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Birdtown is a neighborhood in Lakewood, a streetcar suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. [1] [2]
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Birdtown is a neighborhood in Lakewood, a streetcar suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. [1] [2]
In 1891 the National Carbon Company (now NeoGraf Solutions) occupied the corner of Madison Avenue and West 117th Street at the Cleveland-Lakewood border. It manufactured batteries and developed the carbon filtered gas mask. The company employed recent immigrants, primarily Slovaks and other eastern Europeans in its growing manufacturing business. [3] Often workers were encouraged to bring family members to work to join the force. Most of the employees lived in Cleveland neighborhoods and would travel muddy and icy roads to the site. The lack of any public transportation made the trip challenging to arrive to work on time. In 1892, National Carbon sought a solution to the problem.
The company acquired 155 acres to the west of the factory to Halstead Avenue and developed over 400 residential parcels to accommodate factory employees and their families. The Pleasant Hill Land Company worked with company employees to develop homes in the area by offering reduced down payments and favorable financing. Many families built their homes personally during their time away from the factories. By 1910, nearly 2200 residents called this area home. The neighborhood was reminiscent of company towns like Pullman, Illinois and Homestead, Pennsylvania. Pullman was entirely company-owned and provided housing, markets, a library, churches and entertainment for employees who were required to live there. Homestead, was a steel town which grew among workers around the burgeoning steel industry along the Monongahela River in the late 1800s. Birdtown, a neighborhood within Lakewood, represented a community fostered by the company but built and owned by the residents.
The names 'Bird's Nest' and 'Birdtown' were derived from several streets named for birds believed to be indigenous to the area including robin, plover, lark, and thrush among others. [4]
The district was also referred to as "the village" by its original residents. A facet of Birdtown is evident when one walks along the tree-lined streets. Multiple uses of land and buildings for homes, stores, churches, domestic farm gardens, animals, and dairies provided a self-sustaining village within Lakewood. Several properties reflect the ingenuity of the early residents who built or added to their structures. The residents completed and maintained their properties meticulously, a feature which remains visible today.
A visit to the area today reveals a very tidy neighborhood bounded by factories: NeoGraf Solutions at the 117th end and Lake Erie Screw Corporation on the west end (site of the former Templar Motor Corporation) on Halstead Avenue. Madison Avenue on the north and railroad tracks to the south enclose the community. Harrison Elementary School sits in the middle of the neighborhood which also is home to several ethnically connected churches, including North Coast Baptist Church (shown above) and schools. More than eight churches within the district served the Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, and Carpatho-Rusyn people in the neighborhood. Two churches, both named Sts. Peter and Paul (one Russian Orthodox and the other Lutheran) illustrate the ethnic and religious varieties in the neighborhood. Immigrant families kept their language, worship, and traditions preserved through parish and school programs well into the 1900s. Birdtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today the neighborhood remains a hub for new immigrants in Lakewood, primarily from South Asia (Nepal, Bhutan, and Myanmar) and the post-Soviet space (Russia and Uzbekistan). [1]
Lakewood is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, on the southern shore of Lake Erie. Established in 1889, it is one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs and part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. The population was 50,942 at the 2020 census, making it the third largest city in Cuyahoga County, behind Cleveland and Parma.
The Pullman Strike was two interrelated strikes in 1894 that shaped national labor policy in the United States during a period of deep economic depression. First came a strike by the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman factory in Chicago in spring 1894. When it failed, the ARU launched a national boycott against all trains that carried Pullman passenger cars. The nationwide railroad boycott that lasted from May 11 to July 20, 1894 was a turning point for US labor law. It pitted the American Railway Union (ARU) against the Pullman Company, the main railroads, the main labor unions, and the federal government of the United States under President Grover Cleveland. The strike and boycott shut down much of the nation's freight and passenger traffic west of Detroit, Michigan. The conflict began in Chicago, on May 11 when nearly 4,000 factory employees of the Pullman Company began a wildcat strike in response to recent reductions in wages. Most of the factory workers who built Pullman cars lived in the "company town" of Pullman just outside of Chicago. Jennie Curtis who lived in Pullman was president of seamstress union ARU LOCAL 269 gave a speech at the ARU convention urging people to strike. It was designed as a model community by its namesake founder and owner George Pullman.
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Collinwood is a historical area in the northeast part of Cleveland, Ohio. Originally a village in Euclid Township, it was annexed by the city in 1910. Collinwood grew around the rail yards of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway and is divided by these same tracks into the neighborhoods of North Shore Collinwood and Collinwood–Nottingham. Collinwood was identified as one of America's Best Secret Neighborhoods by Travel + Leisure in 2008.
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The National Carbon Company was a dominant American manufacturer of batteries and lighting products in the early 20th century. It was founded in 1886 by the former Brush Electric Company executive W. H. Lawrence, in association with Myron T. Herrick, James Parmelee, and Webb Hayes, son of U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1890, National Carbon merged with Thomson-Houston, Standard Carbon, and Faraday Carbon. In 1906 it invested in what became the Eveready Battery Company, which it purchased in 1914. National Carbon was acquired in 1917 by Union Carbide.
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Washington Herbert Lawrence was a pioneer in the manufacture of electrical and carbon products who organized and served as the first president of the National Carbon Company, one of the founding members of the Union Carbide & Carbon Corporation.
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