In 1924, when this photograph was taken, Main Library was located on the fifth and sixth floors of the Kinney & Levan Building on Euclid Avenue at East 14th Street. The building, built in 1913, was home to the Kinney & Levan Co., which was one of the largest home furnishings stores of its time; today it is occupied by the Idea Center at Playhouse…
The Roll of Honor contains the names of Greater Cleveland men and women who served during World War II. In 1942, Cleveland Press Editor Louis B. Seltzer and Mayor Frank Lausche invited family and friends to register the names of their loved ones into four large volume sets. All branches of the U.S. military are represented. The book was dedicated on May…
August 24, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of William Howard Brett, the renowned librarian who served as Director of Cleveland Public Library from 1884 to 1918. As a widely celebrated and respected leader in the library field, Brett’s legacy is enduring. He advocated for the “open shelf” system to bolster public access to library materials, vastly increased…
In the early hours of March 24, 1970, one of Cleveland’s most visited landmarks, an enlarged cast of Auguste Rodin’s famous sculpture The Thinker, was changed forever. The beloved statute outside the Cleveland Museum of Art was rocked by an explosion caused by a metal pipe bomb attached to a ten-foot, military-style fuse. According to the Cleveland Museum of Art,…
In 1976, Cleveland was the most bombed city in the United States. The assassination and vandalism bombings that had been on the rise throughout the decade culminated in this particularly violent year—leading the national news to dub Cleveland “Bomb City, USA.” According to a Plain Dealer article from this era, “Bombing Business Booming Here,” Cleveland’s national ranking in bomb crimes…
After Pearl Harbor was bombed on December 7, 1941, the United States was officially flung into World War II. England and France, the United States’ European allies, were under constant bombardment from Axis forces, which left their cities devastated. Although the Atlantic Ocean stood between the United States and Europe, the United States still took precautions to protect its citizens…