Category: Policies

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History. Written by Kermit Pike.

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LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, AND HISTORICAL SOCIETIES In general, the development of libraries, historical agencies, and archives in the WESTERN RESERVE has followed patterns experienced throughout the Old Northwest Territory. There are some differences, in part dictated by location, population trends, wealth, and select creative individuals. During Cleveland’s first 70 years, libraries and historical societies offered few indications of their future national preeminence. The libraries, literary associations, and reading rooms which formed prior to the Civil War were generally organized as stock companies or subscription libraries with membership fees. Hard economic times or lack of interest often contributed to their demise. Only one, the CLEVELAND LIBRARY ASSN. (CLA) (est. 1848), left a lineal descendant that existed in the 1980s.

Of necessity, Cleveland’s early residents focused their energies on surviving the environment and settling the land. Although relatively little is known about their reading ability and habits, it is believed that only a few brought books with them. Reading matter consisted of almanacs, home remedy and legal guides, farming manuals, and, when they could be obtained, newspapers. The first formal attempt to establish a library occurred in 1811, when 16 of Cleveland’s 18 families formed the Cleveland Library Assn. It lasted for approx. 2 years, a victim of the turmoil fomented by the War of 1812. In the 1820s several state and national movements focused, in part, on establishing libraries. Interest in public education was growing. Calvin E. Stowe, Ohio disciple of Horace Mann, crusaded for the establishment of tax-supported schools and public libraries. Beginning in 1826, the American Lyceum Movement supported the development of libraries, in addition to lyceums, to provide intellectual stimulation and improvement through courses based on reading and discussion. Increasing numbers of bookstores handled remedy books, almanacs, political and religious tracts, and, to a lesser extent, literary works. Despite these developments, the growing village of Cleveland took a back seat to 2 neighboring communities in library development. In 1827 the Newburgh Library Society was founded in NEWBURGH, largely through the efforts of Daniel Miles. Members paid an initiation fee and annual dues, until the 1870s when the books were divided up among society members. Charles H. Olmstead had a library of some 500 volumes, which in 1829 he offered to the community of Kingston (later Lenox) if the village would rename itself in honor of his father, Aaron Olmstead, an original shareholder of the CONNECTICUT LAND CO. Although some volumes were lost in transit from the East, the NORTH OLMSTED book collection was probably the largest in Greater Cleveland at that time.

During the 1830s, Cleveland, a booming city due to the opening of the OHIO AND ERIE CANAL, developed a variety of book-oriented associations. Members of the CLEVELAND LYCEUM gathered to hear lectures and exchange books and periodical literature. The Cleveland Library Co. operated for the benefit of its subscribers. Periodicals and newspapers were available to the members of the Cleveland Reading Room Assn., open daily to members. The library of the Young Men’s Literary Assn. consisted of some 800 volumes. AFRICAN AMERICANS, only a small percentage of the city’s population at the time, formed the Colored Men’s Union Society, and could boast of a library of 100 volumes. By 1838 attempts to merge several of these failed; only the Young Men’s Literary Assn. survived the 1840s. In 1848 its members incorporated as the Cleveland Library Assn. Although continuing to sponsor lectures, the association emphasized the collection and dissemination of books for the benefit of its members. Among its leaders were WILLIAM CASE† andCHARLES WHITTLESEY†. Case was also the moving force behind the Arkites, an informal association interested in natural history and collecting specimens, precursor to the CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY.

Whittlesey was one of the first residents to manifest an interest in collecting and preserving letters, diaries, maps, and other documents of the area’s early settlers. He published many of these documents in his Early History of Cleveland (1867, see HISTORIES OF CLEVELAND). Whittlesey also paid tribute to Judge JOHN BARR†, prominent Cleveland lawyer and jurist and former officer of the Cleveland Lyceum, who had begun collecting reminiscences from early residents of the city in the early 1840s. Barr gathered information relating to the period of exploration and settlement of northeast Ohio and, in 1846, published a short history of Cleveland in Fisher’s National Magazine. Despite these efforts, no established institution as yet intentionally preserved original records or manuscripts. City and county government records were considered the responsibility of officeholders, and libraries in the 1850s continued to focus on printed books and lectures. The collection of the Bethel Reading Room was open to the public 2 evenings a week, and the Mercantile Library Assn. offered a platform for the most prominent public speakers of the day. In 1854 the new YOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSN. (YMCA) included a circulating library. Prior to the Civil War, privately funded libraries were gathering places where one could spend an evening discussing current events and issues.

Educators, however, increasingly recognized books as essential in the process of disseminating knowledge. An 1853 state law provided tax funds to purchase books for school libraries. The first major U.S. city to establish a public library was Boston (1852). Fifteen years later, an act of the Ohio legislature empowered local boards of education to establish libraries and supported these institutions from the general property tax. The Cleveland Public School Library, created by this law, did not formally open until 1869, some 16 years before the formation of the New York Public Library. The CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY‘s early years were characterized by controversy and financial crises; it struggled to define its mission and to gain cooperation from the community and its leaders. The year 1867 also witnessed the creation of the WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY (WRHS), then called the Western Reserve and Northern Ohio Historical Society, as a department of the Cleveland Library Assn. Several members of that association wanted to preserve the history of this region, which was undergoing major changes.

The city’s new tax-supported public library did not stop interest groups from sponsoring special libraries to address specific needs. In 1870 the Cleveland Law Library was established to benefit its members and local government officials. Reading rooms were opened as alternatives to saloons by the Women’s Christian Assn. (see YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSN. (YWCA)) as part of its program of TEMPERANCE. The CLEVELAND MEDICAL LIBRARY ASSN. was organized in 1894, with the books and journals accumulated by the Cuyahoga County Medical Library as the nucleus of its collection. Although created for the benefit of members, most special libraries made their books accessible to the public. For example, the collections of theROWFANT CLUB (est. 1892), an association of book lovers and collectors, were available to nonmembers by appointment. The libraries of Western Reserve College, which moved to Cleveland from Hudson, OH, in 1882, and the Case School of Applied Science (est. 1881, see CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY), also opened their reading rooms to the public.

The profession of library science considers the formation of the American Library Assn. in 1876 as crucial in its history; in Cleveland, the appointment ofWILLIAM H. BRETT† as Cleveland Public Library director in 1884 was pivotal. Under his 34-year leadership, the library gained national prominence, emphasizing proper training of librarians and easy access to books by the public, including children. This was manifest in the development of a network of branch and school libraries. The application of a decimal classification system permitted better control of a growing collection, which by 1900 consisted of more than 100,000 volumes and annually circulated more than 600,000 items. At century’s end, the library, although seriously overcrowded, was poised for even more dramatic growth.

During its first 3 decades, the WRHS had accumulated significant collections of books, manuscripts, newspapers, and maps documenting the early history and settlement of northern Ohio. In 1892 the society ceased operating as a branch of the Cleveland Library Assn. and received a charter from the State of Ohio. In 1898 it exchanged its quarters on PUBLIC SQUARE for a new building on EUCLID AVE.. at the western border of UNIVERSITY CIRCLELike the public library, the WRHS was positioned to play an expanding role.

As was common elsewhere in the nation, an important aspect of local history was still being ignored: no effective plan had yet developed to preserve local government records. As early as 1836, CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL had appointed a committee to obtain records from the former trustees of the Village of Cleveland. Periodically thereafter, city officials bemoaned the lack of adequate storage facilities, and city records continued to be the responsibility of department heads. In 1876 CLEVELAND CITY HALL moved to the Case Bldg., where a fireproof vault provided temporary protection for some city archives.

The first quarter of the 20th century witnessed substantial growth and innovation for Cleveland libraries. Andrew Carnegie, relenting to years of solicitation by Brett, in 1904 provided a $100,000 endowment to initiate the 4th school of library science in the U.S. at Western Reserve Univ. Several municipalities opened public libraries, including WHITE MOTOR CORP.) (1918), the CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION (1921), and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History (1921), among numerous other corporations, schools, and medical and educational institutions. Nationally, in response to this rapid growth, the Special Libraries Assn. was founded in 1909. By 1925 its U.S. directory listed 975 special libraries. Ohio ranked 6th among the states with 54 such libraries, 17 of which were in Cleveland. Despite the increasing number of libraries in Cuyahoga County, however, not all communities were served. In 1922, a year after Ohio law authorized the formation of county library systems, Cuyahoga County residents voted approval to the first such system in the state. Until 1942, the CUYAHOGA COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY SYSTEM (CCPL) had its headquarters in the Cleveland Public Library building.

In 1916 Cleveland’s government offices moved into the new city hall, on the MALL, with spacious quarters allotted for records storage. In less than 2 decades, however, expanding staff levels relegated the records to the subbasement. The Cleveland Public Library also welcomed its new Mall building, which opened in 1925. With shelving capacity for 2 million books, many separate reading rooms, and a variety of provisions for special collections, the blind, and children, the magnificent building was, among other things, a manifestation of the high esteem in which the library was held, both locally and nationally. While Brett, his successor, LINDA EASTMAN†, and board president JOHN G. WHITE† led this library during its most expansive era,WALLACE H. CATHCART†, WRHS director, and WILLIAM P. PALMER†, president, greatly enhanced the society’s holdings and reputation during the 1910s and 1920s. The collections amassed and those solicited from wealthy Clevelanders provided a substantial basis for future library and archival programs.

During the Depression, most of the city’s libraries and cultural institutions suffered serious reductions in financial support and staffing. In 1933 the source of funds for Ohio’s public libraries changed from the property tax to the newly created intangible property tax. However, revenues remained low in the face of increasing costs. Nevertheless, the Cleveland Public Library, with 69 branches and a 2-million-volume collection, continued to lead the nation in per capita circulation. One highlight during these otherwise bleak years was the “discovery” of the records of the CLEVELAND CITY GOVERNMENT and theCUYAHOGA COUNTY GOVERNMENT. Under the sponsorship of the public library, in 1935 Works Progress Administration employees began to inventory the records of Cuyahoga County as part of a statewide project. The inventories were condensed and published in 1937 in 2 volumes, which also contained a recommendation for the establishment of a central department of records to assure their preservation and accessibility. Unfortunately, nearly 4 decades passed before the county government moved in this direction. A similar program was undertaken for the state’s municipalities by the Historical Records Survey program of the WPA. The inventories of Cleveland’s records were issued in 5 volumes between 1939-42. Workers found many records in poor storage conditions; City Hall lacked sufficient space for the old records, let alone for records being created by a city whose population was approaching 1 million. In 1941, in one small step, a local ordinance required that copies of every printed city report and document be deposited in the Municipal Reference Library, a branch of the Cleveland Public Library at City Hall. No provisions were made for the voluminous unpublished records basic to the city’s operation, and invaluable to historical research. Beginning in the 1970s, certain city records, particularly the surviving office files of mayors back toTOM L. JOHNSON†, were transferred to the WRHS. In 1978 a city council ordinance created a city records commission to review records disposal.

The post-World War II years saw a substantial increase in the number of local historical agencies, especially in the SUBURBS. The following historical societies were established: CHAGRIN FALLS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1946), SHAKER HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1947), LAKEWOOD HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1952), BEDFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1955), BAY VILLAGE HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1960) and the SOLON HISTORICAL SOCIETY (1968), as well as societies in BRECKSVILLE (1944), GATES MILLS (1948), EUCLID (1958), STRONGSVILLE (1964), and ROCKY RIVER (1968), among others. Beginning in the late 1960s, the WRHS expanded its collecting policy to include urban, black, ethnic, Jewish, architectural, and labor history. In 1959 a state law gave the Ohio Historical Society the responsibility for administering the records of Ohio’s counties and municipalities, but the state did not provide necessary funding until 1974. Field representatives began working in each of the 8 regions defined by the Ohio Network of American Research Centers, created in 1970 to provide a framework for the record and manuscript preservation. In 1975 Cuyahoga County formed its own archives department (see CUYAHOGA COUNTY ARCHIVES).

The 111 manuscript repositories and institutional archives listed in Cuyahoga County by the Society of Ohio Archivists in 1974 ranged from colleges and museums to banks, churches, businesses, newspapers, and professional associations. In the 1960s genealogy became fashionable nationally, increasing the use of local, as well as federal government, records. The Ohio Genealogical Society, with 6 chapters in the Greater Cleveland area by 1983, was founded in 1959.

Cleveland’s population decline and racial strife in the mid-1960s affected its libraries. For example, the Cleveland Public Library closed some little-used branches and reduced professional staff. Of all the steps taken to streamline and modernize library operations, none was more profound than automation. In 1980 the Cleveland Public Library implemented a systemwide, on-line computerized catalog, one of the first major public libraries in the U.S. to do so. By late 1983, patrons and staff could access the 975,000 computerized records (entered at a cost of approx. $4 million) via terminals at the main library and the 31 neighborhood branches. By 1985 several other library systems, including those in Cleveland Hts.-Univ. Hts., SHAKER HEIGHTS, Euclid, Willoughby-Eastlake, and in Lorain, Medina, and Wayne counties, had tied into Cleveland Public Library’s on-line service, while the Cuyahoga County Public Library and local university libraries developed their own databases.

The growth of competing library systems in the Greater Cleveland area resulted in duplication of services, as well as increased competition for tax support. The Library Council of Greater Cleveland, founded in 1969 and composed of directors of 16 library systems, explored potential areas of cooperation. In 1975 the Cleveland Area Metropolitan Library System (see CAMLS), an agency that included 43 member institutions with 131 outlets and combined holdings of 7.4 million volumes in 1986, was established to facilitate such cooperation. Since the 1940s, institutional studies, community leaders, and some library officials have periodically called for consolidation of Cuyahoga County’s library systems. By 1952 5 suburban systems had merged with the county library system, but 9 still operated independently. Competition for the intangible property tax was heated and, after 1984, for the income tax proceeds that replaced the intangibles tax as the principal source of library funding. Into the mid-1980s, the Cuyahoga County Public Library, emphasizing its larger geographic area and population base, clung to its autonomy, as did the Cleveland Public Library. The failure to effect a merger, however, does not diminish the fact that residents of the Greater Cleveland area have access to a plethora of excellent library institutions and comprehensive collections for recreational and scholarly purposes.

Kermit Pike

Western Reserve Historical Society

Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine article from September 1, 1991 written by John Funk

CCC AND CSU TWO SCHOOLS THAT ALMOST NEVER WERE
Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH) – Sunday, September 1, 1991
Author: John Funk John Funk covers higher education for The Plain Dealer.

Cuyahoga Community College and Cleveland State University might have never existed without two pivotal events: a hearing on asphalt appropriations by a legislative committee in Columbus and a failed secret meeting at the Union Club in Cleveland.

To understand these machinations, one must return to a Cleveland where there was no mandate for tax-supported higher education and no general appreciation of the value of a bachelor’s degree.

By 1960, Greater Cleveland was the largest metropolitan area in the nation without a publicly funded college or university, the old Cleveland Press reported. The Press is credited by many today with developing public support for the creation of CCC in 1961, just as The Plain Dealer is credited with developing support later for CSU, which was founded in 1964.

Higher education, by 1960 logic, had always been taken care of here by private universities. And Clevelanders were proud of that, according to news stories of the era, which attributed that attitude to Cleveland’s Connecticut Yankee heritage. Of course higher education had generally been the prerogative of the elite.

And then there was politics. Cleveland vs. downstate politics. Ohio politicians of the 1950s, including Gov. C. William O’Neill, a Republican, and his Democratic successor, Michael V. DiSalle, were not interested in funding a new four-year university here. Never mind the baby boom.

And the Ohio College Association, representing the interests of existing four-year institutions, recommended as early as 1955 that the state establish new two-year technical schools.

State lawmakers saw even two-year institutions as too expensive.

When DiSalle took office in 1958, he recommended that the state’s universities simply step up their practice of establishing two-year branches in areas without state schools.

And that suited the Ohio College Association, which also argued through the decade that branch campuses were the least costly answer to providing higher education to those who truely needed it.

Even when the state General Assembly approved legislation in 1959 creating two-year community colleges, DiSalle vetoed it because lawmakers failed to include any provision for funding.

Ralph M. Besse, an Illuminating Co. executive who chaired the Cleveland Commission on Higher Education, said in a recent interview that he and others secured DiSalle’s word not to veto a later bill if a provision for local funding were included. And if they got it through the legislature.

The modern era finally arrived in 1961 when the League of Women Voters, the Cleveland Commission on Higher Education and other advocates of tax-supported higher education in Cleveland managed to get enabling legislation through the Ohio Senate.

According to Besse, the bill slipped through only after proponents called for a vote when they noticed two opposing senators – C. Stanley Mechem, R-Nelsonville, the president pro tem, and Ross Pebble, R-Lima, chairman of the Senate Education Committee – had left the chamber to attend a committee meeting on roads and highways. In their absence, the bill squeaked through by two votes, 20-18. Gov. DiSalle signed it into law on July 21, 1961 – to become effective on October 20.

And then the race was on to establish CCC before James A. Rhodes took office. Rhodes – who was to become the Father of CSU – was not generally in favor of community colleges but instead wanted post-secondary technical schools and vocational education at the high school level. He argued that technical schools would more quickly fulfill his campaign goal of putting everyone to work by preparing them for new jobs.

Robert Lewis, a corporate lawyer who was the first chairman of the CCC Board of Trustees, says Rhodes was initially of little help when the board was scrambling about trying to secure buildings and a campus. Even a personal visit with Rhodes in Columbus was of no avail.

“You must understand,” says Lewis, “Rhodes did not want CCC to be created, but he did want to rescue Fenn College,” whose trustees, alumni and supporters were politically potent.

Rhodes was not happy to hear that assessment. “I never opposed CCC. You won’t find it written!” says the former governor. “I put the wheels under higher education,” he says of his campaign to build technical schools and expand the university system.

Lewis remembers scrambling to create CCC without the help of Rhodes or other powerful leaders. “The only way I can explain our success is that the board was so naive. We didn’t know we had to get permission from the power structure. We just did it.”

When CCC opened its doors on September 23, 1963, it immediately set a national record with the largest initial enrollment of any two-year college – 3,039 full- and part-time students. And, of course, the governor showed up later for a dedication.

Most historians give Rhodes primary credit for pulling off the creation of CSU despite the opposition of state lawmakers and other universities. But Rhodes might never have had a chance to create CSU had old Fenn College and OSU been able to work out a secretly proposed deal.

Former OSU President Novice Fawcett came to Cleveland and met privately with Fenn College administrators at the Union Club, say three former Fenn officials.

William A. Patterson, former Fenn provost; Murray Davidson, former development director at Fenn, and his assistant John Barden, say that Fawcett offered to make Fenn a branch of OSU.

The meeting between top Fenn and OSU administrators, never publicly reported, occurred about 1961.

Davidson says his studies of Fenn’s finances had convinced him that the private college’s days were numbered because tuitions could not be raised high enough to cover expenses and because Fenn had no significant endowment.

Fenn alumni, faculty, trustees and President G. Brooks Earnest wanted to tough it out, however, and the OSU proposal was eventually rejected. Work on the endowment and other fund-raising efforts continued.

But fund raising was paralyzed in May 1963 when Rhodes announced that a state university would be built in Cleveland using Fenn as the nucleus. Cleveland’s educational leaders, including Fenn officals, rejected that idea out of hand.

Then in November Rhodes proposed state aid for Fenn if the school’s officials would develop a two-year technical institute. Fenn rejected that plan as did both the Cleveland Commission on Higher Education and the struggling CCC, which had just opened its doors.

Fenn administrators, beginning to drown in red ink, then proposed a four-year university using Fenn as the nucleus. The Fenn Corporation, which owned Fenn’s property, approved the plan in December 1963.

Legislation establishing CSU was not approved until late 1964. In February 1965, Fenn and CSU trustees agreed on a settlement that included the gift of Fenn’s lands and buildings, valued at $13.5 million, the sale of Fenn’s furnishings and equipment, for $500,000, and the right for Fenn to keep its liquid assests, estimated at about $1.5 million. The money became the assets of the Fenn Foundation, which today is an educational fund of the Cleveland Foundation.

The Fenn board’s last act was to go out of business on July 1, 1965. CSU opened in September.