Fritz Pollard: Football’s Unsung Trailblazer
Fritz Pollard stepped off a train in Akron, Ohio, on a Sunday morning in October 1919, and caught a taxicab downtown to the United Cigar Store.
“A Champion of the People”: Youngstown Says Goodbye to Jim Traficant
Jim Traficant hadn’t won an election in more than a decade. He hadn’t won a football game in more than 50 years. Since his release from prison in 2009, after serving seven years on federal corruption charges,
From Carpet Joints to Racinos: How Midwest Gambling Went Legit
Wherever my paternal grandfather is – and if it’s his idea of Heaven, it probably looks like the old Dairy Queen in Lisbon, Ohio, with a couple pool tables – he’s got to be laughing his ass off.
The Cincinnati Privy Disaster of 1904
Although the morning paper said it would be a fair, warming day, the horizon darkened with looming rain. Principal Thomas L. Simmerman watched the fidgeting children lined up in the hall and decided to give them a few minutes of frolic and exercise.
The Rise of the Cleveland Museum of Art
In August, I arrived at the Cleveland Museum of Art carrying a slim book with a library binding - the original Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art, first published in 1925, which promised “a brief description of the museum, its collections, and its works.”
Girl Strikers: Gender and Cleveland’s Garment District Strikes of 1911
Never before and likely never again will Cleveland witness packs of young Jewish and Italian girls roving the streets for strikebreakers and scabs.
The Woman in the Red Glasses: Jane Scott Gets a Documentary
Jane Scott, the Cleveland music writer beloved by the rock stars she covered, was honored this week at a fundraiser for the documentary about her life and career and the iconic red glasses.
Storming The Beach At Conneaut – A WWII Reenactment
3,700 miles away from the original battle for Normandy, D-Day in Conneaut, Ohio, began in 1999.
Repurposing Old Rail Stations in the Rust Belt
Marilyn Rodgers could do just about anything with her Saturday off, but instead she chooses to vacuum a train terminal. The executive director of Buffalo’s Central Terminal Restoration Corporation (CTRC), a nonprofit that’s rehabilitating the city’s vacant train station, goes up and down yards of original Terrazzo flooring, sucking up dirt with an industrial-strength cleaner. “I have to clean my house,” she jokes of the 523,000 square foot space where she frequently visits.
The Second Edition of The Cleveland Anthology
Next month we publish our second edition (and third print run) of Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology, with essays by Connie Schultz, Michael Ruhlman, David Giffels, and others. This excerpt is the book’s new introduction.
Friday Link Roundup
Ferguson and #blacktwitter, the Cleveland Browns do something right, buying a house with cash, the blues and a Wisconsin chair factory, climate change and the Midwest, and that potato salad Kickstarter guy.
Summer Girl … and Other Duties as Assigned
Chicago’s Greyhound terminal in late Aug. 1966 certainly lacked cheer and charm, and perhaps safety. But to me, holding a one-way ticket back to Calumet County, WI, it was a suitable escape platform from my job as a “Summer Girl”