T. M. Berry Project: Berry and the Fight for Fair Housing in Cincinnati, Part 1

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By Laura Laugle

Cincinnati has had a housing problem for a long time; after all, only so many people can fit into the basin that makes up downtown and its immediate surroundings. However, for much of the city’s early history, the African American population was so small and resident Caucasians depended so heavily on the services which they provided that their housing was simply not a problem. The few blacks living in Cincinnati in 1900 made up only about 4.5% of the city’s total population. Out of practicality (who could afford to rent a horse each day for the housemaid’s commute?) blacks lived either with the white families they served or in neighborhoods close to the whites for whom they worked. As a result, high income white neighborhoods were home to black domestics and middle and lower income white neighborhoods, especially those near business districts, were home to working class blacks. That is not to say that race relations in Cincinnati were A-Ok; there were riots throughout the 1800s, rampant legal and illegal discrimination and general tension, but whites simply had no other choice but to accommodate the blacks living among them. Continue reading →

Raymond Walters Redux

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By Kevin Grace

Former University of Cincinnati president Raymond Walters (1932-1955) has been on our minds recently because of UC naming changes.  In June, the Board of Trustees voted to change the name of its branch campus, Raymond Walters College, to UC-Blue Ash in order to bring consistency to university branding and degree programs (UC-Clermont is the other branch campus).  However, as the university moves into a new era of semesters, admissions requirements, and academic challenges, its history isn’t forgotten as the Blue Ash campus will rename one of its major buildings to maintain its recognition of Walters.

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Theater on the River: The Showboat Majestic Records

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By Suzanne Maggard

In 1967, the City of Cincinnati purchased an old showboat named the Majestic and docked it at Cincinnati’s Public Landing.  The city was in the process of attempting to revive its riverfront and thought the boat, which spoke to an earlier era of river travel, might be a perfect addition.  To keep the tradition of the showboat alive, the city leased this boat to the University of Cincinnati, and in the summer of 1968, UC theater students began performing on the Majestic. Continue reading →

T.M. Berry Papers Progress Report

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By Kevin Grace, Project Director

In 2010, the University of Cincinnati Libraries received a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) to fully process the Theodore M. Berry papers housed in the Archives & Rare Books Library.  If you have followed ARB’s blogs over the past several months, you’ve read a number of very interesting insights into the life of this civic activist, civil rights pioneer, and Cincinnati politician.  Ted Berry was a key figure in the American civil rights movement from the 1940s until his death in 2000, and his papers help illuminate this era in American history.  Laura Laugle was hired in October 2010 as the project archivist to inventory and describe the Berry materials, create finding aids, and establish a web presence for the collection.  Ms. Laugle has contributed these weekly blogs based upon her discoveries while processing the documents. Continue reading →

An Early Visit from President Williams

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By Janice Schulz

Flyer for William's lectureWhile processing a new collection last week, I stumbled upon a flyer announcing that someone now very familiar to us was a guest speaker during African American History month in 1995 – our own President Gregory Williams. Then the dean of Ohio State University’s law school, President Williams came to UC on February 28 to talk about his autobiography, Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy who Discovered he was Black, and to do a book signing. The book was newly published at the time and it even landed President Williams on Oprah the week before his UC visit. Langsam, UC-Clermont and UC-Blue Ash Libraries all have copies of the book cataloged as KF373.W474 A3.

T. M. Berry Project: Sargent Shriver and Special Thanks to Gail Berry West and Judge Ted N. Berry

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By Laura Laugle

Berry and Shriver talkingMy favorite finds for this week come to the Archives and Rare Books library courtesy of Judge Ted N. Berry and his sister Gail Berry West who kindly donated another addition to the Theodore M. Berry Collection. The pair came to visit the ARB while Gail was up from Washington D.C. visiting. I had a great time escorting them down memory lane with some items of particular interest I pulled from the collection for their visit.

Among the treasures they brought were these two photos which picture Berry and Shriver at a meeting with top management at the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) and Vice President Hubert Humphrey (seated at the far end of the table next to Sarge in the photo below.) Though they worked together closely for almost four years during the Johnson administration we have only a few photos of Berry and Shriver together and little in the way of correspondence other than that which pertains to the operation of OEO programs. Continue reading →

The Albert B. Sabin Digitization Project: Awards and Honors

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Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award

Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award, 1965

For Dr. Sabin’s contributions to the scientific community, particularly the development of the oral polio vaccine and the assistance in its distribution, he was given many different awards and other types of recognition over the years. The Hauck Center for the Albert B. Sabin Archives is home to a large collection of those awards. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at a couple of these awards and distinctions and tell you a little more about them. Continue reading →