May 25, 1850: Ralph Waldo Emerson Visits Ohio’s Fort Ancient.

On May 25, 1850, Ralph Waldo Emerson—essayist, poet, lecturer, and Transcendentalist–turned forty-seven years of age. He was in the midst of a lecture tour in the Midwest, and had just finished a series of engagements in Cincinnati. On this day Emerson joined a group of young men on a trip to the ancient earthworks now…

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May 21, 1945: Bogie and Bacall marry at Malabar Farm

On May 21, 1945, one of the most famous weddings in Hollywood history occurred, and it didn’t happen in Monaco, New York, London, or Paris. It happened in the beautiful rolling hills of rural Ohio when Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married at writer Louis Bromfield’s Malabar Farm. The wedding, occurring just a couple…

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Spring comes to Winesburg, Ohio.

  “In the spring when the rains have passed and before the long hot days of summer have come, the country about Winesburg is delightful. The town lies in the midst of open fields, but beyond the fields are pleasant patches of woodlands. In the wooded places are many little cloistered nooks, quiet places where…

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Newton Minow, John Bartlow Martin, and the “Vast Wasteland.”

On this date—May 9—in 1961, Newton Minow, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, issued his famous description of television as “a vast wasteland.” It turns out that the famous words were the edited version of a phrase created by journalist and JFK speechwriter John Bartlow Martin, a Hamilton, Ohio native who spent most of his…

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Albion Tourgee: Born May 2, 1838.

Albion Tourgee was born on this date—May 2—in 1838 in Williamsfield, Ohio, located in Ashtabula County. He became known in his lifetime not only as a novelist, but also as a  judge, lawyer, soldier, and diplomat. He was educated at Kingsville Academy in Ohio and the University of Rochester in New York. When the Civil…

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