Museum - The Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument in Cleveland, Ohio

On this Veterans Day, take a moment to watch this incredible 1936 film of service members from all around the country parading through the streets of Cleveland and Washington D.C. Towards the end, you will even see some of the Civil War veterans who were still living at the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amw7PHeYXkg

Reminder: We will be holding a virtual Veterans Day observance tomorrow at 11:00 A.M. on our Facebook page. Our speaker will be Lieutenant Colonel Philip E. Rutledge II, USAF, MSC (Ret). Tune in and help us honor the veterans who served our great country.

The grouping At Short Range represents the beginning of the escalation of violence. It depicts a captain desperately attempting to level his cannon, unaware that his two privates have been wounded. A cannon like this would have been used in large-scale engagements, often at the beginning of battle to bombard enemy lines prior to a charge.

This photo is from the 1965 "On the Grow with Cleveland", a book published by Central National Bank on it's 75th anniversary. I believe, based on the new parki...ng garage attached to the Sheraton Cleveland (now The Renaissance Hotel) and the rail lines still present, that this image would date to circa 1964. Yes, there was a time in Cleveland when most of the buildings were dark with soot and the sky was usually smoggy... how soon we forget the grit of a real city.

A beautiful, unseasonably warm Saturday we have today in the heart of Cleveland!

This image from our collections depicts Cleveland’s Public Square in the fall, likely in 1859. This type of antique photograph is called an ambrotype. Each ambr...otype is a unique image that can only be reproduced by photographing the photograph. If you took apart an ambrotype, you would find what looks like a negative image on a piece of glass, with a dark backing behind it. With the dark background, the negative image looks positive to the viewer. The photographer could also add color to a photograph by hand painting colored pigments onto the glass, as you can see here. If you’ve got antique photos at home, you probably don’t want to take them apart to discover what type of process was used to create the photograph. To spot an ambrotype, look for milky colors and less reflection on the image when it is moved in the light. A daguerreotype, printed on a polished copper plate, will reflect much more light. For more information on identifying photographic processes, you can borrow a tool from our curators’ tool kit: The Graphics Atlas. http://ow.ly/N3QQ50CcOb5

This photo shows Civil War veterans being mustered out on Public Square after returning from battle in 1865. Although little is known about the men shown in the photo, the image really conveys the scale of the Civil War and what it meant to a fledgeling city like Cleveland. Of the more than 9,000 who served from Cuyahoga County, over 1,000 would never return from battle. The building in the background was the Post Office. From Cleveland Public Library.

Terminal Tower with the Soldiers and Sailors Monument in its shadow.

These photos show voting booths in downtown Cleveland in 1890. The first shows a voting booth for Ward 4 in the northeast quadrant of Public Square. The Society for Savings building is in the background. The second shows voting booths being moved into place along Superior Avenue. The 1890 midterm elections took place during Republican (and Civil War veteran) Benjamin Harrison’s term. It represented a major loss for Republicans due to the slow economy made worse by the Panic of 1890. From Cleveland Public Library.

We had some of the first snow of the season over the weekend. For anyone familiar with Cleveland weather, you know it won't be long before it starts looking like this lovely day in 1911. Photo from Cleveland Public Library.

Happy Halloween from the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument! Many legends exist about the series of mysterious tunnels beneath the Monument. Although we cannot confirm any such stories, here are some images from down below where few have ever had a chance to see.

In our last post, we looked at the fraught relationship between business magnate John D. Rockefeller and his brother Franklin Rockefeller who served in the Civil War. Franklin did not experience the vast financial success of his brothers John or William and, after his departure from Standard Oil, never spoke with either of them until his death in 1917. Both William and John D. Rockefeller were said to have been present at Franklin's funeral. Although both Franklin and John D. Rockefeller are buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Franklin is not buried in the large Rockefeller family plot. He is buried nearby in his own plot alongside his family.