CHAPMAN, RAYMOND JOHNSON "RAY" (15 Jan. 1891-17 Aug. 1920), a CLEVELAND INDIAN between 1912-20, was the last major-league player to die as a result of being hit by a pitched baseball. Born in Beaver Dam, Ky. but growing up in Herrin, Ill, during 1910-1911 he played baseball with Springfield and Davenport in the Three III League.
The CHARITY FOOTBALL GAME, sponsored by the PLAIN DEALER, was begun in 1931 to raise money for the newspaper's Give-A-Christmas Fund and to determine the city's interscholastic football champion. The game was played annually during the Thanksgiving holiday at the CLEVELAND MUNICIPAL STADIUM through 1970.
The CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY, est. 14 Jan. 1881 as the Society for Organizing Charity, sought to coordinate and organize charity along scientific lines to prevent recipients from becoming "sadly pauperized in spirit" as a result of "injudicious and indiscriminate giving." The movement began in London in 1869; the Cleveland society was one of 22 such U.S.
CHARLES DICKENS'S VISIT TO CLEVELAND was part of a tour to the U.S. in 1842. The English novelist, his wife, and a traveling friend, Mr. Putnam, arrived just after midnight on Monday, 25 Apr., on the steamboat Constitution after a rough voyage across Lake Erie from Sandusky. It didn't prove to be a particularly successful stopover.
The CHARLES SCHWEINFURTH RESIDENCE, located at 1951 E 75th St., was built in 1894 by architect CHARLES FREDERICK SCHWEINFURTH as his private home. Schweinfurth was initially commissioned by railroad tycoon, William K.
CHARTER ONE FINANCIAL, INC., began in 1934 as First Federal Savings and Loan Assn. of Cleveland, with $75,000 in capital and an office at 5710 Portage Ave. Founded to serve the CZECH community, the association thrived under the guidance of Charles F.
CHARTER SCHOOLS, known in Ohio as "community schools," appeared in Cleveland as elsewhere in the United States beginning in the 1990s. Charter schools represent one version of the reform called "school choice," which seeks to improve education by providing students more options.
CHARTER STEEL, a leading supplier of hot-rolled and processed steel rod, coiled bar, and wire, is a privately owned subsidiary of Charter Manufacturing Company of Mequon, Wisconsin, which also owns Charter Wire and Charter Automotive.
The CHASE BRASS & COPPER CO. was once one of the largest manufacturers of brass and copper products in the country. The company traces its origins to a firm incorporated in 1876 in Connecticut. In 1929 the company built its first midwestern plant, on Babbitt Rd. in EUCLID.
CHASE, RUSSELL N. (18 Feb. 1900-24 April 1980) was a lawyer active in the defense of accused communists and in the affairs of the American Civil Liberties Union. A native Clevelander, the son of William and Edna Thomas Chase, he was a graduate of Asheville School for Boys in Asheville, N.C.
CHAUNCEY, HERBERT S. (16 Apr. 1887-22 June 1930), business and civic leader, was appointed in 1929 as the first African American member of the Cleveland City Planning Commission (see CITY PLANNING). Born in Eastman, Georgia, to Coleman and Marietta Chauncey, he was educated at Talladega College. After becoming a railway postal clerk, he transferred to Cleveland.
CHEMICAL INDUSTRY. For the first 60 years of its existence, Cleveland knew only the rather homespun chemical industries of a typical rural community, time-honored processes such as dyeing, tanning, soapmaking, and bleaching. Cleveland was essentially one of several small towns along Lake Erie.
The CHESAPEAKE & OHIO RAILROAD, controlled by entrepreneurs ORIS P. AND MANTIS J. VAN SWERINGEN at one time, was created by an act of the Virginia legislature on 18 Feb. 1826. The charter provided a capital of $300,000 and empowered the new road to lay tracks through Louisa County, VA. In a few years, the tracks extended from Hanover Jct.
The CHESED SHEL EMETH CEMETERY ASSN. was established in 1903 to provide traditional Jewish burials for indigent Jews. During the height of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, many Cleveland Jews died without friends or family who could provide for a proper, ritually correct burial. An initial drive for donations culminated in the purchase of a tract of land on Ridge Rd.
The CHESHIRE CHEESE CLUB OF CLEVELAND, 3443 Euclid Ave., an invitational club of men, meets weekly to hear guest speakers, review books, and discuss "the topics of the day." The club began in 1917, when a group of businessmen who were meeting informally for luncheon at Chandler & Rudd (next to the MAY CO. on PUBLIC SQUARE)
CHESNUTT, CHARLES WADDELL (20 June 1858-15 Nov. 1932) was an AFRICAN AMERICAN author and lawyer who dealt with sensitive issues, like race, from an African American point of view. Born in Cleveland to Andrew J. and Maria Chesnutt, the family moved to Fayetteville, North Carolina, where the Chesnutts had family ties.
CHESNUTT, HELEN MARIA (6 Dec. 1880-7 Aug. 1969), a Latin instructor and co-author of a Latin textbook, was a notable figure among the earliest women of color in American classical education.
The CHEVROLET PONTIAC CANADA GROUP-PARMA PLANT, DIVISION GENERAL MOTORS CORP. at Brookpark and Stumph roads was built as part of GM's post-World War II expansion in the Cleveland area. The plant opened in 1949 to build automatic transmissions for the Chevrolet Division.
CHIEF THUNDERWATER (10 September 1865-10 June 1950), whose birth name was Oghema Niagara, was a NATIVE AMERICAN entertainer, businessman, and political activist who worked to protect the rights and cultures of Indigenous peoples, i
CHIEF WAHOO is a caricature of a Native American that was used from 1947 to 2018 in many facets of the CLEVELAND INDIANS’ uniform.
CHILD CARE. Cleveland’s children in need have been cared for by both the private and the public sectors.
CHILD GUIDANCE CENTER OF GREATER CLEVELAND. See GUIDANCE CENTERS.
CHILDREN AND YOUTH. Attitudes toward children and youth in Cleveland and the Western Reserve have varied over time, affected by local factors and national trends. One motif has been the change from viewing children as miniature adults with few rights to seeing them as autonomous individuals with unique needs. Class, gender, and ethnicity have always helped determine the characters of particular maturation experiences.
The CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY,established in 1857 and incorporated on 22 Sept. 1865, was the second children's aid society in the U.S.
CHILDREN'S FRESH AIR CAMP & HOSPITAL. See HEALTH HILL HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN.
CHINESE. Cleveland's Chinese population began to grow only after the 1860s. However, their numbers were small; in 1880 they were counted in the census with the Japanese, totaling 23. The 1890 census showed 38 Chinese, and by 1900 their number exceeded 100. The settlers were all Cantonese—from China's southern province of Guangdong (Kwangtung), of which Canton, now Guangzhou, is the capital.
CHISHOLM, HENRY (22 April 1822-9 May 1881), known as the "father of the Cleveland steel trade," was one of the leading iron and steel manufacturers in the United States during the nineteenth century. Henry Chisholm was born in Lochgelly, Fifeshire, Scotland, the son of Stewart Chisholm, a mining contractor, who passed away when Henry was ten years old.
CHISHOLM, WILLIAM (12 August 1825 – 10 January 1908) was an industrialist who pioneered processes to make screws, nails, other fasteners, and shovels. He was the brother of HENRY CHISHOLM who was one of the principle figures in the creation of
The CHOLERA EPIDEMIC OF 1832 began in May when an immigrant ship landed at Quebec with cases of Asiatic cholera aboard. The disease spread through the city and quickly up the St. Lawrence River valley. Panic spread across the Great Lakes region. Combined with the fears of Indian attacks ignited by the Black Hawk War in the West, the fear of a cholera epidemic occasioned terror and discouragement in Cleveland.
The CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY OF CLEVELAND is a choral group of more than 80 singers from the Greater Cleveland area. It was formed in 1975 by alumni and parents of the Cleveland Hts. High School A Cappella Choir. A. Edward Battaglia II, a former director of the Hts. High choir, has been the society's founding director for its entire history.
The CHRIST CHILD SOCIETY, Cleveland Chapter, founded in 1916 as the fifth chapter in the U.S., is a Roman Catholic organization of lay volunteers serving "the needy, the unborn, the young and the elderly regardless of nationality or creed." Mary Virginia Merrick founded the first Christ Child Society in Washington, DC, in 1887 (inc. 1903), out of concern for poor children.
CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS were first organized in Cleveland by General Erastus N. Bates in 1877. Bates secured 2 rooms in a downtown building and formed a ministry based on the teachings of Mary Baker Eddy, founder of the Christian Science church in Boston (1866). Christian Science interprets the Scriptures as maintaining that disease, sin, death, etc., are caused by mental error and have no real existence.
The CHURCH OF THE COVENANT, the Presbyterian Church, located at 11205 EUCLID AVE. in UNIV. CIRCLE, resulted in 1920 from mergers of 3 churches. The Euclid St. (United) Presbyterian Church, originally located at Euclid and E. 14th St., organized in 1853. Known as the Euclid Ave.
CHURCH OF THE EPIPHANY, REFORMED EPISCOPAL. See EMMANUEL CHURCH (EPISCOPAL).
CHURCH OF THE MASTER in CLEVELAND HTS. organized in 1921, the descendant of 6 Baptist churches. Its earliest progenitor was the Scovill Ave. Mission at Scovill and Hudson (E. 30th) St., organized as a Sunday school in 1858 by the Erie St. Baptist Church. A Gothic frame building was built the following year. The church operated as a mission of the Erie St. Church until Jan.
CHURCH OF THE SAVIOUR in CLEVELAND HTS. had its roots in a Methodist Episcopal church for the Heights, established on the Nottingham-Glenville Circuit in 1875. From early meetings held in schoolhouses and homes, it grew to be a large and quintessentially suburban church, founded in the SUBURBS rather than transplanted from the inner city.
CHURCH SQUARE SHOPPING CENTER, part of an effort to rebuild the inner city, was the first major retail development on the near-east side in 40 years. Planning for the site, bound by Euclid, E. 79th, Chester, and E.
CHURCH, HENRY JR. (20 May 1836-17 April 1908), a CHAGRIN FALLS VILLAGE blacksmith, achieved a posthumous reputation as an American primitive for his avocation of painting and sculpting. He learned the blacksmithing trade from his father, one of the founders of Chagrin Falls. The younger Church was born in Chagrin Falls and educated largely by his mother.
CINECRAFT PRODUCTIONS, INC. is a film studio based in Cleveland.
The CIO "PURGE" CONVENTION took place in Cleveland 31 Oct.-4 Nov. 1949. Delegates to this national CIO convention voted to remove leftist and Fascist unions and union leaders from the organization.
CIRCLE HEALTH SERVICES, INC., often called the Free Clinic, was established in June 1970 as the Free Medical Clinic of Greater Cleveland to provide free, nonpunitive medical care to young people with drug problems. One of the few free clinics from that period to survive, it expanded to meet changing community needs, remaining a respected medical and social-service agency.
For four decades the CIRCLE THEATER was a fixture at DOAN'S CORNERS. It was one of five proximate entertainment venues in the area, along with Loew’s Park Theatre, Keith’s 105th Street Theatre, the University Theatre, and the Alhambra.
CITIZENS BUREAU. See INTERNATIONAL SERVICES CENTER.
The CITIZENS LEAGUE OF GREATER CLEVELAND, successor to the Municipal Assn. and the Civic League, is a prominent civic organization noted for its evaluation of candidates and issues and for promoting good government. The nonpartisan Municipal Assn.
The CITY BEAUTIFUL MOVEMENT was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that occurred during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities.
The CITY BLUE PRINTING CO., a total reproduction printing firm, was founded in 1895 by John G. Sharp and John F. Schwanfelder and ownership continued to remain in the Sharp family through the 1990s. The company began when John F. Schwanfelder (1851-1913) and two employees set up shop as a manufacturer and importer of blueprint papers at 451 Pearl Rd. By 1902 the business moved to the Williamson Bldg. on Euclid Ave.
The CITY CLUB OF CLEVELAND, often referred to as "Cleveland's Citadel of Free Speech," provides a central meeting place for members of diverse beliefs and opinions to participate in free and open discussions on the social, political, and economic problems of the city, the state, the nation, and the world. The idea of a city club for Cleveland was formulated at an organizational luncheon on 14 June 1912.
CITY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL. See CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY.