DAYTON AND NEWARK REVIVE LANDMARK ARCADES

Preserving the Past with an Eye to the Future

As suburban shopping malls vanish, a curious countertrend has materialized. Glass-roofed downtown shopping arcades—forerunners of those malls—are poised to thrive anew. The 116-year-old Newark Arcade reopened in February after a five-year, $22 million rehab, and the refurbished 1904 Dayton Arcade is bringing new life to nine historic buildings in the Gem City. In this episode of Echoes Extras, visit the Dayton Arcade with author Brian Williams.

THE WRECK OF THE AIRSHIP USS SHENANDOAH

A Tragic Collapse

In September 1925, the USS Shenandoah—the first lighter-than-air rigid airship engineered and constructed in the United States and the pride of the U.S. Navy air program—fell from the sky into the hills of Noble County. The crash of the massive airship was the Roaring Twenties’ equivalent of the Space Shuttle Challenger and Columbia disasters.

WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING

Ohio History Connection CEO Megan Wood Talks with Historian and Author Doris Kearns Goodwin

Our Executive Director and CEO Megan Wood talks with renowned presidential historian, public speaker and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin about the value of history and Goodwin’s newest book, An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s.

DEVO CELEBRATES 50 YEARS ON THE ROAD

Are We Not Men?

Welcome to Akron in the 1970s, where a collection of misfit art students created a concept to make sense of a world in decline—and, in the process, became one of America’s most influential bands. Between 1978 and 1982, Devo scored pop hits with irreverent, satirical songs, becoming the musical equivalent of Pop Art, with mass-market images, experimental sounds, wild get-ups and the anti-Darwinist concept that humanity was going through de-evolution.

A LOOK INSIDE

Our New Collections Care Center

From mammoth teeth and giant beaver skulls to a chair Gen. Ulysses S. Grant appears to have used at his headquarters during the Civil War siege of Petersburg, many of Ohio’s most historically important objects now have a new home. Our new Collections Care Center in Columbus is especially designed to house many of the artifacts of Buckeye State history in the care of the Ohio History Connection. Meet three of our curators and get a look inside.

THIS PLACE OF SILENCE

Ohio’s Cemeteries and Burial Grounds

Cemeteries are not just places for the dead. They're places for the living to find solace and peace. They're places for historians and genealogists to document our history. And they're places for all of us to enjoy the beauty and history they hold. Meet Ohio History Connection cemetery expert Krista Horrocks; author Robin L. Smith; and Randall Schieber, whose photographs, along with those of Ian Adams, illustrate the book This Place of Silence, a tribute to Ohio’s historic cemeteries.

HISTORY TIMES TWO

Cincinnati's Newly Restored Stowe House Shares Stories of Abolition in the 19th Century and Green Book Travel in the 20th

The Ohio History Connection’s Harriet Beecher Stowe House in Cincinnati recently unveiled the results of a unique dual restoration that returned part of the house to the 1840s and another part to the 1940s. Home in the 1840s to Stowe’s father, Rev. Lyman Beecher and his family, by the 1940s it was the Edgemont Inn, a boarding house and tavern offering lodging to Black travelers and listed in The Negro Motorist Green Book.

30TH ANNIVERSARY

The Shawshank Redemption

There will be a family reunion of sorts in Mansfield this August. It’s a big family. It’s a devoted family. Attendance is expected to zoom past 20,000. What could possibly entice that many people to brave the dog days of summer and make the trek to Mansfield and its landmark Ohio State Reformatory? How about their abiding love for a movie filmed in the area and released 30 years ago this September, The Shawshank Redemption?

THE SONG-POETRY OF MICHAEL McGOVERN

Youngstown’s Puddler Poet

From after the Civil War to the end of the 19th century, workers across the country helped give the burgeoning labor movement a voice through song and poetry. Ironworkers, railway workers, miners and others penned lyrics about a wide variety of concerns, such as child labor, inequality, union busting and corporate greed. Ohioan Michael McGovern, a Youngstown ironworker known as the “Puddler Poet,” became among the best-known of the song-poetry bards.

REVOLUTION IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE

The Athens Lunatic Asylum

In 1868, civic leaders, Freemasons, townsfolk and a brass band paraded up the big hill to lay the cornerstone for the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Six years and 18.5 million bricks later, the new hospital for Ohio’s mentally ill opened, built to “cure its patients with orderly routines, beautiful views of the countryside, exposure to the arts, a built environment with abundant nature and light and plenty of ventilation, outdoor exercise, useful occupation, and personal attention from a physician.”

HOPEWELL CEREMONIAL EARTHWORKS

A Moment Too Profound to Miss

In the early morning hours of Sept. 19, 2023, while most of Ohio was fast asleep, some 6,900 miles and seven time zones away in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks were officially added to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s World Heritage List. The UNESCO World Heritage List is a collection of more than 1,100 natural and cultural sites across the globe that possess “Outstanding Universal Value” to humanity. For four Ohio History Connection staff, two National Park Service members, one World Heritage ambassador and five tribal representatives, being there for the inscription firsthand, after years of effort, was a moment too profound to miss.

Protecting Ohio’s Natural Resources

150 YEARS OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

In the decade after the Civil War, a movement to restore Ohio’s fish populations (primarily for eating, not so much for recreation at the time) gave birth in 1873 to the Ohio Fish Commission, our state’s first attempt at professional wildlife management. Fast-forward a century and a half to today’s Ohio Division of Wildlife, successor to the Ohio Fish Commission, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.

A Dollar and a Dream

The Birth of the Ohio Lottery

In 1971, Ohio Senator Ron Mottl Sr. was an up-and-coming Democratic lawmaker from Parma intent on making sure the state didn’t miss out on what he thought was a golden opportunity. Lottery fever was sweeping the country, and states all around Ohio were catching it. “I wanted to keep Ohio’s money in Ohio,” Mottl says. In 1973, voters made their wishes known, and in May 2023, the Ohio Lottery turns 50. In 1971, Ohio Senator Ron Mottl Sr. was an up-and-coming Democratic lawmaker from Parma intent on making sure the state didn’t miss out on what he thought was a golden opportunity. Lottery fever was sweeping the country, and states all around Ohio were catching it. “I wanted to keep Ohio’s money in Ohio,” Mottl says. In 1973, voters made their wishes known, and in May 2023, the Ohio Lottery turns 50.

Honoring an Activist Thoroughbred

Springfield's Hattie Moseley Mural

When Hattie Moseley arrived in Springfield from Georgia in 1922, she walked right into one of the most tumultuous times in the history of the city, marred by bigotry and an active KKK. remembered as "a nice lady, a church-going lady," though "firm...very firm," when it came to civil rights, she persisted and never gave up. A new mural by artist Gaia honors her lifetime as an "activist thoroughbred."