A Descriptive List of All Online Exhibits at Cleveland Memory
subject list of exhibits | search for images only

Annals of Cleveland: A Depression-Era Project of the WPA
Annals of Cleveland staff summarized and indexed material in order to preserve and make readily accessible the detailed record of a city's life and culture as contained in its newspapers. The project provided jobs for unemployed white-collar workers during the Depression of the 1930s and created an important record of early life and thought in the city of Cleveland from 1818-1935.

Clay Herrick Slide Collection
6,000 slides of architectural images donated by Clay Herrick, historian and author of "Cleveland Landmarks". One-of-a-kind shots of various buildings in Cleveland.

Cleveland, Ohio Along the Nickel Plate Road
In 1926 the New York, Chicago, & St. Louis Railway (Nickel Plate or NKP) undertook a grade elimination project along its right-of-way in Cleveland. At the start of the project the NKP took a series of photographs that documented the conditions both along its right-of-way and the adjacent neighborhoods. In 1930 the NKP produced another series of photographs, this time along its right-of-way through Lakewood, Ohio, a western suburb of Cleveland. Each series of images form a rare photographic cross-section of a major American metropolitan area in the mid-1920's and early 1930's.

Cleveland's Architectural Past
Architectural images originating from the Cleveland Press Archives and historian Clay Herrick's slide collection. These special collections were donated to the Cleveland State University Library to support historical research related to the architecture of Cleveland, Ohio.

Cleveland's First Infrastructure: The Ohio & Erie Canal
When the first section of the Ohio & Erie Canal opened on the Fourth of July 1827, a reliable passage became a reality for persons and products traveling between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. This event eased the uncertainty with which Ohio settlers lived, and redirected the course of cities and towns along its route. At the time, the Canal was hailed as a "vast and magnificent undertaking" by John Kilbourn writing in 1828, during a time when the field of civil engineering was "becoming of great importance to mankind, both in a pecuniary and political point of view..."

Construction Photographs in the Cleveland Union Terminal Collection
This site documents the construction of the Cleveland Union Terminal (CUT) on the southwest quadrant of Public Square. The CUT was designed to be the union passenger station for railroad trains entering Cleveland after 1930. The project included a complex of office buildings, a hotel, department store, and post office; all capped by the Terminal Tower, then the tallest building between New York City and Chicago. The exhibit includes two collections of black and white photographs documenting the original conditions on this land before the neighborhoods and commercial districts were demolished to make way for for the Union Terminal project.

Eliot Ness in Cleveland: Ness, best known for bringing down Al Capone as leader of the Chicago "Untouchables", also spent time as Cleveland's safety director and later ran for mayor of the city.

Fenn College On-Line
On September 1, 1965 Fenn College became Cleveland State University. This site, our vision of what an early Fenn College Web site might have looked like had the Internet been around in the 1960's, is in recognition of the many contributions of Fenn College and its graduates to the Greater Cleveland community.

Great Lakes Industrial History Center
The Great Lakes Industrial History Center provides a resource where the public can gain an appreciation for the efforts and accomplishments of business and industry which led to the opening of the Great Lakes and the industrial development of adjacent regions and where visitors are inspired to continue the pursuit of inventiveness, ingenuity, and excellence.

King Iron Bridge & Manufacturing Company
The King Iron Bridge Co. played an important role in the development and construction of metal truss bridges, a product of American engineering and construction technology, nationwide during the latter part of the Nineteenth Century. The Company built bridges in Cleveland that include the Central Viaduct in 1888; the Center Street swing bridge in 1901, Cleveland's last remaining swing bridge; and the 591 ft. steel arch of the Detroit-Superior (Veteran's Memorial) bridge in 1918.

Mystery Photo Album from the 1890s
This is a small photo album that we recently acquired from a dealer. We know nothing about it, except what it discloses about itself: namely that it covers territory south of Cleveland, Ohio -- in the Kent/Akron area along the Cuyhoga River, Ohio & Erie Canal and nearby towns -- and that the photos were shot around 1897. If you know this area well, you might be able to help pinpoint the locations of the photos better and perhaps even solve the mystery of who the family is, shown in these photos. Any documented information will be added to the site.

Naef & Joslin Company Photographs of Conneaut, Ohio
Naef & Joslin was a professional photography firm in Conneaut, Ohio. About 1900 they took several series of photographs of the docks, vessells, bulk material handling equipment and other features at the port of Conneaut.

Postcards of Cleveland
Dr. Walter C. Leedy, Jr. began his comprehensive collection of Cleveland postcards, now numbering nearly 8,000 in earnest in 1989. Leedy realized the unique value picture postcards could have to him as an architectural historian, permitting him to observe the changing urban environment, or to visually recreate what a neighborhood looked like. As Leedy puts it, "I don't really collect postcards-I collect images of life, moments in time. Nostalgia glues people to postcards. There is something intimate and direct about them. As an art historian, I think of postcards as a vehicle to introduce art to the millions-people aren't intimidated by postcards the way they might be by paintings or other "fine" art."

Stereoscopic Images of Cleveland in 3D
Stereoscopic scenes taken from historic stereoview cards showing Cleveland and the wider Great Lakes industrial region.

Yesterday's Lakewood
Lakewood, Ohio occupies 5.6 square miles along the southern shore of Lake Erie. Named for its natural setting along the lake, its development was closely tied with that of Cleveland. This illustrated history begins with photographs taken in 1930 along the Nickle Plate railroad tracks, and shows streetscapes north and south of the tracks through Lakewood.