Cleveland Past and Present

About This Book

Cleveland Past and Present: Its Representative Men is a comprehensive history of Cleveland, Ohio, published by Maurice Joblin in 1869, when the city stood on the brink of its transformation from a modest lakeside town into one of America's great industrial centers. The book combines a detailed chronicle of Cleveland's founding and growth with biographical sketches of its most prominent citizens — merchants, lawyers, physicians, clergymen, and civic leaders who shaped the city's character during its first half-century. Joblin traces Cleveland's development from its founding by Moses Cleaveland in 1796 through the canal era, the arrival of the railroad, and the early years of the oil and iron industries that would soon make the city a powerhouse of American manufacturing. The work provides invaluable primary source material about Cleveland's neighborhoods, institutions, churches, and commercial enterprises, capturing a snapshot of the city just before the Gilded Age explosion that would see figures like John D. Rockefeller and Marcus Hanna rise to national prominence. For genealogists and local historians, the biographical sections offer irreplaceable records of early Cleveland families, many of which have left no other written trace.

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