Category: Immigration and Ethnicity

DALL, ANDREW SR. (ca. 1821- 22 Nov. 1887) was a building contractor, stone cutter and mason who, together with his son, ANDREW DALL, JR. (1850-1923) formed ANDREW DALL & SON, building contractors, prominent during late 19th-century Cleveland.

DAWE, CHARLES DAVIS (16 Mar. 1886-24 Aug. 1958) found a career as a choral conductor in Cleveland, where he was best remembered as founder of the ORPHEUS MALE CHORUS. A native of Port Talbot, S. Wales, he studied music in London and began conducting choirs in Wales by the time he was 18. In 1912 he emigrated to Cleveland with his wife May and infant son, Chas.

DE CAPITE, MICHAEL (13 April 1915-21 Jan. 1958) drew upon his Cleveland background to launch a promising though short career as a novelist. The son of Italian immigrants on the near west side, he played BASEBALL in the shadows of industrial smokestacks in the FLATS and graduated from Lincoln High School. He attended Ohio Univ.

DE SAUZE, EMILE BIALS (7 Dec. 1878-11 July 1964), director of foreign languages for the CLEVELAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS from 1918-49 and developer of the conversational teaching method, was born in Tours, France and graduated from the University of Poitiers (1900) before coming to the U.S. in 1905 and receiving a Ph.D. from St. Joseph College.

DEHARRACK, CHARLES PERETZ (10 Sept. 1881-24 June 1985) was a pianist, composer, and choral director active in both Cleveland and international music circles. He was born in Brest-Litovsk, Russia. Brought to Cleveland at the age of 4, he attended local elementary schools before returning to Europe for musical training which included piano lessons from Xaver Scharwenka and Theodore Leschetizky.

DENNICE NOVOVEKU was the successor of Pokrok, a Czech (see CZECHS) rationalist weekly that was moved to Cleveland from Chicago in 1871. Brought here by its editor, G. B. Zdrubek, Pokrok (Progress) was located on Croton St. Although he had imported VACLAV SNAJDR and humorist John V.

DEPAOLO, LOUIS (1894-5 Dec. 1977), a businessman and leader who earned the title "mayor of LITTLE ITALY," was born in Italy, son of Alex and Lena (Truisonno) DePaolo. He left Campobasso to join 4 uncles in Cleveland in 1910. He studied 2 years at night school and was trained as a tailor by an uncle.

DICK, MARCEL (18 Aug. 1898-13 Dec. 1991) provided Cleveland with a link to the Austrian musician Arnold Schoenberg, as head of the advanced theory and composition dept. of the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC.

DINARDO, ANTONIO (1887-29 June 1948) was an architect active in Cleveland from 1921-48, born in Pennapiedimonte, Italy, son of Domenico and Rosina Augeta Domenica (Guiliante) DiNardo. After coming to America, DiNardo attended the University of Pennsylvania and the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in Philadelphia. He then studied in Europe.

DIRVA (The Field) appeared on 26 Aug. 1916 and became Cleveland's major Lithuanian-language newspaper. Organized by Apolonas B. Bartusevicius, it succeeded a short-lived predecessor named Santaika (Peace). Vincas K. Jokubynas was Dirva's original editor, but Kazys S. Karpius took over by 1918 for what became a 30-year tenure, acquiring a controlling interest in the paper in 1925.

The DNIPRO CHORUS was formed in 1955 by post-WORLD WAR II refugees to continue their native Ukrainian traditions of choral singing. Named for the most powerful river in Ukraine, the group was organized by Eugene Sadowsky, the choir director at St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church.

DOWLING, VINCENT (September 7, 1929 - May 10th, 2013) served as an actor, director, and artistic director for Dublin’s Abbey Theatre, and as the artistic and producing director (1976-1984) of Cleveland’s Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival (see

DUTCH. Only 161 Dutch-born people lived in Cuyahoga County in 1850, but the Dutch community reached 603 in 1870, with the peak reached in 1910 with 1,076, plus an estimated 5,000 persons of Dutch parentage or ancestry.

EISENMAN, CHARLES (1865-9 March 1923), clothing manufacturer and organizer and first president of the Fed. of Jewish Charities, was born in New York City, son of Isadore and Caroline (Rosenblatt) Eisenman. He moved to Cleveland as a young man, and cofounded the K & E Co. (later the Kaynee Co.), manufacturing shirts and blouses.

The EMERALD CIVIC SOCIETY was established in 1968 to enhance the social and cultural life of the Irish-American community in Cleveland. The organization was founded by a group of Cleveland men who decided to add excitement to Cleveland's annual St.

ENAKOPRAVNOST (Equality) offered Cleveland's Slovenian residents their first daily newspaper when it began publication in Apr. 1918. A primary impetus behind its appearance was the movement that resulted in the establishment of an independent Yugoslav state in the final months of World War I.

ESPERANZA, INC., Motivating Hispanic Youth, is a youth organization founded in 1983 by a group of community leaders interested in the education of Hispanics. Originally known as the Cleveland Hispanic Scholarship Fund (CHSF), Esperanza promoted post-secondary education in the Hispanic community through "stay in school" and mentorship programs.

ESTONIANS. Estonia, situated on the northeastern shores of the Baltic Sea, became a republic in 1918 after winning independence from IMPERIAL RUSSIA.

ETHNIC AND RACE RELATIONS. In 1930 James C. Jones, the manager of a REAL ESTATE office in Cleveland, wrote to a representative of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., regarding the ALTA HOUSE property that Rockefeller owned in LITTLE ITALY.

EWHA WOMANS UNIVERSITY (이화여자대학교)– located in Seoul, South Korea – was founded on 1886 May 31 by Mary F. Scranton. Ewha is the first university and graduate school for women in Korea. The private research university’s alumnae include Korea’s first woman doctor, lawyer, judge, and prime minister. 

EXCELSIOR was a Jewish club established "for the purpose of establishing intimate friendly relations among ourselves, and to enjoy the advantages of an Association calculated to produce enlightened social and literary pleasure." Twenty-two men met on 20 Oct.

FEDER, MARK (7 July 1907-3 July 1992) was a leading figure in Cleveland theatrical circles. He was the founder of the Jewish Community Theatre of the JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER (JCC), serving as its drama director from 1948 until retirement in 1972.

The FEDERATION OF GERMAN-AMERICAN SOCIETIES OF GREATER CLEVELAND is the fourth such organization to act as the official voice of the numerous German-American groups in Cuyahoga County. Formed in 1890 as Der Bund der Deutschamerikaner von Cuyahoga County, it was an outgrowth of the committee that sponsored the first German Day Celebration in Cleveland that year. It dissolved shortly before the turn of the century.

The FEDERATION OF ITALIAN-AMERICAN SOCIETIES OF NORTHERN OHIO is a service organization whose mission is to coordinate the work of local Italian societies, award scholarships, and to work on behalf of the area's Italian community. The federation had its roots in the Columbus Day Parade Committee, established in 1951. It formally incorporated in 1963.

FILIPINO AMERICANS. Immigrants from the Philippines first settled on the West Coast, and only later began to relocate elsewhere. The Philippine-American community began its Greater Cleveland connection in 1920 when the first known Filipino, Martin Conde, moved to Cleveland from California. Attracted by the promise of plentiful employment opportunities, others were soon to follow.