About this collection
Pages
- Daniel Jeremy Silver (1928-1989) was a Reform rabbi at The Temple-Tifereth Israel in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the son of Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, who preceded and served with him at The Temple. Prior to his years at The Temple, Daniel Jeremy Silver was rabbi at Congregation Beth Torah of Chicago Heights, Illinois. He became Senior Rabbi of The Temple in 1963, serving until his death. He was active in local Cleveland Jewish and secular affairs, particularly with Case Western Reserve University, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Jewish Community Federation's Public Welfare Committee. He was also active in the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, and the Zionist Organization of America. Silver was the author of four books and many popular and scholarly articles, and he also edited books and journals. The complete collection in the Research Library of WRHS consists of appointment books, correspondence, minutes, reports, newspaper clippings, programs, sermons, notes, and writings.
- Garrett A. Morgan (1877-1963) was an entrepreneur and inventor whose inventions included the electric traffic signal and the gas mask. Morgan moved to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1895 and opened his own sewing machine sales and repair shop in 1907. He received a patent on his gas mask in 1912 and formed the National Safety Device Co. to manufacture and market it. He also established the G.A. Morgan Hair Refining Co., The Cleveland Call and Post, and the Wakeman Country Club for African Americans. The collection consists of correspondence, legal and business papers, drawings of the traffic signal, a hair straightening device and an automatic cooker, maps, blueprints and floorplans of Morgan's properties, biographical sketches, newspaper clippings, and material relating to Morgan's role in the waterworks crib explosion, the G.A. Morgan Hair Refining Co., the National Safety Device Co., and the Wakeman Country Club.
- Eugene R. Grasselli (1810-1882) came to the United States from Strasbourg, France in 1836. He established a chemical plant in Cleveland, Ohio in 1866 and pioneered the refining of sulfuric acid. The plant was incorporated as the Grasselli Chemical Corporation in 1885 with Eugene's son Caesar A. as its first president and other family members as directors. Caesar's son, Thomas S., followed him as president. The company grew to include 28 plants before it was sold to du Pont in 1928. The collection consists of personal and business papers of Eugene R., Caesar A., and Thomas S. Grasselli and other members of the Grasselli family, including wills, deeds, a marriage certificate, correspondence (with translations of some of the letters written in French), broadsides, minutes, invoices, receipts, diaries, ledgers, patents, letter press books, financial records, and drafts of Caesar A.'s autobiography.
- The Greater Cleveland Growth Association was founded in 1848 as the Board of Trade in Cleveland, Ohio. It was reorganized and renamed the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce in 1893. It merged with the Greater Cleveland Growth Board in 1968 to form the Greater Cleveland Growth Association. Its goals have always been to provide a forum for business leaders to discuss ideas and problems, to stimulate investments in the local economy, and to make Cleveland a better place to live and work. The organization was active in many areas of progressive reform in the early 1900s, including housing codes, bath houses, and the organization of charitable activities. The collection consists of charters of the Board of Trade, minutes and annual reports of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce, files of the Transportation and Industrial Relations departments, records of legislative and other committees, general office files, membership records, newspaper clippings and photographs.
- The Irish Cultural Garden was dedicated in the Cleveland Cultural Gardens in 1939. The Cleveland Cultural Gardens Federation was established in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925 to develop and maintain landscaped gardens and statuary honoring various ethnic groups in Cleveland. The gardens are located in Rockefeller Park along East Boulevard and Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. The collection consists of one 16mm color film and DVD reproduction of the dedication of the Irish Cultural Garden.
- James Edward Taylor (1839-1901) was an artist with Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper during the American Civil War who was assigned to cover the campaign of General Phillip Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley which began in August of 1864. Following the war, Taylor compiled over 500 narrative sketches and drawings based on his unique experience as the only artist assigned to cover General Sheridan. His sketches show heroic encounters, tragic deaths, thrilling victories, defeats, and all manner of military activity. Taylor also drew pictures depicting places, buildings, and scenes of local interest and character. All of these are tied together by a narrative.
- Jane Daroff is a social worker and community activist in Cleveland, Ohio, who was the co-founder of the Cleveland Chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) with Jes Sellers in 1985. She is active in the national and international PFLAG organization and serves on the board of directors of the Human Rights Campaign. The collection consists of brochures, a business card, a calendar, conference proceedings, a flyer, graphics, guidelines, a mission statement, a newsletter, newspaper clippings, notes, one color photograph, and a press release.
- The Wade family was a prominent nineteenth and early twentieth century Cleveland, Ohio, family with business interests in the telegraph and railroad industries, mining, manufacturing, and banking. Jeptha Homer Wade spent his early life as an apprentice to a tanner and as a carpenter. He next turned his interest to the emerging telegraph industry. In 1849, he organized the Cleveland and Cincinnati Telegraph Company. In 1857, Wade moved to Cleveland as the Western Union Telegraph Company's first general agent. His business interests were extensive in Cleveland, including the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company and the Citizens Savings and Loan Association. Randall Palmer Wade worked with his father in the telegraph business, moving with him to Cleveland in 1857. His business interests included the Cuyahoga Mining Company; the Citizens Savings and Loan Association; the Cleveland Banking Company; the American Sheet and Boiler Plate Company, and the Chicago and Atchison Bridge Company. Jeptha Homer Wade II also worked in the telegraph industry; he later joined the banking community in Cleveland. He was an active philanthropist, serving as a trustee of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Western Reserve University, Adelbert College, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He was an incorporator of the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1913, and later established a purchasing fund for the Museum. The collection consists of correspondence, wills, diaries, autobiographical sketches, memoranda, deeds, contracts, drawings, financial records, passport documents, land grants, notes, receipts, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks, relating to Jeptha Homer Wade and his role in the telegraph industry in the Midwest, and to his son, Randall Palmer Wade, and grandson, Jeptha Homer Wade, Jr. Includes letters from or about Ezra Cornell, Amos Kendall, Samuel F.B. Morse, and James A. Garfield. Personal correspondence related to members of the Wade family, including Ellen Howe Garretson Wade and Ellen Howe Garretson, is included, as is travel journals written by various family members. The Wade family interest in spiritualism, particularly that of Jeptha Homer Wade after the death of his son Randall in 1876, is well documented in his personal correspondence. A calendar of correspondence for the collection is available in the appendix to the register.
- Josephus Hicks was an African American photographer and historian who lived in Cleveland from the mid-1930s until his death in 1998. In addition to photographing people and events in the Cleveland African American community, Mr. Hicks wrote the history of St. John A.M.E. Church, the Mount Zion Church and the Hough area of the city. The collection consists of church records, photographs, 16mm film, and audio LPs.
- 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.
- This is a performance of La Piccola Italia Marcia, composed by Pietro Oddo, at The Feast of the Assumption in Cleveland's Little Italy on August 16, 2010, by the Italian Band of Cleveland. Oddo (1843-1916) served in a musical band regiment of the Italian military before arriving in Cleveland in 1901. He composed band music, including waltzes and marches, many of which became standards for Italian and Italian American musical organizations. "La Piccola Italia Marcia" dates to the 1910s; its 2010 performance by the Italian Band of Cleveland was likely the first time it was performed in public in nearly a hundred years.