The Western Reserve Historical Society has been around for 150 years, the past 50 of them with John J. Grabowski on the staff. Now the society’s senior vice president of research and publications, Grabowski also teaches at Case Western Reserve University and edits the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, which he helped launch 30 years ago.
Cleveland creds: lifelong local, born near Harvard and East 71st
Currently lives: Cleveland Heights
Age: 69
Schooling: South High; bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate at Case Western
Family: wife and collaborator, Diane Ewart; no children
Favorite locally owned restaurants: Primo Vino
My Cleveland: John Grabowski
What are some of your favorite holdings at the museum?
John: I’m still amazed at some of the things in our collection. We have [U.S. Senator] Mark Hanna’s albums of clippings and letters from everyone from Teddy Roosevelt on down. We did a politics exhibit for the RNC [Republican National Convention].
My specialty’s immigration and migration. I edited the letters of Michael Kniola, who sold steamship tickets and money orders in what’s now Slavic Village from the 1880s to the 1920s. I was in the attic of Kniola Travel and found his correspondence with ship companies and stubs of money orders and tickets. They’re a key to understand who was bringing whom from where. I found stubs for money orders that my grandfather had sent back to his family.
We have what I refer to as the Alsbacher Document. It was prepared by a rabbi in Bavaria and given to Moses Alsbacher, who led a group of Jews to Cleveland in 1839. This documents lists the names of those leaving and those staying. It reminds those leaving to keep the faith of their forebears.
We have Nancie Swan Foskett’s diary. She was a schoolteacher in Medina in the 1850s and ’60s. She’s watching troops muster for the war and wondering, “What can I do?” She was invited to a dance by somebody she disliked, but the proprieties of the time required her to go.
We have the papers of John P. Green, pioneer of Labor Day in Ohio, the first black elected official in Cleveland. We have the Alan Cole collection of images of middle class African-American aspirational life from the 1920s to the ’50s, the masons, the small shop entrepreneurs who wanted pictures taken. There’s a picture of Jean Murrell Capers [former Cleveland municipal judge] on a basketball team.
How’s it feel to peep into lives of old?
John: Sometimes you feel a bit guilty prying, but the power of the written word is incredible. These documents are precious. They’re the only way to get into the people’s heads.
History’s a very personal thing. Families tell stories. The fastest growing hobby in the U.S. is genealogy. It’s not just finding out who people were but where they were, what they did, what motivated them.
You’ve printed two editions of the Cleveland Encyclopedia. What now?
John: It continues online at ech.case.edu. We get about a million hits a month. We still get feedback: “So-and-So really had four children. I’m a member of the family.”
We are transferring it to a new platform. We’re going to invite people not, as in Wikipedia, to post, but write to us and we’ll filter stuff. It always has to be vetted.
What do you teach?
John: I teach courses in sports history, the Civil War and public history. That’s the history practiced outside academia: in museums, books, national parks, TV, movies, websites, newspapers, magazines…
Tell us your own history.
John: My mother’s parents came from Slovenia. My father’s parents came from what is now Poland in 1896. We didn’t have a car. We’d walk the neighborhood, and he’d say, “This is where we played ball. This was Grandma’s first house…”
When I went to college, my major was chemistry. I interned at Sherwin-Williams. After a bad calculus professor, I changed my major to history. I lived at home with my widowed mom. I took the bus to the rapid to get to school.
I started at the society as a book page in ’67 while an undergraduate. I later helped create the Cleveland Regional Ethnic archives.
I first saw my wife, Diane Ewart, on the second floor of the Hanna mansion, sitting on the landing. She was waiting to interview for an internship.
I taught awhile at Kent State, Tri-C and Cleveland State. Now I’m an associate professor here.
Have you done other books besides the Encyclopedia?
John: My wife and I have worked on several books over the years, including “Cleveland Then and Now” and “Cleveland: A History in Motion.” We co-edited “Identity, Conflict and Cooperation: Central Europeans in Cleveland, 1850-1930.”
I edited a series for Kent State Press: “Voices of Diversity.” I’ve written the history of Bilkent University in Turkey, where I taught during two Fulbright fellowships. I finished a book coming out this year for the 150th anniversary of the history society: “Cleveland A-Z.” It’s a light history of everything from Hector Boiardi of Chef Boy-ar-dee to Thomas Quayle.
Thomas who?
John: Thomas Quayle the shipbuilder. I needed a Q.
What do you do in your spare time?
John: When the weather’s good, I’m a biker. I ride from my house to downtown, then across the valley — usually on the Hope Memorial Bridge — to Edgewater. I usually work my way back through Tremont, but sometimes go out to Denison and Harvard and through Slavic Village.
I build ship models. I’m into ocean liners because they were for immigrants.
I get a weekly good feeling when I drive Diane to her volunteer work at Tails from the City, a no-kill cat shelter on the near West Side. I sometimes do a bit of handyman work there but usually spend time with the cats.
We are wedded to WVIZ and the Cleveland International Film Festival.
Is this anniversary year sentimental?
John: One-hundred and fifty years are quite an achievement for any institution. Working there, and at CWRU, which has been around since 1826 puts me, as an historian, in a very historical context.
For information about events celebrating the 150th anniversary of the Western Reserve Historical Society, see https://www.wrhs.org/share-your-story.
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