Description: Photograph shows what appears to be a Northrop power loom in St. Mary's Woolen Manufacturing Company. Ten inverted, cone-shaped spools of white wool sit on the floor in from of the loom. In the foreground stands a large support beam. On the reverse there is a label in type: "IDENTIFICATION Weaving loom St. Mary's Woolen Mfg. Co. (blankets) LOCATION: St. Mary's CREDIT LINE: Mumm Romer Robbins & Pearson, Inc." The first power loom, a mechanized loom powered by a line shaft, was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785, it was refined over the next 47 years until a design by Kenworthy and Bullough, made the operation completely automatic. This was known as the Lancashire Loom. By 1850 there were 260,000 in operation in England. Fifty years later came the Northrop Loom that would replenish the shuttle when it was empty and this replaced the Lancashire loom. The major components of the loom are the warp beam, heddles, harnesses, shuttle, reed and takeup roll. In the loom, yarn processing includes shedding, picking, battening and taking-up operations. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B07F08_023_1
Subjects: Looms; Textile machinery; Weaving; Industry
Places: St. Marys (Ohio); Auglaize County (Ohio)
 

Description: Luz Teresa Cerra, Miss Wheelchair Puerto Rico, accepts ice cream from an attendant View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: MSS934_B02_F38_006
Subjects: Pageants--Ohio; Pageants--United States; Women with disabilities--Attitudes
Places: Columbus (Ohio); Franklin County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photograph shows four female employees cleaning dishes in a pottery, possibly the Crooksville China Company in Perry County, Ohio. The pottery needed to be cleaned before it could be packed for shipment. Crooksville China Company organized in 1902 in Crooksville, Ohio. It went out of business in 1959. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om1539_1507444_002
Subjects: Business and labor; Ohio Women; Pottery industry; Ceramics industry; Potteries; Tableware
Places: Crooksville (Ohio); Perry County (Ohio)
 

Description: Group of seven people posing in front of a backdrop. This photograph was taken by traveling photographer Albert J. Ewing, ca. 1896-1912. Like most of Ewing's work, it was likely taken in southeastern Ohio or central West Virginia. Born in 1870 in Washington County, Ohio, near Marietta, Ewing most likely began his photography career in the 1890s. The 1910 US Census and a 1912-1913 directory list him as a photographer. A negative signed "Ewing Brothers" and a picture with his younger brother, Frank, indicate that Frank may have joined the business. After 1916, directories list Albert as a salesman. He died in 1934. The Ewing Collection consists of 5,055 glass plate negatives, each individually housed and numbered. Additionally, the collection includes approximately 450 modern contact prints made from the glass plate negatives. Subjects include infants and young children, elderly people, families, school and religious groups, animals and rural scenes. In 1982, the Ohio Historical Society received the collection, still housed in the original dry plate negative boxes purchased by Albert J. Ewing. A selection of the original glass plate negatives were exhibited for the first time in 2013 at the Ohio Historical Center. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL03630
Subjects: Ewing, Albert J. (1870-1934); Families--Ohio; Portrait photography--United States--History
Places: Ohio; West Virginia
 

Description: In 1842, Ormsby McKnight Mitchel, professor at Cincinnati College, arranged a subscription service, the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, to support the purchase of a large telescope. Nicholas Longworth donated land for the new observatory atop Mt. Ida. The cornerstone for the building was laid by John Quincy Adams in 1843; Mt. Ida was renamed in the former president's honor. Unable to sustain himself or the observatory, Mitchel left for New York; after the Civil War, the observatory passed into the hands of the University of Cincinnati. In 1873, the University relocated it to the present site at Mt. Lookout. Pictured here is the 1904 building, 3489 Observatory Place. Reverse reads: "Cinci., O. Jan. 1938. Cincinnati Observatory, from Kodak neg. furnished" View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B03F13_010_1
Subjects: Cincinnati (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.; Astronomical observatories; Mitchel, Ormsby MacKnight, 1809-1862
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: This is a photograph of the Works Progress Administration Sewing Class exhibition in Toledo, Ohio. Pictured are handkerchiefs, quilted patterns, crocheted lace and clothing. Women made up around fifteen to twenty percent of WPA-participants and almost every single one of them was involved in a sewing project of some sort. Most women at that time were still sewing by hand, so they received training in using sewing machines. Once they became skilled enough with the machines, they made clothing, bedding and supplies for hospitals and orphanages. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B13F11_025_001
Subjects: Quilts; Crocheting; Embroidery; Exhibitions--1930-1950; Sewing--United States--History--20th century; United States. Works Progress Administration of Ohio; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project.
Places: Toledo (Ohio); Lucas County (Ohio)
 

Description: This photograph shows Carl Ferrito, a 21-year-old male parolee of Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Ferrito was electrocuted November 3, 1938, for the murder of two policemen in Cleveland, Ohio: Gerald M. Bode and Virgil T. Payne. Ferrito was the 212th person to be executed via the electric chair in State of Ohio. In 1885, the Ohio Penitentiary became the site of all executions for prisoners on death row; formerly, executions had taken place in the county where the crime was committed. In 1896 the Ohio General Assembly mandated that electrocution replace hanging as the form of capital punishment. Throughout the 1930s, the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio displayed photographs of inmates who were sentenced to death. A total of 315 prisoners, both men and women, were executed in the electric chair known as “Old Sparky” between 1897 and 1963. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: AL08266
Subjects: Ohio History--State and Local Government--Law; Capital punishment; Death row; Electrocution; Ohio History--State and Local Government--Corrections; Ohio Penitentiary (Columbus, Ohio); Prisons--Ohio; Portrait photography
Places: Franklin County (Ohio); Columbus (Ohio); Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)
 

Description: Two photographs show boats in the marina at Grand Lake St. Marys in Mercer and Auglaize counties. Grand Lake St. Marys was the largest man-made lake in the world when it was built in 1845. The 13,500-acre lake was built to feed water into the Miami-Erie Canal when water levels fell below five feet. The lake took seven years to build and includes fifty miles of shoreline. It became a state park in 1949. The photographs measure 2.75" x 2.75" (6.99 x 6.99 cm). View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: Om3036_3654652_001
Subjects: Transportation; Arts and entertainment; Geography; Boats and boating; Lakes & ponds
Places: Celina (Ohio); Mercer County (Ohio); Auglaize County (Ohio)
 

Description: Reverse reads "Cinci., O., Nov. 16, 1937. Mellish Home ? Ave". View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B03F05_014_001
Subjects: Architecture; Cincinnati (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc
Places: Cincinnati (Ohio); Hamilton County (Ohio)
 

Description: Original description reads: "Cleveland Cliff Iron Co. dock, Lake Erie, west of the mouth of the Cuyahoga." The ship in the photograph is the "Carle C. Conway", an ore carrier, being unloaded by a Hulett, specialized unloading machine. This group of four Huletts can be found on Whiskey Island, between the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and Edgewater Park, in Cleveland, Ohio. The 'R. L. Agassiz', originally the 'William A. Hawgood' of 1907, became the 'Carle C. Conway' in 1934 and was broken up at Port Arthur in 1963. The words "National Steel Corporation" appears along the sides of the steamship. The Hulett Automatic Ore Unloader was invented by George H. Hulett, a native of Ohio, in the late 1800's. The unloader became an essential element in the development of the iron ore industry in Ohio, allowing rapid unloading of cargo and increasing the volume and efficiency of ore docks at Ohio ports. The machines remained in use, with few changes, until the early 1990s. Cliffs Natural Resources, formerly Cleveland-Cliffs, is a Cleveland, Ohio business firm that specializes in the mining and beneficiation of iron ore and the mining of coal. The firm's earliest predecessor was the Cleveland Iron Mining Company, founded in 1847. Samuel Mather and six associates had learned of rich iron-ore deposits recently discovered in the highlands of the Upper Peninsula region of Michigan. The final decades of the 1800s were a period of business consolidation from the partnership-sized businesses of an earlier generation to a new type of business firm, the stock-market-traded corporation intent on maximizing market share. The former Cleveland Iron Mining Co. was a survivor of this shakeout, purchasing many of its competitors. One key merger in 1890, with Jeptha Wade's Cliffs Iron Company led the combined firm to change its name to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company. William G. Mather, the son of Samuel, guided Cleveland-Cliffs as president and later as chairman of the board during the period of 1890-1947. Under Mather, Cleveland-Cliffs was a leader in the development of the classic-type lake freighter, a bulk-cargo vessel especially designed to carry Great Lakes commodities. The 618-foot (188 m)-long William G. Mather, launched in 1925, is a surviving example of this ship type. For almost a century, the black-hulled Cleveland-Cliffs ships were familiar sights on the upper Lakes. In 1933, Edward Greene (the son-in-law of Jeptha Homer Wade II) replaced William G. Mather as the head of the company. Demand for American iron ore hit peaks during World War I, World War II, and the post-WWII consumer boom, and the company enjoyed success for many decades. The periods following the recessions of 1974-75 and 1981-83 were harsh ones for the iron ore industry. Cleveland-Cliffs shrank its operations, closing many of their plants and began turning the associated tailings ponds into compensatory wetlands for its other properties. In 1984, Cliffs withdrew from the Great Lakes shipping industry. In June 2007, Cleveland-Cliffs purchased its first domestic coal property. In line with its venture into coal, the company changed its name from Cleveland-Cliffs to Cliffs Natural Resources in October 2008. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B04F11_42_01
Subjects: Lake Erie; Shipping industry; Docks--Ohio--Cleveland; Lake steamers--Great Lakes (North America)--History; Shipping--Erie, Lake; Cargo ships; Ores--Transportation; Hulett iron-ore unloaders; National Register of Historic Places; Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company; Mather, Samuel, 1851-1931; Mather, Willi
Places: Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)
 

Description: Photograph showing a house that was once used as a "station" on the Underground Railroad. The description on the back of the photograph reads: "James Hunt home on East Sandusky Street." The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere outside of the United States. White and African American "conductors" served as guides from place to place for those seeking their freedom. It remains unclear when the Underground Railroad began, but members of the Society of Friends, who were also known as the Quakers, were actively assisting fugitive slaves as early as the 1780s. Once they arrived in Ohio, some former slaves decided to remain in the state. They usually settled in neighborhoods with other African Americans. Many runaway slaves continued on to Canada. At least eight cities, including Ashtabula, Painesville, Cleveland, Sandusky, Toledo, Huron, Lorain, and Conneaut, along Lake Erie served as starting points to transport the former slaves to freedom in Canada. Historian Wilbur Siebert believes approximately three thousand miles of Underground Railroad trails existed in Ohio. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SC1338_005_001
Subjects: Underground Railroad; Abolitionists; African Americans; Slavery; Houses; Anti-slavery; Activists; Abolition
Places: Mechanicsburg (Ohio); Champaign County (Ohio)
 

Description: Reverse reads: "Social Studies Class, South High School, Lima. Photograph by courtesy of South High School" This is a photo of a social studies class at Lima South High School in Lima, Ohio. There is a teacher at the head of classroom the room and several students working on classwork. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B12F07_003_001
Subjects: High schools; Social studies; Classrooms; Lima (Ohio)--History--Pictorial works; Maps; Students; Teachers; Education; Ohio--History--Pictorial works; Federal Writers' Project
Places: Lima (Ohio); Allen County (Ohio)