When Stokes took office in 1969 there was little black representation in politics, but the civil rights movement had helped to give way to the emergence of black political power. Stokes realized that as a black congressman he couldn’t serve the same way as white representatives could, he felt he had an obligation to represent African Americans everywhere. So not long after his election, Stokes and several other black congressmen and women began forming the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). The CBC which still exists today, mission was, and still is, to challenge the status quo and leverage its political force to advocate and influence issues of special concern that affected black communities nationwide.
Detail of map from the Hough neighborhood., Citation: Lake, D. J. South Part of 17th Ward of Cleveland, 1874. Map. 1:4,800. In Atlas of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, from Actual Surveys by and Under the Directions of D. J. Lake. Titus, Simmons & Titus.
Detail of map from the Hough neighborhood., Citation: Part 21 City of Cleveland, 1892. Map. 1:2,400. In Atlas of Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, Ohio. George F. Cram & Company.
This report on the role of the Ohio National Guard during the Hough area riots in Cleveland, 18-31 July 1996., Citation: Pam. O224 The Hough riot, Cleveland, Ohio, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.
Detail of map from the Hough neighborhood., Citation: Plat Map of the City of Cleveland, Ohio. Map. 1: 1,200. In Plat Book of the City of Cleveland, Ohio, V. 1. G.M. Hopkins & Company.
The Cleveland Development Foundation was a Cleveland, Ohio, non-profit corporation founded in 1954 to provide support for community development and renewal projects. The collection consists of financial records, notebooks of clippings, films, maps, and office files containing letter copies, correspondence, minutes, studies, proposals, speeches, contracts, insurance policies, printed brochures, pamphlets and booklets.
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.
George Magoffin Humphrey was the President of the M.A. Hanna Company, and United States Secretary of the Treasury (1953-1957). The collection consists of two albums, loose photographs, a notebook, and a booklet containing photographs related to the career of George M. Humphrey of Cleveland, Ohio. Included are portraits of Humphrey as a child, with President Dwight Eisenhower and various members of the Eisenhower administration, and with his wife, Pamela Stark Humphrey. Group photographs contain views of Eisenhower's second inauguration that include Vice President Richard M. Nixon; business associates of Humphrey; various ceremonies, receptions, and dinners attended by Humphrey and his wife; photographs of Humphrey receiving various honorary academic degrees at a number of institutions; Humphrey with Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain; and travel photographs, including several trips with President Eisenhower and other cabinet members. A booklet contains photographs and maps relating to the operation of the Iron Ore Company of Canada. Other loose photographs contain views of work on a railroad to the Scheffeville Mines Iron Ore Company, a ceremony marking the completion of that railroad line, and ceremonies marking the first passage of an iron ore cargo from Canada to Cleveland, Ohio through the St. Lawrence Seaway.
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 a copy of the publication, Descendants of Thomas White, Volume II , written for Elizabeth White King by Betty King and Alice Coyle Lunn. The documentation collected during research for this book makes up the rest of the collection. It includes copies of wills, deeds, and patents; original correspondence and transcripts of correspondence of members of the White family; travel scrapbooks and a baby scrapbook; diaries; unpublished manuscripts; book; newspaper clippings; drawings; maps; oral history transcripts and memoirs; reports of Dr. Lunn to Betty King concerning her genealogical and historic research; and genealogical questionnaires filled out by family members.
The Austin Company, a carpentry and contracting business, was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1878 by Samuel Austin. Austin became known for his quality work, and by 1904 incorporated his business as the Samuel Austin & Son Company. Wilbert J. Austin, Samuel's son, devised "The Austin Method," a unique bundling of engineering, construction, and design services intended to streamline the building process, as well as a model for a "controlled conditions" plant, a major improvement over the hot, stifling factory environment of the day. The Austin Company grew rapidly during World War I and was able to stay solvent following the stock market crash of 1929, mostly due to the firm's major contract to build the Gorky Automobile Plant in Gorky, Russia. Business saw another increase during World War II and again during the post-war years as the Company branched out beyond industrial construction to build department stores and retail shopping centers, including the Severance Center in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. Overseas operations flourished in western Europe, Australia, and Argentina. Throughout the 1970's and into the 1990's, the Austin Company faced a decline in business. In 1984, the Company was purchased by the National Gypsum Company. Following National Gypsum's bankruptcy, the Austin Company was purchased by the Kajima USA Group. As of 2009, the Austin Company continued to maintain an office in suburban Cleveland. The collection consists of advertisements, agreements, annual reports, blueprints, books, brochures, certificates, charts, contracts, correspondence, film reels, financial statements, indexes, journal articles, leases, ledgers, legal documents, magazine articles, manuals, maps, meeting notices, memoranda, minutes, negatives, newsletters, newspaper clippings, notes, office manuals, photograph captions, photographs, presentations, press releases, proposals, reports, resolutions, sales literature, sales letters, scrapbooks, slides, speech texts, and videotapes.