History Blog Archives - Ohio History Connection

July 8, 2024

Take a Peek Behind “Hide and Seek,” a New Exhibit About Ohio Children

"Hide and Seek: Finding Young Ohioans in the Archives" is now on view at the Ohio History Center.

June 18, 2024

Hot Fun in the Summertime! Stars at the 1980s Ohio State Fair

By Matthew Benz, Manuscripts Curator It’s fair season! And with the Ohio State Fair right “next door” to the Ohio History Center, it’s impossible to ignore the sights, sounds and smells of our festive neighbor. So, let's celebrate the excitement that surrounds us this year from July 24 to August 4 with a look back […]

June 3, 2024

From the Archives: New LGBTQ+ History Collections

By Wendy Korwin, Archives Services Manager How long has the Ohio History Connection been collecting, preserving and sharing LGBTQ+ history? It might be longer than you think! The Gay Ohio History Initiative (adorable acronym: GOHI) was launched in 2005. That's right, we're old enough to vote. GOHI's efforts touch many areas of our organization, from […]

May 27, 2024

Behind the Exhibit: Columbus Women on the Move

By Daniel Willis, Audiovisual Archivist This blog is a follow-up to two others posted about a new exhibit, "Columbus Women on the Move." The first blog was written by Veda Faust, an Ohio State University student who conducted a professional writing internship with the Archives Services Department in the fall of 2023. You can read […]

May 6, 2024

A Timeline of Adventure: Stories from the Columbus Women’s Travel Collection

By Daniel Willis, Audiovisual Archivist This blog is Part 2 of a series focusing on the new Columbus Women’s Travel Collection, AV 364 and our latest exhibit, Columbus Women on the Move. Read the first blog post here, and discover the new display on your next visit to the Ohio History Center!

March 25, 2024

Lady Fanm: Master of Disguise

By Valerie Boyer, School and Inclusive Community Programs Coordinator Lady Fanm Goumen, a Creole woman, was known as many different people throughout her life. She’s said to have been born in the summer between 1807 and 1815 in Franklin, Louisiana. Keep in mind that chattel slavery was a time of not seeing enslaved persons as […]

February 21, 2024

Tice Davids: The Origins of the Underground Railroad Name

By Valerie Boyer, School and Inclusive Community Programs Coordinator The commonly held notion of the Underground Railroad is that it was a network of people, places and secret routes that spirited southern slaves from captivity to freedom. We can surmise from the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, that enslaved folx were already making their escape […]

February 14, 2024

Charles W. Follis: Changing the Game

By Valerie Boyer, School and Inclusive Community Programs Coordinator Charles W. Follis was born on February 3, 1879, to James Henry and Catherine Matilda Anderson Follis in Cloverdale, Virginia as the 3rd of 7 children. In 1885, the family moved to Wooster, Ohio. Follis entered Wooster College, in 1901, however, he chose to play football for the amateur Wooster […]

January 18, 2024

Yours Respectfully, Miss Elvira Johnson

By Wendy Korwin, Archives Services Manager Within large archival collections, certain names and voices stand out. From 2021-2023, archivists at the Ohio History Connection worked to catalog President Warren G. Harding’s papers and photographs. During this project, we identified thousands of correspondents (another blog post explores some of Harding's early letters). There were close, distant […]

December 4, 2023

Discover Five Decades of Columbus Women Traveling the World

By Veda Faust, Professional Writing Intern This blog post was written by Veda Faust, an Ohio State University student conducting a professional writing internship at the Ohio History Connection. During her fall semester, she worked with the Archives Services department on an upcoming exhibit. The new exhibit features material from a recently acquired collection; AV […]