Cleveland Cultural Gardens

This site references lots of different materials, unearthed by dozens of undergraduate and graduate students as well as teachers under the supervision of Mark Tebeau.

Their Paths Are Peace

Perhaps the key text in studying the Cultural Gardens is Clare Lederer’s Their Paths are Peace, which is available online at Cleveland Memory. Written in 1954, this celebratory history reveals much detail about the gardens and appears to have been shaped, if not written, by each of the Federation’s member garden organizations. It is a starting point for any further research.

Newspapers & Photographs

The Cleveland Press Collection is located on the 3rd floor of Rhodes Tower in the Cleveland State University Library, and includes photographs and newspaper clippings from the Cleveland Press newspaper, as well as select clippings from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. The collection is also available online as part of the library’s Cleveland Memory site. The Cleveland Public Library has a collection of photographs and materials related to the Cleveland Cultural Gardens. We reference many of the photographs here. They are also available online at Cleveland Memory as part of the Cleveland Cultural Gardens Collection.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer also has covered the gardens widely over the years; it is worth examining their materials on microfilm, available on the first floor of the CSU University Library.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper archives are now available online.  The Plain Dealer Archive, 1845-1991 andPlain Dealer Archive, 1991-Present are available via the Cleveland Public Library (offsite access requires library account). Archives for 1991-Present are also fully searchable via Cleveland.com/NewsBank, though access to full-text of articles older than 14 days requires payment.

Archival Materials

The Western Reserve Historical Society houses the Cultural Garden Federation’s archives, with material from the 1920s through the 1980s. The National Archives houses records related to the Works Progress Administration in their College Park, Maryland, branch. These possess records about the financing and plans for many of the gardens during the 1930s. The Landmarks Office of the Cleveland City Planning Commission has materials related to the gardens, including their original architectural drawings. Finally, it is likely that Cleveland’s City Archives, which contain the records of the Department of Parks, also has materials related to the Gardens.

Oral Histories

This site makes use of a number of oral histories collected by students and teachers. These are part of the Euclid Corridor Oral History Collection at Cleveland State University; soon longer excerpts will be available on the web. For more information on this collection of materials, contact Mark Tebeau.

Electronic & Web Resources

Cleveland Memory: The Cleveland Cultural Gardens Collection

Cleveland Memory: Cleveland’s Ethnic Heritage

A Note on how we used the Internet

The Internet is a wonderful source of research but only when used sensibly. We have used and referencedWikipedia in developing materials on each of the figures represented in the gardens. However, Wikipedia should be used with great caution, as it is not definitive by any stretch of the imagination, though research has suggested that it has become nearly as reliable as the best encyclopedias. We only used material from Wikipedia if we could confirm it with two other sources: encyclopedias (print or online), print journals, or newspaper articles. This process of corroborating is critical to making use of Wikipedia and other electronic resources.