Ohio: The Ohio Guide (American Guide Series) (ISBN 0403021847)

Buckeye snapshots:
Oxford was planned in 1809 when the Ohio legislature established Miami University. Sandusky was a shipping port on the Great Lakes. Permanent settlers came in 1816. Cholera struck in 1849. Previously there had been smaller outbreaks. Sandusky is noted for making wine. Springfield is a National Pike town. It was on the route of the Great Ohio Stage Company in Cumberland, Maryland. Steubenville, Marietta and Chillicothe were the mother towns of the state. They are in proximity to West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Marietta is the oldest settlement in Ohio, the pioneer city in the Northwest Territory. Akron became a center for rubber manufacturing in the first two decades of the 20th century. Cleveland and many of the cities in Ohio such as Youngstown were notable centers of steel, brass and iron making. Organization of the Standard Oil Company in 1870 made Cleveland a force in oil. Tom Johnson was the famous mayor of Cleveland in the Progressive Era. The book features twenty-three automobile tours-- a thoughtful plan of the WPA Guides. Interesting black and white photographs abound. There are seventeen essays on special topics and nineteen profiles of cities. Coal is worked in the eastern and southern section of the state. Glaciers covered two thirds of the state in the late Cenozoic era. The first people were known as mound builders. The most advanced mound builder culture is the Hopewell. Among the first historic Indians were the Erie. Others included the Miami and the Shawnee. The Wyandotte, of Iroquois stock, were the most powerful tribe in the Northwest Territory after the Revolution. Also present were the Tuscarora, Seneca, Delaware, Ottawa, Cherokee. Ohio, home of many presidents, is known as a barometer state. Rogers Clark won the Northwest Territory for the thirteen colonies. Before the Civil War, Lane Seminary in Cincinnati and later Oberlin became centers of anti-slavery activity. Ohio-born writers include James Thurber, Sherwood Anderson and Hart Crane. Ohio has been an area of concentrated and innovative industrial development. Names such as Rockefeller, Wright, Willys, Procter, Gamble, Kroger, Olds, and Kettering are recognizable. The book describes Finnish and Slovenian families in Ohio and many other cultures and customs of individuals and groups. In buildings Ohio has experienced the gothic style, steamboat gothic, romanesque, Greek revival. When the guide was written a contemporary painter, Charles Burchfield, saw possibilites in the main street of the small towns. A really important writer who began in Ohio is William Dean Howells. The outstanding poet was Paul Laurence Dunbar. There is a chronology at the end of the book.