The Rise and Fall of " The Clevelander ": The Voice of Northeast Ohio's Optimism

The Rise and Fall of "The Clevelander"The Voice of Northeast Ohio's Optimism Vince Guerrieri (bio) In the spring of 1970, readers of the Clevelander got a magazine unlike anything they'd ever seen before. Started in 1926 by the Cleveland Chamber of Commerce, the stolid monthly offered business news, the occasional story that was more generally oriented, marketing tips, and, as befitting a business-oriented publication, warnings against labor unions and socialism. But the Clevelander switched to a quarterly publication, with a broader focus. The first issue featured articles about worker motivation, executive attire, and even one on executive wives. Future issues would feature articles about polo playing in Northeast Ohio1 and a profile on Browns owner Art Modell. (The article speaks about the suspicion Modell engendered as an out-of-town owner who fans were sure would hold on to the team for a brief period and sell it at a profit. Of course, the reality turned out to be much worse. ) 2 "Why a new Clevelander? " editor Marv Gisser wrote in the first issue after the format change. "After all, what we have had since 1926 has served us well, hasn't it? Wouldn't it continue to do so? Why not stay with the old format? "It did. It wouldn't. We can't. "3 The change, wrote Gisser—as did Francis Coy, chairman of the Greater Cleveland Growth Association and publisher Fred D. Schenck, in similar editorials in the inaugural issue—came because the city of Cleveland was itself changing. The city that just a generation earlier had been touted as the "Best Location in the Nation, " a hub of industry and home to more Fortune 1000 corporate headquarters than any city except New York or Chicago, was now End Page 277 known as the "Mistake on the Lake. " The Cuyahoga River was so polluted that it caught fire, to national attention. There were riots in Hough in 1966 and a shootout in Glenville in 1968. A month after the first new Clevelander came out, the National Guard fired on a crowd of students at Kent State University, less than an hour's drive from downtown Cleveland. Changing times—with all the change not necessarily for the better—called for a changing magazine. But one thing hadn't changed for the Clevelander, nor would it for the remainder of its life: its boosting of large-scale, landscape-changing projects, even as the projects themselves became less feasible. _______ "Tell the world you're proud of Cleveland. " So ended a story in the first edition of the Clevelander in May 1926. 4 The article noted that Cleveland had grown by 4, 577 percent in the previous seventy years. The 1920 census listed Cleveland as the fifth biggest city in America, its population growing exponentially in the previous three decades. Articles noted Cleveland's natural advantages, including its location on a Great Lake and as a center for roads and railroads as well. Cleveland was clearly in ascent in the twentieth century, and the city's chamber of commerce tried to remind people of that ascent—and to take part in it. They issued pamphlets, which by their own account went unread. So, in 1926, the magazine was launched. At that point, Cleveland was also in many ways an unfinished city. There was no stadium on the lakefront. The Terminal Tower was under construction. Even the Group Plan, created in 1903 and built piecemeal around the Mall in Cleveland, still had buildings under construction. (Some elements, detailed in a 1929 rendering in the Clevelander, never came to pass, including underground highways, a county courthouse, and a large exhibition building on the lakefront. ) Then the stock market crashed in 1929, touching off the Great Depression. But Cleveland still sought symbols of pride to display. It hosted the Republican National Convention in 1936 as well as the Great Lakes Exposition, which continued the following year. "If the show does nothing else, " chairman Dudley Blossom wrote in a preview of the 1937 Expo for the Clevelander, "It will serve to emphasize the restoration of Cleveland's faith in itself and in its future. "5 (Thirty years later, the. . .