Description: This is a photograph of a large home in Cleveland, Ohio. The typed caption on the back reads, "Lakewood 'mystery' mansion with secret passage to beach. Cleveland, Ohio." Handwritten underneath this reads, "Tunnel said to have been used to take runaway slaves to the beach--Lakewood a station of the Underground R.R." This has since been identified as the home of Julius Feiss (1848-1931), a prominent Cleveland businessman in the garment industry. The original address for this home, which numerous references refer to as Ednawood, was 10520 Lake Avenue in Cleveland, which was later changed to 10530 Edgewater Drive. Rumors about use of the home's tunnel as an Underground Railroad route appear to be false, as the home was constructed in the 1890s, and the connection to Lakewood, a nearby Cleveland suburb, is also incorrect. This is one of many visual materials collected for publication in the Ohio Guide. In 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Works Progress Administration by executive order to create jobs for the large numbers of unemployed laborers, as well as artists, musicians, actors, and writers. The Federal Arts Program, a sector of the Works Progress Administration, included the Federal Writers’ Project, one of the primary goals of which was to complete the America Guide series, a series of guidebooks for each state which included state history, art, architecture, music, literature, and points of interest to the major cities and tours throughout the state. Work on the Ohio Guide began in 1935 with the publication of several pamphlets and brochures. The Reorganization Act of 1939 consolidated the Works Progress Administration and other agencies into the Federal Works Administration, and the Federal Writers’ Project became the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio. The final product was published in 1940 and went through several editions. The Ohio Guide Collection consists of 4,769 photographs collected for use in Ohio Guide and other publications of the Federal Writers’ Project in Ohio from 1935-1939. View on Ohio Memory.
Image ID: SA1039AV_B04F09_29_01
Subjects: Mansions--Ohio; Cleveland (Ohio)--Buildings, structures, etc.--Pictorial works; Domestic architecture; Ohio Federal Writers' Project; Works Progress Administration
Places: Cleveland (Ohio); Cuyahoga County (Ohio)