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Joseph F. Clunk, a blind Ohioan and an advocate for workforce development, inspired Toledo leaders in 1923 to serve their blind community. With cooperation from the Lions Club, Community Chest, Toledo Rotary Club, and Chamber of Commerce, the Toledo Society for the Blind was organized in November 1923. Its purpose, “to further the interest of the blind and to open to them all possible avenues to independence and self-support, through investigation, education, and recreation,” continues to guide The Sight Center. Generous donors, tireless volunteers, and dedicated staff helped the organization successfully navigate the Great Depression, war, societal change, and technological transformation. For more than a century of innovative training, classes, clubs, clinics, and assistive technology, The Sight Center continues to empower independence and enrich the lives of people who are blind or have low vision.
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“Lifting As We Climb”: The Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs (CFCWC) was organized May 6, 1904, during a meeting called by Mary Fletcher Ross at the Allen Temple A.M.E. Church. Gathering together eight existing African-American women’s clubs, the CFCWC sought to unite in their work promoting “the betterment of the community.” At a time when both government and private philanthropies overlooked the needs of Black Americans, CFCWC members helped to organize the city’s first kindergartens for Black children, taught in Cincinnati African-American public schools –including the Walnut Hills Douglass and Stowe schools—and raised money for the Home of Aged Colored Women. Since 1904, the Cincinnati Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs has ensured the civic and constitutional rights of all African Americans while meeting the needs of their city.
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Walnut Hills has been home to a significant middle- and working-class Black community since the 1850s. In 1931, African American entrepreneur Horace Sudduth bought 1004 Chapel Street and then the row of buildings across Monfort, naming them the Manse Hotel and Annex. Throughout the 1940s, hotel dinner parties could move to the Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs house next door for dancing. A large addition to the Manse in 1950 created its own ballroom, 24-hour coffee shop, upgraded Sweetbriar Restaurant, and more guest rooms. It appeared in the Negro Motorist’s Green Book between 1940-1963, providing local, transient, and residential guests both catered meetings and top entertainment during the last decades of segregation. It closed in the late 1960s when the economic need for a first-class segregated hotel disappeared in the age of Black Power.
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Established during the Great Migration and intense segregation in Columbus, The Big Walnut Country Club (BWCC) was one of the first Black country clubs in the United States. Conceived in 1925 and incorporated two years later, the club encouraged and promoted aquatic and athletic sports by providing the means and facilities otherwise not available to the Black community. Members enjoyed golf, swimming, archery, tennis, badminton, boating, dining, and dancing on the nearly 20 acres of land between the Big Walnut and Rocky Fork creeks. The club was a social, professional, and political hub for Central Ohio’s growing Black population in the decades leading to the Civil Rights Movement. The BWCC closed in 1963. Gahanna purchased the land in 1970 and opened its first public park, Friendship Park, the following year.
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Around 1895 a park system was created connecting the corridor of Doan Brook from Shaker Lakes to Gordon Park on Lake Erie. In 1915, the Shaker Heights Land Company and Van Sweringen Company deeded property to the City of Cleveland for the park. In 1947, Cleveland leased to the cities of Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights portions of the park within their boundaries. A proposed “Clark Freeway” (I-290) linking I-271 to downtown Cleveland through the park threatened the area in the 1960s. The proposal faced strong opposition from the Park Conservation Committee, a coalition of 30 garden clubs, the City of Shaker Heights, the Cleveland Heights PTA Council, the Shaker Historical Society, and other organizations. Governor James Rhodes withdrew the plans in 1970. The Clark Freeway was defeated and the park preserved.
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In 1930, nine women from Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights formally organized The Village Garden Club and set as its goal the beautification of Shaker Parklands with trees. At a time when women were excluded from environmental activism, the club’s careful planning allowed members to lead civic improvements. Since its establishment, the club has planted and maintained flowering trees at Horseshoe Lake Park, pausing only during World War II. In the 1960s, The Village Garden Club and 34 other local organizations successfully fought the construction of the Clark-Lee Freeway. Club member Mary Elizabeth Croxton chaired the Park Conservation Committee that won the battle and established the Shaker Lakes Regional Nature Center. The Village Garden Club continues its stewardship over the flowering grove with “civic and environmental responsibility” as its focus.