Browse or Search Our Web Exhibits

Browse our web exhibits by scrolling down the page or use the site search box at the right.

Use the "Find Images" box above in the title area to find particular images.

  • Annals of Cleveland: A Depression-Era Project of the WPA
    An online finding aid to the Annals of Cleveland, a WPA project dedicated to the indexing and summarization of Cleveland's early newspapers.
  • Bridges of Northeastern Ohio: Resources at Cleveland Memory
    A pathfinder to our extensive collections having to do with bridges and Civil Engineering. Includes links to images and eTexts as well as to:
  • A Brief History of Cleveland State University
    A one-page history of CSU, tracing its beginnings as a free YMCA program in the 1870s, through accreditation as Fenn College in 1929, the incorporation of the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, to its current standing as "a student-centered institution of academic excellence."
  • Clay Herrick Slide Collection
    This archival collection, donated by Clay Herrick, author of "Cleveland Landmarks", consists of 100 pamphlets, brochures, books, and photographs. The most important element is some 6,000 slides; one-of-a-kind shots of various buildings in Cleveland, which are showcased here.
  • Cleveland Cultural Gardens Collection
    The Cleveland Cultural Gardens, extending along East Blvd. & Martin Luther King Blvd. in Cleveland's University Circle area, is a unique collection of landscaped, themed gardens each representing a different ethnic group/organization in Cleveland. The gardens represent many of the cultural backgrounds of Cleveland's diverse population.
  • Cleveland Heights & University Heights, Ohio: A Collection of Historic Images
    Over 750 photos depicting Cleveland Heights’ many commercial districts, public parks and educational institutions.
  • Cleveland Illustrated
    All 135 images from this lavish viewbook and brief history of Cleveland published in 1889.
  • The Cleveland Metroparks
    Over 100 images representing nine of the sixteen reservations comprising Ohio's oldest park district.
  • Cleveland, Ohio Along the Nickel Plate Road
    In 1926 the New York, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway (Nickel Plate or NKP) undertook a grade elimination project along its right-of-way in Cleveland. At the start of the project the NKP took a series of photographs that documented the conditions both along its right-of-way and the adjacent neighborhoods. In 1930 the NKP produced another series of photographs, this time along its right-of-way through Lakewood, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland. Each series of images form a rare photographic cross-section of a major American metropolitan area in the mid-1920's and early 1930's.

    *Nickel Plate Road is a registered trademark of the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society, Inc.
  • Cleveland: Pioneer in Cardiac Care
    This website takes a closer look at those who contributed to Cleveland's distinctive history as a “Mecca” for heart care.
  • Cleveland Press Collection
    Clippings and photographs from the former editorial library, or "morgue," of the Cleveland Press.
  • The Cleveland Union Terminal Online
    A collection of resources documenting the construction of Cleveland's signature building complex including:
  • Cleveland's Ethnic Heritage
    A pathfinder to our extensive collections on Cleveland's rich cultural heritage including:
  • Cleveland's First Infrastructure: The Ohio & Erie Canal
    Historic photographs and other images, maps, and period advertisements offer a glimpse into canal era life in Ohio.
  • Cleveland's Forgotten Freeways
    Route location studies, including proposed routes, for planned freeways that were never built in the Greater Cleveland area.
  • Cleveland's Golden Age of Downtown Shopping
    Revisit Cleveland's Downtown Department Stores. Remember the Silver Grille? Mr. Jingeling? The Sterling Lindner Davis trees? Take a nostalgic trip back with these images from the Cleveland Press Collection of the golden age of downtown shopping in Cleveland.
  • Crime Scene, Cleveland
    See images from some of our city's more sensationalized murder cases.
  • Cuyahoga County Engineer's Photography Collection
    Over 1,200 images from the Cuyahoga County Engineer's Office, documenting Engineer's Office projects to install and maintain the civil infrastructure.
  • The Cuyahoga County Fair Photograph Collection
    120 photographs from the Cleveland Press Collection, taken over a 60 year span, depicting fair activities and fairgoers of all kinds as well as a 1970 documentary film "County Fair, U.S.A.", a nostalgic look back at the fair as it was a generation ago.
  • d.a. levy Collection
    d.a. levy was a major literary and underground figure in Cleveland's emerging poetry and small and alternative press scene from the early 1960s through his untimely death in 1968. A poet, artist, and publisher, levy's work documenting his love-hate relationship with the city and its politics offers a unique political & social perspective of Cleveland during the 1960s. This growing collection includes reprints and original works of his textual and visual art, along with photographs and newspaper clippings - a digital initiative in keeping with levy's vision of free thought and speech and his desire to create and distribute his work freely.
  • Disasters in Cleveland History
    Images of the fires, explosions, floods, and other calamities that have left their mark on the city over the years.
  • The Dobama Collection
    Digital reproductions of playbills, publicity stills, sound recordings as well as a chronoligical listing of Dobama Theatre's productions through July 2007.
  • East Liverpool, Ohio: A Glimpse of the Past
    Cleveland Memory stretches its vision towards Ohio's eastern borders to take a nostalgic look at East Liverpool, Ohio, a city known for its pottery industry, "Point of Beginning" historical marker, and the place where gangster, Pretty Boy Floyd, was shot and killed by FBI agent Melvin Purvis in 1934.
  • Eliot Ness in Cleveland: Ness, best known for bringing down Al Capone as leader of the Chicago "Untouchables", also spent time as Cleveland's safety director and later ran for mayor of the city. Part of Crime Scene, Cleveland.
  • Feeding Cleveland: Urban Agriculture
    Dedicated to the urban gardeners and farmers of Cleveland, Urban Agriculture is a joyous look at those who "toil in the soil" — from the relief workers during the Great Depression, citizens in their victory gardens during WWII and children in school-sponsored horticulture programs, to the modern-day enthusiasts and entrepreneurs in community and market gardens.
  • Fenn College On-Line
    On September 1, 1965 Fenn College became Cleveland State University. This site, our vision of what an early Fenn College Web site might have looked like had the Internet been around in the 1960's, is in recognition of the many contributions of Fenn College and its graduates to the Greater Cleveland community.
  • Great Lakes Industrial History Center
    The Great Lakes Industrial History Center provides a resource where the public can gain an appreciation for the efforts and accomplishments of business and industry which led to the opening of the Great Lakes and the industrial development of adjacent regions and where visitors are inspired to continue the pursuit of inventiveness, ingenuity, and excellence.
  • Hanna Theater Curtain
    The Hanna Theater Curtain is a unique part of Cleveland's theater history. It was common practice for traveling companies to leave their mark backstage on theater curtains -- anything which proclaimed "we were here!" Over the years, the Hanna Theater Curtain accumulated hundreds of such mementoes, becoming a unique, unsurpassed collage of theater memorabilia.
  • Industrial Rayon Corporation: Celebrating a Special Workplace
    A collection of nearly 100 photographs and other materials about Cleveland's Industrial Rayon Corporation, which manufactured rayon yarn, the world’s first synthetic fiber, used in items ranging from undergarments to tires.
  • League Park: Cleveland's Original Ballpark
    Built in the 1890s, League Park was the site of several important moments in baseball history, including the major league debut of Cleveland Indians pitcher Bob Feller, the first and only unassisted triple play in a World Series game, and the first grand slam in World Series history. Many famous baseball players appeared at the park and played in games there, including Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Satchel Paige, and Lou Gehrig.
  • The Lewis Turco Collection
    Using digital content from Lewis Turco's donated letters and materials as well as other documentation, this website provides a valuable resource for scholars and poets alike interested in tracing the roots of Cleveland's poetry scene.
  • Lorain, Ohio: A Collection of Historic Snapshots of One of Cleveland’s Neighbors
    Linked geographically, the lakeside cities of Cleveland and Lorain share parallels in their development as industrial ports and centers of commerce. This site features historic photographs and a guide to further reading about our neighbor to the west.
  • Messing About in Boats: The Amazing Adventure of Robert Manry
    On June 1, 1965 Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Plain Dealer and a Willowick, Ohio resident, left Falmouth, Massachusetts aboard his 13.5-foot sailboat, Tinkerbelle, to begin his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He arrived in Falmouth, England seventy-eight days later on August 17, 1965. At the time of the crossing Tinkerbelle was the smallest boat to have ever crossed the Atlantic.
  • Mystery Photo Album from the 1890s
    This is a small photo album that was acquired from a dealer. We know nothing about it, except what it discloses about itself: namely that it covers territory south of Cleveland, Ohio -- in the Kent/Akron area along the Cuyhoga River, Ohio & Erie Canal and nearby towns -- and that the photos were shot around 1897.
  • Naef & Joslin Company Photographs of Conneaut, Ohio
    Naef & Joslin was a professional photography firm in Conneaut, Ohio. About 1900 they took several series of photographs of the docks, vessells, bulk material handling equipment and other features at the port of Conneaut.
  • Neighbors on the North Coast: Cleveland's Connection to the Mentor Shoreline
    Lying less than an hour to the east of the city, the Mentor shoreline has long beckoned Clevelanders to it with promises of nature, recreation, and expanding industrial opportunities. Through photographs, maps, blueprints, video clips and documents this site highlights the development of the Lake Erie shoreline along Mentor for both public and private uses.
  • The Photograph Albums of Glenallen
    A collection of 116 professional photographs by photographer Cifford Norton featuring Glenallen, the Cleveland Heights estate of Elisabeth Severance Allen Prentiss.
  • Photographs from the Berea Children's Home
    100 photographs from the Berea Children's Home and Berea Historical Society documenting the home's first 100 years of caring for neglected, dependent and abandoned children.
  • Postcards of Cleveland
    Dr. Walter C. Leedy, Jr. began his comprehensive collection of Cleveland postcards, now numbering nearly 8,000 in earnest in 1989. Leedy realized the unique value picture postcards could have to him as an architectural historian, permitting him to observe the changing urban environment, or to visually recreate what a neighborhood looked like. As Leedy puts it, "I don't really collect postcards-I collect images of life, moments in time. Nostalgia glues people to postcards. There is something intimate and direct about them. As an art historian, I think of postcards as a vehicle to introduce art to the millions-people aren't intimidated by postcards the way they might be by paintings or other "fine" art."
  • Praying Grounds: African American Faith Communities
    An ongoing documentary and oral history project which will ultimately offer audio and video recordings of oral histories and musical performances, as well as photographs, newspaper articles, anniversary programs and other printed materials, along with an extensive bibliography. A fascinating collection gathered from African American churches and faith communities throughout greater Cleveland.
  • Railroad History Holdings at Cleveland Memory
    A pathfinder to our extensive Railroad history collections, including links to the Cleveland Union Terminal Collection, Newburgh & South Shore Collection, and Nickel Plate Railroad Collections.

    *Nickel Plate Road is a registered trademark of the Nickel Plate Road Historical & Technical Society, Inc.
  • Roldo Bartimole - Point of View
    Whether you consider him to be Cleveland's conscience or "Cleveland's curmudgeon", iconoclastic journalist, Roldo Bartimole, rocked Cleveland's political boat with his biweekly newsletter, Point of View from 1968 to 2000.
  • The Roy Grove Cartoon Collection
    Roy Grove was a cartoonist for the Newspaper Enterprise Association from 1917 through the mid-1920's. This collection contains some of Grove's World War I cartoons as well as some of his sports cartoons.
  • Sacred Landmarks of Cleveland
    Browse or search for text, images, and other data about a particular landmark in this growing project sponsored by The Sacred Landmarks Partnership of Northeast Ohio.
  • The Shaker Heights Collection
    Founded in 1912, Shaker Heights is a community dedicated to its schools, its natural spaces, its people, and its history. The digital reproductions here are a small portion of the materials available for patron use in the Local History Collection at the Shaker Heights Public Library and the Elizabeth Nord Library Collection at the Shaker Historical Society.
  • Stereoscopic Images of Cleveland in 3D
    Stereoscopic scenes taken from historic stereoview cards showing Cleveland and the wider Great Lakes industrial region.
  • Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
    A growing collection of 20 years' worth of local reviews of theater, film, and music, as well as interviews with celebrities passing through Cleveland.
  • Yesterday's Lakewood
    Images of Lakewood dating between 1909 and the building of the Rocky River Bridge through the early 1980's.