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Cleveland Memory Donors
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Special Collections has been very fortunate to have received the generous suppport of many people and firms. At the risk of overlooking anyone, here are some people that we would particularly like to thank:


Gerald Adams


The Allan King Sloan Family Fund


The American Society for Civil Engineers, Cleveland Section for several grants involving the history of civil engineering in northeastern Ohio, including:


Robert Beach

  • Newburgh & South Shore Collection
    A former Trainmaster for the Newburgh & South Shore Railroad, Mr. Beach has generously donated an unbound book of some 100 photographs of the N&SS, ca. 1920. This will fit in nicely with our large collection of Newburgh & South Shore materials


John Stark Bellamy II


James and Susan Borchert


The Cleveland-Cliffs Foundation for $30,000 to underwrite several important web sites on Great Lakes and Cuyahoga River industrial history, including:


Joseph E. Cole

  • Cleveland Press Collection
    The Cleveland Press Collection was the former editorial library, or "morgue," of The Cleveland Press and includes hundreds of thousands of clippings and photographs. The last of Cleveland's daily afternoon newspapers, The Cleveland Press was published from 1878 until 1982. Little survives from the first half-century, but the collection's coverage of local and national history becomes progressively stronger after 1920. The library was donated to the Cleveland State University Library in 1984 by the newspaper's owner, Joseph E. Cole, who was at the time a Trustee of the University.


Shirley Cooper


Edward D'Allessandro


William Donohue Ellis


Mrs. Blythe Gehring

  • For digital rights and archives regarding Vignettes of Clifton Park.


Dennis Gouden


Clay Herrick

  • Clay Herrick Slide Collection
    Clay Herrick, author of "Cleveland Landmarks", donated in May 1991 a collection consisting of some 100 pamphlets, brochures, books, and photographs. The most important element of this collection is some 6,000 slides of one-of-a-kind shots of various buildings in Cleveland.


Joan Hofer

  • Herbert Elwell Archive
    Herbert Elwell (May 10, 1898 - April 17, 1974), composer, critic, and teacher, was an important figure in Cleveland's musical scene. The Archive is comprised of the composer's scores, discs, reel-to-reel tapes, manuscripts, articles, program annotations for the Cleveland Orchestra, and assorted letters and memorabilia received through the efforts of Joan Hofer, Elwell's niece.


John Horton


The Kulas Foundation


Marc Lackritz


Dr. Walter C. Leedy

  • Postcards of Cleveland
    Walter Leedy began his comprehensive collection of Cleveland postcards, now numbering nearly 8,000 in earnest in 1989. The earliest of Leedy's postcards date from 1898. Major highlights include several 32 inch long panoramas of Cleveland, and major people in Cleveland's popular history, such as Bob Feller and Satchel Paige, starting pitchers for the 1948 World Champion Cleveland Indians.

  • For digital rights to Cleveland's Terminal Tower - The Van Sweringens' Afterthought.

  • See a video tribute to the late Dr. Leedy


Robert Linsey


Edwin London

  • For the Edwin London Collection


The Mather Foundation


Edward Miggins

  • For his Black History exhibits.


Jeffrey Morris


The John P. Murphy Foundation, Herbert Strawbridge, President


Mrs. Bain Murray

  • For the Bain Murray Collection


The North American Railway Foundation for several grants totalling $96,000 over two years to:

  • Process the Newburgh & South Shore Collection

  • Acquire equipment for exibits, and to acquire and digitize railroad photographs,

  • Mount a new exhibition of Cleveland Union Terminal panoramic photographs

  • Process our Nickel Plate Road collections and the archives of the Nickel Plate Historical & Technical Society Archives, housed here.


Ray Osrin


Klaus G. Roy

  • For the Klaus Roy Collection


Molly Schaeffer


Jan Van Der Meulen

  • For a donation of approximately 15,000 black and white photographic prints of European cathedrals and churches constructed during the medieval period.


Michael Tevesz


Lewis Turco

  • The Lewis Turco Collection
    Lewis Turco, poet, English instructor, and founder/director of the Poetry Center at Fenn College, has been a kind friend to the Cleveland State University Library and its Special Collections Department. His donation of books containing various works by American poets is made available to scholars and poets alike through the Lewis Turco Archive of American Poetry and continues to grow through his kind support.

    In addition to that, Lewis Turco's donations to Special Collections of the Fenn Poetry Scrapbook, his Bordello portfolio of "poemprints", correspondance and audiotapes provide a vibrant rendering of the early Cleveland poetry scene.


Mrs. Naomi E. Walker

  • Dr. William O. and Naomi E. Walker Collection
    In September 1985, Mrs. Naomi E. Walker donated to Cleveland State University Libraries the substantial collection of more than four hundred books and rare historical material which comprise the William O. Walker collection of Afro-American literature.

    Dr. William O. Walker became publisher and editor of the Cleveland Call and Post, a black weekly newspaper, in 1932. He built the newspaper into one of the largest black weeklies in the nation. As its publisher he became a power in Cleveland, speaking out for civil rights and exposing discrimination and wrongdoing. Besides being an editorial voice, he was a mighty political force in the Republican Party. He was a councilman in the 1940's and in the 1960's became Ohio's first black Cabinet member, as industrial relations director for Governor James A. Rhodes. At the time of his death, he was under consideration by President Reagan to become chairman of the U. S. Civil Rights Commission.


Dr. Sara Ruth Watson

  • Watson Bridge Book Collection
    In March of 1983, Dr. Sara Ruth Watson, a former Professor of English and Engineering at Fenn College, donated to the Cleveland State University Library over one hundred and seventy-five rare books, some dating from the eighteenth century, and fifteen albums of photographs on civil engineering and, in particular, on bridges. The collection is considered one of the best of its kind in the country.

    The collection was begun by Dr. Watson's father, Wilbur J. Watson, a distinguished civil engineer and bridge designer who from his student days at Western Reserve University collected books on bridges and continued this interest during a long professional career. He founded the Watson Engineering Company in Cleveland, now the AC Engineering Company on Prospect near Thirtieth Street.


Western Reserve Camera Collector's Society
(aka the Photographic Historical Society of the Western Reserve)

  • For $2,000 in support of our photographic history collections.

  • For $1,000 in support of the Bruce Young Collection .


Bruce Young

  • For the Bruce Young Collection


Cleveland State University Library's Special Collections, and the wider community in general, are all the richer for these valuable acquisitions. We hope you will come visit Special Collections and examine these and other interesting materials we hold on the history of greater Cleveland, the Western Reserve and the Great Lakes Region.

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