Article written by Elaine Whitfield Sharp
Mormons in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Harry F. Lupold
MORMONS. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon) has experienced 2 distinct periods of its history in northeast Ohio: the “Kirtland Era” of the early 19th century and the post-World War II era. During the Kirtland Era, the Saints gathered at specific geographic locations to “build up the Kingdom of God.” In the later period, the Latter-day Saints Church expanded beyond geographic confines. Joseph Smith, Jr. (called the Prophet) and 5 other men organized and incorporated the Church of Jesus Christ on 6 Apr. 1830 in Fayette, NY. (The phrase “Latter-day Saints” was added in 1838.) The church quickly attracted converts, many of whom became zealous missionaries, including Parley P. Pratt. A former Campbellite preacher from Ohio, Pratt helped to introduce Mormonism into the WESTERN RESERVE. In Nov. 1830 Pratt and Oliver Cowdrey preached the restored doctrines of Mormonism to the congregations of Pratt’s friend, Sidney Rigdon (another former Campbellite minister) in Mentor and Kirtland. Impressed, Rigdon read the Book of Mormon and admonished his congregations to carefully investigate its message. Conversion to Mormonism quickly followed for Rigdon and about 127 members of his flock. News of the Kirtland success reached Smith in western New York; in Dec. 1830 he received a revelation directing the New York Mormons to “assemble together in Ohio.” The next January, Smith and his family arrived in Kirtland, which soon became a physical and spiritual focal point for the Mormons.
Although Mormon activity centered in the counties east of Cuyahoga, proselytizing produced mixed results throughout the Western Reserve. In 1831 Mormon missionaries baptized John Murdock, a farmer who lived near Warrensville, who then preached throughout eastern Cuyahoga county. Eventually 55 residents were baptized because of his efforts.
Due to its reliance on lay priests and volunteers, the Church of the Latter-day Saints created new stakes and wards only when certain that a particular area could supply its own leadership and guidance. (A Mormon stake and ward are analogous to a diocese and parish respectively; a branch has fewer members than a ward.) Between 1831-38, 4 Latter-day Saints branches were established in MAYFIELD VILLAGE, ORANGE, STRONGSVILLE, and WARRENSVILLE HEIGHTS The NORTH UNION SHAKER COMMUNITY also attracted the attention of the Mormons. In Mar. 1831 Smith directed Rigdon, Pratt, and Leman Copley to proselytize among the Shakers, who proved unreceptive; the effort was discontinued. Kirtland eventually lost its favored position. The attention of the Prophet, material goods, and people were increasingly diverted to Jackson County, MO, following a revelation in July 1831 designating that area as the new Mormon Zion. Economic problems in Kirtland caused disharmony during the mid-1830s: land speculation provided quick profits for some,, bankrupted others, and destroyed friendships. With the failure of the Kirtland Anti-Banking Safety Society, many local Mormons discounted Smith as a fallen prophet concerned only with generating capital to repay debts. Finally, persecution from local residents outside the Latter-day Saints Church increased over time. With the departure of the Prophet and many of the Saints from Ohio in 1838, the Kirtland Era came to a close. Over the next 10 years, the Mormons were expelled from Missouri, built Nauvoo, IL, and trekked westward to the Great Salt Lake Valley, beginning in 1847. For nearly 100 years following the establishment of the Mormon Kingdom in Utah, the church administered to a scattered membership in northeast Ohio through units known as missions.
In 1946 one Latter-day Saints branch encompassed not only Cleveland but also a large part of northeast Ohio. Members traveled from as far as the Pennsylvania border, Sandusky, and Hudson to attend Sunday services in a rented room in the Carter Hotel. The average attendance was 30. By 1986 the same geographic boundaries housed 2 stakes comprising 15 wards, and 3 branches, encompassing a total membership of over 4,800. At the stake level, 2 significant developments affected Cuyahoga County Mormons. In Oct. 1961 a large portion of northeast Ohio was organized into the Cleveland Stake, which administered to over 2,400 Latter-day Saints in 8 wards and 3 branches. In 1983 the Kirtland stake was organized, which took in the eastern portion of the Cleveland stake. With the boundaries running north and south through PUBLIC SQUARE, the Cleveland and Kirtland stakes included the western and eastern portions of Cuyahoga County, respectively.
For nearly 20 years following the end of World War II, the core of Cuyahoga County’s Mormon population consisted largely of transplanted westerners who moved into the Cleveland area because of job transfers, professional opportunities, and matriculations at local educational institutions. They helped strengthen a growing local body. Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, most area Mormons lived on the city’s west side, and in 1947-48, steps were taken to build a meeting house there. A small 2-story structure was completed on Lake Ave. near Detroit Rd. in 1950. Increasingly, a significant portion of the branch’s population came to be composed of students attending Western Reserve Univ.’s School of Dentistry. These students and their spouses first congregated in the LAKEWOOD area and, later, in CLEVELAND HEIGHTS and SHAKER HEIGHTS Together with a small number of permanently relocated Mormons and a growing convert population, the student families comprised a viable east-side group of Latter-day Saints. In 1955 the Euclid Branch was organized, later renamed the Cleveland East Branch, which stretched from Public Square to the Pennsylvania border. While most of its members resided on or near Cleveland’s east side, there, were families, mainly converts, scattered throughout the far eastern portions of the branch. All of the meetings and activities took place in members’ homes and in several community buildings, including the Brainard Community Center, the MayfieldYOUNG MEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSN., and public schools. Inability to find a suitable site for a meeting house stymied construction attempts throughout the late 1950s. In 1962 a parcel on Cedar Rd. in Mayfield, just west of SOM Center Rd., was purchased. The meeting house, begun in 1966, was completed in 1967. In 1969, after it had been fully paid for, the building was dedicated. The Cleveland East Branch became a ward in Oct. 1961, when the Cleveland Stake was organized. Since then membership growth and ward proliferation have taken place east of Cuyahoga County, as well as within its boundaries, including wards in Ashtabula (1968) and Kirtland (1977). In 1986 3 wards shared the eastern portion of Cuyahoga County, Mayfield, Shaker Hts., and Solon, including approx. 700 Latter-day Saints.
Following the student migration from the west side, the population of the Cleveland Branch was reduced to relocated westerners and local converts. Both populations grew, and by 1966 the Lakewood Chapel had become too small to house the west side branch. After selling the building to a Lutheran congregation, members of the Cleveland Branch worshipped and held social activities in community buildings and private homes for 2 years. In 1968 a new building was completed on Westwood Rd. in WESTLAKE. The building housed 2 wards and the offices of the Cleveland Stake. A second chapel was completed in 1979 on Rockside Rd. in SEVEN HILLS. Since individual branches of the Mormon church were established west of Cuyahoga County, in Lorain and Sandusky, in the 1950s, the proliferation of the Cleveland Ward occurred within the confines of western Cuyahoga County. In 1986 4 wards occupied the area, Cleveland, NORTH OLMSTED, Seven Hills, and Westlake, with approx. 1,200 Latter-day Saints. The postwar establishment of the Cleveland and Kirtland stakes and the subsequent organization of new wards within their boundaries indicated the numerical growth experienced by the area Latter-day Saints Church. The average ward had 300 members in 1986.
Harry F. Lupold
Lakeland Community College
Robert Psuik (dec.)
Arrington, Leonard J. and Davis Bitton. The Mormon Experience: A History of the Latter-day Saints (1980).
Backman, Milton. The Heavens Resound: A History of the Latter-day Saints in Ohio, 1830-1838 (1983).
Last Modified: 21 Jul 1997 11:19:28 AM
World War 2 in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland
Written by John Vacha
WORLD WAR II. When Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 Dec. 1941, the ranking American victim was a native Clevelander, Rear Adm. ISSAC C. KIDD, aboard the Arizona. Before V-J Day, his death would be followed by those of nearly 4,000 more Clevelanders out of a total of 160,000 called to service. At home, the face of Cleveland would be greatly transformed by the demands of the war effort, while more fundamental changes set in motion by the war would contribute to the city’s postwar decline. It did not take Clevelanders long to discover there was a war on. Under Civilian Defense Director WM. A. STINCHCOMB, lighting “blackouts” were being rehearsed by the summer of 1942. A special emphasis on Victory Gardens was incorporated into that year’s Home & Flower Show. Rationing was implemented on the local level by 29 War Price & Rationing Boards, which were empowered to issue permits to civilians for such potentially scarce commodities as sugar, meat, and gasoline. Charged with administering the Selective Service Act in Cuyahoga County were 51 local draft boards composed of over 400 volunteers. Meeting several nights a week, board members considered classification appeals and supervised the machinery that called 3,000-4,000 Greater Clevelanders monthly to the armed services.
|
|
As young men began departing for military training centers from CLEVELAND UNION TERMINAL, an influx of wartime government agencies helped fill the vacuum created by their absence. Contracts with 800 northern Ohio defense plants were placed by the Cleveland Ordnance District Office in the Terminal Tower. Operating from the Union Commerce Bldg., the regional office of the War Labor Board became the third-busiest in the country, handling 400 cases a week from a 4-state area. In an outdoor exhibit at Euclid and E. 9th St., the War Production Board kept Clevelanders informed of the goals and quotas of the war effort. A focus for the area’s wartime activities was provided with the dedication of the War Service Ctr. onPUBLIC SQUARE. Constructed with donated materials and labor, the temporary structure on the northwest quadrant of the Square sheltered recruiting offices, war bond and stamp sellers, and such agencies as the USO, Red Cross, and War Housing Service. PLAYHOUSE SQUARE was the address of the local branch of the Stage Door Canteen, where servicemen might find hospitality and entertainment. Clevelanders could keep abreast of the war’s progress by dropping in at the Telenews Theater, which specialized in continuous showings of newsreels on its Lower Euclid screen. On the home front, the area’s biggest news story was theEAST OHIO GAS CO. EXPLOSION AND FIRE of 1944, which claimed 130 lives and taxed the city’s Civilian Defense preparations to capacity.
|
|
Cleveland was credited with originating the Block Plan to promote and organize various bond, blood, and scrap drives on the neighborhood level. By the 8th and final war loan drive, county residents had accounted for a total of $2.5 billion worth of bonds. There were also innumerable rallies, exemplified by the one sponsored in PUBLIC AUDITORIUM on 3 June 1942 to collect money for medical aid to Russia. Even more than bond drives and relief rallies, what Uncle Sam wanted from Cleveland was output of its industrial establishment, ranked 5th in the nation. Steps were taken to expand that industrial base by the construction of such facilities as the Thompson Aircraft (Tapco) plant in EUCLID, which had been started even before the war in 1941. By the war’s end, Thompson was Cleveland’s largest employer, with a workforce of 21,000 (see TRW, INC.). Two large facilities arose in 1942 on the perimeters of Cleveland Municipal Airport (seeCLEVELAND-HOPKINS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT). Originally planned for the production of B-29 (“Superfortress”) parts, the Fisher Cleveland Aircraft plant underwent successive postwar metamorphoses as the Cleveland Tank Plant and finally the Intl. Exposition & Trade Ctr. (see I-X CENTER). On the other side of the airport, the Natl. Advisory Committee for Aeronautics constructed the world’s largest wind tunnel as part of its Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory, which survives as the Natl. Aeronautics & Space Admin. Lewis Research Ctr. (see NASA JOHN H. GLENN RESEARCH CENTER AT LEWIS FIELD).
Many local plants recorded distinguished achievements in the war effort. Natl. Acme and Cleveland Twist Drill, later combined as theACME-CLEVELAND CORP. Corp., won 2 of the war’s first Army-Navy “Star” awards for production excellence. A double Army-Navy “E” Award went to Cleveland’s H. K. Ferguson Co. for erecting Tennessee’s Oak Ridge thermal diffusion plant in just 66 days. Perhaps Cleveland’s greatest wartime success story was written by Jack & Heinz, an aircraft-parts manufacturer in MAPLE HEIGHTS (see LEAR SIEGLER, INC., POWER EQUIPMENT DIVISION) that was singled out after the war by Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the War Production Board, for the following accolade: “By paying exceptionally attractive wages, making sure that working conditions were congenial, developing a strong sense of team play, giving workers full credit for individual and group achievements, stressing the importance of the workers’ jobs to the war effort, and appealing to patriotism by explaining the needs of the armed services, this company drove production and earnings to new heights.”
Thanks to the impetus of war production, employment in Cleveland by Sept. 1944 had climbed to 34% above its 1940 level. Practically the entire increase had taken place in the manufacturing, sector, where employment had risen from 191,000 to 340,000 during the period cited. “Cleveland is one of the Nation’s industrial centers which has expanded most since the beginning of the war,” concluded the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the national index of factory employment in 1944 as compared with 1939 was 156.3, Cleveland’s index had leaped to an even more imposing 179.7 (1939=100). Such single-minded application to production was bound to produce strains in other sectors of the community’s social fabric. Mayor Frank J. Lausche’s War Production Committee was credited with the relative absence of strikes and other labor problems in the city. Cleveland also escaped any major wartime racial outbreaks, though labor demands would contribute to a 75% increase in its African American population during the decade (see AFRICAN AMERICANS). Careful monitoring of interracial relations was one of the weightiest recommendations of the Post-War Planning Council of Greater Cleveland, an idea that came to fruition in the creation of the CLEVELAND COMMUNITY RELATIONS BOARD.
Commuting and gas rationing combined to tax the city’s public transportation facilities. From a Depression low of under 200 million, revenue rides on the newly municipalized Cleveland Transit System peaked at nearly 450 million in 1946, followed by a precipitous postwar decline. Near the end of the war, area engineers revealed a 50-year express highway plan, which envisioned a Cleveland serviced by innerbelt, outerbelt, and crosstown freeways. Other experts turned their attention to the demands that increased postwar air travel would make on Cleveland’s airport. Without doubt, Cleveland’s most vexing homefront problem was housing. Even in 1940, failure to replace aged housing stock during the Depression had resulted in a vacancy rate of only 3%. Wartime building restrictions and in-migrating defense workers drove that down to an infinitesimal 0.5% by Mar. 1943. “Temporary” war housing projects put up in critical areas such as BEREA and Seville could not meet the demand, as the War Housing Service satisfied fewer than half of its 35,000 applicants during its first 2 years. It did not take much studying for the Post-War Planning Council to predict “a splurge of house-building in the suburbs, following the relaxation of artificial war-time restraints upon residential construction.” Unless immediate measures were begun to rehabilitate the central city’s deteriorating areas and prevent further blight, the council foresaw “wholesale abandonment of older areas and catastrophic losses in investments and tax values.” With admirable accuracy, the council concluded that “this boom will set the pattern of Greater Cleveland for the next generation.”
The promised and prayed for victory came on 15 Aug. 1945. Within a month, a victory parade lasting more than 3 hours marched down Superior Ave., where it was viewed by 300,000 Greater Clevelanders. For those, incapable of marching, a 1,750-bed veterans’ hospital inPARMA had been dedicated as Crile General Hospital in 1944. A WAR MEMORIAL FOUNTAIN was promoted by the CLEVELAND PRESS and dedicated on the Mall in 1964. Perhaps an even more evocative monument was later provided by the lakefront relocation of the U.S.S. Cod, a vintage World War II submarine, with its locally built diesel engines. Postwar Cleveland followed the pattern predicted by the Post-War Planning Council, as the exodus began. Space requirements had already dictated suburban locales for the larger plants constructed during the war.
Spearheaded by returning veterans taking advantage of government-guaranteed mortgages provided by the GI Bill, the labor force joined the migration to the SUBURBS. Cleveland’s neighborhoods, deserted by a generation that might have rebuilt them, and decimated by implementation of the long-awaited freeway system, were inherited by the elderly and the newer minorities that had arrived to fill wartime labor needs. Largely developed to capacity before the war, the central city and its remaining citizens were relegated to the backwash of the postwar rush to the suburban frontier.
J. E. Vacha
Last Modified: 27 Mar 1998 11:14:30 AM
World War 1 in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland
WORLD WAR I. With a population of 560,665 on the eve of World War I, Cleveland stood as the 6th-largest city in the U.S. It thrived economically on the manufacture of iron and steel, paints and varnishes, foundry and machine-shop products, and electrical machinery and supplies. Although recently surpassed by Detroit in automobile production, it still excelled in the making of auto accessories. Proof of the city’s financial importance was offered late in 1914, when Cleveland was selected as headquarters for the 4th Federal Reserve District (seeFEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CLEVELAND). The years of U.S. neutrality were bonanza ones for Cleveland’s industries, as its workers satisfied contracts for uniforms, weapons, automobiles and trucks, and chemicals for explosives. By the fall of 1918, it was estimated that the city had produced $750 million worth of munitions in the 4 years since the war had begun. The issues of the war itself were primarily of interest to the 35% of the city’s population (1910 census) of foreign birth. War touched the city more directly with the sinking of the Lusitaniaon 8 May 1915, as 7 Clevelanders were listed among the 114 Americans killed on the torpedoed British liner. By the time Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in Mar. 1917, Clevelanders were packing war meetings in GRAYS ARMORY and aiding the U.S. Naval Reserve in the formation of Lake Erie’s “mosquito fleet” of 500 ships.
|
|
Upon America’s entry into the war on 6 Apr. 1917, a county draft board consisting of DANIEL E. MORGAN, STARR CADWALLADER, and Dr. Walter B. Laffer was named to supervise the local application of the new Selective Service System. By the year’s end, 25,000 draftees had joined 8,000 volunteers in the area’s total of men under arms. By war’s end, almost 41,000 Clevelanders had joined the services; 1,023 of them were killed in the conflict. Led by Maj. GEO. W. CRILE, Base Hospital Unit No. 4 from Lakeside Hospital had been among the first Americans to reach France, as early as May 1917 (see LAKESIDE UNIT, WORLD WAR I). On the home front, Cleveland factories continued to supply the war effort with arms and equipment. The WHITE MOTOR CORP.. alone produced a total of 18,000 trucks for the use of the U.S. and its allies. As men stepped into the trenches and assembly lines, women were called upon to fill the breach. The CLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS dropped an old ruling that forced female teachers to resign upon marriage. Gertrude Nader greeted Cedar-Fairmount line commuters in 1918 as Cleveland’s first streetcar “conductorette,” although the female conductors would later lose their jobs as the result of a postwar strike.
To coordinate the city’s war activities, Mayor HARRY L. DAVIS appointed a MAYOR’S ADVISORY WAR COMMITTEE to be financed from money from the Red Cross drive. Supervised under the umbrella of the Mayor’s Committee were such activities as the war gardens campaign, the “Four Minute Men” speakers’ bureau, and local efforts in the Treasury Dept.’s Liberty Loan drives. Clevelanders oversubscribed the first 2 Liberty Loan campaigns by $70 million. Nothing was deemed too excessive in the city’s desire to flaunt its patriotism. The Board of Education honored one of America’s allies by naming a new elementary school after Lafayette. A 1918 Flag Day Pageant in WADE PARK, witnessed by 150,000 Clevelanders, featured a SPIRIT OF `76 tableau personally directed by ARCHIBALD M. WILLARD. On the negative side, a local branch of the American Protective League was organized to aid the Dept. of Justice in locating draft “slackers,” investigating food hoarding, and suppressing alien disturbances. Some violators of the city’s first “gasless Sunday” in Sept. 1918 returned to their cars to find the tires slashed.
Despite the outward appearance of 100% Americanism, there were those who objected to the U.S. entry into the war. Members of the city’s German and Hungarian communities had hoped for continued neutrality, as did many IRISH, who saw any assistance to the Allies as helping their traditional enemy, the English. Radical political groups, including some Socialists, also advocated neutrality. Socialist Eugene Debs’s criticism of the war resulted in his arrest in Cleveland and subsequent imprisonment in 1918 (see DEBS FEDERAL COURT TRIAL). Cleveland’s ethnic communities–“hyphenated Americans” in the parlance of the day–came in for their share of patriotic pressure. An Americanization Board was established by the Mayor’s Advisory Committee, and naturalization classes were inaugurated under the direction of Dr. RAYMOND MOLEY (see AMERICANIZATION). With the cooperation of the Cleveland Board of Education, free language classes were advertised in 24 different locations. Some ethnic newspapers began printing editorials in English to circumvent a law requiring the filing of translations of war-related copy with the local postmaster.
A particularly intense trial was reserved for the city’s 132,000 residents of German extraction. The German language was dropped from the curriculum of the public elementary schools, although its study was retained on grounds of “military necessity” in the high schools. Local members of the American Protective League, in fact, campaigned to outlaw even the public use of the “enemy” language. Directors of the German American Savings Bank wisely voted to conduct future business under the less provocative nomenclature of the AMERICAN SAVINGS BANK. So many obstacles were raised for Cleveland’s German newspaper WAECHTER UND ANZEIGER that one scholar found it surprising that the paper survived the war at all. Not so lucky was the German-American president of BALDWIN-WALLACE COLLEGE, Arthur Louis Breslich, who aroused the patriotic indignation of his students and faculty at the 1917 Christmas service by attempting to lead them in the singing of the German-language version of “Silent Night.” Following protests, petitions, and parades against the president’s “passive” patriotism, Dr. Breslich was permanently suspended from his duties by the Baldwin-Wallace trustees. While the war could not end too soon for the city’s German-Americans, its hysteria lingered months beyond Armistice Day for most Clevelanders. Thanks to a premature story appearing in the CLEVELAND PRESS, Cleveland celebrated the famous “false armistice” on 7 Nov., as well as the real one 4 days later. More than half a million people still flocked to the Allied War Exposition on the lakefront the following week, where they witnessed a simulated battle and toured 3 mi. of trenches. Even Cleveland’s MAY DAY RIOTS of 1919 can be attributed at least partly to the smoldering embers of World War I patriotism.
Although Cleveland joined in the nation’s desire to return to “normalcy,” the war had left it changed in at least one major respect. It effectively blocked the flow of immigration from Europe to the nation’s urban centers, a change that would be institutionalized in the restrictive immigration legislation of the 1920s. To fill the resultant labor shortages in the country’s war industries, employers turned to the disaffected African American population of the South. Partly as a result of active recruitment and partly from word-of-mouth advertisement, Cleveland’s black population grew by 308%, from 8,448 to 34,451, in the decade ending in 1920 (see AFRICAN AMERICANS). One of the local black newspapers, the CLEVELAND ADVOCATE, began a special “Industrial Page” to assist in their adjustment. Unlike their predecessors, who had tended to come from the border states and live in close proximity with other groups, the new arrivals were more likely to come from the Deep South and settle in areas of dense black concentration. “In the midst of a city that had once been proud of its integrationist tradition,” observed historian Kenneth L. Kusmer, “a black ghetto was taking shape.” World War I thus marked the end of Cleveland’s second demographic era, which saw the original New England stock leavened by the influx of the New Immigration. It ushered in a period of transition in which the European immigrants were to be assimilated and succeeded by a third wave of newcomers from the American South.
Judith G. Cetina
Cuyahoga County Archives
J. E. Vacha
Cleveland Public Schools
Last Modified: 27 Mar 1998 11:13:57 AM
Parks of Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Carol Poh Miller
PARKS – The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
PARKS. Not until the 1870s were public funds allocated to establish parks. Cleveland in its early years was surrounded by wilderness, and city leaders saw no urgency to secure parkland beyond the 10-acre PUBLIC SQUARE set aside as early as 1796. By the time they awakened to the need for public open space, areas near the center of the city had long since been appropriated to other uses, and the city was unable to establish parks convenient to the crowded neighborhoods that most needed them. In Sept. 1865 a city council committee was appointed to consider the establishment of public parks. The committee reported that Cleveland was “far behind most cities of its class” and urged the purchase of parkland to accommodate the city’s “great future population.” In 1871, by authority of a new state law, the city’s first Board of Park Commissioners was created. The following year, park commissioners Azariah Everett, O. H. Childs, and John H. Sargent reported that they had spent almost $29,000, principally on improvements to Monumental Park (as Public Square was then known) andFRANKLIN CIRCLE. In 1874 the first park bond issues were sold to finance the purchase and improvement of Lake View Park. Other public parks established by 1880 included MILES PARK, CLIFTON PARK, and Pelton (see LINCOLN PARK) parks–all relatively small parcels.
|
|
JEPTHA H. WADE‘s gift of 64 wooded acres in 1882 formed the first large park area in the city (see WADE PARK). In 1890 park commissioners reported that, in the development of parks, Cleveland stood “at the foot of the list” of cities in the U.S. having populations greater than 200,000. New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, and Buffalo all had established well-planned park systems that had already resulted in “very material benefits.” The park commissioners were “convinced beyond doubt” that public parks had “passed beyond the domain of luxuries” and cautioned that Cleveland’s excellent natural park sites–among them the Doan Brook Valley, the lakeshore on the west side, and the Big Creek Valley south of Brooklyn Village–should be acquired before development encroached on them and put their purchase out of reach. Upon his death in 1892, WM. J. GORDON bequeathed to the city some 129 acres, already handsomely improved with winding drives and wooded groves. GORDON PARK answered part of the city’s need for parklands, but it also underscored the need for a comparable park on the west side.
In 1893 the state legislature passed a park act granting park boards expanded authority to appropriate parkland and issue bonds. Cleveland appointed a new board of 5 commissioners “to provide for the Forest City a system of parks commensurate with her size and importance.”, The new board–consisting of Chas. H. Bulkley, AMOS TOWNSEND, John F. Pankhurst, Mayor ROBT. BLEE, and City Council President A. J. Michael (soon succeeded by Chas. A. Davidson)–adopted the first general plan for park development in Cleveland and presided over the system’s most critical decade. The plan’s principal feature was the location of a large park on the outskirts of the city in each of 7 main sections. These would be connected by broad paved boulevards encircling the city. The board hired Boston landscape architect Ernest W. Bowditch to carry out the plan and issued $800,000 in bonds.
Acquisition of parkland accelerated dramatically. In 1894 the city purchased a large portion of the Doan Brook Valley between Gordon and Wade parks, the first 89 acres of EDGEWATER PARK, and 81 acres of Brooklyn Park (later BROOKSIDE RESERVATION). The same year, park commissioners decided on 3 farms located between Turney Rd. and Broadway as the site for a south side park (see GARFIELD PARK RESERVATION). In 1895 the Shaker Hts. Land Co. donated 279 acres embracing the upper Doan Brook Valley and the SHAKER LAKES. At the city’s centennial celebration the following year, JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER announced his gift of 276 acres along DOAN BROOK and $300,000 to cover the cost of land the city had previously acquired there. Rockefeller’s gift completed the city’s ownership of the entire Doan Brook Valley from the headwaters to Lake Erie. Other substantial additions to the park system during this period included the 86-acreWASHINGTON RESERVATION/WASHINGTON PARK in 1899 and the 100-acre Woodland Hills Park (LUKE EASTER PARK) in 1900. The first parks in Cleveland, as elsewhere in the nation’s cities during this period, were envisioned as passive “public pleasure grounds.” Cleveland’s park commissioners set out to create, in their own words, “a harmonious development of sylvan beauty to which all are welcome, rich and poor alike, where all may find rest and inspiration and pleasure.” Photographs show that they were indeed beautiful and, prior to World War I, they were by far the most popular subject for penny postcards.
Cleveland’s park board faced serious opposition in the late 1890s. The Park Board Reorganization Assn., led by attorneys John A. Smith and JOHN ZANGERLE, charged that the board was “autocratic, dictatorial, irresponsible and unaccountable to the people.” By establishing parks in SHAKER HEIGHTS, NEWBURGH, and BROOKLYN (Old Brooklyn), the association charged, the board made them convenient for “people of leisure” but inaccessible to city residents who could not enjoy them without “the expense of transportation and considerable cost of time.” The association further charged that city, residents were paying to enhance the property values of adjoining townships. After a sometimes bitter battle in the state legislature, the park board was abolished in 1900, and administration of the city’s parks was vested in the new Div. of Parks & Boulevards of the Dept. of Public Works (later the Dept. of Parks, Recreation & Properties).
By 1896 Cleveland had laid the foundation for a park system that park commissioners claimed was “excelled by few [cities], if any, in the world.” Within a comparatively brief period, some 1,200 acres had been assembled and improved. Fully two-thirds of the land had been donated, leaving the city to pay only the expenses of improvement and maintenance. But therein lay the problem that would plague the city’s parks almost from the moment they were added to the system: bond funds could be used only for the purchase and permanent improvement of parkland, while maintenance costs had to come from taxes. The city increasingly found that it lacked the resources to maintain what it had built. As early as 1901, parks superintendent Robt. J. Kegg cautioned in his annual report, “You must bear in mind . . . that every bit of new work added means greater maintenance expense the next year. . . . A proper appropriation should be set aside to take care of them, or they will soon deteriorate.”
The Cleveland parks entered a new era under Mayor TOM L. JOHNSON, who initiated an effort to “bring the parks to the people.” He ordered the removal of “Keep Off the Grass” signs, and during 1901, his first year in office, set as a goal the establishment of playgrounds in the more crowded districts of the city. The impetus for building playgrounds in Cleveland mirrored the situation in other large industrial cities, where park-reform advocates argued for the location of new parks on sites more accessible to the working classes and for organized sports and other activities that would ensure healthful recreation. Thus, during the early 1900s, the city’s Div. of Parks equipped new children’s playgrounds, constructed athletic fields and basketball and tennis courts, and introduced Sunday and evening band concerts. Winter sports, especially ice skating, had gained in popularity, and in 1901 the city established skating rinks at all the larger parks and hosted skating races at Brookside and Rockefeller parks. Park shelters at Edgewater and Woodland Hills parks were converted for use as municipal dancing pavilions. By 1904 8 children’s playgrounds were operating in the more congested areas of the city, and the Div. of Parks had embarked on construction of the first of 5 free public BATH HOUSES. In 1916 with 2,160 acres of parkland, Cleveland ranked 12th nationally in park area.
By the 1920s, Cleveland’s parks had begun to show the effects of intensive use and inadequate maintenance. The Community Betterment Council of the Welfare Federation undertook a study of the problem and issued its report in 1923. “Cleveland’s parks have, required, and should have received better care and upkeep than has been given them,” the council reported. According to the council, the city had recently cut 800 men from the payroll and had eliminated the positions of city forester and park engineer. Park buildings, the council charged, had been painted a garish orange and black to advertise work done by Mayor FRED KOHLER‘s administration, and the city was losing to disease an estimated 4,000 trees a year. Meanwhile, a separate suburban park system had been carved out of the city’s picturesque outlying districts, embracing some of Greater Cleveland’s finest natural areas. As early as 1905, Cleveland park engineer WM. A. STINCHCOMB had urged that the city take advantage of its outstanding natural areas by creating an outer system of parks and boulevards to encircle the entire metropolitan area. The independent Cleveland Metropolitan Park District was created in 1917. Similar metropolitan systems already had been established in Boston, Westchester County, NY, and Cook County, IL. CLEVELAND METROPARKS, as the metropolitan park district is known today, comprises 13 reservations in Cuyahoga and Medina counties, most of which are located outside the city limits.
In many respects, the Depression may be said to have come to the rescue of the city’s parks. With aid from the WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION, the parks were extensively rehabilitated and redesigned to accommodate automobiles and better withstand intensive use. In 1938 a force of nearly 9,000 men, divided into 2 shifts, worked 6 days a week building dams, bridges, culverts, bath houses, swimming pools, athletic fields, tennis courts, and playgrounds, and planting trees and shrubs. After 1940 the city’s parks suffered from serious outbreaks of vandalism and theft, water pollution, and perpetually inadequate maintenance and security. Highway construction decimated large portions of Edgewater, Gordon, and Brookside parks. The parks department traditionally received the crumbs from the city’s budget, and as the budget grew leaner in the 1960s, park personnel were continually reduced. The parks, once one of Cleveland’s finest assets, were reduced to a deplorable condition. Mayor Ralph Perk’s attempt in 1972 to address the situation with “Operation Turn Around” was ineffective, as was a $500,000 federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) program in 1975. No longer able to manage its extensive park system, the city looked to other government agencies for help. In 1977 the city negotiated a long-term lease with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources making Edgewater, Gordon, and Wildwood parks part of a new CLEVELAND LAKEFRONT STATE PARK. Ten years later, EUCLID BEACH PARK, a popular amusement park closed in 1969, was added to the lakefront chain. Under the state’s management, these waterfront parks have seen extensive capital, improvements, as well as improved maintenance and security. In 1986 Cleveland Metroparks agreed to lease and operate the 180-acre Garfield Park for $1 a year for 99 years; the agreement followed bitter and long-standing complaints by the city of GARFIELD HEIGHTS that Cleveland had failed to maintain the park and that it had become an eyesore and a haven for derelicts. In 1993, in a similar deal, Cleveland relinquished control of 135-acre Brookside Park to Cleveland Metroparks. The lease required Metroparks to make substantial capital improvements by 1 July 1996, and permitted the park district to use a portion of it for expansion of the zoo. With few exceptions, Cleveland’s parks bear witness to the great shift of the city’s population in the last 4 decades. With the flight of the middle class to the suburbs, the city’s poor and working-class residents have inherited a greatly diminished park system that continues to suffer from inadequate maintenance.
Carol Poh Miller
Miller, Carol Poh. Cleveland Metroparks, Past and Present (1992).
Cleveland Metroparks System ( 141 Kbytes ) Last Modified: 27 Mar 1998 10:53:37 AM
Howard Metzenbaum from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
METZENBAUM, HOWARD MORTON (4 June 1917 – 12 March 2008), a staunchly liberal U.S. Senator during an era of conservative political ascendency associated with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Born in Cleveland to Anna and Charles Metzenbaum, Howard balanced school work with business by fetching his neighbors’ groceries for tips. After graduating from Glenville High School, Metzenbaum attended The Ohio State University, where he would earn both bachelors (1939) and law degree (1941). Metzenbaum was able to pay his way through college by selling flowers outside of Ohio Stadium and along High Street, the University’s main thoroughfare. He would use his time off school in the summers to travel the state selling personal hygiene goods.
Although he received his law degree in 1941, Metzenbaum found his Jewish faith prevented potential law firms from hiring him. Facing bitter anti-Semitism, Metzenbaum returned to Cleveland and found employment representing more open minded labor union. Metzenbaum represented and filed tax returns for the Communications Workers of America and the International Association of Machinists before entering politics in 1943 by winning a seat in the Ohio House as a Democrat. Metzenbaum married Shirley Turoff on August 8, 1946. Metzenbaum used his success to catapult him into the Ohio Senate in 1947, but left politics in 1950 to pursue wealth in private enterprise.
Metzenbaum and lifelong friend Alva T. (Ted) Bonda founded Airport Parking Company of America (APCOA) in 1949. In 1951 they secured a contract to operate at CLEVELAND-HOPKINS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, inaugurating the airport parking industry. Metzenbaum earned his fortune through APCOA, eventually selling the business to International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) in 1966. His business success allowed Mezenbaum to settle in the Shaker Heights suburban community with his wife. Shirley gave birth to four daughters during these years: Barbara, Susan, Shelley, and Amy.
The world of politics, however, always beckoned. In 1958, Metzenbaum earned political capital as the campaign manager for Stephen M. Young’s successful challenge to Republican Senator and former Vice-Presidential candidate (1944) John Bricker. Metzenbaum returned as Young’s campaign manager, successfully earning his candidate re-election in 1964. When Young announced he would not seek a third term, Metzenbaum readied his own candidacy for the 1970 election. Metzenbaum, however, faced a stiff challenge in the Democratic primary when astronaut John H. Glenn, Jr. announced his desire to seek the office as a Democrat. Although he narrowly defeated Glenn in the primary (49%-51%), Metzenbaum lost the general election to Republican candidate Robert Taft, Jr., heir to the Taft political family.
Undaunted, Metzenbaum returned to private business in Cleveland, where he and David Skylar purchased the suburban Cleveland chainSUN NEWSPAPERS. Fate handed Metzenbaum a US Senate seat in 1974, when Ohio’s Democratic Governor, Jack Gilligan, appointed Metzenbaum to fill the seat vacated by Senator William B. Saxbe, who had accepted Richard Nixon’s offer to serve as US Attorney General. The turn of events proved a mixed blessing, for Metzenbaum was forced to immediately defend the expiring seat in the 1974 Democratic primary. Again he faced John Glenn, but after a grueling campaign that lead to a permanent rift between the two men Glenn prevailed and went on to win the general election.
Two years later Metzenbaum successfully challenged Robert Taft in a rematch of the close 1970 campaign, winning the general election. Although three decades removed from his first stint in politics, Metzenbaum championed issues familiar to aging New Deal Democrats. Metzenbaum played a prominent role in the passage of legislation requiring advance notice of plant closing, known as the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, various gun control laws, pension protection, safety standards for infant formula, and nutrition labels on food products. Metzenbaum’s staunchly liberal agenda attracted the ire of Republicans and even some fellow Democrats, but his fierce opposition to conservative legislation earned him a reputation as “Senator No.”
Metzenbaum was a master of the filibuster, often employing it to disrupt legislation he dubbed “Christmas tree bills,” decorated with pet projects or corporate loopholes. When his filibusters failed, Metzenbaum invented a new stalling tactic. When a two week filibuster against a bill to lift price controls on natural gas was broken, Metzenbaum loaded the bill with hundreds of amendments and demanded a roll-call vote on each one, effectively killing the legislation. Metzenbaum’s tactics earned him both respect and scorn from his colleagues on the Hill. While Senator Bob Dole referred to Metzenbaum as “the commissioner,” Senator Ted Stevens called him a “pain in the ass.”
Metzenbaum also attempted to bring a measure of culture to Washington, D.C. during his years in the Senate. His office was decorated with modern art and he often held mixers there where artists such as painter Robert Rauschenberg and folk singer Mary Travis were guests of honor for assembled lawmakers, lobbyists, and reporters. His frayed relationship with John Glenn soon thawed, too, when in 1983 Metzenbaum endorsed Glenn in his unsuccessful run for the Presidency. Glenn returned the favor, publicly defending Metzenbaum after Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich accused the Senator of being soft on child pornography during the 1988 election.
Metzenbaum continued to endure anti-Semitic remarks throughout his career. Metzenbaum?s fierce opposition to newly-elected President Regan’s nominees raised tensions on the Capital. Senator Ernest Hollings of South Carolina called Metzenbaum the “senator from B’nai Brith” on the Senate floor during the 1981 session, an astonishing insult in the otherwise sober , chamber. This and other events pushed Metzenbaum to advocate for anti-discrimination policy, such as the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, which prohibits federally-funded adoption agencies from delaying or denying child placement on the grounds of race or ethnicity.
Metzenbaum announced he would not seek a fourth term, making way for a run by his son-in-law, Joel Hyatt, who lost the general election to Republican Mike DeWine. Metzenbaum remained active during his retirement from elected office, serving as a part-time president of the non-profit Consumer Federation of America. He also served as a board member of the American Cancer Society, Northern Ohio Children’s Performing Music Foundation, Inc., and acted as a fellow at Brandeis University. He also spent much of his retirement with his family playing tennis, swimming, and travelling. He and his wife Shirley celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary in 2006, before his health began to decline.
He died at his family home in Aventury, Florida, on March 12, 2008. He was interred in Mayfield Cemetery in Cleveland Heights, Ohio.
Diemer, Tom, Fighting the Unbeatable Foe: Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio, the Washington Years (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2008)
Last Modified: 24 Jul 2012 10:40:15 AM
Central Neighborhood from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
CENTRAL (NEIGHBORHOOD) – The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
CENTRAL is a Cleveland neighborhood located roughly between Euclid Avenue to the north, Woodland Avenue to the south, and between East 71th to the east and East 22th to the west. The neighborhood is named after Central Avenue (once Garden) that runs through its center. Although Central’s population in 2000 was over 90 percent African American, the neighborhood once housed the city’s largest population of ITALIANS and Jews (see JEWS & JUDAISM), and was home to an ethnic cluster of HUNGARIANS, GERMANS, andCZECHS.
During the early nineteenth century, the area that currently encompasses Central was split between Cleveland and the NEWBURGHTownship, but by 1873, had been completely annexed by the city of Cleveland. During the 1830s, a number of GERMANS settled along Garden Street (now Central). Due to its proximity to downtown and its extensive street car services, Central quickly developed and became home to clusters of HUNGARIANS), GREEKS, ITALIANS, and (see JEWS & JUDAISM). Such clusters have often been referred to as separate neighborhoods with their own titles like “BIG ITALY,” or “Woodland.” Central was also home to the city’s largest concentration ofAFRICAN AMERICANS.
Prior to World War I, institutions in Central were fairly integrated. Students of all ethnic backgrounds attended EAST TECHNICAL HIGH SCHOOL, and CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL. African American writer LANGSTON HUGHES recalled that when he attended Cleveland’s Central High during the late 1910s, it was “nearly entirely a foreign-born school,” and that “we got on very well.” His best friend was Polish and had “lots of Jewish friends” and went to the symphony with a Jewish girl.
During the first half of the twentieth century, Central had a disproportionately retail-based economy for its era. Numerous bakeries, grocery stores, and other businesses lined Woodland Avenue, East 55th Street, and Central Avenue. Still, the neighborhood was generally marked by poverty at this time. After World War I began in 1914, European immigration waned, which motivated many Cleveland factory managers to drop their policy of excluding African Americans. As a result, Cleveland’s African American population rose from 8,448 in 1910 to 34,451 in 1920. Most these newcomers settled in the Central neighborhood.
From 1917 to 1925, most of Central’s Jewish population had moved out of the neighborhood, while its African American population continued to increase. Other ethnic whites left at a slower, but steady pace throughout subsequent decades. Much of this flight occurred because ethnic whites in the neighborhood could now afford to leave the over-crowded and impoverished housing in the area. However, African Americans, remained , concentrated in Central for many decades because they were generally newer to the city, and faced greater discrimination in both the housing and employment sector. After Congress restricted immigration to the United States in 1921, newcomers to the Central were almost entirely African American. This demographic shift has led many historians to refer to Central as Cleveland’s “ghetto.” Still, the neighborhood retained a significant ethnic white population until 1960, and many others continued to run businesses in their old neighborhood until the 1970s.
Beginning in the 1930s, a number of PUBLIC HOUSING projects were constructed in Central, which significantly altered its landscape. From 1935-1937 the New Deal Public Works Administration created Outhwaite and Cedar-Central projects. In 2011, Central was home to the Cedar Ext High Rise, King Kennedy North High Rise, Carver Park, Cedar Ext Family, King Kennedy South Family, Olde Cedar, Outhwaite Homes, and Phoenix Village housing projects.
Despite the construction of these projects, the population of Central has dramatically decreased. During the 1960s, segregation weakened throughout much of Cleveland’s East Side. This widened residential options for African Americans, and caused Central’s population to sharply decline from 52,675 in 1960 to 27,280 in 1970. After the nationwide migration of African Americans, to northern cities sharply declined after 1970, Central was further unable to replace outgoing migration with new residents. In 2000, the population of Central was only 12,107. Census tract data from the 2010, however, shows that some sections of Central are gaining population, especially west of East 55th street. This indicates that the neighborhood may have rebounded during the first decade of the twentieth century, after decades of population loss.
As of 2011, Central remained home to CUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE , the NORTHERN OHIO FOOD TERMINAL, and a number of 21st century single family housing developments. The neighborhood is also home to such historical sites of interest as WOODLAND CEMETERY, SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH (formerly B’NAI JESHURUN), and the PHILLIS WHEATLEY ASSOCIATION building.
City of Cleveland, Ohio. “Cleveland Neighborhood Fact Sheet.” City of Cleveland, Ohio. (accessed May 6, 2011), http://planning.city.cleveland.oh.us/census/factsheets/spa19.html.
Hughes, Langston (Introduction by Joseph McLaren). Autobiography: The Big Sea (University of Missouri Press, 2002).
Kusmer, Kenneth L. A Ghetto Takes Shape: Black Cleveland, 1870-1930, Illini Books ed., Blacks in the New World. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978).
Levy, Donald. A Report on the Location of Ethnic Groups in Greater Cleveland. (The Institute of Urban Studies, 1972).
Last Modified: 14 Jul 2011 12:00:00 AM
African Americans in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Kenneth L. Kusmer
AFRICAN AMERICANS. Cleveland’s African American community is almost as old as the city itself. GEORGE PEAKE, the first black settler, arrived in 1809 and by 1860 there were 799 blacks living in a growing community of over 43,000. As early as the 1850s, most of Cleveland’s African American population lived on the east side. But black and white families were usually interspersed; until the beginning of the 20th century, nothing resembling a black ghetto existed in the city. Throughout most of the 19th century, the social and economic status of African Americans in Cleveland was superior to that in other northern communities. By the late 1840s, the public schools were integrated and segregation in theaters, restaurants, and hotels was infrequent. Interracial violence seldom occurred. Black Clevelanders suffered less occupational discrimination than elsewhere. Although many were forced to work as unskilled laborers or domestic servants, almost one third were skilled workers, and a significant number accumulated substantial wealth. Alfred Greenbrier became widely known for raising horses and cattle, and MADISON TILLEY employed 100 men in his excavating business. JOHN BROWN, a barber, became the city’s wealthiest Negro through investment in real estate, valued at $40,000 at his death in 1869. Founded by New Englanders who favored reform, Cleveland was a center of abolitionism before the CIVIL WAR, and the city’s white leadership remained sympathetic to civil rights during the decade following the war. Black leaders were not complacent, however. Individuals such as Brown and JOHN MALVIN often assisted escaped slaves, and by the end of the Civil War a number of black Clevelanders had served in BLACK MILITARY UNITS in the Union Army. African American leaders fought for integration rather than the development of separate black institutions in the 19th century. The city’s first permanent African American newspaper, the CLEVELAND GAZETTE, did not appear until 1883. Even local black churches developed more slowly than elsewhere. ST. JOHN’S AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL (AME) CHURCH was founded in 1830, but it was not until 1864 that a second black church, MT. ZION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, came into existence.
Between 1890-1915, the beginnings of mass migration from the South increased Cleveland’s black population substantially (seeIMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION). By World War I, about 10,000 blacks lived in the city. Most of these newcomers settled in the Central Ave. district between the CUYAHOGA RIVER and E. 40th St. At this time, the lower Central area also housed many poor immigrant Italians and Jews (see JEWS & JUDAISM). Nevertheless, the African American population became much, more concentrated. In other ways, too, conditions deteriorated for black Clevelanders. Although black students were not segregated in separate public schools or classrooms (seeCLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS), as they often were in other cities, exclusion of blacks from restaurants and theaters became commonplace, and by 1915 the city’s YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSN. (YWCA) prohibited African American membership.HOSPITALS & HEALTH PLANNING excluded black doctors and segregated black patients in separate wards. The most serious discrimination occurred in the economic arena. Between 1870-1915, Cleveland became a major manufacturing center, but few blacks were able to participate in INDUSTRY. Blacks were not hired to work in the steel mills and foundries that became the mainstay of the city’s economy. The prejudice of employers was often matched by that of trade unions (see LABOR), which usually excluded African Americans. As a result, by 1910 only about 10% of local black men worked in skilled trades, while the number of service employees doubled.
Increasing discrimination forced black Clevelanders upon their own resources. The growth of black churches was the clearest example (seeRELIGION). Three new churches were founded between 1865-90, a dozen more during the next 25 years. Baptists increased most rapidly, and by 1915 ANTIOCH BAPTIST CHURCH had emerged as the largest black church in the city. Black fraternal orders also multiplied, and in 1896 the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People was established (see ELIZA BRYANT VILLAGE). With assistance from white philanthropists (see PHILANTHROPY), JANE EDNA HUNTER established the PHILLIS WHEATLEY ASSOCIATION, a residential, job-training, and recreation center for black girls, in 1911. Blacks gained the right to vote in Ohio in 1870, and until the 1930s they usually voted Republican. The first black Clevelander to hold political office was JOHN PATTERSON GREEN, elected justice of the peace in 1873. He served in the state legislature in the 1880s and in 1891 became the first African American in the North to be elected to the state senate. After 1900 increasing racial prejudice made it difficult for blacks to win election to the state legislature, and a new group of black politicians began to build a political base in the Central Ave. area. In 1915 THOMAS W. FLEMING became the first African American to win election toCLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL.
The period from 1915-30 was one of both adversity and progress for black Clevelanders. Industrial demands and a decline in immigration from abroad during World War I created an opportunity for black labor, and hundreds of thousands of black migrants came north after 1916. By 1930 there were 72,000, African Americans in Cleveland. The Central Ave. ghetto consolidated and expanded eastward, as whites moved to outlying sections of the city and rural areas that would later become SUBURBS. Increasing discrimination and violence against blacks kept even middle-class African Americans within the Central-Woodland area. At the same time, discrimination in public accommodations increased. Restaurants overcharged blacks or refused them service; theaters excluded blacks or segregated them in the balcony; amusement parks such as EUCLID BEACH PARK were usually for whites only. Discrimination even began to affect the public schools. The growth of the ghetto had created some segregated schools, but a new policy of allowing white students to transfer out of predominantly black schools increased segregation. In the 1920s and 1930s, school administrators often altered the curriculums of ghetto schools from liberal arts to manual training. Nevertheless, migrants continued to pour into the city in the 1920s to obtain newly available industrial jobs. Most of these jobs were in unskilled factory labor, but some blacks also moved into semi-skilled and skilled positions. The rapid growth in the city’s black population also created new opportunities in BALDWIN RESERVOIR and the professions. Most black businesses, however, remained small: food stores, restaurants, and small retail stores predominated. Two successful black-owned funeral homes opened early in the century, the HOUSE OF WILLS (1904), founded as Gee & Wills by J. WALTER WILLS, SR., and E. F. Boyd Funeral Home (1906), founded by ELMER F. BOYD and Lewis Dean. Although the employment picture for blacks had improved, serious discrimination still existed in the 1920s, especially in clerical work and the unionized skilled trades.
Black leadership underwent a fundamental shift after World War I. Prior to the war, Cleveland’s most prominent blacks had been integrationists who not only fought discrimination but also objected to blacks’ creating their own secular institutions. After the war, a new elite, led by Fleming, Hunter, and businessman HERBERT CHAUNCEY, gained ascendancy. This group did not favor agitation for civil rights; they accepted the necessity of separate black institutions and favored the development of a “group economy” based on the existence of the ghetto. By the mid-1920s, however, a younger African American group was beginning to emerge. “New Negro” leaders such as lawyer HARRY E. DAVIS and physician CHARLES GARVIN tried to transcend the factionalism that had divided black leaders in the past. They believed in race pride and racial solidarity, but not at the expense of equal rights for black Clevelanders. The postwar era also brought changes to local institutions. The influx of migrants caused problems that black, churches were only partly able to deal with. The Negro Welfare Assn., founded in 1917 as an affiliate of the National Urban League (see URBAN LEAGUE OF GREATER CLEVELAND), helped newcomers find jobs and housing. The Phillis Wheatley Assn. expanded: a fundraising drive among white philanthropists made possible the construction of its 9-story building in 1928. The Cleveland branch of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP, est. 1912), led by “New Negroes,” expanded, with 1,600 members by 1922. The NAACP fought the rising tide of racism in the city by bringing suits against restaurants and theaters that excluded blacks, or intervening behind the scenes to get white businessmen to end discriminatory practices. The FUTURE OUTLOOK LEAGUE, founded by JOHN O. HOLLY in 1935, became the first local black organization to successfully utilize the boycott.
The Depression temporarily reversed much of this progress. Although both races were devastated by the economic collapse, African Americans suffered much higher rates of unemployment at an earlier stage; many black businesses went bankrupt. After 1933, New Deal relief programs helped reduce black unemployment substantially, but segregated public housing contributed to overcrowding, often demolishing more units than were built. Housing conditions in the Central area deteriorated during the 1930s, and African Americans continued to suffer discrimination in many public accommodations. The period from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s was one of political change for black Clevelanders. Although migration from the South slowed to a trickle during the 1930s, the black population had already increased to the point where it was able to augment its political influence. In 1927 3 blacks were elected to city council, and for the next 8 years they represented a balance of power on a council almost equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. As a result, they obtained the elections of HARRY E. DAVIS to the city’s Civil Service Commission and MARY BROWN MARTIN to the Cleveland Board of Education, the first African Americans to hold such positions. They also ended discrimination and segregation at City Hospital. At the local level in the 1930s, black Clevelanders continued to vote Republican; they did not support a Democrat for mayor until 1943. In national politics, however, New Deal relief policies convinced blacks to shift dramatically after 1932 from the Republican to the Democratic party. After World War II, Pres. Harry Truman’s strong civil-rights program solidified black support for the Democrats.
World War II was a turning point in other ways. The war revived industry and led to a new demand for black labor. This demand, and the more egalitarian labor-union practices of the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), created new job opportunities for black, Clevelanders and led to a revival of mass migration from the South. The steady flow of newcomers increased Cleveland’s black population from 85,000 in 1940 to 251,000 in 1960; by the early 1960s, blacks made up over 30% of the city’s population. One effect of this population growth was increased political representation. In 1947 Harry E. Davis was elected to the state senate, and 2 years later lawyer Jean M. Capers became the first black woman to be elected to city council. By the mid-1960s, the number of blacks serving on the council had increased to 10; in 1968 Louis Stokes was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives; and in 1977 Capers became a municipal judge for Cleveland. The postwar era was also marked by progress in civil rights. In 1945 the CLEVELAND COMMUNITY RELATIONS BOARD was established; it soon developed a national reputation for promoting improvement in race relations. The following year, the city enacted a municipal civil-rights law that revoked the license of any business convicted of discriminating against African Americans. The liberal atmosphere of the postwar period led to a gradual decline in discrimination against blacks in public accommodations during the late 1940s and 1950s. By the 1960s, both hospital wards and downtown hotels and restaurants served African Americans.
Despite these improvements, however, serious problems continued to plague the African American community. The most important of these was housing. As the suburbanization of the city’s white population accelerated, the black community expanded to the east and northeast of the Central-Woodland area, particularly into HOUGH and GLENVILLE. Expansion, however, did not lead to more integrated neighborhoods or provide better housing for blacks. “Blockbusting” techniques by realtors led to panic selling by whites in Hough in the 1950s; once a neighborhood became all black, landlords would subdivide structures into small apartments and raise rents exorbitantly. The result, by 1960, was a crowded ghetto of deteriorating housing stock. At the same time, segregation in public schools continued, school officials routinely assigned black children to predominantly black schools. In 1964 interracial violence broke out when blacks protested the construction of 3 new schools, as perpetuating segregation patterns. Frustration over inability to effect changes in housing and education, coupled with a rise in black unemployment that began in the late 1950s, finally ignited the HOUGH RIOTS for 4 days in 1966. Two years later, the GLENVILLE SHOOTOUT involved black nationalists and the police; more rioting followed. The resulting tension and hostility did not entirely destroy the spirit of racial toleration in Cleveland, however, as evidenced by the 1967 election of lifelong resident Carl B. Stokes as the first black mayor of a major American city (see MAYORAL ADMINISTRATION OF CARL B. STOKES). Since then, blacks have continued to be the most influential group in city council. The city again elected an African American mayor, Michael White, in 1989.
As migration from the South ended, Cleveland’s African American population stabilized in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the ghetto expanded into EAST CLEVELAND, fair housing programs and laws made it possible for middle-class blacks to have greater choice of residency. Eastern suburbs such as SHAKER HEIGHTS and CLEVELAND HEIGHTS absorbed large numbers of black residents by the 1970s, but managed to maintain integrated populations. In addition, some of the more blatant causes of the riots–such as the small number of black police officers–were partially resolved. But fundamental problems remained. Inner-city residents suffered high levels of crime, infant mortality, and teenage pregnancy in the 1970s and `80s, but the most significant obstacles for black Clevelanders remained economic in nature. The movement of black women into white-collar jobs after 1970 was more than counterbalanced by the growing unemployment or underemployment of black men, as good-paying industrial jobs declined or shifted to the suburbs. At the same time, the declining city tax base undercut funding for the public schools, making it more difficult for African American children to obtain the necessary skills demanded in the emerging post-industrial society. For many black Clevelanders in the late 20th century, economic progress had not kept pace with improvements in the political realm.
Kenneth L. Kusmer
Temple Univ.
Davis, Russell. Black Americans in Cleveland (1972).
Kusmer, Kenneth L. A Ghetto Takes Shape (1976).
Last Modified: 21 Jul 1997 01:26:36 PM
African Americans in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Kenneth Kusmer
AFRICAN AMERICANS. Cleveland’s African American community is almost as old as the city itself. GEORGE PEAKE, the first black settler, arrived in 1809 and by 1860 there were 799 blacks living in a growing community of over 43,000. As early as the 1850s, most of Cleveland’s African American population lived on the east side. But black and white families were usually interspersed; until the beginning of the 20th century, nothing resembling a black ghetto existed in the city. Throughout most of the 19th century, the social and economic status of African Americans in Cleveland was superior to that in other northern communities. By the late 1840s, the public schools were integrated and segregation in theaters, restaurants, and hotels was infrequent. Interracial violence seldom occurred. Black Clevelanders suffered less occupational discrimination than elsewhere. Although many were forced to work as unskilled laborers or domestic servants, almost one third were skilled workers, and a significant number accumulated substantial wealth. Alfred Greenbrier became widely known for raising horses and cattle, and MADISON TILLEY employed 100 men in his excavating business. JOHN BROWN, a barber, became the city’s wealthiest Negro through investment in real estate, valued at $40,000 at his death in 1869. Founded by New Englanders who favored reform, Cleveland was a center of abolitionism before the CIVIL WAR, and the city’s white leadership remained sympathetic to civil rights during the decade following the war. Black leaders were not complacent, however. Individuals such as Brown and JOHN MALVIN often assisted escaped slaves, and by the end of the Civil War a number of black Clevelanders had served in BLACK MILITARY UNITS in the Union Army. African American leaders fought for integration rather than the development of separate black institutions in the 19th century. The city’s first permanent African American newspaper, the CLEVELAND GAZETTE, did not appear until 1883. Even local black churches developed more slowly than elsewhere. ST. JOHN’S AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL (AME) CHURCH was founded in 1830, but it was not until 1864 that a second black church, MT. ZION CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, came into existence.
Between 1890-1915, the beginnings of mass migration from the South increased Cleveland’s black population substantially (seeIMMIGRATION AND MIGRATION). By World War I, about 10,000 blacks lived in the city. Most of these newcomers settled in the Central Ave. district between the CUYAHOGA RIVER and E. 40th St. At this time, the lower Central area also housed many poor immigrant Italians and Jews (see JEWS & JUDAISM). Nevertheless, the African American population became much, more concentrated. In other ways, too, conditions deteriorated for black Clevelanders. Although black students were not segregated in separate public schools or classrooms (seeCLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS), as they often were in other cities, exclusion of blacks from restaurants and theaters became commonplace, and by 1915 the city’s YOUNG WOMEN’S CHRISTIAN ASSN. (YWCA) prohibited African American membership.HOSPITALS & HEALTH PLANNING excluded black doctors and segregated black patients in separate wards. The most serious discrimination occurred in the economic arena. Between 1870-1915, Cleveland became a major manufacturing center, but few blacks were able to participate in INDUSTRY. Blacks were not hired to work in the steel mills and foundries that became the mainstay of the city’s economy. The prejudice of employers was often matched by that of trade unions (see LABOR), which usually excluded African Americans. As a result, by 1910 only about 10% of local black men worked in skilled trades, while the number of service employees doubled.
Increasing discrimination forced black Clevelanders upon their own resources. The growth of black churches was the clearest example (seeRELIGION). Three new churches were founded between 1865-90, a dozen more during the next 25 years. Baptists increased most rapidly, and by 1915 ANTIOCH BAPTIST CHURCH had emerged as the largest black church in the city. Black fraternal orders also multiplied, and in 1896 the Cleveland Home for Aged Colored People was established (see ELIZA BRYANT VILLAGE). With assistance from white philanthropists (see PHILANTHROPY), JANE EDNA HUNTER established the PHILLIS WHEATLEY ASSOCIATION, a residential, job-training, and recreation center for black girls, in 1911. Blacks gained the right to vote in Ohio in 1870, and until the 1930s they usually voted Republican. The first black Clevelander to hold political office was JOHN PATTERSON GREEN, elected justice of the peace in 1873. He served in the state legislature in the 1880s and in 1891 became the first African American in the North to be elected to the state senate. After 1900 increasing racial prejudice made it difficult for blacks to win election to the state legislature, and a new group of black politicians began to build a political base in the Central Ave. area. In 1915 THOMAS W. FLEMING became the first African American to win election toCLEVELAND CITY COUNCIL.
The period from 1915-30 was one of both adversity and progress for black Clevelanders. Industrial demands and a decline in immigration from abroad during World War I created an opportunity for black labor, and hundreds of thousands of black migrants came north after 1916. By 1930 there were 72,000, African Americans in Cleveland. The Central Ave. ghetto consolidated and expanded eastward, as whites moved to outlying sections of the city and rural areas that would later become SUBURBS. Increasing discrimination and violence against blacks kept even middle-class African Americans within the Central-Woodland area. At the same time, discrimination in public accommodations increased. Restaurants overcharged blacks or refused them service; theaters excluded blacks or segregated them in the balcony; amusement parks such as EUCLID BEACH PARK were usually for whites only. Discrimination even began to affect the public schools. The growth of the ghetto had created some segregated schools, but a new policy of allowing white students to transfer out of predominantly black schools increased segregation. In the 1920s and 1930s, school administrators often altered the curriculums of ghetto schools from liberal arts to manual training. Nevertheless, migrants continued to pour into the city in the 1920s to obtain newly available industrial jobs. Most of these jobs were in unskilled factory labor, but some blacks also moved into semi-skilled and skilled positions. The rapid growth in the city’s black population also created new opportunities in BALDWIN RESERVOIR and the professions. Most black businesses, however, remained small: food stores, restaurants, and small retail stores predominated. Two successful black-owned funeral homes opened early in the century, the HOUSE OF WILLS (1904), founded as Gee & Wills by J. WALTER WILLS, SR., and E. F. Boyd Funeral Home (1906), founded by ELMER F. BOYD and Lewis Dean. Although the employment picture for blacks had improved, serious discrimination still existed in the 1920s, especially in clerical work and the unionized skilled trades.
Black leadership underwent a fundamental shift after World War I. Prior to the war, Cleveland’s most prominent blacks had been integrationists who not only fought discrimination but also objected to blacks’ creating their own secular institutions. After the war, a new elite, led by Fleming, Hunter, and businessman HERBERT CHAUNCEY, gained ascendancy. This group did not favor agitation for civil rights; they accepted the necessity of separate black institutions and favored the development of a “group economy” based on the existence of the ghetto. By the mid-1920s, however, a younger African American group was beginning to emerge. “New Negro” leaders such as lawyer HARRY E. DAVIS and physician CHARLES GARVIN tried to transcend the factionalism that had divided black leaders in the past. They believed in race pride and racial solidarity, but not at the expense of equal rights for black Clevelanders. The postwar era also brought changes to local institutions. The influx of migrants caused problems that black, churches were only partly able to deal with. The Negro Welfare Assn., founded in 1917 as an affiliate of the National Urban League (see URBAN LEAGUE OF GREATER CLEVELAND), helped newcomers find jobs and housing. The Phillis Wheatley Assn. expanded: a fundraising drive among white philanthropists made possible the construction of its 9-story building in 1928. The Cleveland branch of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP, est. 1912), led by “New Negroes,” expanded, with 1,600 members by 1922. The NAACP fought the rising tide of racism in the city by bringing suits against restaurants and theaters that excluded blacks, or intervening behind the scenes to get white businessmen to end discriminatory practices. The FUTURE OUTLOOK LEAGUE, founded by JOHN O. HOLLY in 1935, became the first local black organization to successfully utilize the boycott.
The Depression temporarily reversed much of this progress. Although both races were devastated by the economic collapse, African Americans suffered much higher rates of unemployment at an earlier stage; many black businesses went bankrupt. After 1933, New Deal relief programs helped reduce black unemployment substantially, but segregated public housing contributed to overcrowding, often demolishing more units than were built. Housing conditions in the Central area deteriorated during the 1930s, and African Americans continued to suffer discrimination in many public accommodations. The period from the late 1920s to the mid-1940s was one of political change for black Clevelanders. Although migration from the South slowed to a trickle during the 1930s, the black population had already increased to the point where it was able to augment its political influence. In 1927 3 blacks were elected to city council, and for the next 8 years they represented a balance of power on a council almost equally divided between Republicans and Democrats. As a result, they obtained the elections of HARRY E. DAVIS to the city’s Civil Service Commission and MARY BROWN MARTIN to the Cleveland Board of Education, the first African Americans to hold such positions. They also ended discrimination and segregation at City Hospital. At the local level in the 1930s, black Clevelanders continued to vote Republican; they did not support a Democrat for mayor until 1943. In national politics, however, New Deal relief policies convinced blacks to shift dramatically after 1932 from the Republican to the Democratic party. After World War II, Pres. Harry Truman’s strong civil-rights program solidified black support for the Democrats.
World War II was a turning point in other ways. The war revived industry and led to a new demand for black labor. This demand, and the more egalitarian labor-union practices of the newly formed Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), created new job opportunities for black, Clevelanders and led to a revival of mass migration from the South. The steady flow of newcomers increased Cleveland’s black population from 85,000 in 1940 to 251,000 in 1960; by the early 1960s, blacks made up over 30% of the city’s population. One effect of this population growth was increased political representation. In 1947 Harry E. Davis was elected to the state senate, and 2 years later lawyer Jean M. Capers became the first black woman to be elected to city council. By the mid-1960s, the number of blacks serving on the council had increased to 10; in 1968 Louis Stokes was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives; and in 1977 Capers became a municipal judge for Cleveland. The postwar era was also marked by progress in civil rights. In 1945 the CLEVELAND COMMUNITY RELATIONS BOARD was established; it soon developed a national reputation for promoting improvement in race relations. The following year, the city enacted a municipal civil-rights law that revoked the license of any business convicted of discriminating against African Americans. The liberal atmosphere of the postwar period led to a gradual decline in discrimination against blacks in public accommodations during the late 1940s and 1950s. By the 1960s, both hospital wards and downtown hotels and restaurants served African Americans.
Despite these improvements, however, serious problems continued to plague the African American community. The most important of these was housing. As the suburbanization of the city’s white population accelerated, the black community expanded to the east and northeast of the Central-Woodland area, particularly into HOUGH and GLENVILLE. Expansion, however, did not lead to more integrated neighborhoods or provide better housing for blacks. “Blockbusting” techniques by realtors led to panic selling by whites in Hough in the 1950s; once a neighborhood became all black, landlords would subdivide structures into small apartments and raise rents exorbitantly. The result, by 1960, was a crowded ghetto of deteriorating housing stock. At the same time, segregation in public schools continued, school officials routinely assigned black children to predominantly black schools. In 1964 interracial violence broke out when blacks protested the construction of 3 new schools, as perpetuating segregation patterns. Frustration over inability to effect changes in housing and education, coupled with a rise in black unemployment that began in the late 1950s, finally ignited the HOUGH RIOTS for 4 days in 1966. Two years later, the GLENVILLE SHOOTOUT involved black nationalists and the police; more rioting followed. The resulting tension and hostility did not entirely destroy the spirit of racial toleration in Cleveland, however, as evidenced by the 1967 election of lifelong resident Carl B. Stokes as the first black mayor of a major American city (see MAYORAL ADMINISTRATION OF CARL B. STOKES). Since then, blacks have continued to be the most influential group in city council. The city again elected an African American mayor, Michael White, in 1989.
As migration from the South ended, Cleveland’s African American population stabilized in the 1970s and 1980s. Although the ghetto expanded into EAST CLEVELAND, fair housing programs and laws made it possible for middle-class blacks to have greater choice of residency. Eastern suburbs such as SHAKER HEIGHTS and CLEVELAND HEIGHTS absorbed large numbers of black residents by the 1970s, but managed to maintain integrated populations. In addition, some of the more blatant causes of the riots–such as the small number of black police officers–were partially resolved. But fundamental problems remained. Inner-city residents suffered high levels of crime, infant mortality, and teenage pregnancy in the 1970s and `80s, but the most significant obstacles for black Clevelanders remained economic in nature. The movement of black women into white-collar jobs after 1970 was more than counterbalanced by the growing unemployment or underemployment of black men, as good-paying industrial jobs declined or shifted to the suburbs. At the same time, the declining city tax base undercut funding for the public schools, making it more difficult for African American children to obtain the necessary skills demanded in the emerging post-industrial society. For many black Clevelanders in the late 20th century, economic progress had not kept pace with improvements in the political realm.
Kenneth L. Kusmer
Temple Univ.
Davis, Russell. Black Americans in Cleveland (1972).
Kusmer, Kenneth L. A Ghetto Takes Shape (1976).
Last Modified: 21 Jul 1997 01:26:36 PM
Arabs in Cleveland from the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
Written by Said Kabalan
ARAB AMERICANS – The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
ARAB AMERICANS. Cleveland’s Arab population, although among the smaller ethnic groups, has a clear identity and historical development since Arabs began arriving here in the 19th century. In 1995 there were approx. 35,000 Americans of Arab descent in Greater Cleveland. The term Arab requires clarification. As with most peoples, language is the defining factor; an Arab-American is one whose ancestral tongue is Arabic. But unlike many nationalities, whose members trace their origins to a single country or province, Arab immigrants have come from a large region of western Asia and northern Africa comprising 22 countries. Most Arab immigrants to Cleveland, however, like those to the rest of the U.S., came from Greater Syria. The Arab world, although predominantly Muslim, has a significant Christian minority, and most of the earlier Arab immigrants were Christian, learning about the U.S. from American Protestant missionaries in the 19th century. However, adherents of the various branches of Islam, including the Druze, also came. It was ca. 1875 when Arab immigrants began entering the U.S. in significant numbers. Most made a living peddling dry goods; many subsequently became storekeepers, importers, and manufacturers. This initial wave of immigration lasted until the Quota Acts of 1921-24 drastically restricted the entry of many nationalities, including Arabs, into the country.
Rather than being driven from the Old World by oppression and starvation, Arabs were drawn to America by economic opportunity; many originally planned to return home after making their fortunes. The political destabilization in the Near East with the approach of World War I, and some dissatisfaction with the hegemony of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, provided additional but secondary incentives for going abroad. The first Arab immigrant to arrive in Cleveland, about 100 years ago, is said to have been a peddler from the East Coast. The city annual report first recorded Arab immigrants in Cleveland in 1895, listing 12 individuals. That source indicates that between 1895-1907, 241 Arab immigrants came to Cleveland, the majority men who worked as peddlers, factory laborers, or in construction. Many, after saving enough money, established small businesses, particularly grocery stores, fruit stands, restaurants, dry goods stores, and contracting firms. Increasingly, they brought wives, children, and other family members to the U.S., especially around World War I. The U.S. census of 1910 listed 497 individuals under the category “Turkey in Asia” (Asian subjects of the Ottoman Empire, most of whom were Arab); in 1920, the number was 1,320. Nearly all of these immigrants came from Syria, especially from that part which today is the separate country of Lebanon. In Cleveland they initially settled in the Haymarket district and across the CENTRAL VIADUCT in TREMONT. However, as they and their descendants prospered, they moved to various areas of Cleveland and its suburbs. The U.S. Census, figures for individuals from Syria and Palestine were 1,180 in 1930 and 1,068 in 1940, probably indicating movement out of Cleveland proper rather than a decrease in the area’s Arab population. Partially because of this quick dispersal into the American mainstream, characteristic of Arab immigration to the U.S., and partially because of the relatively small number of people involved compared to such groups as the ITALIANS, POLES, andHUNGARIANS, no real Arab neighborhood developed in Cleveland.
The second large wave of Arab immigrants came to Cleveland after the founding of Israel in 1948 and consisted primarily of displaced Palestinian Arabs. The Israeli occupation of the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Jawlon Hts. of Syria, and the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt after the Six Day War of 1967, ensured that the immigration would continue. Intercommunal strife and, after 1975, civil war in Lebanon spurred a new Lebanese migration as well. In addition, a number of students from Arab countries enrolled at Cleveland universities, becoming at least temporary members of the Arab community. By 1960 Cleveland’s Arab population had increased to 1,841, with most individuals coming from Lebanon, Egypt, the occupied west bank of Palestine, and Syria. The figure for 1970 was 832, reflecting the general decline in Cleveland’s population during the period. However, by 1990 over 900 Arab immigrants lived in Cleveland, bearing witness to a new influx from the Middle East. Many of the new arrivals chose to live on the city’s west side, and by the mid-1990s a number of small food shops and restaurants serving the Arab community were located along Lorain Ave., west of W. 117th St. Estimates for the total number of Arab-Americans (including individuals of American birth and mixed parentage) residing in Greater Cleveland during the 1970s and 1980s varied from 15,000 to 35,000. This more recent wave of Arab immigration differed from the earlier one. First, the motivation was often political rather than economic, with at least some of the immigrants planning to return home when conditions permitted. Second, these later immigrants were on the average better-educated; many came with the education and experience to enter academia and the professions, or with sufficient funds to start small businesses. Third, the religious background of the new immigrants was more varied, with more Muslims, as well as Coptic Christians from Egypt.
Religious institutions provided the primary medium of self-identification for the Cleveland Arab community, lacking as it did a specific neighborhood or great numbers, and tending as it did toward assimilation. The Syrian Christian groups established their own churches early on, in 1906 founding ST. ELIAS CHURCH (Byzantine Catholic), initially serving all Arabic-speaking Cleveland Christians; then establishing ST. MARON (Maronite Catholic), whose parish, was created in 1915. The other important Syrian rite, the Antiochian Orthodox, did not officially found its church, ST. GEORGE ANTIOCHIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH, until 1926, although the Arab Orthodox community had conducted services in several locations, including GRAYS ARMORY, for several years. In 1928 the congregation purchased and opened a church at 2587 W. 14th St. in Cleveland. The Druze community in Cleveland has no organized place of worship; however, its religious society, Al-Bakorat Ud-Durziet, was founded in 1916 to provide spiritual and material aid to the Druze community, and its membership embraces all persons of the Druze faith in the Cleveland area. The ISLAMIC CENTER OF CLEVELAND of Cleveland was founded in 1967 to serve the area’s Muslims, many of whom were of Palestinian origin. In 1995 the center built a new mosque in PARMA. The latest of the Arab community’s religious groups was the Coptic Christian church. With Egyptians having migrated to Cleveland in significant numbers only after the middle of the 20th century, it was not until 1971 that a Coptic church, St. Mark Coptic Orthodox, was officially established, and not until 1975 that its first full-time pastor (Fr. Mikhail E. Mikhail) was appointed. St. Mark, located in Parma, serves the Coptic Christians not only of Cleveland but of Ohio and the surrounding region as well.
The Cleveland Arab community has also founded social, political, and other clubs, although relatively few compared to other ethnic groups of similar size. Among the earliest organizations, dating from the 1930s or before, were the AITANEET BROTHERHOOD ASSN., the Zahle Club, the Syrian Boys Club, the Syrian American Club, and the LEBANESE-SYRIAN JUNIOR WOMEN’S LEAGUE. Clubs whose memberships had roots in a certain village or city, such as the Aitaneet Brotherhood, were founded by immigrants with strong ties to the homeland; thus, the more recent American Ramallah Club, a Palestinian organization. Other social and cultural clubs included the ARAB SOCIAL CLUB, Arabian Nights, and the Union of Arab Women; service organizations include the Stars of Lebanon Christian Society and local chapters of the American Lebanese-Syrian Associated Charities and the United Holy Land Fund. The most noteworthy development of the post-1965 period was the growth of political and educational organizations in response to events in the Near East and their coverage in the American news media and policies of the U.S. government, both widely perceived as anti-Arab. In the late 1960s, the Middle East Relief Committee began raising donations to aid Palestinian refugees, and subsequently, as the Cleveland Middle East Foundation, involved itself, apolitically, in welfare and educational activities both at home and overseas. The Cleveland Council on Arab-American Relations was founded as a political organization in the early 1970s, changing, its name to the Greater Cleveland Assn. of Arab-Americans in 1973; it became closely associated with the Natl. Assn. of Arab-Americans, established to give Arab-Americans a national political voice. In Dec. 1991 AACCESS-OHIO (the Arab American Community Center for Economic & Social Services in Ohio) was established to provide a variety of services to the Arab American community and to promote a better understanding of Arab culture by the general community.
Typically, Arab immigrants to the U.S. have tended to assimilate easily into the American mainstream. What ethnic self-awareness there was tended to be fragmented. The Arab-Israeli conflict, and its repercussions in the U.S., have perhaps done more to forge a heightened sense of common identity among Arab-Americans than anything else. Whether overseas rivalries within the Arab bloc and internal sectarian conflicts, especially in Lebanon, will be reflected here in new divisiveness within the Arab community, or whether the centripetal force of a common linguistic and cultural heritage will be strong enough to withstand such tendencies, remains a question for the future, which the size and composition of future Arab immigration to Cleveland will undoubtedly help determine.
Said Kabalan
Macron, Mary Haddad. Arab Americans and their Communities of Cleveland (1979).
Last Modified: 10 Jul 1997 02:03:47 PM