Hi! My name is Alyia Marasco. I’m currently a junior at Walsh University where I’m pursuing degrees in History and Museum Studies. After graduation, I plan to eventually go on to graduate school to pursue a master’s degree in Museum Studies. My end goal is to be a curator of collections and work with exhibition design. I love history and spending time in museums, so I’m very excited to be interning at the Ramsayer Research Library for the 2021-2022 school year!
Growing up, I had a unique education. Being homeschooled, I had the freedom to choose what topics I wanted to study. I also had the freedom to explore outside of classrooms. Because of this independence, I was privileged to have a hands-on education. This meant I took tons of field trips exploring nature centers, historic sites, monuments, and– my favorite– museums. I’m originally from Medina, Ohio, so I was also lucky to live near the city of Cleveland, which has a great wealth of museums. Some of my favorite memories from “school” are taking classes at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, going to the Cleveland Museum of Art for my birthday every year, and visiting the Great Lakes Science Center with my friends. I also had the opportunity to visit the William McKinley Presidential Library and Museum several times growing up, so interning here and seeing behind-the-scenes has been such an interesting experience. My unique course of education has given me a deep love of learning that I still value to this day.
I decided to major in History and Museum Studies so I could share my love of the two subjects. In the future, I’d love to create and design exhibits to tell the stories of a museum’s collections. If I could inspire others to love history and museums like I do, I feel that I could make a difference.
Thanks to a recent donation of photographs, the stories of prominent Canton businessman Leo Abt and his store have been rediscovered. Included in the donation were photographs of Abt’s store, the clerks, portraits of the family, and more pictures whose backstories remain a mystery. The captions on the back of the photos were minimal, often providing only basic information. More research had to be done to uncover their stories. An article found by volunteer Sue Henry gave a valuable start to uncovering Abt’s story. This Canton Repository article, written by Gretchen Putnam in 1937, included a photograph of Abt’s clerks, matching a photo that came to the library in the donation. In her article, a part of the series Canton’s Family Album in the Canton Repository, Putnam identifies the clerks and gives an overview of Abt’s millinery. Using the clerk’s names and this new information, I began researching. Throughout my investigation, I discovered Abt’s personal life story, his professional accomplishments, and overall developed a picture of life in Canton in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The group of Abt’s young trimmers, as identified in the Canton’s Family Album article.
Leo Abt was born on December 31, 1850 in Melzungen, Hesse Castle, Germany as the youngest of twelve children. At the age of sixteen, Abt immigrated to the United States. Abt later married fellow German immigrant Flora Ury in New York City on November 8, 1873. On November 22, 1875, the couple had their first son, Arthur Loeser Abt, in the town of Aurora, Indiana on the western border of Ohio. Later, the family moved to Circleville, Ohio, a city just south of Columbus. Here, Leo and Flora had two more sons. Edwin I. was born on March 19, 1878. Two years later on July 9, 1880, Oscar Moses Abt was born. The Abt family arrived in the city of Canton on April 1, 1888.
Leo and Flora had three sons, Arthur, Edwin, and Oscar. Pictured here is Edwin Abt.
In his personal life, Abt was a deeply religious man who fostered Canton’s Jewish community from the ground up. In 1915, Abt, with committee of other devoted Jews, began working passionately to create a synagogue for their religious community. Today, this structure is the Canton Pentecostal Temple, located at 950 McKinley Ave Northwest. After Abt’s passing, he was described by Charles I. Cooper as the “father of Jewish communal life in Canton.” Further, he was the beloved president of the Canton Hebrew Congregation at the time of his death. The congregation recalled Abt’s memory as being the “most efficient and faithful member and worker” who “was especially fitted in every way for the position of president.” His congregation also described him as being a “friend to all, and really a father to many.” It is clear that Abt was greatly respected and treasured by his community in faith.
Mr. Leo Abt, “The Father of Jewish Communal Life in Canton.”
In addition to being a leading figure of the Jewish community, Abt was a prominent Canton businessman. For over thirty years from the time of his arrival in Canton until his passing, Abt was an industrious and hardworking merchant. In early May of 1888, Leo Abt’s New York Bazaar was announced to be opened in the Evening Repository, as the Canton Repository was known then. At the time of its opening, the bazaar was advertised as being located at 21 South Market Street. Today, this would be the lot at the corner of Market Avenue South and 2nd Street Southwest. Days after the opening was announced, on May 14and 16, the bazaar’s grand opening was declared a “great success” in the Evening Repository. The advertisement describes “throngs” of customers in attendance, and apologizes for not being able to help every patron due to the mass of shoppers. The millinery department was particularly popular. In 1937 in the Canton Repository, historian Gretchen Putnam described the busy workroom filled with young female employees, referred to as “trimmers.” These girls included Katie Mintzenburger, who was the head trimmer, Inez E. Allensworth, who later owned and operated her own millinery, sisters Olivia Fierstos and Rosia Victoria Halter, and many more.
The Leo Abt & Sons storefront. Son Edwin is seen standing on the far left. It is possible that the young boy in the center is Edwin’s younger brother, Oscar.
Abt continued his business under several different names over the years, including Leo Abt & Sons, and the Leo Abt Company at the time of his passing. In several newspaper advertisements and the photographs of his storefront, the cursive logo from the Abt & Sons era can be seen. Abt’s resiliency as a businessman is demonstrated through his handling of various challenges. For example, in October of 1915, Leo Abt & Sons was declared bankrupt by the United States Bankruptcy Court and was immediately sold. Not even six months later, Abt announced the opening of his new store, the Leo Abt Company in March of 1916.
The interior of Leo Abt’s millinery.
During my research, I found various newspaper articles that gave insight to what life was truly like for Abt and his employees, both the good times and bad. In June of 1897, Abt’s employees gathered for a pleasant evening of entertainment at the home of W. S. McClelland, just north of Canton. The Evening Repository gives a vivid image of the night: “The spacious lawn was elaborately decorated with Chinese lanterns, and admitted of many outdoor games and pastimes.” The contemporary article mentions the delicious dinner the guests enjoyed, and how the party continued until a late hour.
Captioned, “Abt’s Clerks,” this image shows the women enjoying each other’s company outside of work.
The newspaper also provides an image of hard times the employees endured. On November 20, 1899, the Repository reported the death of young trimmer Rosia Victoria Halter. This employee was only twenty-five years old when she developed appendicitis. She later passed due to the operation for her illness. The article describes Rosia as being popular with the other girls she worked with. She worked at Abt’s with her younger sister, Olivia, nicknamed Ollie, Fierstos.
Finally, the Evening Repository illustrates how the Abt family celebrated special occasions. On March 26, 1895, the Abt home hosted the wedding of Leo’s sister-in-law Clara Ury and Reverend David Klein. This article describes the beautiful event as “one of the most delightful weddings of the season.” The Abt family’s faith is also shown in the “impressive rituals of the Hebrew ceremony.” These photos and articles offer a brief peek at daily life for Abt and those close to him. They hold the hints left by those who came before us. Following the clues in these documents, you can uncover the most forgotten details to piece back together lost stories.
Before white settlers moved to Stark County, the area was home to Native American tribes, beginning in the Paleoindian Period, which was between 13,000 B.C. and 7,000 B.C. Paleoindians were small groups that moved often depending on season and climate and relied on hunting, gathering, and foraging. They used tools made of bone, wood, and stone. Paleoindians were hunting in Ohio approximately 11,000 years ago, as evidenced by the Nobles Pond site in Jackson Township. The Paleoindians that used this site were among the first inhabitants of Ohio. Here, campsites have been discovered, as well as artifacts such as spear points and stone scrapers, both of which were characteristic tools of Paleoindians. The unique way in which the spear points were made helps to identify around what time Paleoindians were living at Nobles Pond. There have also been mounds representing later cultures located in different parts of Stark County, including Lawrence, Lake, and Canton.
After the Paleoindian Era, Stark County was sparsely inhabited by other prehistoric groups of different cultures for hunting and gathering. In the historic period, the people inhabiting Stark County were the Delaware Indians. They were pushed west from their original area near the Delaware Bay and Delaware River by the British, Dutch, Germans and other tribes in the mid- 1700s. Other Native American tribes living in Ohio around this time included the Wyandots and the Shawnee. Eventually, white settlers began to move to Stark County from places like Maryland, Virginia, and states throughout New England. Some of the earliest contacts involving Native Americans in Ohio were with French explorers and traders, English traders, scouting parties, and military campaigns.
The contact between Native Americans and settlers was not without conflict. In 1794, General Anthony Wayne defeated a Native American force at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. This led to the negotiation of the Treaty of Greeneville in 1795. Many Native American tribes of the state, including the Wyandot and Delaware, surrendered much of their land under the treaty and had to move to western parts of Ohio. Eventually, these tribes were forced to move even further west to states such as Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
The topic of Native Americans living in Ohio includes 13,000-15,000 years of prehistory as well as over 300 years of history. The history of Native American tribes is an integral part of understanding the history of Ohio, and therefore the history of Stark County.
Nobles Pond SiteFluted Point found at Nobles PondTrianguloid End Scraper found at Nobles Pond
The Underground Railroad was a system of safe houses and hiding places in which white and free African American “conductors” would assist runaway slaves, or freedom seekers, from Southern slave states to freedom in Northern free states as well as Canada.
One of the most prominent Underground Railroad stops in Stark County is the Spring Hill House in Massillon. The Spring Hill house was built in 1821 and owned by Thomas and Charity Rotch, who were Quakers and abolitionists. They used their home as a stop for fugitive slaves escaping slavery to the North. Despite attempts by slave hunters, no fugitive slave was ever caught at Spring Hill.
Spring Hill had a secret staircase that connected the basement kitchen to the servants’ quarters on the second floor. This allowed fugitive slaves to move between hiding spaces without being exposed to the main floor of the house. Using the secret staircase, fugitive slaves could hide in the attic crawlspace. Additionally, the attic was at one time used to keep bees and make honey because The Rotch family did not want to buy sugar, which used slave labor in the Caribbean to produce.
Another stop on the Underground Railroad was the Haines House in Alliance. The house was owned by Jonathan Ridgeway Haines, a Quaker and abolitionist, and his wife Sarah. Jonathan Haines and his son John would stand guard while runaway slaves stayed in the upper story of the house.
There were several other citizens of Stark County that were involved with the Underground Railroad. Many of those who were involved used their houses as stations on the Underground Railroad. Some of these people were the lawyer Anson Pease and his family. Their home, nicknamed Roanoke, was a station on the Underground Railroad.
Some of the other people involved in the Underground Railroad were James Bayliss and George Harsh, who both used their houses as stations. There was also Jacob Gaskins, one of the first African American settlers in Stark County, and Robert Folger, the former mayor of Massillon in 1861 and from 1864 to 1866.
Another important figure was Lucretia Mott. For a short time, her parents lived in Kendal, Ohio, which is now Massillon. Lucretia fought for women’s rights and slave emancipation, and in 1847 she delivered a lecture in Massillon on social reform. She would later help organize the First Women’s Rights Convention with Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
There were many active members of the Underground Railroad and anti-slavery movement in Ohio. In an article from the Anti-Slavery Bugle of Lisbon, Ohio, citizens of Massillon proposed an anti-slavery convention. Another article from the anti-slavery bugle features plans for anti-slavery conventions in Ohio in which prominent abolitionists Frederick Douglas and William Lloyd Garrison would be in attendance.
Ohio was an important part of the Underground Railroad. In Stark County, there were several routes though cities such as Canton, Alliance, and Massillon and many prominent figures that helped on the Underground Railroad.
My name is Hannah Beach. In the spring, I will be graduating with my Bachelor of Arts in History from Mount Vernon Nazarene University. I grew up in a small town called Sugarcreek in northeast Ohio where I still live with my parents and my three sisters. Since I was in elementary school, history has been a fascination for me. As a kid I participated in the high school’s production of Annie Get Your Gun and after finding out the musical was based on a true story, I knew I had to know more and quickly fell in love with history. That experience paired with a series of remarkable history teachers all through school aided in my realization that history was something that I wished to pursue as a career.
For the last five years, on weekends and over breaks, I have put my love of history to use as I worked at David Warther Carvings, a non-profit museum in Sugarcreek. There I worked as a tour guide where I guided patrons through the various rooms explaining how the antique ivory carvings had been made and more importantly, told the history of the ships whose schematics had been used to make exact, miniature replicas. In those five years I learned so much. The experience inspired a growth in my passion for history and for sharing it with others. Along with serving as a tour guide, I worked in gift shop sales, created and ran the museum’s social media platforms, and served as the grant coordinator, giving me countless skills that will be useful as I head into the work field. I will forever be grateful for the time that I spent at David Warther Carvings and for the incredible tutelage of David Warther himself. As I look towards my future and my life outside of college, I am incredibly thankful for the way my past experiences have shaped me into who I am today and am very excited to be working at the McKinley Presidential Library this spring.
365 Reasons: Today let me give you a reason to bury a time capsule. When I first met my wife when I was 19 years old, she had a neighbor lady who finally died when she was 103 years old, oh the stories she had to tell. She told me about attending President William McKinley’s funeral in Canton Ohio. I wish she had buried a time-capsule and I could dig it up today. Why not preserve your now, which will become history for a future generation. Choose carefully what you include in your capsule, you want it to accurately represent your snapshot in time. Can you imagine what your great-grandchildren might think about today’s newspaper or CD or current best selling book? Go ahead, think beyond yourself, and invest into the future.
My name is Hamed Alwusaydi. I was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. I am in the final semester to graduate from my BA at Walsh University in Communications. I have always wanted to be a part of the President McKinley Museum family because of my passion for learning about the history, interest in it and its care. I am currently working as a volunteer and seeking to learn and train and listen to the advice and guidance of Mr. Mark Holland, who has always made me feel his desire to train and mentor me. I am currently working on developing the visual aspect of the Walk with the President program, and I am working on adding some important pictures to present to those looking to understand the past and those interested in it.
Grace Doringo is an intern at the McKinley Presidential Library and Museum for the 2020-2021 school year. She is currently a junior at Walsh University majoring in Museum Studies and History with a minor in Art History. At Walsh, Grace is a participant in the honors program, student government, the Museum Engagement Team, and choir. Grace is looking forward to gaining experience working in the McKinley Museum’s library and archives so she can one day be prepared to work as a museum professional.
In 1933, in an effort to forestall foreclosures during the Great Depression, Congress established the Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC). In a bid to obtain Southern support for the measure, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal supporters allowed for certain provisions within the act to discriminate against Blacks and other minorities. For example, when it came to mortgage assistance, neighborhoods were color-coded for certain racial, ethnic, and economic indicators to maintain a pre-existing de facto segregation of neighborhoods. The use of a red marker to designate majority black neighborhoods gave the practice its name: red-lining.
The map above is a 1937 copy of the HOLC map for Canton. Four different colors highlight sections of town from “First grade” to “Fourth grade.” For example, those neighborhoods shaded in green (Harter Heights and Ridgewood) were in the First Grade; the most desirable and “exclusive” housing which were attractive to home-buyers even in the most dire economic conditions. The grading was based on statistics gathered by the Division of Research and Statistics under the auspices of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and included general descriptions and numerous demographic characteristics such as foreign-born families, “negro” population, “relief families,” the nature of those moving in (also referred to as “infiltration”), construction patterns, three year mortgage and price ranges, and other numbers and factoids. In the HOLC analysis for Canton, the Harter Heights neighborhood was described as an area that had paved streets, but was also ‘highly restricted.” Most inhabitants were “professional men and junior executives.” There was also an “infiltration” of “desirable.” The estimated income of residents in the Heights was between $3,000 – $10,000 at a time the national income average was $1,780.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Fourth Grade sections of Canton, described as an area in Canton’s southeast neighborhood with factories and railroads to the north, was on a “downward” trend of desirability. Primarily, inhabitants were laborers with a 10% population of Italians and 80% “Negro.” In its clarifying remarks, the appraisal mentions that this is a “colored section” with a “lower class of Jews and Italians.” The annual income was between $800 and $1200 with only $0% of the residents owning their homes. The infiltration of new residences was characterized as “undesirables.”
The residual effects of redlining was to reinforce and solidify a segregated city through the decades. Obviously the pattern was set before the HOLC appraisal, but in 1937 redlining was federal policy. In the absence of favorable and fair bank mortgages, the ability for individuals or others to transform or improve neighborhoods became restrictive and virtually impossible. Likewise, home ownership and home improvements were rare and the cycle of poverty in these areas became even more stubbornly entrenched with race-based government policy, restrictive covenants and reluctant financial institutions. Absent economic and political growth lead to a decades-long, gradual abandonment of basic retail, medical and other basic resources vital for the well-being of residents in these neighborhoods. For example, the disappearance over the years of grocery stores resulted in what has become “food deserts,” i.e. areas absent of any fresh, nutritious food. Likewise, the mortality rates, health standards, education standards and other “quality-of-life” indicators all suffered accordingly. Even today, many of these houses still have lead-based paint on their walls with the resulting negative effect on child development.
These patterns exist throughout urban areas in the U.S. with the same results of negative health, education, income disparity with surrounding neighborhoods. The likelihood of crucial health concerns such as cancer and obesity, food deserts, mortality rates, and other outcomes are closely tied to zip codes which, in turn as the redlining map reflects, is likely to be based on race or ethnicity. Though redlining has become illegal, other policies at both the federal and state levels have reinforced this de facto segregation. Urban renewal in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s oftentimes reinforced the boundaries of segregated communities. Construction of interstate highways such as Route 30 divided and physically isolated once vibrant communities. Today, the risk of default on low apprised housing allows banks and other financial institutions to refuse mortgages. Hence, the possibility to begin the revitalization of neighborhoods becomes an even more Herculean task as the past history of redlining reverberates into our present.
Our volunteers at the Presidential Library want to show you the long journey of the McKinley Correspondence Project.
To start, we want to tell you our motivation for pursuing this project. One of the major aspects of the library is making sure our information is accessible, especially for our researchers who dedicate their time to finding answers. Our volunteers at the library take their research requests very seriously and we have systems in place so that information in our library can be accessed by our volunteers and archivist.
Our project began around 2005 with one our current volunteers, Judy Pocock and Janet, a former McKinley Librarian. At the time, the Presidential Library was not how it looks today, and it wasn’t as organized or put together for accessibility. There were many projects that needed to be started and one of these projects was the McKinley Correspondence documents. This project consisted of letters to and from William McKinley during his life. They began by thinking of the different directions they could go with this project, and where to start. It is so important to have a plan and take the time to think before you start on your project. The main goal was to find some way to summarize and put the letters in chronological order. Judy began to write out abstracts for each letter, which was a daunting process because most of the letters are handwritten. It was very time-consuming, but they were able to get a majority of them completed before Janet, the former librarian left and the project was put on hold.
This brings us to 2016 when our current archivist Mark Holland attended a conference about managing, conserving, and preserving archives. There he learned that keeping documents in binders with sleeves was not appropriate protocol anymore and he began to think of ways that they could house the McKinley Correspondence letters properly. There was a major obstacle in the way: retail stores do not sell the correct length and height of the documents. Thankfully, he was able to work with a company who put him in contact with a third-party and they were able to create custom made ring folders. These folders would allow the strain to be placed in the folders and the housing and not on the documents themselves. Once that part of the project was completed, there were still more steps that had to be thought out. The letters had to be transcribed and have correct abstracts so they could easily be found. The letters were transcribed by our volunteers, Susan Henry and Judy Pocock and former Office Manager, Rita Zwick. This part of the project took years to be completed. Volunteer, Rosemary Shaheen spent many hours entering data on the letters that researchers can find online. Moving on to 2018, our library had an intern from Walsh University who began working on the digitization process of the project. Samantha did more of the technical side of the project by scanning and adding each piece of the sleeve to our database using our museum software. After the scanning and cataloging was completed around December, those involved in the project were able to see the results of their hard work. After having a couple of meetings to discuss the next steps, Judy and Samantha worked together to put the sleeves into our custom-made folders and create labels for each file folder, making sure everything was in chronological order and placed in the appropriate area. We are so excited to have this project completed, as it makes our research easier and more effective than just leaving it in huge binders with documents spanning five years or more per binder.
Completing the McKinley Correspondence project was extremely important because we can track what William McKinley was doing and who he was writing to during his life and even letters written by people close to him confirming his death. These documents are very important to the Presidential Library because it relates to William McKinley as a citizen of Stark County, and it gives historical documentation about the 25th President of the United States.
March 26, 2019
McKinley Presidential Library
Guest Blogger, Samantha Weaver
Archivist's Attic... 