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Florence E. Allen (1884-1966) was nicknamed “first lady of the law” for her many firsts as a woman in the legal profession. After graduating from Western Reserve College for Women, she taught at Laurel School from 1906 to 1909. She then became a crusader for women’s rights, and in 1913 received a law degree from New York University. Allen was appointed as an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor in 1919, the first woman in the country to hold such a position. In 1920, she was elected to Cleveland’s Court of Common Pleas, advancing, in 1922, to the Ohio Supreme Court, where she served two terms. In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Allen to the nation’s second highest tribunal, the United States Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where she became its first female member. In 1958, she was elevated to Chief Justice of that body and retired in 1965.
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Art Tatum was born in Toledo on October 13, 1909, the son of Arthur Tatum, Sr. and Mildred Hoskins Tatum. Despite being blind in one eye and only partially sighted in the other, he became one of the greatest jazz pianists of his era. To deal with his sight disability, he attended the Ohio State School for the Blind in Columbus from 1918-1920. He came from a musical family and had some formal training at the Toledo School of Music, but was largely self-taught. Influenced by famed Fats Waller, Tatum began playing his music on a local radio station at age 18 and then lived in Chicago, New York City, Cleveland, and Los Angeles, playing and recording extensively both as a soloist and in small groups. His ability to improvise set him apart as a musical genius. Tatum died in November 1956 and was named to the Jazz Hall of Fame in 1983.
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In 1887, John Eisenmann designed this stick-style building for the Peninsula Board of Education so that it could consolidate two one-room school houses. The Peninsula and the Boston Township Boards of Education merged in 1919. The brick addition, designed by architects Harpster and Bliss, was built in 1920. The trustees of Boston Township purchased this property in 1939 from the Board of Education. Union Grange #2380 occupied the first floor for nearly 50 years. The non-profit Boston Township Hall Committee, Inc. was formed in 1990 to work with the township trustees to restore the building.
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The Berea Union Depot, a significant hub in the railroad networks of northeast Ohio from the time of its construction in 1876 until its closing in 1958, is an unusual, but well-designed example of Victorian Gothic Architecture. With the development of an expanding stone quarry industry in the area, Berea and its railroad facilities grew rapidly and by the early 1870s developers and townspeople alike called for construction of a new passenger and freight station. When this Berea sandstone station was completed and then dedicated on May 3, 1876, the Cleveland Plain Dealer called the building “the finest facility outside the big cities.” From 1958 until 1980, the building remained closed until it began a second life, restored as a restaurant and gathering place.
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One of America’s most admired women, pioneer television newscaster Dorothy Snell Fuldheim (1893-1989) began her career as a lecturer in the 1920s and entered broadcasting with a biographical series on WTAM radio in Cleveland. In 1947, Fuldheim joined Ohio’s first commercial television station, WEWS, becoming the first woman in the United States to anchor a news show. Her later work included the long-running “One O’clock Club” live interview show and regular news commentary. During her six-decade career in an often youth-dominated profession, Fuldheim conducted over 15,000 interviews-including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the Duke of Windsor, Albert Einstein, and Helen Keller-in a unique and erudite style. She retired in 1984 at the age of 91.
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Since opening in 1912, the West Side Market, Cleveland’s oldest continuously operating, municipally-owned market, has been an anchor to the historic Ohio City neighborhood. Built to replace the Pearl Street Market and the Central Market. All three served Cleveland’s growing population in the early 20th century, but only the West Side Market remains. Designed by architects W. Dominick Benes and Benjamin Hubbell, the 30,000 square foot space has a dramatic vaulted Guastavino tile ceiling and a signature clock tower that is 137 feet high. The Seth Thomas clock Company manufactured the clock. (Continued on other side)
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When radio station WJW disc jockey Alan Freed (1921-1965) used the term “rock and roll” to describe the uptempo black rhythm and blues records he played beginning in 1951, he named a new genre of popular music that appealed to audiences on both sides of 1950s American racial boundaries–and dominated American culture for the rest of the 20th century. The popularity of Freed’s nightly “Moon Dog House Rock and Roll Party” radio show encouraged him to organize the Moondog Coronation Ball–the first rock concert. Held at the Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952, the oversold show was beset by a riot during the first set. Freed, a charter inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, moved to WINS in New York City in 1954 and continued to promote rock music through radio, television, movies, and live performances.
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William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), ninth president of the United States, left his home state of Virginia in 1791 and was commissioned in the 1st Regiment of Infantry. After his resignation from the army, he became Secretary of the Northwest Territory. In 1801, Harrison became governor of the recently created Indiana Territory. During the War of 1812, he was given command of the Army of the Northwest, defeating combined British and Native American forces at the Battle of the Thames. Harrison lived here following the War of 1812. He turned to politics while living in North Bend and represented Ohio in the United States Congress for two terms. In the presidential election of 1840, the Whigs capitalized on Harrison’s fame as a military hero and nominated him to run against incumbent Democrat Martin Van Buren. Shortly after his lengthy inaugural address, Harrison developed pneumonia. He died on April 4, 1841, and his body was returned to North Bend for burial.
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