From Cleveland Memory/Cleveland State Special Collections. Feeding Cleveland is a portal to a dynamic set of digital collections that explore the vast local food history of the Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. As important as Cleveland’s diverse ethnic heritage, its cultural footprint, or its industrial development, an understanding of this city is not complete until we take a look at how Clevelander’s have brought food to their tables over the years.
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Agriculture from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Agriculture from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
AGRICULTURE. The first settlers in Cuyahoga County followed the usual pioneer routine. They made clearances, planted corn, buckwheat, and rye, fenced in garden patches, and kept oxen, cows, and swine. When the soil had been “tamed” by other crops, they sowed wheat. They carried on their activities in spite of malaria, the ravaging of crops by multitudes of squirrels, and attacks on their livestock by wolves. Many were really professional land clearers who, after a few years, moved on to repeat the farm-making process elsewhere. The remainder, like the incomers who bought partially cleared holdings, became “regular farmers.”
The first settlers in a community under clearance had the advantage of a “newcomers’ market” because later immigrants often had few or no livestock and before long exhausted the food supplies they brought with them, so that they had to buy locally. In parts of Cuyahoga County, the newcomers’ market lasted until ca. 1810. During the WAR OF 1812 Cleveland became an accumulating point for army supplies, and after the war, Cuyahoga County shared the general agricultural depression afflicting the western country.
The depression continued until 1825, when the opening of the Erie Canal allowed shipments of wheat to markets in the east. Later, when the OHIO AND ERIE CANAL opened, there was a ready demand in the adjacent territory for wheat and other farm products, and Cleveland changed from a village to a bustling urban center. At the same time, Cuyahoga County became a region of old cleared farms where most of the occupants engaged in a mixed agriculture, relying on an income from the sale of wheat, wool, and cattle.
The most important local farm specialization was dairying; butter was manufactured for sale to peddlers and storekeepers, but cheese was also made on some farms in Cuyahoga County from the early 1830s. While the county was much less important in cheesemaking than the Western Reserve counties to the east, its output of butter and cheese together in 1839 was valued at $96,083. In 1859 the county’s production of butter was put at 1,162,665 pounds and of cheese at 1,433,727 pounds. During the 1840s, many farmers just outside Cleveland delivered milk to urban residents–some sold at a market or by peddling through the streets, others to milkmen with routes. The Western Reserve dairy farmers bought their cows from drovers in the spring and sold them off in the fall, congratulating themselves on their good judgment when they found a few good milkers among the nondescripts.
A second type of specialization was the commercial growing of orchard fruits by farmers along Lake Erie. By mid-century the fruit, mainly cherries and peaches, was shipped by boat and rail to eastern and western markets. The value of the orchard output in the county in 1839 was placed at $18,179, and in 1859 at $67,437. During the 1840s, grapes were grown in Cleveland and the northernmost townships, primarily as a garden crop, and by 1855 there were about 200 acres of vineyards near EUCLID. There was only a small production of wine; most of the crop was sent by rail as table grapes to eastern and midwestern cities.
A third specialization was market gardening, which involved growing a variety of vegetables, plus strawberries and other small fruits. Limited to the thinly populated parts of Cleveland and its environs, it was carried on almost exclusively by European immigrants and their families, as native-born Americans had no relish for the incessant spading, hoeing, and weeding required. The value of production in 1839 was given as $4,554 (which was probably understated), and in 1859 as $61,192.
In general, Cuyahoga County farmers prospered during the 3 decades preceding the Civil War, and consequently they were able to improve their buildings and buy new types of implements as they became available. Like other Ohio counties, Cuyahoga in the pre-Civil War era had agricultural societies. The first society, organized in 1823, held a few fairs or “cattle shows” but attracted little general support among farmers, disappearing about the 1830s. A second short-lived society was organized in 1834; a third came into being in 1839, held fairs from 1839-41, then suspended operations in 1842. The fourth, established in 1846 under a new state law that provided for a subsidy from the county treasury, was successful mostly because it featured horse trotting at its fairs. This society is still (1995) in existence, but its fairs have long since ceased to be essentially agricultural and have become primarily community homecomings.
In the half-century or so after the Civil War, Cuyahoga County farming became more specialized as increasing urban demand led to a considerable expansion in dairy buttermaking. Dairy cheesemaking was superseded by the factory system, introduced ca. 1863. In 1875 there were 16 of the new factories in operation, and in 1880 about 20, all of which made butter as a sideline. Those west of the CUYAHOGA RIVER were operated by proprietors (“Cheese kings”), and those east of it by cooperatives. The most significant development, however, was the supplying of milk to the Cleveland market, which began in 1868 when the first milk train began operating into Cleveland from Willoughby in Lake County. Originally, passenger trains took on milk cans as an express item at a special rate, but later they might be local freights running on a schedule. As the railroads carried milk cans at a flat rate, the milk suppliers near the city were at a disadvantage, compared to remoter farmers with cheaper land where new dairying country developed ribbon-fashion along the railroads. With dependable transportation available, some dairymen engaged in “winter dairying” (i.e., year-round production), which introduced silage to feed the milking cows through the winter. Although the first silo in Ohio was built at NEWBURGH in 1880, there were few others in Cuyahoga County till after the famous Silo Convention at Cleveland in 1889, when silo construction flourished. By the mid-1890s, Cuyahoga reputedly had more silos than any other Ohio county.
As soon as the milk-train system was established, dairymen ceased to sell milk directly to consumers but marketed it through middlemen in the city, some of whom established depots near the stations for buying and shipping the product. In a subsequent variation, they set up “creameries”–skimming stations with machinery to separate cream from milk. As the milk depots and creameries operated throughout the year and paid better for their supplies than did the cheese factories, the factories began to shut down or sold their facilities to their rivals; by the mid-1890s none remained in the county.
Farmers involved in the milk industry found that the returns were regular and dependable; however, the economic security they gained was offset by an erosion of their independence. They had to comply with the increasingly strict regulations of the CLEVELAND BOARD OF HEALTH, and to be competitive with other suppliers; they had to replace their ordinary cows with those of popular dairy breeds. When they shipped directly to dealers, they had to adjust their workday to the milk-train schedules, which were usually arranged so that milk would arrive in the city by 8 A.M. Perhaps worst of all, they were disposing of a perishable product to buyers who were interested in keeping prices low and who found ways of having the suppliers assume all the hazards of the market.
In response to the unsatisfactory dealer-farmer relationship, some suppliers in the Cleveland milkshed organized the Northern Ohio Milk Producers’ Assn. in 1901 to establish a fair price for milk. Although the group had some success in public relations, its members tended to make individual contracts with dealers whenever it was to their advantage to do so. However, when the Cleveland milk dealers refused to raise prices to reflect the increasing costs of labor and feed in 1916, the association suddenly revived and provided leadership in a short strike, culminating in a settlement which recognized the association as a contracting agent. Soon it began to function as the Ohio Farmers’ Cooperative Milk Co., one of several such organizations in Ohio.
After the Civil War, commercial orchard production declined; cherries, peaches, pears, and plums became uncertain crops because of insect and fungus problems, and many of the orchardists turned wholly or partially to viticulture. By 1890 there were 5,000 acres of vineyards in the county, stretching somewhat intermittently from the Lake County line westward to the market gardens on the outskirts of Cleveland, with a smaller development west of the city. At least during the 1870s, more table grapes were being shipped from COLLAMER(southwest of Euclid) than from any other railroad station in the county; its only near rival was Dover (now WESTLAKE). Grape production in the county reached its maximum in 1899 at 11,591 tons, declining to 3,753 tons in 1919.
Vegetable growing also expanded after the Civil War. Potatoes, always important for farm consumption, developed commercial significance–partly because of market availability. The crop also fit into whatever rotation was being used, left the soil in good tilth, and did not demand excessive labor when farmers bought the available planters, sprayers, and diggers. Although in 1909 Cuyahoga was the leading potato producing county in Ohio, with 1,141,469 bushels, the industry fell off rapidly, with 1919 production only 35.4% of what it had been 10 years before. The decline was attributable to the increasing prevalence of fungus diseases and to soil depletion. Continued lack of profitability in later years reduced its commercial production further.
The market-garden specialty (now usually called truck farming) grew in the Cleveland area in proportion to the increasing population. Of particular importance was the forcing industry, the growing of vegetables under glass for the out-of-season market. In 1900 truck growers had about 21 acres in hotbeds or cold frames and 4 acres in greenhouses, the latter concentrated in the Brooklyn area.
Cuyahoga County agriculture in the years after World War I was in some respects simply part of the national pattern, with a general increase in mechanization. Fundamentally, however, the course of its development was determined by the continued expansion of metropolitan Cleveland. The table shows the decline in farmland acreage and the dwindling number of farms from 1900 on. The reversion to farmland in the 1930s was attributable to the fact that many failed real estate promotions were sold or rented to farmers.
Concurrently, there was a change in the concept of what was meant by a farm. Ca. 1920, with the exception of a few “showplaces” belonging to wealthy Clevelanders, the farms were still operated in conventional fashion by either owner or tenant. Farms of under 10 acres constituted about 10% of the total, but these were usually in intensively cultivated truck crops. With the advent of the automobile, country dwellers could work in the urban sector, and city wage earners could move miles beyond the suburbs. As a result, subdivisions appeared along the roads to the metropolis, with landlords selling off lots on their frontage. Though these parcels were classified as farms, in some cases they served as sites for antique stores, beauty parlors, dog kennels, and other small enterprises, and in many instances the occupants used them primarily as dormitories. Thus, in 1949 (the first year for which such figures are available) there were 136 farms in the county reporting no sales whatever of agricultural produce, and 563 “part-time farms” that reported sales of less than $400. The areas cultivated on the low output farms were so small that there were 404 farms in the county without a tractor, a horse, or a mule.
Changing times made for important developments in the market-milk industry. Beginning in 1917, owners of heavy trucks competed in milk hauling with the railroads and trolley lines, offering the advantages of charging $.04 a can less, picking up the cans from stands at the farmers’ gates, and returning them later in the day. As early as 1919, wherever there were hardtop roads the system of taking cans to rail stations or milk depots was almost a thing of the past. By 1925 some of the trucking lines collecting milk for the Cleveland market reached as far as Ashtabula and Trumbull counties, and during subsequent years, Cuyahoga County milk producers, like other dairymen, suffered from the perennial surplus-milk problem. Perhaps their worst problem was that the rising price of land made dairying uneconomical. The average value of Cuyahoga County farmland per acre (with buildings) was $359 in 1945, $747 in 1950, $1,064 in 1954, and $1,650 in 1959. For these reasons, market-milk production declined sharply after World War II. In 1944, 236 farms sold a total of 9,094,182 lbs. of milk; in 1954, 47 farms sold a total of 4,508,254 lbs.; and in 1959, 10 farms sold a total of 124,190 lbs. In 1964 there were only 100 milk cows reported, on only 7 farms; the industry was gone.
The expansion of the metropolis steadily nibbled away at the fruit-growing areas. From the 1920s on, the only orchard product worth mention was apples, and by 1959 their average value per farm reporting was only about $75. In 1978 there were still orchards on 25 farms, but collectively they comprised only 136 rundown acres. Viticulture also was declining. The production of grapes in the county was 2,849 tons in 1939, and 213 tons in 1978 from the 17 farms still in the business.
While the market-milk and the horticultural industries were disappearing, the truck-farming business continued to expand. Some truck farmers acquired vehicles, enabling them to extend the sphere of market gardening 15 mi. or so into the rural areas, where they often resorted to direct marketing, erecting roadside stands. Even though expenses in the industry were high, operators increased their yields as a consequence of better cultural practices and more mechanization, and often benefited from appreciating land values. As roads improved, they extended their marketing area to include urban centers other than Cleveland, and by selling through cooperative associations they got a larger share of the consumer’s dollar. After World War II, there was a steady decline in open-air vegetable growing as holding after holding was swallowed up by the advance of the metropolis. Truck-farming production, however, continued to increase because many of the open-air growers added to their facilities and entered the forcing business.
The greenhouse sector of truck farming, at least in its concentration in the BROOKLYN (Old Brooklyn) community, was not displaced by urban development. Nevertheless, the rising price of land meant that new facilities tended to be in other areas, especially aroundOLMSTED FALLS. In the mid-1920s Cuyahoga was supposed to have about 160 acres under glass–more than any other American county. The maximum area under glass appears to have been reached ca. 1959, when the census reported 236 acres. Although some of the greenhouses specialized in flowers for the florist trade, most were devoted to lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. By 1982 most of the greenhouse operators were corporations or partnerships; that year there were 16 farms (greenhouse establishments) having sales of over $250,000 each, with an average of $542,813. The county then had 122.5 acres under glass and an output of “nursery and greenhouse products” valued at $11,673,000, or 89.5% of the stated agricultural sales ($13,039,000) of the county.
Until well into the 20th century, living conditions among Cuyahoga County farmers were similar to those in other parts of Ohio. Much of the old isolation had disappeared with the advent of organizations such as the Grange in the 1870s, Farmers’ Institutes in the 1880s, and the introduction of the telephone and free mail delivery. After World War I there was a great improvement in amenities throughout the rural area. In 1930 almost half the farm dwellings had water piped in. Of the 1,589 farms enumerated in the 1950 census, 1,380 had telephones, 1,531 had electricity from power lines, and 1,490 were on hardtop roads. During the 1920s, nearly every farm had an automobile or a pickup truck or both, and practically all had radios, as they would later have televisions. The few one-room schools left in the early 1920s were soon replaced by consolidated ones. There were new organizations, some involved in cooperative marketing, and others education and social, such as the 4-H clubs; many, however, became victims of advancing urbanization.
The steady encroachment of metropolitan Cleveland meant that in 1982 the agricultural census classified only 8,854 acres (13.8 sq. mi.) in the county as “land in farms,” much of it fragmented by limited-access roads, parkways, airports, golf courses, parks, reservoirs, and wasteland. While the agriculture was concentrated in greenhouse operation and other truck farming, there were perhaps still a dozen farms engaged in general husbandry, selling soybeans, shelled corn, melons, sweet corn, and some livestock. Of the 8,854 acres of farmland, 2,364 were in woods. Of the remaining area–classified as “cropland”–336 acres were used only as pasture, and 959 acres were lying idle, which suggested that the land was unprofitable for agricultural purposes or that it was being held for speculation, or both.
Although the 1982 census showed that Cuyahoga County had 193 farms, only 135 had any “harvested cropland.” As had been the pattern since the 1920s, many of the operators engaged in agriculture only part-time or not at all. No doubt some commuted throughout the week to factory or other jobs in the Cleveland or Akron area. All in all, outside the truck-farming sector, Cuyahoga County agriculture in the 1980s had become a marginal operation. As in other old rural complexes surrounding a megalopolis, the prospects were for a gradual further decline.
Robert L. Jones
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The Adult Education Tradition in Greater Cleveland by Tom Suddes
A native of Youngstown, Thomas Suddes joined The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1982; the next year, he transferred to the newspaper’s Columbus bureau, where for 17 years he covered the Ohio General Assembly and the state budget. While at the Statehouse, Suddes was elected president of the century-old Ohio Legislative Correspondents Association. His Plain Dealer column on Ohio government and politics, which appears on Sundays, began in the 1980s. Late in 2000, Suddes left the newspaper’s staff for graduate study at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism; he graduated in 2009 with a Ph.D. in mass communication. Suddes returned to The Plain Dealer in 2007 as a part-time editorial writer covering state affairs
Cleveland Public Library
From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
The CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, the third largest research library in the United States, has provided free public access to books and information since 1869. A school district library, it is governed by a seven-member Board of Trustees appointed for seven-year terms by the Cleveland Board of Education.
Although earlier library service had been offered through the Cleveland Municipal School District’s CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, the present library system opened for business on February 17, 1869 in rented quarters located in the Harrington Block on the southwest corner of PUBLIC SQUARE. Luther M. Oviatt was the first librarian.
The Cleveland Public Library’s innovative, service-oriented philosophy was established by the third and fourth librarians, WILLIAM HOWARD BRETT† and LINDA ANNE EASTMAN†, with the support of long-time Library Board president, lawyer JOHN G. WHITE†. Beginning with Brett, the library worked to bring books to the entire community. It offered open access to bookstacks, services to children and youth, extension work in neighborhood branches and school libraries, and library stations in businesses, factories, and hospitals. Through Brett’s persuasion, Andrew Carnegie donated $590,000 for the construction of 15 branch libraries. Service to the blind began in 1903 with a collection of books in Braille. Specialized reference services to business were developed, leading to the establishment of the Business Information Bureau under ROSE VORMELKER† in 1926.
The Main Library occupied several downtown locations prior to the opening of its landmark building at 325 Superior on May 6, 1925. Bond issues financed the building in 1912 and 1921. Cleveland architects WALKER AND WEEKS were selected in a national competition for the Library, which was to conform to the design of the other civic buildings in Daniel Burnham’s group plan for the MALL.
During the Depression, the Library set all-time attendance records with intensive use of all its resources by Cleveland’s unemployed population. The continuous growth of the Main Library reference and research collections filled the building by the late 1940s. In an effort to alleviate space problems, in 1959 the trustees acquired the adjacent PLAIN DEALER building to house the Business and Science Departments. The area between the two buildings, named Eastman Park in 1937 in honor of Linda A. Eastman, was landscaped as an outdoor reading garden under the leadership of board president Marjorie Jamison in 1960.
By the late 1970s, library use had declined and revenues from the state intangibles tax were no longer sufficient to support the extensive network of neighborhood branches. Branch buildings and their collections deteriorated. In 1974 ERVIN J. GAINES† was appointed the eleventh director; he began a reorganization and revitalization of the Library system. Additional funding was secured through a successful city tax levy in 1975, which supported a $20 million building program to upgrade the branches. Eighteen new or remodeled facilities with attractive new book collections opened.
Gaines oversaw the installation of a computerized on-line bibliographic database to replace the card catalog in 1981. Internal systems and procedures were streamlined and an automated circulation system was introduced. This technology was made available to other local libraries. Cleveland Heights-University Heights was the first to join the CLEVNET system. By 2004 more than 31 libraries from nine Ohio counties, as well as 28 Cuyahoga County Public Libraries were members of the network.
Gaines deferred a major renovation of the Main Library building in favor of the branches, but by the late 1980s the physical deterioration of the older Plain Dealer building placed the collections that it housed at risk. In Sept. 1986, Marilyn Gell Mason was named director and immediately began to plan for a complete modernization of the Main Library complex. In 1991 a $90 million bond issue was approved by Cleveland voters for the renovation of the Walker and Weeks building and for the construction of a new annex to be called the East Wing. In an international architectural competition, the New York firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer was selected to design the replacement for the Business and Science building. The former Plain Dealer structure was demolished in May and June of 1994. The completed Louis Stokes Wing, named in honor of Ohio’s first African-American U.S. Congressperson, was dedicated on April 12, 1997, and included 11 floors totalling 267,000 square feet and more than 30 miles of book shelves for a capacity of 1.3 million books.
Director Mason accelerated the library’s technological innovations with the introduction in 1988 of remote access to the library’s catalog through the Cleveland Public Electronic Library from personal computers in homes and offices.
After 12 years, Mason left her post in 1999. Andrew A. Venable, Jr., who had served as deputy director under Mason for three years, became director in June of the same year. Venable remained committed to technology, making the Cleveland Public Library a national leader in web-based services. In addition to on-line resources such as KnowItNow24X7 and Seniors Connect, the institution was the first public library in the United States to offer eBooks, which are electronic books that can be downloaded on to a laptop or PDA for a set period of time. Venable also remained committed to giving people access to the printed word; in 2001, after a 15-year hiatus, the Library re-launched mobile services with a new, high-tech, handicapped accessible mobile library unit. By 2004, the Mobile Library served 43 different locations, including The City Mission, Cleveland Clinic Children’s Hospital for Rehabilitation, Karamu House, and the Miles Avenue YMCA after-school program.
Cramer, C. H. Open Shelves and Open Minds: A History of the Cleveland Public Library (1972).
Wood, James M. One Hundred and Twenty-Five, 1869-1994: A Celebration of the Cleveland Public Library (1994).
Cleveland Public Library. Annual Reports (2001, 2002, 2003)
www.cpl.org
Libraries, Archives and Historical Societies through the 1880s
From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
LIBRARIES, ARCHIVES, AND HISTORICAL SOCIETIES In general, the development of libraries, historical agencies, and archives in theWESTERN 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, theCLEVELAND 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
CCC and CSU Two Schools That Almost Never Were
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.
Higher Education in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Sally H. Wertheim
HIGHER EDUCATION. The origins of the institutions of higher education in Cleveland can be traced in many respects to the needs and belief systems of their early founders, often reflecting the larger society. Developments in American higher education were closely related to major events in the nation’s social and political history, worldwide intellectual and technical revolution, rising egalitarianism, and population growth. The pre-Civil War years were emphatically the age of the college, and witnessed the proliferation of colleges on both the national and local levels. Most of these were originally religiously affiliated and privately sponsored. The period after 1865 was dominated by the rise of the university based on the German system, which stressed publication, research, and graduate study.
Early Cleveland colleges were founded by prominent community and church leaders to provide a trained ministry to transmit the values of the society. Western Reserve College, largely a Presbyterian endeavor, chose Hudson as its first site in 1826, later moving to Cleveland in 1882. In 1851 several Baptist ministers helped found CLEVELAND UNIVERSITY, which had a brief life until it closed in 1853. In the 1850s, Western College of Homeopathic Medicine opened, which lasted several decades. Dyke School of Commerce, a proprietary school, was established in the early 1850s to serve the growing needs of the mercantile community, teaching practical courses for office workers, such as bookkeeping. It merged and became Dyke & Spencerian College in 1942, and then developed into DYKE COLLEGE, a nonprofit educational institution granting 2- and 4-year business degrees.
As Cleveland grew and became industrialized, its educational needs expanded. In 1880 Case School of Applied Science was founded, and 2 years later Western Reserve College moved from Hudson to Cleveland. Case offered an engineering curriculum, the first west of the Alleghenies, and was characterized by linear growth in applied science and engineering until 1947. From 1947-67 it experienced a transition to Case Institute of Technology and became nationally recognized. Thereafter, it struggled to retain its identity, and by 1973 enjoyed a renaissance and reassertion of its position as a technical institute as part of CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY., which had resulted from a federation with Western Reserve Univ. in 1967.
Western Reserve College, with the assistance of a $500,000 donation from AMASA STONE, moved from Hudson to Cleveland in 1882, after having experienced great financial difficulty, often unable to pay its president, and losing many students and faculty during the Civil War. Stone controlled the Board of Trustees; stipulated that the college be named for his son, Adelbert; and mandated that the college and Case School be located in close proximity on a site about 5 mi. east of downtown Cleveland. Many wanted Adelbert to admit only, men, even though Western Reserve College had admitted women. So in 1888, a separate women’s college was established across the street, which became known as Flora Stone Mather College. By the end of the 19th century, WRU added graduate, law, nursing, and dental schools, a school of library science, and a school of applied social science, reflecting the German model of higher education with its graduate programs.
In 1846 METHODISTS founded Baldwin Institute in Berea. In 1864 German Methodists separated the German department from Baldwin, establishing German Wallace College. BALDWIN-WALLACE COLLEGE, still affiliated with the Methodist church, resulted from a merger of these two institutions in 1913. Following World War II, Baldwin-Wallace broadened its traditional liberal-arts curriculum to include business and evening programs.
Most of the private colleges continued their Protestant church affiliation and orientation toward middle-class and upper-middle-class values. Though WRU discontinued formal affiliation with any denomination after the move to Cleveland, most of its presidents were Protestant clergymen. These orientations did not meet the needs of an emerging economically successful Catholic population, which began establishing its own colleges. St. Ignatius College was founded by the Society of Jesus in 1886; it was renamed JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY in 1923 after the first archbishop of the Catholic church in the U.S. In 1935 it moved from its original location on Cleveland’s west side to its current location in UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS, adding business courses, a graduate school, and an evening program in the 1950s. In 1968 the university moved from full-time male enrollment to a coeducational institution.
The history of URSULINE COLLEGE parallels that of the URSULINE SISTERS OF CLEVELAND who came to Cleveland in 1850 from France to establish the first religious teaching community in Cleveland. In 1871 Ursuline nuns founded the first chartered women’s college in Ohio in a large house on EUCLID AVE.., moving to an Overlook Rd. campus from 1922-66, and then to PEPPER PIKE. The SISTERS OF NOTRE DAME first established an academy in downtown Cleveland in the 1870s. Then in 1922 they founded a liberal-arts college for women, currently (1996) located in S. EUCLID, which reflects the mission of the order’s founder, Sr. Julie Billiart, the 18th-century pioneer in women’s education.
Another group that did not fit the traditional college-student mold was the part-time student. To meet their needs, the YMCA offered evening classes in downtown Cleveland in a variety of subjects, such as art, bookkeeping, and French, as early as the 1880s. By the beginning of the century, daytime classes were added. Enrollments increased and degree, programs were developed in engineering and business by 1923. There was also a 2-year Vocational Jr. College program, with a unique cooperative plan in which students worked half a term, then attended classes. Later, in 1929, the college was named Fenn College after a benefactor, SERENO P. FENN. NEWTON D. BAKER, former Cleveland mayor and university trustee, helped WRU establish Cleveland College to serve the adult learner in the 1920s, in which classes were held in different parts of the community. It eventually moved downtown to PUBLIC SQUARE, moving in the early 1950s to Western Reserve campus, where it was eventually absorbed by the university.
Higher education continued reflecting the milieu in which it found itself. As the Depression, followed by World War II, beset Cleveland, the colleges experienced some retrenchment and little growth. The applicant pool began changing, reflecting the World War II veterans who had discontinued or interrupted their college years and could now take advantage of the G.I. Bill of 1944; while many students from working-class families were beginning to see the value of a college education. There was also an anticipated growth in the college-age population resulting from the postwar baby boom, with this group increasing from 4% in 1900 to 40% in 1964. At this time the Cleveland area did not have any publicly supported colleges, and it appeared that the private colleges would be unable to absorb the anticipated increase in potential students. Private colleges seemed to make little effort to accommodate students with special needs: the married, part-time, or commuter students, and those with diverse social or racial backgrounds. Cleveland’s strong Democratic political tradition, different from the downstate Republican orientation, seemed to stand in the way of establishing a public (state) college system. Ohio State Univ. dominated the public university scene, and Clevelanders had not demonstrated much interest in public higher education.
By the late 1950s, the community-college concept had still not been adopted in Ohio. Early efforts to establish public institutions of higher education in Cleveland emanated from the work of the Ohio Commission on Education beyond the High School in 1958. It issued a report, “Ohio’s Future in Education beyond High School,” recommending that the general assembly enact permissive legislation so that 2-year colleges or technical institutes financed by state and local funds and by student fees could be founded, and that these types of programs be established in Cleveland as soon as possible. Funds were available by 1960. In 1959 Gov. Michael DiSalle held a State House Conference on Education, from which came relatively strong support for the comprehensive community college as a viable alternative for new efforts in higher education in the 1960s. Despite strong support, there was much difference of opinion about the type and organization of public higher, education in Ohio.
Meanwhile, as early as 1952 the CLEVELAND FOUNDATION supported the CLEVELAND COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION, a coalition of local colleges which coordinated planning among the member colleges. In 1952 the commission issued a study, “These Will Go to College,” which predicted a rise in the college population and found a sharp distinction among various socioeconomic groups attending college in the Cleveland area. At this time there were only 2 low-cost public universities in the area (at Kent and Akron), and they were 30-40 mi. from downtown Cleveland. The private colleges seemed to have fixed abilities to expand, whereas the population was expected to increase 3-fold. A later commission report (1955) noted that general education and vocational education should be offered in 2-year institutions, also suggesting that less able students attend those institutions where programs would be more appropriate to them, thus preserving the elitism of the private institutions.
By 1959 the commission issued another report, “The Future of Higher Education in Cleveland,” advocating more opportunities for part-time and adult students, with an emphasis on community-service courses, conferences, and specialized courses. It did not take into account potential black and women students, predicting that these groups would not increase materially. The report also described a very active role for the commission in creating a community college. Two years later, Ohio passed enabling legislation permitting counties to create a community college district, and in 1963 the state legislature provided state financial support for community colleges. CUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE was founded in 1963. Its first home was at Brownell School, a 19th-century building leased from the Cleveland Board of Education. Later it moved to its own downtown campus and established both an eastern campus in WARRENSVILLE TWP.. and a western campus in PARMA, making it the largest college in Cleveland.
The expanding college population during the late 1950s and early 1960s led the Cleveland Commission on Higher Education to recommend creation of public 4-year higher education. Kent State and Ohio Universities were offering classes at 2 local public high schools, clearly documenting the need for a 4-year state university in Cleveland. CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY was established in 1964. In 1965 the trustees of CSU and of FENN COLLEGE formulated a contract to utilize Fenn as the nucleus of the new university. Fenn gave CSU its land and buildings and transferred its faculty and staff in 1965. This new downtown university mainly served a commuter population. In 1986 its colleges included Graduate Urban Affairs, Arts & Sciences, Business Admin., Engineering, and Education. The Cleveland Marshall School of Law (est. 1897) merged with CSU in 1969 to become the, CSU College of Law (see CLEVELAND-MARSHALL LAW SCHOOL).
During the 1970s the higher-education community continued responding to the demands of a growing population by building and adding programs. Some of the expansion, such as a series of dormitories constructed at CWRU in the 1960s, proved a liability as the college-age population shrank in the late 1970s. As local colleges and universities move into the 1990s and beyond, their thrust will once again need to be evaluated and changed because of the diminution of the potential pool of candidates. In the 1990s, colleges continued targeting non-traditional-age students, including housewives and working men and women. With the era of rapid growth behind them, it was hoped that they might be better able to address the issue of quality curriculum offerings to meet the education needs of their many constituencies.
Sally H. Wertheim
John Carroll Univ.
Last Modified: 12 May 1998 04:01:25 PM
The Story of Case Western Reserve University – Video
Regional Roots, International Impact is a documentary that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the “federation” between Western Reserve College and the Case School of Applied Science. Released in October 2007.
Cleveland University (Cleveland’s first institution of higher learning)
Cleveland University from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
CLEVELAND UNIVERSITY – The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
CLEVELAND UNIVERSITY became the city’s first institution of higher learning in a brief career lasting from 1851-53. It was chartered by the Ohio general assembly on 5 Mar. 1851, and its trustees included AHAZ MERCHANT, SAMUEL STARKWEATHER;, and RICHARD HILLIARD. For president, they tapped the recently resigned head of Oberlin Institute, Asa Mahan, who brought most of the new university’s first students from Oberlin with him. Classes began in the Mechanics’ Block on Ontario Street, but the school’s future was closely bound to a proposed campus planned for an area on the west side, hopefully named University Heights. Most of the trustees appeared to be speculating in property in the neighborhood, later known as TREMONT. They set aside a 275-acre parcel for the university, part for the campus and part to raise an endowment fund. Streets in the area were endowed with such academic names as College, Literary, Professor, and Jefferson, and a 3-story building was raised among them for the future home of Cleveland University.
Philosophically, Mahan charted the university along a progressive, non-sectarian course. Citing the examples of Brown and Rochester University, he advocated a practical as opposed to classical course of study. Included in the ultimate plans of Mahan and the trustees was a visionary complex encompassing not only a national university of European scope, but an orphan asylum, old-age retreat, and female seminary as well. After a full year of operation, culminating with the awarding of 8 degrees in June 1852, Cleveland University declined rapidly the following fall. Mahan resigned as president on 13 December, possibly because of a clash of personalities with some of the trustees. One of the school’s chief benefactors, Thirza Pelton, died shortly thereafter on 19 February 1853. Although the Board of Trustees was reorganized that year, the university apparently was liquidated by the end of the academic year. From 1859-68, the Cleveland University building was occupied by the HUMISTON INSTITUTE, a college preparatory school operated by Ransom F. Humiston.
Holtz, Maude E. “Cleveland University: A Forgotten Chapter in Cleveland’s History” (Masters thesis, Western Reserve Univ., 1934).