I have always been interested in the stories that are hiding in plain sight.
We tend to think of history as the big things: presidents and wars, famous people, important buildings, major events. Those things are certainly part of the story. But they aren’t the whole story. Most of history was lived by people who were simply going about their everyday lives.
They went to work. They raised families. They went shopping downtown. They went to school, went to church, took walks in the park, and sat on their front porches. They built things, ran businesses, worked in factories, and helped make their neighborhoods what they were.
Those are the stories that interest me.
Akron Postcards grew out of that interest. I’ve been working on this project for many years, collecting and researching vintage postcards of Akron, Ohio. What started as an interest in old postcards became something much larger as I began asking questions about the people and places pictured on them.
A postcard might show a building, but I want to know who built it. It might show a factory, and I want to know who worked there. It might show a street that looks completely ordinary, and I want to know what life was like for the people who lived on that street.
That’s where the real fun of local history begins.
More Than Old Pictures
There are hundreds of postcards in the collection, showing Akron at different points in its history. Some show familiar places. Others show buildings and neighborhoods that have disappeared completely.
I love the moment when an old postcard makes you stop and look twice.
Maybe the street is recognizable, but the buildings aren’t. Maybe there are streetcars running down a road that we now know as a busy highway. Maybe there is a house sitting where a parking lot is today. Sometimes you can see details in the background that lead to an entirely different story.
The postcard gives us the picture. The research helps us understand what we’re seeing.
I’ve spent years digging into those details—looking at city directories, newspapers, maps, photographs, books, records, and whatever other sources might help fill in the blanks. Sometimes I find exactly what I’m looking for. Sometimes I find something I wasn’t looking for at all.
Those unexpected discoveries are often the best ones.
History Shouldn’t Be Locked Away
My background as a historian has taught me to value research, evidence, and careful attention to detail. My years as an elementary school teacher taught me something equally important: if you can’t make people interested in the story, all the research in the world doesn’t matter very much.
I’ve never believed that history should be something reserved for academics or people who already know a lot about the subject. You shouldn’t have to be a historian to be interested in the history of your own city.
You might simply be curious about the house you grew up in. Maybe your grandfather worked at one of Akron’s factories. Maybe you’ve always wondered what stood on a particular corner before the building that is there now. Or maybe you just enjoy looking at old photographs and wondering what life was like when they were taken. That’s enough.
Today in Akron History
That idea is also behind Today in Akron History, where I share something from Akron’s past each day.
Sometimes it’s a well-known person or event. Other times it’s a building, business, neighborhood, or small detail that you might never find in a traditional history book.
I don’t think every historical story needs to be monumental to be worth telling.
In fact, some of the smaller stories tell us the most about what it was actually like to live here.
Help Me Add to the Story
One of the best things about working on local history is discovering that someone else knows something you don’t.
A visitor might recognize a person in a photograph. Someone might remember a building that disappeared fifty years ago. A family might have an old postcard or photograph sitting in a box that contains a piece of Akron’s history I’ve never seen. Those memories and discoveries are really important to me.
So if you have an Akron postcard, photograph, family story, memory, correction, or bit of information that might help add to the story, I would love to hear from you.
Akron Postcards is not a finished history of Akron. I don’t think such a thing is possible. It’s an ongoing project because there will always be another postcard to find, another name to research, another building to identify, and another story waiting to be uncovered.
And that’s exactly what keeps me interested. Because when we look closely at the past, we’re not really looking at “history.” We’re looking at people. People who lived here, worked here, raised their families here, built this city, and left behind pieces of their lives for us to discover.
I think those stories are worth remembering.
