Read Our eBooks

"It is the 1920's. A young poet stands on a bridge at midnight. Below him the river slides black and mysterious, beyond him the lights of the city sparkle. He looks up and raises his arms towards the sky in speechless communion. His fingers 'spread among stars.' He is consumed with the visions which in a few years will culminate in The Bridge. Who might the poet be? Hart Crane, of course. And the bridge and city? The Brooklyn Bridge in New York, right? No, wrong! The bridge is the Detroit- Superior Bridge and the city is Cleveland." — from the Introduction

Another Cleveland Memory exclusive! This is the intimate story of Peter Almond, a young British journalist who immigrated to Cleveland in 1970, and worked at The Cleveland Press newspaper until its demise in 1982. His story uniquely details the history, personalities, politics, issues and passions of North East Ohio – from the serious, to the lighthearted, to the tragic - through the eyes of an outside observer.

"Like all other newcomers to this country, the Romanians, too, have found here a new spiritual strength, a new conception of freedom and limitless possibilities for advancement. "

"In the Old Country many Romanians were deprived of liberty and they are, naturally, happy to see their American-born children grow up in the spirit of free America. The Romanian immigrants are happy that their children are able to take their place in the economic, political and cultural life of this land."

The Euclid Heights Allotment was a late nineteenth predecessor to the Van Sweringen brothers' Shaker Heights development, anticipating many of the themes of its more famous successor. Located on the heights overlooking Case Western Reserve University, Euclid Heights was the first elite subdivision to marry new electric streetcar technology with the romantic appeal of Cleveland's heights and provide a sheltered, restricted residential community for the wealthy citizens gradually moving out Euclid Avenue to the University Circle area.

A Cleveland Memory exclusive! John Stark Bellamy II is familiar to local readers for his previous three books on famous murders. This, his first e-book (and ours!), will have no corresponding print edition.

An overview of regional housing dynamics and consequent impacts in Northeast Ohio since the 1940s. Focus is on the city of Cleveland and its host county. Dynamics are examined in terms of supply and demand, population movement, lifespan of buildings, and the influence of government on the choices people have when considering where to live. Impacts include housing decline and abandonment, change in property value, and urban sprawl. Recommendations, centered on tax-base growth sharing, are presented for altering existing dynamics to support Northeast Ohio’s resurgence.

100 op-ed articles submitted by Thomas Bier to the Plain Dealer and published between 1977 and 2022. Most of the articles concern a current event or issue in the city of Cleveland and/or communities in Northeast Ohio. 100 articles involve 100 topics, varying from local history, to the effect of public policy on communities, to where to locate a new baseball stadium.

Submitted by Joseph G. Blake in May 1968 to the History Department of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana in partial fulfillment for a Bachelor of Arts Degree, it examines the Van Sweringen Developments in Cleveland, Shaker Heights, and the Cleveland Terminal development.

"As part of the Office of Archeology and Historic preservation, Department of Interior, the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) documents historic engineering and industrial sites throughout the Nation. This inventory is the first step in the documentation process." -- from the Introduction

"Courageous, proud and daring, the Poles are like the eagle that has served as their national emblem since the twelfth century. They have preserved their culture and national identity against the nearly insurmountable odds of debilitating alien rule, devastating major wars and the surrender of their lands for 150 years to foreign powers. The Poles' intense pride in their culture is more than justifiable considering the broad spectrum of human endeavor they have enriched through their contributions." This 3-part monograph by four different authors covers Polish history and culture, immigration to America, and the Polish community of Cleveland.

This work recounts and analyses the socio-political conditions leading up to the event known as the 'Cleveland May Day Riots of 1919', as well as the political fallout of the riot. The author compares this analysis to the subsequent May Day events in Cleveland in the subsequent decades and the further degeneration of the socialist movement in Cleveland. While the Cleveland May Day riot is admittedly only a single event in American history, it has links to larger national and international questions, particularly those that relate to words and labels such as "radical", "patriot", "alien", and "American".

The Civic is a former Jewish temple located in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, an inner-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The building was close to being abandoned and possibly torn down after its former congregation built a new facility farther out in the suburbs. This study describes how a former temple came to serve the community in a new and different way in the secular world.

Prepared by a general committee appointed by Henry W. S. Wood, general chairman of the committee in charge of the exercises coincident with the formal dedication of the new Detroit-Superior high level bridge.

The history of Cleveland is intimately connected with the settlement of the Irish immigrants. Their struggle for survival in the early days, their social, political and economic upward movement as well as their impact on the growth of Cleveland is vividly portrayed in this monograph by two distinguished Clevelanders.

During Cleveland’s Great Depression grew the first seeds of American Nazism. The city fostered an explicitly Nazi German-American Bund, a covert Silvershirt Legion detachment and prominent diplomatic agents from the Third Reich. Festooned with photos and meticulously documented, this book examines the timeless questions of American allegiance, the responsibilities of democratic governance, the security threats of "Un-American" activities, and the passions, motivations and dreams of American immigrants. In the most unlikely of places, here is a case-study true story of the fascinating, bewildering and terrifying rise of American Nazism.

When the Cleveland Union Terminal was formally opened in 1930, this souvenir dedication book was issued, explaining the new project and showing beautiful drawings of the facility.

Although not credited in the orginal book, the illustrations appear to be the work of John Kemeny, noted illustrator of Hungarian language publications in Cleveland at the time.

Originally published in 1878, this eBook edition is an account of the origin of the Cleveland Viaduct, Cleveland's first high-level bridge, which opened in December 1878.

Former Plain Dealer columnist George Condon coined the phrase "The Best Kept Secret" that has since become synonymous with Cleveland (no longer the Mistake on the Lake!). This book is his masterpiece, a compilation of history, familiar names and faces, and the tongue in cheek humanism that made his column a household institution in Cleveland for a quarter century. (Review from Amazon.com)

Democratizing Cleveland is the result of almost fifteen years of research on a topic that has been missing from local works on Cleveland history: the community organizing movement that put neighborhood concerns and neighborhood voices front and center in the setting of public policies in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Long before Jacobs Field, the area just south of downtown was the site of the Haymarket district, the Central Market and parts of the Big Italy neighborhood. Edward D'Alessandro lived in "the Ginney Block," an Italian immigrant apartment building, until the new Cleveland Union Terminal construction project demolished it in 1928.

Post script: This self-described "dead-end kid" graduated Magna Cum Laude from John Carroll University and enjoyed a 40-year career at the Cleveland Public Library, retiring in 1970 as Director of the Library.

The author recounts the life of his father, Rocco D'Alessandro, a master tailor, who immigrated to Cleveland, Ohio from Italy at the turn of the 20th century.

"Plain Dealing" is a book of essays by 25 accomplished Cleveland-area journalists. It's a book of stories, many never told before. It's a first-person account of journalism in Cleveland, life in the newsroom, the issues and events these journalists covered, and the characters they worked with and met.

The stories begin in the 1950s and go up to 2013, covering the post-World War II era through the days when Cleveland was a three daily newspaper city, then two, then one. The book ends with the mass layoffs and resulting decline that ushered in "digital-first" age.

Memories of a 44 year veteran of The Press, written specifically for Cleveland Memory and the Cleveland Press Collection.

from the introduction:
"Of particular interest to the younger generations of the latter group, but also to Americans generally, will be the clear and succinct history of the struggle of Serbia and the Serbs for freedom and democracy depicted on the following pages. The discussion of Serbian values, customs, mores, and their aspirations and struggles provides much that is exciting and stimulating for anyone who believes in freedom."

from the last chapter:
"...the crooked little Cuyahoga, no larger than many a good fishing stream, required of men their best effort and magnified them. It turned them into giants who forced the valley into the pivotal position in mid-America's economy.

The little river is still challenging men to works so vast that mile for mile it can't be matched by any river I have ever heard of in the world."

from the preface by Dr. Karl Bonutti:
"It is with special pride that we introduce this monograph to the Cleveland community, not only for its scholarly value, but for having brought together, in a joint project, writers of so many nationalities of Asian descent. While each of these sections is different in style and emphasis, they blend very well into a single work which, we hope, will lead to a better understanding of our community and of our nation. "

The Gamut : A Journal of Ideas and Information was published from 1980 to 1992 by Cleveland State University in the fall, winter, and spring/summer of each year. It contains articles and creative works by writers and artists of Northern Ohio about topics of interest to readers of this region.

Blythe Gehring with her husband and two children moved to Clifton Park in 1959 where the pending extension of Clifton Boulevard was the subject of hot debate. Her curiosity about the "Park" and the impact the extended road would have on it led to a seven year research project culminating in the publication of "Vignettes of Clifton Park"

Research of this second project started in 1971-1972 and again in 1983 to December 31, 1995. All photographs were taken in 1985. Vignettes of Clifton Park II explains missing house additions and landscape changes. The purpose of this book is to list owners of the properties, a genealogy of the homes so to speak.

Initially published in 1982, this book serves as an historical survey of the community arts council movement, as well as an analysis of programs, practices, and trends. Research for the book includes analysis of original source documents from arts councils, as well as discussions with more than 100 members and leaders of arts councils nationwide, including leaders of the National Endowment of the Arts and the American Arts Alliance.

Charles Chesnutt in the Classroom is designed to introduce students, teachers, and interested readers to historical connections between Groveland, Ohio, the location for most of Chesnutt’s northern fiction, and Cleveland, Ohio, where Chesnutt was born in 1858 and died in 1932. Chesnutt’s life, which spans two centuries, offers a unique lens to not only observe Cleveland the verge of urbanization but also understand its influence on black education, Black Nationalism and the emerging Black Middle Class, with particular attention paid to deconstructing Chesnutt’s use of satiric perspective in describing race relations in Northeast Ohio and state of American politics at the turn of the 19th century.

Burt W. Griffin has been a judge of the Common Pleas Court of Cuyahoga County, Ohio since January 3, 1975. From 1966 to 1975, he served as a legal aid lawyer in various capacities including Executive Director of the Cleveland Legal Aid Society and National Director of the Legal Services Program, U.S. Office of Economic opportunity.

He was Assistant Counsel to the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy during 1964.

Judge Griffin has been a life-long resident of Greater Cleveland. He was born in Cleveland's Hough section in 1932, lived in the Shaker Square area of Cleveland from 1937 to 1960, and has resided in Shaker Heights since then. Judge Griffin is a political science graduate of Amherst College, B.A. Cum Laude, 1954 and Yale Law School, J.D., 1959. (from the original back cover, but still current in 2005)

The purpose of this guide is to serve as an introduction and field guide to the stone used for Northeastern Ohio’s sacred landmarks. Both exterior and interior stones are described. Locations are given so that visitors can find various interior features. Finally, interesting facts having to do with the stones are given in a remarks section and references to sources used.

Written for his family and submitted to Cleveland Memory, this is James Heaphey's personal account of growing up on Cleveland's east side. James Heaphey is currently a professor emeritus at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, State University of New York and once served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force from 1951 to 1954. He is the author of two other books, How to Survive in an Organization and Legerdemain: The President's Secret Plan, The Bomb and What The French Never Knew.

Between Spires and Stacks is a hard-to-find 1936 classic examination of juvenile welfare in Cleveland’s Tremont neighborhood. Written by Charles E. Hendry and Margaret T. Svendsen, and published by the Welfare Federation of Cleveland, it is presented here with the generous permission of the Center for Community Solutions, the Federation’s successor.

This retrospective describes and assesses Cleveland’s approach as a legacy city to neighborhood revitalization from the early 1980s to the subprime mortgage foreclosure crisis of 2008 and its immediate aftermath.

Tom L. Johnson was a pioneer in politics in the doing of things because they were right rather than because they were expedient. He believed in the people, and he addressed himself to them with a sincerity, vigor, and freshness of method as unusual as they are effective.

His moral courage, coupled with an intense desire to have social wrongs corrected, caused him often to challenge the authority of those in high places. Up to his last hour of consciousness he was living ahead of the generation just born.

This book was published in 1896 to commemorate the centennial of the City of Cleveland.

A short memoir reflecting on a lively career spent at the Cleveland Press copy desk by jack-of-all-trades (and master of several), Bob Kirsop, during the 1960's and 70's. A snapshot in time, and a fascinating insight into the inner workings of a major newspaper before the internet.

This writing will investigate the Fortune 500 phenomenon as it pertains to Cleveland’s long-term business success. Those Fortune 500s headquartered in this city with their unique perspectives towards operating their respective enterprises deserve further scrutiny by analysts especially given today’s many economic and financial uncertainties.

"This book is a tribute to one of Cleveland’s greatest leaders. Ralph J. Perk embodied the quintessential 20th century politician. A dedicated administrator with both insight and foresight, he dedicated nearly fifty years to public service." — Richard Klein

"The numerous business contributions made by some of the major Cleveland, OH auto dealerships over the past 130-years will be recognized in this book and how their innovative approaches towards both marketing and selling vehicles influenced the automotive industry over that same period." — Richard Klein

"This writing will focus on some the major fast-food establishments that served Greater Cleveland and how they evolved over time. Emphasis will also be placed on some of the smaller as well as larger restaurants. To lend additional clarity, this study will investigate some leading national chains whose innovations within the industry set the pace for current development." — Richard Klein

"Did you ever wonder what happened to the great Top 40 radio stations of the 1950s and 1960s? This writing will focus on one of the Midwest’s radio broadcasting legends." — Richard Klein

"This book is a tribute to the eight major downtown Cleveland department stores and their many loyal customers. For over 150 years, these large stores dominated the local retail scene. They represented exciting places that not only provided a full range of goods and services all under one roof, but also, offered a special shopping adventure every time their customers visited" — Richard Klein

"This book recognizes the many business contributions made by the major Cleveland, Ohio-based drugstore chains over the past two hundred years and how their highly resourceful approaches towards marketing and retailing affected the national pharmacy industry over that same period of time." — Richard Klein

This monograph presents a concise but comprehensive look at the history of religion in Northeast Ohio. Starting with the early settlers from New England, Professor Knepper traces the increasingly diverse mixture of faiths that now characterize the life of the sacred in Northeast Ohio. In doing this, Professor Knepper is drawing on a lifetime of study into Ohio's history.

During the night of July 18, 1966, racial turmoil in Cleveland's Hough neighborhood resulted in one of the most serious outbreaks of civil disorder in the city's history. A week later, when the National Guard had finally restored order, four people were dead, dozens were injured, hundreds of fires had been reported, and millions of dollars of property had been destroyed.

This thesis was presented to Princeton University only two years after the riots.

"This dissertation aims to disprove the declension narrative's interpretation of the 'long, hot summers' by specifically examining the Hough riots. Historiographical trends demonstrate that the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements were not separate, sequenced periods, delineated by the riots into two, distinct ideologies. Existing in the North before the riots, both movements were more complex than the narratives' moralistic binary. The Civil Rights Movement sought to restore to African-Americans the rights of citizenship guaranteed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments through legislative change. In its most essential form, the Black Power Movement called for the independent development of political and social institutions for black people and emphasized pride in black culture. The Civil Rights and Black Power Movements were two different approaches to the amelioration of the black condition in America. This dissertation will argue that the Hough riots, including its cause and aftermath, were at the intersection of both these strategies." — From the Introduction.

The Cultural Gardens constitute a verdant symbol of the perpetual renewal of the human spirit through past cultures and future aspirations. As divergent elements of an harmonious whole, they represent democracy and brotherhood as set forth in the American ideal. They are testimony to the faith of their founders that in the visions of poet and prophet, of artist and musician, are after all to be found the supreme realities of history, and that it is the dreams of men which forge the destinies of nations.

The contributions of the Syrian and Lebanese people in the political, educational, professional and business life of America are numerous. These achievements were made despite serious obstacles and prejudices which they faced in the early years. This book offers one profile of that history in the Cleveland area.

On June 1, 1965 Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Plain Dealer and a Willowick, Ohio resident, left Falmouth, Massachusetts aboard his 13.5-foot sailboat, Tinkerbelle, to begin his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He arrived in Falmouth, England seventy-eight days later on August 17, 1965. At the time of the crossing Tinkerbelle was the smallest boat to have ever crossed the Atlantic.

It is to be hoped that this brief history will stimulate a new generation of poets, dramatists, writers, moviemakers, historians, and scholars of every sort to prepare better histories and greater works in the future. Immigration is a voyage that lasts for many generations. Some day soon, a generation will come along that will link hands again with the culture left behind, and in a kind of circle complete the fragmentary journey so far, and so painfully, traversed.

This monograph was written as part of the Cleveland Heritage Program in 1984 to provide more up-to-date information for researchers of Cleveland's history. The focus is well-established neighborhoods in Cleveland.

The author’s master’s thesis, written in the mid-1970s as the first preservation efforts were underway in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. Poh Miller argues for the conservation of Ohio City’s diverse cultures and people, as well as its distinctive architecture. This thesis was submitted to the faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. Originally written: May 1975; Online publication: September 2018.

from the foreward by Darrell A. Young:
"The city fathers have been called visionaries. The city has been studied by architects, planners, engineers and the like from all over the country. What is it about Beachwood that has attracted so much attention?

To be certain, there is something magical that has taken place over the last 80 years in Beachwood and Jeffrey Morris has finally documented the historical blueprint from which we can study and learn. This book is the first opportunity to understand our heritage and to delve into the intellect that forged this wonderful community."

This document traces the movement, growth and demise of the small neighborhood synagogues, or shuls, established by newly-arrived Eastern European Jews in the Haymarket area as they migrated to the eastern suburbs.

This book documents the history of the sixteen Jewish cemeteries in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County, using primary sources such as recorded deed transfers, records of incorporation, and plat maps to trace ownership from the time of acquisition to today. It facilitates an understanding of the correlation between each cemetery and its governance with a synagogue or benevolent organization.

A comprehensive chronicle of the jazz scene in Cleveland, Cleveland Jazz History covers the city's earliest links to jazz all the way to the major players at the turn of the 21st century.

A brief history of the iron ore and coal docks of the Pennsylvania Railroad in Cleveland, published 1946 for the Pennsylvania Railroad Centennial and the City of Cleveland Sesquicentennial.

Prepared by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, the data in this report was compiled to help Cleveland City officials determine the feasibility of building a new public retail market in downtown Cleveland to replace the current Central Market.

Cleveland was at one time the city with the second largest population of Hungarians in the world (after Budapest). This history of the Cleveland Hungarian community outlines within a historical context how and why Cleveland became such a large Hungarian center and the nature of the ethnocultural community which existed and still exists. This study is the first comprehensive history of this community in Cleveland.

"The origins of Anshe Chesed Congregation are the origins of the Cleveland Jewish Community. Its history runs in a direct line back to the tiny group which in 1839 formed the first Jewish organization in what was then a tiny outpost of the Western Reserve. Now grown to a community of almost 10,000 souls, Anshe Chesed still strives to keep faith with the past as it marches boldly into the future."
-from the forward by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld

from the introduction:
This second volume deals with Serbian art and is the only survey ever written on this subject in English. The first volume of Serbian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland emphasizes the Serbian history, cultural traits, literature, immigration and the Serbian communities of Cleveland.

No detached, scholarly, objective examination of the past, this is an eyewitness account of Cleveland during Phil Porter's fifty-year career as a working newspaperman in the city, told in his own blunt, subjective, often controversial style.

Phil Porter retired in 1966 as executive editor of The Plain Dealer.

A brief account/history of Ruetenik Gardens, a successful greenhouse vegetable-growing industry in Orwell, Ohio founded by Martin Ruetenik in the 1880s.

"This life and those years are shared with you in the pages of this book by a man who would be remarkable at any time in history and is doubly remarkable in today's...world. Reading what he has to say of himself, of his career, of his work, of his philosophy, is to find yourself thinking of the quiet sages of another era."

Seltzer was editor of The Cleveland Press from 1928-1966.

This book uses the concepts and processes of community-building, philanthropic activity, and city planning to frame the 200-year history of University Circle, the educational, medical, and cultural center of Cleveland, Ohio. While written for the general reader, it draws substantially on archival sources, interviews, and a wide range of scholarship for documentation. Referring to broader trends in urban America, the book also considers the role of racial and ethnic tensions, of wealthy movers and shakers, and of scientific and business activities in shaping the Circle.

Carl Stokes was the mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, and famous as the first black mayor of a major American city. He put together a coalition and maintained it with the force of his personality and convictions. He attracted many idealistic and talented people to his administration, which has had a lasting impact on local politics. This is his own story, told simply and frankly.

This monograph specifically focuses on the windows of Trinity Cathedral produced by the Wilbur H. Burnham Studios. Located below the great windows of the transept and along the side aisles of the nave, as a group, they tell a thematically unified story based on legendary and biblical information about the life of Jesus.

"The essays included in this monograph emphasize Italian contributions to the human scientific and artistic heritage, review the painful process of immigration and settlement, they give special attention to the Italian-American community of Cleveland: to its neighborhoods, social and cultural activities as well as to its contributions to the growth of the greater Cleveland area."

"Instead of simply harboring institutions, as the river's mouth receives its ships, Cleveland is using them consciously and directly for the benefit of its citizens. If the writer of this narrative were asked to set forth Cleveland's great idea, he would employ but two words---Cleveland cares. Cleveland will grow richer but not scornful, more powerful but not ungentle, more illustrious but not forgetful. And for this ideal, Cleveland's image will ever dwell like a kindly light on the hearts of men."

"The panorama of Cleveland's Cuyahoga Valley shows bridges of all sizes, styles, functions and types. We are chronicling a history of bridges, but with special attention to the influence of our environment upon them. By discovering this influence as it has operated in the past, we can design and build with better understanding for the future. Descriptions are sometimes technical and detailed, sometimes sociological and historical, and sometimes humorous, chatty, even legendary. In short, there is something for everyone-for the engineer, for the local historian, for the sociologist, and, last but not least, we hope, for the general reader who has a bit of curiosity."

"The essays compiled here examine ethnicity from many perspectives. The authors explore it conceptually–with periodic disagreement–and attempt to come to terms with its impact on American society. They serve as an introduction to this exciting and complex influence on American life."

This landmark work, the first book-length history of Cleveland, blends history and geography together with historical information collected from a wide range of sources. Chapter headings range from "Pre-Adamite History", to "Expeditions of Rogers, Wilkens, and Bradstreet", to "Fluctuations of Level in Lake Erie". Also included is geological information and a history of the Native Americans in the area, as well as journal entries from the early survey parties that surveyed the Western Reserve.

My Recollections of Old Cleveland is a first-person account of Cleveland’s gilded age by Warren Wick who lived it. My Recollections begins with a brief history of the Wick family coming to Cleveland from Youngstown by wagon in 1847 at a time before there were trains, along with the role Wick banking interests played in Cleveland’s growing prosperity.

“The News is Everyone’s” offers a unique first-person account of news gathering, editorial, and community service activities at The Cleveland Press in Spring 1977, five years before the newspaper ceased publication. Writer Edward Wolf, an intern at the newspaper at the time, offers a lively account of shoe-leather reporting, earnest community outreach, and editorial conferences in the newsroom led by editor-in-chief Tom Boardman.