Browse Exhibits (13 total)

As the African American population took shape in Cleveland, a new Black self-consciousness emerged.  It mirrored the developing ideologies of the day, from integration to nationalism.  Unfortunately, despite its cultural heritage, the city of Cleveland became a causeway for artists between the East Coast and the Midwest.  Despite this fact however, both individuals and organizations based in Cleveland have influenced those most identified with the Black Arts Movement.

This exhibit will discuss racism and segregation against African-Americans at Cleveland's Euclid Beach Park, a world-famous amusement park owned by the Humphrey family from 1901-1969.

The decision by the park's owners to prevent blacks from using certain attractions culminated in the summer of 1946 when protests and violence occurred.  Euclid Beach closed early that year, and the following spring Cleveland City Council passed an ordinance designed to prevent further discrimination at the park.  

Not only will this exhibit illuminate the kind of racial discrimination faced by African-Americans in the supposedly liberal North, but it will also seek to demonstrate that World War II played a major role in shaping race relations in Cleveland.  After the war ended, many white Clevelanders looked nostalgically to the years before the Great Depression and the war, seeking to return to normality and stability after so many years of disorder. Meanwhile, an increasing population of black Clevelanders, emboldened by their participation in the war effort and anti-Nazi rhetoric that seemed to discredit racist ideologies, sought to solidify gains made during the war and stake a claim to full equality in the postwar city.

These differing visions of Postwar Cleveland would collide at Euclid Beach. By looking at these events and their aftermath we can hope to get a clearer picture of how the fight for racial equality after World War II in Cleveland would develop, what resistance it would be met with, and why it seemingly failed.

Interstate highways forever changed the relationship between the city of Cleveland and her surrounding suburbs. This exhibit demonstrates the evolution of highway construction and how it changed the landscape of Cleveland.

The National Air Races came to Cleveland in 1929. From then on the city and its municipal airport experienced many benefits and growth.  The races kicked off with a parade in 1929 and have become a tradition for the city.  With the success of the National Air Races came much success for its Municipal Airport.  Over time the success was so great that expansion of the Municipal Airport and the need for another airport to be built, Burke Lakefront Airport, came about.  

It was during the New Deal that the government, for the first time, began to take a direct role in the design and construction of housing for its citizens.  The first three projects approved under this new policy were located in Cleveland, Ohio, with Lakeview Terrace being the last of the three original housing projects to be completed.  Lakeview Terrace became, for a time, a symbol of enlightened modernity and its influence on urban planning reached far beyond the borders of Cleveland.  The culmination of its influence may have been at the New York World's Fair that was held from 1939 until 1940.  It has been recognized that world's fairs, by involvement with local planning agencies have evolved into planning mechanisms for development of new land, new communities, and civic improvement.  It is very possible that this process was inverted at the 1939 New York World's Fair and that Lakeview Terrace had a strong influence on the planning of the Theme Center of the Fair.