Browse Exhibits (70 total)

This exhibit explores the impact the canals had on Ohio and why they were eventually abandoned.

Royalton Township was established in 1818 as one of several townships in Cuyahoga County. The land that was Royalton Township now is incorporated into the city of North Royalton and a western portion of Broadview Heights. This exhibit will examine life in North Royalton during its earliest years of growth and compare it to North Royalton today. The exhibit will also trace the development of North Royalton from an agricultural community to a fledgling village and begin to answer the question of why North Royalton did not industrialize.

What is Cleveland-Style Polka?  How is it unique from other polkas?  How did it start?  All these were questions that we wanted answered prior to making this exhibit.  Once you started exploring the theme, it was easy to find people to answer the question.  The definition of polka is a lively couple-dance that originated in Bohemia and also the lively dance music in 2/4 time.  Many diferent nationalities have embraced polka and have adapted it to their own customs.  Cleveland-style polka is based on Slovenian culture from the thousands of immigrants that flooded Cleveland in the late 19th and early 20th century, mostly from eastern Europe.

Over 350,000 steel workers went on strike in 1919 across the United States.  On the heels of World War I, in the middle of a frustrating economic recession, and at the outset of the Red Scare striking workers demanded union recognition and wage increases.  Although the strike ended unsuccessfully at the beginning of 1920, it planted the seeds for later union organizing during the 1930s.

Cleveland, an industrial center in the Midwest fueled in part by steel by 1919, saw over 18,000 steel workers join the strike.  Sixteen of the city's eighteen steel mills became inoperable at the outset of the work refusal.  Two of those, American Steel and Wire and Otis Steel, were the location of much conflict between management and labor.  Two picketers were even shot outside of American Steel and Wire less than a month into the workers' campaign.

By January of 1920, however, Cleveland steel workers joined hundreds of thousands in going back to work without winning a single concession.  Using tough tactics that included violence and replacement workers, the behemoth steel industry had won both nationally and in the city of Cleveland.

It would be a mistake to view the defeat of the steel strike in 1919 as a total loss from the perspective of rank and file workers though.  One is hard pressed to imagine what life would have been like were steel workers not to mount some sort of organized push in a post-World War I economy wrought with hysteria about foreigners and communists.  Viewed through the lens of these workers and citizens one can see the ability for everyday people to shape history in a city built, literally, with steel.