The blog of the University of Cincinnati Libraries
By: Angela Vanderbilt
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.
By Angela Vanderbilt
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.
By: Angela Vanderbilt
Downtown Cincinnati at the turn of the 20th century was a bustling business and commercial center, but with a dangerous mixture of pedestrians, horse-pulled wagons and carriages, street cars, and unseasoned automobile drivers. Add to this a mess of unpaved or cobblestoned streets, a lack of traffic laws, speed limits, and stop signs at intersections, with streetcar tracks criss-crossing lanes. It was a recipe for disaster.
On the left, deliveries to the Raschig School are unloaded from a horse-drawn wagon while, on the right, automobiles park along a drained Miami & Erie Canal, looking east down Canal Street as subway construction begins, April 20, 1920
By: Suzanne Maggard
Construction of Riverfront Stadium begins, Eugene Ruehlmann is second from the right
We began our Monday in the Archives and Rare Books Library with the sad news that a dear friend of our library passed away over the weekend. Former Cincinnati mayor and city councilman, Eugene Ruehlmann died on Saturday June 8 at the age of 88. Since the Archives and Rare Books Library holds his papers, I had the pleasure of assisting Mr. Ruehlmann on several occasions. For someone so accomplished, I always found Mr. Ruehlmann incredibly approachable, easy to talk to, and humble. Our student workers especially enjoyed meeting and talking with him. He will be greatly missed.
Eugene Ruehlmann, 1947, from The Cincinnatian Yearbook
Eugene Ruehlmann, the second youngest of John and Hattie Ruehlmann’s ten children, was born in 1925. He grew up on Cincinnati’s West Side and attended Western Hills High School and graduated in 1943. After high school, he joined the U.S. Marines and served in World War II. He then entered the University of Cincinnati, where he was a successful and active student. Ruehlmann was a member of Beta Theta Phi, ODK, and Sophos and was on the board of The Cincinnatian (yearbook) and was a member of the varsity football team. He graduated with honors in 1948 with a degree in Political Science and received the McKibbin Medal from the College of Arts and Sciences. Ruehlmann earned his law degree in 1950 from Harvard. Continue reading
The Donald C. Harrison Health Sciences Library invites you to join us for our June Lunch & Learn instruction series, Thursdays, June 13 – 27, 12:10-12:50pm, in the Health Sciences Library Classroom (MSB G005G).
Bring your lunch and learn during these quick information sessions. Come to one session, a few, or them all! Seating is limited, so registration is recommended.
Schedule:
Thursday, June 13 iPad 101
Thursday, June 20 Excel Tips
Thursday, June 27 Free Screencasting Tools
View the complete Lunch & Learn schedule below. See descriptions and register online at http://webcentral.uc.edu/hslclass/
By Angela Vanderbilt
The story of abandoned subway stations and tracks hidden beneath busy city streets is not unique to Cincinnati. Other large cities, such as New York, London, and Paris have similarly mysterious and intriguing stories to tell. An article I recently read in The New York Times introduced me to this underground world of hidden subway ventilation shafts disguised by false building facades, with doors from which people occasionally exit, but never seem to enter. Some of these subterranean secrets are in use, while others have been abandoned like Cincinnati’s own subway stations beneath Central Parkway.
What’s fascinating is the effort made to disguise these facilities, to blend them in with the neighboring buildings. While it seems a logically aesthetic means of making the utilitarian more appealing, some have argued that the cities in which these structures are located are trying to hide a deep secret. For comparison, consider the Cincinnati subway – when the subway and Central Parkway were first being constructed, the ventilation chimneys and the entrances to the below-ground stations were nicely appointed with decorative stonework.
Ventilation shaft, looking north along Parkway from Liberty St., July 2, 1928
Close up of decorative stonework for ventilator railing, Central Parkway,
Nov. 19, 1928
By: Janice Schulz
The Archives and Rare Books Library has made available a collection of records from University Communications covering the University’s conversion to semesters in 2012. The collection concentrates on the comprehensive communication plan developed to educate students and other stakeholders about the conversion and includes communication plans, planning documents, research, publications, and clippings. Also included are some promotional items such as t-shirts, protective hats, and sandwich boards declaring that the world will END – not really, just convert to semesters – in 2012.
A complete finding aid for the collection can be found on the OhioLink Finding Aid Repository at http://rave.ohiolink.edu/archives/ead/OhCiUAR0367. For further information on the Archives & Rare Books Library and its holdings, please call 513.556.1959, email archives@ucmail.uc.edu, or visit our website at http://www.libraries.uc.edu/libraries/arb/index.html.
The University of Cincinnati Libraries have completed a three-year project to digitize the correspondence and photographs of Albert B. Sabin, developer of the oral polio vaccine and distinguished service professor at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine and Children’s Hospital Research Foundation from 1939-1969.
The collection is freely and publicly available via the Albert B. Sabin website at http://sabin.uc.edu/ and includes approximately 35,000 letters and accompanying documents totaling 50,000 pages of correspondence between Sabin and political, cultural, social, and scientific leaders around the world. Also included are nearly 1,000 photographs documenting the events and activities worldwide that were part of Sabin’s crusade to eradicate polio. Continue reading
By Angela Vanderbilt
3926 Feemster Street, June 17, 1932
The photographs contained in the Subway and Street Improvements collection are a valuable source of information for anyone who might be researching the urban development and built environment of Cincinnati in the period surrounding the turn of the 20th century. Many of the images in the collection capture buildings and homes in Cincinnati’s downtown district and the surrounding neighborhoods as the city grew and expanded up the hills and along the Ohio River. And because the photographer wrote location and date information on the negatives, anyone interested in finding a picture of the house in which their grandparents or great-grandparents lived in 1923 may very well find it within this collection. Continue reading
By Jeff O’Flynn, Sabin Student Assistant
Telegram from Hilary Koprowski to Albert Sabin, indicating he would be unable to attend a polio conference.
Hilary Koprowski is considered by many to be equally important as Salk and Sabin in the quest to eradicate poliomyelitis. When Koprowski passed away last month, his illustrious career was recounted in his obituary and included such notable achievements as the development of a live-virus polio vaccine, improvement of the rabies vaccine, and directorship of the world-renowned Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania. His interest in the live-virus polio vaccine caused his career to overlap with Albert Sabin’s work regularly. The obituary details the competition between Sabin and Koprowski for the eventual triumph of their various polio vaccines.[1] Letters in the Albert B. Sabin archives indicate that the two great scientists often shared material and data though, unfortunately, they did not have an entirely conflict-free relationship. Continue reading
LiBlog uses Accessibility Checker to monitor our website's accessibility. Read our Accessibility Policy.