Annals of Cleveland: A Depression-Era Project of the WPA
Annals of Cleveland staff summarized and indexed material in order to preserve and make readily accessible the detailed record of a city's life and culture as contained in its newspapers. The project provided jobs for unemployed white-collar workers during the Depression of the 1930s and created an important record of early life and thought in the city of Cleveland from 1818-1935.

Arab-Americans and their Communities of Cleveland
by Mary Haddad Macron
with an introduction by Danny Thomas
"We are hopeful...that during these difficult times we may be able to contribute to a better understanding of the Arab world, of their contributions to world civilizations, and their impact on the development of the American nation in general and Cleveland in particular."

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.

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, from prize-winning cattle to children competing in races. Also part of the collection is the 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. Includes the infamous mid-20th century Cuyahoga River fires, the Collinwood School Fire of 1908; the Cleveland Clinic Disaster of 1929, the Waterworks Tunnel Disaster of 1916, and the East Ohio Gas Co. explosion and fires of 1944.

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.

Ethnic Women of Cleveland
In 1986, Dr. Jeanette Tuve of Cleveland State University conducted a series of interviews with 29 women of eastern European birth or heritage. Many of these conversations were with women who remembered World War II or the Great Depression. The project focused on their experiences building homes and communities in America while retaining their ethnic traditions.

German Americans of Cleveland
Over 140 images from our Special Collections and links to a variety of resources from other institutions.

One of a series of Cleveland Memory collections exploring the ethnic influences that helped shape the history and development of Cleveland.

The Ginney Block: Reminiscences of an Italian-American Dead-end Street Kid
by Edward D'Alessandro
Long before Jacobs Field, the area just south of downtown was the site of the Haymarket district, the Central Market and parts of the Big Italy neighborhood. Edward D'Alessandro lived in "the Ginney Block," an Italian immigrant apartment building, until the new Cleveland Union Terminal construction project demolished it in 1928.

Hungarian Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland
by Susan M. Papp
with an Introduction by Joe Esterhas
Cleveland was at one time the city with the second largest population of Hungarians in the world (after Budapest). This history of the Cleveland Hungarian community outlines within a historical context how and why Cleveland became such a large Hungarian center and the nature of the ethnocultural community which existed and still exists. This study is the first comprehensive history of this community in Cleveland.

Hungarian Americans of Cleveland
Cleveland's Hungarian community is the second largest Hungarian group in the world, second only to Budapest, Hungary. Currently, there are over 130,000 Hungarian-Americans in the Cleveland area. This site collecting resources related to Hungarian-American history and culture is a tribute to all the struggles, sacrifices and accomplishments of Hungarian-Americans.

One of a series of Cleveland Memory collections exploring the ethnic influences that helped shape the history and development of Cleveland, this site is a link between the resources of the Cleveland State University Library and the collection of Cleveland Hungarian Heritage Museum, and is a collaboration between the two institutions..

Irish Americans of Cleveland
Over 200 images from our Special Collections, along with a sketch of Irish American life with excerpts from The Irish Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland by Nelson J. Callahan and William F. Hickey. Links to websites of contemporary Irish American organizations and culture will help acquaint you with Irish Americans today. And finally, to help you grab a piece of the past, we've selected artifacts found in an archaeological dig at the "Angle", or the old Irishtown Bend neighborhood.

First of a series of Cleveland Memory collections exploring the ethnic influences that helped shape the history and development of Cleveland.

Irish Americans and their Communities of Cleveland
by Nelson J. Callahan & William F. Hickey
with an Introduction by Andrew M. Greeley
The history of Cleveland is intimately connected with the settlement of the Irish immigrants. Their struggle for survival in the early days, their social, political and economic upward movement as well as their impact on the growth of Cleveland is vividly portrayed in this monograph by two distinguished Clevelanders.

Italian Americans and their Communities of Cleveland
by Gene P. Veronesi
The essays included in this monograph emphasize Italian contributions to the human scientific and artistic heritage, review the painful process of immigration and settlement, they give special attention to the Italian-American community of Cleveland: to its neighborhoods, social and cultural activities as well as to its contributions to the growth of the greater Cleveland area.

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.

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 we recently 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. If you know this area well, you might be able to help pinpoint the locations of the photos better and perhaps even solve the mystery of who the family is, shown in these photos. Any documented information will be added to the site.

Notable Blacks of Cleveland
Photographs of hundreds of individuals who made a significant contribution beyond their own personal and family lives to the history and development of Cleveland. Some of these people are or were famous, but many more have touched the lives of many others in relative anonymity.

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.

Polish Americans and Their Communities of Cleveland
by John J. Grabowski, Judith Zielinski-Zak, Alice Boberg, & Ralph Wroblewski
with an Introduction by Dr. Jerzy J. Maciuszko
This 3-part monograph by four different authors covers Polish history and culture, immigration to America, and the Polish community of Cleveland.

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."

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
Situated between Cleveland to the east and the Rocky River on the west, Lakewood, Ohio occupies 5.6 square miles along the southern shore of Lake Erie. Named for its natural setting along the lake, Lakewood's development was closely tied with that of Cleveland. This site contains images dating between 1909 and the building of the Rocky River Bridge through the early 1980's.