These 6 Photos of Cleveland In The 1950s Are Mesmerizing
By Nikki Rhoades|Published June 13, 2023
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Nikki Rhoades
Author
Nikki is a lifelong Ohioan with a love for literature. She holds a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Akron and has enjoyed publishing her written work since 2007. She has a love of travel and does so frequently, though she believes that home is where the heart is — she continues to work in and around Cleveland as a digital content specialist to this day, working on everything from commercial scripts and social media posts to grassroots marketing initiatives.
Life in Cleveland has changed dramatically over the years. Its most interesting era was, arguably, the time when nearly a million people called the city home. Cleveland in the 1950s was vibrant and fascinating — the Terminal Tower was the largest skyscraper outside of New York City, and suburbia was only in its infancy. There’s much to say about the best location in the nation back then (including that the nickname had literally just been born in the 1950s), but this is perhaps a story best told through pictures. Let’s dive in!
Snapped just four days before Christmas, these Cleveland Press workers in the engraving department surely have more festive activities on their minds. Unbeknownst to them, the Cleveland Press, which had been serving the area since 1878, was slowly headed downhill. In 1954, the local newspaper would undergo its greatest public discourse when its reporters heavily led a "trial by newspaper" during the Dr. Sam Sheppard case. In the ensuing decade, The Plain Dealer would capture more readers' interests, and the paper would eventually print its last periodical on June 17, 1982.
One simply cannot dive into the ins and outs of life in the 1950s without touching on the automobiles of the era! Cleveland had a rich automobile industry back in the day, and it prospered in the 1950s. Through the end of the decade, the building that we now know as Fenn Hall was actually a Buick car dealership. Eventually, Lincoln-Mercury would pop up at the site, but Buick was all the rage at the time... and it would be for a few decades! In 1980, the car brand would cement its ties to Northeast Ohio when it published an ad in 1980 with Medina, Ohio as the backdrop.
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3. Growing the Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture Program, 1952
While Cleveland is now rather urban, it was even more so in the 1950s. It reached its peak population at the beginning of the decade, with some 914,808 people calling the city home (compared to circa 360,040 today). Nonetheless, the city stayed super green... thanks in part to programs like the Cleveland Public Schools Horticulture Program. From 1904 to 1978, this program taught students to grow food, flowers, and other plants. Incentives and rewards kept the students engaged, but seeing their own hard work result in luscious greenery must have been a treat like no other!
While Cleveland was a populous city, it wasn't totally removed from its agricultural roots. In this photo, workers are washing spinach at Wms Food. Following World War II, canned vegetables became en vogue, so the average household would likely get its spinach out of a can. While we can't say for sure that this spinach was about to be canned, based on the factory-like ambiance of this picture, it's certainly possible.
5. A day at the Benjamin Franklin School's harvest fair, 1956
Spooky ladybug costume aside (I just can't stop looking at it!), this event in 1956 must have been a hit! This Old Brooklyn school was part of the aforementioned horticultural program, which unfortunately came to an end in the late 1970s. Students loved learning about gardening, though, and a similar program would eventually start back up in the 1990s. Fortunately, the garden programs of yesteryear have not been forgotten! You can even read a report to the superintendent about the garden programs in 1948.
This capture shows — yet again — a glimpse into what the food industry used to look like. These guys, however, weren't growers... they were storytellers! Pictured from left to right, Earl W. McMunn, Mary Margaret Davis, Edward Fritsch, and Ray T. Kelsey look over Ohio Farmer Magazine. When the periodical was born, Cleveland was very much a farming community. By the time this photo was snapped, most of the individuals in it did not own or work on a farm... but they did grow up on one! You can read the newspaper article from 1959 if you want to learn all the details, but in essence, it was published twice a month and had a mail distribution of 155,000... with 176,000 farms in Ohio at the time, that's pretty darn good! (For reference, some 76,900 farms exist in Ohio today.)
Taking a look back at Cleveland in the 1950s reveals a city that’s rather different from the one we know today. If you’re interested in learning more about the era, you might consider checking out our article on Dorothy Fuldheim. She was the first lady broadcaster in history, and she would have been the voice sharing many of these stories with Cleveland viewers back in the day.
Itching to travel back to another decade? Learn about Cleveland in the 1970s to keep your time travel going.
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