University Circle Museums: Friday, January 23

-- Cyrus Sethna --

I chose to visit the museum portion of the Western Reserve Historical Society after our tour of the library.

I found the tour of the library to be very complete and through. The lady who gave us our tour certainly knew about what the library had to offer in terms of content and equipment available for visitors to utilize. I was strongly reminded of the time I spent last summer as a volunteer at the National Archives except the WRHS library is obviously smaller and contains different sorts of materials.

The museum portion of the facility contains the Crawford Auto and Aviation Museum as well as something that resembles a house with old furniture, clothing, and items from days past with some sort of local connection.

I found the materials as presented to be very interesting and they illuminated some historical details that I would not have been able to otherwise infer. I feel that if I was a visitor with little or no knowledge of American or local history, then I would certainly be learning a lot. It was most exciting to see things that we had all ready learned about through previous readings or trips.

If I was made curator of the facility, I do not believe that I would make substantial changes except perhaps to properly drive home the point that small children should not climb on the cars.

I did not conduct significant "archival work" in the library, I merely glanced at the facility and looked over the holdings. I do not have any family roots in the area as I am a first-generation American, my parents both immigrated from abroad.

I am interested in looking at the decline of Cleveland/ Akron and their failure to rebound like their rust-belt sister cities. So I believe that articles written about the steps that places like Pittsburgh have taken compared to what Cleveland/ Akron have done would be helpful. All though, I'd love to be able to heap most of the blame upon the decrepit leadership on Jackson and Plusquellic.