration required by June 11. 800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org

Historic Our House Tavern Season Opening SAT., MAY 29–MON., MAY 31 10 A.M.–4 P.M. Our House Tavern, Gallipolis 4 Tour a restored Federal-style tavern built in 1819 that hosted the Marquis de Lafayette when he visited French-founded Gallipolis in 1825. Summer hours June through August: Weds.–Sun. 10 a.m.–4 p.m. 800.752.2618 or ohiohistory.org/ ourhouse

Passport to Fun Summer Camp TUES., JUNE 22–FRI., JUNE 25 9:30 A.M.–3 P.M. Ages 7–12 F Advance registration required

by June 8 4 Campus Martius Museum, Marietta 4 Start your summer off right, with a week of activities at Campus Martius Museum. Each day has a different theme. There’ll be so much to do, your head will swim, and everyone gets a Passport to Fun Camp t-shirt! $100/ camper. Scholarships available. Contact Glenna Hoff at 800.860.0145 or mariettamuseums.org.

Heirloom Plant Sale SAT., MAY 1, THROUGH SUN., MAY 16 WEDS.–SAT. 9 A.M.–5 P.M. F SUN. NOON– 5 P.M. F CLOSED MONDAYS & TUESDAYS Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Shop our annual sale of plant varieties raised and passed on before the advent of industrial farming. Many go back at least as far as the time of early Ohio governor Thomas Worthington, whose mansion, Adena, dates to 1807. Shop early in the month for best selection. 800.319.7248.

Find a plant list and details under “Events” at adenamansion.com.

Art with Skip Hathaway SAT., MAY 1, JUNE 5 & JULY 3 F NOON Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Bring the kids for a free art class for all ages with Chillicothe artist Skip Hathaway in the Education Center. Art supplies will be provided. All children must have an adult chaperone. 800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

SOUTHWEST OHIO

Geology of Ohio Hopewell Artifacts— Minerals: Copper, Galena, Meteoric Iron, Mica, Quartz and Silver SAT., JUNE 12 F 10:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia & Lebanon About 2,000 years ago, American Indians created beautiful artifacts, tools, vessels, decorations and weapons using materials like copper, mica, shark teeth, obsidian, shells, pearls, silver, galena, iron from meteorites, ivory from mastodon tusks and a wide variety of fine flints and stones. In this lecture by geologist Todd Stephenson—the first of three—learn about the geologic origins of six minerals from across North America that Hopewell artisans used to create the beautiful artifacts associated with Ohio’s Middle Woodland earthworks, including Fort Ancient. Free with required advance registration. In compliance with state guidelines, we will practice social distancing. 800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

Harriet’s Birthday Party SUN., JUNE 13 F1–4 P.M. Harriet Beecher Stowe House, Cincinnati This free annual celebration for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s birthday is always a vibrant community event. Free and open to the public. For more on the format of the 2021 birthday party, call 800.847.6507 or visit stowehousecincy.org.

Museum Methods for Home Collections SUN., JUNE 13 F 2–4 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Museums have many tools and techniques at their disposal to help preserve the artifacts in their care. You can use these techniques, too! Whether you’re a casual antique collector, keeper of your family’s heirlooms or simply a fan of history, you can use these tips and tricks to provide museum-quality care to your personal collections. Join Amanda Wachowiak of the Ohio History Connection’s Ohio History Service Corps for this informative workshop. Advance registration required.

Masks are required and seating is limited to ensure social distancing. 800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

Astronomical Calculations for Building Fort Ancient SAT., JUNE 19 F 10:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Fort Ancient Earthworks & Nature Preserve, near Oregonia & Lebanon Get a look at the astronomy, mathematics and engineering American Indians employed to transform a ridge along the Little Miami River in Warren County into North America’s largest hilltop enclosure, Fort Ancient. Explore some of the ways Fort Ancient could have been built about 2,000 years ago in this thoughtprovoking presentation by professional engineer and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist Lynn Johnson. $7, $6 student or senior, Free/Ohio History Connection member. Advance registration required. In compliance with state guidelines, we will practice social distancing. 800.283.8904 or fortancient.org

19th-Century Independence Day Celebration SUN., JULY 4 F 2–3 P.M. Adena Mansion & Gardens, Chillicothe Celebrate Independence Day the way Ohioans did two centuries ago. This free event at the picnic pavilion features readings from the Declaration of Independence, patriotic poems, a presentation of the flag and a 21-gun salute by the Ross County Veterans Honor Guard. 800.319.7248 or adenamansion.com

FEATURED EXHIBITS • • •

Rhythm of Revolution SAT., MAY 15–SAT., AUG. 14 MAY: FRI. & SAT. 9 A.M.–4 P.M. JUNE: WEDS.–SAT. 9 A.M.–4 P.M. National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center, Wilberforce 4 See a new exhibit that maps the visual flow of cultural change in America from 1619 to the present day. Black artists and activists transformed our nation by drawing on deeply rooted African traditions, interpreting contemporary challenges and painting a way forward into a better future.

Rhythm of Revolution explores just some of the names who laid down the beat of change. This exhibit concept developed by the museum was executed by a supervised class of Wright State University graduate students in Public History. Also on exhibit: African Americans Fighting for a Double Victory; Behind the Mask—Black Power in Comics; Queens of the Heartland; and What’s In Your Attic? Selections from Our Permanent Collection, including a special mini-exhibit, Playing with Identity—Selections from the Lillian M. Bartok Black Doll Collection. $6, $5/senior, $3/ages 6–17, Free/Ohio History Connection member or ages 5 & under. Masks and social distancing required. 800.752.2603 or ohiohistory. org/naamcc

Use your membership to be a tourist in our own state this summer!

Visit ohiohistory.org/ places to plan your Ohio history adventures.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

21

Wikimedia Commons | NASA

Apollo 11 moon launch, July 16, 1969

22 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

On the Air THREE LIVES SHAPED BY TV BY BILL EICHENBERGER

I

n his 2014 book The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again, Toledo-born satirist P.J. O’Rourke writes, “Most groups of people who get tagged by history as

a ‘generation’ can be described in an easy, offhand way: folks sort of the same age experiencing sort of the same things in sort of the same place. Like the cast of Cheers or Seinfeld or Friends.”

He continues, “I’m almost sure—as a result of taking Modern Literature in college—that Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ford Madox Ford, Henry Miller, and Ezra Pound were roommates in a big apartment on the Left Bank in Paris in the 1920s. (If not, I give the sitcom idea free to the reader.)”

When you speak to a baby boomer, you quickly realize how apt O’Rourke’s comparison to those famous sitcoms is, and what an integral role television has played in the last 75 years in shaping the perceptions of an entire generation.

First came the boom: Ohio’s population in 1940 was 6,929,000.

By 1950 that number had soared—thanks to the baby boom and migration from Appalachia—to 7,980,000. Remarkably, Ohio’s population increased in every year from 1946 through 1974.

Then came television. Between 1949 and 1969, the number of households in the U.S. with at least one TV set rose from less than a million to 44 million. The number of commercial TV stations rose from 69 to 566 during that time, and ad revenue increased from $58 million to $1.5 billion.

Angela Pace was an anchor at WBNS-10TV in Columbus from 1993 through 2006. She was born in Columbus on Jan. 1, 1952, which makes her an early boomer. She lived in Poindexter Village until she was 7.

“We moved around a lot after that,” Pace says. “We had a twobedroom townhouse at the corner of Ohio Avenue and Main Street and lived at the corner of Cole Street and Miller Avenue right before the freeway came through.”

A BOUNTY OF WESTERNS After homework was done, after the dishes were cleaned, Pace says “the family would gather around the TV. We were a three-generation

Top: Angela Pace and her mother, Carole Dulaney.

Middle: Rob Braun Bottom: Robin Swoboda

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

23

household, me and my sisters, my mother and her sister and my grandmother. And it was the grownups in control of the television.

“I remember my Great Aunt Ethel loved Westerns.

Here’s this old Black woman from North Carolina and we would watch Sugarfoot (1957–1960), Cheyenne (1955–1961), Maverick (1957–1963) and Have Gun—Will Travel (1957–1963). We watched them all. And Bat Masterson, and I’m telling you Gene Barry, who played Masterson, was fine!”

Pace says television brought her closer to her stepfather.

“I bonded with him over the television cartoon show Top Cat and over the weekly football game. We had a Sunday ritual. My mother bought my stepfather a beer keg in a little cooler, and my job was to get him his beer. It was fun for me, a real rush.”

But there was something missing in all these television programs that Pace grew up on and loved—anyone who looked like her or her mother, her grandmother, her sisters.

“There were no Black people at all in these Westerns unless they were slave hands. You rarely saw a Black face.”

In 1989, Kent State University Press published historian George W. Knepper’s comprehensive history, Ohio and Its People.

“The economic foundation established during World War II served Ohio well during the 1950s,” Knepper

24 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

writes. “The state enjoyed a steadily rising demand for workers, which prompted increasing population, particularly in the industrialized areas of the state such as Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Toledo.”

SPENDING THE SUMMER WITH GOMER The state’s prosperity allowed the families of baby boomers to purchase refrigerators, washers, dryers and, of course, televisions. While most boomers watched television with wide-eyed wonder, Rob Braun got to witness the magic of television firsthand, in the studio with his father Bob Braun, host from 1967 to 1984 of The Bob Braun Show on WLWT-TV in Cincinnati.

Rob followed in his father’s footsteps, working first for a station in Knoxville, Tennessee, before moving back to Cincinnati to take a reporting job at WKRC-TV in 1984. He was promoted to news anchor in 1987, a position that he held until he retired in June 2019.

“We had a wonderful childhood—but it was so different than anybody else. Because we got to do things like play on the set of Gomer Pyle in Los Angeles, because my father was making movies and we’ d go out there and hang out. He was friends with Jim Nabors, and we would play on the set.

“And you can’t tell other people that, because that’s so ridiculously outrageous that they’ll either think you’re bragging or that it’s a lie. I made the

Wikimedia Commons | Dutch National Archive

Wikimedia Commons | CBS

Wikimedia Commons | Warner Brothers

Left: Maverick Middle: Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Right: JFK Funeral

Library of Congress | Warren K. Leffler

mistake of one year when I came back to school in fall, when the teacher said, ‘What did you do for your summer vacation? Write that paper.’ And I did.

And I told the truth, and I was ridiculed because what I put in there was the truth, because that’s really what we did.”

Not surprisingly, television was ubiquitous in the Braun household.

“We had a television in every room,” Braun says.

“Well, not in the bathroom, but in every other room in the house!”

Television was a touchstone in Braun’s life for all the significant events of his childhood.

“We watched the moon landing at school in the late morning and early afternoon,” says Braun.

“Years later I was introducing Neil Armstrong, who taught at the University of Cincinnati, at a banquet.

I heard someone yelling my name and when I turned around, there was Neil, saying, ‘I watch you every night!’ I told him, ‘this is surreal. I watched you on the moon!’’’

OF TELEVISION AND MEMORY Robin Swoboda was a fixture on Cleveland television and radio from 1986 through 2014. She continues to write a weekly column for the Akron Beacon Journal.

“I was born in 1958,” she says, “so I’m a middle or late boomer. I remember going to Jeff Bruner’s house down the street to watch Dark Shadows.

We got to have M&M’s and Hawaiian Punch, and I thought they were very rich!

“It’s funny the things you remember, eating Saltine crackers with peanut butter and watching JFK’s funeral, my mother bringing home albums from the radio station where she worked and the family listening to Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass and Johnny Mathis and Henry Mancini.”

Kids watch TV, 1964

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE

TV Wonderland: The Enchantment of Early Television by Brad and Debra Schepp “looks at the unique history of the television through the lens of advertising—the campaigns, slogans, and sales pitches—revealing the cultural fabric of the time.

The centerpiece of the home, the television united families as moms, dads, kids, and sometimes neighbors, too, gathered together to watch their favorite programs.“ Jack Kisseloff’s The Box: An Oral History of Television, 1920–1961 is “based on interviews with the technicians, producers and actors behind TV’s early programs.” Kisseloff “creates an entertaining history of the medium, from the inventor of the laugh machine to the quiz show scandals.”

And the nightly news.

“Walter Cronkite was from my hometown of St. Joseph, Missouri, so I felt a connection to him. I remember watching the Huntley-Brinkley Report, as well. I used to write Johnny Carson letters asking if I could be on his show only to find out years later that my mother never mailed them.

That was my big chance!”

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

25

26 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

National Plan Service | Courtesy Barbara Powers

Built in the Boom CAPE CODS, RANCHES, SPLIT LEVELS AND MORE

BY TOM WOLF & BARBARA POWERS

F

rom 1945 to 1970, Ohio’s population grew by a whopping 54%, from 6.9 million to nearly 10.7 million.

The population boom, fueled in part by the baby boom and accompanied by a building boom, changed more than the number of Ohioans. It changed the whole look of the Buckeye State.

Today it’s hard to imagine Ohio without all the homes, schools, churches and synagogues, shopping centers and highways built in the 25 years after World War II. In most places, you won’t have to try hard or travel far to find them.

CAPE CODS, RANCHES AND SPLIT-LEVELS Then as now, Ohioans lived in all kinds of homes, though 3.8 million additional Ohioans had to live somewhere. In Ohio, three of the most common house types built during the boom were the Cape Cod, Ranch and Split-Level.

Compact and affordable, Cape Cods were popularized by house-plan books and magazines, which suggested that, as a cost-saving measure, the halfstory under the roof might be finished as an additional bedroom or two at a later date.

Cleveland Memory | Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University

Above: A 1946 Cleveland Press graphic explaining the projected U.S. housing shortage that followed World War II. Left: Plan books like this one from a Bucyrus lumber dealer helped popularize Ranches and Split-Levels.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

27

National Plan Service | Courtesy Barbara Powers

With their simple box-like shape, Cape Cods were touted as having the most efficient plans.

The Cape Cod plan was favored by the Veterans Administration and Federal Housing Administration, and with their support, many Cape Cods were built in Ohio after World War II under governmentsponsored programs for returning GIs. Many others were built on spec. Cape Cods went up in all of Ohio’s major cities and in many smaller communities, too, including Cleveland suburbs such as Avon Lake, Brook Park, Brooklyn, Euclid, Garfield Heights and Maple Heights; Columbus

neighborhoods such as Beechwold and Linden; and in Springfield, where Cape Cods line both sides of Cape Cod Drive.

In 1954, the Columbus Parade of Homes and its related Plan Book featured 17 Ranch-type homes and 14 Cape Cods, though by 1962, Cape Cods had vanished from the Parade lineup, which included Ranches, Split-Levels and newly popular two-story homes.

The Ranch became one of Ohio’s most ubiquitous house types between 1945 and 1970, and remains so today because so many were built then.

According to historian Stephen C. Gordon in How to Complete the Ohio Historic Inventory, between 1948 and 1955, builders sold more than six million Ranch-style homes in the United States. Part of the appeal was, and remains, the convenience of the one-floor plan.

Ranches offered about the same amount of space as many two-story homes built earlier in the 20th century, though it was spread out on one level.

The openness of the plan reflects the appeal of casual living as promoted in advertisements and in magazines like Sunset and Better Homes and Gardens. Ranches introduced the concept of a kitchen open to the living room or family room, an idea still popular in today’s open-plan houses.

Plan for a Ranch house published about 1955.

28 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Ranches went up in places large and small, especially in outlying neighborhoods of Ohio's major cities; rapidly growing suburbs of Dayton such as Englewood, Kettering and Centerville; Northridge in Springfield; on the north, east, south and west sides of Columbus; in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington, advertised as "The City of Rapid Growth" in the 1955 Parade of Homes Plan Book; on Ranch Drive and elsewhere in Toledo; and in Mansfield’s aptly named Ranchwood allotment. Ranches even dot many older neighborhoods in Ohio, where they filled in scattered lots that had gone unbuilt-

on through the Depression and World War II. They range from no-frills models—called “Mid-Century Modest” by one blogger with a love for them and a sense of humor—to sprawling custom homes.

Started in 1956, Dayton’s Huber Homes built more than 10,000 Ranch-style homes in the Dayton suburb of Huber Heights, Reynoldsburg near Columbus and elsewhere. Ranches went up by the scores in Parma,where the population nearly tripled from 28,897 in 1950 to 82,845 in 1960.

Above and Below: A Split Level plan published about 1955.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

29

Courtesy of Tom Wolf

Cape Cod house plan from Ideal Homes, about 1940.

State Historic Preservation Office

Cape Cods in Hanford Village, a Columbus allotment for Black veterans of World War II. 30 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Toledo’s Lincolnshire Elementary School opened during the baby boom.

And in a Cleveland subdivision platted by Black developer Arthur Bussey, Black builders marketed brick Cape Cods and Ranches to Black buyers.

According to Rich Exner writing on cleveland. com, “Construction in Cuyahoga County was so rampant in the 1950s that even today, nearly one-fourth of the homes in the county date back to that post-World War II decade.”

A search of The Columbus Dispatch shows that the term “Split-Level” was in use before 1954, though that’s the year when Split-Levels first appeared in the Columbus Parade of Homes and its Plan Book. The Split Level plan caught on quickly and many Ohio neighborhoods of about 1955 to 1970 feature a mix of Ranch and Split-Level homes, reflecting the popularity of both at the time.

SCHOOLS, SCHOOLS, SCHOOLS The exploding school-age population brought many new schools and additions, too. A 1960 Columbus Public Schools report dubbed the 1950s “The Dynamic Decade,” a reference to the fact that during that 10-year span, Columbus built 52 new school buildings and expanded many older ones. Similar scenarios played out proportionally in many districts across the state.

Parochial schools saw growth, too, leading to new buildings for Marion Catholic High School (1957), Springfield Catholic Central High School (1958) and others.

Most Ohio schools of the time are in the spare and functional International Style, with walls

HOUSES OF WORSHIP The growing population meant new churches and synagogues, too. A standard church “mission startup plan” of the time began with a small sanctuary and education wing built to one side of the lot, leaving room to add a larger sanctuary as the congregation grew.

Some houses of worship built at this time recall historical styles, though in many Ohio communities, churches and synagogues built after World War II constitute some of the more notable expressions of modern architecture, such as the 1950 Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights, designed by prominent architect Erich Mendelsohn. In some smaller Ohio communities, houses of worship may be the only or by far the most significant modernist buildings, such as Plymouth’s St. Joseph Catholic Church, completed in 1962.

You probably won’t have to travel far to find a 19thor early-20th-century church in your vicinity with a Sunday school wing added in the 1950s or 1960s.

Construction in Cuyahoga County was so rampant in the 1950s that even today, nearly one-fourth of the homes in the county date back to that post-World War II decade.

State Historic Preservation Office | Kathy Mast Kane

State Historic Preservation Office | Nathalie Wright

Dayton’s Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception Church, completed in 1966.

of operable windows that admitted fresh air and natural light. Many earlier schools sprouted a wing at this time, adding more classrooms or a gym or cafeteria that hadn’t been part of the program when they were built.

Designed by noted architect Erich Mendelsohn, Park Synagogue in Cleveland Heights opened in 1950.

Wikimedia Commons | Stu Spivack OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

31

By 1946, having lived through the Depression of the 1930s, followed by scarcity of consumer goods during World War II, most Ohioans were eager to buy household goods, appliances, automobiles and other products, many of them made right here in Ohio factories.

While there were scattered shopping centers in Ohio before World War II, such as the 1938 Greenhills Shopping Center in suburban Cincinnati, in the postwar boom, shopping centers became larger and more commonplace. Columbus developer Don Casto’s 1949 Town and Country Shopping Center in Whitehall, a Columbus suburb, is frequently cited as an early example. Within a few years, Casto developed many more, such as Great Western, Great Southern, Graceland and others in Columbus, Town and Country in Kettering and Toledo’s Miracle Mile.

At Fairview Park’s 1954 Westgate Shopping Center, developed by Anthoni Visconsi and B.L. Boykin and planned by a renowned industrial design firm, Raymond Loewy Associates, stores lined both sides of an outdoor pedestrian mall. From there, it was a small step to Ohio’s first indoor shopping mall, Severance Center in Cleveland Heights. It opened in 1963, just as Ohioans born in 1946 neared the credit-eligible age of 18.

Just seven years later, as those born at the end of the baby boom in 1964 reached school age in 1970, Ohioans were shopping at indoor malls in Akron, Canton, Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton, Elyria, Fairlawn, Lima, Niles, Northwood, Ontario, Richmond Heights, Trotwood, Toledo and elsewhere.

DIVIDED HIGHWAYS The Ohio Turnpike opened in 1955, expediting travel within and through Ohio (see Echoes Magazine, September & October 2020).

Ohio’s interstate highways had their start with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, and are among the biggest public works of the era, complemented by gas stations, restaurants and motels built to serve travelers on them.

WHAT TO PRESERVE? Whether you lived through this as it happened or it’s all news to you, there’s plenty of evidence of the post-war boom in Ohio’s built environment, and we’ve just scratched the surface.

Every era of Ohio’s past has produced places worthy of being preserved. Through its Ohio Modern project, the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office is already working to identify what’s most important to preserve about this important time in Ohio’s past. Learn more at ohiohistory.org/ohiomodern.

Tom Wolf is communications manager for the Ohio History Connection and a writer and editor for Echoes Magazine.

Barbara Powers is deputy state historic preservation officer for inventory and registration for the Ohio History Connection’s State Historic Preservation Office. She holds a master’s degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia and a bachelor’s degree in American Studies from Miami University.

Learn More

New homes on Moore Road in Avon Lake, 1949.

Cleveland Memory | Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University 32 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Reeb, Deibel, Ruffing Columbus Postcard Collection Columbus Metropolitan Library

SHOPPING CENTERS, AND LATER, SHOPPING MALLS

LEARN MORE

A Field Guide to American Houses by Virginia McAlester is a handy guide to identifying houses of all eras in American history, including the post-war period.

1940–1970 TOP OHIO COUNTIES IN POPULATION GROWTH

COUNT Y 1940 1970 INCREASE

Explore past Columbus Parade of Homes Plan Books online, courtesy of the Building Industry Association of Central Ohio. Visit ohiohistory.org/Home1

Cuyahoga

1,217,250

1,721,300

+ 504,050

Franklin

388,712

833,249

+ 444,537

Montgomery 295,480

606,148

+ 310,668

Binge pre-1964 house-plan books in the Association for Preservation Technology’s Building Technology Heritage Library at ohiohistory.org/Home2

Hamilton

621,987

924,018

+ 302,031

Summit

339,405

553,371

+ 213,966

Lake 50,020 197,200 + 147,180 Lorain

112,390

256,843

+ 144,453

Lucas

344,333

484,370

+ 140,037

234,887

372,210

+ 137,323

Butler

120,249

226,207

+ 105,958

Trumbull

132,315

232,579

+ 100,264

Greene

35,863

Portage

46,660

Mahoning

240,251

Stark

125,057

+ 89,914

125,868

+ 79,208

303,424

+ 63,173

Warren 29,894 85,505 + 55,611

Medina 33,034 82,717 + 49,683

Geauga 19,430 62,977 + 43,547 Below: A branch of The Union, a Columbus department store, at Whitehall's Town and Country Shopping Center about 1955.

Wood 51,796 89,722 + 37,926

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

33

34 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Media Heritage photo

Anything Went!

CHILDREN’S TELEVISION DURING THE BABY BOOM

BY JOHN KIESEWETTER

N

othing makes baby boomers throughout Ohio glow like an old Philco TV more than the mere mention of just a word or two: Barnaby. Salty. Uncle Al. Captain Penny. Uncle Orrie. Captain Al. Flippo, the King of the Clowns.

They were must-see TV for kids in the three-channel, black-and-whitetelevision world of the 1950s and early ‘60s, depending on what stations could be tuned in by monkeying with a V-shaped “rabbit ears” antenna in their part of the state.

Sure, children could enjoy the Mickey Mouse Club or Howdy Doody on network TV. But the local kiddie TV morning or afternoon show hosts were special. They were theirs. Kids could see them at supermarket openings, summer festivals, holiday parades, amusement parks, the zoo or sometimes at their school carnival. They’d talk to you and hand you an autographed photo. You couldn’t do that with Captain Kangaroo.

LIVE AND UNPREDICTABLE Compared to today’s TV universe—500 channels and endless streams of perfect productions with high-tech, computer-generated effects—live children’s TV programs of the 1950s and ‘60s look ancient and crude when you see them on YouTube today. But the local shows were live and unpredictable, even though the youngest viewers knew the lost puppet would safely return, cartoons or Three Stooges shorts would be screened and kids would do the Hokey Pokey with Uncle Al. And that’s what it’s all about, the memories of childhood touchstones.

Kids who grew up in the Cleveland area fondly remember Barnaby, the ukulele-strumming elf with pointy ears who lived in the Enchanted Forest with various puppets and introduced Popeye cartoons. Barnaby, starring Norwalk native Linn Sheldon, aired from 1955 to 1967 on WKYC, then moved to start-up independent station WUAB-TV until 1990. Cleveland kids also watched Franz the Toymaker.

Two generations of Cincinnati viewers sang and danced with Al and Wanda Lewis on the Uncle Al Show, which aired on WCPO from 1950 to 1985. Uncle Al had a variety of sidekicks, including Lucky the Clown (Jack Williams).

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

35

WBNS-10TV

competing with Salty for kids’ attention in northwest Ohio and with Detroit shows such as Milky’s Party Time and the Soupy Sales Show.

THE KING AND QUEEN

Columbus puppeteer Luci VanLeeuwen sits with fans in front of Mr. Tree on her Luci's Toy Shop set at WBNS, where she broadcast weekday mornings from 1960 to 1972.

In terms of longevity, Barnaby and Cincinnati’s Uncle Al Show are Ohio’s kiddie TV champs, each airing 35 years. Longtime Hillsboro resident Al Lewis (Slowik) played his accordion while wearing a plaid suit coat and straw hat on WCPO from 1950 to 1985. After wife Wanda joined him in 1956 as “Captain Windy” in a cape and white boots, Uncle Al aired nationally on ABC in 1958 and 1959. Two generations of viewers still can sing Uncle Al’s daily advice: “Put your toys away, don’t delay, help your Mommy have a happy day.”

At Cincinnati’s WKRC, four-time Purple Heart recipient Glenn Ryle put on a riverboat captain’s outfit in 1955 to become Skipper Ryle of the fictional River Queen. He played Betty Boop and Jonny Quest cartoons, and introduced young viewers to Dr. Albert Sabin’s polio vaccines and Play-Doh. Ohio TV stations also gave captain’s rank to Captain Hal (Fryar) on Youngstown’s WKBN; Captain Cotton on Toledo’s WSPD; Captain Glenn (Rowell) on Cleveland’s WNBK (now WKYC) and Cincinnati’s WLWT; and Cleveland’s Captain Penny, who inexplicably was a train engineer, not a boatman, on WEWS.

WTOL

In Toledo, Jerry Carr wore a white wig and nautical cap for the mythical Toledo Queen on Captain Cotton and Salty from 1960 to 1963. Dick Beach’s Salty the Sailor Clown took over until Mr. T, WTOL, Toledo 1967, when he left to become Boston’s Willie Whistle children’s host. Toledo kids also watched Mr. T—not to be confused with the 1980s A-Team actor and movie star. WTOL’s Jack Kesling did skits and schtick as Mr. T while

36 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

The king and queen of Columbus children’s TV were WBNS’s Flippo The Clown starring Bob Marvin and Luci’s Toy Shop with Luci VanLeeuwen. Flippo’s fans recall he arrived for work in his bubble-shaped Isetta microcar. Flippo filled his shows with magic tricks, but perhaps his best one was staying on Columbus TV for 30 years, and taking his act to the new QUBE cable system in the early 1980s.

Luci’s Toy Shop (1960–1972) was populated by puppets—not toys—which were a staple of live, local kids shows: Cleveland’s Woodrow The Woodsman, the Barnaby spinoff, on WKYC; Glenn Rowell’s Captain Glenn’s Bandwagon on Cincinnati’s WLWT and Captain Glenn’s Boarding House on Cleveland‘s WKYC; Tic Tock Toy Shop and The Uncle Orrie Show on Dayton’s WHIO; Sam Fitzsimmons’ For Kids Only on Lima’s WIMA (now WLIO); and the Uncle Al show.

Dayton’s Larry Smith made his puppeteer debut at 14 on Tic Tock Toy Shop with Joe Rockhold’s Uncle Orrie. He continued to ride a bus after school to WHIO to do puppets for the Uncle Orrie Show, went to The Ohio State University for a year and dropped out to take his puppets to Uncle Al. The nationwide UHF explosion in 1968 made Smith the first huge star on Cincinnati’s WXIX-TV with his Rudy, Teaser and Hattie the Witch puppets. Tiny Tim dropped by to serenade Hattie, and 16 magazine published photos of teen heartthrob Bobby Sherman visiting the show.

TV PIONEERS Kids shows had been part of the TV picture since Ohio’s first commercial station, Cleveland’s WEWS, sent pictures through the air Dec. 17, 1947. Gene Carroll’s Uncle Jake’s House premiered in 1948, and aired until the mid-1950s. These TV pioneers made it up as they went along. When Soupy Sales, known as Soupy Hines in 1951, needed a punch line for a cowboy skit on his Soupy Hines children’s show on Cleveland’s WXEL (now WJW), he asked someone to throw a pie at his face, a gag he took to Detroit for his 1955 national ABC show.

Comedian Tim Conway, a Willoughby native, once said Barnaby star Sheldon “could take 20 cents worth of props and make your imagination run.”

Jack Bennett, star of Akron’s WAKR (now WVPX) Professor Jack Show (1963–1966), said years later that “anything went, there was no script.” Once Bennett ran out of material so he grabbed an Akron Beacon Journal to teach kids how to make a paper hat, and did an improv comedy routine that ended with a huge crumpled ball of paper instead of a hat.

Musician Bob Marvin got the Flippo gig in 1953 when the only other candidate failed to show for WBNS’s Tip Top Bandwagon audition. Tip Top Bread was promoted by New York’s Ward Baking Co. through kids shows across the country in the early 1950s, including Tip Top Clubhouse shows on Youngstown’s WKBN with Clancy the Cop and on Cleveland’s WNBK (now WKYC) with Uncle Joe (Bova), the Cleveland native who later appeared in Serpico, Happy Days and Kojak. Uncle Al started after Lewis opened the WCPO garage door one hot morning in 1950 and invited kids to watch him do his accordion night club act on Al’s Drug Store.

YOU CAN’T FOOL MOM

Southwestern Ohio children were lucky because they could be in the studio audience to win the “best smile” contest on Skipper Ryle, be in a group photo with Captain Windy and Uncle Al or get doused with water on Uncle Orrie. After waiting months for tickets, of course. Six kids also appeared on Romper Room in the 1950s, where local hosts in Columbus, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown and Cincinnati used franchised content. Children at home thought the teacher could see them when she looked through her “Magic Mirror” and rattled off first names.

Kids all across Ohio, however, could see their TV heroes at public appearances: Flippo at Buckeye Lake, a Lancaster Cub Scout banquet and the Mount Vernon Montgomery Ward store; Captain Penny at the Smithville Ox Roast and Ravenna Fire Department Christmas party; Mr. T at the Oak

 Flippo the Clown star Bob Marvin gave up his dance band career in 1960 when Flippo “became nearly a 24-hour job,” doing 100 appearances a year plus his daily WBNS show.

 Ron Penfound (Cleveland’s “Captain Penny”) and Glenn Ryle (Cincinnati’s “Skipper Ryle”) each appeared on ABC’s The Rifleman during the 1961– 1962 TV season.

 Cleveland TV managers looking for a Popeye cartoon host in 1955 rejected all who auditioned in sailor costumes to hire Linn Sheldon, dressed like a leprechaun from Finian’s Rainbow, for the kids show that would be called Barnaby on WNBK (now WKYC).

 Comedian Soupy Sales was known as Soupy Hines on Cleveland’s WXEL (now WJW) in 1951 when he was first hit in the face with a pie, a gag he repeated an estimated 25,000 times in his career.

 Years before creating The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling was a staff writer at Cincinnati’s WLWT in the early 1950s, where he was asked to audition in clown makeup as a sidekick for Tooney the Clown on the Half Pints Club show.

Cleveland Memory

Weatherman-announcer Ron Penfound became Captain Penny in 1954 when his WEWS boss needed an Our Gang comedies host, and put a railroad cap on his head. Loyal viewers can still recite his words of wisdom that ended every show: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool Mom. She’s pretty nice and she’s pretty smart. You listen to her and you won’t go far wrong.”

OHIO KIDS T V TRIVIA

 Franz the Toymaker with Ray Stawiarski aired on Columbus's WBNS in 1962–1963 before moving to Cleveland’s WJW in 1964.

 The Cleveland Indians

Franz the Toymaker, WJW, Cleveland

hired Ron Penfound as their Municipal Stadium public address announcer in 1969, three years before WEWS canceled Captain Penny.

 Hattie the Witch, Rudy, Teaser and Larry Smith’s 40 other puppets, and his castle and tree house sets are on display in the Media Heritage collection at the National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting in West Chester, north of Cincinnati.

 The Mickey Mouse Club was hosted by Cincinnati native Jimmie Dodd, who also wrote all the songs that opened the show.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

37

Harbor mother-daughter dinner; Salty the clown at the Elmore kiddie parade; Sam Fitzsimmons at the Allen County Fairgrounds. An estimated 26,000 jammed into the Cincinnati Zoo to see Skipper Ryle in 1965. Captain Penny helped draw 18,000 to a Cleveland Ford dealership one weekend in 1966.

About 30,000 assembled to see Uncle Al fly Santa into Cincinnati’s Lunken Airport in the mid-1950s.

By the 1970s, local kiddie shows were fading from the TV picture. Animated shows were less expensive than the cast and crew required for a local show. As morning TV news grew, stations dropped kids shows to keep adult viewers tuned in. All baby boomers were left with were their fond memories of a magical bygone era.

John Kiesewetter is TV/media reporter for Cincinnati Public Radio’s WVXU-FM. He has written about television since 1985.

LEARN MORE LEARN MORE From Captain Penny to Superhost: Tales from the Golden Age of Cleveland Children’s Television, 1950s–1970s by Mike and Janice Olszewski takes readers “behind the plywood sets, costumes, and greasepaint for a close-up look at some remarkable personalities. … Despite their low-budget productions, those classic shows and hosts … formed lasting bonds with generations of Northeast Ohio kids.”

In his autobiography, Barnaby and Me, Cleveland children’s television host Linn Sheldon recounts his career “with an exceptionally good ear for a story and a deft touch with words” making him “eminently qualified to tell this touching and very human tale.”

David Kamp provides readers with a national perspective in Sunny Days: The Children’s Television Revolution that Changed America, a “behind-thescenes story of the cultural heroes who created the beloved children’s TV programs Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Free to Be…You and Me and Schoolhouse Rock!”

Photo credits: Page 38, clockwise from top left: Cleveland Memory; Cleveland Memory; Cleveland Memory; Ohio History Connection Archival Collections; WHIO. Page 39, clockwise from top left: Media Heritage; Media Heritage; Mahoning Valley Historical Society; Cleveland Memory; WTVG; Media Heritage

38 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Clockwise from top left: Cleveland’s beloved Barnaby (Linn Sheldon) chats with Cub Scouts; his former sidekick Woodrow the Woodsman (Clay Conroy) waves to viewers; Captain Penny (Ron Penfound) poses with Ticket Agent Wilbur Whiffenpoof (Earl Keyes); Columbus’s Flippo the Clown (Bob Marvin) prepares for a show with WBNS coworkers; and Dayton’s Uncle Orrie (Joe Rockhold) flashes the smile seen on WHIO in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Clockwise from top left: Cincinnati’s Skipper Ryle (Glenn Ryle) opens the prize chest on his fictional River Queen; WLWT's Mr. Hop (Dave Manning) and sidekick Artie the Mouse starred in Cincinnati’s first recorded kids show in the 1960s; Youngstown's Clancy the Cop hosted WKBN's Tip Top Clubhouse in 1954; Miss Barbara (Barbara Plummer) smiles at students on Cleveland’s Romper Room; Toledo's Salty the clown (Dick Beach) greets a young fan; two lucky viewers join Cincinnati's Uncle Al (Al Lewis) on his spaceship.

SONGS & SAYINGS  A birthday cake magically appeared on Luci’s Toy Shop on Columbus’s WBNS when she sang: “I wish I had a birthday cake, I wish I had a birthday cake right here in the toy shop.”  Flippo the Clown star Bob Marvin closed his Columbus show by telling kids: “Love ya, keep smiling, and don’t fight!”  Kids made things disappear on Cincinnati’s Uncle Al Show by chanting: “Alakazam one! Alakazam two! And…Poof!”  A Romper Room host would “see” kids watching at home by looking through her “Magic Mirror” and saying: “Romper, bomper, stomper, boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today: Did all my friends have fun at play?”

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

39

I Think I Can LOIS LENKSI’S PEN AND LIFE ILLUSTRATED THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD BY TOM STAFFORD

O

n Wednesday, June 16, 1915, three members of the Lenski family collected four college degrees.

Lois, the fourth of five children, was conferred a bachelor of science in education and a teaching certificate that morning at The Ohio State University’s castle-like Armory.

The middle child, Oscar, received two degrees: a bachelor of architecture from Ohio State and a bachelor of arts from Bexley’s then all-male Capital University.

In a way, their father, the Rev. R.C.H. Lenski, did the same. His first degree was a doctorate of divinity conferred by Capital, his second, the degree of pleasure he took from knowing two of his children had secure futures ahead of them.

Or so he thought.

Above: Lois Lenski signing books at Springfield's Warder Public Library in 1953 on the occasion of her 60th birthday. Left: Original illustration from the 1931 book Grandmother Tippytoe, ink drawing with color by Lois Lenski.

All images courtesy Clark County Public Library OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

41

Soon, the quiet Lois—who had loved children since her own childhood; who had in college worked part-time on summer playground programs for disadvantaged Columbus children; who had translated French and German folk tales to tell to neighborhood children; and who had read education pioneers Froebel and Montessori in her spare time— announced that she didn’t want to teach.

Her alternative: to study (of all things) art in (of all places) New York City.

Few were more surprised than the young woman who would go on to become a Newbery Medalwinning children’s author while writing and illustrating nearly 100 books enjoyed by toddlers and teens from the 1930s through ‘70s.

She “instinctively wanted and was looking for” the close contact with children teaching would provide, she writes in her 1972 autobiography, Journey into Childhood (quoted throughout this article).

But “always another star loomed over the horizon, beckoning me.”

YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN Her father “vigorously” opposed her art school plans.

“He said he could not help me financially, and if I went I would have to be entirely on my own. How I ever summoned up enough courage to make the break from home in the face of his disapproval,” she writes, “I do not know.”

But from her father and mother she did inherit a work ethic as strong as The Little Engine That Could, the Watty Piper children’s classic she would illustrate in 1930. Like that engine’s, her struggle would be largely alone and uphill.

PUTTING IN THE WORK Lenski then picked up money assisting the widowed father of two at the Christmas toy shop at Lord & Taylor’s department store. The next year, 14-hour days on that project and school landed her in the hospital with influenza, reminders of a health made delicate by two infections that almost claimed her life in childhood: membranous croup, at age 3, and pneumonia five years later.

After five years in New York, she spent two at London’s Westminster School of Art, where she earned her first money illustrating books but continued to live a solitary, sometimes lonely, life.

The girl her mother admonished for being so shy did stop in on Covey’s late wife’s family there, then married the man 16 years her senior in 1921, two weeks after returning to the United States.

She soon felt a shock as great as the one she had given her father.

“One day early in our marriage, I complained to my husband that I had no time for my creative work, that the housework was absorbing me completely.

To my surprise, he was completely unsympathetic.

He replied, ‘Your job is the home and the children.

They come first.’”

When she asked, “What about my work?” the response was, “That’s up you. You’ll have to find the time,” just as her father had told her she would have to find the money.

In her first year at New York’s Arts Students League, Lois lived the life of a cash-strapped graduate student, scrimping, sharing a room and working for pennies apiece illustrating Christmas cards. But all this, she wrote, “made me realize how much creative work meant to me and how important it was to get more training.”

In year two, while rooming with cousin Clara Lenski, an aspiring violinist, she took a free illustration class at the School of Industrial Art from Arthur Covey, who had taught at the Chicago and London art institutes and had assisted the two main painters awarded the Bronze Medal for their mural for the 1914–1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.

A black-and-white line drawing by Lois Lenski for a 1936 book, Phebe Fairchild: Her Book.

42 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED At first angered and tempted to rebel, she ultimately fell just short of thanking her husband.

“In offering me no aid in my struggle, he helped me to realize that I was truly possessed by this creative demon and could not and would not give it up.”

As the children grew, she squeezed in more art lessons in New York. Then, five years into their marriage, she obtained an Overland car that gave her the freedom to take her easel to the countryside or travel to City Island’s Orchard Beach, where she found “seething masses of humanity” to paint.

In 1927 and 1928, two fictionalized accounts of her childhood were published: Skipping Village depicted her years in Anna, Ohio, and A Little Girl of 1900, her years in Springfield, Ohio, where she was born (and where the children’s library is named for her).

Lois gave birth to son Stephen Covey on Feb. 8, 1929, four months before the family relocated to a 113acre farm in Harwinton, Connecticut, they called Greenacres. The move was made considerably less idyllic because the home lacked electricity, which she said set housework “back to the dark ages.”

MR. SMALL AND DAVY Still, Lenski produced a dozen picture books and half a dozen early storybooks during the following decade, many in a remodeled and later expanded coffin-making building at the side of a hayfield. Book ideas she once struggled with “came on wings” and “were legion,” she writes: “If only one had health and strength and wisdom enough to put them down on paper.” And she began to see the creative force not as demonic but as “a higher power working through us.

In consequence, the use of our gifts becomes not a selfish pleasure (selfishness a trait to be regretted) but the holding of a sacred trust.”

During that same decade, she added a dozen books about historical children for preteens, all meticulously researched and two recognized as Newbery Honor Books. Wedged in were 10 books in the Mr. Small series, inspired by Stephen's childhood and loved for decades by children. The same audience would enjoy seven Davy books written from 1941 to 1961, inspired by and named for the step-grandson who summered with her.

But in the early 1940s, a series of harsh Connecticut winters had taken its toll on her unsteady health.

Finding herself unable even to sit comfortably in front of her easel, she followed her doctor’s advice to winter in the more temperate South. With son Stephen off to

Above: Photograph of Lois Lenski taken in 1948.

Inset: Lois Lenski, age 4.

prep school, she was freed from the responsibilities of child care at the same time she was emerging from a chill shadow she addresses with unapologetic frankness in her autobiography.

The increased importance of writing in her work “took me out from Arthur Covey’s influence. I was no longer his pupil, I was going in a new direction— a direction in which he could not follow, to guide me.

So, I had to make my way alone”—again, but at least not with hindrance.

“I had learned in the early days to keep my work outwardly unimportant. … I wanted to avoid contributing to a feeling of jealousy. I could not bear to have a cherished idea of mine thoughtlessly condemned and trampled underfoot.”

DOWN SOUTH Her first winter in Mississippi, children gathered around her as she painted. Soon, the woman who had written first about her own childhood, and then about those of her own son and children of history, was writing Bayou Suzette, the first of 17 regional books that would both inspire her and teach her about the nation’s cultural landscape.

“On my trips south, I saw the real America for the first time. I saw and learned what the word region meant as I witnessed firsthand different ways of life unlike my own.”

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

43

The dust jackets for three of Lenski's most popular books, Spring Is Here, Blueberry Corners and The Little Train.

Strawberry Girl, the second of her regional books, was set among the horse people of Florida and won her a Newbery Medal in 1946. As important, her practice of living among the people she was writing about, much like an embedded reporter, was balm for loneliness.

Tom Stafford spent 35 years as a reporter

While working on Cotton in My Sack, she writes, “The cotton people were my people. I was warmed by their kinship and happy in the thought that I belonged there. …To merit the confidence these people spontaneously placed in me has been a rich experience indeed”—one that seemed to comfort her, body and soul.

LEA RN MORE LEARN MORE

“One of the best cures for pain, illness and physical discomfort is creative thinking,” she writes. “It fills one with a sense of well-being, an indescribable joy which carries one’s thoughts and imagination along, so that one’s body can be forgotten. Creative effort lifts one above the sense of the corporeal body.”

REGIONAL BOOKS A HIT

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.

Journey into Childhood: The Autobiography of Lois Lenski was published in 1972 by the J.B. Lippincott Co. two years before the author’s death.

Lois Lenski: Storycatcher by Bobbie Malone “follows her development as a writer and as an artist, and it traces the evolution of her passionate belief in the power of empathy conveyed in children’s books. Understanding that youngsters responded instinctively to narratives rich in reality, Lenski turned her extensive study of hardworking families into books that accurately and movingly depicted the lives of the children of sharecroppers, coal miners, and migrant field workers.”

There was one more crucial element about the regional books written from 1943 to 1968 and the dozen that followed for younger children in the Roundabout America Series—a thing that would have pleased her by-then deceased father.

In accepting one of her Newbery Medals, she said, “I am trying to say to children that all people are flesh and blood, and have feelings like themselves, no matter where they live or how simply they live or how little they have. I am trying to point out that people of character, people who are guided by spiritual values, come often from simple surroundings and are worthy of our admiration and even our emulation.”

The woman who had resisted classroom teaching was, through her art, trying to teach children to love their neighbors as themselves.

44 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

Above: Original illustration from Lois Lenski's 1953 book, Mama Hattie’s Girl. Right: Illustration for Blueberry Corners, 1940.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

45

I Wish I’d Been There

ELVIS PRESLEY’S 1955 CONCERT AT BROOKLYN HIGH SCHOOL

BY BILL SCHURK

I’d just graduated from Wilbur Wright Junior High School in June 1955, whiled away my summer and entered 10th grade at John Marshall High School on Cleveland’s West Side in September.

Little did I know—and for that matter neither did my classmates—that within a little over a month, Oct. 20 to be exact, and only five miles away, there would be one of the coolest assemblies/concerts of all time—especially for we tough and music-hungry kids. We weren’t going to be there, but the lucky students at Brooklyn High School just south of the Big City were!

I’m talking about a touring group of rock ‘n’ roll and pop singers and musicians visiting local schools and nearby gathering places. All of this excitement was organized and arranged by two prominent WERE disc jockeys, Bill Randle and Tommy Edwards. Between them, all types of pop music made the radio waves. (Randle had more of a pop/ jazz/rock ‘n’ roll bent, while Edwards covered mostly rock ‘n’ roll and country.)

A LIT TLE-KNOWN SINGER Some of the singers on the concert program included Pat Boone, Bill Haley and his Comets, the Four Lads, Priscilla Wright and—surprise, surprise—an unknown at the time, Elvis Presley.

Bill Haley’s group was one of the highlights with its hit songs Shake, Rattle,

46 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

and Roll; Dim, Dim, the Lights; and the No. 1 hit, Rock Around the Clock, all on Decca Records. Haley had recorded earlier on the Essex label more as a country act, naming his group “The Saddlemen.”

Pat Boone was known as an easygoing crooner fronting a full orchestra. His specialty: introducing listeners to less “wild” versions of current popular rhythm and blues vocals, much to the derision of the purists of that musical style. Boone played three of those covers, including Two Hearts by the Charms, Ain’t That a Shame by Fats Domino and At My Front Door by the El Dorados.

Two Canadian acts were also on the bill: Priscilla Wright (The Man in the Raincoat) and The Four Lads from Toronto (Moments to Remember).

No, I’m not leaving Elvis out!

FROM COUNTRY TO ROCK The King had actually performed in Cleveland in February on a bill featuring country performers put together by DJ Tommy Edwards. This time around, his rock ‘n’ roll/country roots were going to shine.

Elvis was actually the first artist to score hits for Sun Records, Sam Phillips’s independent label in Memphis. A number of other musicians would follow in his footsteps, but Elvis was first. As they awaited the last act to appear on stage at Brooklyn High, the kids were getting restless but

still behaved themselves. All 600+ students had been promised by their superintendent that if they didn’t get out of hand they would be treated with another show in the future.

With his band playing in the background, Elvis twisted, shook and bopped all over the stage and the teens quietly got loud. They were treated to songs they possibly listened to on the radio or would be buying soon in their local record store.

Included for the audience were Baby, Let’s Play House; I Forgot to Remember to Forget; and Mystery Train. Through all of this, Bill Randle was “pleased as punch” because he knew he had a winner in Elvis. (But Pat Boone was a little skeptical and figured that Elvis wasn’t going to move far out of his country roots.)

A DOCUMENTARY FILM Randle was a towering figure, not only in the Cleveland market but also throughout the nation. His burgeoning fame gave Bill the idea that a documentary film of his role during the tour would introduce him to other audiences and markets. He became the self-proclaimed Pied Piper of Cleveland.

Thus, Brooklyn High School was on this filming schedule and Bill was going to continue to be a proud man.

It’s easy to surmise that most of the students, at least in Brooklyn, didn’t know there was filming going on. If all went well, Elvis Presley would be captured on film for the first time and history would be made.

Since Elvis was last on the bill and time was running short, the cameraman and his assistant decided that this guy could be left off to save some footage. Bill wouldn’t hear any of this and slipped some checks to them and they kept

Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Historical Society

on with their task. And there it was, they had Elvis.

Following all of these performances and the filming, the documentary was shown in various venues across the country. And then it mysteriously disappeared—supposedly. After Randle donated most, if not all, of his recordings, books and memorabilia to the Bowling Green State University Sound Recordings Archives and Popular Culture Library a couple decades after this concert, people found out about his donation and began calling the library to see whether the video was in the collection.

WHERE’S THE TAPE? That was actually the first time I had ever even known about the film and its history. It turned out that it wasn’t part of Randle’s donation and its whereabouts is still in limbo. There is speculation regarding the location of the negatives. Did Col. Tom Parker, Elvis’s manager, destroy them, or did Randle actually sell them before he passed away?

Because that concert was part of my time and my music, I became attached to all things related to that visual artifact. Elvis’s first time in film and second time appearing above the Mason-Dixon Line—some concept!

I have been a record collector since my pre-teen days, so with my particular interest in rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, rockabilly and country, Elvis checks all the boxes. His first discs were on 78 rpm, then 45 rpm, then LPs and finally CDs. And he was always on the radio. He blended all those musical forms and gave me musical treats forever!

Elvis Presley, right, at Brooklyn High School in 1955. Guitarist Scotty Moore is left, bass player Bill Black, middle.

Bill Schurk made his mark on Bowling Green State University’s nationally renowned Music Library and Sound Recordings Archives for 50 years. He retired as BGSU's sound recordings archivist in 2017.

LEARN MORE

According to the Internet Movie Database, due to legal problems over ownership of the film, it has yet to be released officially since it was first previewed by the public in 1956.

“Universal Studios reportedly still has the negatives in its vault.”

1950s Radio in Color: The Lost Photographs of Deejay Tommy Edwards, by Christopher Kennedy, features more than 200 candid photographs that “capture the birth of rock ‘n’ roll at its flash point: Elvis Presley while he was still dangerous; a

raw and incomplete Chuck Berry before his star ascended; and some beady-eyed, high-voiced kid named Roy Orbison. It wasn’t just the architects of rock music whom Edwards had in his viewfinder.

There were also pop and country music’s biggest stars; mysterious, unknown hopefuls; and vulnerable, deglamorized Hollywood celebrities.”

The Center for American Music Preservation released the multimedia collection The Bill Randle Chronicles: From Electric Elvis to The Shakers by Roger Lee Hall in 2016. The disc is available for $20 at ohiohistory.org/Elvis1.

I wish I’d been there to see it.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

47

Unbought & Unbossed T H E S H I R L E Y C H I S H O L M S T O RY YO U N G E Y E S O N T H E PA S T BY LOREN WILLHIGHT AND MICHAEL GR AY

Chisholm was a Black woman who continuously experienced adversity while trying to diversify American politics. Chisholm broke barriers in history by trying to transform her community’s issues into solutions. All of these things combined are what inspired us to make such a project about her.

CHISHOLM SPEAKS When we began our research, we tried to find sources that were credible, but also not just boring facts about her life. We started with the most obvious and bought her memoir, Unbought and Unbossed. (The title came from her 1968 campaign slogan in her successful run for Congress.) This book was informative because it was from her perspective and went all the way from her early life on to her career and what she planned to do in the future after publication.

After trying to find important quotes and facts about her from her book, we tried to find professional journal articles that were written by others

48 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

about Chisholm herself. We wanted to have this project focus on how the intersection of her being a woman and Black made her job more difficult in every way. A lot of journal articles that we found were about how she forged a path for every other Black woman in politics. We found articles explaining how she was a congresswoman and why she decided to run for the presidency at one point.

Chisholm was a pioneer in politics, and she was the precursor for a lot of things that are happening today.

This project was fun and interesting because we were so excited to learn more about everything that Chisholm did and went through. She was very inspiring, and everything we learned about her motivates us to make a change in this world.

CREATING A WEBSITE After gathering all this research, we had to find ways to break it up into different parts of the website we were creating so the content would be well-organized. We gave a background first for people who might not have heard of her before because we didn’t know much about her before this project, either.

We knew that it would be helpful for everyone and then we went on to explain her short-term impacts on the country. She was instrumental in the development of the government’s food stamp program and later played a critical role in the creation of the Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children, also known as WIC. TO THE CAPITOL! As we looked deeper, we found many more long-term impacts, which makes sense since she was the first to do something as important as serving in the House of Representatives. As the first Black congresswoman, she forged a path for Black people, and Black women specifically.

Library of Congress

Shirley Chisholm once said, “In the end anti-Black, anti-female and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.” Having experienced discrimination ourselves, we thought that diving deeper into her specific history as our History Day project would be interesting as well as informative.

Library of Congress

Loren Willhight is a junior at Toledo Early College High School.

She has played violin for six years and performs in the Toledo Symphony Youth Orchestra. She is in Toledo Excel, a scholarship incentive program administered by the high school and the University of Toledo. She would like to become a pharmacist.

Michael Gray attends the same school and wants to be an engineer.

LEARN MORE MORE LEARN

Shirley Chisholm once famously said, “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” In their biography Shirley Chisholm Is a Verb, author Veronica Chambers and illustrator Rachelle Baker “illuminate how Chisholm was a doer, an active and vocal participant in our nation’s democracy, and a force to be reckoned with.” Aimed at young readers, the biography covers Chisholm’s “early years, her time in Congress, her presidential bid and how her actions left a lasting legacy that continues to inspire, uplift, and instruct.”

On the 40th anniversary of the publication of Unbought and Unbossed in 2010, publisher Take Root Media issued Chisholm’s memoir with essays by Donna Brazile, Shola Lynch and others “exploring Shirley Chisholm’s impact on today and tomorrow’s world.”

Left: Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm announcing her candidacy for the presidency in 1972. Above: A campaign poster for Chisholm’s 1972 run for the U.S. House of Representatives.

She was very inspiring, and everything we learned about her motivates us to make a change in this world.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

49

Reviews

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

BOOK

Sparks Flew: WOSUʼs Century on the Air by Thomas M. Rieland

By the time he was in college, he had announcing jobs at three La Crosse, Wisconsin, radio stations. He left the Center for Public Television & Radio at the University of Alabama in the fall of 2002 to become the general manager of WOSU Public Media, hence this history of The Ohio State University’s “century on the air.”

Sparks Flew begins in the early days of radio, when OSU engineering student Robert Marriott studied Hertzian waves and built a homemade receiver in the early 1900s. By 1902, Marriott was living in California, where he launched the first commercial wireless station on the Pacific Coast, at Santa Catalina Island southwest of Los Angeles.

When radio exploded during the 1920s, Ohio State remained at the forefront of the new technology with the first broadcast of 8XI (experimental call letters) on April 24, 1922. In Sparks Flew, Rieland is particularly generous with the interesting details of his stories.

50 Echoes | MAY & JUNE 2021

He writes that the first broadcast “included musical selections on 78 rpm records courtesy of the Victor Talking Machine Company. Selections included the Paul Whiteman Orchestra performing Poet and Peasant, Honolulu Eyes and Ty-Tee.” He tells another funny story about a fraternity that charged 10 cents a head at a 1922 university carnival to put headphones on and listen to the powerful KDKA station out of Pittsburgh. But all they could get was static. Fraternity members “tracked down the radio operator in charge of Ohio State’s transmitter” and recruited 15 members of the OSU marching band to play music, which was billed as coming from KDKA. “No one was the wiser.”

Images courtesy of The Ohio State University

Perhaps Thomas Rieland was destined for radio and television.

In his preface for Sparks Flew, he writes of his childhood, “The Rieland boys may have been inspired by our dad’s craving for some of the latest technology. We were the first in the neighborhood to buy a color TV in the early 1960s, and neighbors would show up to watch broadcasts of Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” When he was 13, Rieland “pulled the Revere (reel-to-reel recorder) out of the attic to tape songs off the radio and then erase everything between the music and record my own pubescent voice mimicking a local disc jockey.”

During the 1923–1924 school year, WEAO (later WOSU) “broadcast 174 lectures, daily market and weather reports for farmers, a variety of music programs, and OSU football games,” strengthening its mission to educate Ohioans. Construction began on WOSU TV studios in 1954.

Rieland’s history is meticulously researched and wide-ranging. He touches on all the significant national events that had impacts on the radio and television industries. But he never forgets his reader or the human face of his subject. Near book’s end, Rieland quotes a poem Columbus Dispatch columnist Joe Blundo wrote in honor of Open Line host Fred Anderle’s last show: “Twixt 13-minute commercial break, / A maelstrom of BS and bile / From end to end on the radio dial, / And where to find shelter from the dread? / In the one safe harbor, name of Fred. / Tender eardrums did he spare / From bombast bursting on the air.”

—Bill Eichenberger, Echoes Magazine

Top: WOSU radio was the first educational station to provide an audience guide, starting in 1926.

Middle: Station engineers installed and serviced UHF converters at the request of WOSU-TV viewers, making more than 1500 service calls in the first year on air. Bottom: John and Mary Schmidt hosting and singing for Songs for a Summer Evening, a live musical series that began in July 1956.

Ohio History Connection Archival Collections

Elminie Holland Rickman, founder of Rick's Child Guidance Center in Columbus, awards diplomas to kindergarten graduates about 1960.

OHIOHIS TORY.ORG

51

OHIO HISTORY CONNECTION 800 E. 17th Ave. Columbus, OH 43211-2474 ohiohistor y.org

NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID COLUMBUS, OH PERMIT No. 1157

ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

ROAD TRIP?

Bring Your Passport!

OVER 50 SITES INSIDE!

Passport to Your Ohio History features places to go where history happened, along with fun facts and trivia questions to answer when you visit each one.

NORTH

WEST SITE

2

NO

CREATE A SPECIAL SOUVENIR

ST RTHWE

SITE

1

e Preser

ng, l Armstro n by Nei sion raft flow llo 11 mis llo the Apo sized airc , Ohio, 500 Apo two full- , artifacts from akoneta es Wap er on rock, sule chronicl ures oth See a mo VIII space cap ini seum that ments and feat ieve the Gem Explore the mu and ach . re. ng’s life and mo stry stro indu l Arm ce eloped native Nei oans in the spa t was dev ibit tha Ohi t on exh notable produc sumer con one logy?

What is A techno using NAS

ArmstroDr., Wapakoneta 458

ve

7 .860.014

tur Bog Na U.S. 68, Urbana 430 00 years ago. Walk 10,0 haven Rd., off o over serve, a odburn nce Ohi Ice Age -acre pre to experie ugh this 450 e that are est ar Bog uding som alk thro is the larg a Visit Ced als, incl ar Bog g boardw has ts and animLandmark, Ced in Ohio and a mile-lon plex ural y rare plan for man A National Nat land com wet irie ts. flowers. remnan le of a pra might dland wild t examp you bes woo als and and of anim of prairie d species wealth ere endang name two Can you ar Bog? Ced find at

Cedar um e Muse & Spac • 800.860.0142 ng Air 95

78 • 800

980 Wo

p goes

Your stam

here!

9 !

here p goes

Your stam

Ohio Hist

Ohio Hist

ory Conn

ectio n

| PAS

ory Con

nect ion

| PAS SPO

Get your Passport stamped or collect a oneof-a-kind rubbing at each place and create a fun souvenir of your travels.

RT

SPO RT

8

ohiohistory.org/passport 800 E. 17th Ave., Columbus, OH 43211-2474

GET ONE TODAY Pick up Passport free at many Ohio History Connection museums and attractions, or have one sent for just $2: ohiohistory.org/passport or 800.686.6124.

Members: Email membership@ohiohistory.org for your free Passport.