Collection Highlights

This Roll of Honor contains many Greater Cleveland men and women who served in World War II. Their names were added to the large four volume set by mothers, wives, sisters, fathers, and brothers of the men and women who were serving in all branches of the U.S. military. The book was dedicated on May 6, 1942 by Cleveland Press ed. Louis B. Seltzer and Mayor Frank Lausche and given to the Cleveland Public Library to be permanently housed once the

  Seventy Years of Progress is a booklet issued in 1923 commerated the 70^th anniversary of  The Dreher Piano Company of  Cleveland, Ohio .The book also heralded the opening of a new opening of the      business’s  new store on Huron Road .  Dreher had barely made it into their 75^th year when president, Henry Dreher sold  company.

Tadd Dameron, born in Cleveland, was a notable arranger and bandleader during the modern jazz era of the 1940s and 1950s. As a bandleader, he discovered trumpeters Fats Navarro and Clifford Brown, and composed many jazz standards. His arranging style influenced many jazz musicians including hard boppers and the futuristic Sun Ra.  

Dameron was born Tadley Ewing Peake in Cleveland February 17, 1917 and attended Central High School. He took the name Dameron after his stepfather. He played piano and began working with Freddie Webster, Zack Whyte, and Blanche Calloway. He joined Harlan Leonard's Rockets in 1939 and wrote a number of arrangements...

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If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated. -Carter G. Woodson

 

In 1926, African American scholar Carter G. Woodson established one week in the month of February as Black History Week. Woodson chose February because both Abraham Lincoln (Feburary 12, 1809) and Frederick Douglas (February 14, 1818?) were born in that month. At the time, Woodson felt that both men had made significant contributions to race relations in America. As the founder of The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, Woodson did scholarly research on the contributions that African-Americans had on the United States. He then published The Journal of Negro History...

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The Greeks have Homeric poetry and the Indians have the Vedic literature; equally as important to Nordic culture are The Eddas. The Prose Edda and The Poetic Edda are the pre-Christian Icelandic oral traditions that were written during the medieval period. The creators and compliers of these texts had lives that were just as colorful as the material they wrote about.

 

The Poetic Edda/Prose Edda

 

The Poetic Edda is a collection of oral poems. For hundreds of years these poems had been orally transmitted. There is no one particular author attributed to The Poetic Edda, however some give credit to a monk called Saemundur the Learned as complier. Saemunder’s life plays a large role in some of the folklore of Iceland.

He was said to have studied in Paris...

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Founded in 1987 by Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, seeks to highlight the work of women artists in all media and to educate the public about their achievements. By bringing to light remarkable women artists of the past while also promoting the best women artists working today, the museum addresses the gender imbalance in the presentation of art in the U.S. and abroad, thus assuring great women artists a place of honor now and into the future. Located in the heart of Washington, D.C., the museum is the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to recognizing the...

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Bessie Smith was the “Empress of the Blues” of the 1920s. Her voice would resonate songs loud enough that she did not need a microphone when singing. She was born in Chattanooga, TN in 1894 – singing and dancing on the streets at a young age with her brothers. After joining up with a traveling minstrel show and meeting up with the legendary “Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Smith later signed up with Columbia Records in 1923. 

 

Smith’s career blossomed during the Harlem Renaissance. She was the highest paid African American entertainer of the 1920s and performed with Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson. Her career...

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The city of Cleveland prospered in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Huge influxes of immigrants and small town Americans moved to Ohio’s rapidly growing industrial city on the lake and created a “boom.”  Industries flourished and the optimism and wealth in the city led to a cultural transformation. Public Auditorium, the Cleveland Public Library, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the orchestra all had new and exciting roles to play...

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When asked the name of the first African-American opera staged in the US, chances are the answer will be Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha.  Though written in 1910, Joplin’s opus was not produced until 1972. However many  historians agree that it was Epthelia, composed by Cleveland-born Harry Lawrence Freeman and staged in 1893. Cleveland, also was the scene of the first opera written by an African-American women: Shirley Graham’s Tom-Tom: The Epic of Music and the Negro -- which premiered at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium on June 30, 1932 as part of the city’s annual “Opera Week.”  One of the only copies of the opera’s libretto of this historic work is in the Special Collections Department of...

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With a win for President Obama in the recent election, he will now have the opportunity to develop and expand on his vision for the arts as originally laid out four years ago. He has now ready to move forward with healthcare for artists, economic recovery funds that saved artists’ jobs through the National Endowment for the Arts, and support for appropriations that fund federal arts agencies.  Those involved in arts education and other arts ventures may wish to explore new and helpful resources through the CPL catalog.

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