The subway and street improvements photograph collection is truly a wealth of historic information about the city of Cincinnati in the first half of the 20^th century. As with most cities, many of the streets and avenues are named for the founders and prominent families who helped establish the city, as well as important statesmen such as presidents, governors and military heroes. Cincinnati has her fair share of these, with the city directories reading like a “Who’s Who” of Cincinnati’s political, cultural and economic development, with street names such as Ludlow, Symmes, and Patterson, St. Clair, Gamble and Ault, Anderson, Findlay and Wade, among others.

Gamble Street, named for industrialist James Gamble, of Proctor & Gamble.

Ludlow Avenue, named for Isaac Ludlow who surveyed the original plat for the town of Losantiville (Cincinnati) in 1788.

St. Clair Street, named for Arthur St. Clair, first Governor of the Northwest Territory.

One street even bears the original name of the city, “Losantiville,” as it was called when first founded in 1788 by Israel Ludlow, Matthias Denman, and Robert Patterson. The name was changed in 1790 to “Cincinnati” by Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. A general in the Revolutionary Army, St. Clair was a member of the Society of Cincinnati, an association of Revolutionary War officers.

Losantiville Avenue, original name of Cincinnati when first founded in 1788; the name was derived by Mr. John Filson as a combination of the letter ‘L’ for ‘Licking’, the Latin word ‘os’ meaning ‘mouth’, the Greek word ‘anti’ meaning ‘opposite’, and the French word ‘ville’ meaning ‘city’, ‘L-os-anti-ville’, referring to the location opposite the mouth of the Licking River.

The original plat of the town, as surveyed by Israel Ludlow in 1788, was established on a grid extending in a north-westerly direction from the Ohio River, across from the mouth of the Licking River. Streets that extended to the north from the riverfront were given names such as Walnut, Vine, Sycamore, Elm, or Plum. Streets that extended east-to-west, parallel with the river, began with Water Street, then Front Street, then were given a numerical numbering beginning with Second, Third, Fourth, and increasing numerically as they extended north from the river.

(Source: http://www.worldmapsonline.com/historicalmaps/1W-OH-CI-1838.htm)

As the city expanded outward, other names were derived from a variety of sources, including the names of other cities, such as Marietta, Trenton, Dorchester, Salem, Oberlin, Philadelphia, Lucerne, and Lancaster, to name just a few. In the downtown area, street names often reflected the types of business being conducted, including Commerce, Canal, and Court Streets, Hatter’s Alley and Cathedral Alley.

A variety of names were used throughout the city with some reflecting the terrain, such as Rapid Run, Duck Creek, Overlook, Straight, Red Bank, Hillcrest or Spring, while others were more abstract, such as Arrow, Eastern, Grand, Sunset, Three Mile, or Winter. As mentioned in a previous blog, some streets have either changed names since they were first established or no longer exist, such as Laurel Street, Columbia Avenue, Carthage Pike, Front Street, and Lockport Avenue.

Rapid Run Road, Mar. 27, 1929 (left) Burr Oak Street from N. Edgewood (right)

Turkey Bottom Road, Aug. 21, 1940 (left). Warsaw Street, Oct. 19, 1938 (right)

Hatter’s Alley, west from Walnut Street, May 22, 1934 (left), Hatter’s Alley, looking east from Race Street, May 22, 1934 (right)

Glancing through the old Farnsworth and Williams’ Cincinnati Directories, which have been scanned and are available online through the Virtual Library site of The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, one can quickly see how the streets and avenues of Cincinnati have been aptly named to recognize and promote the distinguished history of the city. The earliest available of these directories was published in October, 1819 by Oliver Farnsworth and provided readers with historical sketches of the city and surrounding areas, “the most ample history of the original settlement, rise, progress and present importance of Cincinnati and its neighborhood, that has yet appeared.”  The directory also contained “the names, profession and occupation of the inhabitants of the town, alphabetically arranged; with the number of the building occupied by each. Also, an account of its officers, population, institutions and societies, public buildings, manufactures, &c. with an interesting sketch of its Local Situation and Improvements.” Both the Farnsworth and Williams’ Street Directories have proven to be an invaluable resource for identifying dates and locations of unidentified photographs based on visual clues contained within the images.

Sources:

http://www.worldmapsonline.com/historicalmaps/1W-OH-CI-1838.htm

http://virtuallibrary.cincinnatilibrary.org/virtuallibrary/vl_citydir.aspx

http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Cincinnati,_Ohio

This project is funded by a grant for $60,669 through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Ohio.

Gregory H. Williams became the University of Cincinnati’s 27th president when he took office in September 2009.  Among more than 100 applicants for the position, he was selected in part because of his outstanding work in transforming the City College of New York, where he served as president before joining the UC.  Williams received national acclaim for his book, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black (New York, NY: Dutton, 1995).   Over a decade later, he still received feedback from his readers while serving as the president here at UC. The memoir was his way of telling the world about struggling with poverty and acceptance during his youth and dealing with his biracial identity in Muncie, Indiana at a time when segregation was still highly overt in the United States.   The book also brought to life other family issues such as alcoholism and abandonment.  Throughout his account, he told the story of a normal childhood that spiraled into one of torment, welfare, and segregation, and then how he made the best of it.  Williams became the star quarterback of his high school’s football team, excelled in college to earn four degrees, and worked his way up in higher education system until he became president of College City of New York from 2001-2009 and then president of the University of Cincinnati from 2009 to 2012.

The Archives and Rare Books Library recently added all of Gregory William’s speeches from his UC presidential tenure (Accession Number UA-13-10).  This collection, dating from September 2009 to August 2012, includes quite a variety of speeches.  As is the case with many leaders of high-profile universities, Williams rarely had a day when he did not give one or more speeches (he also rarely had to eat alone, as there are over a hundred events he hosted or partook in that were held over brunch and dinners!).

The speeches include faculty senate meetings, award ceremonies for different faculty and departments here at the University of Cincinnati, interviews with the Cincinnati Enquirer, visits to high schools in Cincinnati, community and business groups, educational organizations, and even occasional luncheons with the students.  For example, included is the first page of his keynote speech at a fundraising event called the “Night on the Serengeti” that helps support Village Life, a program supported by UC faculty and students that assists Tanzania in developing its healthcare, education, and housing systems:

This Williams collection complements the holdings found in the Archives & Rare Books Library that documents the tenures of all UC presidents.  A finding aid for the collection is available on the OhioLINK Finding Aid Repository.  To learn more about the University Archives, please visit ARB in 808 Carl Blegen Library, email us at archives@ucmail.uc.edu, telephone us at 513.556.1959, or visit us on the web at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/index.html.

Oh, the things you can find when you go to an auction.  Even the typical items that you find for sale, such as books, sometimes contain a surprise for the unsuspecting buyer.  That’s exactly what happened to Linda Sheets of Jonesboro, Indiana when she bought a box lot of books and discovered a University of Cincinnati tuition receipt dated October 1, 1917.  The strip of paper has yellowed with age, and fortunately Ms. Sheets realized it might have historical value for UC, and was kind enough to share her discovery with the Archives and Rare Books Library.

Jordon Alcott, the student from the 1917-1918 academic year, probably thought that $63.50 in tuition for one semester here at the university was expensive.  That total comes from a $5 library fee, $50 for tuition to the College of Liberal Arts, a $ 1 registration fee, $2.50 fine to use the gymnasium, and a $5 contingency fee.

To put that into perspective, let’s look at tuition from the 2012-2013 school year.  One term at UC’s uptown campus was $5,392, and that is not including resident hall costs, program fees, or mandatory health insurance if you don’t carry your own.

What a difference 96 years make in the cost of attending college.  Then again, the majority of working- class America in 1917 only made between $1,000 and $2,000 each year, so $63.50 every term would not be very cheap to the students of that time.  That amount would be about 19% of their annual income  and that is only if they were working full time during autumn and spring semesters of school.

In 2012, the working individual in Ohio made an average of $40,471 for the year.  With modern day school costs, about 27% of a full-time, average wage earner’s income would be going towards tuition.  Even taking inflation into consideration, school fees have still increased.

Another very interesting part of this receipt is the statement at the top: “Do not lose this receipt.  It must be shown to Instructor when requested.”    No lecture freeloaders allowed here!  For a broader view of what UC campus life was like during that year, have a look at the 1918 Cincinnatian, one of the digitized University of Cincinnati yearbooks available from the Libraries.

Next time you go to an auction and buy a book that catches your eye, make sure to take a look inside to see if you find a surprise, too!

Sources:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/17soirepar.pdf

http://www.justice.gov/ust/eo/bapcpa/20111101/bci_data/median_income_table.htm

Contained within the subway portion of the photograph collection are images of the interiors of homes along McMicken Avenue taken during the construction of the subway. Originally intended to serve as evidence for claims by homeowners of structural damage to the houses caused by blasting for the subway tunnels, the pictures now serve as a historic reference of domestic life during the 1920s.

Many of the images are interiors of apartments. Large row houses lined McMicken Avenue in the area north of Brighton Bridge, with several families occupying a building, each on a different floor within a single structure. Apartments consisted of several rooms, including living room, bedroom and kitchen.

In some cases, though, the bedroom and living room appear to be the same room, in the style of an “efficiency” apartment. The caption on the back of the image below (on left) indicates a kitchen may also have served as a bedroom, since the caption reads “basement kitchen,” but there is a bed in the room. Depending on how many family members were occupying the apartment, this could very well have been the case.

Whatever the circumstances, rooms were cramped in these row house apartments and amenities appear sparse. A cooking stove might also double as the main source of heat for the room. Laundry would have been done in the kitchen sink with scrub brushes, a ball of twine with clothes pins ready to be strung across the room on which the clothes would be hung to dry. Small accents such as framed pictures, mantel clocks or stenciling on a stovepipe cover (see enlargement below) added a bit of decoration to an otherwise sparse room.

In other houses along the street, more opulent furnishings can be found. Rooms were larger, with parlors and sitting rooms separate from bedrooms and kitchens. Hot water radiators were the main source of heat, and tailored curtains covered the windows. Large planters and framed pictures decorated these rooms, with oriental rugs on floors, china and crystal in cabinets, canisters for “Rice”, “Barley”, ”Coffee” and “Sugar” in cupboards (see enlargement below). Walls would be papered or have scenes stenciled on the walls, such as the second image below of a man fishing at a lake. Bedrooms were nicely decorated, with sitting areas, overhead lighting fixtures and drapes.

As construction moved northward up the old canal bed, some blasting and digging into the hillside at the foot of McMicken Avenue was required for the final section of underground tunnel to be constructed. This blasting left the hillside vulnerable to landslides, and caused extensive structural damage to the houses at the top of the hill. These photographs were taken by the Rapid Transit Commission as evidence for the many claims being filed by residents with the city for damages.

But many houses were not salvageable; many had to be razed, such as those in the images immediately below. In the image on the right, the photographer recorded cracks in the backs of the houses on McMicken Avenue on June 29, 1927. Heavy rains on Sunday, August 14 caused the hillside behind those same houses to give way, causing the buildings to break apart and slide down the hillside as seen in the image on the right taken August 18, 1927. Nearly a million dollars in damages would be paid out to residents by the city of Cincinnati. For more information on damages caused by the subway construction, see the Dec. 10, 2012 blog “Accidents Happen”.

This project is funded by a grant for $60,669 through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Ohio.

Road construction. It seems like it’s never ending. Some have joked that Ohio has only two seasons – winter and road construction. And the images in the Street Improvement collection would certainly seem to validate that. What is interesting about the images in the collection of street improvements is that many of the streets recorded in the photographs no longer exist. Or, where they do still exist, they are named differently or the surroundings have been altered to the point that the location in the photograph is no longer recognizable.

One major example of a street changing in both name and appearance is Laurel Street – or as we know it today, Ezzard Charles Drive. Originally a narrow street lined with brick row houses and businesses, Laurel Street extended from 1247 Plum Street west to Freeman Avenue, with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Hall towering over the eastern end of the street, as if keeping watch over all who passed. In the winter of 1921, subway construction made its way north along the canal bed to the Laurel Street intersection, where a tunnel ventilator was constructed.

(Left) Construction of subway ventilator opposite Laurel Street, January 12, 1921, 2:02 p.m.
(Right) Laurel Street, west of Canal, with Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Hall in center background, April 21, 1920, 3:47 p.m.

Laurel Street was first renamed in 1932 when the Cincinnati Union Terminal was under construction at the opposite end of Laurel Street, west of Freeman Avenue. Construction of the terminal meant widening of the streets around the station, in anticipation of increased traffic. At that time the street was renamed “Terminal Parkway”, and often referred to as “Terminal Approach.” Many of the existing buildings, both residential and commercial, along Laurel Street were razed to make room for the expansive parkway to be constructed.

(Left) Laurel Street looking west from Linn Street, Union Terminal under construction in background, June 23, 1932
(Right) Laurel Street looking east from Linn Street across Cutter Street, July 1, 1932

(Left) Looking east from 742 Laurel Street, July 1, 1932
(Right) Looking east from 744 Laurel Street, January 5, 1933

(Left) Laurel Street looking west from Baymiller Street, July 1, 1932
(Right) View of Laurel Street looking west, houses on north side of Laurel Street razed for widening, November 8, 1933

After the parkway was completed and Union Terminal opened in 1933, the street was again renamed in 1935, becoming known as “Lincoln Park Drive” and welcoming residents and travelers to the soon-to-be-bustling Union Terminal. The street would remain so named for 41 years until changed again in 1976 to “Ezzard Charles Drive” in honor of Cincinnati’s own World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, Ezzard Mack Charles. On September 27, 1950, Charles won the title of World Heavyweight Champion when he defeated Joe Louis in a 15-round match at Yankee Stadium.

(Left) Laurel Street looking east from John Street, July 1, 1932
(Right) Lincoln Park Drive looking east from John Street, April 18, 1936

(Left) View from 914 Laurel Street, looking west across Freeman Avenue at Union Terminal construction, June 30, 1932
(Right) Union Terminal Approach, looking southwest, June 30, 1932

(Left) Terminal Parkway looking west from Linn Street, November 7, 1934
(Right) Union Terminal Approach looking west from Freeman Avenue, February 2, 1933

Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Charles moved to Cincinnati at the age of nine to live with his grandmother, who resided at 929 Laurel Street. The residence would have been in the proximity of the buildings seen on the right side of the street in the image below. Next to this is an image of Ezzard Charles wearing the World Heavyweight Champion belt he earned in 1950 and that he successfully defended four times until his loss to Jersey Joe Walcott in 1951. His career spanned the 1940s and 1950s, until he retired in 1959. The champion passed away on May 28, 1975 from complications associated with Lou Gehrig’s Disease, which he’d fought since the mid-1950s. In 1976, Cincinnati honored their hometown hero by naming the street on which he grew up “Ezzard Charles Drive.”

(Left) Terminal Parkway under construction, looking east from President Place toward Freeman Avenue, June 30, 1932
(Right) 1950 World Heavyweight Boxing Champion Ezzard Mack Charles (http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/File:1_Belt_Ezzard_Charles_vintage_photo_10x8_jpg.jpg)

(Left) Official Program of the 1950 World Heavyweight Champion Boxing Match at Yankee Stadium, Bronx, NY, September 27, 1950 (http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/File:Louis-Charles.Program.jpg)
(Right) Charles vs. Walcott, World Heavyweight Champion Boxing Match at Forbes Field, Pittsburg, PA, July 18, 1951 (http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/File:Charles-Walcott.jpg)

Sources:

http://library.cincymuseum.org/aag/bio/charles.html

http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=9012&cat=boxer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezzard_Charles

http://coxscorner.tripod.com/charles_gs.html

http://www.cincymuseum.org/unionterminal

This project is funded by a grant for $60,669 through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Ohio.