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Full-Text Articles in History
Through The Ivory Curtain: African Americans In Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Before The Fair Housing Movement, J. Mark Souther
Through The Ivory Curtain: African Americans In Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Before The Fair Housing Movement, J. Mark Souther
History Faculty Publications
This article examines the largely neglected history of African American struggles to obtain housing in Cleveland Heights, a first-ring suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, between 1900 and 1960, prior to the fair housing and managed integration campaigns that emerged thereafter. The article explores the experiences of black live-in servants, resident apartment building janitors, independent renters, and homeowners. It offers a rare look at the ways that domestic and custodial arrangements opened opportunities in housing and education, as well as the methods, calculations, risks, and rewards of working through white intermediaries to secure homeownership. It argues that the continued black presence laid …
“The Best Things In Life Are Here” In “The Mistake On The Lake”: Narratives Of Decline And Renewal In Cleveland, J. Souther
History Faculty Publications
Historians have devoted ample attention to the urban crisis, but few have explored symbolic actions to manage attitudes toward metropolitan change. In the 1980s, Cleveland, Ohio, experienced what many politicians and business and civic leaders called a “comeback.” To understand the images and narratives constructed during this intended renaissance, it is necessary to examine earlier campaigns to revivify Cleveland and its reputation. This article traces three such campaigns in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the better-known 1980s renaissance, and examines the tension between acceptance and rejection of these images and narratives. This interplay paralleled a tension between decline …
A Us$35 Million 'Hole In The Ground': Metropolitan Fragmentation And Cleveland's Unbuilt Downtown Subway, J. Souther
A Us$35 Million 'Hole In The Ground': Metropolitan Fragmentation And Cleveland's Unbuilt Downtown Subway, J. Souther
History Faculty Publications
In the 1940s–1950s, Cleveland, Ohio, transit officials and a varied coalition of allies sought to construct a subway to distribute riders throughout downtown. Through two unsuccessful campaigns in the 1950s, the subway planning debate highlights the gradual erosion of downtown’s preeminence and corresponding rise of suburbia. It also sheds light on interest-based rifts within the downtown business establishment and across the social landscape of metropolitan Cleveland. More than transit history, the author argues, the mid-century Cleveland subway battles afford a close look at friction between influential leaders and ordinary citizens as well as competing place-based visions of the metropolitan future.
Acropolis Of The Middle-West: Decay, Renewal, And Boosterism In Cleveland’S University Circle, J. Mark Souther
Acropolis Of The Middle-West: Decay, Renewal, And Boosterism In Cleveland’S University Circle, J. Mark Souther
History Faculty Publications
In the mid-twentieth century, Cleveland, Ohio’s University Circle exemplified an emerging trend in which urban universities and other private institutions engaged in urban renewal. Situating the story of University Circle within the context of contemporary concerns about urban decay, deindustrialization, and suburbanization, the author argues that University Circle institutions were not simply trying to facilitate their own expansion. Rather, they were equally determined to create a setting appropriate to their regional, national, and even international reputations, as well as to advance the idea that an educational, medical, and cultural district could help reposition and rebrand a …