About this collection
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- Karamu House was founded in 1915 in Cleveland, Ohio, by Russell W. and Rowena Woodham Jelliffe, in conjunction with the Second Presbyterian Church Men's Club, as the Neighborhood Association (later as the Playhouse Settlement), a settlement house promoting interracial activities and cooperation through the performing arts. The Jelliffes saw a need to provide activities and social services for the city's growing African American population, in order to assist in their transition from rural Southern life to an urban setting. The Playhouse Settlement was renamed Karamu Theater in 1927. By 1941, the entire settlement had taken the name Karamu House. The Dumas Dramatic Club was created to support and encourage interest and activities in the performing arts. In 1922, the theater troupe's name was changed to The Gilpin Players in honor of noted African American actor Charles Gilpin. During the 1920s and 1930s, works by many accomplished playwrights were produced at Karamu, including those of Zora Neale Hurston, Eugene O'Neill, and Langston Hughes, whose career was launched at Karamu. In 1939, the house was destroyed by fire. Rebuilding was not completed until 1949. The Jelliffes' mission of an interracial institution continued until the late 1960s, when, under the leadership of new director Kenneth Snipes, Karamu's mission became one of promoting African-American theater and plays specifically about the African-American experience. During this time a professional troupe of actors was formed. In 1982, Karamu formally returned to its original mission as an interracial organization. The collection consists of individual and group portraits of Karamu House founders Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, administrators and staff, actors and performers, and community figures. Group portraits and views depict activities at Karamu, including classes, art exhibits, meetings, ceremonies, choral groups, clubs, and sports teams. Views of Karamu House facilities, buildings, and grounds, including photographs of the original buildings of the Playhouse Settlement, are included, as are views of plays performed. Notable individuals depicted include Garrett E. Morgan, Charles Gilpin, Al Fann, Dr. Ralph Bunche, Ida B. Wells, Eubie Blake, Noble Sissle, Harry E. Davis, James Weldon Johnson, Perry Como, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Ruby Dee, Raymond St. Jacques, Archibald MacLeish, Judge Charles White, Rev. Earl Preston, Charles Sallee, Carl Stokes, Louis Stokes, Jane Addams, Emily Laster, Wilhelmina Roberson, Dakota Staton, Harriet Tubman, and Julian Mayfield. Groups depicted include the Keystone Club, Golden Age Club, Cheerio Circle, the Karamu Dancers, Camp Karamu, and the Karamu Nursery School.
- Louis Van Oeyen (1865-1946) was the first photographer hired as staff on a Cleveland, Ohio, newspaper, and a pioneer in many techniques and activities of photojournalism. Van Oeyen was hired as a Cleveland Press photographer in 1901, after his photographs of the water intake explosion disaster in Lake Erie, and the assassination of President William McKinley, were published in the Press. During his career at the Press, he shot portraiture, politics, disaster, crime, scandal, and sports photographs. His greatest love was baseball, and he became official photographer for the American League in 1908, and for the World Series until 1922. Van Oeyen also helped test new photographic equipment, most notably the General Electric flash bulb in 1938. He assisted other photographers at the beginning of their careers, including Margaret Bourke-White and Herman Seid. Van Oeyen died in 1946. The collection consists of photographs and negatives taken by photographer Louis Van Oeyen before and during his career as a Cleveland Press photographer. A large portion of the collection depicts sports, particularly baseball. Other subjects include technological innovation, politics, entertainment, automobiles, aviation, horse racing, and boxing. There are extensive series of images from the Ormond Beach, Florida, auto races; the National Air Races held in Cleveland, Ohio; famous aviators; dirigibles; and ship launchings. Political coverage includes international, national and local figures, among them several presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin Roosevelt, and the coronation of King George VI of Great Britain. Celebrity portraits range from industrialists, including J. P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, to entertainers, such as Buster Keaton and Yehudi Menuhin. Smaller bodies of subject material include photographs of crime, disaster, legal proceedings, and story art for fictional serial stories published by the newspaper. Crime illustration includes portraits of Cassie Chadwick. Disasters include the Collinwood School and Cleveland Clinic fires; floods; and aviation, automotive, and railroad wrecks. Legal coverage includes an extensive series on the John T. Scopes "Monkey Trial," including candid portraits of Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. The collection is strongest in images from the 1900s and the 1920s-1930s.
- The Nickel Plate Railroad was founded in 1881 to connect Buffalo and Chicago via Cleveland, Ohio. It was nicknamed the Nickel Plate Road. After it failed it was taken over by the newly organized New York, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad in 1887. It merged into the Norfolk and Western Railroad in 1964. The collection consists of two photograph albums and loose photographs pertaining to the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, including pictures of railroad bridges, locomotives, trains, track, depots, towns, wrecks, railroad officials, and work scenes. Also included are photographs of advertisements for railroads.
- Laurence Harper Norton (1888-1960) was a soldier, banker, industrialist, Ohio state legislator and Cleveland civic and cultural leader. He was also private secretary to Ambassador Myron T. Herrick and president of the Western Reserve Historical Society. Collection consists of correspondence, legal documents, financial records, newspaper clippings, photographs, genealogical materials, certificates and other materials relating to various members of the Norton, Castle and Harper families , including Robert, Alexander J., and Rice Harper, and to Jay Cooke, Myron Herrick, Ohio National Guard Troop A, and the 37th Division of the 135th Field Artillery. The collection consists of 4 albums and 9 loose photographs belonging to the Norton family of Cleveland, Ohio. Watterson and Harper family members are also included in the collection. Nine loose photographs of a trip to London, 1894, including two group portraits of John A. Norton, Harry Burnett, and Charlie Burnett are included. Each album contains copies of content inventories.
- The Otis-Sanders Mansion was located at 3133 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio. It was built by Charles Augustus Otis, Sr., with construction beginning in 1868. The mansion was occupied continuously by the Otis and Sanders families until the death of Mr. Otis' daughter, Annie Otis Sanders, in 1933. At one time, the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute was located at the mansion. Like most of the homes on "Millionaires' Row," the Otis-Sanders Mansion was torn down. The collection consists of one photograph album containing interior and exterior views of the Otis-Sanders Mansion on Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio. Most of the photographs were taken in 1933, after the death of Annie Otis Sanders.
- Thomas Howard White (1836-1914) was the founder of the White Sewing Machine Company, the While Motor Company, and the Thomas H. White Foundation, all of Cleveland, Ohio. He was born in Massachusetts, part of the White family which had immigrated from England ca. 1638. He moved to Cleveland in 1867. In 1876 he, his half-brother Howard W. White, and Rollin C. White (no relation) incorporated the White Sewing Machine Company. In 1899, his son Rollin Henry White invented the White steam car, put into production by the White Sewing Machine Company in 1900. In 1906, The automobile division was separated from the Sewing Machine Company as the White Company, later the White Motor Company. He and his wife, Almira Greenleaf White, had eight children; Mabel Almira Harris (wife of James Armstrong Harris), Alice Maud Hammer (wife of William Joseph Hammer), Windsor Thomas White, Clarence Greenleaf White, Rollin Henry White, Walter Charles White, and Ella Almira Ford (wife of Horatio Ford). The collection consists of individual and group portraits depicting the ancestors and descendants of Thomas H. White. These photographs were collected by Betty King and her mother, Elizabeth White King, as they were compiling data for the White family genealogy, Descendants of Thomas White, Volume II, published in 1992.
- The collection consists of prints of four different views of Cleveland, Ohio, as it appeared in 1833. These views were published in 1834 by Thomas Whelpley as engravings by Osborne, the engraver. In 1868 they were republished as lithographs by Sanford and Hayward of Cleveland. In addition to these two editions of the prints, the series was also reproduced as lithographs by J. Archer, sculptor, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and these prints are also included.