History of Ohio

The history of Ohio includes many thousands of years of human activity. What is now Ohio was probably first settled by Paleo-Indian peoples, who lived in the area as early as 13,000 BCE. Later ancestors of Native Americans were known as the Archaic peoples. Sophisticated successive cultures of precolonial peoples indigenous peoples, such as the Adena, Hopewell and Mississippian, built monumental earthworks as part of their religious and political expression: mounds and walled enclosures, some of which have survived to the present.

While by the mid-18th century, Europeans engaged historic Native American tribes in present-day Ohio in the fur trade, European-American settlement in the Ohio territory did not expand until after the American Revolutionary War. The United States Congress prohibited slavery in the Ohio Territory. Ohio's population increased rapidly, chiefly by migrants from the Northern Tier of New England and New York. Southerners settled along the southern part of the territory, as they traveled mostly by the Ohio River. After Ohio became a state, citizens still prohibited slavery and some supported the Underground Railroad, as well as establishing colleges that admitted blacks and women. Its citizens' support of public education and political action also reflected New England/Northern Tier values. The state supported the Union in the American Civil War, and more of its people volunteered as soldiers per capita than any other state.

After the Civil War, Ohio became one of the major industrial states in the northern tier, connected to the Great Lakes area, from where it received raw commodities, and able to transport its products of manufacturing and farming to New York and the East Coast via railroads. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, its growing industries attracted thousands of new people for the expanding number of jobs, both blacks from the South, in the Great Migration, and immigrants from Europe. As a result, the cultures of its major cities and later suburbs became much more diverse with the traditions, cultures, foods and music of the new arrivals. Its industries were integral to US power during and after World War II. Economic restructuring in steel and other manufacturing cost the state many jobs in the later 20th century as heavy industry declined. New economic models have led to different kinds of development in the late 20th and 21st centuries.

Prehistoric indigenous peoples

The Great Serpent Mound in Adams County is one of the earthworks from ancient civilizations found in the state.

Indigenous peoples inhabited Ohio for thousands of years before contact with modern Europeans. As later cultures began to cultivate crops, they could support more permanent settlements. They tended to settle most heavily along the river valleys, where they used the water for drinking, fishing, transportation and trade.

The Late Archaic period featured the development of focal subsistence economies and regionalization of cultures. Regional cultures in Ohio include the Maple Creek Culture(Excavations) of southwestern Ohio, the Glacial Kame Culture culture of western Ohio (especially northwestern Ohio), and the Red Ochre and Old Copper cultures across much of northern Ohio. Flint Ridge, located in present-day Licking County, provided flint, an extremely important raw material and trade good. Objects made from Flint Ridge flint have been found as far east as the Atlantic coast, as far west as Kansas City, and as far south as Louisiana, demonstrating the wide network of prehistoric trading cultures.

About 800 BC, Late Archaic cultures were supplanted by the Adena culture. The Adenas were mound builders. Many of their thousands of burial mounds in Ohio have survived. Following the Adena culture was the Hopewell culture (c. 100 to c. 400 A.D.), which also built sophisticated mounds and earthworks, some of which survive at Hopewell and Newark Earthworks. They used their constructions as astronomical observatories and places of ritual celebration. The Fort Ancient culture also built mounds, including some effigy mounds. Researchers first considered the Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio to be an Adena mound. It is the largest effigy mound in the United States and one of Ohio's best-known landmarks. Scholars believe it may have been a more recent work of Fort Ancient people.

When modern Europeans began to arrive in North America, they traded with numerous Native American (also known as American Indian) tribes for furs in exchange for goods. When the Iroquois Confederacy depleted the beaver and other game in its territory in the New York region, they launched a war known as the Beaver Wars, destroying or scattering the contemporary inhabitants of the Tennessee region. During the Beaver Wars in the 1650s, the Iroquois nearly destroyed the Erie along the shore of Lake Erie. Thereafter, the Iroquois claimed Ohio and West Virginia lands as hunting grounds. For several decades, the land was nearly uninhabited .

Genetic studies

A map of the distribution of the X Haplogroup globally.

Modern studies show 80% of cranial samples from Hopewell remains indicate a cephalic index in the range of being dolicocephalic. Analysis of Hopewell remains indicate shared mtDNA mutations unique with lineages from China, Korea, Japan, and Mongolia, while bone collagen from Eastern North American native remains indicate maize was not a large part of their diet until after B.P. 1000. As of 2003, maize had only been discovered at one archaeological dig site in Ohio.

Ancient European and Middle East people

Recent genetic work on remains found in Ohio suggest a link to European genetic forms and the Solutreans. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, discoveries of ancient tools found in Ohio showed similarities to handaxes used in ancient Europe. In the late 20th-century prehistoric tools were discovered during excavations, along with extinct animals, in the Sheriden Cave which show similarities to tools used by ancient Solutrean, Clovis, and European cultures.

The ancient X Haplogroup found in Europe and the Middle East has been found near Ohio and the Great Lakes in ancient remains. The Gamla Folk of Scandinavia share common X haplogroup markers with ancient remains found around the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. The Adena mound sites found in Ohio are said to resemble ancient earthworks in southern Sweden.

European colonization

New France

A map of the original Ohio Country.

In the early 17th century, the French were the first modern Europeans to explore what became known as Ohio Country. In 1663, it became part of New France, a royal province of French Empire, and northeastern Ohio was further explored by Robert La Salle in 1669. Fort Miami near present-day Toledo was constructed in 1680 by New France Governor-General Louis de Buade de Frontenac.

During the 18th century, the French set up a system of trading posts to control the fur trade in the region, linked to their settlements in present-day Canada and what they called the Illinois Country along the Mississippi River. They built Fort Sandusky in 1750 and Fort Junandat in 1754.

By the 1730s, population pressure from expanding European colonies on the Atlantic coast compelled several groups of Native Americans to relocate to the Ohio Country. From the east, the Delaware and Shawnee arrived, and Wyandot and Ottawa from the north. The Miami lived in what is now western Ohio. The Mingo formed out of Iroquois who migrated west into the Ohio lands, as well as some refugee remnants of other tribes.

Christopher Gist was one of the first English-speaking explorers to travel through and write about the Ohio Country in 1749. When British traders such as George Croghan started to do business in the Ohio Country, the French and their northern Indian allies drove them out. In 1752 the French raided the Miami Indian town of Pickawillany (modern Piqua, Ohio). The French began military occupation of the Ohio Valley in 1753.

Seven Years' War

By the mid-18th century, British traders were rivaling French traders in the area. They had occupied a trading post called Loramie's Fort, which the French attacked from Canada in 1752, renaming it for a Frenchman named Loramie and establishing a trading post there. In the early 1750s George Washington was sent to the Ohio Country by the Ohio Company to survey, and the fight for control of the territory would spark Europe's Seven Year's War with the French and Indian War. It was in the Ohio Country where George Washington lost the Battle of Fort Necessity to Louis Coulon de Villiers in 1754, and the subsequent Battle of the Monongahela to Charles Michel de Langlade and Jean-Daniel Dumas to retake the country 1755.

Monument commemorating the Moravian Massacre in 1782 near the German American settlement of Gnadenhutten.

The Treaty of Paris ceded the country to the British Empire in 1763. During this period the country was routinely engaged in turmoil, with massacres and battles occurring.

British Empire

British military occupation in the region contributed to the outbreak of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763. Ohio Indians participated in that war until an armed expedition in Ohio led by Colonel Henry Bouquet brought about a truce. Another colonial military expedition into the Ohio Country in 1774 brought Lord Dunmore's War to a conclusion. Lord Dunmore constructed Fort Gower on the Hocking River in 1774.

American Revolution

During the American Revolutionary War, Native Americans in the Ohio Country were divided over which side to support. For example, the Shawnee leader Blue Jacket and the Delaware leader Buckongahelas sided with the British. Cornstalk (Shawnee) and White Eyes (Delaware) sought to remain friendly with the rebellious colonists. American colonial frontiersmen often did not differentiate between friendly and hostile Indians, however. Cornstalk was killed by American militiamen, and White Eyes may have been. One of the most tragic incidents of the war — the Gnadenhutten massacre of 1782 — took place in Ohio.

With the United States' victory in the Revolutionary War, the British ceded claims to Ohio and its territory in the West as far as the Mississippi River to the new nation. Between 1784 and 1789, the states of Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut ceded their earlier land claims to the Ohio territories to the United States, but Virginia and Connecticut maintained reserves. These areas were known as the Virginia Military District and Connecticut Western Reserve.

United States of America

Northwest Ordinance and Territory

Plaque commemorating the Northwest Ordinance outside Federal Hall in lower Manhattan.

After Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, new European-American settlement of Ohio began with the founding of Marietta during 1788 by the Ohio Company of Associates and American pioneers to the Northwest Territory. These pioneers to the Ohio Country included many American Revolutionary War veterans, who with their families composed much of the first generation of settlers. They established Marietta as the first permanent American settlement of the new United States in the Northwest Territory, and opened the westward expansion of the new country.

The Miami Company (also referred to as the "Symmes Purchase") managed settlement of land in the southwestern section. The Connecticut Land Company administered settlement in the Connecticut Western Reserve in present-day Northeast Ohio. A heavy flood of migrants came from New York and especially New England, where there had been a growing hunger for land as population increased before the Revolutionary War. Most traveled to Ohio by wagon and stagecoach, following former Indian paths such as the Northern Trace. Many also traveled part of the way by barges on the Mohawk River across New York state. Farmers who settled in western New York after the war sometimes moved on to one or more locations in Ohio in their lifetimes, as new lands kept opening to the west.

American settlement of the Northwest Territory was resisted by Native Americans in the Northwest Indian War. The natives were eventually conquered by General Anthony Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. They ceded much of present-day Ohio to the United States by the Treaty of Greenville, concluded in 1795.

In 1787 the United States created the Northwest Territory under the Northwest Ordinance of that year. The US Congress prohibited slavery in the territory. (Once the population grew and the territory achieved statehood, the citizens could have legalized slavery, but chose not to do so.) The states of the Midwest would be known as Free States, in contrast to those states south of the Ohio River. Migrants to the latter came chiefly from Virginia and other slaveholding states, and brought their culture and slaves with them.

As Northeastern states abolished slavery in the coming two generations, the free states would be known as Northern States. The Northwest Territory originally included areas previously called Ohio Country and Illinois Country. As Ohio prepared for statehood, Indiana Territory was carved out, reducing the Northwest Territory to approximately the size of present-day Ohio plus the eastern half of Michigan's lower peninsula.

Statehood

Land patent. Patentee Name: Henry Hanford. Logan Co., Ohio, 1834

With Ohio's population reaching 45,000 in December 1801, Congress determined that the population was growing rapidly and Ohio could begin the path to statehood. The assumption was the territory would have in excess of the required 60,000 residents by the time it became a state. Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1802 that outlined the process for Ohio to seek statehood. The residents convened a constitutional convention. They used numerous provisions from other states and rejected slavery.

On February 19, 1803, President Jefferson signed the act of Congress that approved Ohio's boundaries and constitution. Congress did not pass a specific resolution formally admitting Ohio as the 17th state. The current custom of Congress' declaring an official date of statehood did not begin until 1812, when Louisiana was admitted as the 18th state.

Industrialization

Further information: [[:Economy of Ohio]]

Industrial baron John D. Rockefeller is buried at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

Throughout much of the 19th century, industry was rapidly introduced to compliment an existing agricultural economy. One of the first iron manufacturing plants opened near Youngstown in 1804 called Hopewell Furnace. By the mid-19th century, 48 blast furnaces were operating in the state, most in the southern portions of the state. Discovery of coal deposits aided the further development of the steel industry in the state, and by 1853 Cleveland was the third largest iron and steel producer in the country. The first Bessemer converter was purchased by the Cleveland Rolling Mill Company, which eventually became part of the U.S. Steel Corporation following the merger of Federal Steel Company and Carnegie Steel, the first billion-dollar American corporation. The first open-hearth furnace used for steel production was constructed by the Otis Steel Company in Cleveland, and by 1892, Ohio ranked as the 2nd-largest steel producing state behind Pennsylvania. Republic Steel was founded in Youngstown in 1899, and was at one point the nation's third largest producer. Armco, now AK Steel, was founded in Middletown also in 1899.

Tobacco processing plants were found in Dayton by the 1810s and Cincinnati became known as "Porkopolis" in being the nation's capital of pork processing, and by 1850 it was the third largest manufacturing city in the country. Mills were established throughout the state, including one in Steubenville in 1815 which employed 100 workers. Manufacturers produced farming machinery, including Cincinnati residents Cyrus McCormick, who invented the reaper, and Obed Hussey, who developed an early version of the mower. Columbus became known as the "Buggy Capital of the World" for its nearly two dozen carriage manufacturers. Dayton became a technological center in the 1880s with the National Cash Register Company. By 1884, 86 oil refineries were operating in Cleveland and was home to Standard Oil, making it the "oil capital of the world," while producing the world's first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller.

Herbert H. Dow founded the Dow Chemical Company in Cleveland in 1895, today the world's second largest chemical manufacturer. In 1898 Frank Seiberling named his rubber company after the first person to vulcanize rubber, Charles Goodyear, which today is known as Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. Seeing the need to replace steel-rimmed carriage tires with rubber, Harvey Firestone started Firestone Tire and Rubber Company and began selling to Henry Ford. The Ohio Automobile Company eventually became known as Packard, while Benjamin Goodrich entered the rubber industry in 1870 in Akron, founding Goodrich, Tew & Coompany, better known as the Goodrich Corporation in the present era.

By the late 19th century, Ohio had become a global industrial center. Natural resources contributed to the industrial growth, including salt, iron ore, timber, limestone, coal, natural gas, and the discovery of oil in northwestern Ohio led to the growth of the port of Toledo. By 1908, the state had 9,581 miles of railroad linking coal mines, oil fields, and industries with the world. Commercial enterprise began to prosper around towns with banks.

Innovation

Thomas Edison's first authentic invention was at the age of 16 while living in Ohio, the automatic repeater, a telegraph innovation.

William Procter and James Gamble started a company which produced a high quality, inexpensive soap called Ivory, which is still the best known product today of Procter and Gamble. Michael Joseph Owens invented the first semi-automatic glass-blowing machine while working for the Toledo Glass Company. The company was owned by Edward Libbey, and together the pair would form companies which ultimately became known as Owens-Illinois and Owens Corning.

Native Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, long-lasting electric light bulb, the motion picture camera, stock ticker, electric car battery, phonograph, and held over a 1,000 patents during his lifetime. He is generally credited as a father of modern industrialization and with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory. He formed the Edison Electric Light Company, today known as General Electric. Charles Kettering invented the first automatic starter for automobiles, and was the founder of Delco Electronics, today part of Delphi Corporation. The Battelle Memorial Institute perfected xerography, resulting in the company Xerox. Ernest H. Volwiler invented Pentothal, an anaesthetic used in surgery. Albert Sabin developed the first oral polio vaccine, which was administered throughout the world.

After witnessing a car and carriage crash, Garrett Morgan invented one of the earliest traffic lights. Frederick McKinley Jones invented refrigeration devices for transportation which ultimately led to the Thermo King Corporation. He also invented a device to combine motion pictures with sound, which he sold to RCA. In 1955 Joseph McVicker tested a wallpaper cleaner in Cincinnati schools, eventually becoming known as the product Play-Doh. The same year the Tappan Stove Company created the first microwave oven made for commercial, home use. James Spangler invented the first commercially successful portable vacuum cleaner, which he sold to The Hoover Company. John P. Parker invented the Parker Pulverizer and screw for tobacco processes, while Granville Woods invented the telegraphony, which he sold to the American Bell Telephone Company. Wilbur and Orville Wright]] invented one of the first airplanes in Dayton. Dr. Hugh Stewart, a native of New Holland, was a pioneering nuclear physicist who designed the first nuclear reactor used on a U.S. destroyer, the USS Bainbridge (CGN-25).

Infrastructure

Further information: [[:List of Ohio railroads]]

Further information: [[:List of airports in Ohio]]

A shipyard at the Port of Toledo.

Ohio's economic growth was aided by their pursuit of infrastructure. By the late 1810s, the National Road crossed the Appalachian Mountains, connecting Ohio with the east coast. The Ohio River aided the agricultural economy by allowing farmers to move their goods by water to the southern states and the port of New Orleans. The construction of the Erie Canal in the 1820s allowed Ohio businesses to ship their goods through Lake Erie and to the east coast, which was followed by the completion of the Ohio and Erie Canal and the connection of Lake Erie with the Ohio River. This gave the state complete water access to the world within the borders of the United States. Other canals included Miami and Erie Canal. The Welland Canal would eventually give the state alternative global routes through Canada.

The first railroad in Ohio was a 33-mile line completed in 1836 called the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, connecting Toledo with Adrian, Michigan. The Ohio Loan Law of 1837 allowed the state to loan one-third of construction costs to businesses, passed initially to aid the construction of canals, but instead used heavily for the construction of railroads. The Little Miami Railroad was granted a state charter in 1836 and was completed in 1848, connecting Cincinnati with Springfield. Construction of a commuter rail began in 1851 called the Cincinnati, Hamilton, and Dayton Railroad. This allowed the affluent of Cincinnati to move to newly developed communities outside the city along the rail. The Ohio and Mississippi Railroad was given financial support from the city of Cincinnati and eventually connected them with St. Louis, while the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad crossed the Appalachians in the mid-1850s and connected the state with the east coast.

The investment in infrastructure complimented Ohio's central location and put it at the heart of the nation's transportation system traveling north and south and east and west, and also gave the state a headstart during the national industrialization process which occurred between 1870-1920.

Water ports would pop up along Lake Erie, including the Port of Ashtabula, Port of Cleveland, Port of Conneaut, Fairport Harbor, Port of Huron, Port of Lorain, Port of Marblehead, Port of Sandusky, and Port of Toledo. The Port of Cincinnati was built on the Ohio River.

Following the commercialisation of air travel, Ohio became a key route for east to west transportation. The first commercial cargo flight occurred between Dayton and Columbus in 1910. Cleveland Hopkins International Airport was built in 1925 and became home to the first air traffic control tower, ground to air radio control, airfield lighting system, and commuter rail link.

The Interstate Highway System brought new travel routes to the state in the mid-20th century, further making Ohio a transportation hub.

Urbanization and commercialization

With the rapid increase of industrialization in the country in the late 19th century, Ohio's population swelled from 2.3 million in 1860 to 4.2 million by 1900. By 1920, nine Ohio cities had populations of 50,000 or more.

The rapid urbanization brought about a growth of commercial industries in the state, including many financial and insurance institutions. The National City Corporation was founded in 1845, today part of PNC Financial Services. Cleveland's Society for Savings was founded in 1849, eventually becoming part of KeyBank. The Bank of the Ohio Valley opened in 1858, becoming known as Fifth Third Bank today. City National Bank and Trust Company was founded in 1866 in Columbus, eventually becoming Bank One. The American Financial Group was founded in 1872 and the Western & Southern Financial Group in 1888 in Cincinnati. The Farm Bureau Mutual Automobile Insurance Company was founded in Columbus in 1925, today known as the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.

Major retail operations emerged in the state, including Kroger in 1883 in Cincinnati, today second only to WalMart. Federated Department Stores was founded in Columbus in 1929, known today as Macy's. The Sherwin-Williams Company was founded in 1866 in Cleveland.

Frisch's Big Boy was opened in 1905 in Cincinnati. American Electric Power was founded in Columbus in 1906. The American Professional Football Association was founded in Canton in 1922, eventually becoming the National Football League. The Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 and presently is one of the world's leading medical institutions.

Education

Further information: [[:List of colleges and universities in Ohio]]

William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library on the campus of the Ohio State University, an anchor of the University System of Ohio, the nation's largest comprehensive public system of higher education.

Education has been an integral piece of the Ohio fabric since its early days of statehood. In the beginning, mothers usually educated their children at home or paid for their children to attend smaller schools in villages and towns. In 1821 the state passed a tax to finance local schools. In 1822, Caleb Atwater lobbied the legislature and Governor Allen Trimble to establish a commission to study the possibility of initiating public, common schools. Atwater modeled his plan after the New York City public school system. After public opinion in 1824 forced the state to find a resolution to the education problem, the legislature established the common school system in 1825 and financed it with a half-mil property levy.

School districts formed, and by 1838 the first direct tax was levied allowing access to the school for all. The first appropriation for the common schools came in 1838, a sum of $200,000. The average salary for male teachers in some districts during this early period was $25/month and $12.50/month for females. By 1915, the appropriations for the common schools totaled over $28 million. The first middle school in the nation, Indianola Junior High School, opened in Columbus in 1909. McGuffey Readers was a leading textbook originating from the state and found throughout the nation.

Original universities and colleges in the state included the Ohio University, founded in Athens in 1804 and the first university in the old Northwest Territory and ninth-oldest in the United States. Miami University in Oxford, Ohio was founded in 1809, the University of Cincinnati in 1819, Kenyon College in Gambier in 1824, Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1826, Xavier University in Cincinnati and Denison University in Granville in 1831, Oberlin College in 1833, Marietta College in 1835, the Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware in 1842, and Dayton University in 1850. Wilberforce University was founded in 1856 and the University of Akron and Ohio State University followed in 1870, with the University of Toledo in 1872.

The first dental school in the United States was founded in the early 19th century in Bainbridge. The Ohio School for the Blind became the first of its kind in the country, located in Columbus.

In 2007, Governor Ted Strickland signed legislation organizing the University System of Ohio, the nation's largest comprehensive public system of higher education.

Social history

Further information: [[:List of people from Ohio]]

Ethnic groups

Early Ohio state culture was a product of Native American cultures, which practically disappeared after 1790. The northeastern part of Ohio was settled by Yankees from Connecticut, and pioneers from New York and Pennsylvania. The Connecticut Western Reserve became center for modernization and reform. They were sophisticated, educated, and open minded, as well as religious. Some of the original settlers from Connecticut were Amos Loveland, a revolutionary soldier, and Jacob Russell. They faced a rough wildnerness life, where the common living arrangement was the log cabin. As the pioneer culture faded in the mid-19th century, Ohio had over 140,000 citizens of native New England origin, including New York. One of the New Yorkers who came to the state during this period was Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, whose church in Kirtland was the home of the movement for a period of time.

Other early pioneers came from the Mid-Atlantic states, especially Pennsylvania and Virginia, some settling on military grant lands in the Virginia Military District. From Virginia came members of the Harrison family of Virginia, who rose to prominence in the state, producing Ohio's first of eight U.S. Presidents. William Henry Harrison's campaign of 1840 came to represent the pioneer culture of Ohio, symbolized by his Log cabin campaign. The theme song of his campaign, the "Log Cabin Song," was authored by Otway Curry, was a nationally known poet and author.

Ohio was largely agricultural before 1850, although gristmills and local forges were present. Among the pioneers, men and women have different outlooks.. Men were the breadwinners who considered the profitability of farming in a particular location - or "market-minded agrarianism" - and worked hard to provide for their families, and take care of public matters, such as voting and handling the money. Women were less interested in the financial aspects of migration westward, and more concerned with the threat of separation from can fold and friends, as they often lamented in letters sent "back home." Furthermore, women experienced a physical toll because they were expected to have babies, supervise the domestic chores, care for the sick, and take control of the garden crops and poultry. Outside the German American community, women rarely did fieldwork on the far. The women set up neighborhood social organizations, often revolving around church membership, or quilting parties. Exchange information and tips on child-rearing, and help each other in childbirth.

Large numbers of German Americans arrived from Pennsylvania, augmented by new immigrants from Germany. They all clung to their German language and Protestant religions, as well as their specialized tastes in food and beer. Brewing was a main feature of the German culture. Their villages from this period included the German Village in Columbus. They also founded the villages of Gnadenhutten in the late 18th-century; Bergholz, New Bremen, New Berlin, Dresden, and other villages and towns. The German Americans immigrating from the Mid-Atlantic states, especially eastern Pennsylvania, brought with them the Midland dialect, which is still found throughout much of Ohio. For instance, in Philadelphia water is pronounced with a long o versus the normal short o, the same as in many areas of Ohio. African Americans of the Underground Railroad began coming to the state, some settling, others passing through on the way to Canada. Univerities and colleges opened up all over the state, creating a more educated culture.

Entertainer Bob Hope, pictured here with U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981, grew up in Cleveland in the 1910s.

By the last half of the 19th century, the state became more diverse culturally with new immigrants from Europe, including Ireland and Germany. The Forty-Eighters from Central Europe settled the Over-the-Rhine neighborhood in Cincinnati, while the Irish immigrants settled throughout the state, including Flytown in Columbus. Other immigrants from Russia, Turkey, China, Japan, Finland, Greece, Italy, Romania, Poland, and other places came in the latter years. At the turn of the 20th century, rural southern European Americans and African Americans came north in search of better economic opportunity, infusing Hillbilly culture into the state. Newer ethnic villages emerged, including the Slavic Village in Cleveland and the Italian Village and Hungarian Village in Columbus. Howard Chandler Christy, born in Morgan County, became a leading American artist during this century, as well as composer Dan Emmett, founder of the Blackface tradition. Ohio's mines factories and cities attracted Europeans. Irish Catholics poured in to construct the canals, railroads, streets and sewers in the 1840s and 1850s,.

After 1880, the coal mines and steel plants attracted families from southern and eastern Europe. By 1901, the Midwest (Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio) had absorbed 5.8 million foreign immigrants and another million by 1912.

Immigration was cut off by the World War in 1914, allowing the ethnic communities to Americanize, grow much more prosperous, served in the military, and abandon possible plans to return to the old country. Flows were very low between 1925 and 1965, then began to increase again, this time with many arrivals from Asia and Mexico.

Popular culture

Industrialization brought a shift culturally as urbanization and an emerging middle class changed society. Athletics became increasingly popular as the first professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, started playing at that level in 1869, and football leagues emerged. Bathhouses and rollercoasters became a popular past time with the opening of Cedar Point in 1870. Theaters and saloons sprang up, and more restaurants opened. Entertainment venues opening in Cleveland included the Playhouse Square Center, Palace Theatre, Ohio Theatre, State Theatre, and the Karamu House. Langston Hughes grew up in Cleveland and developed many of his plays at the Karamu House. In Columbus they opened the Southern Theatre in 1894, as well as their own Palace Theatre and Ohio Theatre, which hosted performers such as Jack Benny, Judy Garland, and Jean Harlow. The Lincoln Theatre hosted performers like Count Basie. The Taft Theatre opened in 1928 in Cincinnati.

The Roaring Twenties brought prohibition, bootlegging and speakeasies to the state, as well as the swing dance culture. Cincinnati became the headquarters of the "king of bootlegging" George Remus, who made $40 million by the end of 1922. The Anti-Saloon League had been powerful and Ohio, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union was still headquartered there; the Ku Klux Klan was active in the 1920s. However these organizations steadily lost influence after 1925.

Depression years

During the 1930s, the Great Depression struck the state hard. The Superman character was developed by Cleveland residents Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the spirit of the Jewish Golem during the rise of the Third Reich. Many of the comics portrayed Superman fighting and defeating the Nazis.

Artists and writers emerged from the state, usually on the way to Hollywood, including "king of the cowboys" Roy Rogers, Roy Lichenstein, Zane Grey, Milton Caniff, Art Tatum, and George Bellows. Alan Freed, who emerged from the swing dance culture in Cleveland, hosted the first live rock 'n roll concert in Cleveland in 1952, and the state produced some of the original popular musicians, including Dean Martin, Doris Day, The O.Jay's and The Isley Brothers.

Ohioans loved the movies, and five academy award winning films were partly produced in the state, including Terms of Endearment, Traffic, The Deer Hunter, Rainman, and Silence of the Lambs.

Veterans

Main article: Military conflicts with Ohio participation

Home of Jacob Parrott in Kenton, the first Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, now an historical museum.

Ohio has been involved in regional, national, and global wars since statehood, and veterans have been a powerful social and political force at the local and state levels. The organization of Civil War veterans, the Grand Army of the Republic, was a major player in local society and Republican politics in the last third of the 19th century. The American Veterans of Foreign Service was established in 1899 in Columbus, ultimately becoming known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars in 1913. The state has produced 319 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, including the first recipient of the award in the country Jacob Parrott.

In 1886, the state authorized the creation of the Ohio Veterans Home in Sandusky and a second one created in 2003 in Georgetown to provide for soldiers facing economic hardship. Over 50,000 veterans have lived at the Sandusky location as of 2005. Since World War One, the state has paid stipends to veterans of wars, including recently authorizing funds for soldiers of the Gulf and Afghanistan wars. The state also provides free in-state tuition to any veteran regardless of state origin at their colleges.

Politics

Rebellion of 1820

In 1816, the Bank of the United States was chartered and the following year branches were located in Cincinnati and Chillicothe. The state leaders commenced a war on the bank in 1817, convening a committee to study proposed taxes of the bank with the purpose to drive it out of Ohio. A taxation resolution was finally adopted, and took affect on September 1, 1819. The bank filed suit in the U.S. Circuit Court in Chillicothe, obtaining an injunction against the state from collecting taxes from it. The state ignored the federal court and broke into the bank, seizing $100,000 it deemed as taxation. This transpired during the Panic of 1819.

In 1820, the legislature then passed legislation which nullified the federal court order as well as the operations of the Bank of the United States within their borders. The state ignored further federal court orders, writs, and denied immunities to the federal government. Their actions were considered the complete destruction of federal standing in the state and an attempted overthrow of the federal government. Ohio forcefully applied their iron law against the federal government until 1824, when the United States Supreme Court ruled they had no authority to tax the federal bank in the landmark case originating from the state--Osborn v. Bank of the United States. They then followed by passing an act in 1831 to withdraw state protections for the Bank of the United States.

Although the nullification of 1820 in Ohio was inspired by resolutions passed in Virginia and Kentucky in 1798 and 1800, the language of their resolution from 1820 would find its place in South Carolina's nullification of 1832 and secession articles of southern states in 1861.

Sovereignty

The rebellion of 1820 firmly rooted the tradition of sovereignty in the state. In 1859, Governor Salmon P. Chase reaffirmed that tradition, stating: "We have rights which the Federal Government must not invade — rights superior to its power, on which our sovereignty depends; and we mean to assert those rights against all tyrannical assumptions of authority." Following the War of the Rebellion, the debate over ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments reignited the sovereignty movement in Ohio. General Durbin Ward stated: "Fellow citizens of Ohio, I boldly assert that the States of this Union have always had, both before and since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, entire sovereignty over the whole subject of suffrage in all its relations and bearings. Ohio has that sovereignty now, and it cannot be taken from her..."

As recent as 2009, the tradition re-emerged, with an Ohio sovereignty resolution passing in the state senate, and signatures being collected to place a State Sovereignty amendment on the ballot in 2011.

Anti-slavery

Uncle Tom's Cabin, written by Harriett Beecher Stowe, was based on experiences of the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati.

Ohio's roots as an anti-slavery and abolitionist state go back to its territorial days in the Northwest Territory, which forbade the practice. When it became a state, the constitution expressly outlawed slavery. Many Ohioans were members of anti-slavery organizations, including the American Anti-Slavery Society and American Colonization Society. Ohioan Charles Osborn published the first abolitionist newspaper in the country, "The Philanthropist," and in 1821, the father of abolition Benjamin Lundy began publishing his newspaper the Genius of Universal Emancipation.

Ohio was a key stop on the Underground Railroad where prominent abolitionists played a role, including John Rankin. Ohio resident Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote the famous book "Uncle Tom's Cabin," which was largely influential in shaping the opinion of the north against slavery.

Progressive era

U.S. Second Lady Cornelia Cole Fairbanks was a powerful progressive operative at the turn of the 20th century who helped pave the way for the modern American female politician.

The Progressive Era brought about change in the state, although the state had been at the forefront of the movement decades before. In 1852, Ohio passed its first child labor laws, and in 1885 adopted prosecution powers for violations. In 1886, the American Federation of Labor was formed in Columbus, culminating in the passage of workers' compensation laws by the early 20th century.

Woman suffrage

Victoria Woodhull, the first female candidate for U.S. President in 1872, and U.S. Second Lady Cornelia Cole Fairbanks, credited with paving the way for the modern American female politician, were leaders in the women's suffrage movement. As early as 1850, the second women's rights convention in the United States was held in Salem. The public voted on women's suffrage in 1912, which failed, but the state ultimately would adopt the 19th amendment in 1920. Ohio-native and U.S. President William Howard Taft signed the White-Slave Traffic Act in 1910, which sought to end human trafficking and the sex slave trade.

The Anti-Saloon League was founded in 1893 in Oberlin, which saw political success with the passage of the Volstead Act in 1918.

Constitutional Convention of 1912

In 1912 a Constitutional Convention was held with Charles Burleigh Galbreath as Secretary. The result reflected the concerns of the Progressive Era. The constitution introduced the initiative and the referendum, and provided for the General Assembly to put questions on the ballot for the people to ratify laws and constitutional amendments originating in the Legislature. Under the Jeffersonian principle that laws should be reviewed once a generation, the constitution provided for a recurring question to appear every 20 years on Ohio's general election ballots. The question asks whether a new constitutional convention is required. Although the question has appeared in 1932, 1952, 1972, and 1992, the people have not found the need for a convention. Instead, constitutional amendments have been proposed by petition and the legislature hundreds of times and adopted in a majority of cases.

Ku Klux Klan

In the early 1920s the Ku Klux Klan attracted thousands of young Protestant men into membership, warning of the need to purify America, especially against the influence of Catholics, bootleggers, and corrupt politicians. The Klan faded out after 1925.

Great Depression

Ohio was hit especially hard by the Great Depression in the 1930s. In 1932, unemployment for the state reached 37.3%. By 1933, 40% of factory workers and 67% of construction labor were unemployed. The state had previously supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, 1936, 1940, but his policies had grown out of favor with the state and they voted against him in 1944.

World War II

Ohio played a major role in World War II, especially in providing manpower, food, and munitions to the Allied cause.

Cold War

Ohio became heavily anti-Communist during the Cold War following World War Two. Time Magazine reported in 1950 that police officers in Columbus were warning youth clubs to be suspicious of communist agitators. Campbell Hill in Bellefontaine became the site of a main U.S. Cold War base and a precursor to NORAD. Anti-communist personalities emerged from the state, including Janet Greene of Columbus, the political right's answer to Joan Baez. Her songs included "Commie Lies," "Poor Left Winger," and "Comrade's Lament." Ohio was the scene of the Kent State Massacre, which saw anti-Vietnam war protesters shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. As the cold war wrapped up, Ohio heavily supported the elections of U.S. President Ronald Reagan and his peace-work contributions toward ending the conflict, who is the name-bearer of a highway in the Cincinnati-area.

Un-American Activities

The Ohio Un-American Activities Committee was a government agency which existed to collect information on citizens with communist sympathies, resulting in 15 convictions, 40 indictments, and 1,300 suspects. Governor Frank Lausche generally opposed the committee, but his vetoes were overridden by the legislature. The state forced their employees to sign a loyalty oath to defend the state against foreign and domestic enemies to receive a paycheck, including left-wing professors and Holocaust survivors Bernhard Blume and Oskar Seidlin. Ohio also barred communists from receiving unemployment benefits.

Former Nazis

Many former Nazis were brought to the state as part of Operation Paperclip, and worked in anti-communist security, including at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, who had their own version of Operation Paperclip called Operation Lusty. Notable Nazi scientists who worked in the state included Hans von Ohain and Anselm Franz.

Operation Ohio was a CIA covert operation which used former Ukrainian Nazis to assassinate communist spies in Germany. The state became embroiled in an international controversy in 1983 when Ukrainian-native and Ohio resident John Demjanjuk was deported to Israel for alleged Nazi collaboration, and again in 2009 to Germany.

The Ohio State University became subject of controversy in 1993 when a mural on the campus depicting Hubertus Strughold, brought to the United States through Operation Paperclip, was removed following allegations of medical experimentation on World War Two prisoners.

JFK conspiracies

Columbus was caught up in the JFK assassination conspiracies through the Torbitt Document. Gordon Novel is said to have fled to the city following the Garrisson investigation in 1967, where he received aid from the Defense Industrial Security Command's office there. Ruth Hyde, a friend of Marina Oswald and witness at the Warren Commission hearings, was raised in Columbus.

Recent

A Third Frontier summit in 2002 at Hyland Software in Westlake.

Today the Ohio remains a global center reflective of its past. Modern state, national, and global businesses and industries are found throughout, and immigrants continue to flock to Ohio from all over the world. In 2008 an estimated 436,640 foreign born residents resided within their borders, contributing to the world's 23rd largest economy that year. It is the nation's 7th largest state by population, and had become nicknamed the "fuel cell corridor" in being a contributing anchor for the region now called the "Green Belt," in reference to the growing renewable energy sector. Although the state experienced heavy manufacturing losses at the turn of the century and suffered from the Great Recession, it was rebounding by the second decade in being the country's 6th-fastest growing economy through the first half of 2010. Politically the state has demonstrated its importance in modern presidential elections, signed international cooperation treaties with foreign provinces and northern American states, has become involved in heated national disputes with southern American states, while producing national leadership. Its athletic teams are among some of the nation's best, and culturally the state continues to produce notable artists while building institutions enshrining its past. Educationally the schools are among the nation's top performers, and militarily Ohio's legacy continues into the present era.

Ohio's transition into the 21st century is symbolized by the Third Frontier program, spearheaded by Governor Bob Taft at the turn of the century, which built on the agricultural and industrial pillars of the economy, the first and second frontiers, by aiding the growth of advanced technology industries, the third frontier. It has been widely hailed as one of the nation's most successful government bureaucracies, attracting 637 new high-tech companies to the state and 55,000 new jobs with an average of salary of $65,000, while having a $6.6 billion economic impact with an investment return ratio of 9:1. In 2010 it won the International Economic Development Council's Excellence in Economic Development Award, celebrated as a national model of success. The state's cities have become hubs of modern industry, including Toledo being recognized as a national solar center, Cleveland a regenerative medicine research hub, Dayton an aerospace and defense hub, Akron the rubber capital of the world, Columbus a technological research and development hub, and Cincinnati a mercantile hub.

Academy award-winning actress Halle Berry was born in Cleveland.

Ohio was hit hard by the Great Recession and manufacturing employment losses during the most recent period. The recession cost the state 376,500 jobs and it had 89,053 foreclosures in 2009, a record for the state. The median household income dropped 7% and the poverty rate ballooned to 13.5% by 2009. By the second half of 2010, the state showed signs of rebound in being the nation's 6th-fastest growing economy. During the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, the state was at the center of the international political world in being a key battleground which played a crucial role in the elections of U.S. President George W. Bush. U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner of southwestern Ohio has emerged as a national political leader. Beginning in the 1980s, the state entered into international economic and resource cooperation treaties and organisations with other Midwestern states, New York, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Quebec, including the Great Lakes Charter, Great Lakes Compact, and the Council of Great Lakes Governors. It became involved in heated national disputes with southern American states in 2009 and 2010, including Georgia over National Cash Register Company and Alabama over Wright Patterson Air Force Base, where southern lawmakers were accused of misusing federal funds and influence to "steal" Ohio jobs during the Great Recession.

Grammy-award winning musician Macy Gray was born in Canton.

Academy award-winning director Steven Spielberg was born in Cincinnati.

Athletically the state's team are among some of the nation's best. The Ohio State University football team won the national championship in 2002, and consistently competes for the prize annually. The Cincinnati Reds won the World Series championship in 1990 following their run as the Big Red Machine in the 1970s, as well as the National League Central Division championship in 2010, while the Cincinnati Bengals appeared in the Super Bowl in 1981 and 1988 and have won the AFC North Division in 2005 and 2009. In 2007 the Cleveland Cavaliers won the Eastern Conference championship and appeared in the NBA Finals, and won the NBA Central Division championships in 2009 and 2010. The Columbus Quest won the only two league championships in history in the 1990s, while the Ohio State University men's basketball team advanced to the NCAA Final Four and national championship game in 2007.

In 1995 the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame museum opened in Cleveland, commemorating Ohio's contributory past to the art, including being the location of the first live rock 'n roll concert in 1952. Notables artists have emerged from the state, including actresses Katie Holmes, Carmen Electra, Sarah Jessica Parker; actors Drew Carey, Dave Chappelle, Rob Lowe, Martin Sheen, Woody Harrelson, Steve Harvey; film directors Wes Craven and Chris Columbus, author R.L. Stine, musicians Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, grammy-award winning Macy Gray, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, John Legend, Trent Reznor of the Nine Inch Nails, Scott Shriner of Weezer, and Joe Trohman of Fall Out Boy. Media moguls emerged from the state, including Ted Turner and Larry Flynt. The state is tied with Oklahoma and California for producing the most Miss America pageant winners through 2010 with six.

Ohio has 5 of the top 115 colleges in the nation, according to U.S. News and World Report's 2010 rankings, and was ranked #8 by the same magazine in 2008 for best high schools. Overall, in 2010 the state's schools were ranked #5 in the country by Education Week. Militarily Ohio's legacy continues into the modern era, contributing over 200,000 soldiers to the Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars.

See also

Main article: Historical outline of Ohio

• American Pioneers to the Northwest Territory
• History of the Midwestern United States
• Ohio Lands
• Ohio Historical Society
• Buckeye (chicken)

Bibliography

Surveys and textbooks

• Andrew R. L. Cayton. Ohio: The History of a People (2002)
• Knepper, George W. Ohio and Its People. Kent State University Press, 3rd edition 2003, ISBN 0-87338-791-0 (paperback)

Secondary sources

• Blue, Frederick J. Salmon P. Chase: A Life in Politics (1987)
• Beverley W. Bond Jr.; The Foundations of Ohio. Volume: 1. 1941. detailed history to 1802.
• Buley, R. Carlyle. The Old Northwest (1950), Pulitzer Prize winner
• Booraem V. Hendrick. The Road to Respectability: James A. Garfield and His World, 1844-1852 Bucknell University Press, (1988)
• Hurt, R. Douglas. The Ohio Frontier: Crucible of the Old Northwest, 1720-1830. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-253-33210-9 (hardcover); ISBN 0-253-21212-X (1998 paperback).
• Jensen, Richard. The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888-1896 (1971)
• Jordan, Philip D.Ohio Comes of Age: 1873-1900 Volume 5 (1968)
• Stephen E. Maizlish. The Triumph of Sectionalism: The Transformation of Ohio Politics, 1844-1856 (1983)
• O'Donnell, James H. Ohio's First Peoples. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2004. ISBN 0-8214-1525-5 (paperback), ISBN 0-8214-1524-7 (hardcover).
• Ratcliffe, Donald J. The Politics of Long Division: The Birth of the Second Party System in Ohio, 1818-1828. Ohio State U. Press, 2000. 455 pp.
• Eugene Roseboom. The Civil War Era, 1850-1873, vol. 4 (1944), detailed general history
• Andrew Sinclair. The Available Man: The Life behind the Masks of Warren Gamaliel Harding 1965
• Richard Sisson ed. The American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia (2006)
• David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, eds. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History (1987), also online
• David D. Van Tassel and John J. Grabowski, eds. Cleveland: A Tradition of Reform (1986)
• Francis P. Weisenburger. The Passing of the Frontier, vol. 3 (1941), detailed history of 1830s and 1840s
• Wheeler, Kenneth H. "Local Autonomy and Civil War Draft Resistance: Holmes County, Ohio" Civil War History, Vol. 45, 1999

Primary sources

• Tom L. Johnson. My Story Kent State University Press, 1993
• Phillip R. Shriver, Jr. and Clarence E. Wunderlin. eds. Documentary Heritage Of Ohio (2001)

External links

• Ohio Historical Society
• Ohio History Central – an online encyclopedia by the Ohio Historical Society
• Ohio in The Civil War
• Ohio Memory
• Encyclopedia of Cleveland History
• Ohio: A Sentimental Journey, WBGU-PBS collaborative documentary