Introduction

In the 1960s, the civil rights movement, the war on poverty program, and above all, the burning fires of Watts, Detroit and our own Hough neighborhood, focused attention on the plight of our large urban centers. Soon, an avalanche of books, articles and TV specials informed the public at large about the problems of our cities.

At the same time, increasing numbers of professional historians began to turn their scholarly attention to studies of the city. Of course, there had always been books written about cities and in the case of Cleveland, the earlier settlers were very historically minded. Indeed, they founded a historical society in 1867 when the city of Cleveland was only six decades old and had a population of little over 40,000 people. It was the same year that Charles Whittlesey published the first detailed account of the city, The Early History of Cleveland. But until the 1950s the number of works dealing with the history of cities were few and it was clear that “local history” as urban history was then called, was seen by professional historians as scarcely more respectable than antiquarianism.

Generally, most of the early histories of Cleveland were characterized by a filiopietistic approach, singing the praises of the early settlers and the anthems of progress. Beautiful Euclid Avenue (Millionaire’s Row) was always mentioned but not the crowded and filthy slums of the Old Haymarket area, popularly referred to as “Baghdad on the Cuyahoga,” because it was inhabited by some forty different nationality groups.

As one social historian, Tamara K. Hareven, has observed, “Until very recently American Social History was written from the perspective of the dominant culture. It dealt with elites rather than common people. with institutions rather than social processes, with attitudes rather than experiences.”^[1]

But by the 1970s, the perspective was changing. It was not only the studies of the riot torn cities or the plight of the urban poor that prompted a different approach. Perhaps it was a combination of other factors that stimulated a greater interest in urban history. Nationally, the country was withdrawing from the agony of Vietnam and we were a bitterly divided people. Millions saw and were affected by the television airing of Alex Haley’s “Roots.” The Black is Beautiful movement, the New Ethnicity, the Women’s Movement — all seemed a part of a general revolt against the conformity of post-World War II America. It was also the decade of the bicentennial celebration, a factor that encouraged local communities to celebrate their own past.

The 1970s saw increased interest in historic preservation and neighborhood revitalization as people came together to preserve, protect and improve the older sections of cities. In Cleveland, this interest was expressed in the formation of the Cleveland Restoration Society, the Cleveland Landmarks Commission and a legion of neighborhood organizations. Cleveland State University founded its Institute of Urban Studies, developed its neighborhood center and embarked on a publications project known as the Cleveland Ethnic Heritage Studies Series, an attempt to document the histories of the city’s ethnic and racial groups.

All of these endeavors have stimulated greater interest in the history of Cleveland and this is reflected by the increased number of books written about Cleveland in recent years, a fact to which the Heritage Program’s bibliography will plainly attest. It is also reflected in the demand for urban history courses in local colleges and universities and in the popularity of local studies at the primary and secondary schools levels.

The need for materials that would help students, teachers and neighborhood people go about the tasks of researching the histories of their communities or families, their churches or their streets, was apparent when we began planning the Cleveland Heritage Program. It is hoped that this publication and other materials of the Cleveland Heritage Program will fulfill that need and stimulate further research.