“The Coney Island of the West”
At its peak, Ohio’s Silver Lake Park was a six-hundred-acre amusement park with more than thirty attractions and tens of thousands of visitors per day.
East Chicago’s Failed Utopian Visions
A century ago, East Chicago, Indiana drafted its ideal future. Here's how that went.
Black Freedom, Black Joy: A Juneteenth Reading List
Honoring Black joy and freedom struggles in the Rust Belt.
In Hudson, Ohio, Whose History Matters?
A recent event highlights the messiness of the town’s white-dominated abolitionist narrative.
Madeline Davis’s Queer History of Buffalo
Davis, who died last month at the age of eighty, dedicated her life to LGBTQ+ history in Buffalo.
The Forgotten Island Chronicles of Minna Anthony Common
Reclaiming the legacy of an underappreciated ecologist and educator on the St. Lawrence River.
How the Kent State Shooting Changed American Music
From 'the end of the Sixties' to the 'Akron sound.'
“The King of the Hoboes”
“A-No. 1,” the legendary rambler, spent thirty years riding the rails and thirty more preaching against that lifestyle.
The Great Railroad Strike in Pittsburgh
Excerpted from "An Alternative History of Pittsburgh."
What Michael Stanley Meant to Cleveland
His story is the story of the rise and fall of rock 'n' roll in Cleveland—and of the city itself.
The Rubber Industry’s Toxic Legacy in Akron
The stories of workers and their families reveal "unintended consequences" for life and health in the community.
Desegregating Chicago’s Far Southwest Side
Neighborhoods experienced the wrath of white supremacy against a busing program to integrate schools like Bogan High School in the 70s.