About this collection
- In 1925, the Cleveland Water Department opened the Baldwin Water Treatment Plant in the Fairfax neighborhood on the border of Cleveland Heights. Supplying water to the Baldwin facility was the Kirtland Pump Station located on Lakefront Road at E. 49th Street. Just east of the Kirtland Station was Gordon Park Beach, which was a 122-acre recreational area along the lakefront on the eastern side of E. 72nd Street. Euclid Beach Park was located on the southern shore of Lake Erie at E. 156th St. and Nottingham Rd., about 8 mi. from Public Square. On the west side of Cleveland. Adjacent to the Division Avenue Treatment Plant (now known as the Garrett Morgan facility), Edgewater Park was purchased in 1894 by the city's Second Park Board from Jacob B. Perkins, Cleveland industrialist. The collection consists of 53 black and white photographs illustrating Baldwin Water Treatment facility, the construction of bulkheads along the shoreline at the Kirtland Pump Station, and Edgewater, Euclid Beach, and Gordon Parks.
- The College Club of Cleveland was founded on January 15, 1898 in Cleveland, Ohio. Louise Pope and Carolyn Shipman, two college graduates, were concerned with promoting the "social, philanthropic, and literary interests" of other college-educated women in the Cleveland area. The club started with 88 members from 17 colleges and universities. Miss Pope was elected the first president of the College Club, while Miss Shipman served as the first secretary. The group met twice a month on Monday afternoons. By the turn of the century, two years later, club membership blossomed to 115, a group too large to meet in homes of members or in college lecture halls. The Club secured a suite of rooms in the Wedge Building on Euclid Avenue near Erie Street (now East 9th Street) that opened every day to provide a gathering place for the members to engage in tea and conversation. Members took turns hosting the afternoon events, and furnishings were provided by alumnae groups from the 25 represented colleges and universities. Over the years, the College Club adapted to changing social conditions to keep the organization contemporary. Membership was extended to men, as well as people with at least two years of college credit, instead of the previous four-year requirement. Associate membership became available to anyone with employment or community service experience. The special interest groups and committees within the club met many interests. Members could enjoy bridge groups, dance classes, dinner expeditions, book discussions, foreign language classes, investment clubs, community service activities, and cooking clubs, among many others. The College Club prided itself on its charitable and philanthropic services to the Cleveland community. Scholarships were awarded annually to promising young women who were destined for college. The Mittleberger Fund, monies left to the Club after the death of member Augusta Mittleberger, supported a scholarship selectively given to exceptionally qualified young women displaying financial need. Other community projects included the donation of money to schools, libraries, shelters, and programs for the blind.
- Kurt Weiler, who was born in Germany and emigrated to the United States from Wuppertal in 1936, served as a corporal in the U.S. Army during World War II. The three documents in this collection, on display at the Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, describe the concentration camps upon liberation. The U. S. Army's 42nd Rainbow Division liberated the Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. This account was written for the May 1 edition of the division's newsletter and retained by Weiler. The account describes the wasted bodies of the camp's few survivors and the twisted corpses of the dead, many of them stacked near the crematorium like "some maniac's woodpile." Even war correspondents who had witnessed battles at first hand were stunned by the sight. Weiler contributed to the report on the Buchenwald concentration camp while serving as a corporal in the U.S. Army. He also wrote a letter to his relatives Max and Norma Herrman describing his discovery of the subterranean factory where the world's first jet fighter was built for the Nazis by slave laborers. Courtesy Estate of Kurt Weiler.
- Ruby L. Terry was a former engineer and marketing executive for Bell Laboratories and the Ohio Bell Telephone Company, later Ameritech/SBC, and currently AT&T. She was responsible for generating $300 million in annual revenues from the engineering of large communication systems for such corporations as East Ohio Gas, Cleveland Clinic, Timken Company, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber. She also was assigned by her division engineer to design the first cable television system for cities in the northern and southern Ohio Bell service area. As an engineer in the late 1960s and early 1970s, she had to overcome many obstacles as both an African-American and as a woman. This oral history was conducted by Celeste Terry, daughter of Ruby Terry, at Western Reserve Historical Society on July 28, 2018.
- Carl Stokes, and his brother Louis, were groundbreaking African-American politicians from Cleveland, Ohio. Carl Stokes became the first black mayor of a major U.S. city when elected in 1967. Louis Stokes was the first African-American congressman from Ohio when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1968, a position he held for 15 consecutive terms. During Carl Stokes two mayoral terms, city hall jobs were opened to blacks and women, and a number of urban renewal projects were initiated. Between 1983 and 1994 Carl Stokes served as municipal judge, and in 1994 was appointed by President Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Seychelles. Louis Stokes began his career as a civil rights attorney, and helped challenge the Ohio redistricting in 1965 that fragmented African-American voting strength. In 1967, Louis Stokes argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the Terry v. Ohio case, also known as the "stop-and-frisk" case. In the 1970s, Louis Stokes served as chair on Assassinations and in the 1980s was a noted member of the House Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran. The collection includes 34 interviews with family and friends, associates and staff, and was conducted to commemorate the 50th anniversaries of Carl Stokes election as mayor and Louis Stokes to Congress.