The Power Brokers – Glory Days of the Political Bosses

Plain Dealer magazine article written by Brent Larkin in May, 1991 about Cleveland’s political bosses

The link is here

THE POWER BROKERS GLORY DAYS OF POLITICAL BOSSES

By Brent Larkin

Compared to “The Red Boss,” they were pikers, all of them. The men of Tammany Hall? Big deal. They only ran New York City. Richard Daley? Come on. His power died at the Chicago city limits.

 

Cleveland has had its share of powerful political bosses, men like Maurice Maschke, Ray T. Miller, Albert Porter and, for a time, Robert E. Hughes. But, in terms of power, prestige and cunning, none could hold a candle to Marcus Alonzo Hanna. “The Red Boss” got his name because Cleveland’s skies turned that color after the smoke spewed from M.A. Hanna & Co. factories. “The Red Boss” got his power because of green, as in the millions earned from the country’s most successful coal and ore mining firm. Political bosses have used their clout to make mayors, county commissioners, judges, even governors and senators. Hanna used his to make a president. He single-handedly engineered the election of a president of the United States.

 

“Dollar Mark,” as he was also known, was born in Lisbon, near Youngstown, in 1837. His father was a doctor who was often in ill health. In 1852, the family moved to Cleveland, where his father abandoned his medical practice and opened a grocery store. After serving briefly in the Civil War, Hanna returned home to work in the family business. He invested in oil wells, steamships and mines. Under Hanna’s leadership, the M.A. Hanna & Co. became an industrial giant. Hanna first entered politics in 1880, when he formed the Cleveland Business Men’s Marching Club. The only place these men marched was to the bank, to make large deposits. It was around this time that Hanna met and befriended William McKinley, a Canton lawyer who journalist William Allan White would later describe as “on the whole dumb and rarely reaching above the least common denominator of the popular intelligence.”

 

McKinley’s shortcomings aside, he was on his way. And Hanna would serve as his tour guide to the top. First, Hanna engineered McKinley’s election as governor, but that was merely a steppingstone. What Hanna wanted was the 1896 Republican nomination for president. In pursuit of that goal, the onetime Cleveland grocer pulled out all the stops. He resigned from his company in order to devote all his time to the campaign. Figuring McKinley needed a friendly newspaper, he bought one – the Cleveland Herald. He traveled the country organizing McKinley clubs and securing contributions. More than $100,000 – an astronomical figure at the time – was spent to win McKinley the nomination.

 

By June 1896, when Republicans convened in St. Louis, McKinley’s nomination was assured. In his book, “The President Makers,” Francis Russell described the scene on the convention floor. “After the applause and the demonstrations following McKinley’s overwhelming nomination of the first ballot, there were cries of Hanna! Hanna! from all over the convention floor. … It was his moment of triumph. A huge crowd met him at the Cleveland railroad station on his return, drowned out his stammered thanks with their cheers, and escorted his carriage home.” But Hanna knew there was work to be done. Ahead was a campaign against Democrat William Jennings Bryan, an eloquent speechmaker capable of taking advantage of the country’s anti-business mood.

 

After the convention Hanna was made chairman of the Republican National Committee. In past presidential campaigns candidates would usually raise between $1 million and $2 million. Hanna raised an estimated $7 million, which enabled him to flood the nation with McKinley campaign literature and other propaganda. That was only half of Hanna’s strategy. The other half involved avoiding comparisons between the charismatic Bryan, with his moving “Cross of Gold” speech, and the dull McKinley. Toward that end, Hanna had McKinley stay home, literally. While Bryan dashed across the country, McKinley campaigned from his front porch in Canton. Groups of reporters and representatives of large voting blocs were brought to McKinley’s home and given rehearsed speeches. It was an early day version of the “Rose Garden strategy.” And it worked.

 

By election day, Hanna’s national organization was an efficient machine. Blacks were brought by trains from the South to northern states that needed Republican votes. Out West, one district counted 48,000 votes, 18,000 votes more than people registered. McKinley won in a walk. Hanna was the forerunner of the modern-day boss. As Russell wrote, “All subsequent American political campaigns have, for better or worse, followed the model established by the Red Boss in 1896.” Hanna followed McKinley to Washington by engineering his election to the

U.S. Senate. In those days, senators were elected by the state legislature. Hanna won by only one vote, amid charges of bribery and threats. To no one’s surprise, Hanna wielded immense power in Washington. Political cartoonists frequently depicted the president as a puppet, with Hanna pulling his strings. Still, there was never any indication McKinley resented Hanna, as the two remained fast friends and inseparable allies.

 

In 1990, McKinley again ran against Bryan and won handily. But Hanna was dealt a rare setback when he failed to stop the nomination of Teddy Roosevelt as vice president. The two disliked each other. Roosevelt once remarked, “I think there is only one thing I do not understand, and that is Ohio politics.”

 

Despite the elevation of Roosevelt to the vice presidency, there was little doubt that McKinley wanted Hanna to succeed him in the Oval Office and that Hanna planned to make such a run. But all that changed on September 6, 1901. While making a speech in Buffalo, McKinley was shot twice by a young man from Cleveland named Leon Czolgosz. The president survived only a few days. Roosevelt became president. When McKinley died, Hanna’s dream died with him.

 

Curiously, Hanna’s vast political power at the national level produced mixed results back home. Hanna retained control of the local Republican organization, but he could not prevent his nemesis, Tom L. Johnson, from winning four terms as mayor. Despite urgings from Wall Street, Hanna did not challenge Roosevelt in 1904. He realized the new president had become too popular. Described by many as a broken man, Hanna was re-elected to the Senate in 1903 and soon took ill. He died on February 15, 1904.

 

“He was the first national boss,” says Cleveland State University history professor Thomas Campbell. “He was truly a remarkable figure. I would say he was, beyond a doubt, the most powerful politician the country had seen up to that point.”

 

While Hanna was the most powerful political boss the nation had seen, Maurice Maschke was the most powerful political boss Cleveland had seen. As GOP chairman for 20 years and an influential figure for 35 years, Maschke dominated local politics. The Harvard-educated Maschke began to dabble in politics in 1897, but his rise through the ranks was meteoric. By 1900, he was the boss of eight city wards, including downtown. By 1904, he had the reputation of the city’s most astute political operative. And, by 1909, Maschke had performed the impossible: He had defeated Johnson, the most revered mayor in the city’s history.

 

As the 1909 mayoral election neared, most Republicans favored conceding re-election to Johnson by not even fielding a candidate. Maschke told them he not only had a candidate, he had a winner. It was Herman C. Baehr, the county recorder. Maschke took the inarticulate Baehr and carefully choreographed his campaign, limiting the candidate to three-minute prepared speeches.

 

“Baehr will win,” insisted Maschke. “Johnson has been mayor for eight years. That’s too long.”

 

Johnson didn’t seem to take his opponent seriously. He stopped campaigning three days before the election, traditionally the critical days in a political contest, and actually left town. Baehr won handily.

 

By 1914, Maschke was in complete charge of GOP politics. He controlled City Council and was a key figure in Herbert Hoover’s successful 1928 presidential campaign. He persuaded council to name William R. Hopkins as city manager and, when Hopkins began to challenge Maschke, he had council remove him from office.

 

As a lawyer and owner of a title company, Maschke was a wealthy man. Although editorial pages usually denounced him as a dictatorial boss, reporters revered him for the insights and news tips he regularly provided. Only once was Maschke tainted by scandal. He was one of many Republicans indicted during a 1932 probe of the county treasurer’s office, but was unanimously acquitted by a three-judge panel. Maschke’s demise started in 1928, when Democrat Ray T. Miller won the office that all political machines viewed as essential – county prosecutor. A year later, when the Depression rocked the nation, Republicans began to lose their grip on city voters.

 

His power diminished, Maschke resigned as GOP chairman in 1933 and died three years later.

 

“The remarkable thing about Maschke was he was so brilliant,” says Campbell. “He wasn’t the typical boss with a cigar in his mouth. The coalition he put together that defeated Tom L. Johnson was brilliant politics.”

 

When the Depression began to tilt the balance of power to the Democrats, Ray T. Miller was ready. He had studied Maschke’s machine politics. He understood the importance of the black vote, of forging coalitions among ethnic voters. He was ahead of his time in courting the women’s vote.

 

“Women’s involvement was the most important thing that ever happened to American politics,” Miller once said. “Women formed the greatest part of the workmanship where it counted, in the wards.” In 1931, Miller moved from the prosecutor’s office to the mayor’s office. As mayor, he began construction of the Memorial Shoreway and finished building the lakefront Stadium. But the Depression forced Miller to make deep cuts in city services, and he lost his re-election bid. Defeated in another try for mayor in 1935, Miller thought he was finished with politics. Truth was, he was just beginning.

 

In 1940, Miller toppled veteran Democratic chairman W.B. Gongwer from his post. Miller would hold the job for 23 years. As chairman, Miller became a favorite of the Roosevelt White House. He amassed a small fortune as a lawyer and owner of radio station WERE. Miller was to make one more attempt at elected office but was crushed by incumbent Gov. Frank Lausche in the 1948 gubernatorial primary election.

In 1960, Miller became the first big-city chairman to endorse the presidential candidacy of John F. Kennedy. The young candidate’s speech at Euclid Beach Park that year is still remembered for the estimated 100,000 who filled the park. Following the election, Miller was granted easy access to the Kennedy White House.

 

By 1963, Miller was in his 12th term as chairman, but his influence was waning. He had a falling out with Mayor Ralph Locher, and the enemies Miller had made over the years were calling for his ouster. At first, Miller refused, but in 1964, he surprisingly stepped aside. Two years later, Miller died of a heart attack at his Shaker Heights home. He was 73.

 

Miller wasn’t the last of Cleveland’s powerful political bosses. Albert Porter had power – and abused it (see box, page 23). Then there was Robert E. Hughes, who until his recent resignation served as chairman of the county’s Republican organization for more than 22 years. Operating on a political terrain where Democrats outnumber Republicans by more than a 3-1 ratio, there was a period, especially in the 1970s, when Hughes enjoyed astounding success.

 

For all but two years from 1971 through 1989, a Republican occupied the mayor’s office, and there was a time when the GOP controlled both the county commission and the auditor’s office. Quite often, Hughes remained one step ahead of local Democratic leaders, sometimes acting when Democrats were merely talking.

 

In no case was that more evident than Hughes’ key role in promoting Virgil Brown as the first black to hold a countywide, non-judicial office. For more than a decade, Brown held a county commission seat. He turned back challenges from two of the county’s most prominent Democrats – Timothy F. Hagan and Benny Bonanno.

 

Hughes’ power ebbed considerably during the 1980s, as the party failed to field candidates for many local offices and found itself deeply in debt. The GOP head also found himself in the midst of several controversies and a major criminal investigation that resulted in no charges. Still, Hughes will be remembered as a chairman who, during his heyday, overcame long odds to engineer Republican victories in campaigns, which, on paper, they had no business winning.

 

While Hughes was once an effective leader, he was not a “boss” in the Hanna sense. Greater Cleveland’s last political boss was probably Ray T. Miller. Gradually, grass-roots politics gave way to TV politics, where candidates rise or fall based on 30-second advertisements.

Today, Cleveland has no bosses. Local political parties have leaders, but the clout and prestige of those leaders is a far cry from when “The Red Boss” single-handedly engineered the election of a president.

 

Brent Larkin, a former Plain Dealer political reporter and columnist, is director of the editorial page.

Cleveland Clinic Origins

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The link is here

The CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION (incorporated February 5, 1921) is an independent, not-for-profit academic medical center engaged in patient care, research, and education. In 2005, it was the second-largest private medical group practice in America, including 1,400 physicians in 120 medical specialties and sub-specialties, serving more than a million patient visits a year. Founders GEORGE W. CRILE†, FRANK E. BUNTS†, WILLIAM E. LOWER†, and JOHN PHILLIPS†, served in the LAKESIDE UNIT, WORLD WAR I in World War I, and fashioned the Cleveland Clinic on the military model of cooperative medical specialties. Returning from the war, they recruited JOHN PHILLIPS as a fourth founder, and built and dedicated (1921) the first Cleveland Clinic building on EUCLID AVE. at 93rd Street. To provide “better care of the sick, investigation of their problems, and more education of those who serve,” they set aside a portion of the institution’s revenues for research, and other non-income producing activities. The Cleveland Clinic added a 184-bed hospital to its outpatient facilities in 1924. On May 15, 1929, nitrate-based x-ray films ignited in the original building, releasing poisonous fumes; 123 people died, including Dr. Phillips (see CLEVELAND CLINIC DISASTER). Despite losses from the disaster and the stock market crash, the institution stayed afloat on the good will of prominent Clevelanders, and the large surgical practice of Dr. Crile. It expanded greatly after World War II, focusing on specialized medicine. The Cleveland Clinic Research Division investigated kidney disease, blood circulation, and artificial organs, including the artificial kidney. Researcher IRVINE HEINLY PAGE† made key discoveries in hypertension. Cleveland Clinic physicians, researchers and nurses pioneered enterostomal therapy, dialysis, and kidney transplant, and were first to identify carpal tunnel syndrome and isolate serotonin, all before 1960.

The Cleveland Clinic gained a national reputation in cardiac care beginning with the discovery of cinecoronary angiography by F. MASON SONES† in 1958. Over the following thirty-five years, the Clinic built one of the largest and busiest heart practices in the world, with 300 hospital beds, and – per 2005 statistics – more than 200,000 patient visits a year. Heart surgeries totaled 8,121 in 2003, including a national record for a single hospital of 120 heart transplants in 1998. (A national lung transplant record of seventy in a single year was set by the Cleveland Clinic in 2004, with survival rates well above the national average.) As of 2005, the Cleveland Clinic performed more valve surgeries (2,254 in 2003) than any center in the world. In cardiac research, Eric Topol, M.D., and Qing Wang, Ph.D., made the world’s first discovery of a gene mutation associated with heart attacks and familial heart disease. Historic surgeries at the Cleveland Clinic include pioneering coronary artery bypass grafting by Rene Favaloro, M.D. in 1967, and the first successful larynx transplant by Marshall Strome, M.D. in 1998.

The Cleveland Clinic operates one of the nation’s largest post-graduate medical education programs and was an early advocate of continuing medical education for practicing physicians. In 2004, it opened the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University, with a curriculum devised by Cleveland Clinic staff to train physician investigators.

In the mid-1970s, the Cleveland Clinic made long-range plans and began acquiring land for future use. By 1986, it owned nearly all the land (about 140 acres) within the boundaries of East 88th and East 105th Streets and Chester and Cedar Avenues. In 1985, a $185 million dollar expansion added a signature outpatient building (the Crile Building, designed by Cesar Pelli) and a new hospital building. In 1988, the Cleveland Clinic became the first academic medical center to establish full-service hospital and clinic facilities beyond the borders of its home state, founding Cleveland Clinic Florida, in Weston and Naples, Florida.

Floyd D. Loop, M.D., chairman and CEO from 1989 to 2004, nearly doubled the Cleveland Clinic’s physical plant and number of patient visits. A successful capital campaign in the late 1990s financed the construction of the Lerner Research Institute (1998), Cole Eye Institute (1999), and Taussig Cancer Center (2000). The Surgery Center was built on Carnegie Avenue, and a seventeen-bed level III neonatal intensive care unit opened in 2001. The construction of two new on-campus hotels, in addition to an existing facility, brought the Cleveland Clinic’s lodging facilities for patients and visitors up to three.

Foreign heads of state, government officials, sports figures and celebrities have been cared for at the Cleveland Clinic. Interdepartmental collaborations include the Digestive Disease Center, Brain Tumor Institute, and Center for Functional and Restorative Neurosciences. The Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urological Institute is the largest and most specialized urology practice in America; the Children’s Hospital at the Cleveland Clinic provides care for all pediatric disorders; the Mellen Center at the Cleveland Clinic is the largest center exclusively for multiple sclerosis treatment and research in the country; Cleveland Clinic Sports Medicine provides team physicians for the CLEVELAND BROWNS, CLEVELAND CAVALIERS, and CLEVELAND INDIANS. The Cleveland Clinic assists in-house invention and entrepeneurs through CCF Innovations, its technology transfer arm.

The Cleveland Clinic began providing services to the SUBURBS through twelve family health and ambulatory surgery centers, beginning in INDEPENDENCE (1993), and adding Willoughby Hills, WESTLAKE, SOLON, Strongsville, Lorain, Wickliffe, Brunswick, Wooster, Lakewood, Beachwood, and Chagrin Falls through the 1990s. The Cleveland Clinic Health System consists of eight community hospitals (Euclid Hospital, Fairview Hospital, Hillcrest Hospital, Huron Hospital, Lakewood Hospital, Lutheran Hospital, Marymount Hospital, South Pointe Hospital), along with two affiliates (Ashtabula County Medical Center and Grace Hospital). Formalized in 1997, the system is Cleveland’s largest employer and the third-largest employer in Ohio, with 33,000 employees.

Delos M. Cosgrove, M.D., was appointed chief executive officer and president of the Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Health System in 2004. In 2005, the Center for Genomics Research was dedicated.

Leonard Case Sr.

Overview from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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CASE, LEONARD, SR. (29 July 1786-7 Dec. 1864), a businessman and philanthropist, was born in Westmoreland County, Pa., son of Meshack and Magdalene (Eckstein) Case. He moved in Apr. 1800 to Warren Twp., Trumbull County. In 1806, he became clerk of the court of common pleas for Trumbull County, later becoming clerk to Gen. Simon Perkins of the CONNECTICUT LAND CO. He studied law, passed the bar in 1814, and moved to Cleveland in 1816 when the COMMERCIAL BANK OF LAKE ERIE was formed and one of the founders hired him as the bank’s cashier. After the bank failed, Case stayed in Cleveland practicing law. From 1821-25, as president of the Cleveland village council, he was responsible for planting shade trees along streets, earning Cleveland the nickname “FOREST CITY.” From 1824-27, he served in the Ohio legislature, drafting laws taxing land according to value rather than size. He advocated railroads and canals.

From 1827-55, Case was an agent for the Connecticut Land Bank, acquiring large amounts of land from debtors during the Panic of 1837. In 1832, Case reorganized the Commercial Bank of Lake Erie and became its president. He was also an investor in the Cleveland-Columbus-Cincinnati Railroad. Case married Elizabeth Gaylord in Stow, Portage County, in 1817, and in the late 1840s turned his affairs over to his sons William and Leonard, Jr. Case gave to many charitable organizations, including Cleveland’s first school for the poor, the Cuyahoga County Historical Society, the Cleveland Medical College, and the city’s first lyceum for the arts. Case died in Cleveland and was buried in LAKE VIEW CEMETERY.

 

Ohio City Annexation

Overview from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

The link is here

 

OHIO CITY (CITY OF OHIO), one of Cleveland’s older neighborhoods, was originally part of Brooklyn Twp., founded in 1818. Historic borders of the city were: Lake Erie on the north; the CUYAHOGA RIVER on the east; Walworth Ave. and W. 44th St. on the south; and W. 65th St. on the west. On 3 Mar. 1836, 2 days before Cleveland’s incorporation, the City of Ohio became an independent municipality; it remained so until 5 June 1854, when it was annexed to Cleveland. Although Cleveland had nearly 6,000 people to Ohio City’s 2,000, the two cities became fierce competitors, especially in the area of commerce. This rivalry was best demonstrated in 1837, when Ohio City residents sought, violently, to stop the use of Cleveland’s new COLUMBUS STREET BRIDGE, which siphoned off commercial traffic to Cleveland before it could reach Ohio City’s mercantile district. Among the independent city’s 11 mayors were JOSIAH BARBER†, NORMAN C. BALDWIN†, RICHARD LORD†, THOS. BURNHAM†, and WM. B. CASTLE†. The city’s population grew from approx. 2,400 in the 1830s to 4,253 in 1850. Upon annexation, Ohio City became wards 8, 9, 10, and 11 of Cleveland.

After annexation, Ohio City became known as the near west side. A number of ethnic groups, including GERMANS, HUNGARIANS, and IRISH, lived in the area in the late 19th century. One of its focal points has been the WEST SIDE MARKET, which was built by 1912 on the site that Josiah Barber and Richard Lord deeded to the city on the condition it be kept a marketplace. Following World War II, the area entered a period of decline. In 1968 the Ohio City Redevelopment Assn. was chartered to stem the tide of neglect in the historic neighborhood and to strengthen a nascent trend of restoration that had begun in the early 1960s. From 1963-78, over 100 structures were restored or redeveloped, including ST. IGNATIUS HIGH SCHOOL and the Carnegie Branch of the CLEVELAND PUBLIC LIBRARY, as well as numerous private residences. As older structures were refurbished and occupied by upper-middle-class individuals and families, the resultant displacement of poorer groups led to charges of gentrification. By this time Ohio City was home to over 15 ethnic groups representing 25,000 people in a 4.5 sq. mi. area. Among the newer immigrant and migrant groups were Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans. As the Ohio City Development Corp. succeeded earlier redevelopment groups in 1992, the neighborhood was further revitalized by the construction of new townhouses on Fulton Rd. and the Market Sq. Retail Ctr. opposite the West Side Market at W. 25th St. and Lorain Ave.

 

 

Columbus Street Bridge War

Overview from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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The COLUMBUS STREET BRIDGE was the first permanent bridge over the CUYAHOGA RIVER. Constructed in the spring of 1836, it promoted commercial development of Cleveland at the expense of OHIO CITY (CITY OF OHIO), leading to the “Bridge War” between the cities in that same year. The Columbus St. Bridge was built for $15,000 by a group of real-estate speculators, led by Jas. S. Clark, who were developing Cleveland Ctr., a commercial district at Ox Bow Bend in the FLATS. It provided a direct route to Cleveland Ctr. from the Medina & Wooster turnpike (Pearl Rd.). Given to the city of Cleveland on 18 Apr. 1836, the covered bridge was 200′ long, 33′ wide, and 24′ high, with a draw at the center allowing ships to pass. Travelers could now bypass Ohio City entirely by crossing into Cleveland over the new structure instead of using the old floating bridge owned jointly by Ohio City and Cleveland. Seeing their trade diverted to Cleveland, Ohio City residents boycotted the new bridge, and in retaliation, CLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL had their half of the floating bridge removed in June 1836, instigating the so-called Bridge War.

Rallying to the cry of “Two Bridges or None,” west siders resorted to various forms of retaliation, including an ineffectual powder explosion. On 31 Oct. 1836 a mob of Ohio City residents armed with guns, crowbars, axes, and other weapons set off to finish the destruction, only to be met by Cleveland mayor JOHN W. WILLEY† and a group of armed Cleveland militiamen. Three men were seriously wounded in the ensuing riot before the county sheriff arrived to end the violence and make several arrests. A court injunction prevented any further interference with the bridge, and the courts resolved the issue by ruling that there should be more than one bridge crossing. The Columbus St. Bridge stayed (an iron bridge replaced it in 1870), although it didn’t prevent the collapse of builder Clark’s real estate venture. Ohio City survived, but the bridge ended any hopes of its rivaling Cleveland.


Education – Historical Overview

From the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History

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EDUCATION. The early history of education in Cleveland paralleled developments in Ohio and America, since education was a state initiative and local efforts reflected those of the state. The immigration of the 1830s and 1840s aroused feelings of nationalism and patriotism. The Catholic population grew rapidly and provided for a separate system of education during the 19th century. Many reform movements sprang up, focusing on such causes asABOLITIONISM, women’s rights, temperance, prison reform, and education. Education provided the unifying, homogenizing element needed in the society to deal with this diversity. Reformers such as Horace Mann in Massachusetts, Henry Barnard in Connecticut, and Samuel Lewis in Ohio led a simultaneous movement to establish a common school–not a school only for the common man, but a school for all, publicly supported and controlled, to train people for citizenship and economic power and to provide suitable moral training. The first state education act was passed in 1821 (though there are records of schools as early as 1803); it provided for control and support of common schools in the state. The language of the law was permissive, not mandatory. In 1825 a second law became more specific, providing for taxation for the use of schools, a Board of County Examiners, and the employment of only certificated persons as teachers. In 1837 the state passed a law establishing the position of state superintendent, to which Samuel Lewis was appointed. In 1853 a stronger law provided an augmented school fund, established a state education office, and strengthened local control. School enrollments began to increase, from a total of 456,191 in 1854 to 817,490 in 1895. The length of the school year also increased.

The first school reported in Cleveland was opened in 1817 and charged tuition. The CLEVELAND ACADEMY, built upon subscription, followed in 1821. When Cleveland was chartered in 1836, the first school supported by public money was opened. Two sections of the law related to schools allowed taxation for their support and gave the council the authority to fix the school year and appoint a board of managers to administer the schools. These schools were to serve only white children at the elementary level. The first school for Negroes was opened in 1832 by JOHN MALVIN† and was supported by subscription. The Board of Education built its first 2 schoolhouses in 1839-40. The first high school, CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL, was opened in 1845, with ANDREW FREESE† as principal. Superintendence of the schools began in 1841, and some of the notables included Freese, HARVEY RICE†, Luther M. Oviatt, Rev. ANSON SMYTHE†, and ANDREW J. RICKOFF†. The Board of Education was appointed by the council at first, but by 1859 it was elected, becoming fully autonomous in 1865 to levy and expend its own funds. Following the act of 1853, there were attempts to unify schools. A system of grades and classification of pupils was instituted, including a graded course of study, the adoption of methods of promotion, and the use of suitable graded textbooks. Students were often tested monthly, and records of their progress were kept. Even then many educators questioned this practice and whether it allowed for the individuality of the child. In 1877 the school board established a school for disruptive students. At this same time, the state passed a law compelling parents to send children ages 8-14 to school a minimum of 12 weeks a year.

At the turn of the 20th century, as the city grew and became more industrialized, the bureaucratic ethic and cult of efficiency prevailed and influenced school practice. The schools used a pediocentric approach to students. An interest in education as a science was precipitated by the work of G. Stanley Hall, Edward L. Thorndike, and Sigmund Freud on a national level. The fledgling science of psychology provided an understanding of child growth and development. John Dewey and his colleagues at Columbia Univ. wrote of the needs of individual students and the importance of experience as it relates to education. It was within this context of ferment that the education system in Cleveland grew. A program in manual training for high school students began in response to many of these events, and also to a growing pressure from the business community for more practical programs. This program later moved toCENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL and the Manual Training School in 1893. In 1887 a course in cooking was added, a first in the country. By 1909 the first technical and commercial high schools were established. The school system met the needs of many of the immigrants by providing a place where they could learn English and civics. The board hired its first truant officer to enforce the compulsory attendance law of 1889. After passage of a state law mandating the education of disabled persons, the board opened Cleveland Day School for the deaf, and provided for the gifted by establishing the major work classes in 1922.

Further response to outside forces moved education beyond the traditional classroom. The schools offered children’s concerts in cooperation with theCLEVELAND ORCHESTRA beginning in 1921 and used RADIO (WBOE) as a means of instruction in 1931. By 1947 all grades in public, parochial, and private schools used this service. As a result of the strong influence of the field of child psychology, Louis H. Jones, superintendent, established 6 kindergartens from 1896-97. Prior to this time, the YWCA had founded the CLEVELAND DAY NURSERY AND FREE KINDERGARTEN ASSN., INC. in 1882, with a free kindergarten in 1886. By 1903 the schools started vacation schools and playgrounds to keep children off the streets and involved in physical activity. They also opened a gardening program for both normal and problem children and added medical services to the system in 1908. By 1918 the schools enrolled over 100,000 students in their many specialized schools and programs to provide an education best suited to each child. Citizenship training was studied by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce in 1935, which recommended that public education be involved in training citizens about economic conditions. As a result, teachers toured industrial plants and attended lectures to see the application of business to their own classrooms.

Although the public school reforms of the Progressive Era, geared to the needs of the industrial commercial life of the times, were apparently beneficial to society and children, these efforts often were developed to limit the emerging political threat of the immigrants and the poor. These efforts continued, even though there were those such as Prof. Wm. Bagley of the Univ. of Illinois who warned early on of the social stratification created by separate vocational schools, and others who cautioned against the undue expansion of the public schools into areas that should be served by other institutions in society. Investigations of the schools were also part of the efficiency cult, with commissions studying student dropouts and new facilities. In 1905 SAMUEL ORTH†, head of the school board, appointed an education study commission. Its report recommended a differentiation in the functions of the high schools and the establishment of separate commercial high schools. A much more significant study followed between 1915-16. The Ayres School Survey, sponsored by the CLEVELAND FOUNDATION, criticized the school system as inefficient and unprogressive and recommended a more centralized administration. In response, new superintendent FRANK E. SPAULDING† developed new junior high and vocational programs and instituted a department of mental testing and a double-shift plan to relieve overcrowding and differentiation among students. Many felt an educational revival had occurred, though others argued that these new systems only served better those they had always served well.

Following World War II, the launching of Sputnik affected the curriculum of the schools, emphasizing a turn to the study of languages and the hard sciences. Neoprogressivism then followed, where schools were asked to stop demanding the right answers from students, to stop being repressive, and to move to a reemphasis on the child as reflected in the informal classroom movement. This period was also one of growth, with many buildings being added to school districts, notably those in Cleveland led by Superintendent Paul Briggs, who was appointed in 1964. Focus was also placed on the inequitable features of American education and the racial caste system the schools had maintained. Opportunity for education was to be made available to all youngsters, without regard to race, creed, national origin, sex, or family background. The nation had been alerted, and it was necessary to act once again through the schools, even if that action took the form of court cases. Such was the situation in the Cleveland schools. The Cleveland School Desegregation Case (Reed v. Rhodes) was filed in the U.S. District Court on 12 Dec. 1973. The trial began before Chief Judge FRANK J. BATTISTI† on 24 Nov. 1975 and concluded on 19 Mar. 1976. An opinion was issued in which state and local defendants were held liable for policies that intentionally created and/or maintained a segregated system. In Dec. 1976, the court issued guidelines for desegregation planning, to begin by 8 Sept. 1977. The state and local boards appealed the case to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. Judge Battisti felt that the Cleveland school officials were resisting the court order, and several desegregation plans were mandated, rejected, and resubmitted. By Dec. 1977, the court ordered the establishment of a Dept. of Desegregation Implementation responsible only to the court; it was terminated in 1982. In May 1978, the court established an office of school monitoring and community relations to monitor the schools, an unprecedented action. In June 1978, a final desegregation plan necessitated the closing of 36 schools and the transportation of students. By 23 Aug. 1979, the 6th Circuit Court affirmed the district court’s decision of the board’s liability and the remedy, which included educational remedies such as special reading programs. Desegregation began and often met with resistance, but busing was implemented peacefully, and it appeared that the educational aspects of the remedial order were positive. The system continued under the court order, facing many challenges with a record number of superintendents by 1995 when Judge Robt. B. Krupansky ordered the state to take over management of the district.

Paralleling the events in public education were strong private, parochial, and alternative school initiatives. These movements evolved out of political idealism and the goals of parents who wanted more control over the governance of schooling for their children. Early 19th-century reformers saw the common school as a vehicle to mix nationality, socioeconomic, and immigrant groups. Their vision often did not coincide with the wishes of their constituency. Cleveland’s Catholic population followed the prescriptions of the bishops, who began as early as 1825 to question public education, which they deemed to be Protestant-oriented. By 1884 the 3rd Plenary Council of Baltimore required schools for Catholic children to be built next to each church. The first Catholic school in Cleveland opened in 1848, and by 1884 there were 123 PAROCHIAL EDUCATION (CATHOLIC) with 26,000 children enrolled. By 1909 several significant schools were added by Bp. JOHN P. FARRELLY†, including CATHEDRAL LATIN SCHOOL. Catholic education was organized under the Diocese of Cleveland; the first superintendent of schools was Rev. Wm. A. Kane, appointed in 1913, and the first school board was appointed by Bp.JOSEPH SCHREMBS† in 1922. Other religious groups followed. The first Lutheran school was established in 1848; by 1943 there were 16 more. Other nationality and religious groups also ran schools, often meeting after the public school day had finished or as Sunday schools.

PRIVATE SCHOOLS were an important part of Cleveland’s educational history, evolving from the academic movement of the 20th century. A Mission School for poor children became the Ragged School in 1853 and then the CLEVELAND INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL, from which the CHILDREN’S AID SOCIETY developed in 1858. One of the early private independent schools, UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, was started by Newton M. Anderson in 1890, as a result of a perceived overcrowding in public schools and a desire for new trends in education. LAUREL SCHOOL began as Wade Park School for Girls in 1896, and HATHAWAY BROWN was founded in 1886, its forerunner being MISS MITTLEBERGER’S SCHOOL. HAWKEN SCHOOL was founded in 1915. Reflecting the 1960s political milieu, parents started the alternative-schools movement. These ALTERNATIVE SCHOOLS ranged from theURBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL, founded in 1968, which was neoprogressivist in philosophy and served a multicultural population, to the Cleveland Urban Learning Community (CULC), a school without walls whose classes occurred in the community, that appealed to nontraditional students. In addition, many public schools developed alternative programs on the model of a school within a school. These programs emphasized individualized approaches geared in nontraditional delivery formats. The alternative-schools movement was supported mainly through foundation funds which provided for initial costs; however the schools could not be sustained on this basis and began to experience financial difficulties, forcing several to close. Some, though, continued by garnering ongoing support or by affiliating with established institutions.

The Western Reserve area can also claim credit for efforts in TEACHER EDUCATION with the organization of the Ohio State Teachers Assn. and theNORTH EASTERN OHIO EDUCATION ASSN. (1869). The CLEVELAND TEACHERS’ UNION, an affiliate of the American Fed. of Teachers, was founded in 1933. Some of the early academies, such as Wadsworth, were institutions similar to high schools and prepared students for higher education and/or teaching. This area became known as a source of teachers for the state. In 1839 the Western Reserve Teachers Seminary opened at Kirtland, founded only 2 years after the first normal school in the U.S. Superintendent Andrew Rickoff inaugurated a week-long teacher-training institute in 1869 and a normal school in 1876 at Eagle Elementary School. He also proposed a merit pay system. Subsequently, the Cleveland School of Education, Western Reserve Univ., and the Board of Education offered courses for teacher in-service training. In 1928 the university established a School of Education, a merger of the Cleveland Kindergarten-Primary Training School, a private school founded in 1894, and the Senior Teachers College. Secondary teachers were prepared at WRU. Later, in 1945, the university established a division of education, responsible for providing the professional education courses required for state certification, and a graduate program, which was discontinued in the 1970s.

The first CLEVELAND UNIVERSITY had a brief rise in 1851 and a rapid decline in 1853. Cleveland had already established its first medical school in 1845 when 6 doctors seceded from Willoughby Medical College and reorganized in Cleveland as the medical school of Hudson’s Western Reserve College. Other institutions established were the Western Reserve College of Homeopathic Medicine in 1850, lasting for several decades, and a School of Commerce, also in the 1850s. In 1880 Case School of Applied Science was founded to offer an engineering curriculum, the first west of the Alleghenies. Western Reserve College, originally founded in Hudson, OH, moved to Cleveland. AMASA STONE† provided for endowment and buildings for the move, stipulating that the college be renamed for his son, Adelbert, and located close to Case School. In 1888 the trustees created a separate women’s college, eventually named Flora Stone Mather College. It was the first coordinate college in the country. At the end of the 19th century, WRU added a graduate school, law school, nursing and dental schools, school of library science, and school of applied social sciences. CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY resulted as a merger of the two institutions in 1967. BALDWIN-WALLACE COLLEGE in BEREA was founded by Methodists in the mid-1850s. These private colleges were primarily Protestant-oriented. The growing number of Catholic immigrants at the end of the 19th century sought another environment. St. Ignatius College was established by the Jesuits on the near west side of Cleveland in 1886. It was later renamed JOHN CARROLL UNIVERSITY and moved to UNIVERSITY HEIGHTS in the 1920s. The first chartered women’s college in Ohio was founded by Ursuline sisters in 1871. The Sisters of Notre Dame established an academy in downtown Cleveland in the 1870s, and later NOTRE DAME ACADEMY. The YMCAsponsored evening college-level classes for working students. By 1923 they added day classes and a cooperative plan whereby students held jobs related to their business courses and engineers pursued courses at Fenn College. In the 1920s, Cleveland College of WRU was established in downtown Cleveland to serve the needs of the employed population. DYKE COLLEGE resulted in 1942 from a merger of one of the nation’s oldest private commercial schools, Spencerian, with Dyke School of Commerce, dating from 1894.

Colleges did not grow in any major way until the sudden increase in the number of young people of college age in the 1960s. Formerly the emphasis had been on private colleges, but after World War II, there was a steady increase in the percentage of students attending public institutions. The CLEVELAND COMMISSION ON HIGHER EDUCATION, a coalition of college presidents and business interests, completed a study in the 1950s recommending that some type of public higher education be offered in Cleveland. In 1958 the Ohio Commission on Education beyond the High School was established, making recommendations for the founding of 2-year colleges or technical institutes financed by the state, local funds, and student fees. That led to the founding ofCUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE in 1963, and later to its 3 campuses. In 1964 CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY was established to provide a public university education in the downtown Cleveland area. It included the old FENN COLLEGE, a law school, and science and health structures, among others. Higher education has experienced significant growth, but as it moves toward the end of the century, it will increasingly deal with the effects of a declining traditional student population and institute programs to attract nontraditional student groups, such as older students.

Sally H. Wertheim

John Carroll Univ.

 

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