Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2011, History

This master's thesis examines Jewish and African American relations in Cleveland, Ohio from 1900 to 1970. It argues that interactions between Jews and African Americans in the North have been forged by their history of shared urban space which fostered inter-reliance between Jewish entrepreneurs and their black customers. While this African American-Jewish inter-reliance has been explored in the context of civil rights, an examination of street-level interactions in shared urban spaces such as Jewish-run corner-stores, nightclubs, music shops, housing, and even criminal enterprises reveals that relations between African Americans and Jews have been driven as much by entrepreneurship, markets, and patterns of consumption as by their history as two oppressed peoples. Although this study focuses on Cleveland, it also illustrates some of the basic dynamics of demographic change and inter-ethnic activity in urban America during the twentieth century.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, American Culture Studies

Scholarly writing on the conflation of sport as a religion regularly concentrates on the historical and institutional parallels with the religious dimensions of sport, focusing on ritual, community, sacred space, and other categories more traditionally associated with religious life. Instead, this study redirects focus toward the neo-religious nature of modern spirituality; that is, the fulfillment of Thomas Luckmanns prediction that a significant aspect of modern spirituality would concern the need to construct a self, the constantly shifting work of forming personal identity and enhancing self understanding. As such, internal commitments and intense devotion may perform as a de facto invisible religion in the lives of people. As popular culture provides useful texts toward satisfying this ongoing work, professional sports can act as a conduit of both personal and collective self understanding for highly identified fans, subsequently operating as an invisible religion within their lives. This study investigates the nature of fandom among a sample of Cleveland professional sports fans. Using a semi-structured interview format, it explores the lived world of patrons of the Parkview NiteClub, a long standing Cleveland sports bar/blues club, asking, How might the experience of this group of highly identified fans in Cleveland constitute a kind of invisible religious experience that both shapes their view of themselves and influences how they journey in this life? Using Edward Baileys tripartite implicit religion rubric to assess commitment, integrating foci, and intensive concerns with extensive effects, formal interviews with fifteen Parkview patrons took place over six months, using a semi-structured questionnaire to explore the contours of their devotion to the Cleveland teams. The interviews reveal that the co-mingling of civic history, existence of the teams, and personal life narrative of the fans themselves are intimately interwoven, producing a relationship b (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2019, History

Founded in 1919, Merrick House has served the residents of Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood continuously for one hundred years. Despite the longevity of this settlement house, there has been no substantial scholarly works published on its history. This thesis focuses on contextualizing the founding of Merrick House and its operation over roughly forty years in the same neighborhood within the national settlement movement of the early twentieth century. It also explores the significance of Catholicism within the institution and its close association with the Christ Child Society of Greater Cleveland through the examination of manuscript collections held by the Western Reserve Historical Society as well as a variety of published sources.

DMA, University of Cincinnati, 2022, College-Conservatory of Music: Composition

My curiosity in world culture has expanded to Eastern philosophy and its integration into western musical languages. Mysteries manifests this influence, finding solace in subtle orchestral colors which alternate with boisterous passages. A performance of Mysteries lasts approximately 18 minutes. It is composed in one continuous movement. In this piece, I am reminded of the west wing of the Cleveland Museum of Art which now houses Indian and Southeast Asian artifacts. There one may behold thousands of years of history. One gallery featuring sixth century BCE Jainism yields to a Chinese gallery, adorned with fiery-eyed gargoyles calling out to visitors where once they graced the tombs of influential statesmen in the Tang dynasty, guarding them from sinister spirits. One may also cross paths with Nataraja's Shiva, the ancient Hindu Lord of music, who beckons serenely and beneficently with his hands as if they are about to execute a Vedic hymn on the vina. In fact, music was considered an essential component of sacred learning, and its rhythms reflect the structures of an ongoing creation of the universe. As the gallery continues, my attention is drawn to a new 2022 exhibition by Peng Wei, Migrations of Memory––The Poetry and Power of Music. This exhibition – comprised of multiple music stands in semi-circular formation, letters by Western composers translated into Mandarin, and stately Chinese paintings depicting a subtext described as “Wild Geese Descend on Level Sands” – addresses the vital role of music and the arts during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is dedicated to the Cleveland Orchestra and to musicians worldwide, aiming to keep communities “spirited, resilient, and connected”. Mysteries has arrived at this place of creation which – it is possible Shiva, the Tomb Guardians, and Peng Wei would agree – is meant to be shared.

MA, Kent State University, 0, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History

"Pyramids of Lake Erie" uses the Cleveland Museum of Art's Egyptian collection as a case study that illustrates how museums balance the organic nature of the institution and its connection to the community in which it resides and serves with the static nature of its ancient collections, examining the dynamic relationship between American museums and historical trends from the early 20th century to the present day. The founding of the museum, and its Egyptian collection, in 1916 is examined first, arguing that an Egyptian collection is vital to the museum's power and legitimacy in the museum world and the city of Cleveland. The 1950s shifts the focus from collecting to preserving this collection due to the threat of destruction during the Cold War. Then, in the 1990s, during the museum's 75th Anniversary celebration, a travelling exhibition brought visitors and integrated technology into the museum. Finally, in 2016, a new lack of relevance of the Egyptian relics to the museum is investigated. The Cleveland Museum of Art's acquisition and display of its Egyptian collection exemplifies the modernist struggle to both understand and convey knowledge about the ancient past as well as demonstrate how current events and trends affect the manner in which museums operate.

Master of Arts in History, Cleveland State University, 1997, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

The Euclid Heights Allotment was a late nineteenth century predecessor to the Van Sweringen brothers' Shaker Heights development, anticipating many of the themes of its more famous successor. Located on the heights overlooking Case Western Reserve University, Euclid Heights was the first elite subdivision to marry new electric streetcar technology with the romantic appeal of Cleveland's heights and provide a sheltered, restricted residential community for the wealthy citizens gradually moving out Euclid Avenue to the University Circle area. This allotment, in its various phases, was not the first use of the site, either for land speculation or allotments. Borrowing the notion of a "palimpsest," this paper examines the various attempts to create real estate value, ending with the Euclid Heights Allotment, and their relationship to the wider economy of Cleveland and Doan's Corners and to the spreading urban infrastructure of utilities, parks and transportation.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2015, History

In the early twentieth century, staff members at the new Cleveland Museum of Art worked to build a well-balanced, cosmopolitan collection of art objects and antiquities from global sources. While objects from Europe were certainly prized, this dissertation examines the unusual preoccupation of the museum's first director, Frederic Allen Whiting, and first Curator of Oriental Art, J. Arthur MacLean, with sourcing, acquiring, and placing on display the very best examples of art objects and antiquities from China, Japan, and Korea. I argue that these individuals were not motivated by Orientalist fervor to acquire fine examples of East Asian material culture; instead, by engaging in what I call sympathetic appropriation, objects from Asia were carefully displayed in Cleveland's new museum, where they might serve a broad educational function. These pieces retained their existent cultural cachet even after being placed on display in Cleveland's museum. Following a historiographical discussion in the Introduction, my argument unfolds over five chapters and a Conclusion. In Chapter One I discuss the construction of the Cleveland Museum of Art vis-a-vis other large, urbane American museums, placing special emphasis upon the work of the museum's first Director and Curators to distinguish Cleveland's museum from peer institutions on the East Coast. Chapter Two focuses upon the impact of the American Arts and Crafts Movement on processes of collection at the museum. In Chapter Three I examine the motivations that inspired staff at the Cleveland Museum of Art to pay special attention to objects from East Asia. Chapter Four examines the museum's "Oriental Expedition" to Asia, led by the scholar-explorer Langdon Warner. In Chapter Five I discuss the perceived educational value of Asian art as displayed in Cleveland's museum. An analysis of the processes of acquisition employed by staff members at the Cleveland Museum of Art adds complexity to the existent histo (open full item for complete abstract)

Undergraduate Honors Program, Malone University, 2015, Honors Thesis

This paper focuses on the changes Malone went through between 1966-1971. At that time, Christian colleges throughout the nation were deeply wrestling with social upheaval, and many institutions decided to become secular. Then-president Everett Cattell worked with current and prospective students, faculty and staff, and alumni and parents to gather opinions to determine exactly what constituents were looking for in a Christian college. The five years of efforts culminated primarily in removing a single sentence in the student handbook that made reference to students abiding by all policies whether they were commuting or living on campus. Although the change was technically minor, it had major ramifications for the Malone community.

Master of Landscape Architecture, The Ohio State University, 2014, Architecture

This thesis considers Cleveland, Ohio's current and historic lakefront planning tradition through the lens of two land creation projects. The first, the Lake Erie International Jetport, was proposed in the late 1960s but never built. The second, the Cleveland Lakefront Nature Preserve, began its life in 1979 as a confined disposal facility for polluted sediments dredged from the Cuyahoga River and Cleveland Harbor. An examination of the motives, techniques, and desires behind these projects reveals that the creation of land from polluted dredged material is Cleveland's strongest and most consistent waterfront development tradition—one that has emerged from the distinct material economy of Cleveland to offer a future vision of the waterfront that synthesizes the city's industry, ecology, and culture.

MA, Kent State University, 2013, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Geography

Cleveland has experienced population loss in the past decade because of the economic and foreclosure crisis, which caused many of the residents to move away, creating an increase in vacant homes and lots. Urban community gardens are a form of greenspace that repurposes vacant homes and lots that would otherwise be potential sites for debris, dumping, arson, squatters, and crime. Other forms of greenspace have been shown to positively increase feelings of community, ties to place, and create feelings of safety while offering social space and recreation areas in urban environments. I conducted a survey at three urban community gardens in different Cleveland neighborhoods to determine who was using the gardens, how they were using them and if garden participation increased feelings of community, community strength, and improved how the participants felt about their neighbors and neighborhood. Non-gardeners were also surveyed for comparison. Survey results indicate that the gardens are similar to other forms of urban greenspace in that they serve to increase feelings of community, create ties to place by creating neighborhood satisfaction, and increasing feelings of safety. This research suggests that urban gardens are a positive way to repurpose vacant land in residential neighborhoods by offering greenspace and strengthening the community.

Master of Urban Planning, Design and Development, Cleveland State University, 2011, Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs

This paper examines the effect of poor school quality on neighborhood revitalization efforts in four Cleveland neighborhoods: Ohio City, Detroit Shoreway, Tremont and Downtown. The report employs survey research and real estate data analysis to examine the extent to which failing public schools encourage residents to leave the city for the suburbs, undermining efforts at revitalization. The research was particularly concerned with examining the effect on middle-class residents, or “residents of choice,” who chose to live in Cleveland although other options are available to them financially. Original research bore out common assumptions about the impact of poorly performing local schools on middle-class tenure in the city. A survey of 271 Near West and Downtown Cleveland residents revealed an overwhelmingly negative perception of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. Prospective parents almost universally reported they do not perceive the urban school district to be a viable option for their future children. Only 9 percent reported they would remain in the city and send their children to a public school, given the opportunity. This attitude was reflected as well in the neighborhood's parents, a clear majority of which (65 percent) reported their children are enrolled in private schools. It is easy to see how this negative perception of the public school system could hinder residential and neighborhood stability. About 72 percent of those surveyed said they either “had not reached the stage in their life for children,” or had children that have not reached school age. A total of 62 percent of this population said they would move to a suburban district when the time came, or that they “weren't sure” whether they would move or stay. A supporting real estate analysis, although limited in scope, showed that 66 percent of neighborhood residents who sold homes valued at $100,000 or more relocated to a suburban municipality. These results have important implications (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, Case Western Reserve University, 2009, History

Hospitals are charitable institutions and, as such, should be responsive to those in need of medical treatment. As the ability to afford healthcare becomes increasingly difficult, it is necessary to trace the origins and ways in which hospitals have historically defined and handled their charitable obligations. This paper will examine the development and transformation of charitable care, and those factors that have contributed to the change in charitable care, that University Hospitals of Cleveland has provided from its inception through the twentieth century. The central argument is that, as payment for health services moved away from the patient to third parties, the hospital commitment to charitable care diminished. This trend will be demonstrated using financial and patient data from University Hospitals of Cleveland from 1872 to 1930. In addition, the paper suggests future avenues of investigation with regard to charity care and the University Hospitals Health System.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, History

Matt Ferguson argues in "Baseball as Community Identity: Cleveland, Ohio --1891-2012," that through studying key flashpoints in Cleveland baseball history by focusing on the history of League Park, Cleveland Municipal Stadium, and Jacobs/Progressive Field, the positive memories of Cleveland Indians fans, circulated among generations of the team's boosters, have functioned as a shared myth that conceals the negative realities of professional baseball as big business. Fans past and present have created a story of the stadium as a place of civic worship, the team members as familiar neighbors, and the game as an event where gender and race cease to divide. Fans have passed on their characterization of baseball as the great social leveler, providing an emotional glue to secure succeeding generations of loyal supporters, thus effectively disguising the hard and unromantic business of sport and community identity.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2024, History

Between 1896 and 1938 Cleveland developed into one of the nation's leading Industrial centers. Cleveland's population of 262,353, which ranked tenth in the nation in 1890, increased to 900,249 by 1930 and reflected this industrial growth. Tom L. Johnson, mayor of the city from 1901 to 1909, often considered the greatest American mayor of the period, built a municipal government that attempted to deal with the urban conditions manifested by this industrial growth. At the same time, Cleveland's business and civil leaders argued that the physical city needed to project an image of modernity and progress that matched the industrial and economic production that had transformed the way of life for the residents of the nation's “sixth city.” Clevelanders had begun to realize that their city, with its growing population and accumulation of wealth due to it industrial prominence, was capable of emulating and rivaling some of great cities of Europe. This elite vision, when realized (first in the Group Plan of government buildings, and later with the Cleveland Union Terminal) often discarded and pushed to the periphery the poor (working classes) and “immoral” who lived, worked, and shopped in the spaces that were demolished and reconstructed in the creation of an imagined community of progress and modernity.

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2023, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences

Clinicians who perform psychoeducational assessments for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are typically unaware of the utility of Symptom Validity Tests (SVTs) and often rely on clinical interviews and self-report checklists for diagnosis (Suhr et al., 2008, Young & Gross, 2011). This type of methodology, however, has been found to have serious limitations as it assumes that the respondents are truthful and introspective. This is particularly evident because most self-report checklists rely on direct questioning, increasing social desirability bias. Consequently, these checklists often overestimate pathology in adults with various psychiatric conditions, producing clinically significant levels of ADHD symptoms (Harrison, 2004). The 40-item Keshev Dimensional Scale - Adult (KDS-A) was developed to address the limitations of existing measures. The development utilized facet theory (Guttman 1959; Shye 1978; Tversky & Hutchinson 1986) using the DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) criteria. Results showed that the KDS-A had comparable internal consistency with an existing self-report measure of ADHD commonly used today, and that the KDS-A was also highly correlated with the existing measure supporting the concurrent validity. The KDS-A was also shown to have slightly higher sensitivity and specificity than the existing measure used in this study. Future research needs to be conducted on the effect of embedding the KDS-A within an existing multi-scale personality measure, along with the development of norms for the measure as well.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2024, History

In 1964, white members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Cleveland began politically organizing poor white and Black citizens around bread-and-butter issues. Within two years, SDS women made Northeast Ohio the site of SDS's most effective interracial antipoverty campaign. This dissertation argues that the Cleveland Community Project succeeded because SDS women interpreted participatory democracy in a way that allowed them to see poor white and Black single mothers' daily struggles as sites of political and collective action. SDS women were firmly committed to the idea that those who lived under public policies should have significant influence over their crafting and implementation. A natural extension of that belief was SDS women's recognition that their role was to empower, not lead, impoverished women in a movement for economic justice. The history of SDS women in Cleveland illustrates that the welfare rights movement had multi-racial dimensions that previous scholarship has overlooked. As SDS women forged an interracial movement of the poor with white and Black welfare recipients, they formed the grassroots origins of Cleveland's welfare rights movement. Many of the impoverished women who collaborated with SDS founded the National Welfare Rights Organization. Recognizing white SDS women's intellectual contributions to participatory democracy sheds light on why interracial cooperation persisted in Cleveland at a time when multi-racial coalitions in other cities crumbled under the weight of racism.

Undergraduate Honors Program, Malone University, 2023, Honors Thesis

High school football rivalries are a quintessential part of adolescence and community life, although they are not often the focus of academic scholarship. This paper seeks to fill that void. Rivalries exist throughout the United States, but of focus is one of the most storied rivalries in Ohio between two perennial football state champions: Saint Ignatius High School and St. Edward High School. Saint Ignatius High School, an all-boy Catholic high school founded in 1886, is located in Cleveland's Ohio City neighborhood. St. Edward High School, situated in the nearby suburb of Lakewood and founded in 1949, is the second all-boys Catholic school in this classic rivalry. In 1952, the young football program for the St. Edward Eagles faced off against the much more experienced Saint Ignatius Wildcats on the gridiron for the first time. It was the first game in the rivalry – a rivalry that would bring together what could feel like the entire West Side of Cleveland for the yearly match-up. The annual game, played at least once a year every year since 1971, creates an atmosphere of high school football that few other high school football rivalries match. Details and outcomes of the games remain vivid in the memories of players and fans alike for generations, as fathers, sons, nephews, and friends replenish collective memory banks when they take their places on the field or in the bleachers. Alumni from both schools carry their reminiscences everywhere – from local boardrooms to conversations with passers-by in a grocery store. There is a sense of pride and purpose that continues from generation to generation, and the game, the rivalry, and the storied history spills over into every area of life. The players, the fans, and alumni celebrate each year's victory and vow to avenge any loss when the next match-up is scheduled. Such is the intensity of the competitiveness that exists between the St. Edward Eagles and the Saint Ignatius Wildcats. And this rivalry is rath (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Science, University of Akron, 2023, Geology

Rocks develop cracks (joints) to relieve internal stresses as they are depressurized. Joints increase the permeability in rocks, which affects fluid and contaminant flow in the formation. There are three possible causes of joint formation in Northeastern Ohio: tectonics, glaciation, and valley relief. The thoroughly jointed formations exposed in NE Ohio are part of the Appalachian Plateau which has experienced unloading stresses due to the Alleghanian Orogeny (315-270 mya), a more recent series of glaciation events in the Pleistocene (700,000-14,000 years ago) and valley formation by erosion. I measured joint orientations in formations exposed in Northeastern Ohio that were deposited before and during the Alleghanian Orogeny to determine if their orientations reflect stresses during the Alleghanian Orogeny, the Pleistocene ice age, or valley unloading processes. Joint spacing was also measured to determine if a relationship exists between lithology and the joint spacing. I measured joints in the Olmsted siltstone bed of the Ohio Shale (n=131), Cleveland Member of Ohio Shale (n=131), Bedford Shale (n=209), Berea Sandstone (n=137), Orangeville Shale Member (n=27), Sharpsville Sandstone Member (n=203), and the Meadville Shale Member (n=203). I also analyzed measurements of joint orientations in coal seams, the Ohio Shale, the Black Hand Sandstone Member and Sharon Sandstone from previous studies by Ver Steeg (1942), Miller (1996), Filiano (2014), Ritter (2016), and Rieman (2017). The data suggests that the joints in all formations were predominantly formed due to tectonics during the main stage of the Alleghanian Orogeny based on the orientation of the primary joint set, which was oriented parallel to maximum compression direction during this event.

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, History

This dissertation examines the development of encyclopedic authority in historical study from Diderot to software bot. This dissertation focuses on the evolution of encyclopedic authority from Greek scholar to Diderot, and to software bot. It draws upon a wealth of centuries-old publications in digital archives, records of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), original interviews from influential historians, assessment guides of the American Historical Association (AHA), and previously unpublished memos from the AHA Research Division to analyze the observations of historians about encyclopedias, the changing nature of their professional assessments over time, and the emergence of the geographical based encyclopedia of history as an infrastructure for spatial thinking in the digital age. From one perspective, the encyclopedia format has showed remarkable adaptation to changing technologies, as evidenced by the proliferation of digital encyclopedias, which in 2021 were consulted by millions of knowledge seekers daily through their computers, phones, and other smart devices. From another perspective, historical scholars have considered the encyclopedia format as something as an outlier since the creation of the AHA, as evidenced by the history of their professional assessments, and have generally resisted encyclopedia writing and editing as a qualification for faculty tenure. iv I argue that lack of consensus within the academic community over what constitutes quality in the digital age has stifled the production of vetted, scholarly work, in urban encyclopedias to the detriment of the profession, given that Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world and generates popular authority through billions of viewers annually. Public authority has increasingly forced urban encyclopedias to compete with the volume and speed of Wikipedia content updates, which requires no original thought from its contributo (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, Sociology

In 2018, 5,313 Cleveland households received eviction judgments with a scheduled set-out date. These litigants found themselves faced with a ruling legally allowing them to be forcibly removed from their home as early as seven days from their court date. Eviction as a social problem has re-emerged in both public discourse and academia. Yet this “eviction crisis” is not new, and scholars have extensively documented how eviction processes severely harm dwellers. Missing is research critically examining how powerful judicial institutions shape litigant trajectories. This dissertation is an extended case method study of Cleveland Municipal Court – Housing Division (Cleveland Housing Court). Established in 1980, Cleveland Housing Court is a special-purpose court, unique in its exclusive jurisdiction and proclaimed “problem-solving” within the civil eviction realm. Contrasting previous assumptions of civil courts as passive institutions, this work systematically documents the occurrence of formalized eviction in Cleveland utilizing participant observation and analysis of archived court records between 2016 and early 2020. This work sought to (1) understand the formal eviction process, (2) document experiences of litigants and court personnel, and (3) explore if and how court actions reproduced owner privileges, refuted dweller exploitation, or mitigated against negative consequences imposed on litigants. In focusing on this court, this research sought to recognize how everyday practices resulting in the mass removal of Clevelanders from their homes were justified, routinized, and perpetuated by this judicial institution, questioning if there is room within powerful, bureaucratic structures of the state such as this for liberation and change. Ultimately, I found that Cleveland Housing Court has nearly perfected procedural justice to a point where dwellers blamed only themselves for their predicament and judicial staff continued to reproduce inequality. This is done unde (open full item for complete abstract)