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  Journalism in Cleveland

  Michael Skor

  2018 marks the bicentennial anniversary of journalism in Cleveland. On July 31, 1818, the Cleveland Gazette and Commercial Register was founded marking the beginning of Cleveland's rich tradition of news reporting. After several decades of small, partisan papers, the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Press battled one another for Cleveland's readers for more than 100 years. Louis B. Seltzer, editor-in-chief of the Cleveland Press for nearly four decades, reflected on his role in the newspaper business: "The Press strives to be with the people, always at their side, always beating with their hearts, always fighting for what is good and against what is bad. The Press' address is, has been, and always will be—Greater Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A." (The Years Were Good).

  This webpage has pulled together web resources from the Cleveland Memory Project and elsewhere in celebration of photojournalists, journalists, columnists, and editorial cartoonists with particular emphasis on works since the end of World War II.

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  The Betty Klaric Collection

  Elizabeth A. Piwkowski

  Betty Klaric was a pioneering environmental reporter for the Cleveland Press. She began her career in 1955 as a "copy boy" at the paper, rising to reporter, assistant city editor, and first woman president of the Cleveland Newspaper Guild. Klaric's persistent and unflinching coverage of pollution in Cleveland's air, water, and soil inspired environmental legislation and community involvement, and won her national acclaim.

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  Editorial Cartoonists and Their Work

  Cecilia Hartman and O. Lauren Felder

  Due to a strong publishing and artistic tradition, Cleveland has been blessed with many talented graphical artists, including some who worked for the city's major newspapers. Use this page as a pathfinder to resources about some of the area's more notable editorial cartoonists of the last century.

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  The Roy Grove Cartoon Collection

  Cecilia Hartman

  From 1917 through the mid-1920s, Roy Grove was a cartoonist with the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), one of the first newspaper syndicates. During World War I he traveled to Great Britain, France, Switzerland and Italy, supplying the NEA with cartoons and art, many appearing in The Cleveland Press. Read more about Roy Grove.Read more about Roy Grove.

  The Roy Grove Cartoon Collection contains some of Grove's World War I cartoons, as well as some of his sports cartoons. The collection was donated to Cleveland State University Library Special Collections Department by the Gardner Family, neighbors to the Grove family in Cleveland Heights.

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  Tony Mastroianni Review Collection

  Douglas Mastroianni

  Read a collection of 20 years' worth of local reviews of theater, film, and music, as well as interviews with celebrities passing through Cleveland.

  Cleveland native Tony Mastroianni wrote about the theater, movies, television and art during his 32 years with the Cleveland Press. Mastroianni won three Newspaper Guild awards for critical writing and three Press Club awards. The Cleveland Performer, a monthly publication for theater people, voted him the most knowledgeable and readable of all local critics. In 1984, he was given the William F. McDermott award of the Cleveland Critics Circle for contributions to the local theater. He was the paper's entertainment editor when it closed in 1982.

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  Messing About in Boats: The Amazing Adventure of Robert Manry

  Cecilia Hartman

  On June 1, 1965 Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Plain Dealer and a Willowick, Ohio resident, left Falmouth, Massachusetts aboard his 13.5-foot sailboat, Tinkerbelle, to begin his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He arrived in Falmouth, England seventy-eight days later on August 17, 1965. At the time of the crossing Tinkerbelle was the smallest boat to have ever crossed the Atlantic.

  This website is a compilation of materials related to the events that led up to that journey, the trip itself and the events following. It includes an e-book version of Manry's book Tinkerbelle, approximately 150 photographs from the Cleveland Press and William Ashbolt collections, as well as editorial cartoons, excerpts from his log book, magazine articles and footage related to the journey.

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  Roldo Bartimole -- Point of View

  Jodie Lyons and Vern Morrison

  Cleveland Magazine called him "the poor man's Tom Paine." John Wicklein in the April 1, 1993 issue of Progressive referred to him as "Cleveland's Gadfly." Whether you consider him to be Cleveland's conscience or "Cleveland's curmudgeon," from 1968 to 2000 iconoclastic journalist, Roldo Bartimole, rocked Cleveland's political boat with his biweekly newsletter, Point of View.

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  Cleveland Press Collection

  Comprised of hundreds of thousands of clippings and photographs, The Cleveland Press Collection is the former editorial library, or "morgue," of The Cleveland Press and is now part of Cleveland State University Library's Special Collections. The last of Cleveland's daily afternoon newspapers, The Cleveland Press was published from 1878 until 1982.

  The collection was donated to the CSU Library in 1984 by the newspaper's owner, Joseph E. Cole, who was then a CSU Trustee. Though little survives from the first half-century, the collection's coverage of local and national history gets progressively stronger after 1920.

  Presently only a very small percentage of the approximately half million 8x10 black and white photographs and one million news clippings have been digitized and are available for you to search or browse. We are continuing to increase this number as time and volunteer help permits.

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  Annals of Cleveland: A Depression-Era Project of the WPA

  Jeanne Figueira Grossetti, Jonetha K. Jackson, and Tanya Tahsler

  During the New Deal Era, Annals of Cleveland staff summarized and indexed material from early Cleveland newspapers, beginning with the inaugural issue of the city's first paper, the July 31, 1818 Cleaveland Gazette and Commercial Register. The project provided jobs for unemployed white-collar workers during the Depression of the 1930s and created an important record of early life and thought in the city of Cleveland.

  This website offers a window into the social context in which the Annals were created and provides a short glimpse of the project as a whole.