Langston Hughes’ Radical Ohio Youth
To Hughes, America has never achieved its potential. Never reached the supposed promises enumerated in the nation’s founding documents.
Unspooling the Cassette Tape in Springfield, Missouri
The National Audio Company is keeping the cassette tape —and tape culture —alive in the Midwest and around the world. [...]
Conflict in the Keystone State, Then and Now
The language at times was tinted with ominous undertones.
The Knocking Spirits of Upstate New York [Excerpt]
In nineteenth-century upstate New York, demons came knocking.
My Aunt, the Ghost of Kirtland Ohio
Some twenty-five miles east of Cleveland, ghost hunters in the small, leafy town along Lake Erie tell stories about the “Veiled Lady of Kirtland.”
Henry Ford, Donald Trump, and Mass Marketing Bigotry
Trump is not the first bigoted businessman to consider a run for president after trying to overturn the results of a democratic election.
The mill might make steel, but the people don’t: The path from John Henry to Wilbur Ross
By Michael Broida The trade war has begun: China announced up to $50 billion of tariffs on U.S. products yesterday [...]
Cleveland, Superior Ave. close to Public Square: Gateway to becoming American
By Lucy J. Cox I haven’t lived in Cleveland for decades, only going to visit, but spring training baseball always [...]
America’s History Of Racial Violence Is Not Just A Southern Issue. The Midwest Needs To Come To Terms, Too.
On June 1, 1893, two local white women, a Mrs. Dill and a Mrs. William Vest, had reported that they were raped by an African-American man. Bands of white men roamed through the streets and fields, intending to lynch the perpetrator.
RIP, Unknown Skeletal Remains
Excerpted from The Akron Anthology available from Belt Publishing. By Jennifer Conn The dirt path to the Summit County potter’s field in Tallmadge, [...]
Two Letters: Jackie Kennedy, Ray Bradbury, Suburbia, and Me
By Amy Kenyon This is a memory of two letters written during the last years before home computers and social [...]
The Last, First Miami Speakers
The story of the Miami language over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is one of fracture and dissolution. In this it is not unique among Native languages—or cultures. In fact, it’s difficult to talk about one without the other.