Tales From The Negatives: Canton Actual Business College…

Tags

#Team, calendars, Canton Actual Business College, Canton City Treasurer, classes, classroom, dream, enhancing, Google Maps, high resolution, Market Avenue, New Vicary Building, November, photograph, Photographs, Photoshop, principal, scanning, Sears Building, secretary, Tales from the Negatives, treasures, vice president

While my wife and I were cleaning out our attic we came across a box that could have been easily tossed in the trash.  The treasures that were hidden in the seemingly worthless paperwork that most of us keep proved to be a gem from 1922.  In the box we found photographs of my grandmother and grandfather from the 1920’s.  My grandmother, Myria Madeline (Studer) Rice, attended the Canton Actual Business College in 1922. She subsequently went on to work as a stenographer at several well known businesses  in Canton before she married Raymond Clayton Rice and worked for the business, Rice’s Drugs, he started in 1927. 

Scanning this photograph at a high resolution, and enhancing it in Photoshop helped me to reveal the date. There are at least two calendars in the classroom of the Canton Actual Business College. One of them did not have the year, but thanks to Miss Pearl Warburton pinning up a calendar at her desk, she “told” me it was November of 1922. Going to the 1922 Canton City Directory, I found the Canton Actual Business College was located in the New Vicary Building that would become known to most as the Sears building at 424 North Market Avenue Canton, Ohio. J.J. Krider was the president of this business college, while S.E. Hedges was the vice president, and J.E. Bowman secretary, and principal.

It has always been a dream of mine to see the inside of the “Sears” building on North Market Avenue because my Dad worked there in the 1950’s dressing the displays in the windows on Market Avenue. After contacting several people I found out Canton City Treasurer, Kim Perez and his team are located where I think the Canton Actual Business College was located. Counting the windows in the photograph and using Google Maps I surmised the college was on the fourth floor in the back of the Sears Building. My Grandma Rice is sitting at her desk along with ten other students attending the college.

Thank you to Canton City Treasurer, Kim Perez and his team for their time in allowing me to visit this special place in Canton, and the chance to photograph a part of the space where the business college once conducted classes. 

Mark G. Holland

Archivist

McKinley Presidential Library & Museum

Meet Rebecca Davis…

Tags

archivist, Bexley Ohio, Canton, Capital University, Digitization, findyourquest, findyourwhy, Glenoak High School, high school, History, Ida McKinley, Intern, major, mckinleypresidentiallibrary, morethanamonument, ohio, Photographs, Plain Local, Project, seekthethreads, St. Peter’s Catholic school, Stark County, volunteers, welcome, William McKinley

Podcast 

We invite our followers to get to know Rebecca Davis, one of our summer interns at the McKinley Presidential Library!

Rebecca was born here in Stark County and has lived here her whole life. Originally from downtown Canton, she now resides in Plain Township with her family.

She attended St. Peter’s Catholic School for elementary and then transferred to Oakwood Middle School for junior high. After graduating Glenoak High School in 2017, she enrolled at Capital University in Bexley, Ohio as a history major. When she is not at college, she is working at Donatos in North Canton and now volunteering at our museum.

Since she has lived here her whole life, she has always known about the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum, but only attended as a visitor. Last summer, Rebecca and her mother came to our library to have some photos of old Stark County digitized. While they were here, they met our archivist, Mark Holland. Mark invited Rebecca to become a volunteer and after thinking about it, she decided to spend her summer with us as an intern, helping our team with various projects.

Currently, she is working on digitizing photographs of William McKinley and cataloging them with our software. She is a great addition to our team and we hope that she joins us again next summer. She has been here for only a couple of weeks, but she really has enjoyed her time so far  and she encourages more people to become volunteers because learning is a lifelong process. One of her favorite parts of volunteering here is that she gets to see photographs of what life used to be like and compare that information with what it is like to today.

We want to thank Rebecca for letting us interview her and allowing us to share her story on our social media. Our team at the McKinley Presidential Library loves being able to share stories of our volunteers with people outside of the museum and we want you to be a part of that!

If you would like information on how to become a volunteer, be sure to private message our page or call the museum at: (330) 455-7043

Inspection…

Tags

1899, aerial view, Air Force, battle of Plattsburgh, buildings, Clinton County Historical Association and Museum, Google Maps, government land, historian, MAPS, McKinley Presidential collection, New York, Photographs, Plattsburgh, President McKinley, Vice-President Hobart

President McKinley & Vice President Hobart Inspecting the Troops 1899

While going through the photographs we have in the McKinley Presidential collection I found three that were taken in Plattsburgh, New York.  I looked at the first two photographs and determined they could have been taken almost anywhere.  The third one, above, featured full views of two buildings that President McKinley and his party passed.

Going to Google Maps, I searched for the city of Plattsburgh, NY.  The program offers an aerial view in the maps portion, and a satellite view in Google Earth. The program also offers a street view where possible.  I went to the street view and it took me to this location, or a location with buildings very similar to the buildings in the above photograph.

Next, I found and called Clinton County Historical Association and Museum where I spoke to Julie, their historian.  She told me the area where President McKinley and Vice-President Hobart were in this 1899 photograph was government land from 1814 to 1994.  The government purchased this land after the battle of Plattsburg in 1814, and the Air Force last occupied this land in 1994.  The land and the buildings that occupy it now belong to the city, and are privately owned.

More Later…